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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.12.12.00*END* + + + + + +This Book, Volume 21 In The Chronicles Of America Series, Allen +Johnson, Editor, Was Donated To Project Gutenberg By The James J. +Kelly Library Of St. Gregory's University; Thanks To Alev Akman. + +Scanned by Dianne Bean. Proofed by Doris Ringbloom. + + + + + +THE PATHS OF INLAND COMMERCE, A CHRONICLE OF TRAIL, ROAD, AND WATERWAY + +By Archer B. Hulbert + + + + +PREFACE + +If the great American novel is ever written, I hazard the guess +that its plot will be woven around the theme of American +transportation, for that has been the vital factor in the +national development of the United States. Every problem in the +building of the Republic has been, in the last analysis, a +problem in transportation. The author of such a novel will find a +rich fund of material in the perpetual rivalries of pack-horseman +and wagoner, of riverman and canal boatman, of steamboat promoter +and railway capitalist. He will find at every point the old +jostling and challenging the new pack-horsemen demolishing wagons +in the early days of the Alleghany traffic; wagoners deriding +Clinton's Ditch; angry boatmen anxious to ram the paddle wheels +of Fulton's Clermont, which threatened their monopoly. Such +opposition has always been an incident of progress; and even in +this new country, receptive as it was to new ideas, the +Washingtons, the Fitches, the Fultons, the Coopers, and the +Whitneys, who saw visions and dreamed dreams, all had to face +scepticism and hostility from those whom they would serve. + +A. B. H. + +Worcester, Mass., +June, 1919. + + +CONTENTS + +I. THE MAN WHO CAUGHT THE VISION +II. THE RED MAN'S TRAIL +III. THE MASTERY OF THE RIVERS +IV. A NATION ON WHEELS +V. THE FLATBOAT AGE +VI. THE PASSING SHOW OF 1800 +VII. THE BIRTH OF THE STEAMBOAT +VIII. THE CONQUEST OF THE ALLEGHANIES +IX. THE DAWN OF THE IRON AGE +X. THE PATHWAY OF THE LAKES +XI. THE STEAMBOAT AND THE WEST +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + + +THE PATHS OF INLAND COMMERCE + +CHAPTER I. The Man Who Caught The Vision + +Inland America, at the birth of the Republic, was as great a +mystery to the average dweller on the Atlantic seaboard as the +elephant was to the blind men of Hindustan. The reports of those +who had penetrated this wilderness--of those who had seen the +barren ranges of the Alleghanies, the fertile uplands of the +Unakas, the luxuriant blue-grass regions, the rich bottom lands +of the Ohio and Mississippi, the wide shores of the inland seas, +or the stretches of prairie increasing in width beyond the +Wabash--seemed strangely contradictory, and no one had been able +to patch these reports together and grasp the real proportions of +the giant inland empire that had become a part of the United +States. It was a pathless desert; it was a maze of trails, +trodden out by deer, buffalo, and Indian. Its great riverways +were broad avenues for voyagers and explorers; they were +treacherous gorges filled with the plunder of a million floods. +It was a rich soil, a land of plenty; the natives were seldom +more than a day removed from starvation. Within its broad +confines could dwell a great people; but it was as inaccessible +as the interior of China. It had a great commercial future; yet +its gigantic distances and natural obstructions defied all known +means of transportation. + +Such were the varied and contradictory stories told by the men +who had entered the portals of inland America. It is not +surprising, therefore, that theories and prophecies about the +interior were vague and conflicting nor that most of the schemes +of statesmen and financiers for the development of the West were +all parts and no whole. They all agreed as to the vast richness +of that inland realm and took for granted an immense commerce +therein that was certain to yield enormous profits. In faraway +Paris, the ingenious diplomat, Silas Deane, writing to the Secret +Committee of Congress in 1776, pictured the Old Northwest-- +bounded by the Ohio, the Alleghanies, the Great Lakes, and the +Mississippi--as paying the whole expense of the Revolutionary +War.* Thomas Paine in 1780 drew specifications for a State of +from twenty to thirty millions of acres lying west of Virginia +and south of the Ohio River, the sale of which land would pay the +cost of three years of the war.** On the other hand, Pelatiah +Webster, patriotic economist that he was, decried in 1781 all +schemes to "pawn" this vast westward region; he likened such +plans to "killing the goose that laid an egg every day, in order +to tear out at once all that was in her belly." He advocated the +township system of compact and regular settlement; and he argued +that any State making a cession of land would reap great benefit +"from the produce and trade" of the newly created settlements. + +* Deane's plan was to grant a tract two hundred miles square at +the junction of the Ohio and the Mississippi to a company on the +condition that a thousand families should be settled on it within +seven years. He added that, as this company would be in a great +degree commercial, the establishing of commerce at the junction +of those large rivers would immediately give a value to all the +lands situated on or near them. + +** Paine thought that while the new State could send its exports +southward down the Mississippi, its imports must necessarily come +from the East through Chesapeake Bay because the current of the +Mississippi was too strong to be overcome by any means of +navigation then known. + + +There were mooted many other schemes. General Rufus Putnam, for +example, advocated the Pickering or "Army" plan of occupying the +West; he wanted a fortified line to the Great Lakes, in case of +war with England, and fortifications on the Ohio and the +Mississippi, in case Spain should interrupt the national commerce +on these waterways. And Thomas Jefferson theorized in his study +over the toy states of Metropotamia and Polypotamia--brought his + +...trees and houses out +And planted cities all about. + +But it remained for George Washington, the Virginia planter, to +catch, in something of its actual grandeur, the vision of a +Republic stretching towards the setting sun, bound and unified by +paths of inland commerce. It was Washington who traversed the +long ranges of the Alleghanies, slept in the snows of Deer Park +with no covering but his greatcoat, inquired eagerly of trapper +and trader and herder concerning the courses of the Cheat, the +Monongahela, and the Little Kanawha, and who drew from these +personal explorations a clear and accurate picture of the future +trade routes by which the country could be economically, +socially, and nationally united. + +Washington's experience had peculiarly fitted him to catch this +vision. Fortune had turned him westward as he left his mother's +knee. First as a surveyor for Lord Fairfax in the Shenandoah +Valley and later, under Braddock and Forbes, in the armies +fighting for the Ohio against the French he had come to know the +interior as it was known by no other man of his standing. His own +landed property lay largely along the upper Potomac and in and +beyond the Alleghanies. Washington's interest in this property +was very real. Those who attempt to explain his early concern +with the West as purely altruistic must misread his numerous +letters and diaries. Nothing in his unofficial character shows +more plainly than his business enterprise and acumen. On one +occasion he wrote to his agent, Crawford, concerning a proposed +land speculation: "I recommend that you keep this whole matter a +secret or trust it only to those in whom you can confide. If the +scheme I am now proposing to you were known, it might give alarm +to others, and by putting them on a plan of the same nature, +before we could lay a proper foundation for success ourselves, +set the different interests clashing and in the end overturn the +whole." Nor can it be denied that Washington's attitude to the +commercial development of the West was characterized in his early +days by a narrow colonial partisanship. He was a stout Virginian; +and all stout Virginians of that day refused to admit the +pretensions of other colonies to the land beyond the mountains. +But from no man could the shackles of self-interest and +provincial rivalry drop more quickly than they dropped from +Washington when he found his country free after the close of the +Revolutionary War. He then began to consider how that country +might grow and prosper. And he began to preach the new doctrine +of expansion and unity. This new doctrine first appears in a +letter which he wrote to the Marquis de Chastellux in 1783, after +a tour from his camp at Newburg into central New York, where he +had explored the headwaters of the Mohawk and the Susquehanna: "I +could not help taking a more extensive view of the vast inland +navigation of these United States [the letter runs] and could not +but be struck by the immense extent and importance of it, and of +the goodness of that Providence which has dealt its favors to us +with so profuse a hand. Would to God we may have wisdom enough to +improve them. I shall not rest contented till I have explored the +Western country, and traversed those lines, or great part of +them, which have given bounds to a new empire." + +"The vast inland navigation of these United States!" It is an +interesting fact that Washington should have had his first +glimpse of this vision from the strategic valley of the Mohawk, +which was soon to rival his beloved Potomac as an improved +commercial route from the seaboard to the West, and which was +finally to achieve an unrivaled superiority in the days of the +Erie Canal and the Twentieth Century Limited. + +We may understand something of what the lure of the West meant to +Washington when we learn that in order to carry out his proposed +journey after the Revolution, he was compelled to refuse urgent +invitations to visit Europe and be the guest of France. "I found +it indispensably necessary," he writes, "to visit my Landed +property West of the Apalacheon Mountains.... One object of +my journey being to obtain information of the nearest and best +communication between Eastern & Western waters; & to facilitate +as much as in me lay the Inland Navigation of the Potomack." + +On September 1, 1784, Washington set out from Mount Vernon on his +journey to the West. Even the least romantic mind must feel a +thrill in picturing this solitary horseman, the victor of +Yorktown, threading the trails of the Potomac, passing on by +Cumberland and Fort Necessity and Braddock's grave to the +Monongahela. The man, now at the height of his fame, is retracing +the trails of his boyhood--covering ground over which he had +passed as a young officer in the last English and French war--but +he is seeing the land in so much larger perspective that, +although his diary is voluminous, the reader of those pages would +not know that Washington had been this way before. Concerning +Great Meadows, where he first saw the "bright face of danger" and +which he once described gleefully as "a charming place for an +encounter," he now significantly remarks: "The upland, East of +the meadow, is good for grain." Changed are the ardent dreams +that filled the young man's heart when he wrote to his mother +from this region that singing bullets "have truly a charming +sound." Today, as he looks upon the flow of Youghiogheny, he sees +it reaching out its finger tips to Potomac's tributaries. He +perceives a similar movement all along the chain of the +Alleghanies: on the west are the Great Lakes and the Ohio, and +reaching out towards them from the east, waiting to be joined by +portage road and canal, are the Hudson, the Susquehanna, the +Potomac, and the James. He foresees these streams bearing to the +Atlantic ports the golden produce of the interior and carrying +back to the interior the manufactured goods of the seaboard. He +foresees the Republic becoming homogeneous, rich, and happy. +"Open ALL the communication which nature has afforded," he wrote +Henry Lee, "between the Atlantic States and the Western +territory, and encourage the use of them to the utmost...and +sure I am there is no other tie by which they will long form a +link in the chain of Federal Union." + +Crude as were the material methods by which Washington hoped to +accomplish this end, in spirit he saw the very America that we +know today; and he marked out accurately the actual pathways of +inland commerce that have played their part in the making of +America. Taking the city of Detroit as the key position, +commercially, he traced the main lines of internal trade. He +foresaw New York improving her natural line of communication by +way of the Mohawk and the Niagara frontier on Lake Erie--the +present line of the Erie Canal and the New York Central Railway. +For Pennsylvania, he pointed out the importance of linking the +Schuylkill and the Susquehanna and of opening the two avenues +westward to Pittsburgh and to Lake Erie. In general, he thus +forecast the Pennsylvania Canal and the Pennsylvania and the Erie +railways. For Maryland and Virginia he indicated the Potomac +route as the nearest for all the trade of the Ohio Valley, with +the route by way of the James and the Great Kanawha as an +alternative for the settlements on the lower Ohio. His vision +here was realized in a later day by the Potomac and the +Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, the Cumberland Road, the Baltimore and +Ohio Railway, and by the James-Kanawha Turnpike and the +Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. + +Washington's general conclusions are stated in a summary at the +end of his Journal, which was reproduced in his classic letter to +Harrison, written in 1784. His first point is that every State +which had water routes reaching westward could enhance the value +of its lands, increase its commerce, and quiet the democratic +turbulence of its shut-in pioneer communities by the improvement +of its river transportation. Taking Pennsylvania as a specific +example, he declared that "there are one hundred thousand souls +West of the Laurel Hill, who are groaning under the +inconveniences of a long land transportation.... If this +cannot be made easy for them to Philadelphia...they will seek +a mart elsewhere.... An opposition on the part of [that] +government...would ultimately bring on a separation between +its Eastern and Western settlements; towards which there is not +wanting a disposition at this moment in that part of it beyond +the mountains." + +Washington's second proposal was the achievement of a new and +lasting conquest of the West by binding it to the seaboard with +chains of commerce. He thus states his point: "No well informed +mind need be told that the flanks and rear of the United +territory are possessed by other powers, and formidable ones +too--nor how necessary it is to apply the cement of interest to +bind all parts of it together, by one indissoluble +bond--particularly +the middle States with the Country immediately back of them--for +what ties let me ask, should we have upon those people; and how +entirely unconnected should we be with them if the Spaniards on +their right or Great Britain on their left, instead of throwing +stumbling blocks in their way as they do now, should invite their +trade and seek alliances with them?" + +Some of the pictures in Washington's vision reveal, in the light +of subsequent events, an almost uncanny prescience. He very +plainly prophesied the international rivalry for the trade of the +Great Lakes zone, embodied today in the Welland and the Erie +canals. He declared the possibility of navigating with oceangoing +vessels the tortuous two-thousand-mile channel of the Ohio and +the Mississippi River; and within sixteen years ships left the +Ohio, crossed the Atlantic, and sailed into the Mediterranean. +His description of a possible insurrection of a western community +might well have been written later; it might almost indeed have +made a page of his diary after he became President of the United +States and during the Whiskey Insurrection in western +Pennsylvania. He approved and encouraged Rumsey's mechanical +invention for propelling boats against the stream, showing that +he had a glimpse of what was to follow after Fitch, Rumsey, and +Fulton should have overcome the mighty currents of the Hudson and +the Ohio with the steamboat's paddle wheel. His proposal that +Congress should undertake a survey of western rivers for the +purpose of giving people at large a knowledge of their possible +importance as avenues of commerce was a forecast of the Lewis and +Clark expedition as well as of the policy of the Government today +for the improvement of the great inland rivers and harbors. + +"The destinies of our country run east and west. Intercourse +between the mighty interior west and the sea coast is the great +principle of our commercial prosperity." These are the words of +Edward Everett in advocating the Boston and Albany Railroad. In +effect Washington had uttered those same words half a century +earlier when he gave momentum to an era filled with energetic +but unsuccessful efforts to join with the waters of the West the +rivers reaching inland from the Atlantic. The fact that American +engineering science had not in his day reached a point where it +could cope with this problem successfully should in no wise +lessen our admiration for the man who had thus caught the vision +of a nation united and unified by improved methods of +transportation. + + + +CHAPTER II. The Red Man's Trail + +For the beginnings of the paths of our inland commerce, we must +look far back into the dim prehistoric ages of America. The +earliest routes that threaded the continent were the streams and +the tracks beaten out by the heavier four-footed animals. The +Indian hunter followed the migrations of the animals and the +streams that would float his light canoe. Today the main lines of +travel and transportation for the most part still cling to these +primeval pathways. + +In their wanderings, man and beast alike sought the heights, the +passes that pierced the mountain chains, and the headwaters of +navigable rivers. On the ridges the forest growth was lightest +and there was little obstruction from fallen timber; rain and +frost caused least damage by erosion; and the winds swept the +trails clear of leaves in summer and of snow in winter. Here lay +the easiest paths for the heavy, blundering buffalo and the +roving elk and moose and deer. Here, high up in the sun, where +the outlook was unobstructed and signal fires could be seen from +every direction, on the longest watersheds, curving around river +and swamp, ran the earliest travel routes of the aboriginal +inhabitants and of their successors, the red men of historic +times. For their encampments and towns these peoples seem to have +preferred the more sheltered ground along the smaller streams; +but, when they fared abroad to hunt, to trade, to wage war, to +seek new, material for pipe and amulet, they followed in the main +the highest ways. + +If in imagination one surveys the eastern half of the North +American continent from one of the strategic passageways of the +Alleghanies, say from Cumberland Gap or from above Kittanning +Gorge, the outstanding feature in the picture will be the +Appalachian barrier that separates the interior from the Atlantic +coast. To the north lie the Adirondacks and the Berkshire Hills, +hedging New England in close to the ocean. Two glittering +waterways lie east and west of these heights--the Connecticut and +the Hudson. Upon the valleys of these two rivers converged the +two deeply worn pathways of the Puritan, the Old Bay Path and the +Connecticut Path. By way of Westfield River, that silver +tributary which joins the Connecticut at Springfield, +Massachusetts, the Bay Path surmounted the Berkshire highlands +and united old Massachusetts to the upper Hudson Valley near Fort +Orange, now Albany. + +Here, north of the Catskills, the Appalachian barrier subsides +and gives New York a supreme advantage over all the other +Atlantic States--a level route to the Great Lakes and the West. +The Mohawk River threads the smiling landscape; beyond lies the +"Finger Lake country" and the valley of the Genesee. Through this +romantic region ran the Mohawk Trail, sending offshoots to Lake +Champlain and the St. Lawrence, to the Susquehanna, and to the +Allegheny. A few names have been altered in the course of years-- +the Bay Path is now the Boston and Albany Railroad, the Mohawk +Trail is the New York Central, and Fort Orange is Albany--and +thus we may tell in a dozen words the story of three centuries. + +Upon Fort Orange converged the score of land and water pathways +of the fur trade of our North. These Indian trade routes were +slowly widened into colonial roads, notably the Mohawk and +Catskill turnpikes, and these in turn were transformed into the +Erie, Lehigh, Nickel Plate, and New York Central railways. But +from the day when the canoe and the keel boat floated their bulky +cargoes of pelts or the heavy laden Indian pony trudged the +trail, the routes of trade have been little or nothing altered. + +Traversing the line of the Alleghanies southward, the eye notes +first the break in the wall at the Delaware Water Gap, and then +that long arm of the Susquehanna, the Juniata, reaching out +through dark Kittanning Gorge to its silver playmate, the dancing +Conemaugh. Here amid its leafy aisles ran the brown and red +Kittanning Trail, the main route of the Pennsylvania traders from +the rich region of York, Lancaster, and Chambersburg. On this +general alignment the Broadway Limited flies today toward +Pittsburgh and Chicago. A little to the south another important +pathway from the same region led, by way of Carlisle, Bedford, +and Ligonier, to the Ohio. The "Highland Trail" the Indian +traders called it, for it kept well on the watershed dividing the +Allegheny tributaries on the north from those of the Monongahela +on the south. + +Farther to the south the scene shows a change, for the Atlantic +plain widens considerably. The Potomac River, the James, the +Pedee, and the Savannah flow through valleys much longer than +those of the northern rivers. Here in the South commerce was +carried on mainly by shallop and pinnace. The trails of the +Indian skirted the rivers and offered for trader and explorer +passageway to the West, especially to the towns of the Cherokees +in the southern Alleghanies or Unakas; but the waterways and the +roads over which the hogsheads of tobacco were rolled (hence +called "rolling roads") sufficed for the needs of the thin +fringes of population settled along the rivers. Trails from +Winchester in Virginia and Frederick in Maryland focused on +Cumberland at the head of the Potomac. Beyond, to the west, the +finger tips of the Potomac interlocked closely with the +Monongahela and Youghiogheny, and through this network of +mountain and river valley, by the "Shades of Death" and Great +Meadows, coiled Nemacolin's Path to the Ohio. Even today this +ancient route is in part followed by the Baltimore and Ohio and +the Western Maryland Railway. + +A bird's-eye view of the southern Alleghanies shows that, while +the Atlantic plain of Virginia and the Carolinas widens out, the +mountain chains increase in number, fold on fold, from the Blue +Ridge to the ragged ranges of the Cumberlands. Few trails led +across this manifold barrier. There was a connection at Balcony +Falls between the James River and the Great Kanawha; but as a +trade route it was of no such value to the men of its day as the +Chesapeake and Ohio system over the same course is to us. As in +the North, so in the South, trade avoided obstacles by taking a +roundabout, and often the longest route. In order to double the +extremity of the Unakas, for instance, the trails reached down by +the Valley of Virginia and New River to the uplands of the +Tennessee, and here, near Elizabethton, they met the trails +leading up the Broad and the Yadkin rivers from Charleston, South +Carolina. + +To the west rise the somber heights of Cumberland Gap. Through +this portal ran the famous "Warrior's Path," known to wandering +hunters, the "trail of iron" from Fort Watauga and Fort Chiswell, +which Daniel Boone widened for the settlers of Kentucky. To the +southwest lay the Blue Grass region of Tennessee with its various +trails converging on Nashville from almost every direction. Today +the Southern Railway enters the "Sapphire Country," in which +Asheville lies, by practically the same route as the old +Rutherfordton Trail which was used for generations by red man and +pioneer from the Carolina coast. In our entire region of the +Appalachians, from the Berkshire Hills southward, practically +every old-time pathway from the seaboard to the trans-Alleghany +country is now occupied by an important railway system, with the +exception of the Warrior's Trail through Cumberland Gap to +central Ohio and the Highland Trail across southern Pennsylvania. +And even Cumberland Gap is accessible by rail today, and a line +across southern Pennsylvania was once planned and partially +constructed only to be killed by jealous rivals. + +These numerous keys to the Alleghanies were a challenge to the +men of the seaboard to seize upon the rich trade of the West +which had been early monopolized by the French in Canada. But the +challenge brought its difficult problems. What land canoes could +compete with the flotillas that brought their priceless cargoes +of furs each year to Montreal and Quebec? What race of +landlubbers could vie with the picturesque bands of fearless +voyageurs who sang their songs on the Great Lakes, the Ohio, the +Illinois, and the Mississippi? + +In the solution of this problem of diverting trade probably the +factor of greatest importance, next to open pathways through the +mountain barriers, was the rich stock-breeding ground lying +between the Delaware and the Susquehanna rivers, a region +occupied by the settlers familiarly known as the Pennsylvania +Dutch. In this famous belt, running from Pennsylvania into +Virginia, originated the historic pack-horse trade with the "far +Indians" of the Ohio Valley. Here, in the first granary of +America, Germans, Scotch-Irish, and English bred horses worthy of +the name. "Brave fat Horses" an amazed officer under Braddock +called the mounts of five Quakers who unexpectedly rode into camp +as though straight "from the land of Goshen." These animals, +crossed with the Indian "pony" from New Spain, produced the wise, +wiry, and sturdy pack-horse, fit to transport nearly two hundred +pounds of merchandise across the rough and narrow Alleghany +trails. This animal and the heavy Conestoga horse from the same +breeding ground revolutionized inland commerce. + +The first American cow pony was not without his cowboy. Though +the drivers were not all of the same type and though the +proprietors, so to speak, of the trans-Alleghany pack-horse trade +came generally from the older settlements, the bulk of the hard +work was done by a lusty army of men not reproduced again in +America until the picturesque figure of the cow-puncher appeared +above the western horizon. This breed of men was nurtured on the +outer confines of civilization, along the headwaters of the +Susquehanna, the Potomac, the James, and the Broad--the country +of the "Cowpens." Rough as the wilderness they occupied, made +strong by their diet of meat and curds, these Tatars of the +highlands played a part in the commercial history of America that +has never had its historian. In their knowledge of Indian +character, of horse and packsaddle lore, of the forest and its +trails in every season, these men of the Cowpens were the kings +of the old frontier. + +An officer under Braddock has left us one of the few pictures of +these people*: + +* "Extracts of Letters from an Officer" (London, 1755). + + +"From the Heart of the Settlements we are now got into the +Cow-pens; the Keepers of these are very extraordinary Kind of +Fellows, they drive up their Herds on Horseback, and they had +need do so, for their Cattle are near as wild as Deer; a Cow-pen +generally consists of a very large Cottage or House in the Woods, +with about four-score or one hundred Acres, inclosed with high +Rails and divided; a small Inclosure they keep for Corn, for the +family, the rest is the Pasture in which they keep their calves; +but the Manner is far different from any Thing you ever saw; they +may perhaps have a Stock of four or five hundred to a thousand +Head of Cattle belonging to a Cow-pen, these run as they please +in the Great Woods, where there are no Inclosures to stop them. +In the Month of March the Cows begin to drop their Calves, then +the Cow-pen Master, with all his Men, rides out to see and drive +up the Cows with all their new fallen Calves; they being weak +cannot run away so as to escape, therefore are easily drove up, +and the Bulls and other Cattle follow them; and they put these +Calves into the Pasture, and every Morning and Evening suffer the +Cows to come and suckle them, which done they let the Cows out +into the great Woods to shift for their Food as well as they can; +whilst the Calf is sucking one Tit of the Cow, the Woman of the +Cow-Pen is milking one of the other Tits, so that she steals some +Milk from the Cow, who thinks she is giving it to the Calf; soon +as the Cow begins to go dry, and the Calf grows Strong, they mark +them, if they are Males they cut them, and let them go into the +Wood. Every Year in September and October they drive up the +Market Steers, that are fat and of a proper Age, and kill them; +they say they are fat in October, but I am sure they are not so +in May, June and July; they reckon that out of 100 Head of Cattle +they can kill about 10 or 12 steers, and four or five Cows a +Year; so they reckon that a Cow-Pen for every 100 Head of Cattle +brings about 40 pounds Sterling per Year. The Keepers live +chiefly upon Milk, for out of their Vast Herds, they do +condescend to tame Cows enough to keep their Family in Milk, +Whey, Curds, Cheese and Butter; they also have Flesh in Abundance +such as it is, for they eat the old Cows and lean Calves that are +like to die. The Cow-Pen Men are hardy People, are almost +continually on Horseback, being obliged to know the Haunts of +their Cattle". "You see, Sir, what a wild set of Creatures Our +English Men grow into, when they lose Society, and it is +surprising to think how many Advantages they throw away, which +our industrious Country-Men would be glad of: Out of many hundred +Cows they will not give themselves the trouble of milking more +than will maintain their Family." + +With such a race of born horsemen, every whit as bold and +resourceful as the voyageurs, to bear the brunt of a new era of +transportation, all that was needed to challenge French trade +beyond the Alleghanies was competent and aggressive leadership. +The situation called for men of means, men of daring, men closely +in touch with governors and assemblies and acquainted with the +web of politics that was being spun at Philadelphia, +Williamsburg, New York, London, and Paris. Generations of +tenacious struggle along the American frontier had developed such +men. The Weisers, Croghans, Gists, Washingtons, Franklins, +Walkers, and Cresaps were men of varied descent and nationality. +They had the cunning, the boldness, and the resources to +undertake successfully the task of conquering commercially the +Great West. They were the first men of the colonies to be +unafraid of that bugbear of the trader, Distance. We may aptly +call them the first Americans because, though not a few were +actually born abroad, they were the first whose plans, spirit, +and very life were dominated by the vision of an America of +continental dimensions. + +The long story of French and English rivalry and of the war which +ended it concerns us here chiefly as a commercial struggle. The +French at Niagara (1749) had access to the Ohio by way of Lake +Erie and any one of several rivers--the Allegheny, the Muskingum, +the Scioto, or the Miami. The main routes of the English were the +Nemacolin and Kittanning paths. The French, laboring under the +disadvantages of the longer distance over which their goods had +to be transported to the Indians and of the higher price +necessarily demanded for them, had to meet the competition of the +traders from the rival colonies of Pennsylvania and Virginia, +each of them jealous of and underbidding the other. + +When Celoron de Blainville was sent to the Allegheny in 1749, by +the Governor of New France, his message was that "the Governor of +Canada desired his children on Ohio to turn away the English +Traders from amongst them and discharge them from ever coming to +trade there again, or on any of the Branches." He sent away all +the traders whom he found, giving them letters addressed to their +respective governors denying England's right to trade in the +West. To offset this move, within two years Pennsylvania sent +goods to the value of nine hundred pounds in order to hold the +Indians constant. The Governor had already ordered the traders to +sell whiskey to the Indians at "5 Bucks" per cask and had told +the Indians, through his agent Conrad Weiser, that if any trader +refused to sell the liquor at that price they might "take it from +him and drink it for nothing." There was but one way for the +French to meet such competition. Without delay they fortified the +Allegheny and began to coerce the natives. Driving away the +carpenters of the Ohio Company from the present site of +Pittsburgh, they built Fort Duquesne. The beginning of the Old +French War ended what we may call the first era of the pack-horse +trade. + +The capture of Fort Duquesne by the English army under General +Forbes in 1758 and the final conquest of New France two years +later removed the French barrier and opened the way to expansion +beyond the Alleghanies. Thereafter settlements in the Monongahela +country grew apace. Pittsburgh, Uniontown, Morgantown, +Brownsville, Ligonier, Greensburg, Connellsville--we give the +modern names--became centers of a great migration which was +halted only for a season by Pontiac's Rebellion, the aftermath of +the French War, and was resumed immediately on the suppression of +that Indian rising. The pack-horse trade now entered its final +and most important era. The earlier period was one in which the +trade was confined chiefly to the Indians; the later phase was +concerned with supplying the needs of the white man in his +rapidly developing frontier settlements. Formerly the principal +articles of merchandise for the western trade were guns, +ammunition, knives, kettles, and tools for their repair, +blankets, tobacco, hatchets, and liquor. In the new era every +known product of the East found a market in the thriving +communities of the upper Ohio. As time went on the West began to +send to the East, in addition to skins and pelts, whiskey that +brought a dollar a gallon. Each pony could carry sixteen gallons +and every drop could be sold for real money. On the return trip +the pack-horses carried back chiefly salt and iron. + +Doddridge's "Notes", one of the chief sources of our information, +gives this lively picture: + +"In the fall of the year, after seeding time, every family formed +an association with some of their neighbors, for starting the +little caravan. A master driver was to be selected from among +them, who was to be assisted by one or more young men and +sometimes a boy or two. The horses were fitted out with +packsaddles, to the latter part of which was fastened a pair of +hobbles made of hickory withes,--a bell and collar ornamented +their necks. The bags provided for the conveyance of the salt +were filled with bread, jerk, boiled ham, and cheese furnished a +provision for the drivers. At night, after feeding, the horses, +whether put in pasture or turned out into the woods, were hobbled +and the bells were opened. The barter for salt and iron was made +first at Baltimore; Frederick, Hagerstown, Oldtown, and Fort +Cumberland, in succession, became the places of exchange. Each +horse carried two bushels of alum salt, weighing eighty-four +pounds to the bushel. This, to be sure, was not a heavy load for +the horses, but it was enough, considering the scanty subsistence +allowed them on the journey. The common price of a bushel of alum +salt, at an early period, was a good cow and a calf. + +Thus, with the English flag afloat at Fort Pitt, as Duquesne was +renamed after its capture, a new day dawned for the great region +to the West. Beyond the Alleghanies and as far as the Rockies, a +new science of transportation was now to be learned--the art of +finding the dividing ridge. Here the first routes, like the +"Great Trail" from Pittsburgh to Detroit, struck out with an +assurance that is in marvelous agreement with the findings of the +surveyors of a later day. The railways, when they came, found the +valleys and penetrated with their tunnels the watersheds from the +heads of the streams of one drainage area to the streams of +another. Thus on the Pennsylvania, the Baltimore and Ohio, the +Southern, the Chesapeake and Ohio, and other railroads, important +tunnels are to be found lying immediately under the Red Man's +trail which clung to the long ascending slope and held +persistently to the dividing ridges. + +Even this necessarily brief survey shows plainly how that +preeminently American institution, the ridge road, came about. +East and west, it was the legitimate and natural successor to the +ancient trail. With the coming of the wagon, whose rattle was +heard among the hills as early as Braddock's campaign, the +process of lowering these paths from the heights was inevitably +begun, and it was to the riverways that men first looked for a +solution of the difficult problems of inland commerce. Eventually +the paths of inland commerce constituted a vast network of +canals, roads, and railway lines in those very valleys to which +Washington had called the nation's attention in 1784. + + + +CHAPTER III. The Mastery Of The Rivers + +It would perhaps have been well, in the light of later +difficulties and failures, if the men who at Washington's call +undertook to master the capricious rivers of the seaboard had +studied a stately Spanish decree which declared that, since God +had not made the rivers of Spain navigable, it were sacrilege for +mortals to attempt to do so. Even before the Revolution, Mayor +Rhodes of Philadelphia was in correspondence with Franklin in +London concerning the experiences of European engineers in +harnessing foreign streams. That sage philosopher, writing to +Rhodes in 1772, uttered a clear word of warning: "rivers are +ungovernable things," he had said, and English engineers "seldom +or never use a River where it can be avoided." But it was the +birthright of New World democracy to make its own mistakes and in +so doing to prove for itself the errors of the Old World. + +As energetic men all along the Atlantic Plain now took up the +problem of improving the inland rivers, they faced a storm of +criticism and ridicule that would have daunted any but such as +Washington and Johnson of Virginia or White and Hazard of +Pennsylvania or Morris and Watson of New York. Every imaginable +objection to such projects was advanced--from the inefficiency of +the science of engineering to the probable destruction of all the +fish in the streams. In spite of these discouragements, however, +various men set themselves to form in rapid succession the +Potomac Company in 1785, the Society for Promoting the +Improvement of Inland Navigation in 1791, the Western Inland Lock +Navigation Company in 1792, and the Lehigh Coal Mine Company in +1793. A brief review of these various enterprises will give a +clear if not a complete view of the first era of inland water +commerce in America. + +The Potomac Company, authorized in 1785 by the legislatures of +Maryland and Virginia, received an appropriation of $6666 from +each State for opening a road from the headwaters of the Potomac +to either the Cheat or the Monongahela, "as commissioners... +shall find most convenient and beneficial to the Western +settlers." This was the only public aid which the enterprise +received; and the stipulated purpose clearly indicates the fact +that, in the minds of its promoters, the transcontinental +character of the undertaking appeared to be vital. The remainder +of the money required for the work was raised by public +subscription in the principal cities of the two States. In this +way 40,300 pounds was subscribed, Virginia men taking 266 shares +and Maryland men 137 shares. The stock holders elected George +Washington as president of the company, at a salary of thirty +shillings a year, with four directors to aid him, and they chose +as general manager James Rumsey, the boat mechanician. These men +then proceeded to attack the chief impediments in the Potomac-- +the Great Falls above Washington, the Seneca Falls at the mouth +of Seneca Creek, and the Shenandoah Falls at Harper's Ferry. But, +as they had difficulty in obtaining workmen and sufficient liquor +to cheer them in their herculean tasks, they made such slow +progress that subscribers, doubting Washington's optimistic +prophecy that the stock would increase in value twenty per cent, +paid their assessments only after much deliberation or not at +all. Thirty-six years later, though $729,380 had been spent and +lock canals had been opened about the unnavigable stretches of +the Potomac River, a commission appointed to examine the affairs +of the company reported "that the floods and freshets +nevertheless gave the only navigation that was enjoyed." As for +the road between the Potomac and the Cheat or the Monongahela, +the records at hand do not show that the money voted for that +enterprise had been used. + +The Potomac Company nevertheless had accomplished something: it +had acquired an asset of the greatest value--a right of way up +the strategic Potomac Valley; and it had furnished an object +lesson to men in other States who were struggling with a similar +problem. When, as will soon be apparent, New York men undertook +the improvement of the Mohawk waterway there was no pattern of +canal construction for them to follow in America except the +inadequate wooden locks erected along the Potomac. It is +interesting to know that Elkanah Watson, prominent in inland +navigation to the North, went down from New York in order to +study these wooden locks and that New Yorkers adopted them as +models, though they changed the material to brick and finally to +stone. + +Pennsylvania had been foremost among the colonies in canal +building, for it had surveyed as early as 1762 the first lock +canal in America, from near Reading on the Schuylkill to +Middletown on the Susquehanna. Work, however, had to be suspended +when Pontiac's Rebellion threw the inland country into a panic. +But the enterprise of Maryland and Virginia in 1785 in developing +the Potomac aroused the Pennsylvanians to renewed activity. The +Society for Promoting the Improvement of Roads and Inland +Navigation set forth a programme that was as broad as the +Keystone State itself. Their ultimate object was to capture the +trade of the Great Lakes. "If we turn our view," read the +memorial which the Society presented to the Legislature, "to the +immense territories connected with the Ohio and Mississippi +waters, and bordering on the Great Lakes, it will appear... +that our communication with those vast countries (considering +Fort Pitt as the port of entrance upon them) is as easy and may +be rendered as cheap, as to any other port on the Atlantic tide +waters." + +Pennsylvania, lying between Virginia and New York, occupied a +peculiar position. Her Susquehanna Valley stretched +northwest--not +so directly west as did the Potomac on the south and the Mohawk +on the north. This more northerly trend led these early +Pennsylvania promoters to believe that, while they might "only +have a share in the trade of those [the Ohio] waters," they could +absolutely secure for themselves the trade of the Great Lakes, +"taking Presq' Isle [Erie, Pennsylvania] which is within our own +State, as the great mart or place of embarkation." + +The plan which the Society proposed involved the improvement of +water and land routes by way of the Delaware to Lake Ontario and +Lake Otsego, and of eight routes by the Susquehanna drainage, +north, northwest, and west. A bill which passed the Legislature +on April 13, 1791, appropriated money for these improvements. +Work was begun immediately on the Schuylkill-Susquehanna Canal, +but only four miles had been completed by 1794, when the +Lancaster Turnpike directed men's attention to improved highways +as an alternative more likely than canals to provide the desired +facilities for inland transportation. The work on the canal was +renewed, however, in 1821, when the rival Erie Canal was nearing +completion, and was finished in 1827. It became known as the +Union Canal and formed a link in the Pennsylvania canal system, +the development of which will be described in a later chapter. + +In New York State, throughout the period of the Old French and +the Revolutionary wars, barges and keel boats had plied the +Mohawk, Wood Creek, and the Oswego to Lake Ontario. Around such +obstructions as Cohoes Falls, Little Falls, and the portage at +Rome to Wood Creek, wagons, sleds, and pack-horses had +transferred the cargoes. To avoid this labor and delay men soon +conceived of conquering these obstacles by locks and canals. As +early as 1777 the brilliant Gouverneur Morris had a vision of the +economic development of his State when "the waters of the great +western inland seas would, by the aid of man, break through their +barriers and mingle with those of the Hudson." + +Elkanah Watson was in many ways the Washington of New York. He +had the foresight, patience, and persistence of the Virginia +planter. His "Journal" of a tour up the Mohawk in 1788 and a +pamphlet which he published in 1791 may be said to be the +ultimate sources in any history of the internal commerce of New +York. As a result, a company known as "The President, Directors, +and Company of the Western Inland Lock Navigation in the State of +New York," with a capital stock of $25,000, was authorized by act +of legislature in March, 1792, and the State subscribed for +$12,500 in stock. Many singular provisions were inserted in this +charter, but none more remarkable than one which stipulated that +all profits over fifteen per cent should revert to the State +Treasury. This hint concerning surplus profits, however, did not +cause a stampede when the books were opened for subscriptions in +New York and Albany. In later years, when the Erie Canal gave +promise of a new era in American inland commerce, Elkanah Watson +recalled with a grim satisfaction the efforts of these early +days. The subscription books at the old Coffee House in New York, +he tells us, lay open three days without an entry, and at Lewis's +tavern in Albany, where the books were opened for a similar +period, "no mortal" had subscribed for more than two shares. + +The system proposed for the improvement of the waterways of New +York was similar to that projected for the Potomac. A canal was +to be cut from the Mohawk to the Hudson in order to avoid Cohoes +Falls; a canal with locks would overcome the forty-foot drop at +Little Falls; another canal over five thousand feet in length was +to connect the Mohawk and Wood Creek at Rome; minor improvements +were to be made between Schenectady and the mouth of the +Schoharie; and finally the Oswego Falls at Rochester were to be +circumvented also by canal. All the objections, difficulties, and +discouragements which had attended efforts to improve waterways +elsewhere in America confronted these New York promoters. They +began in 1793 at Little Falls but were soon forced to cease owing +to the failure of funds. Under the encouraging spur of a state +subscription to two hundred shares of stock, they renewed their +efforts in 1794 but were again forced to abandon the work before +the year had passed. By November, 1795, however, they had +completed the canal and in thirty days had received toll to the +amount of about four hundred dollars. + +The total actual work done is not clearly shown by the documents, +but it is evident that the measure of success achieved was not +equaled elsewhere on similar improvements on a large scale. From +1796 to 1804 the tolls received at Rome amounted to over fifteen +thousand dollars, and at Little Falls to over fifty-eight +thousand dollars--a sum which exceeded the original cost of +construction. Dividends had crept up from three per cent in 1798 +to five and a half per cent in 1817, the year in which work was +begun on the Erie Canal. + +No struggle for the mastery of an American river matches in +certain respects the effort of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation +Company to bridle the Lehigh and make it play its part in the +commercial development of Pennsylvania. The failures and trials +of the promoters of this company were no less remarkable than +was the great success that eventually crowned the effort. In 1793 +the Lehigh Coal Mine Company was organized and purchased some ten +thousand acres in the Mauch Chunk anthracite region, nine miles +from the Lehigh River. It then appropriated a sum of money to +build a road from the mines to the river in the expectation that +the State would improve the navigation of the waterway, for +which, it has already been noted, an appropriation had been made +in 1791, in accordance with the programme of the Society for +Promoting the Improvement of Roads and Inland Navigation. Nothing +was done, however, to improve the river, and the company, after +various attempts at shipping coal to Philadelphia, gave up the +effort and allowed the property, which was worth millions, to lie +idle. In 1807 the Lehigh Coal Mine Company, in another effort to +get its wares before the public, granted to Rowland and Butland, +a private firm, free right to operate one of its veins of coal; +but this operation also resulted in failure. In 1813 the company +made a third attempt and granted to a private concern a lease of +the entire property on the condition that ten thousand bushels of +coal should be taken to market annually. Difficulties immediately +made themselves apparent. No contractor could be found who would +haul the output to the Lehigh River for less than four dollars a +ton, and the man who accepted those terms lost money. Of five +barges filled at Mauch Chunk three went to pieces on the way to +Philadelphia. Although the contents of the other two sold for +twenty dollars a ton, the proceeds failed to meet expenses, and +the operating company threw up the lease. + +But it happened that White and Hazard, the wire manufacturers who +purchased this Lehigh coal, were greatly pleased with its +quality. Believing that coal could be obtained more cheaply from +Mauch Chunk than from the mines along the Schuylkill, White, +Hauto, and Hazard formed a company, entered into negotiation with +the owners of the Lehigh mines, and obtained the lease of their +properties for a period of twenty years at an annual rental of +one ear of corn. The company agreed, moreover, to ship every year +at least forty thousand bushels of coal to Philadelphia for its +own consumption, to prove the value of the property. + +White and his partners immediately applied to the Legislature for +permission to improve the navigation of the Lehigh, stating the +purpose of the improvement and citing the fact that their efforts +would tend to serve as a model for the improvement of other +Pennsylvania streams. The desired opportunity "to ruin +themselves," as one member of the Legislature put it, was granted +by an act passed March 20, 1818. The various powers applied for, +and granted, embraced the whole range of tried and untried +methods for securing "a navigation downward once in three days +for boats loaded with one hundred barrels, or ten tons." The +State kept its weather eye open in this matter, however, for a +small minority felt that these men would not ruin themselves. +Accordingly, the act of grant reserved to the commonwealth the +right to compel the adoption of a complete system of slack-water +navigation from Easton to Stoddartsville if the service given by +the company did not meet "the wants of the country." + +Capital was subscribed by a patriotic public on condition that a +committee of stockholders should go over the ground and pass +judgment on the probable success of the effort. The report was +favorable, so far as the improvement of the river was concerned; +but the nine-mile road to the mines was unanimously voted +impracticable. "To give you an idea of the country over which the +road is to pass," wrote one of the commissioners, "I need only +tell you that I considered it quite an easement when the wheel of +my carriage struck a stump instead of a stone." The public mind +was divided. Some held that the attempt to operate the coal mine +was farcical, but that the improvement of the Lehigh River was an +undertaking of great value and of probable profit to investors. +Others were just as positive that the river improvement would +follow the fate of so many similar enterprises but that a fortune +was in store for those who invested in the Lehigh mines. + +The direct result of the examiners' report and of the public +debate it provoked was the organization of the first interlocking +companies in the commercial history of America. The Lehigh +Navigation Company was formed with a capital stock of $150,000 +and the Lehigh Coal Company with a capital stock of $55,000. This +incident forms one of the most striking illustrations in American +history of the dependence of a commercial venture upon methods of +inland transportation. The Lehigh Navigation Company proceeded to +build its dams and walls while the Lehigh Coal Company +constructed the first roadway in America built on the principle-- +later adopted by the railway--of dividing the total distance by +the total descent in order to determine the grade. Not to be +outdone in point of ingenuity, the Lehigh Navigation Company, +then suffering from an unprecedented dearth of water, adopted +White's invention of sluice gates connecting with pools which +could be filled with reserve water to be drawn upon as navigation +required. By 1819 the necessary depth of water between Mauch +Chunk and Easton was obtained. The two companies were immediately +amalgamated under the title of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation +Company and by 1823 had sent over two thousand tons of coal to +market. + +As most of the efforts to improve the rivers, however, met with +indifferent success and many failures were recorded, the pendulum +of public confidence in this aid to inland commerce swung away, +and highway improvement by means of stone roads and toll road +companies came into favor in the interval between the nation's +two eras of river improvement and canal building. + + + +CHAPTER IV. A Nation On Wheels + +In early days the Indian had not only followed the watercourses +in his canoe but had made his way on foot over trails through the +woods and over the mountains. In colonial days, Englishman and +Frenchman followed the footsteps of the Indian, and as settlement +increased and trade developed, the forest path widened into the +highway for wheeled vehicles. Massachusetts began the work of +road making in 1639 by passing an act which decreed that "the +ways" should be six to ten rods wide "in common grounds," thus +allowing sufficient room for more than one track. Similar broad +"ways" were authorized in New York and Pennsylvania in 1664; +stumps and shrubs were to be cut close to the ground, and +"sufficient bridges" were to be built over streams and marshy +places. Virginia passed legislation for highways at an early +date, but it was not until 1669 that strict laws were enacted +with a view to keeping the roads in a permanently good condition. +Under these laws surveyors were appointed to establish in each +county roads forty feet wide to the church and to the courthouse. +In 1700, Pennsylvania turned her local roads over to the county +justices, put the King's highway and the main public roads under +the care of the governor and his council, and ordered each county +to erect bridges over its streams. + +The word "roadmaking" was capable of several interpretations. In +general, it meant outlining the course for the new thoroughfare, +clearing away fallen timber, blazing or notching the trees so +that the traveler might not miss the track, and building bridges +or laying logs "over all the marshy, swampy, and difficult dirty +places." + +The streams proved serious obstacles to early traffic. It has +been shown already that the earliest routes of animal or man +sought the watersheds; the trails therefore usually encountered +one stream near its junction with another. At first, of course, +fording was the common method of crossing water, and the most +advantageous fording places were generally found near the mouths +of tributary streams, where bars and islands are frequently +formed and where the water is consequently shallow. When ferries +began to be used, they were usually situated just above or below +the fords; but when the bridge succeeded the ferry, the primitive +bridge builder went back to the old fording place in order to +take advantage of the shallower water, bars, and islands. With +the advent of improved engineering, the character of river banks +and currents was more frequently taken into consideration in +choosing a site for a bridge than was the case in the olden +times, but despite this fact the bridges of today, generally +speaking, span the rivers where the deer or the buffalo splashed +his way across centuries ago. + +On the broader streams, where fording was impossible and traffic +was perforce carried by ferry, the canoe and the keel boat of the +earliest days gave way in time to the ordinary "flat" or barge. +At first the obligation of the ferryman to the public, though +recognized by English law, was ignored in America by legislators +and monopolists alike. Men obtained the land on both sides of the +rivers at the crossing places and served the public only at their +own convenience and at their own charges. In many cases, to +encourage the opening of roads or of ferries, national and state +authorities made grants of land on the same principle followed in +later days in the case of Western railroads. Such, for instance, +was the grant to Ebenezer Zane, at Zanesville, Lancaster, and +Chillicothe in the Northwest Territory. These monopolies +sometimes were extremely profitable: a descendant of the owners +of the famous Ingles ferry across New River, on the Wilderness +Road to Kentucky, is responsible for the statement that in the +heyday of travel to the Southwest the privilege was worth from +$10,000 to $15,000 annually to the family. But as local +governments became more efficient, monopolies were abolished and +the collection of tolls was taken over by the authorities. The +awakening of inland trade is most clearly indicated everywhere by +the action of assemblies regarding the operation of ferries, and +in general, by the beginning of the eighteenth century, tolls and +ferries were being regulated by law. + +But neither roads nor ferries were of themselves sufficient to +put a nation on wheels. The early polite society of the settled +neighborhoods traveled in horse litters, in sedan chairs, or on +horseback, the women seated on pillions or cushions behind the +saddle riders, while oxcarts and horse barrows brought to town +the produce of the outlying farms. Although carts and rude wagons +could be built entirely of wood, there could be no marked advance +in transportation until the development of mining in certain +localities reduced the price of iron. With the increase of travel +and trade, the old world coach and chaise and wain came into use, +and iron for tire and brace became an imperative necessity. The +connection between the production of iron and the care of +highways was recognized by legislation as early as 1732, when +Maryland excused men and slaves in the ironworks from labor on +the public roads, though by the middle of the century owners of +ironworks were obliged to detail one man out of every ten in +their employ for such work. + +While the coastwise trade between the colonies was still +preeminently important as a means of transporting commodities, by +the beginning of the eighteenth century the land routes from New +York to New England, from New York across New Jersey to +Philadelphia, and those radiating from Philadelphia in every +direction, were coming into general use. The date of the opening +of regular freight traffic between New York and Philadelphia is +set by the reply of the Governor of New Jersey in 1707 to a +protest against monopolies granted on one of the old widened +Indian trails between Burlington and Amboy. "At present," he +says, "everybody is sure, ONCE A FORTNIGHT, to have an +opportunity of sending any quantity of goods, great or small, at +reasonable rates, without being in danger of imposition; and the +sending of this wagon is so far from being a grievance or +monopoly, THAT BY THIS MEANS AND NO OTHER, a trade has been +carried on between Philadelphia, Burlington, Amboy, and New York, +which was never known before." + +The long Philadelphia Road from the Lancaster region into the +Valley of Virginia, by way of Wadkins on the Potomac, was used by +German and Irish traders probably as early as 1700. In 1728 the +people of Maryland were petitioning for a road from the ford of +the Monocacy to the home of Nathan Wickham. Four years later Jost +Heydt, leading an immigrant party southward, broke open a road +from the York Barrens toward the Potomac two miles above Harper's +Ferry. This avenue by way of the Berkeley, Staunton, Watauga, and +Greenbrier regions to Tennessee and Kentucky--was the longest and +most important in America during the Revolutionary period. The +Virginia Assembly in 1779 appointed commissioners to view this +route and to report on the advisability of making it a wagon road +all the way to Kentucky. In 1795, efforts were made in Kentucky +to turn the Wilderness Trail into a wagon road, and in this same +year the Kentucky Legislature passed an act making the route from +Crab Orchard to Cumberland Gap a wagon road thirty feet in width. + +>From Pennsylvania and from Virginia commerce westward bound +followed in the main the army roads hewn out by Braddock and +Forbes in their campaigns against Fort Duquesne. In 1755, +Braddock, marching from Alexandria by way of Fort Cumberland, had +opened a passage for his artillery and wagons to Laurel Hill, +near Uniontown, Pennsylvania. His force included a corps of +seamen equipped with block and tackle to raise and lower his +wagons in the steep inclines of the Alleghanies. Three years +later, Forbes, in his careful, dogged campaign, followed a more +northerly route. Advancing from Philadelphia and Carlisle, he +established Fort Bedford and Fort Ligonier as bases of supply and +broke a new road through the interminable forest which clothed +the rugged mountain ranges. From the first there was bitter +rivalry between these two routes, and the young Colonel +Washington was roundly criticized by both Forbes and Bouquet, his +second in command, for his partisan effort to "drive me down," as +Forbes phrased it, into the Virginia or Braddock's Road. This +rivalry between the two routes continued when the destruction of +the French power over the roads in the interior threw open to +Pennsylvania and her southern neighbors alike the lucrative +trade of the Ohio country. + +>From the journals of the time may be caught faint glimpses of +the +toils and dangers of travel through these wild hill regions. Let +the traveler of today, as he follows the track that once was +Braddock's Road, picture the scene of that earlier time when, in +the face of every natural obstacle, the army toiled across the +mountain chains. Where the earth in yonder ravine is whipped to a +black froth, the engineers have thrown down the timber cut in +widening the trail and have constructed a corduroy bridge, or +rather a loose raft on a sea of muck. The wreck of the last wagon +which tried to pass gives some additional safety to the next. +Already the stench from the horse killed in the accident deadens +the heavy, heated air of the forest. The sailors, stripped to the +waist, are ready with ropes and tackle to let the next wagon down +the incline; the pulleys creak, the ropes groan. The horses, weak +and terror-stricken, plunge and rear; in the final crash to the +level the leg of the wheel horse is caught and broken; one of the +soldiers shoots the animal; the traces are unbuckled; another +beast is substituted. Beyond, the seamen are waiting with tackle +attached to trees on the ridge above to assist the horses on the +cruel upgrade--and Braddock, the deceived, maligned, +misrepresented, and misjudged, creeps onward in his brave +conquest of the Alleghanies in a campaign that, in spite of its +military failure, deserves honorable mention among the +achievements of British arms. + +Everywhere, north and south, the early American road was a +veritable Slough of Despond. Watery pits were to be encountered +wherein horses were drowned and loads sank from sight. Frequently +traffic was stopped for hours by wagons which had broken down and +blocked the way. Thirteen wagons at one time were stalled on +Logan's Hill on the York Road. Frightful accidents occurred in +attempting to draw out loads. Jonathan Tyson, for instance, in +1792, near Philadelphia saw a horse's lower jaw torn off by the +slipping of a chain. + +Save in the winter, when in the northern colonies snow filled the +ruts and frost built solid bridges over the streams, travel on +these early roads was never safe, rapid, nor comfortable. The +comparative ease of winter travel for the carriage of heavy +freight and for purposes of trade and social intercourse gave +the colder regions an advantage over the southern that was an +important factor in the development of the country. + +No genuine improvement of roads and highways seems to have been +attempted until the era heralded by Washington's letter to +Harrison in 1784. But the problem slowly forced itself upon all +sections of the country, and especially upon Pennsylvania and +Maryland, whose inhabitants began to fear lest New York, +Alexandria, or Richmond should snatch the Western trade from +Philadelphia or Baltimore. The truth that underlies the proverb +that "history repeats itself" is well illustrated by the fact +that the first macadamized road in America was built in +Pennsylvania, for here also originated the pack-horse trade and +the Conestoga horse and wagon; here the first inland American +canal was built, the first roadbed was graded on the principle of +dividing the whole distance by the whole descent, and the first +railway was operated. Macadam and Telford had only begun to show +the people of England how to build roads of crushed stone--an art +first developed by the French engineer Tresaguet--when +Pennsylvanians built the Lancaster Turnpike. The Philadelphia and +Lancaster Turnpike Road Company was chartered April 9, 1792, as a +part of the general plan of the Society for the Improvement of +Roads and Inland Navigation already described. This road, +sixty-two miles in length, was built of stone at a cost of +$465,000 and was completed in two years. Never before had such a +sum been invested in internal improvement in the United States. +The rapidity with which the undertaking was carried through and +the profits which accrued from the investment were alike +astonishing. The subscription books were opened at eleven o'clock +one morning and by midnight 2226 shares had been subscribed, each +purchaser paying down thirty dollars. At the same time Elkanah +Watson was despondently scanning the subscription books of his +Mohawk River enterprise at Albany where "no mortal" had risked +more than two shares. + +The success of the Lancaster Turnpike was not achieved without a +protest against the monopoly which the new venture created. It is +true that in all the colonies the exercise of the right of +eminent domain had been conceded in a veiled way to officials to +whose care the laying out of roads had been delegated. As early +as 1639 the General Court of Massachusetts had ordered each town +to choose men who, cooperating with men from the adjoining town, +should "lay out highways where they may be most convenient, +notwithstanding any man's property, or any corne ground, so as it +occasion not the pulling down of any man's house, or laying open +any garden or orchard." But the open and extended exercise of +these rights led to vigorous opposition in the case of this +Pennsylvania road. A public meeting was held at the Prince of +Wales Tavern in Philadelphia in 1793 to protest in round terms +against the monopolistic character of the Lancaster Turnpike. +Blackstone and Edward III were hurled at the heads of the "venal" +legislators who had made this "monstrosity" possible. The +opposition died down, however, in the face of the success which +the new road instantly achieved. The Turnpike was, indeed, +admirably situated. Converging at the quaint old "borough of +Lancaster," the various routes--northeast from Virginia, east +from the Carlisle and Chambersburg region and the Alleghanies, +and southeast from the upper Susquehanna country--poured upon the +Quaker City a trade that profited every merchant, landholder, and +laborer. The nine tollgates, on the average a little less than +seven miles apart, turned in a revenue that allowed the +"President and Managers" to declare dividends to stockholders +running, it is said, as high as fifteen per cent. + +The Lancaster Turnpike is interesting from three points of view: +it began a new period of American transportation; it ushered in +an era of speculation unheard of in the previous history of the +country; and it introduced American lawmakers to the great +problem of controlling public corporations. + +Along this thirty-seven-foot road, of which twenty-four feet were +laid with stone, the new era of American inland travel +progressed. The array of two-wheeled private equipages and other +family carriages, the stagecoaches of bright color, and the +carts, Dutch wagons, and Conestogas, gave token of what was soon +to be witnessed on the great roads of a dozen States in the next +generation. Here, probably, the first distinction began to be +drawn between the taverns for passengers and those patronized by +the drivers of freight. The colonial taverns, comparatively few +and far between, had up to this time served the traveling public, +high and low, rich and poor, alike. But in this new era members +of Congress and the elite of Philadelphia and neighboring towns +were not to be jostled at the table by burly hostlers, drivers, +wagoners, and hucksters. Two types of inns thus came quickly into +existence: the tavern entertained the stagecoach traffic, while +the democratic roadhouse served the established lines of +Conestogas, freighters, and all other vehicles which poured from +every town, village, and hamlet upon the great thoroughfare +leading to the metropolis on the Delaware. + +Among American inventions the Conestoga wagon must forever be +remembered with respect. Originating in the Lancaster region of +Pennsylvania and taking its name either from the horses of the +Conestoga Valley or from the valley itself, this vehicle was +unlike the old English wain or the Dutch wagon because of the +curve of its bed. This peculiarly shaped bottom, higher by twelve +inches or more at each end than in the middle, made the vehicle a +safer conveyance across the mountains and over all rough country +than the old straight-bed wagon. The Conestoga was covered with +canvas, as were other freight vehicles, but the lines of the bed +were also carried out in the framework above and gave the whole +the effect of a great ship swaying up and down the billowy hills. +The wheels of the Conestoga were heavily built and wore tires +four and six inches in width. The harness of the six horses +attached to the wagon was proportionately heavy, the back bands +being fifteen inches wide, the hip straps ten, and the traces +consisting of ponderous iron chains. The color of the original +Conestoga wagons never varied: the underbody was always blue and +the upper parts were red. The wagoners and drivers who manned +this fleet on wheels were men of a type that finds no parallel +except in the boatmen on the western rivers who were almost their +contemporaries. Fit for the severest toil, weathered to the color +of the red man, at home under any roof that harbored a demijohn +and a fiddle, these hardy nomads of early commerce were the +custodians of the largest amount of traffic in their day. + +The turnpike era overlaps the period of the building of national +roads and canals and the beginning of the railway age, but it is +of greatest interest during the first twenty-five years of the +nineteenth century, up to the time when the completion of the +Erie Canal set new standards. During this period roads were also +constructed westward from Baltimore and Albany to connect, as the +Lancaster Turnpike did at its terminus, with the thoroughfares +from the trans-Alleghany country. The metropolis of Maryland was +quickly in the field to challenge the bid which the Quaker City +made for western trade. The Baltimore-Reisterstown and +Baltimore-Frederick turnpikes were built at a cost of $10,000 and +$8,000 a mile respectively; and the latter, connecting with roads +to Cumberland, linked itself with the great national road to Ohio +which the Government built between 1811 and 1817. These famous +stone roads of Maryland long kept Baltimore in the lead as the +principal outlet for the western trade. New York, too, proved her +right to the title of Empire State by a marvelous activity in +improving her magnificent strategic position. In the first seven +years of the nineteenth century eighty-eight incorporated road +companies were formed with a total capital of over $8,000,000. +Twenty large bridges and more than three thousand miles of +turnpike were constructed. The movement, indeed, extended from +New England to Virginia and the Carolinas, and turnpike companies +built all kinds of roads--earth, corduroy, plank, and stone. + +In many cases the kind of road to be constructed, the tolls to be +charged, and the amount of profit to be permitted, were laid down +in the charters. Thus new problems confronted the various +legislatures, and interesting principles of regulation were now +established. In most cases companies were allowed, on producing +their books of receipts and expenditures, to increase their tolls +until they obtained a profit of six per cent on the investment, +though in a number of cases nine per cent was permitted. When +revenues increased beyond the six per cent mark, however, the +tendency was to reduce tolls or to use the extra profit to +purchase the stock for the State, with the expectation of +ultimately abolishing tollgates entirely. The theories of state +regulation of corporations and the obligations of public +carriers, extending even to the compensation of workmen in case +of accident, were developed to a considerable degree in this +turnpike era; but, on the other hand, the principle of permitting +fair profit to corporations upon public examination of their +accounts was also recognized. + +The stone roads, which were passable at all seasons, brought a +new era in correspondence and business. Lines of stages and +wagons, as well known at that time as are the great railways of +today, plied the new thoroughfares, provided some of the comforts +of travel, and assured the safer and more rapid delivery of +goods. This period is sometimes known in American history as "The +Era of Good Feeling" and the turnpike contributed in no small +degree to make the phrase applicable not only to the domain of +politics but to all the relations of social and commercial life. + +While road building in the East gives a clear picture of the rise +and growth of commerce and trade in that section, it is to the +rivers of the trans-Alleghany country that we must look for a +corresponding picture in this early period. The canoe and pirogue +could handle the packs and kegs brought westward by the files of +Indian ponies; but the heavy loads of the Conestoga wagons +demanded stancher craft. The flatboat and barge therefore served +the West and its commerce as the Conestoga and turnpike served +the East. + + + +CHAPTER V. The Flatboat Age + +In the early twenties of the last century one of the popular +songs of the day was "The Hunters of Kentucky." Written by Samuel +Woodworth, the author of "The Old Oaken Bucket," it had +originally been printed in the New York Mirror but had come into +the hands of an actor named Ludlow, who was playing in the old +French theater in New Orleans. The poem chants the praises of the +Kentucky riflemen who fought with Jackson at New Orleans and +indubitably proved + +That every man was half a horse +And half an alligator. + +Ludlow knew his audience and he saw his chance. Setting the words +to Risk's tune, "Love Laughs" at Locksmiths, donning the costume +of a Western riverman, and arming himself with a long "squirrel" +rifle, he presented himself before the house. The rivermen who +filled the pit received him, it is related, with "a prolonged +whoop, or howl, such as Indians give when they are especially +pleased." And to these sturdy men the words of his song made a +strong appeal: + +We are a hardy, freeborn race, + Each man to fear a stranger; +Whate'er the game, we join in chase, + Despising toil and danger; +And if a daring foe annoys, + No matter what his force is, +We'll show him that Kentucky boys + Are Alligator-horses. + +The title "alligator-horse," of which Western rivermen were very +proud, carried with it a suggestion of amphibious strength that +made it both apt and figuratively accurate. On all the American +rivers, east and west, a lusty crew, collected from the waning +Indian trade and the disbanded pioneer armies, found work to its +taste in poling the long keel boats, "corralling" the bulky +barges--that is, towing them by pulling on a line attached to the +shore--or steering the "broadhorns" or flatboats that transported +the first heavy inland river cargoes. Like longshoremen of all +ages, the American riverman was as rough as the work which +calloused his hands and transformed his muscles into bands of +tempered steel. Like all men given to hard but intermittent +labor, he employed his intervals of leisure in coarse and brutal +recreation. Their roistering exploits, indeed, have made these +rivermen almost better known at play than at work. One of them, +the notorious Mike Fink, known as "the Snag" on the Mississippi +and as the "Snapping Turtle" on the Ohio, has left the record, +not that he could load a keel boat in a certain length of time, +or lift a barrel of whiskey with one arm, or that no tumultuous +current had ever compelled him to back water, but that he could +"out-run, out-hop, out-jump, throw down, drag out, and lick any +man in the country," and that he was "a Salt River roarer." + +Such men and the craft they handled were known on the Atlantic +rivers, but it was on the Mississippi and its branches, +especially the Ohio, that they played their most important part +in the history of American inland commerce. Before the beginning +of the nineteenth century wagons and Conestogas were bringing +great loads of merchandise to such points on the headwaters as +Brownsville, Pittsburgh, and Wheeling. As early as 1782, we are +told, Jacob Yoder, a Pennsylvania German, set sail from the +Monongahela country with the first flatboat to descend the Ohio +and Mississippi. As the years passed, the number of such craft +grew constantly larger. The custom of fixing the widespreading +horns of cattle on the prow gave these boats the alternative name +of "broadhorns," but no accurate classification can be made of +the various kinds of craft engaged in this vast traffic. +Everything that would float, from rough rafts to finished barges, +was commandeered into service, and what was found unsuitable for +the strenuous purposes of commercial transportation was palmed +off whenever possible on unsuspecting emigrants en route to the +lands of promise beyond. + +Flour, salt, iron, cider and peach brandy were staple products of +the Ohio country which the South desired. In return they shipped +molasses, sugar, coffee, lead, and hides upon the few keel boats +which crept upstream or the blundering barges which were +propelled northward by means of oar, sail, and cordelle. It was +not, however, until the nineteenth century that the young West +was producing any considerable quantity of manufactured goods. +Though the town of Pittsburgh had been laid out in 1764, by the +end of the Revolution it was still little more than a collection +of huts about a fort. A notable amount of local trade was carried +on, but the expense of transportation was very high even after +wagons began crossing the Alleghanies. For example, the cost from +Philadelphia and Baltimore was given by Arthur Lee, a member of +Congress, in 1784 as forty-five shillings a hundredweight, and a +few months later it is quoted at sixpence a pound when Johann D. +Schoph crossed the mountains in a chaise--a feat "which till now +had been considered quite impossible." Opinions differed widely +as to the future of the little town of five hundred inhabitants. +The important product of the region at first was Monongahela +flour which long held a high place in the New Orleans market. +Coal was being mined as early as 1796 and was worth locally +threepence halfpenny a bushel, though within seven years it was +being sold at Philadelphia at thirty-seven and a half cents a +bushel. The fur trade with the Illinois country grew less +important as the century came to its close, but Maynard and +Morrison, cooperating with Guy Bryan at Philadelphia, sent a +barge laden with merchandise to Illinois annually between 1790 +and 1796, which returned each season with a cargo of skins and +furs. Pittsburgh was thus a distributing center of some +importance; but the fact that no drayman or warehouse was to be +found in the town at this time is a significant commentary on the +undeveloped state of its commerce and manufacture. + +After Wayne's victory at the battle of the Fallen Timber in 1794 +and the signing of the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, which ended +the earlier Indian wars of the Old Northwest and opened for +settlement the country beyond the Ohio, a great migration +followed into Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, and the commercial +activity of Pittsburgh rapidly increased. By 1800 a score of +profitable industries had arisen, and by 1803 the first bar-iron +foundry was, to quote the advertisement of its owner, +"sufficiently upheld by the hand of the Almighty" to supply in +part the demand for iron and castings. Glass factories were +established, and ropewalks, sail lofts, boatyards, anchor +smithies, and brickyards, were soon ready to supply the rapidly +increasing demands of the infant cities and the countryside on +the lower Ohio. When the new century arrived the Pittsburgh +district had a population of upwards of two thousand. + +One by one the other important centers of trade in the great +valley beyond began to show evidences of life. Marietta, Ohio, +founded in 1788 by Revolutionary officers from New England, +became the metropolis of the rich Muskingum River district, which +was presently sending many flatboats southward. Cincinnati was +founded in the same year as Marietta, with the building of Fort +Washington and the formal organization of Hamilton County. The +soil of the Miami country was as "mellow as an ash heap" and in +the first four months of 1802 over four thousand barrels of flour +were shipped southward to challenge the prestige of the +Monongahela product. Potters, brickmakers, gunsmiths, cotton and +wool weavers, coopers, turners, wheelwrights, dyers, printers, +and ropemakers were at work here within the next decade. A +brewery turned out five thousand barrels of beer and porter in +1811, and by the next year the pork-packing business was +thoroughly established. + +Louisville, the "Little Falls" of the West, was the entrepot of +the Blue Grass region. It had been a place of some importance +since Revolutionary days, for in seasons of low water the rapids +in the Ohio at this point gave employment to scores of laborers +who assisted the flatboatmen in hauling their cargoes around the +obstruction which prevented the passage of the heavily loaded +barges. The town, which was incorporated in 1780, soon showed +signs of commercial activity. It was the proud possessor of a +drygoods house in 1783. The growth of its tobacco industry was +rapid from the first. The warehouses were under government +supervision and inspection as early as 1795, and innumerable +flatboats were already bearing cargoes of bright leaf southward +in the last decade of the century. The first brick house in +Louisville was erected in 1789 with materials brought from +Pittsburgh. Yankees soon established the "Hope Distillery"; and +the manufacture of whiskey, which had long been a staple industry +conducted by individuals, became an incorporated business of +great promise in spite of objections raised against the "creation +of gigantic reservoirs of this damning drink." + +Thus, about the year 1800, the great industries of the young West +were all established in the regions dominated by the growing +cities of Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Louisville. But, since the +combined population of these centers could not have been over +three thousand in the year 1800, it is evident that the adjacent +rural population and the people living in every neighboring creek +and river valley were chiefly responsible for the large trade +that already existed between this corner of the Mississippi basin +and the South. + +In this trade the riverman was the fundamental factor. Only by +means of his brawn and his genius for navigation could these +innumerable tons of flour, tobacco, and bacon have been kept from +rotting on the shores. Yet the man himself remains a legend +grotesque and mysterious, one of the shadowy figures of a time +when history was being made too rapidly to be written. If we ask +how he loaded his flatboat or barge, we are told that "one squint +of his eye would blister a bull's heel." When we inquire how he +found the channel amid the shifting bars and floating islands of +that tortuous two-thousand-mile journey to New Orleans, we are +informed that he was "the very infant that turned from his +mother's breast and called out for a bottle of old rye." When we +ask how he overcame the natural difficulties of trade--lack of +commission houses, varying standards of money, want of systems of +credit and low prices due to the glutting of the market when +hundreds of flatboats arrived in the South simultaneously on the +same freshet--we are informed that "Billy Earthquake is the +geniwine, double-acting engine, and can out-run, out-swim, chaw +more tobacco and spit less, drink more whiskey and keep soberer +than any other man in these localities." + +The reason for this lack of information is that our descriptions +of flatboating and keel boating are written by travelers who, as +is always the case, are interested in what is unusual, not in +what is typical and commonplace. It is therefore only dimly, as +through a mist, that we can see the two lines of polemen pass +from the prow to the stern on the narrow running-board of a keel +boat, lifting and setting their poles to the cry of steersman or +captain. The struggle in a swift "rife" or rapid is momentous. If +the craft swerves, all is lost. Shoulders bend with savage +strength; poles quiver under the tension; the captain's voice is +raucous, and every other word is an oath; a pole breaks, and the +next man, though half-dazed in the mortal crisis, does for a few +moments the work of two. At last they reach the head of the +rapid, and the boat floats out on the placid pool above, while +the "alligator-horse" who had the mishap remarks to the scenery +at large that he'd be "fly-blowed before sun-down to a certingty" +if that were not the very pole with which he "pushed the +broadhorn up Salt River where the snags were so thick that a fish +couldn't swim without rubbing his scales off." Audubon, the +naturalist-merchant of the Mississippi, has left us a clear +picture of the process by which these heavy tubs, loaded with +forty or fifty tons of freight, were forced upstream against a +swift current: + +"Wherever a point projected so as to render the course or bend +below it of some magnitude, there was an eddy, the returning +current of which was sometimes as strong as that of the middle of +the great stream. The bargemen, therefore, rowed up pretty close +under the bank and had merely to keep watch in the bow lest the +boat should run against a planter or sawyer. But the boat has +reached the point, and there the current is to all appearance of +double strength and right against it. The men, who have rested a +few minutes, are ordered to take their stations and lay hold of +their oars, for the river must be crossed, it being seldom +possible to double such a point and proceed along the same shore. +The boat is crossing, its head slanting to the current, which is, +however, too strong for the rowers, and when the other side of +the river has been reached, it has drifted perhaps a quarter of a +mile. The men are by this time exhausted and, as we shall suppose +it to be 12 o'clock, fasten the boat to a tree on the shore. A +small glass of whiskey is given to each, when they cook and eat +their dinner and, after resting from their fatigue for an hour, +recommence their labors. The boat is again seen slowly advancing +against the stream. It has reached the lower end of a sandbar, +along the edge of which it is propelled by means of long poles, +if the bottom be hard. Two men, called bowsmen, remain at the +prow to assist, in concert with the steersman, in managing the +boat and keeping its head right against the current. The rest +place themselves on the land side of the footway of the vessel, +put one end of their poles on the ground and the other against +their shoulders and push with all their might. As each of the men +reaches the stern, he crosses to the other side, runs along it +and comes again to the landward side of the bow, when he +recommences operations. The barge in the meantime is ascending at +a rate not exceeding one mile in the hour." + +Trustworthy statistics as to the amount and character of the +Western river trade have never been gathered. They are to be +found, if anywhere, in the reports of the collectors of customs +located at the various Western ports of entry and departure. +Nothing indicates more definitely the hour when the West awoke +to its first era of big business than the demand for the creation +of "districts" and their respective ports, for by no other means +could merchandise and produce be shipped legally to Spanish +territory beyond or down the Mississippi or to English territory +on the northern shores of the Great Lakes. + +Louisville is as old a port of the United States as New York or +Philadelphia, having been so created when our government was +established in 1789, but oddly enough the first returns to the +National Treasury (1798) are credited to the port of Palmyra, +Tennessee, far inland on the Cumberland River. In 1799 the +following Western towns were made ports of entry: Erie, Sandusky, +Detroit, Mackinaw Island, and Columbia (Cincinnati). The first +port on the Ohio to make returns was Fort Massac, Illinois, and +it is from the collector at this point that we get our first hint +as to the character and volume of Western river traffic. In the +spring months of March, April, and May, 1800, cargoes to the +value of 28,581 pounds, Pennsylvania currency, went down the +Ohio. This included 22,714 barrels of flour, 1017 barrels of +whiskey, 12,500 pounds of pork, 18,710 pounds of bacon, 75,814 +pounds of cordage, 3650 yards of country linen, 700 bottles, and +700 barrels of potatoes. In the three autumn months of 1800, for +instance, twenty-one boats ascended the Ohio by Fort Massac, with +cargoes amounting to 36 hundredweight of lead and a few hides. +Descending the river at the same time, flatboats and barges +carried 245 hundredweight of drygoods valued at $32,550. When we +compare these spring and fall records of commerce downstream we +reach the natural conclusion that the bulk of the drygoods which +went down in the fall of the year had been brought over the +mountains during the summer. The fact that the Alleghany +pack-horses and Conestogas were transporting freight to supply +the Spanish towns on the Mississippi River in the first year of +the nineteenth century seems proved beyond a doubt by these +reports from Fort Massac. + +The most interesting phase of this era is the connection between +western trade and the politics of the Mississippi Valley which +led up to the Louisiana Purchase. By the Treaty of San Lorenzo in +1795 Spain made New Orleans an open port, and in the next seven +years the young West made the most of its opportunity. But before +the new century was two years old the difficulties encountered +were found to be serious. The lack of commission merchants, of +methods of credit, of information as to the state of the market, +all combined to handicap trade and to cause loss. Pittsburgh +shippers figured their loss already at $60,000 a year. In +consequence men began to look elsewhere, and an advocate of big +business wrote in 1802: "The country has received a shock; let us +immediately extend our views and direct our efforts to every +foreign market." + +One of the most remarkable plans for the capture of foreign trade +to be found in the annals of American commerce originated almost +simultaneously in the Muskingum and Monongahela regions. With a +view to making the American West independent of the Spanish +middlemen, it was proposed to build ocean-going vessels on the +Ohio that should carry the produce of the interior down the +Mississippi and thence abroad through the open port of New +Orleans. The idea was typically Western in its arrogant +originality and confident self-assertion. Two vessels were built: +the brig St. Clair, of 110 tons, at Marietta, and the Monongahela +Farmer, of 250 tons, at Elizabeth on the Monongahela. The former +reached Cincinnati April 27, 1801; the latter, loaded with 750 +barrels of flour, passed Pittsburgh on the 13th of May. +Eventually, the St. Clair reached Havana and thus proved that +Muskingum Valley black walnut, Ohio hemp, and Marietta +carpenters, anchor smiths, and skippers could defy the grip of +the Spaniard on the Mississippi. Other vessels followed these +adventurers, and shipbuilding immediately became an important +industry at Pittsburgh, Marietta, Cincinnati, and other points. +The Duane of Pittsburgh was said by the Liverpool "Saturday +Advertiser" of July 9, 1803, to have been the "first vessel which +ever came to Europe from the western waters of the United +States." Probably the Louisiana of Marietta went as far afield as +any of the one hundred odd ships built in these years on the +Ohio. The official papers of her voyage in 1805, dated at New +Orleans, Norfolk (Virginia), Liverpool, Messina, and Trieste at +the head of the Adriatic, are preserved today in the Marietta +College Library. + +The growth of the shipbuilding industry necessitated a +readjustment of the districts for the collection of customs. +Columbia (Cincinnati) at first served the region of the upper +Ohio; but in 1803 the district was divided and Marietta was made +the port for the Pittsburgh-Portsmouth section of the river. In +1807 all the western districts were amalgamated, and Pittsburgh, +Charleston (Wellsburg), Marietta, Cincinnati, Louisville, and +Fort Massac were made ports of entry. + +The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 gave a marked impulse to inland +shipbuilding; but the embargo of 1807, which prohibited foreign +trade, following so soon, killed the shipyards, which, for a few +years, had been so busy. The great new industry of the Ohio +Valley was ruined. By this time the successful voyage of Fulton's +steamboat, the Clermont, between New York and Albany, had +demonstrated the possibilities of steam navigation. Not a few men +saw in the novel craft the beginning of a new era in Western +river traffic; but many doubted whether it was possible to +construct a vessel powerful enough to make its way upstream +against such sweeping currents as those of the Mississippi and +the Ohio. Surely no one for a moment dreamed that in hardly more +than a generation the Western rivers would carry a tonnage larger +than that of the cities of the Atlantic seaboard combined and +larger than that of Great Britain! + +As early as 1805, two years before the trip of the Clermont, +Captain Keever built a "steamboat" on the Ohio, and sent her down +to New Orleans where her engine was to be installed. But it was +not until 1811 that the Orleans, the first steamboat to ply the +Western streams, was built at Pittsburgh, from which point she +sailed for New Orleans in October of that year. The Comet and +Vesuvius quickly followed, but all three entered the New +Orleans-Natchez trade on the lower river and were never seen +again at the headwaters. As yet the swift currents and flood +tides of the great river had not been mastered. It is true that +in 1815 the Enterprise had made two trips between New Orleans and +Louisville, but this was in time of high water, when counter +currents and backwaters had assisted her feeble engine. In 1816, +however, Henry Shreve conceived the idea of raising the engine +out of the hold and constructing an additional deck. The +Washington, the first doubledecker, was the result. The next year +this steamboat made the round trip from Louisville to New Orleans +and back in forty-one days. The doubters were now convinced. + +For a little while the quaint and original riverman held on in +the new age, only to disappear entirely when the colored +roustabout became the deckhand of post-bellum days. The riverman +as a type was unknown except on the larger rivers in the earlier +years of water traffic. What an experience it would be today to +rouse one of those remarkable individuals from his dreaming, as +Davy Crockett did, with an oar, and hear him howl "Halloe +stranger, who axed you to crack my lice?"--to tell him in his own +lingo to "shut his mouth or he would get his teeth sunburnt"--to +see him crook his neck and neigh like a stallion--to answer his +challenge in kind with a flapping of arms and a cock's crow--to +go to shore and have a scrimmage such as was never known on a +gridiron--and then to resolve with Crockett, during a period of +recuperation, that you would never "wake up a ringtailed roarer +with an oar again." + +The riverman, his art, his language, his traffic, seem to belong +to days as distant as those of which Homer sang. + + + +CHAPTER VI. The Passing Show Of 1800 + +Foreign travelers who have come to the United States have always +proved of great interest to Americans. From Brissot to Arnold +Bennett while in the country they have been fed and clothed and +transported wheresoever they would go--at the highest prevailing +prices. And after they have left, the records of their sojourn +that these travelers have published have made interesting reading +for Americans all over the land. Some of these trans-Atlantic +visitors have been jaundiced, disgruntled, and contemptuous; +others have shown themselves of an open nature, discreet, +conscientious, and fair-minded. + +One of the most amiable and clear-headed of such foreign guests +was Francis Baily, later in life president of the Royal +Astronomical Society of Great Britain, but at the time of his +American tour a young man of twenty-two. His journey in 1796-97 +gave him a wide experience of stage, flatboat, and pack-horse +travel, and his genial disposition, his observant eye, and his +discriminating criticism, together with his comments on the +commercial features of the towns and regions he visited, make his +record particularly interesting and valuable to the historian.* +Using Baily's journal as a guide, therefore, one can today +journey with him across the country and note the passing show as +he saw it in this transitional period. + +* "Journal of a Tour in Unsettled Parts of North America in 1796 +and 1797" by the late Francis Baily (London, 1856). + + +Landing at Norfolk, Virginia, Baily was immediately introduced to +an American tavern. Like most travelers, he was surprised to find +that American taverns were "boarding-places," frequented by +crowds of "young, able-bodied men who seemed to be as perfectly +at leisure as the loungers of ancient Europe." In those days of +few newspapers, the tavern everywhere in America was the center +of information; in fact, it was a common practice for travelers +in the interior, after signing their names in the register, to +add on the same page any news of local interest which they +brought with them. The tavern habitues, Baily remarks, did not +sit and drink after meals but "wasted" their time at billiards +and cards. The passion for billiards was notorious, and taverns +in the most out-of-the-way places, though they lacked the most +ordinary conveniences, were nevertheless provided with billiard +tables. This custom seems to have been especially true in the +South; and it is significant that the first taxes in Tennessee +levied before the beginning of the nineteenth century were the +poll tax and taxes on billiard tables and studhorses! + +>From Norfolk Baily passed northward to Baltimore, paying a fare +of ten dollars, and from there he went on to Philadelphia, paying +six dollars more. On the way his stagecoach stuck fast in a bog +and the passengers were compelled to leave it until the next +morning. This sixty-mile road out of Baltimore was evidently one +of the worst in the East. Ten years prior to this date, Brissot, +a keen French journalist, mentions the great ruts in its heavy +clay soil, the overturned trees which blocked the way, and the +unexampled skilfulness of the stage drivers. All travelers in +America, though differing on almost every other subject, +invariably praise the ability of these sturdy, weather-beaten +American drivers, their kindness to their horses, and their +attention to their passengers. Harriet Martineau stated that, in +her experience, American drivers as a class were marked by the +merciful temper which accompanies genius, and their perfection in +their art, their fertility of resource, and the gentleness with +which they treated female fears and fretfulness, were exemplary. + +In the City of Brotherly Love Baily notes the geniality of the +people, who by many travelers are called aristocratic, and +comments on Quaker opposition to the theater and the +inconsequence of the Peale Museum, which travelers a generation +later highly praise. Proceeding to New York at a cost of six +dollars, he is struck by the uncouthness of the public buildings, +churches excepted, the widespread passion for music, dancing, and +the theater, the craze for sleighing, and the promise which the +harbor gave of becoming the finest in America. Not a few +travelers in this early period gave expression to their belief in +the future greatness of New York City. These prophecies, taken in +connection with the investment of eight millions of dollars which +New Yorkers made in toll-roads in the first seven years of this +new century, incline one to believe that the influence of the +Erie Canal as a factor in the development of the city may have +been unduly emphasized, great though it was. + +>From New York Baily returned to Baltimore and went on to +Washington. The records of all travelers to the site of the new +national capital give much the same picture of the countryside. +It was a land worn out by tobacco culture and variously described +as "dried up," "run down," and "hung out to dry." Even George +Washington, at Mount Vernon, was giving up tobacco culture and +was attempting new crops by a system of rotation. Cotton was +being grown in Maryland, but little care was given to its culture +and manufacture. Tobacco was graded in Virginia in accordance +with the rigidity of its inspection at Hanover Court House, +Pittsburgh, Richmond, and Cabin-Point: leaf worth sixteen +shillings at Richmond was worth twenty-one at Hanover Court +House; if it was refused at all places, it was smuggled to the +West Indies or consumed in the country. Meadows were rapidly +taking the place of tobacco-fields, for the planters preferred to +clear new land rather than to enrich the old. + +At Washington Baily found that lots to the value of $278,000 had +been sold, although only one-half of the proposed city had been +"cleared." It was to be forty years ere travelers could speak +respectfully of what is now the beautiful city of Washington. In +these earlier days, the streets were mudholes divided by vacant +fields and "beautified by trees, swamps, and cows." + +Departing for the West by way of Frederick, Baily, like all +travelers, was intensely interested upon entering the rich +limestone region which stretched from Pennsylvania far down into +Virginia. It was occupied in part by the Pennsylvania Dutch and +was so famous for its rich milk that it was called by many +travelers the "Bonnyclabber Country." Most Englishmen were +delighted with this region because they found here the good old +English breed of horses, that is, the English hunter developed +into a stout coach-horse. Of native breeds, Baily found animals +of all degrees of strength and size down to hackneys of fourteen +hands, as well as the "vile dog-horses," or packhorses, whose +faithful service to the frontier could in no wise be appreciated +by a foreigner. + +This region of Pennsylvania was as noted for its wagons as for +its horses. It was this wheat-bearing belt that made the common +freight-wagon in its colors of red and blue a national +institution. It was in this region of rich, well-watered land +that the maple tree gained its reputation. Men even prophesied +that its delightful sap would prove a cure for slavery, for, if +one family could make fifteen hundred pounds of maple sugar in a +season, eighty thousand families could, at the same rate, equal +the output of cane sugar each year from Santo Domingo! + +The traveler at the beginning of the century noticed a change in +the temper of the people as well as a change in the soil when the +Bonnyclabber Country was reached. The time-serving attitude of +the good people of the East now gave place to a "consciousness of +independence" due, Baily remarks, to the fact that each man was +self-sufficient and passed his life "without regard to the smiles +and frowns of men in power." This spirit was handsomely +illustrated in the case of one burly Westerner who was "churched" +for fighting. Showing a surly attitude to the deacon-judges who +sat on his case, he was threatened with civil prosecution and +imprisonment. "I don't want freedom," he is said to have replied, +bitterly; "I don't even want to live if I can't knock down a man +who calls me a liar." + +Pushing on westward by way of historic Sideling Hill and Bedford +to Statlers, Baily found here a prosperous millstone quarry, +which sold its stones at from fifteen to thirty dollars a pair. +Twelve years earlier Washington had prophesied that the +Alleghanies would soon be furnishing millstones equal to the best +English burr. As he crossed the mountains Baily found that +taverns charged the following schedule: breakfast, eighteen +pence; dinner and supper from two shillings to two shillings and +sixpence each. Traversing Laurel Hill, he reached Pittsburgh just +at the time when it was awakening to activity as the trading +center of the West. + +In order to descend the Ohio, Baily obtained a flatboat, +thirty-six feet long and twelve feet broad, which drew eighteen +inches of water and was of ten tons burden. On the way +downstream, Charleston and Wheeling were the principal +settlements which Baily first noted. Ebenezer Zane, the founder +of Wheeling, had just opened across Ohio the famous landward +route from the Monongahela country to Kentucky, which it entered +at Limestone, the present Maysville. This famous road, passing +through Zanesville, Lancaster, and Chillicothe, though at that +time safe only for men in parties, was a common route to and from +Kentucky. + +On such inland pathways as this, early travelers came to take for +granted a hospitality not to be found on more frequented +thoroughfares. In this hospitality, roughness and good will, +cleanliness and filth, attempts to ape the style of Eastern towns +and habits of the most primitive kind, were singularly blended. +In one instance, the traveler might be cordially assigned by the +landlord to a good position in "the first rush for a chance at +the head of the table"; at the next stopping place he might be +coldly turned away because the proprietor "had the gout" and his +wife the "delicate blue-devils"; farther on, where "soap was +unknown, nothing clean but birds, nothing industrious but pigs, +and nothing happy but squirrels," Daniel Boone's daughter might +be seen in high-heeled shoes, attended by white servants whose +wages were a dollar a week, skirting muddy roads under a +ten-dollar bonnet and a six-dollar parasol. Or, he might emerge +from a lonely forest in Ohio or Indiana and come suddenly upon a +party of neighbors at a dreary tavern, enjoying a corn shucking +or a harvest home. Immediately dubbed "Doctor," "Squire," or +"Colonel" by the hospitable merrymakers, the passer-by would be +informed that he "should drink and lack no good thing." After he +had retired, as likely as not his quarters would be invaded at +one or two o'clock in the morning by the uproarious company, and +the best refreshment of the house would be forced upon him with a +hilarity "created by omnipotent whiskey." Sometimes, however, the +traveler would encounter pitiful instances of loneliness in the +widespreading forests. One man in passing a certain isolated +cabin was implored by the woman who inhabited it to rest awhile +and talk, since she was, she confessed, completely overwhelmed by +"the lone!" + +Every traveler has remarked upon the yellow pallor of the first +inhabitants of the western forests and doubtless correctly +attributed this sickly appearance to the effects of malaria and +miasma. The psychic influences of the forest wilderness also +weighed heavily upon the spirits of the settlers, although, as +Baily notes, it was the newcomers who felt the depression to an +exaggerated degree. As he says: + +"It is a feeling of confinement, which begins to damp the +spirits, from this complete exclusion of distant objects. To +travel day after day, among trees of a hundred feet high, is +oppressive to a degree which those cannot conceive who have not +experienced it; and it must depress the spirits of the solitary +settler to pass years in this state. His visible horizon extends +no farther than the tops of the trees which bound his plantation- +-perhaps five hundred yards. Upwards he sees the sun, and sky, +and stars, but around him an eternal forest, from which he can +never hope to emerge:---not so in a thickly settled district; he +cannot there enjoy any freedom of prospect, yet there is variety, +and some scope for the imprisoned vision. In a hilly country a +little more range of view may occasionally be obtained; and a +river is a stream of light as well as of water, which feasts the +eye with a delight inconceivable to the inhabitants of open +countries." + +In direct contradiction to this longing for society was the +passion which the first generation of pioneers had for the +wilderness. When the population of one settlement became too +thick, they were seized by an irresistible impulse to "follow the +migration," as the expression went. The easy independence of the +first hunter-agriculturalist was upset by the advance of +immigration. His range was curtailed, his freedom limited. His +very breath seems to have become difficult. So he sold out at a +phenomenal profit, put out his fire, shouldered his gun, called +his dog, and set off again in search of the solitude he craved. + +Severe winter weather overtook Baily as he descended the Ohio +River, until below Grave Creek floating ice wrecked his boat and +drove him ashore. Here in the primeval forest, far from "Merrie +England," Baily spent the Christmas of 1796 in building a new +flatboat. This task completed, he resumed his journey. Passing +Marietta, where the bad condition of the winter roads prevented a +visit to a famous Indian mound, he reached Limestone. In due time +he sighted Columbia, the metropolis of the Miami country. +According to Baily, the sale of European goods in this part of +the Ohio Valley netted the importers a hundred per cent. Prices +varied with the ease of navigation. When ice blocked the Ohio the +price of flour went up until it was eight dollars a barrel; +whiskey was a dollar a gallon; potatoes, a dollar a bushel; and +bacon, twelve cents a pound. At these prices, the total produce +which went by Fort Massac in the early months of 1800 would have +been worth on the Ohio River upwards of two hundred thousand +dollars! In the preceding summer Baily quoted flour at Norfolk as +selling at sixty-three shillings a barrel of 196 pounds, or +double the price it was bringing on the ice-gorged Ohio. It is by +such comparisons that we get some inkling of the value of western +produce and of the rates in western trade. + +After a short stay at Cincinnati, Baily set out for the South on +an "Orleans boat" loaded with four hundred barrels of flour. At +the mouth of Pigeon Creek he noted the famous path to "Post St. +Vincent's" (Vincennes), over which he saw emigrants driving +cattle to that ancient town on the Wabash. At Fort Massac he met +Captain Zebulon M. Pike, whose tact in dealing with intoxicated +Indians he commended. At New Madrid Baily made a stay of some +days. This settlement, consisting of some two hundred and fifty +houses, was in the possession of Spain. It was within the +province of Louisiana, soon to be ceded to Napoleon. New Orleans +supplied this district with merchandise, but smuggling from the +United States was connived at by the Spanish officials. + +>From New Madrid Baily proceeded to Natchez, which then contained +about eighty-five houses. The town did not boast a tavern, but, +as was true of other places in the interior, this lack was made +up for by the hospitality of its inhabitants. Rice and tobacco +were being grown, Baily notes, and Georgian cotton was being +raised in the neighborhood. Several jennies were already at work, +and their owners received a royalty of one-eighth of the product. +The cotton was sent to New Orleans, where it usually sold for +twenty dollars a hundred weight. From Natchez to New Orleans the +charge for transportation by flatboat was a dollar and a half a +bag. The bags contained from one hundred and fifty to two hundred +and fifty pounds, and each flatboat carried about two hundred and +fifty bags. Baily adds two items to the story of the development +of the mechanical operation of watercraft. He tells us that in +the fall of 1796 a party of "Dutchmen," in the Pittsburgh region, +fashioned a boat with side paddle wheels which were turned by a +treadmill worked by eight horses under the deck. This strange +boat, which passed Baily when he was wrecked on the Ohio near +Grave Creek, appeared "to go with prodigious swiftness." Baily +does not state how much business the boat did on its downward +trip to New Orleans but contents, himself with remarking that the +owners expected the return trip to prove very profitable. When he +met the boat on its upward voyage at Natchez, it had covered +three hundred miles in six days. It was, however, not loaded, "so +little occasion was there for a vessel of this kind." As this run +between New Orleans and Natchez came to be one of the most +profitable in the United States in the early days of +steamboating, less than fifteen years later, the experience of +these "Flying Dutchmen" affords a very pretty proof that +something more than a means of transportation is needed to create +commerce. The owners abandoned their craft at Natchez in disgust +and returned home across country, wiser and poorer. + +Baily also noted that a Dr. Waters of New Madrid built a schooner +"some few years since" at the head of the Ohio and navigated it +down the Ohio and Mississippi and around to Philadelphia, "where +it is now employed in the commerce of the United States." It is +thus apparent, solely from this traveler's record, that an +ocean-going vessel and a side-paddle-wheel boat had been seen on +the Western Waters of the United States at least four years +before the nineteenth century arrived. + +Baily finally reached New Orleans. The city then contained about +a thousand houses and was not only the market for the produce of +the river plantations but also the center of an extensive Indian +trade. The goods for this trade were packed in little barrels +which were carried into the interior on pack-horses, three +barrels to a horse. The traders traveled for hundreds of miles +through the woods, bartering with the Indians on the way and +receiving, in exchange for their goods, bear and deer skins, +beaver furs, and wild ponies which had been caught by lariat in +the neighboring Apalousa country. + +Baily had intended to return to New York by sea, but on his +arrival at New Orleans he was unable to find a ship sailing to +New York. He therefore decided to proceed northward by way of the +long and dangerous Natchez Trace and the Tennessee Path. Though +few Europeans had made this laborious journey before 1800, the +Natchez Trace had been for many years the land route of thousands +of returning rivermen who had descended the Mississippi in +flatboat and barge. In practically all cases these men carried +with them the proceeds of their investment, and, as on every +thoroughfare in the world traveled by those returning from +market, so here, too, highwaymen and desperadoes, red and white, +built their lairs and lay in wait. Some of the most revolting +crimes of the American frontier were committed on these northward +pathways and their branches. + +Joining a party bound for Natchez, a hundred and fifty miles +distant overland, Baily proceeded to Lake Pontchartrain and +thence "north by west through the woods," by way of the ford of +the Tangipahoa, Cooper's Plantation, Tickfaw River, Amite River, +and the "Hurricane" (the path of a tornado) to the beginning of +the Apalousa country. This tangled region of stunted growth was +reputed to be seven miles in width from "shore to shore" and +three hundred miles in length. It took the party half a day to +reach the opposite "shore," and they had to quench their thirst +on the way with dew. + +At Natchez, Baily organized a party which included the five +"Dutchmen" whose horse boat had proved a failure. For their +twenty-one days' journey to Nashville the party laid in the +following provisions: 15 pounds of biscuit, 6 pounds of flour, 12 +pounds of bacon, 10 pounds of dried beef, 8 pounds of rice, 1 1/2 +pounds of coffee, 4 pounds of sugar, and a quantity of pounded +corn, such as the Indians used on all their journeys. After +celebrating the Fourth of July, 1797, with "all the inhabitants +who were hostile to the Spanish Government," and bribing the +baker at the Spanish fort to bake them a quarter of a +hundredweight of bread, the party started on their northward +journey. + +They reached without incident the famous Grindstone Ford of Bayou +Pierre, where crayfishes had destroyed a pioneer dam. Beyond, at +the forks of the path where the Choctaw Trail bore off to the +cast the party pursued the alternate Chickasaw Trail by Indian +guidance, and soon noted the change in the character of the soil +from black loam to sandy gravel, which indicated that they had +reached the Piedmont region. Indian marauders stole one horse +from the camp, and three of the party fell ill. The others, +pressed for food, were compelled to leave the sick men in an +improvised camp and to hasten on, promising to send to their aid +the first Indian they should meet "who understood herbs." After +appalling hardships, they crossed the Tennessee and entered the +Nashville country, where the roads were good enough for coaches, +for they met two on the way. Thence Baily proceeded to Knoxville, +seeing, as he went, droves of cattle bound for the settlements of +west Tennessee. With his arrival at Knoxville, his journal ends +abruptly; but from other sources we learn that he sailed from New +York on his return to England in January, 1798. His interesting +record, however, remained unpublished until after his death in +1844. + +Not only to Francis Baily but to scores of other travelers, even +those of unfriendly eyes, do modern readers owe a debt of +gratitude. These men have preserved a multitude of pictures and a +wealth of data which would otherwise have been lost. The men of +America in those days were writing the story of their deeds not +on parchment or paper but on the virgin soil of the wilderness. +But though the stage driver, the tavern keeper, and the burly +riverman left no description of the life of their highways and +their commerce, these visitors from other lands have bequeathed +to us their thousands of pages full of the enterprising life of +these pioneer days in the history of American commerce. + + + +CHAPTER VII. The Birth Of The Steamboat + +The crowds who welcomed the successive stages in the development +of American transportation were much alike in essentials--they +were all optimistic, self-congratulatory, irrepressible in their +enthusiasm, and undaunted in their outlook. Dickens, perhaps, +did not miss the truth widely when, in speaking of stage +driving, he said that the cry of "Go Ahead!" in America and of +"All Right!" in England were typical of the civilizations of the +two countries. Right or wrong, "Go Ahead!" has always been the +underlying passion of all men interested in the development of +commerce and transportation in these United States. + +During the era of river improvement already described, men of +imagination were fascinated with the idea of propelling boats by +mechanical means. Even when Washington fared westward in 1784, he +met at Bath, Virginia, one of these early experimenters, James +Rumsey, who haled him forthwith to a neighboring meadow to watch +a secret trial of a boat moved by means of machinery which worked +setting-poles similar to the ironshod poles used by the rivermen +to propel their boats upstream. "The model," wrote Washington, +"and its operation upon the water, which had been made to run +pretty swift, not only convinced me of what I before thought next +to, if not quite impracticable, but that it might be to the +greatest possible utility in inland navigation." Later he +mentions the "discovery" as one of those "circumstances which +have combined to render the present epoch favorable above all +others for securing a large portion of the produce of the western +settlements, and of the fur and peltry of the Lakes, also." + +>From that day forward, scarcely a week passed without some new +development in the long and difficult struggle to improve the +means of navigation. Among the scores of men who engaged in this +engrossing but discouraging work, there is one whom the world is +coming to honor more highly than in previous years--John Fitch, +of Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky. As early as August, +1785, Fitch launched on a rivulet in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, +a boat propelled by an engine which moved an endless chain to +which little paddles were attached. The next year, Fitch's second +boat, operated by twelve paddles, six on a side--an arrangement +suggesting the "side-wheeler" of the future--successfully plied +the Delaware off "Conjuror's Point," as the scene of Fitch's +labors was dubbed in whimsical amusement and derision. In 1787 +Rumsey, encouraged by Franklin, fashioned a boat propelled by a +stream of water taken in at the prow and ejected at the stern. In +1788 Fitch's third boat traversed the distance from Philadelphia +to Burlington on numerous occasions and ran as a regular packet +in 1790, covering over a thousand miles. In this model Fitch +shifted the paddles from the sides to the rear, thus anticipating +in principle the modern stern-wheeler. + +It was doubtless Fitch's experiments in 1785 that led to the +first plan in America to operate a land vehicle by steam. Oliver +Evans, a neighbor and acquaintance of Fitch's, petitioned the +Pennsylvania Legislature in 1786 for the right of operating +wagons propelled by steam on the highways of that State. This +petition was derisively rejected; but a similar one made to the +Legislature of Maryland was granted on the ground that such +action could hurt nobody. Evans in 1802 took fiery revenge on the +scoffers by actually running his little five-horse-power carriage +through Philadelphia. The rate of speed, however, was so slow +that the idea of moving vehicles by steam was still considered +useless for practical purposes. Eight years later, Evans offered +to wager $3000 that, on a level road, he could make a carriage +driven by steam equal the speed of the swiftest horse, but he +found no response. In 1812 he asserted that he was willing to +wager that he could drive a steam carriage on level rails at a +rate of fifteen miles an hour. Evans thus anticipated the belief +of Stephenson that steam-driven vehicles would travel best on +railed tracks. + +In the development of the steamboat almost all earlier means of +propulsion, natural and artificial, were used as models by the +inventors. The fins of fishes, the webbed feet of amphibious +birds, the paddles of the Indian, and the poles and oars of the +riverman, were all imitated by the patient inventors struggling +with the problem. Rumsey's first effort was a copy of the old +setting-pole idea. Fitch's model of 1785 had side paddle wheels +operated by an endless chain. Fitch's second and third models +were practically paddle-wheel models, one having the paddles at +the side and the other at the stern. Ormsbee of Connecticut made +a model, in 1792, on the plan of a duck's foot. Morey made what +may be called the first real stern-wheeler in 1794. Two years +later Fitch ran a veritable screw propeller on Collect Pond near +New York City. Although General Benjamin Tupper of Massachusetts +had been fashioning devices of this character eight years +previously, Fitch was the first to apply the idea effectively. In +1798 he evolved the strange, amphibious creation known as his +"model of 1798," which has never been adequately explained. It +was a steamboat on iron wheels provided with flanges, as though +it was intended to be run on submerged tracks. What may have been +the idea of its inventor, living out his last gloomy days in +Kentucky, may never be known; but it is possible to see in this +anomalous machine an anticipation of the locomotive not +approached by any other American of the time. Thus, prior to 1800 +almost every type of mechanism for the propulsion of steamboats +had been suggested and tried; and in 1804, Stevens's twin-screw +propeller completed the list. + +It is not alone Fitch's development of the devices of the endless +chain, paddle wheel, and screw propeller and of his puzzling +earth-and-water creature that gives luster to his name. His +prophetic insight into the future national importance of the +steamboat and his conception, as an inventor, of his moral +obligations to the people at large were as original and striking +in the science of that age as were his models. + +The early years of the national life of the United States were +the golden age of monopoly. Every colony, as a matter of course, +had granted to certain men special privileges, and, as has +already been pointed out, the questions of monopolies and +combinations in restraint of trade had arisen even so early as +the beginning of the eighteenth century. Interwoven inextricably +with these problems was the whole problem of colonial rivalry, +which in its later form developed into an insistence on state +rights. Every improvement in the means of transportation, every +development of natural resources, every new invention was +inevitably considered from the standpoint of sectional interests +and with a view to its monopolistic possibilities. This was +particularly true in the case of the steamboat, because of its +limitation to rivers and bays which could be specifically +enumerated and defined. For instance, Washington in 1784 attests +the fact that Rumsey operated his mechanical boat at Bath in +secret "until he saw the effect of an application he was about to +make to the Assembly of this State, for a reward." The +application was successful, and Rumsey was awarded a monopoly in +Virginia waters for ten years. + +Fitch, on the other hand, when he applied to Congress in 1785, +desired merely to obtain official encouragement and intended to +allow his invention to be used by all comers. Meeting only with +rebuff, he realized that his only hope of organizing a company +that could provide working capital lay in securing monopolistic +privileges. In 1786 he accordingly applied to the individual +States and secured the sole right to operate steamboats on the +waterways of New Jersey, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, and +Virginia. How different would have been the story of the +steamboat if Congress had accepted Fitch at his word and created +a precedent against monopolistic rights on American rivers! + +Fitch, in addition to the high purpose of devoting his new +invention to the good of the nation without personal +considerations, must be credited with perceiving at the very +beginning the peculiar importance of the steamboat to the +American West. His original application to Congress in 1785 +opened: "The subscriber begs leave to lay at the feet of +Congress, an attempt he has made to facilitate the internal +Navigation of the United States, adapted especially to the Waters +of the Mississippi." At another time with prophetic vision he +wrote: "The Grand and Principle object must be on the Atlantick, +which would soon overspread the wild forests of America with +people, and make us the most oppulent Empire on Earth. Pardon me, +generous public, for suggesting ideas that cannot be dijested at +this day." + +Foremost in exhibiting high civic and patriotic motives, Fitch +was also foremost in appreciating the importance of the steamboat +in the expansion of American trade. This significance was also +clearly perceived by his brilliant successor, Robert Fulton. That +the West and its commerce were always predominant in Fulton's +great schemes is proved by words which he addressed in 1803 to +James Monroe, American Ambassador to Great Britain: "You have +perhaps heard of the success of my experiments for +navigating boats by steam engines and you will feel the +importance of establishing such boats on the Mississippi and +other rivers of the United States as soon as possible." Robert +Fulton had been interested in steamboats for a period not +definitely known, possibly since his sojourn in Philadelphia in +the days of Fitch's early efforts. That he profited by the other +inventor's efforts at the time, however, is not suggested by any +of his biographers. He subsequently went to London and gave +himself up to the study and practice of engineering. There he +later met James Rumsey, who came to England in 1788, and by him +no doubt was informed, if he was not already aware, of the +experiments and models of Rumsey and Fitch. He obtained the loan +of Fitch's plans and drawings and made his own trial of various +existing devices, such as oars, paddles, duck's feet, and Fitch's +endless chain with "resisting-boards" attached. Meanwhile Fulton +was also devoting his attention to problems of canal construction +and to the development of submarine boats and submarine +explosives. He was engaged in these researches in France in 1801 +when the new American minister, Robert R. Livingston, arrived, +and the two men soon formed a friendship destined to have a vital +and enduring influence upon the development of steam navigation +on the inland waterways of America. + +Livingston already had no little experience in the same field of +invention as Fulton. In 1798 he had obtained, for a period of +twenty years, the right to operate steamboats on all the waters +of the State of New York, a monopoly which had just lapsed owing +to the death of Fitch. In the same year Livingston had built a +steamboat which had made three miles an hour on the Hudson. He +had experimented with most of the models then in existence-- +upright paddles at the side, endless-chain paddles, and stern +paddle wheels. Fulton was soon inspired to resume his efforts by +Livingston's account of his own experiments and of recent +advances in England, where a steamboat had navigated the Thames +in 1801 and a year later the famous sternwheeler Charlotte Dundas +had towed boats of 140 tons' burden on the Forth and Clyde Canal +at the rate of five miles an hour. In this same year Fulton and +Livingston made successful experiments on the Seine. + +It is fortunate that, in one particular, Livingston's influence +did not prevail with Fulton, for the American Minister was +distinctly prejudiced against paddle wheels. Although Livingston +had previously ridden as a passenger on Morey's sternwheeler at +the rate of five miles an hour, yet he had turned a deaf ear when +his partner in experimentation, Nicholas J. Roosevelt, had +insisted strongly on "throwing wheels over the sides." At the +beginning, Fulton himself was inclined to agree with Livingston +in this respect; but, probably late in 1803, he began to +investigate more carefully the possibilities of the paddle wheel +as used twice in America by Morey and by four or five +experimenters in Europe. In 1804 an eight-mile trip which Fulton +made on the Charlotte Dundas in an hour and twenty minutes +established his faith in the undeniable superiority of two +fundamental factors of early navigation--paddle wheels and +British +engines. Fulton's splendid fame rests, and rightly so, on his +perception of the fact that no mere ingenuity of design could +counterbalance weakness, uncertainty, and inefficiency in the +mechanism which was intended to make a steamboat run and keep +running. As early as November, 1803, Fulton had written to +Boulton and Watt of Birmingham that he had "not confidence in any +other engines" than theirs and that he was seeking a means of +getting one of those engines to America. "I cannot establish the +boat without the engine," he now emphatically wrote to James +Monroe, then Ambassador to the Court of St. James. "The question +then is shall we or shall we not have such boats." + +But there were difficulties in the way. Though England forbade +the exportation of engines, Fulton knew that, in numerous +instances, this rule had not been enforced, and he had hopes of +success. "The British Government," Fulton wrote Monroe, "must +have little friendship or even civility toward America, if they +refuse such a request." Before the steamboat which Fulton and +Livingston proposed to build in America could be operated there +was another obstacle to be surmounted. The rights of steam +navigation of New York waters which Livingston had obtained on +the death of Fitch in 1798 had lapsed because of his failure to +run a steamboat at the rate of four miles an hour, which was one +provision of the grant. In April, 1803, the grant was renewed to +Livingston, Roosevelt, and Fulton jointly for another period of +twenty years, and the date when the boat was to make the required +four miles an hour was extended finally to 1807. + +Any one who is inclined to criticize the Livingston- +Roosevelt-Fulton monopoly which now came into existence should +remember that the previous state grants formed a precedent of no +slight moment. The whole proceeding was in perfect accord with +the spirit of the times, for it was an era of speculation and +monopoly ushered in by the toll-road and turnpike organizations, +when probably no less than two hundred companies were formed. It +was young America showing itself in an unmistakable manner-- +"conceived in liberty" and starting on the long road to learn +that obedience to law and respect for public rights constitute +true liberty. Finally, it must be pointed out that Fulton, like +his famous predecessor, Fitch, was impelled by motives far higher +than the love of personal gain. "I consider them [steamboats] of +such infinite use in America," he wrote Monroe, "that I should +feel a culpable neglect toward my country if I relaxed for a +moment in pursuing every necessary measure for carrying it into +effect." And later, when repeating his argument, he says: "I +plead this not for myself alone but for our country." + +It is now evident why the alliance of Fulton with Livingston was +of such epoch-making importance, for, although it may have in +some brief measure delayed Fulton's adoption of paddle wheels, it +gave him an entry to the waters of New York. Livingston and +Fulton thus supplemented each other; Livingston possessed a +monopoly and Fulton a correct estimate of the value of paddle +wheels and, secondly, of Boulton and Watt engines. It was a rare +combination destined to crown with success a long period of +effort and discouragement in the history of navigation. + +After considerable delay and difficulty, the two Americans +obtained permission to export the necessary engine from Great +Britain and shipped it to New York, whither Fulton himself +proceeded to construct his steamboat. The hull was built by +Charles Brown, a New York shipbuilder, and the Boulton and Watt +machinery, set in masonry, was finally installed. + +The voyage to Albany, against a stiff wind, occupied thirty-two +hours; the return trip was made in thirty. H. Freeland, one of +the spectators who stood on the banks of the Hudson when the boat +made its maiden voyage in 1807, gives the following description: + +"Some imagined it to be a sea-monster whilst others did not +hesitate to express their belief that it was a sign of the +approaching judgment. What seemed strange in the vessel was the +substitution of lofty and straight smoke-pipes, rising from the +deck, instead of the gracefully tapered masts...and, in place +of the spars and rigging, the curious play of the walking-beam +and +pistons, and the slow turning and splashing of the huge and naked +paddlewheels, met the astonished gaze. The dense clouds of smoke, +as they rose, wave upon wave, added still more to the wonderment +of the rustics.... On her return trip the curiosity she +excited was scarcely less intense...fishermen became +terrified, and rode homewards, and they saw nothing but +destruction devastating their fishing grounds, whilst the wreaths +of black vapor and rushing noise of the paddle-wheels, foaming +with the stirred-up water, produced great excitement...." + +With the launching of the Clermont on the Hudson a new era in +American history began. How quick with life it was many of the +preceding pages bear testimony. The infatuation of the public for +building toll and turnpike roads was now at its height. Only a +few years before, a comprehensive scheme of internal improvements +had been outlined by Jefferson's Secretary of the Treasury, +Albert Gallatin. When a boy, it is said, he had lain on the floor +of a surveyor's cabin on the western slopes of the Alleghanies +and had heard Washington describe to a rough crowd of Westerners +his plan to unite the Great Lakes with the Potomac in one mighty +chain of inland commerce. Jefferson's Administration was now +about to devote the surplus in the Treasury to the construction +of national highways and canals. The Cumberland Road, to be built +across the Alleghanies by the War Department, was authorized by +the president in the same year in which the Clermont made her +first trip; and Jesse Hawley, at his table in a little room in a +Pittsburgh boarding house, was even now penning in a series of +articles, published in the Pittsburgh Commonwealth, beginning in +January, 1807, the first clear challenge to the Empire State to +connect the Hudson and Lake Erie by a canal. Thus the two next +steps in the history of inland commerce in America were ready to +be taken. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. The Conquest Of The Alleghanies + +The two great thoroughfares of American commerce in the first +half of the nineteenth century were the Cumberland Road and the +Erie Canal. The first generation of the new century witnessed the +great burst of population into the West which at once gave Ohio, +Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin a place of national +importance which they have never relinquished. So far as pathways +of commerce contributed to the creation of this veritable new +republic in the Middle West, the Cumberland Road and the Erie +Canal, cooperating respectively with Ohio River and Lake Erie +steamboats, were of the utmost importance. The national spirit, +said to have arisen from the second war with England, had its +clearest manifestation in the throwing of a great macadamized +roadway across the Alleghanies to the Ohio River and the digging +of the Erie Canal through the swamps and wildernesses of New +York. + +Both of these pathways were essentially the fruition of the +doctrine to which Washington gave wide circulation in his letter +to Harrison in 1784, wherein he pictured the vision of a vast +Republic united by commercial chains. Both were essentially +Western enterprises. The highway was built to fulfil the promise +which the Government had made in 1802 to use a portion of the +money accruing from the sale of public lands in Ohio in order to +connect that young State with Atlantic waters. It was proposed to +build the canal, according to one early plan, with funds to be +obtained by the sale of land in Michigan. So firmly did the +promoters believe in the national importance of this project that +subscriptions, according to another plan, were to be solicited as +far afield as Vermont in the North and Kentucky in the Southwest. +All that Washington had hoped for, and all that Aaron Burr is +supposed to have been hopeless of, were epitomized in these great +works of internal improvement. They bespoke cooperation of the +highest existing types of loyalty, optimism, financial skill, and +engineering ability. + +Yet, on the other hand, the contrasts between these undertakings +were great. The two enterprises, one the work of the nation and +the other that of a single State, were practically +contemporaneous and were therefore constantly inviting +comparison. The Cumberland Road was, for its day, a gigantic +government undertaking involving problems of finance, civil +engineering, eminent domain, state rights, local favoritism, and +political machination. Its purpose was noble and its successful +construction a credit to the nation; but the paternalism to which +it gave rise and the conflicts which it precipitated in Congress +over questions of constitutionality were remembered soberly for a +century. The Erie Canal, after its projectors had failed to +obtain national aid, became the undertaking of one commonwealth +conducted, amid countless doubts and jeers, to a conclusion +unbelievably successful. As a result many States, foregoing +Federal aid, attempted to duplicate the successful feat of New +York. In this respect the northern canal resembled the Lancaster +Turnpike and tempted scores of States and corporations to +expenditures which were unwise in circumstances less favorable +than those of the fruitful and strategic Empire State. + +In the conception of both the roadway and the canal, it should be +noted, the old idea of making use of navigable rivers still +persisted. The act foreshadowing the Cumberland Road, passed in +1802, called for "making public roads leading from the navigable +waters emptying into the Atlantic, to the Ohio, to said State +Ohio and through the same"; and Hawley's original plan was to +build the Erie Canal from Utica to Buffalo using the Mohawk from +Utica to the Hudson. + +Historic Cumberland, in Maryland, was chosen by Congress as the +eastern terminus of the great highway which should bind Ohio to +the Old Thirteen. Commissioners were appointed in 1806 to choose +the best route by which the great highway could reach the Ohio +River between Steubenville, Ohio and the mouth of Grave Creek; +but difficulties of navigation in the neighborhood of the Three +Sister Islands near Charlestown, or Wellsburg, West Virginia, led +to the choice of Wheeling, farther down, as a temporary western +terminus. + +The route selected was an excellent compromise between the long +standing rival claims of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia to +the trade of the West. If Baltimore and Alexandria were to be +better served than Philadelphia, the advantage was slight; and +Pennsylvania gained compensation, ere the State gave the National +Government permission to build the road within its limits, by +dictating that it should pass through Uniontown and Washington. +In this way Pennsylvania obtained, without cost, unrivaled +advantages for a portion of the State which might otherwise have +been long neglected. + +The building of the road, however satisfactory in the main, was +not undertaken without arousing many sectional and personal hopes +and prejudices and jealousies, of which the echoes still linger +in local legends today. Land-owners, mine-owners, factory-owners, +innkeepers and countless townsmen and villagers anxiously watched +the course of the road and were bitterly disappointed if the new +sixty-four-foot thoroughfare did not pass immediately through +their property. On the other hand, promoters of toll and turnpike +companies, who had promising schemes and long lists of +shareholders, were far from eager to have their property taken +for a national road. No one believed that, if it proved +successful, it would be the only work of its kind, and everywhere +men looked for the construction of government highways out of the +overflowing wealth of the treasury within the next few years. + +In April, 1811, the first contracts were let for building the +first ten miles of the road from its eastern terminus and were +completed in 18191. More contracts were let in 1812, 1813, and +1815. Even in those days of war when the drain on the national +treasury was excessive, over a quarter of a million dollars was +appropriated for the construction of the road. Onward it +crawled, through the beautiful Cumberland gateway of the Potomac, +to Big Savage and Little Savage Mountains, to Little Pine Run +(the first "Western" water), to Red Hill (later called "Shades of +Death" because of the gloomy forest growth), to high-flung Negro +Mountain at an elevation of 2325 feet, and thence on to the +Youghiogheny, historic Great Meadows, Braddock's Grave, Laurel +Hill, Uniontown, and Brownsville, where it crossed the +Monongahela. Thence, on almost a straight line, it sped by way of +Washington to Wheeling. Its average cost was upwards of thirteen +thousand dollars a mile from the Potomac to the Ohio. The road +was used in 1817, and in another year the mail coaches of the +United States were running from Washington to Wheeling, West +Virginia. Within five years one of the five commission houses +doing business at Wheeling is said to have handled over a +thousand wagons carrying freight of nearly two tons each. The +Cumberland Road at once leaped into a position of leadership, +both in volume of commerce and in popularity, and held its own +for two famous decades. The pulse of the nation beat to the +steady throb of trade along its highway. Maryland at once +stretched out her eager arms, along stone roads, through +Frederick and Hagerstown to Cumberland, and thus formed a single +route from the Ohio to Baltimore. Great stagecoach and freight +lines were soon established, each patronizing its own stage house +or wagon stand in the thriving towns along the road. The +primitive box stage gave way to the oval or football type with +curved top and bottom, and this was displaced in turn by the more +practical Concord coach of national fame. The names of the +important stagecoach companies were quite as well known, a +century ago, as those of our great railways today. Chief among +them were the National, Good Intent, June Bug, and Pioneer lines. +The coaches, drawn by four and sometimes six horses, were usually +painted in brilliant colors and were named after eminent +statesmen. The drivers of these gay chariots were characters +quite as famous locally as the personages whose names were borne +by the coaches. Westover and his record of forty-five minutes for +the twenty miles between Uniontown and Brownsville, and "Red" +Bunting, with his drive of a hundred and thirty-one miles in +twelve hours with the declaration of war against Mexico, will be +long famous on the curving stretches of the Cumberland Road. + +Although the freight and express traffic of those days lacked the +picturesqueness of the passenger coaches, nothing illustrates so +conclusively what the great road meant to an awakening West as +the long lines of heavy Conestogas and rattling express wagons +which raced at "unprecedented" speed across hill and vale. +Searight, the local historian of the road, describes these large, +broad-wheeled wagons covered with white canvas as + +"visible all the day long, at every point, making the highway +look more like a leading avenue of a great city than a road +through rural districts.... I have staid over night with +William Cheets on Nigger [Negro] Mountain when there were about +thirty six-horse teams in the wagon yard, a hundred Kentucky +mules in an adjoining lot, a thousand hogs in their enclosures, +and as many fat cattle in adjoining fields. The music made by +this large number of hogs eating corn on a frosty night I shall +never forget. After supper and attention to the teams, the +wagoners would gather in the bar-room and listen to the music on +the violin furnished by one of their fellows, have a Virginia +hoe-down, sing songs, tell anecdotes, and hear the experiences of +drivers and drovers from all points of the road, and, when it was +all over, unroll their beds, lay them down on the floor before +the bar-room fire side by side, and sleep with their feet near +the blaze as soundly as under the parental roof." + +Meanwhile New York, the other great rival for Western trade, was +intent on its own darling project, the Erie Canal. In 1808, three +years before the building of the Cumberland Road, Joshua Forman +offered a bill in favor of the canal in the Legislature of New +York. In plain but dignified language this document stated that +New York possessed "the best route of communication between the +Atlantic and western waters," and that it held "the first +commercial rank in the United States." The bill also noted that, +while "several of our sister States" were seeking to secure "the +trade of that wide extended country," their natural advantages +were "vastly inferior." Six hundred dollars was the amount +appropriated for a brief survey, and Congress was asked to vote +aid for the construction of the "Buffalo-Utica Canal." The matter +was widely talked about but action was delayed. Doubt as to the +best route to be pursued caused some discussion. If the western +terminus were to be located on Lake Ontario at the mouth of the +Oswego, as some advocated, would produce not make its way to +Montreal instead of to New York? In 1810 a new committee was +appointed and, though their report favored the paralleling of the +course of the Mohawk and Oswego rivers, their engineer, James +Geddes, gave strength to the party which believed a direct canal +would best serve the interests of the State. It is worth noting +that Livingston and Fulton were added to the committee in 1811. + +The hopes of outside aid from Congress and adjacent States met +with disappointment. In vain did the advocates of the canal in +1812 plead that its construction would promote "a free and +general intercourse between different parts of the United States, +tend to the aggrandizement and prosperity of the country, and +consolidate and strengthen the Union." The plan to have the +Government subsidize the canal by vesting in the State of New +York four million acres of Michigan land brought out a protest +from the West which is notable not so much because it records the +opposition of this section as because it illustrates the +shortsightedness of most of the arguments raised against the New +York enterprise. The purpose of the canal, the detractors +asserted, was to build up New York City to the detriment of +Montreal, and the navigation of Lake Ontario, whose beauty they +touchingly described, was to be abandoned for a "narrow, winding +obstructed canal...for an expense which arithmetic dares not +approach." It was, in their minds, unquestionably a selfish +object, and they believed that "both correct science, and the +dictates of patriotism and philanthropy [should] lead to the +adoption of more liberal principles." It was a shortsighted +object, "predicated on the eternal adhesion of the Canadas to +England." It would never give satisfaction since trade would +always ignore artificial and seek natural routes. The attempting +of such comparatively useless projects would discourage worthy +schemes, relax the bonds of Union, and depress the national +character. But though these Westerners thus misjudged the +possibilities of the Erie Canal, we must doff our hats to them +for their foresight in suggesting that, instead of aiding the +Erie Canal, the nation ought to build canals at Niagara Falls and +Panama! + +The War of 1812 suspended all talk of the canal, but the subject +was again brought up by Judge Platt in the autumn of 1816. With +alacrity strong men came to the aid of the measure. De Witt +Clinton's Memorial of 1816 addressed to the State Legislature may +well rank with Washington's letter to Harrison in the documentary +history of American commercial development. It sums up the +geographical position of New York with reference to the Great +Lakes and the Atlantic, her relationship to the West and to +Canada, the feasibility of the proposed route from an engineering +standpoint, the timeliness of the moment for such a work of +improvement, the value that the canal would give to the state +lands of the interior, and the trade that it would bring to the +towns along its pathway. + +The Erie Canal was born in the Act of April 14, 1817, but the +decision of the Council of Revision, which held the power of +veto, was in doubt. An anecdote related by Judge Platt tends to +prove that fear of another war with England was the straw that +broke the camel's back of opposition. Acting-Governor Taylor, +Chief Justice Thompson, Chancellor Kent, Judge Yates, and Judge +Platt composed the Council. The two first named were open +opponents of the measure; Kent, Yates, and Platt were warm +advocates of the project, but one of them doubted if the time was +ripe to undertake it. + +Taylor opposed the canal on the ground that the late treaty with +England was a mere truce and that the resources of the State +should be husbanded against renewed war. + +"Do you think so, Sir?" Chancellor Kent is said to have asked the +Governor. + +"Yes, Sir," was the reported reply. "England will never forgive +us for our victories, and, my word for it, we shall have another +war with her within two years." + +The Chancellor rose to his feet with determination and sealed the +fate of the great enterprise in a word. + +"If we must have war," he exclaimed, "I am in favor of the canal +and I cast my vote for this bill." + +On July 4, 1817, work was formally inaugurated at Rome with +simple ceremonies. Thus the year 1817 was marked by three great +undertakings: the navigation of the Mississippi River upstream +and down by steamboats, the opening of the national road across +the Alleghany Mountains, and the beginning of the Erie Canal. No +single year in the early history of the United States witnessed +three such important events in the material progress of the +country. + +What days the ancient "Long House of the Iroquois" now saw! The +engineers of the Cumberland Road, now nearing the Ohio River, +had enjoyed the advantage of many precedents and examples; but +the Commissioners of the Erie Canal had been able to study only +such crude examples of canal-building as America then afforded. +Never on any continent had such an inaccessible region been +pierced by such a highway. The total length of the whole network +of canals in Great Britain did not equal that of the waterway +which the New Yorkers now undertook to build. The lack of roads, +materials, vehicles, methods of drilling and efficient business +systems was overcome by sheer patience and perseverance in +experiment. The frozen winter roads saved the day by making it +possible to accumulate a proper supply of provisions and +materials. As tools of construction, the plough and scraper with +their greater capacity for work soon supplanted the shovel and +the wheelbarrow, which had been the chief implements for such +construction in Europe. Strange new machinery born of Mother +Necessity was now heard groaning in the dark swamps of New York. +These giants, worked by means of a cable, wheel, and endless +screw, were made to hoist green stumps bodily from the ground +and, without the use of axe, to lay trees prostrate, root and +branch. A new plough was fashioned with which a yoke of oxen +could cut roots two inches in thickness well beneath the surface +of the ground. + +Handicaps of various sorts wore the patience of commissioners, +engineers, and contractors. Lack of snow during one winter all +but stopped the work by cutting off the source of supplies. +Pioneer ailments, such as fever and ague, reaped great harvests, +incapacitated more than a thousand workmen at one time and for a +brief while stopped work completely. + +For the most part, however, work was carried on simultaneously on +all the three great links or sections into which the enterprise +was divided. Local contractors were given preference by the +commissioners, and three-fourths of the work was done by natives +of the State. Forward up the Mohawk by Schenectady and Utica to +Rome, thence bending southward to Syracuse, and from there by way +of Clyde, Lyons, and Palmyra, the canal made its way to the giant +viaduct over the Genesee River at Rochester. Keeping close to the +summit level on the dividing ridge between Lake Ontario streams +and the Valley of the Tonawanda, the line ran to Lockport, where +a series of locks placed the canal on the Lake Erie level, 365 +miles from and 564 feet above Albany. By June, 1823, the canal +was completed from Rochester to Schenectady; in October boats +passed into the tidewaters of the Hudson at Albany; and in the +autumn of 1825 the canal was formally opened by the passage of a +triumphant fleet from Lake Erie to New York Bay. Here two kegs of +lake water were emptied into the Atlantic, while the Governor of +the State of New York spoke these words: + +"This solemnity, at this place, on the first arrival of vessels +from Lake Erie, is intended to indicate and commemorate the +navigable communication, which has been accomplished between our +Mediterranean Seas and the Atlantic Ocean, in about eight years, +to the extent of more than four hundred and twenty-five miles, by +the wisdom, public spirit, and energy of the people of the State +of New York; and may the God of the Heavens and the Earth smile +most propitiously on this work, and render it subservient to the +best interests of the human race." + +Throughout these last seven years, the West was subconsciously +getting ready to meet the East halfway by improving and extending +her steamboat operations. Steamboats were first run on the Great +Lakes by enterprising Buffalo citizens who, in 1818, secured +rights from the Fulton-Livingston monopoly to build the +Walk-in-the-Water, the first of the great fleet of ships that now +whiten the inland seas of the United States. Regular lines of +steamboats were now formed on the Ohio to connect with the +Cumberland Road at Wheeling, although the steamboat monopoly +threatened to stifle the natural development of transportation on +Western rivers. + +The completion of the Erie Canal--coupled with the new +appropriation by Congress for extending the Cumberland Road from +the Ohio River to Missouri and the beginning of the Pennsylvania +and the Chesapeake and Ohio canals, reveal the importance of +these concluding days of the first quarter of the nineteenth +century in the annals of American transportation. Never since +that time have men doubted the ability of Americans to accomplish +the physical domination of their continent. With the conquest of +the Alleghanies and of the forests and swamps of the "Long House" +by pick and plough and scraper, and the mastery of the currents +of the Mississippi by the paddle wheel, the vast plains beyond +seemed smaller and the Rockies less formidable. Men now looked +forward confidently, with an optimist of these days, to the time +"when circulation and association between the Atlantic and +Pacific and the Mexican Gulf shall be as free and perfect as they +are at this moment in England" between the extremities of that +country. The vision of a nation closely linked by wellworn paths +of commerce was daily becoming clearer. What further westward +progress was soon to be made remains to be seen. + + + +CHAPTER IX. The Dawn Of The Iron Age + +Despite the superiority of the new iron age that quickly followed +the widespreading canal movement, there was a generous spirit and +a chivalry in the "good old days" of the stagecoach, the +Conestoga, and the lazy canal boat, which did not to an equal +degree pervade the iron age of the railroad. When machinery takes +the place of human brawn and patience, there is an indefinable +eclipse of human interest. Somehow, cogs and levers and +differentials do not have the same appeal as fingers and eyes and +muscles. The old days of coach and canal boat had a +picturesqueness and a comradeship of their own. In the turmoil +and confusion and odd mixing of every kind of humanity along the +lines of travel in the days of the hurtling coach-and-six, a +friendliness, a robust sympathy, a ready interest in the +successful and the unfortunate, a knowledge of how the other half +lives, and a familiarity with men as well as with mere places, +was common to all who took the road. As Thackeray so vividly +describes it: + +"The land rang yet with the tooting horns and rattling teams of +mail-coaches; a gay sight was the road in those days, before +steam-engines arose and flung its hostelry and chivalry over. To +travel in coaches, to know coachmen and guards, to be familiar +with inns along the road, to laugh with the jolly hostess in the +bar, to chuck the pretty chamber-maid under the chin, were the +delight of men who were young not very long ago. The road was an +institution, the ring was an institution. Men rallied around +them; and, not without a kind of conservatism expatiated on the +benefits with which they endowed the country, and the evils which +would occur when they should be no more decay of British spirit, +decay of manly pluck, ruin of the breed of horses, and so forth +and so forth. To give and take a black eye was not unusual nor +derogatory in a gentleman: to drive a stage-coach the enjoyment, +the emulation, of generous youth. Is there any young fellow of +the present time, who aspires to take the place of a stoker? One +sees occasionally in the country a dismal old drag with a lonely +driver. Where are you, charioteers? Where are you, O rattling +Quicksilver, O swift Defiance? You are passed by racers stronger +and swifter than you. Your lamps are out, and the music of your +horns has died away. + +Behind this change from the older and more picturesque days which +is thus lamented there lay potent economic forces and a strong +commercial rivalry between different parts of the country. The +Atlantic States were all rivals of each other, reaching out by +one bold stroke after another across forest, mountain, and river +to the gigantic and fruitful West. Step after step the inevitable +conquest went on. Foremost in time marched the sturdy +pack-horsemen, blazing the way for the heavier forces quietly +biding their time in the rear--the Conestogas, the steamboat, the +canal boat, and, last and greatest of them all, the locomotive. + +Through a long preliminary period the principal center of +interest was the Potomac Valley, towards whose strategic head +Virginia and Maryland, by river-improvement and road-building, +were directing their commercial routes in amiable rivalry for the +conquest of the Western trade. Suddenly out from the southern +region of the Middle Atlantic States went the Cumberland National +Road to the Ohio. New York instantly, in her zone, took up the +challenge and thrust her great Erie Canal across to the Great +Lakes. In rapid succession, Pennsylvania and Maryland and +Virginia, eager not to be outdone in winning the struggle for +Western trade, sent their canals into the Alleghanies toward the +Ohio. + +It soon developed, however, that Baltimore, both powerful and +ambitious, was seriously handicapped. In order to retain her +commanding position as the metropolis of Western trade she was +compelled to resort to a new and untried method of transportation +which marks an era in American history. + +It seems plain that the Southern rivals of New York City-- +Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Alexandria--had relied for a while +on the deterring effect of a host of critics who warned all men +that a canal of such proportions as the Erie was not practicable, +that no State could bear the financial drain which its +construction would involve, that theories which had proved +practical on a small scale would fail in so large an undertaking, +that the canal would be clogged by floods or frozen up for half +of each year, and that commerce would ignore artificial courses +and cling to natural channels. But the answer of the Empire State +to her rivals was the homely but triumphant cry "Low Bridge!"-- +the warning to passengers on the decks of canal boats as they +approached the numerous bridges which spanned the route. When +this cry passed into a byword it afforded positive proof that the +Erie Canal traffic was firmly established. The words rang in the +counting-houses of Philadelphia and out and along the Lancaster +and the Philadelphia-Pittsburgh turnpikes--"Low Bridge! Low +Bridge!" Pennsylvania had granted, it has been pointed out, that +her Southern neighbors might have their share of the Ohio Valley +trade but maintained that the splendid commerce of the Great +Lakes was her own peculiar heritage. Men of Baltimore who had +dominated the energetic policy of stone-road building in their +State heard this alarming challenge from the North. The echo ran +"Low Bridge!" in the poor decaying locks of the Potomac Company +where, according to the committee once appointed to examine that +enterprise, flood-tides "gave the only navigation that was +enjoyed." Were their efforts to keep the Chesapeake metropolis in +the lead to be set at naught? + +There could be but one answer to the challenge, and that was to +rival canal with canal. These more southerly States, confronted +by the towering ranges of the Alleghanies to the westward, showed +a courage which was superb, although, as time proved in the case +of Maryland, they might well have taken more counsel of their +fears. Pennsylvania acted swiftly. Though its western waterway-- +the roaring Juniata, which entered the Susquehanna near +Harrisburg--had a drop from head to mouth greater than that of +the entire New York canal, and, though the mountains of the +Altoona region loomed straight up nearly three thousand feet, +Pennsylvania overcame the lowlands by main strength and the +mountain peaks by strategy and was sending canal boats from +Philadelphia to Pittsburgh within nine years of the completion of +the Erie Canal. + +The eastern division of the Pennsylvania Canal, known as the +Union Canal, from Reading on the Schuylkill to Middletown on the +Susquehanna, was completed in 1827. The Juniata section was then +driven on up to Hollidaysburg. Beyond the mountain barrier, the +Conemaugh, the Kiskiminitas, and the Allegheny were followed to +Pittsburgh. But the greatest feat in the whole enterprise was the +conquest of the mountain section, from Hollidaysburg to +Johnstown. This was accomplished by the building of five inclined +planes on each slope, each plane averaging about 2300 feet in +length and 200 feet in height. Up or down these slopes and along +the intermediate level sections cars and giant cradles (built to +be lowered into locks where they could take an entire canal boat +as a load) were to be hauled or lowered by horsepower, and later, +by steam. After the plans had been drawn up by Sylvester Welch +and Moncure Robinson, the Pennsylvania Legislature authorized the +work in 1831, and traffic over this aerial route was begun in +March, 1834. In autumn of that year, the stanch boat Hit or Miss, +from the Lackawanna country, owned by Jesse Crisman and captained +by Major Williams, made the journey across the whole length of +the canal. It rested for a night on the Alleghany summit "like +Noah's Ark on Ararat," wrote Sherman Day, "descended the next +morning into the Valley of the Mississippi, and sailed for St. +Louis." + +Well did Robert Stephenson, the famous English engineer, say +that, in boldness of design and difficulty of execution, this +Pennsylvania scheme of mastering the Alleghanies could be +compared with no modern triumph short of the feats performed at +the Simplon Pass and Mont Cenis. Before long this line of +communication became a very popular thoroughfare; even Charles +Dickens "heartily enjoyed" it--in retrospect--and left +interesting impressions of his journey over it: + +"Even the running up, bare-necked, at five o'clock in the morning +from the tainted cabin to the dirty deck; scooping up the icy +water, plunging one's head into it, and drawing it out, all fresh +and glowing with the cold; was a good thing. The fast, brisk walk +upon the towing-path, between that time and breakfast, when every +vein and artery seemed to tingle with health; the exquisite +beauty of the opening day, when light came gleaming off from +everything; the lazy motion of the boat, when one lay idly on the +deck, looking through, rather than at, the deep blue sky; the +gliding on, at night, so noiselessly, past frowning hills, sullen +with dark trees, and sometimes angry in one red burning spot high +up, where unseen men lay crouching round a fire; the shining out +of the bright stars, undisturbed by noise of wheels or steam, or +any other sound than the liquid rippling of the water as the boat +went on; all these were pure delights."* + +* "American Notes" (Gadshill Edition), pp. 180-181. + + +Dickens also thus graphically depicts the unique experience of +being carried over the mountain peaks on the aerial railway: + +"There are ten inclined planes; five ascending and five +descending; the carriages are dragged up the former, and let +slowly down the latter, by means of stationary engines; the +comparatively level spaces between being traversed, sometimes by +horse, and sometimes by engine power, as the case demands. +Occasionally the rails are laid upon the extreme verge of a giddy +precipice; and looking from the carriage window, the traveler +gazes sheer down, without a stone or scrap of fence between, into +the mountain depths below. The journey is very carefully made, +however; only two carriages traveling together; and while proper +precautions are taken, is not to be dreaded for its dangers. + +"It was very pretty traveling thus, at a rapid pace along the +heights of the mountain in a keen wind, to look down into a +valley full of light and softness; catching glimpses, through the +tree-tops, of scattered cabins; children running to the doors; +dogs bursting out to bark, whom we could see without hearing; +terrified pigs scampering homewards; families sitting out in +their rude gardens; cows gazing upward with a stupid +indifference; men in their shirt-sleeves looking on at their +unfinished houses, planning out tomorrow's work; and we riding +onward, high abode them, like a whirl-wind. It was amusing, too, +when we had dined, and rattled down a steep pass, having no other +motive power than the weight of the carriages themselves, to see +the engine released, long after us, come buzzing down alone, like +a great insect, its back of green and gold so shining in the sun, +that if it had spread a pair of wings and soared away, no one +would have had occasion, as I fancied, for the least surprise. +But it stopped short of us in a very business-like manner when we +reached the canal; and, before we left the wharf, went panting up +this hill again, with the passengers who had waited our arrival +for the means of traversing the road by which we had come."* + +* Op. cit. + + +This Pennsylvania route was likewise famous because it included +the first tunnel in America; but with the advance of years, +tunnel, planes, and canal were supplanted by what was to become +in time the Pennsylvania Railroad, the pride of the State and one +of the great highways of the nation. + +In the year before Pennsylvania investigated her western water +route, a joint bill was introduced into the legislatures of the +Potomac Valley States, proposing a Potomac Canal Company which +should construct a Chesapeake and Ohio canal at the expense of +Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. The plan was of +vital moment to Alexandria and Georgetown on the Potomac, but +unless a lateral canal could be built to Baltimore, that city-- +which paid a third of Maryland's taxes--would be called on to +supply a great sum to benefit only her chief rivals. The bitter +struggle which now developed is one of the most significant in +commercial history because of its sequel. + +The conditions underlying this rivalry must not be lost sight of. +Baltimore had done more than any other Eastern city to ally +herself with the West and to obtain its trade. She had +instinctively responded to every move made by her rivals in the +great game. If Pennsylvania promoted a Lancaster Turnpike, +Baltimore threw out her superb Baltimore-Reisterstown boulevard, +though her northern road to Philadelphia remained the slough that +Brissot and Baily had found it. If New York projected an Erie +Canal, Baltimore successfully championed the building of a +Cumberland Road by a governmental godmother. So thoroughly and +quickly, indeed, did she link her system of stone roads to that +great artery, that even today many well-informed writers seem to +be under the impression that the Cumberland Road ran from the +Ohio to Washington and Baltimore. Now, with canals building to +the north of her and canals to the south of her, what of her +prestige and future? + +For the moment Baltimore compromised by agreeing to a Chesapeake +and Ohio canal which, by a lateral branch, should still lead to +her market square. Her scheme embraced a vision of conquest regal +in its sweep, beyond that of any rival, and comprehending two +ideas worthy of the most farseeing strategist and the most astute +politician. It called not only for the building of a transmontane +canal to the Ohio but also for a connecting canal from the Ohio +to the Great Lakes. Not only would the trade of the Northwest be +secured by this means--for this southerly route would not be +affected by winter frosts as would those of Pennsylvania and New +York--but the good godmother at Washington would be almost +certain to champion it and help to build it since the proposed +route was so thoroughly interstate in character. With the backing +of Maryland, Virginia, Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, and probably +several States bordering the Inland Lakes, government aid in the +undertaking seemed feasible and proper. + +Theoretically the daring scheme captured the admiration of all +who were to be benefited by it. At a great banquet at Washington, +late in 1823, the project was launched. Adams, Clay, and Calhoun +took the opportunity to ally themselves with it by robustly +declaring themselves in favor of widespread internal +improvements. Even the godmother smiled upon it for, following +Monroe's recommendation, Congress without hesitation voted thirty +thousand dollars for the preliminary survey from Washington to +Pittsburgh. Quickly the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company and the +connecting Maryland Canal Company were formed, and steps were +taken to have Ohio promote an Ohio and Lake Erie Company. + +As high as were the hopes awakened by this movement, just so deep +was the dejection and chagrin into which its advocates were +thrown upon receiving the report of the engineers who made the +preliminary survey. The estimated cost ran towards a quarter of a +billion, four times the capital stock of the company; and there +were not lacking those who pointed out that the Erie Canal had +cost more than double the original appropriation made for it. + +The situation was aggravated for Baltimore by the fact that +Maryland and Virginia were willing to take half a loaf if they +could not get a whole one: in other words, they were willing to +build the canal up the Potomac to Cumberland and stop there. +Baltimore, even if linked to this partial scheme, would lose her +water connection with the West, the one prized asset which the +project had held out, and her Potomac Valley rivals would, on +this contracted plan, be in a particularly advantageous position +to surpass her. But the last blow was yet to come. Engineers +reported that a lateral canal connecting the Potomac and +Chesapeake Bay was not feasible. It was consequently of little +moment whether the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal could be built +across the Alleghanies or not, for, even if it could have been +carried through the Great Plains or to the Pacific, Baltimore +was, for topographical reasons, out of the running. + +The men of Baltimore now gave one of the most striking +illustrations of spirit and pluck ever exhibited by the people of +any city. They refused to accept defeat. If engineering science +held a means of overcoming the natural disadvantages of their +position, they were determined to adopt that means, come what +would of hardship, difficulty, and expenditure. If roads and +canals would not serve the city on the Chesapeake, what of the +railroad on which so many experiments were being made in England? + +The idea of controlling the trade of the West by railroads was +not new. As early as February, 1825, certain astute +Pennsylvanians had advocated building a railroad to Pittsburgh +instead of a canal, and in a memorial to the Legislature they had +set forth the theory that a railroad could be built in one-third +of the time and could be operated with one-third of the number of +employees required by a canal, that it would never be frozen, and +that its cost of construction would be less. But these arguments +did not influence the majority, who felt that to follow the line +of least resistance and to do as others had done would involve +the least hazard. But Baltimore, with her back against the wall, +did not have the alternative of a canal. It was a leap into the +unknown for her or commercial stagnation. + +It is regrettable that, as Baltimore began to break this fresh +track, she should have had political as well as physical and +mechanical obstacles to overcome. The conquest of the natural +difficulties alone required superhuman effort and endurance. But +Baltimore had also to fight a miserable internecine warfare in +her own State, for Maryland immediately subscribed half a million +to the canal as well as to the newly formed Baltimore and Ohio +Railroad. In rival pageants, both companies broke ground on July +4, 1828, and the race to the Ohio was on. The canal company clung +doggedly to the idle belief that their enterprise was still of +continental proportions, since it would connect at Cumberland +with the Cumberland Road. This exaggerated estimate of the +importance of the undertaking shines out in the pompous words of +President Mercer, at the time when construction was begun: + +"There are moments in the progress of time, which are counters of +whole ages. There are events, the monuments of which, surviving +every other memorial of human existence, eternize the nation to +whose history they belong, after all other vestiges of its glory +have disappeared from the globe. At such a moment have we now +arrived." + +This oracular language lacks the simple but winning +straightforwardness of the words which Director Morris uttered on +the same day near Baltimore and which prove how distinctly +Western the new railway project was held to be: + +"We are about opening a channel through which the commerce of the +mighty country beyond the Allegheny must seek the ocean--we are +about affording facilities of intercourse between the East and +West, which will bind the one more closely to the other, beyond +the power of an increased population or sectional differences to +disunite." + +The difficulties which faced the Baltimore enthusiasts in their +task of keeping their city "on the map" would have daunted men of +less heroic mold. Every conceivable trial and test which nature +and machinery could seemingly devise was a part of their day's +work for twelve years struggles with grades, locomotives, rails, +cars. As Rumsey, Fitch, and Fulton in their experiments with +boats had floundered despondently with endless chains, oars, +paddles, duck's feet, so now Thomas and Brown in their efforts to +make the railroad effective wandered in a maze of difficulties +testing out such absurd and impossible ideas as cars propelled by +sails and cars operated by horse treadmills. By May, 1830, +however, cars on rails, running by "brigades" and drawn by +horses, were in operation in America. It was only in this year +that in England locomotives were used with any marked success on +the Liverpool and Manchester Railroad; yet in August of this year +Peter Cooper's engine, Tom Thumb, built in Baltimore in 1829, +traversed the twelve miles between that city and Ellicott's Mills +in seventy-two minutes. Steel springs came in 1832, together with +car wheels of cylindrical and conical section which made it +easier to turn curves. + +The railroad was just beginning to master its mechanical problems +when a new obstacle confronted it in the Potomac Valley. It could +not cross Maryland to the Cumberland mountain gateway unless it +could follow the Potomac. But its rival, the canal, had inherited +from the old Potomac Company the only earthly asset it possessed +of any value--the right of way up the Maryland shore. Five years +of quarreling now ensued, and the contest, though it may not have +seriously delayed either enterprise, aroused much bitterness and +involved the usual train of lawsuits and injunctions. + +In 1833 the canal company yielded the railroad a right of way +through the Point of Rocks--the Potomac chasm through the Blue +Ridge wall, just below Harper's Ferry on condition that the +railroad should not build beyond Harper's Ferry until the canal +was completed to Cumberland. But probably nothing but the +financial helplessness of the canal company could have brought a +solution satisfactory to all concerned. A settlement of the long +quarrel by compromise was the price paid for state aid, and, in +1835 Maryland subsidized to a large degree both canal and +railroad by her famous eight million dollar bill. The railroad +received three millions from the State, and the city of Baltimore +was permitted to subscribe an equal amount of stock. With this +support and a free right of way, the railroad pushed on up the +Potomac. Though delayed by the financial disasters of 1837, in +1842 it was at Hancock; in 1851, at Piedmont; in 1852, at +Fairmont; and the next year it reached the Ohio River at +Wheeling. + +Spurred by the enterprise shown by these Southerners, +Pennsylvania and New York now took immediate steps to parallel +their own canals by railways. The line of the Union Canal in +Pennsylvania was paralleled by a railroad in 1834, the same year +in which the Allegheny Portage Railway was constructed. New York +lines reached Buffalo in 1842. The Pennsylvania Railroad, which +was incorporated in 1846, was completed to Pittsburgh in 1854. + +It is thus obvious that, with the completion of these lines and +the building of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway through the +"Sapphire Country" of the Southern Alleghanies, the new railway +era pursued its paths of conquest through the very same mountain +passageways that had been previously used by packhorseman and +Conestoga and, in three instances out of four, by the canal boat. +If one motors today in the Juniata Valley in Pennsylvania, he can +survey near Newport a scene full of meaning to one who has a +taste for history. Traveling along the heights on the highway +that was once the red man's trail, he can enjoy a wide prospect +from this vantage point. Deep in the valley glitters the little +Juniata, route of the ancient canoe and the blundering barge. +Beside it lies a long lagoon, an abandoned portion of the +Pennsylvania Canal. Beside this again, as though some monster had +passed leaving a track clear of trees, stretches the right of way +of the first "Pennsylvania," and a little nearer swings the +magnificent double-tracked bed of the railroad of today. Between +these lines of travel may be read the history of the past two +centuries of American commerce, for the vital factors in the +development of the nation have been the evolution of +transportation and its manifold and far-reaching influence upon +the expansion of population and commerce and upon the rise of new +industries. + +Thus all the rivals in the great contest for the trade of the +West speedily reached their goal, New York with the Erie and the +New York Central, and Pennsylvania and Maryland with the +Pennsylvania and the Baltimore and Ohio. But what of this West +for whose commerce the great struggle was being waged? When the +railheads of these eager Atlantic promoters were laid down at +Buffalo on Lake Erie and at Pittsburgh on the Ohio they looked +out on a new world. The centaurs of the Western rivers were no +less things of the far past than the tinkling bells borne by the +ancient ponies of the pack-horse trade. The sons of this new West +had their eyes riveted on the commerce of the Great Lakes and the +Mississippi Valley. With road, canal, steamboat, and railway, +they were renewing the struggle of their fathers but for prizes +greater than their fathers ever knew. + +New York again proved the favored State. Her Mohawk pathway gave +her easiest access to the West and here, at her back door on the +Niagara frontier, lay her path by way of the Great Lakes to the +North and the Northwest. + + + +CHAPTER X. cv +As one stands in imagination at the early railheads of the West-- +on the Ohio River at the end of the Cumberland Road, or at +Buffalo, the terminus of the Erie Canal--the vision which +Washington caught breaks upon him and the dream of a nation made +strong by trans-Alleghany routes of commerce. Link by link the +great interior is being connected with the sea. Behind him all +lines of transportation lead eastward to the cities of the coast. +Before him lies the giant valley where the Father of Waters +throws out his two splendid arms, the Ohio and the Missouri, one +reaching to the Alleghanies and the other to the Rockies. +Northward, at the end of the Erie Canal, lies the empire of the +Great Lakes, inland seas that wash the shores of a Northland +having a coastline longer than that of the Atlantic from Maine to +Mexico. + +Ships and conditions of navigation were much the same on the +lakes as on the ocean. It was therefore possible to imagine the +rise of a coasting trade between Illinois and Ohio as profitable +as that between Massachusetts and New York. Yet the older +colonies on the Atlantic had an outlet for trade, whereas the +Great Lakes had none for craft of any size, since their northern +shores lay beyond the international boundary. If there had been +danger from Spain in the Southwest, what of the danger of +Canada's control of the St. Lawrence River and of the trade of +the Northwest through the Welland Canal which was to join Lake +Ontario to Lake Erie? But in those days the possibility of +Canadian rivalry was not treated with great seriousness, and many +men failed to see that the West was soon to contain a very large +population. The editor of a newspaper at Munroe, New York, +commenting in 1827 on a proposed canal to connect Lake Erie with +the Mississippi by way of the Ohio, believed that the rate of +Western development was such that this waterway could be expected +only "some hundred of years hence." Even so gifted a man as Henry +Clay spoke of the proposed canal between Lake Michigan and Lake +Superior in 1825 as one relating to a region beyond the pale of +civilization "if not in the moon." Yet in twenty-five years +Michigan, which had numbered one thousand inhabitants in 1812, +had gained two hundredfold, and Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois had +their hundreds of thousands who were clamoring for ways and means +of sending their surplus products to market. + +Early in the century representatives of the Fulton-Livingston +monopoly were at the shores of Lake Ontario to prove that their +steamboats could master the waves of the inland sea and serve +commerce there as well as in tidewater rivers. True, the luckless +Ontario, built in 1817 at Sackett's Harbor, proved unseaworthy +when the waves lifted the shaft of her paddle wheels off their +bearings and caused them to demolish the wooden covering built +for their protection; but the Walk-in-the-Water, completed at +Black Rock (Buffalo) in August, 1818, plied successfully as far +as Mackinac Island until her destruction three years later. Her +engines were then inherited by the Superior of stronger build, +and with the launching of such boats as the Niagara, the Henry +Clay, and the Pioneer, the fleet builders of Buffalo, Cleveland, +and Detroit proved themselves not unworthy fellow-countrymen of +the old seafarers of Salem and Philadelphia. + +But how were cargoes to reach these vessels from the vast regions +beyond the Great Lakes? Those thousands of settlers who poured +into the Northwest had cargoes ready to fill every manner of +craft in so short a space of time that it seems as if they must +have resorted to arts of necromancy. It was not magic, however, +but perseverance that had triumphed. The story of the creating of +the main lakeward-reaching canals is long and involved. A period +of agitation and campaigning preceded every such undertaking; and +when construction was once begun, financial woes usually brought +disappointing delays. When a canal was completed after many +vicissitudes and doubts, traffic overwhelmed every method +provided to handle it: locks proved altogether too small; boats +were inadequate; wharfs became congested; blockades which +occurred at locks entailed long delay. In the end only lines and +double lines of steel rails could solve the problem of rapid and +adequate transportation, but the story of the railroad builders +is told elsewhere.* + +* See "The Railroad Builders," by John Moody (in "The Chronicles +of America"). + + +Ohio and Illinois caught the canal fever even before the Erie +Canal was completed, and the Ohio Canal and the Illinois-Michigan +Canal saw preliminary surveying done in 1822 and 1824 +respectively. Ohio particularly had cause to seek a northern +outlet to Eastern markets by way of Lake Erie. The valleys of the +Muskingum, Scioto, and Miami rivers were producing wheat in large +quantities as early as 1802, when Ohio was admitted to the Union. +Flour which brought $3.50 a barrel in Cincinnati was worth $8 in +New York. There were difficulties in the way of transportation. +Sometimes ice prevented produce and merchandise from descending +the Ohio to Cincinnati. At other times merchants of that city had +as many as a hundred thousand barrels awaiting a rise in the +river which would make it possible for boats to go over the falls +at Louisville. As these conditions involved a delay which often +seemed intolerable, the project to build canals to Lake Erie met +with generous acclaim. A northward route, though it might be +blocked by ice for a few months each winter, had an additional +value in the eyes of numerous merchants whose wheat, sent in bulk +to New Orleans, had soured either in the long delay at Louisville +or in the semi-tropical heat of the Southern port. + +The Ohio Legislature in 1822 authorized the survey of all +possible routes for canals which would give Ohio an outlet for +its produce on Lake Erie. The three wheat zones which have been +mentioned were favored in the proposed construction of two canals +which, together, should satisfy the need of increased +transportation: the Ohio Canal to connect Portsmouth on the Ohio +River with Cleveland on Lake Erie and to traverse the richest +parts of the Scioto and Muskingum valleys, and to the west the +Miami Canal to pierce the fruitful Miami and Maumee valleys and +join Cincinnati with Toledo. De Witt Clinton, the presiding +genius of the Erie Canal, was invited to Ohio to play godfather +to these northward arteries which should ultimately swell the +profits of the commission merchants of New York City, and amid +the cheers of thousands he lifted the first spadefuls of earth in +each undertaking. + +The Ohio Canal, which was opened in 1833, had a marked effect +upon the commerce of Lake Erie. Before that date the largest +amount of wheat obtained from Cleveland by a Buffalo firm had +been a thousand bushels; but in the first year of its operation +the Ohio Canal brought to the village of Cleveland over a quarter +of a million bushels of wheat, fifty thousand barrels of flour, +and over a million pounds of butter and lard. In return, the +markets of the world sent into Ohio by canal in this same year +thirty thousand barrels of salt and above five million pounds of +general merchandise. + +Ever since the time when the Erie Canal was begun, Canadian +statesmen had been alive to the strong bid New York was making +for the trade of the Great Lakes. Their answer to the Erie Canal +was the Welland Canal, built between 1824 and 1832 and connecting +Lake Erie with Lake Ontario by a series of twenty-seven locks +with a drop of three hundred feet in twenty-six miles. This +undertaking prepared the way for the subsequent opening of the +St. Lawrence canal system (183 miles) and of the Rideau system by +way of the Ottawa River (246 miles). There was thus provided an +ocean outlet to the north, although it was not until 1856 that an +American vessel reached London by way of the St. Lawrence. + +With the Hudson and the St. Lawrence in the East thus competing +for the trade of the Great Lakes, it is not surprising that the +call of the Mississippi for improved highways was presently +heard. From the period of the War of 1812 onward the position of +the Mississippi River in relation to Lake Michigan was often +referred to as holding possibilities of great importance in the +development of Western commerce. Already the old portage-path +links between the Fox and Wisconsin and the Chicago and Illinois +rivers had been worn deep by the fur traders of many generations, +and with the dawning of the new era enthusiasts of Illinois were +pointing out the strategic position of the latter route for a +great trade between Lake Michigan and the Gulf of Mexico. Thus +the wave of enthusiasm for canal construction that had swept New +York and Ohio now reached Indiana and Illinois. Indian ownership +of land in the latter State for a moment seemed to block the +promotion of the proposed Illinois and Michigan Canal, but a +handsome grant of a quarter of a million acres by the Federal +Government in 1827 came as a signal recognition of the growing +importance of the Northwest; and an appropriation for the +lighting and improving of the harbor of the little village of +Chicago was hailed by ardent promoters as sure proof that the +wedding of Lake Michigan and the Mississippi was but a matter of +months. + +All the difficulties encountered by the advocates of earlier +works of this character, in the valleys of the Potomac, the +Susquehanna, and the Mohawk, were the portion of these dogged +promoters of Illinois. Here, as elsewhere, there were rival +routes and methods of construction, opposition of jealous +sections not immediately benefited, estimates which had to be +reconsidered and augmented, and so on. The land grants pledged to +pay the bonds were at first of small value, and their advance in +price depended on the success of the canal itself, which could +not be built unless the State underwrote the whole enterprise--if +the lands were not worth the bonds. Thus the argument ran in a +circle, and no one could foresee the splendid traffic and +receipts from tolls that would result from the completed canal. + +The commissioners in charge of the project performed one +interesting service in these early days by putting Chicago on the +map; but the two terminals, Ottawa on the Illinois and Chicago on +Lake Michigan--both plotted in 1830--were very largely figures of +speech at that time. The day of miracles was at hand, however, +for the little town of one hundred people at the foot of Lake +Michigan. The purchase of the lands of the Potawatomies, the +Black Hawk War in 1832, which brought steamboats to Chicago for +the first time, and the decision of Illinois in 1836 to pledge +her good name in favor of the Illinois and Michigan Canal made +Chicago a city of four thousand people by the panic year of 1837. +So absorbed were these Chicago folk in the building of their +canal and in wresting from their lake firm foothold for a city +(reclaiming four hundred feet of lake bed in two years) that the +panic affected their town less than it did many a rival. Although +the canal enterprise came to an ominous pause in 1842, after the +expenditure of five millions, the pledge of the State stood the +enterprise in good stead. Local financiers, together with New +York and Boston promoters, advanced about a quarter of a million, +while French and English bankers, notably Baring Brothers, +contributed about three-quarters of a million. With this +assistance the work was carried to a successful ending. On April +10,1848, the first boat passed over the ninety-mile route from +Chicago to Ottawa, and the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Basin +were united by this Erie Canal of the West. Though its days of +greatest value were soon over, no one can exaggerate the +importance of this waterway in the growth and prosperity of +Chicago between 1848 and 1860. By 1857 Chicago was sending north +and south annually by boat over twenty million bushels of wheat +and corn. + +The awakening of the lands behind Lake Erie, Lake Huron, and Lake +Michigan brought forth innumerable demands for roads, canals, and +railways to the ports of Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, +Milwaukee, and Chicago. There were actually hundreds of these +enterprises undertaken. The development of the land behind Lake +Superior was particularly spectacular and important, not only +because of its general effect on the industrial world but also +because out of it came the St. Mary's River Ship Canal. Nowhere +in the zone of the Great Lakes has any region produced such +unexpected changes in American industrial and commercial life as +did the region of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota contributory +to Lake Superior. If, as the story goes, Benjamin Franklin said, +when he drew at Paris the international boundary line through +Lake Superior, that this was his greatest service to America, he +did not exaggerate. The line running north of Isle Royale and +thence to the Lake of the Woods gave the United States the lion's +share of that great inland seaboard and the inestimably rich +deposits of copper and iron that have revolutionized American +industry. + +>From earliest days rumors of deposits of bright copper in the +land behind Lake Superior had been reported by Indians to fur +traders who in turn had passed the story on to fur company agents +and thus to the outside world. As a result of her "Toledo War"-- +as her boundary dispute was called--Michigan had reluctantly +accepted the northern peninsula lying between Lake Superior and +Lake Michigan in lieu of the strip of Ohio territory which she +believed to be hers. If Michigan felt that she had lost by this +compromise, her state geologist, Douglass Houghton, soon found a +splendid jewel in the toad's head of defeat, for the report of +his survey of 1840 confirmed the story of the existence of large +copper deposits, and the first rush to El Dorado followed. Amid +the usual chaos, conflict, and failure incident to such +stampedes, order and system at last triumphed and the richest +copper mines of the New World were uncovered. Then came the +unexpected finding of the mammoth iron-ore beds by William A. +Burt, inventor of the solar compass. The circumstance of this +discovery is of such national importance that a contemporary +description by a member of Burt's party which was surveying a +line near Marquette, Michigan, is worth quoting: + +"I shall never forget the excitement of the old gentleman when +viewing the changes of the variation. He kept changing his +position to take observations, all the time saying "How would +they survey this country without my compass" and "What could be +done here without my compass." At length the compassman called +for us all to "come and see a variation which will beat them +all." As we looked at the instrument, to our astonishment, the +north end of the needle was traversing a few degrees to the south +west. Mr. Burt called out "Boys, look around and see what you can +find." We all left the line, some going to the east, some going +to the west, and all of us returned with specimens of iron ore." + +But it was not enough that this Aladdin's Land in the Northwest +should revolutionize the copper and steel industry of the world, +for as soon as the soil took to its bosom an enterprising race of +agriculturists it bade fair to play as equally important a part +in the grain industry. Copper and iron no less came out of the +blue of this cold northern region than did the mighty crops of +Minnesota wheat, corn, and oats. In the decade preceding the +Civil War the export of wheat from Lake Superior rose from +fourteen hundred bushels to three and a quarter millions of +bushels, while in 1859 nearly seven million bushels of corn and +oats were sent out to the world. + +The commerce of Lake Superior could not await the building of a +canal around the foaming rapids of the St. Mary's River, its one +outlet to the lower lakes. In the decade following the discovery +of copper and iron more than a dozen ships, one even of as much +as five hundred tons, were hauled bodily across the portage +between Lake Huron and Lake Superior. The last link of navigation +in the Great Lake system, however, was made possible in 1852 by a +grant by Congress of 750,000 acres of Michigan land. Although +only a mile in length, the work proved to be of unusual +difficulty since the pathway for the canal had to be blasted +throughout practically its whole length out of solid rock. It was +completed in 1855, and the princely empire "in the moon" was in a +position to make its terms with the coal fields of Pennsylvania +and to usher in the iron age of transportation and construction. + +It is only in the light of this awakening of the lands around the +Great Lakes that one can see plainly the task which fell to the +lot of the successors of the frail Walk-in-the-Water and sturdier +Superior of the early twenties. For the first fifteen years the +steamboat found its mission in carrying the thousands of +emigrants pouring into the Northwest, a heterogeneous multitude +which made the Lake Erie boats seem, to one traveler at least, +filled with "men, women and children, beds, cradles, kettles, and +frying pans." These craft were built after the pattern of the +Walk-in-the-Water--side-wheelers with a steering wheel at the +stern. No cabins or staterooms on deck were provided; and amid +such freight as the thriving young towns provided were to be +found the twenty or thirty cords of wood which the engines +required as fuel. + +The second period of steamboating began with the opening of the +Ohio Canal and the Welland Canal about 1834 and extended another +fifteen years to the middle of the century, when it underwent a +transformation owing to the great development of Chicago, the +completion of the Illinois and Michigan and St. Mary's canals, +and the new railways. This second period was marked by the +building of such steamers as the Michigan, the Great Western, and +the Illinois. These were the first boats with an upper cabin and +were looked upon with marked suspicion by those best acquainted +with the severe storms upon the Great Lakes. The Michigan, of 475 +tons, built by Oliver Newberry at Detroit in 1833, is said to +have been the first ship of this type. These boats proved their +seaworthiness and caused a revolution in the construction of lake +craft. Later in this period freight transportation saw an equally +radical advance with the building of the first propellers. The +sloop-rigged Vandalia, built by Sylvester Doolittle at Oswego on +Lake Ontario in 1842, was the first of the propeller type and +was soon followed by the Hercules, the Samson, and the Detroit. + +One very great handicap in lake commerce up to this time had been +the lack of harbors. Detroit alone of the lake ports was +distinctly favored in this respect. The harbors of Buffalo, +Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Chicago were improved slowly, but it +was not until the great Chicago convention of 1846 that the +nation's attention was focused on the needs of Western rivers and +harbors, and there dawned a new era of lighthouses and buoys, +breakwaters and piers, and dredged channels. Another handicap to +the volume of business which the lake boats handled in the period +just previous to the Civil War was the inadequacy of the feeders, +the roads, riverways, and canals. The Erie Canal was declared too +small almost before the cries of its virulent opponents had died +away, and the enlargement of its locks was soon undertaken. The +same thing proved true of the Ohio and Illinois canals. The +failure of the Welland Canal was similarly a very serious +handicap. Although its locks were enlarged in 1841, it was found +by 1850 that despite the improvements it could not admit more +than about one-third of the grain-carrying boats, while only one +in four of the new propellers could enter its locks. + +As late as the middle forties men did not in the least grasp the +commercial situation which now confronted the Northwest nor could +they foresee that the land behind the Great Lakes was about to +deluge the country with an output of produce and manufactures of +which the roads, canals, ships, wharfs, or warehouses in +existence could handle not a tenth part. They did not yet +understand that--this trade was to become national. It was well +on in the forties before the Galena lead mines, for instance, +were given up as the terminal of the Illinois Central Railroad +and the main line was directed to Chicago. The middle of the +century was reached before the Lake Shore was considered at +Cleveland or Chicago as important commercially as the neighboring +portage paths which by the Ordinance of 1787 had been created +"common highways forever free." The idea of joining Buffalo, +Cleveland, and Chicago with the interior--an idea as old as the +Indian trails thither--still dominated men's minds even in the +early part of the railroad epoch. Chicago desired to be connected +with Cairo, the ice-free port on the Mississippi; and Cleveland +was eager to be joined to Columbus and Cincinnati. The +enthusiastic railway promoters of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois +drew splendid plans for uniting all parts of those States by +railway lines; but the strategic position of the cities on the +continental alignment from New York to the Pacific by way of +South Pass never came within their horizon. The ten million +dollar Illinois scheme did not even contemplate a railway running +eastward from Chicago. But the future of the commerce of the +Great Lakes depended absolutely upon this development. There was +no hope of any canals being able to handle the traffic of the +mighty empire which was now awake and fully conscious of its +power. The solution lay in joining the cities to each other and +to the Atlantic world markets by iron rails running east and +west. + +This railroad expansion is what makes the last decade before the +Civil War such a remarkable series of years in the West. In the +half decade, 1850-55, the Baltimore and Ohio and Pennsylvania +railways reached the Ohio River; the links of the present Lake +Shore system between Buffalo and Chicago by way of Cleveland and +Toledo were constructed; and the Pennsylvania line was put +through from Pittsburgh to Chicago. The place of the lake country +on the continental alignment and the imperial situation of +Chicago, and later of Omaha, came to be realized. The new view +transformed men's conceptions of every port on the Great Lakes in +the chain from Buffalo to Chicago. At a dozen southern ports on +Ontario, Erie, Huron, and Michigan, commerce now touched the +swiftest and most economical means of transcontinental traffic. +This development culminated in the miracle we call Chicago. In +1847 not a line of rail entered the town; its population then +numbered about twenty-five thousand and its property valuation +approximated seven millions. Ten years later four thousand miles +of railway connected with all four points of the compass a city +of nearly one hundred thousand people, and property valuation had +increased five hundred per cent. The growth of Buffalo, +Cleveland, and Detroit during this period was also phenomenal. + +When the crisis of 1861 came, the service performed by the +Walk-in-the-Water and her successors was seen in its true light. +The Great Lakes as avenues of migration had played a providential +part in filling a northern empire with a proud and loyal race; +from farm and factory regiment on regiment marched forth to fight +for unity; from fields without number produce to sustain a nation +on trial poured forth in abundance; enormous quantities of iron +were at hand for the casting of cannon and cannon balls; and, +finally, pathways of water and steel were in readiness in the +nick of time to carry these resources where they would count +tremendously in the four long years of conflict. + + + +CHAPTER XI. The Steamboat And The West + +Two great fields of service lay open before those who were to +achieve by steam the mastery of the inland waterways. On the one +hand the cotton kingdom of the South, now demanding great stores +of manufactured goods, produce, and machinery, was waiting to be +linked to the valleys and industrial cities of the Middle West; +and, on the other hand, along those great eastward and westward +rivers, the Ohio and Missouri, lay the commerce of the prairies +and the Great Plains. But before the steamboat could serve the +inland commerce of the West, it had to be constructed on new +lines. The craft brought from the seaboard were of too deep draft +to navigate shallow streams which ran through this more level +country. + +The task of constructing a great inland river marine to play the +dual role of serving the cotton empire and of extending American +migration and commerce into the trans-Mississippi region was +solved by Henry Shreve when he built the Washington at Wheeling +in 1816. Shreve was the American John Hawkins. Hawkins, that +sturdy old admiral of Elizabethan days, took the English ship of +his time, trimmed down the high stern and poop decks, and cut +away the deep-lying prow and stern, after the fashion of our +modern cup defenders, and in a day gave England the key to sea +mastery in the shape of a new ship that would take sail and +answer her rudder beyond anything the maritime world until then +had known. Shreve, like Hawkins, flagrantly ignoring the +conventional wisdom of his day and craft, built the Washington to +sail on the water instead of in it, doing away altogether with a +hold and supplying an upper deck in its place. + +To few inventors, indeed, does America owe a greater debt of +thanks than to this Ohio River shipbuilder. A dozen men were on +the way to produce a Clermont had Fulton failed; but Shreve had +no rival in his plan to build a flat-bottomed steamboat. The +remarkable success of his design is attested by the fact that in +two decades the boats built on his model outweighed in tonnage +all the ships of the Atlantic seaboard and Great Lakes combined. +Immediately the Ohio became in effect the western extension of +the great national highway and opened an easy pathway for +immigration to the eastern as well as the western lands of the +Mississippi Basin. The story goes that an old phlegmatic negro +watched the approach of one of the first steamboats to the wharf +of a Southern city. Like many others, he had doubted the +practicability of this new-fangled Yankee notion. The boat, +however, came and went with ease and dispatch. The old negro was +converted. "By golly," he shouted, waving his cap, "the +Mississippi's got her Massa now." + +The Mississippi had indeed found her master, but only by slow +degrees and after intervals of protracted rebellion did she +succumb to that master. Luckily, however, there was at hand an +army of unusual men--the "alligator-horses" of the flatboat era-- +upon whom the steamboat could call with supreme confidence that +they would not fail. Theodore Roosevelt has said of the Western +pioneers that they "had to be good and strong--especially, +strong." If these men upon whom the success of the steamboat +depended were not always good, they were beyond any doubt +behemoths in strength. + +The task before them, however, was a task worthy of Hercules. The +great river boldly fought its conquerors, asking and giving no +quarter, biding its time when opposed by the brave but crushing +the fearful on sight. In one respect alone could it be depended +upon--it was never the same. It is said to bring down annually +four hundred million tons of mud, but its eccentricity in +deciding where to wash away and where to deposit its load is +still the despair of river pilots. The great river could destroy +islands and build new ones overnight with the nonchalance of a +child playing with clay. It could shorten itself thirty miles at +a single lunge. It could move inland towns to its banks and leave +river towns far inland. It transferred the town of Delta, for +instance, from three miles below Vicksburg to two miles above it. +Men have gone to sleep in one State and have wakened unharmed in +another, because the river decided in the night to alter the +boundary line. In this way the village of Hard Times, the +original site of which was in Louisiana, found itself eventually +in Mississippi. Were La Salle to descend the river today by the +route he traversed two and a half centuries ago, he would follow +dry ground most of the way, for the river now lies practically +everywhere either to the right or left of its old course. + +If the Mississippi could perform such miracles upon its whole +course without a show of effort, what could it not do with the +little winding canal through its center called by pilots the +"channel"? The flatboatmen had laboriously acquired the art of +piloting the commerce of the West through this mazy, shifting +channel, but as steamboats developed in size and power the man at +the wheel had to become almost a superman. He needed to be. He +must know the stage of water anywhere by a glance at the river +banks. He must guess correctly the amount of "fill" at the head +of dangerous chutes, detect bars "working down," distinguish +between bars and "sand reefs" or "wind reefs" or "bluff reefs" by +night as well as by day, avoid the" breaks" in the "graveyard" +behind Goose Island, navigate the Hat Island chutes, or find the +"middle crossing" at Hole-in-the-Wall. He must navigate his craft +in fogs, in storms, in the face of treacherous winds, on black +nights, with thousands of dollars' worth of cargo and hundreds of +lives at stake. + +As the golfer knows each knoll and tuft of grass on his home +links, so the pilot learned his river by heart. Said one of these +pilots to an apprentice: + +"You see this has got to be learned .... A clear starlight night +throws such heavy shadows that if you didn't know the shape of a +shore perfectly you would claw away from every bunch of timber +because you would take the black shadow of it for a solid cape; +and you see you would be getting scared to death every fifteen +minutes by the watch. You would be fifty yards from shore all the +time when you ought to be within fifty feet of it. You can't see +a snag in one of those shadows, but you know exactly where it is, +and the shape of the river tells you when you are coming to it. +Then there's your pitch-dark night; the river is a very different +shape on a pitch-dark night from what it is on a starlight night. +All shores seem to be straight lines, then, and mighty dim ones, +too; and you'd run them for straight lines only you know better. +You boldly drive your boat right into what seems to be a solid, +straight wall (you knowing very well that in reality there is a +curve there) and that wall falls back and makes way for you. Then +there's your gray mist. You take a night when there's one of +these grisly, drizzly, gray mists, and then there isn't any +particular shape to a shore. A gray mist would tangle the head of +the oldest man that ever lived. Well, then, different kinds of +MOONLIGHT change the shape of the river in different ways.... +You only learn the shape of the river; and you learn it with such +absolute certainty that you can always steer by the shape that's +IN YOUR HEAD and never mind the one that's before your eyes."* + +* Mark Twain, "Life on the Mississippi," pp. 103-04. + + +No wonder that the two hundred miles of the Mississippi from the +mouth of the Ohio to St. Louis in time contained the wrecks of +two hundred steamboats. + +The river trade reached its zenith between 1840 and 1860, in the +two decades previous to the Civil War, that period before the +railroads began to parallel the great rivers. It was a time which +saw the rise of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, and +Arkansas, and which witnessed the spread of the cotton kingdom +into the Southwest. The story of King Cotton's conquest of the +Mississippi South is best told in statistics. In 1811, the year +of the first voyage which the New Orleans made down the Ohio +River, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Mississippi exported five +million pounds of cotton. In 1834 these same States exported +almost two hundred million pounds of cotton. To take care of this +crop and to supply the cotton country, which was becoming +wealthy, with the necessaries and luxuries of life, more and more +steamboats were needed. The great shipyards situated, because of +the proximity of suitable timber, at St. Louis, Cincinnati, and +Louisville became busy hives, not since paralleled except by such +centers of shipbuilding as Hog Island in 1917-18, during the time +of the Great War. The steamboat tonnage of the Mississippi Valley +(exclusive of New Orleans) in the hustling forties exceeded that +of the Atlantic ports (exclusive of New York City) by 15,000 +tons. The steamboat tonnage of New Orleans alone in 1843 was more +than double that of New York City. + +Those who, if the old story is true, ran in fear to the hills +when the little New Orleans went puffing down the Ohio, in 1811, +would have been doubly amazed at the splendid development in the +art of boat building, could they have seen the stately Sultana or +Southern Belle of the fifties sweep swiftly by. After a period of +gaudy ornamentation (1830-40) steamboat architecture settled +down, as has that of Pullman cars today, to sane and practical +lines, and the boats gained in length and strength, though they +contained less weight of timber. The value of one of the greater +boats of this era would be about fifty thousand dollars. When +Captain Bixby made his celebrated night crossing at Hat Island a +quarter of a million dollars in ship and cargo would have been +the price of an error in judgment, according to Mark Twain,* a +good authority. + +*Op. cit., p. 101 + + +The Yorktown, built in 1844 for the Ohio-Mississippi trade, was +typical of that epoch of inland commerce. Her length was 182 +feet, breadth of beam 31 feet, and the diameter of wheels 28 +feet. Though her hold was 8 feet in depth, yet she drew but 4 +feet of water light and barely over 8 feet when loaded with 500 +tons of freight. She had 4 boilers, 30 feet long and 42 inches in +diameter, double engines, and two 24-inch cylinders. The +stateroom cabin had come in with Captain Isaiah Sellers's Prairie +in 1836, the first boat with such luxuries ever seen in St. +Louis, according to Sellers. The Yorktown had 40 private cabins. +It is interesting to compare the Yorktown with The Queen of the +West, the giant British steamer built for the Falmouth-Calcutta +trade in 1839. The Queen of the West had a length of 310 feet, a +beam of 31 feet, a draft of 15 feet, and 16 private cabins. The +building of this great vessel led a writer in the New York +American to say: "It would really seem that we as a nation had no +interest in this new application of steam power, or no energy to +appropriate it to our own use." The statement--written in a day +when the Mississippi steamboat tonnage exceeded that of the +entire British Empire--is one of the best examples of provincial +ignorance concerning the West. + +On these steamboats there was a multiplicity of arrangements and +equipments for preventing and for fighting fire. One of the +innovations on the new boats in this particular was the +substitution of wire for the combustible rope formerly used to +control the tiller, so that even in time of fire the pilot could +"hold her nozzle agin' the bank." Much of the great loss of life +in steamboat fires had been due to the tiller-ropes being burned +and the boats becoming unmanageable. + +The arrival of the railroad at the head of the Ohio River in the +early fifties brought the East into an immediate touch with the +Mississippi Valley unknown before. But however bold railway +engineers were in the face of the ragged ranges of the +Alleghanies, they could not then outguess the tricks of the Ohio, +the Mississippi, or the Missouri, and railway promoters could not +afford to take chances on having their stations and tracks +unexpectedly isolated, if not actually carried away, by swirling, +yellow floods. The Mississippi, too, had been known at times to +achieve a width of seventy miles, and tributaries have overflowed +their banks to a proportionate extent. It was several decades ere +the Ohio was paralleled by a railway, and the Mississippi for +long distances even today has not yet heard the shrill cry of the +locomotive. So the steamboat entered its heyday and encountered +little competition. Until the Civil War the rivers of the West +remained the great arteries of trade, carrying grain and +merchandise of every description southward and bringing back +cotton, rice, and sugar. + +The rivalries of the great lines of packets established in these +days of the steamboat, however, equaled anything ever known in +railway competition, and, in the matter of fast time, became more +spectacular than anything of its kind in any line of +transportation in our country. With flags flying, boilers heated +white with abundance of pine and resin, and bold and skillful +pilots at the steering wheels, no sport of kings ever aroused the +enthusiasm of hundreds of thousands to such a pitch as did many +of the old-time races northward from New Orleans. + +The J. M. White and her performances stand out conspicuously in +the annals of the river. Her builder, familiarly known to a +generation of rivermen as Billy King, deserves to rank with Henry +Shreve. Commissioned in 1844 to build the J. M. White for J. M. +Converse of St. Louis, with funds supplied by Robert Chouteau of +that city, King proceeded to put into effect the knowledge which +he had derived from a close study of the swells made by +steamboats when under way. When the boat was being built in the +famous shipyards at Elizabeth, on the Monongahela, the wheel +beams were set twenty feet farther back than was customary. +Converse was struck with this unheard-of radicalism in design, +and balked; King was a man given to few words; he was resolved to +throw convention to the winds and trust his judgment; he refused +to build the boat on other lines. Converse felt compelled to let +Chouteau pass on the question; in time the laconic answer came: +"Let King put the beams where he pleases." + +Thus the craft which Converse thought a monstrosity became known +far and wide for both its design and its speed. In 1844 the J. M. +White made the record of three days, twenty-three hours, and nine +minutes between New Orleans and St. Louis.* Of course the secret +of Billy King's success soon became known. He had placed his +paddle wheels where they would bite into the swell produced by +every boat just under its engines. He had transformed what had +been a handicap into a positive asset. It is said that he +attempted to shield his prize against competition by destroying +the model of the J. M. White, as well as to have refused large +offers to build a boat that would beat her. But it is said also +that an exhibition model of the boat was a cherished possession +of E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War, and that it hung in his +office during Lincoln's administration. + +* This performance is illustrated by the following comparative +table showing the best records of later years between New Orleans +and St. Louis, a distance estimated in 1844 as 1300 miles but in +1870 as 1218 miles, owing to the action of the river in +shortening its course. + +YEAR BOAT TIME +1844 J. M. White 3 d. 23 h. 9 m. +1849 Missouri 4 d. 19 h. -- +1889 Dexter 4 d. 9 h. -- +1870 Natchez 8 d. 21 h. 58 m. +1870 R. E. Lee 3 d. 18 h. 14 m. + + +The steamboat now extended its service to the West and North. The +ancient fur trade with the Indians of the upper Mississippi, the +Missouri, and the Arkansas, had its headquarters at St. Louis, +whence the notable band of men engaged in that trade were +reaching out to the Rockies. The roll includes Ashley, Campbell, +Sublette, Manuel Lisa, Perkins, Hempstead, William Clark, +Labadie, the Chouteaus, and Menard--men of different races and +colors and alike only in their energy, bravery, and initiative. +Through them the village of St. Louis had grown to a population +of four thousand in 1819, when Major Long's expedition passed up +the Missouri in the first steamboat to ascend that river. This +boat, the Western Engineer, was built at Pittsburgh and was +modeled cunningly for its work. It was one of the first stern +wheelers built in the West; and the saving in width meant much on +streams having such narrow channels as the Missouri and the +Platte, especially when barges were to be towed. Then, too, its +machinery, which was covered over or boarded up, was shrouded in +mystery. A fantastic figure representing a serpent's open mouth +contained the exhaust pipe. If the New Orleans alarmed the +population of the Ohio Valley, the sensation caused among the red +children of the Missouri at the sight of this gigantic snake +belching fire and smoke must have thoroughly satisfied the whim +of its designer. + +The admission of Missouri to statehood and the independence of +Mexico mark the beginning of real commercial relations between +St. Louis and Santa Fe. In 1822 Captain William Becknell +organized the first wagon train which left the Missouri (at +Franklin, near Independence) for the long dangerous journey to +the Arkansas and on to Santa Fe. In the following year two +expeditions set forth, carrying out cottons and other drygoods to +exchange for horses, mules, furs, and silver. + +Despite the handicaps of Indian opposition and Mexican tariffs, +the Santa Fe trade became an important factor in the growth of +St. Louis and the Missouri River steamboat lines. In 1825 the +pathway was "surveyed" from Franklin to San Fernando, then in +Mexico. This Santa Fe trade grew from fifteen thousand pounds of +freight in 1822 to nearly half a million pounds twenty years +later. + +By 1826 steamboat traffic up the Missouri began to assume +regularity. The navigation was dangerous and difficult because +the Missouri never kept even an approximately constant head of +water. In times of drought it became very shallow, and in times +of flood it tore its wayward course open in any direction it +chose. "Of all variable things in creation," wrote a Western +editor, "the most uncertain are the action of a jury, the state +of a woman's mind, and the condition of the Missouri River." A +further handicap, and one which was unknown on the Ohio and rare +on the Mississippi, was the lack of forests to supply the +necessary fuel. The Missouri, it is true, had its cottonwoods, +but in a green state they were poor fuel, and along vast +stretches they were not obtainable in any quantity. + +The steamboat linked St. Louis with that vital stretch of the +river lying between the mouth of the Kansas and the mouth of the +Nebraska. From this region the great Western trail ran on to +California and Oregon. In the early thirties Bonneville, Walker, +Kelley, and Wyeth successively essayed this Overland Trail by way +of the Platte through the South Pass of the Rockies to the +Humboldt, Snake, and Columbia rivers. From Independence on the +Missouri this famous pathway led to Fort Laramie, a distance of +672 miles; another 800-mile climb brought the traveler through +South Pass; and so, by way of Fort Bridger, Salt Lake, and +Sutter's Fort, to San Francisco. The route, well known by +hundreds of Oregon pioneers in the early forties, became a +thoroughfare in the eager days of the Forty-Niners.* + +* For map see "The Passing of the Frontier," by Emerson Hough (in +"The Chronicles of America"). + + +The earliest overland stage line to Great Salt Lake was +established by Hockaday and Liggett. After the founding of the +famous Overland Stage Company by Russell, Majors, and Waddell in +1858, stages were soon ascending the Platte from the steamboat +terminals on the Missouri and making the twelve hundred miles +from St. Joseph to Salt Lake City in ten days. Stations were +established from ten to fifteen miles apart, and the line was +soon extended on to Sacramento. The nineteen hundred miles from +St. Joseph to Sacramento were made in fifteen days although the +government contract with the company for handling United States +mail allowed nineteen days. A host of employees was engaged in +this exciting but not very remunerative +enterprise--station-agents +and helpers, drivers, conductors who had charge of passengers, +in addition to mail and express and road agents who acted as +division superintendents. In 1862 the Overland Route was taken +over by the renowned Ben Holliday, who operated it until the +railway was constructed seven years later. Freight was hauled by +the same company in wagons known as the "J. Murphy wagons," which + +were made in St. Louis. These wagons went out from Leavenworth +loaded with six thousand pounds of freight each. A train usually +consisted of twenty-five wagons and was known, in the vernacular +of the plains, as a "bull-outfit"; the drivers were +"bull-whackers"; and the wagon master was the "bull-wagon boss." + +The old story, however, was repeated again here on the boundless +plains of the West. The Western trails streaming out from the +terminus of steamboat traffic between Kansas City and Omaha had +scarcely time to become well known before the railway conquerors +of the Atlantic and Great Lakes regions were planning the +conquest of the greater plains and the Rockies beyond. The +opening of the Chinese ports in 1844 turned men's minds as never +before to the Pacific coast. The acquisition of Oregon within a +few years and of California at the close of the Mexican War +opened the way for a newspaper and congressional discussion as to +whether the first railway to parallel the Santa Fe or the +Overland Trail should run from Memphis, St. Louis, or Chicago. +The building of the Union Pacific from Omaha westward assured the +future of that city, and it was soon joined to Chicago and the +East by several lines which were building toward Clinton, Rock +Island, and Burlington. + +But the construction of a few main lines of railway across the +continent could only partially satisfy the commercial needs of +the West. True, the overland trade was at once transferred to the +railroad, but the enormous equipment of stage and express +companies previously employed in westward overland trade was now +devoted to joining the railway lines with the vast regions to the +north and the south. The rivers of the West could not alone take +care of this commerce and for many years these great +transportation companies went with their stages and their wagons +into the growing Dakota and Montana trade and opened up direct +lines of communication to the nearest railway. On the south the +cattle industry of Texas came northward into touch with the +railways of Kansas. Eventually lateral and trunk lines covered +the West with their network of lines and thus obliterated all +rivalry and competition by providing unmatched facilities for +quick transportation. + +In the last days previous to the opening of the first +transcontinental railway line a unique method of rapid +transportation for mail and light parcels was established when +the famous "Pony Express" line was put into operation between St. +Joseph and San Francisco in 1860. By relays of horsemen, who +carried pouches not exceeding twenty pounds in weight, the time +was cut to nine days. The innovation was the new wonder of the +world for the time being and led to an outburst on the part of +the enthusiastic editor of the St. Joseph Free Democrat that +deserves reading because it breathes so fully the Western spirit +of exultant conquest: + +"Take down your map and trace the footprints of our +quadrupedantic animal: From St. Joseph, on the Missouri, to San +Francisco, on the Golden Horn two thousand miles--more than half +the distance across our boundless continent; through Kansas, +through Nebraska, by Fort Kearney, along the Platte, by Fort +Laramie, past the Buttes, over the Mountains, through the narrow +passes and along the steep defiles, Utah, Fort Bridger, Salt Lake +City, he witches Brigham with his swift pony-ship through the +valleys, along the grassy slopes, into the snow, into the sand, +faster than Thor's Thialfi, away they go, rider and horse--did +you see them? They are in California, leaping over its golden +sands, treading its busy streets. The courser has unrolled to us +the great American panorama, allowed us to glance at the home of +one million people, and has put a girdle around the earth in +forty minutes. Verily the riding is like the riding of Jehu, the +son of Nimshi for he rideth furiously. Take out your watch. We +are eight days from New York, eighteen from London. The race is +to the swift."* + +* Quoted in Inman's "The Great Salt Lake Trail," p. 171. + + +The lifetime of many and many a man has covered a period longer +than that interval of eighty-six years between 1783, when George +Washington had his vision of "the vast inland navigation of these +United States," and the year 1869, when the two divisions of the +Union Pacific were joined by a golden spike at Promontory Point +in Utah. In point of time, those eighty-six years are as nothing; +in point of accomplishment, they stand unparalleled. When +Washington's horse splashed across the Youghiogheny in October, +1784, the boundary lines of the United States were guarded with +all the jealousy and provincial selfishness of European kingdoms. +But overnight, so to sneak these limitations became no more than +mere geometrical expressions. "Pennamite," "Erie," and "Toledo" +wars between the States, suggesting a world of bitterness and +recrimination, are remembered today, if at all, only by the +cartoonist and the playwright. The ancient false pride in mock +values, so cherished in Europe, has quite departed from the +provincial areas of the United States, and Americans can fly in a +day, unwittingly, through many States. Problems that would have +cost Europe blood are settled without turmoil in the solemn +cloisters of that American "international tribunal," the Supreme +Court, and they appear only as items of passing interest in our +newspapers. + +In unifying the nation the influence of the Supreme Court has +been priceless, for it has given to Americans, in place of the +colonial or provincial mind, a continental mind. But great is the +debt of Americans to the men who laid the foundations of +interstate commerce. No antidote served so well to counteract the +poison of clannish rivalry as did their enthusiasm and their +constructive energy. These men, dreamers and promoters, were +building better than they knew. They thought to overcome +mountains, obliterate swamps, conquer stormy lakes, master great +rivers and endless plains; but, as their labors are judged today, +the greater service which these men rendered appears in its true +light. They stifled provincialism; they battered down Chinese +Walls of prejudice and separatism; they reduced the aimless +rivalry of bickering provinces to a businesslike common +denominator; and, perhaps more than any class of men, they made +possible the wide-spreading and yet united Republic that is +honored and loved today. + + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + +The history of the early phase of American transportation is +dealt with in three general works. John Luther Ringwalt's +"Development of Transportation Systems in the United States" +(1888) is a reliable summary of the general subject at the time. +Archer B. Hulbert's "Historic Highways of America," 16 vols. +(1902-1905), is a collection of monographs of varying quality +written with youthful enthusiasm by the author, who traversed in +good part the main pioneer roads and canals of the eastern +portion of the United States; Indian trails, portage paths, the +military roads of the Old French War period, the Ohio River as a +pathway of migration, the Cumberland Road, and three of the +canals which played a part in the western movement, form the +subject of the more valuable volumes. The temptation of a writer +on transportation to wander from his subject is illustrated in +this work, as it is illustrated afresh in Seymour Dunbar's "A +History of Travel in America," 4 vols. (1915). The reader will +take great pleasure in this magnificently illustrated work, +which, in completer fashion than it has ever been attempted, +gives a readable running story of the whole subject for the whole +country, despite detours, which some will make around the many +pages devoted to Indian relations. + +For almost every phase of the general topic books, monographs, +pamphlets, and articles are to be found in the corners of any +great library, ranging in character from such productions as +William F. Ganong's "A Monograph of Historic Sites in the +Province of New Brunswick" ("Proceedings and Transactions" of the +Royal Society of Canada, Second Series, vol. V, 1899) which +treats of early travel in New England and Canada, or St. George +L. Sioussat's "Highway Legislation in Maryland and its Influence +on the Economic Development of the State" ("Maryland Geological +Survey," III, 1899) treating of colonial road making and +legislation thereon, or Elbert J. Benton's "The Wabash Trade +Route in the Development of the Old Northwest" ("Johns Hopkins +University Studies in Historical and Political Science," vol. +XXI, 1903) and Julius Winden's "The Influence of the Erie Canal +upon the Population along its Course" (University of Wisconsin, +1901), which treat of the economic and political influence of the +opening of inland water routes, to volumes of a more popular +character such as Francis W. Halsey's "The Old New York Frontier" +(1901), Frank H. Severance's "Old Trails on the Niagara Frontier" +(1903) for the North, and Charles A. Hanna's "The Wilderness +Trail", 2 vols. (1911), and Thomas Speed's "The Wilderness Road" +("The Filson Club Publications," vol. II, 1886) for Pennsylvania, +Virginia, and Kentucky. The value of Hanna's work deserves +special mention. + +For the early phases of inland navigation John Pickell's "A New +Chapter in the Early Life of Washington" (1856), is an excellent +work of the old-fashioned type, while in Herbert B. Adams's +"Maryland's Influence upon Land Cessions to the United States" +("Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political +Science, Third Series," I, 1885) a master-hand pays Washington +his due for originating plans of trans-Alleghany solidarity; this +likewise is the theme of Archer B. Hulbert's "Washington and the +West" (1905) wherein is printed Washington's "Diary of September, +1784," containing the first and unexpurgated draft of his classic +letter to Harrison of that year. The publications of the various +societies for internal improvement and state boards of control +and a few books, such as Turner Camac's "Facts and Arguments +Respecting the Great Utility of an Extensive Plan of Inland +Navigation in America" (1805), give the student distinct +impressions of the difficulties and the ideals of the first great +American promoters of inland commerce. Elkanah Watson's "History +of the...Western Canals in the State of New York" (1820), +despite inaccuracies due to lapses of memory, should be specially +remarked. + +For the rise and progress of turnpike building one must remember +W. Kingsford's "History, Structure, and Statistics of Plank +Roads" (1852), a reliable book by a careful writer. The +Cumberland (National) Road has its political influence carefully +adjudged by Jeremiah S. Young in "A Political and Constitutional +Study of the Cumberland Road" (1904), while the social and +personal side is interestingly treated in county history style in +Thomas B. Searight's "The Old Pike" (1894). Motorists will +appreciate Robert Bruce's "The National Road" (1916), handsomely +illustrated and containing forty-odd sectional maps. + +The best life of Fulton is H. W. Dickinson's "Robert Fulton, +Engineer and Artist: His Life and Works" (1913), while in Alice +Crary Sutcliffe's "Robert Fulton and the 'Clermont'" (1909), the +more intimate picture of a family biography is given. For the +controversy concerning the Fulton-Livingston monopoly, note W. A. +Duer's "A Course of Lectures on Constitutional Jurisprudence" and +his pamphlets addressed to Cadwallader D. Colden. The life of +that stranger to success, the forlorn John Fitch, was written +sympathetically and after assiduous research by Thompson Westcott +in his "Life of John Fitch the Inventor of the Steamboat" (1858). +For the pamphlet war between Fitch and Rumsey see Allibone's +Dictionary. + +The Great Lakes have not been adequately treated. E. Channing and +M. F. Lansing's "The Story of the Great Lakes" (1909) is reliable +but deals very largely with the routine history covered by the +works of Parkman. J. O. Curwood's "The Great Lakes" (1909) is +stereotyped in its scope but has certain chapters of interest to +students of commercial development, as has also "The Story of the +Great Lakes." The vast bulk of material of value on the subject +lies in the publications of the New York, Buffalo, Michigan, +Wisconsin, Illinois, and Chicago Historical Societies, whose +lists should be consulted. These publications also give much data +on the Mississippi River and western commercial development. S. +L. Clemens's "Life on the Mississippi" (in his "Writings," vol. +IX,1869-1909) is invaluable for its graphic pictures of +steamboating in the heyday of river traffic. A. B. Hulbert's +"Waterways of Western Expansion" ("Historic Highways," vol. IX, +1903) and "The Ohio River" (1906) give chapters on commerce and +transportation. For the beginnings of traffic into the Far West, +H. Inman's "The Old Santa Fe Trail" (1897) and "The Great Salt +Lake Trail" (1914) may be consulted, together with the +publications of the various state historical societies of the +trans-Mississippi States. + +Various bibliographies on this general subject have been issued +by the Library of Congress. Seymour Dunbar gives a good +bibliography in his "A History of Travel in America," 4 vols. +(1915). The student will find quantities of material in books of +travel, in which connection he would do well to consult Solon J. +Buck's "Travel and Description, 1765-1865" ("Illinois State +Historical Library Collections," vol. IX, 1914). + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Paths of Inland Commerce, by Archer B. Hulbert + diff --git a/old/tpoic10.zip b/old/tpoic10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..22e5ec7 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/tpoic10.zip |