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Sámitation and NāVigàtion.
Part I.—THE HISTORY OF LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS IN REGARD
To CANALS, INCLUDING THE PRESENT SCHEME
FOR A DRAINAGE SHIP CANAL.
Part II.--THE STORY OF THE ERIE CANAL.
E Y
HON, ELLIOTT ANTHONY.
*
Judge of the Superior Court of Chicago. º ºs ----. §
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‘CHICAGO:
PRINTED BY THE CHICAGo LEGAL NEws Co., 87 CLARK ST.
I891,

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Library
DEDICATION.
-*-*-**-*.*.*.*.*.*.*-
To SAMUEL W. ALLERTON, ESQ., optimus paterfamilias, et
diligentissimus agricola; Patron of Husbandry, Professor of
Agriculture, and Corn Raiser . In you, whose career has
been attended with one unbroken success, and whose ster-
ling manhood and great practical common sense are ob-
servable in the discussion of all public questions, and who
has recently pointed out to the Drainage Commissioners of
this city the sure way to success, we recognize qualities
such as fit you to become the worthy successor of the Third
Duke of Bridgewater, Having made this discovery, we will
search no further for an ideal man, and we do hereby ded-
icate to you this book
“No pent-up Utica contains your powers,
But the whole boundless continent is yours.”
BY THE AUTHOR.
CHAPTER I.
& 4
II.
III.
IV.
WI.
WII.
VIII.
IX.
CONTIENTS.
PART I.
PAGE.
The Father of British Inland Navigation....................... 11
The Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness, “Stop Talking
and go to Work,” is Most Timely............................. 12
Why do the Drainage Commissioners Hesitate and Pause,
and why do They not Proceed to Execute the Functions
Which They Woluntarily Assumed on Behalf of the
People?.......................................... :....................
The Battle Royal by the Public Press over the Question
Whether we Shall Have a Drainage Ditch with a Ship
Canal Attachment or Otherwise................................
The Sewage System of London.....................................
The Problem Stated ..................................................
H. B. Hurd and L. E. Cooley’s Explanation of the Objects
and Scope of the Drainage Act........................... .....
The Kickers of the Valley..........................................
The Cost and Magnitude of the Work.................. • * * * * * * * * *
Early Attempts to Construct a Harbor at Calumet and a
Canal for Drainage Purposes Connecting with the Illi-
nois and Michigan Canal................................... * - e º 'º &
Stephen A. Douglas’ Great Harbor and Canal Project and
What Became of it........................................... .....
19
24
37
47
70
75
78
80
XIV.
The People of the State of Illinois Want a Ship Canal if
Chicago Will Build it, but are Perfectly Indifferent
about Assisting in its Construction...........................
Death to Canals, or the Debate in the Constitutional
Convention, in 1870, upon that Subject, and What Be-
came of it............................................................
93
CONTENTS.
&
&
&
4.
{
{
XVI.
XVII.
XVIII.
XXII.
XXIII.
XXV [.
PART II.
PAGE.
How to Reach the Rocky Mountains by a Canal-–If They
can not be Surmounted by Ordinary Engineering
Skill, “They. Should be Surmounted by a Turnpike
Road"…~~~~
George Washington and the Erie Canal ........................
Who First Suggested the Construction of the Erie Canal
—The Irishman, Christopher Colles .........................
How the Work was Prosecuted and When it was Com-
pleted................................ e e s e e s a e e º e e s e s s tº * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
James Geddes and the Engineers Employed in the Sur-
Veys and on the Work............................................
When the Work was Commenced—The Public Interest
Manifested in the Progress of the Work........ tº e º 'º e º ſº e º 'º - e &
The-Completion of the Canal and the Celebration Which
Ensued, Consisting of a “Grand Salute ’’ and Other
Ceremonies...........................................................
The Grand Triumphal Aquatic Procession from Buffalo to
New York............................................................
The Voyage down the Hudson from Albany to New York,
and the Mingling of the Waters of Lake Erie with those
of the Atlantic Ocean.............................................
The Gorgeous Display at New York and the Closing Cere-
monies................................................................
The Record of the Proceedings and the Medal Struck in
Commemoration of the Same......... * * * * * * * * * * s tº e e s e e s e e e s e e º 'º s
De Witt Clinton .....................................................
137
140
142
144
163
166
174
INTRODUCTION.
FOR more than forty years the project of constructing a
great ship canal from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi
river has been under discussion. The National Govern-
ment has been appealed to by every consideration which has
suggested itself to the minds of the most enlightened and
far-seeing statesmen to aid in the construction of this great
work, first as a war measure, secondly, as a great interstate
and international highway, while the city of Chicago has
joined in all these appeals, adding thereto the further con-
sideration that such an improvement ought to be made as
a great Sanitary measure.
The National Government has so far yielded to these ap-
peals as to make several appropriations to defray the
expenses of making examinations and surveys of different
routes by their own chosen engineers, and so far, all re-
ports have been most favorable, and the project pronounced
entirely feasible.
In the meantime the city of Chicago has increased in
population to an extent never before known in the history
of any other city in the world, and the sewage and sani-
tary question has become paramount, and the construction
of an artificial river of large dimensions by which the water
now flowing in the bed of the old Illinois and Michigan
Canal shall be increased from fifty to a hundred fold or an
entirely new channel provided to bear away all impurities
has become a necessity.
In anticipation of government aid in the construction of
a ship canal, the people of the State of Illinois have em-
powered the County of Cook to organize a sort of metropol-
(5)
6
itan Board of Public Works, an imperium in imperio, similar
to that existing in London, by which steps can be taken to
open a new channel or artificial river down the Illinois
river valley to the Mississippi, and that project is now
absorbing public attention and has been so doing for several
years. A law was passed some two years ago conferring
upon a board of commissioners the most ample powers, and
such a board has been in existence for nearly two years,
but yet very little progress seems to have been made and
very little accomplished.
The undertaking is, indeed, one of colossal proportions,
but as the late Samuel B. Ruggles, of New York, once said,
the great difficulty with most all public improvements in
great cities is that they are projected on too small a scale
rather than too large, and time has shown it to be true.
London has been engaged in perfecting a sewerage system
for the last 200 years, and every plan that it has ever adopted
has proven inadequate and insufficient, and it seems to us
that the plan which is provided for in the drainage law of
this State is none too extensive and none too comprehensive
to meet all the requirements of the present and the future
and time will show it. In the accompanying work we have
indulged in some reminiscences pertaining to our canals,
and canal legislation, and have extended our researches to
that of the Empire State, the great pioneer in works of
inland navigation, and have told “The Story of the Erie
Canal,” which we trust will prove not uninteresting, although
it pertains to a past age and to a means of transportation
now almost forgotten or out of use.
“It is the duty of the Government,” said Cadwallader Col-
den, “to distribute its favors as equally as possible. Canals
should be made to pass through every vale and wind round
every hill.”
ELLIOTT ANTHONY.
CHICAGO, May 10, 1891.
As A representative I will do nothing but what I think
will redound to the general good of the State.
I will do nothing which will check the development of
my country, and my ideas are not limited by the Wabash
or the Illinois. I am for fostering every interest in the
State, and in order to do it we must—
“Bid harbors open, public ways extend,
Bid temples worthy of the God ascend,
Bid the broad arch the roaring flood contain,
The mole extended break the roaring main;
Back to her bounds, the subject sea command,
And roll obedient rivers through the land.”
Vol. 1 of Constitutional Debates, p. 417.
PART I.
CANAL LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS,
**
I.
THE FATHER OF BRITISH INLAND NAVIGATION.
The idea of providing a system of inland navigation for
the purpose of facilitating communication between the
inhabitants, and aiding in the exchange of the products of
the different sections of the country, is of great antiquity.
The subject received considerable attention from the an-
cients, but, except in the improvement of river banks and
beds, seems to have been attended with such obstacles and
difficulties that but little was ever effected of much practical
value until a comparatively recent date. England became
very much interested in the matter as early as the time
when Cromwell interposed to save the people from the costly
extravagance of constructing the Bedford Level, but the
disturbances of the civil wars interrupted almost every
project in the shape of public improvements, until down
almost to the time of our Revolution.
In the very early part of the eighteenth century the
building of canals began to be agitated most extensively in
England and France, and Francis Egerton, the Third Duke
of Bridgewater, who has been styled “The Father of British
Inland Navigation,’’ and who wished to convey large quan-
tities of coal from his estates to Manchester, resolved to
make the experiment of accomplishing this object by means
of digging a canal and transporting the coal by boats and
barges to market. *
He was himself a man of great determination and of
iron will, and did not believe in spending months and years
(11)
12
in discussing plans, and making preliminary surveys, and
studying maps, plats and records, and doing nothing until
every contingency should be absolutely provided for; but
he went to a fellow countryman by the name of Brindley,
a rough sort of Surveyor and engineer, and had him survey
a route, and then put men to work, and before the people
knew it a deep cut was opened from his coal mines to Joliet,
or some other point on the line, and everybody began to be-
lieve that the project was feasible and could be made a suc-
cess. His canal, although a short one, was in many respects
much more difficult than our drainage ship canal, which
seems to paralyze and appal all who have anything to do with
it; for he carried his canal over the River Irwell, at Barton,
by means of an aqueduct elevated thirty-nine feet above the
water, and finally triumphed by completing his canal, in
the most thorough manner, from Worsley to Manchester.
There is glory immortal awaiting the successful accom-
plishment of the great enterprise of connecting the waters
of Lake Michigan with those of the Mississippi, by a great
drainage ship canal, and over the heads of each commis-
sioner is suspended a shining crown, like that which the
good angel held over the head of the delver with the muck
rake, in Bunyan’s Pilgrim's Progress, if they only knew it,
but they do not seem to know it, and they do not delve worth
a cent, and they do not seem to be in any haste to earm
their reward. Men, to be martyrs, must have the courage
of their convictions.
II.
THE VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESs, “STOP,
TALKING AND GO TO Work,” Is MOST TIMELY.
Samuel W. Aller ton, one of Chicago's most energetic,
successful and typical business men, strikes the key note
when he says that there has been already too much talk
over this matter, and that it is time for the drainage com-
missioners to go to work. In a letter published by him in
the Inter Ocean on the 21st of April, 1891, he says:
13
STOP TALKING AMENDMENT AND GO TO WORK.
“CHICAGO, April 21.—— To the Editor: There is not, prob-
ably, a well-meaning man in Chicago but what is anxious for
the Drainage Commissioners to make a success. This was
shown in their election. We believed we had good men,
and ſ think we had, but they seem to lack action and a
practical knowledge of the work before them.
I am informed that by starting west of the stock yards
and running to Summit there is no rock, and by running
in the bed of the Desplaines river no rock until you get to
Lemont; eight miles below Lemont is 24 feet below the lake
level. Now, from the river to Summit, if there is no rock
the first 12 feet could be scraped out with wheel scrapers and
spread 450 feet for 10 cents per square yard; with dredges
the next 12 feet could be spread 900 feet for 20 cents.
If spread out on each side so as not to raise the land over
4 feet it would be a benefit to the land. Then dam the
Desplaines river so that the water would run into the lake,
until the river bed was dredged to Lemont. There is not
a doubt but the dirt could be removed for 20 cents and the
rock for 50 cents, for rock is now quarried and ground for
30 cents per square yard. A contract has been let by the
stock yards in San Francisco to dredge, spread and grade
one and one-half miles from the river, for 93 cents per
Square yard.
This city has spent nearly thirty millions for parks for
pleasure. Necessity of life is of far greater importance, and
good sewerage is of vital importance to all our people. We
have made a contract with the State to dig a ditch large
enough to filter our sewerage so no odor shall arise from it.
Let us carry it out. The people in the valley of the Illinois
river have rights we must respect and acknowledge. Sup-
pose that it does cost more than the money just mow in
sight, does any one believe that when the ditch is two-thirds
done, this great State which has a vital interest in the future
growth of Chicago, would not give us the power to raise
more money?
14
No man can raise a crop of corn unless he plows and
plants, and the way to get this drainage is to commence the
work.
Now I owe my moderate success in life to this one thought:
“If I did not do anything I could not succeed; I must go ahead
if I do make a mistake.” I never saw but one man who
never made a mistake. That was a tramp who asked me
for something to eat. I said I had some round wood to split,
and if he would do it he should have a good breakfast. He
said he had never made a mistake and he could not do it, so
I gave him his breakfast.
Now the Drainage Commission has been elected to dig
this ditch; let them drop kid glove engineers, get some prac-
tical engineer from the country for $3,000, let him ride over
the ground and stake out the ditch, buy 300 mules, wheel-
scrapers and plows, and some machinery to commence
below Lemont to move rock, and see the amount of dirt and
rock he will move in one year for one million.
Stop talking about amendment to the drainage law, go
ahead and the people will be happy they have elected men
who are willing to do what they were elected for—to dig this
ditch. S. W. ALLERTON.”
That Mr. Allerton and other citizens have some good
grounds of complaint may be inferred by the following
statement, which appeared in the Chicago Herald of May
12, 1891: e
Up to date the Board of Drainage Trustees has expended
about $125,000 cash, contracted liabilities announting to
about $50,000 more, has about $200,000 on hand, and
has about $675,000 to receive out of the $1,000,000 tax levy
for 1890. It is difficult to say just what the board has ac-
complished for the money expended so far. The trustees
and the treasurer have not yet drawn a cent of salary, but
there is no reason to believe that they will relinquish the
perquisites of their office, which in the case of the members
of the board amount to $3,000 a year. The president re.
ceives $4,000 and the treasurer $5,000. Since the engi-
neering department of the board was created there have been
15
at times as many as 125 surveyors and their assistants in
the field, and the entire distance from Bridgeport to Joliet
—thirty-two and one-half miles—has been surveyed. Four
lines have been laid out for the main channel to the Des-
plaines river—one directly from the South Fork to Sum-
mit, a second along the Ogden ditch, a third along the Illi-
nois and Michigan Canal, and a fourth from the corner of
Thirty-ninth street and Ashland avenue directly west to
the Ogden ditch and thence to Summit. All the notes on
these surveys have been taken, and they constitute about
all the practical work done, provided the board should de-
cide upon any one of these four routes.
So far as the specific object for which the board was
created is concerned, namely, the purification of the Chicago
river, absolutely nothing has been accomplished in the sev-
enteen months of the existence of the Board of Sanitary
Trustees. In fact, by lobbying in Springfield for certain
amendments to the Drainage Act, the very existence of this
act has become endangered. The election of drainage
trustees was llad December 12, 1889, three democrats and six
citizens’ candidates having been elected. The first meeting of
the board was held January 12th of last year, and since then
the doings—or rather the time-wasting—of the board have
been characterized by two prominent features. These were
continuous quarrels between the trustees, and frequent
changes in the head of the engineering department. These
two features may be set down as principally responsible for
the fact that nothing has been accomplished.
IDISSENSIONS IN THE BOARD.
The dissensions among the members of the board were
marked from the beginning, caused in no small part by the
arbitrary action of the so-called non-partisan majority,
which left the democratic minority altogether alone. This
persistent slighting of the democratic members was carried
so far that they were left in ignorance of important commit.
tee meetings, and were not consulted during the prelimin-
ary stages of the most important measures enacted by the
16
board. Time and again the minority members had to de-
clare, during the meetings, that they had no prior knowl-
edge of matters brought up, and that they therefore had to
vote in the negative. Of late two members of the board
have been absent from the meetings—Murry Nelson, of the
majority, who is sojourning in the South on account of his
health, and John A. King, of the minority, who keeps track
of the proceedings of the board by employing a shorthand
reporter.
The officers of the board, such as clerk, treasurer, chief
engineer and attorney, were elected in the meeting of Feb-
ruary 1st, last year, and in the selection of these men the
democratic members were again left in the cold. They did
not even capture a common clerkship. The result of this
arbitrary conduct on the part of the majority, was a sort of
passive resistance on the part of the minority, and the rub
has continued ever since. This complete overlooking of the
democratic minority, has caused the latter to shift all the
responsibility for the failure of the Drainage Act upon the
majority. The latter on March 7th, last, in a manifesto to the
citizens of the sanitary district, had virtually to confess that
nothing had been done and nothing could be done under
the present act. This manifesto called attention to the
necessity of important amendments, and the latter are now
pending before the legislature.
In the meeting of February 8th, last year, an ordinance was
passed providing for the raising of $1,000,000 upon bonds.
This ordinance was repealed and then passed in a modified
way July 19th, last, and upon this ordinance the money so far
received by the board has been raised. While there is no
lack of funds to carry on practical work, the ground for
the main channel remains yet to be broken.
CHANGES IN ENGINEERS.
This unaccountable delay in the beginning of actual work
on the drainage canal is in no small measure due to
the fact that the policy of the majority of the trus-
tees in regard to the engineering department has been un-
settled from the start. L. E. Cooley was appointed chief
| 7
engineer at the meeting of February 1st last year, and two
weeks later he was instructed to have a sufficient staff
for all necessary engineering work ready by May 1st. The
idea was then that all the preliminary surveying work
should be completed during the year, that plans should
be prepared during the winter, and that actual work
should begin this spring. Neither of these presumptions
has been fulfilled, though the chief engineer was given
all the assistance and all the appropriation he asked for.
It appears that Chief Engineer Cooley ran his depart-
ment on altogether too elaborate a scale, and at the meeting
of November 19th he was directed to suspend immediately
all field or other work on the Upper Desplaines river,
except gauges, and all work outside of the district and below
Joliet, He was also directed to abstain from obtaining
information concerning land values, and facts of record
in the recorder's office relating to the territory between
Chicago and Summit. This step indicated the beginning
of the quarrel between the majority of the board and the
chief engineer. December 10th, last, General John Newton,
of New York, was made consulting engineer, at a salary
of $10,000 a year, and Mr. Cooley’s services were dispensed
with. He had made no report upon any of the routes
surveyed for the ship canal, and to all practical purposes
the board was about where it stood after the election.
William E. Worthen was appointed chief engineer, Decem-
ber 17th last, also at a salary of $10,000, making $20,000 for
the heads of the engineering department, while Mr. Cooley
had received $6,000. In the meantime, at the annual meet-
ing of the board, December 2d, last, Richard Prendergast had
been elected President. The office of chief engineer was
declared vacant April 21st, last, and on the same date the
consulting engineer resigned. A few days ago ex-City
Engineer Artingstall was appointed to the position of chief
engineer.
WHAT HAS BEEN DONE.
When L. E. Cooley was made chief engineer, he promised
the board that within 100 days from July 1, 1890, he would
|S
submit a report locating the route of the main channel, as
provided by law. President Prendergast said in his mes-
sage of January 3d last, upon this point: “Instead of the
report the board received from that source nothing but
denials, evasions, excuses and delays.” Engineers Worthen
and Newton made two reports, January 10th and February
21st, which demonstrate that the cost of construction of the
smallest main channel permitted by the law—which is four-
teen feet depth through earth and eighteen feet depth
through rock, by 160 feet width at the bottom—is $22,700,-
000. Added to this would come the cost of deepening the
present canal for a gravity flow to care for the Sewage of the
stock yards, and the conduit from the lake to the North
Branch, at Bowmanville, making a total of $26,800,000.
But this estimate does not include the items for right of
way, dumping grounds and transportation of the waste ma-
terial, nor charges for straightening the South Branch,
changing bridges, etc. The cost for these necessary items
is variously estimated at from $750,000 to $1,500,000, mak-
ing the entire cost over $30,000,000.
The Drainage Act as it now stands does not provide for
the raising of any such sum, and it was not contemplated
that it would cost so much. The unnecessary cost arises
from the excessive size of the channel through the earth
and through the rock, particularly the latter. At the
maximum current allowed by law the rock channel would
give a flow of over 750,000 cubic feet a minute, when only
300,000 cubic feet is required in the earth channel, and this
is not until the United States Government makes a channel
in the Desplaines or Illinois river of a capacity to receive
600,000 cubic feet a minute.
The board has come to the conclusion that a flow of
300,000 cubic feet a minute is ample for all purposes of
sanitation and dilution of sewage and to afford a channel
for navigation which will probably not be met at its south-
ern terminus by a similar channel during this generation.
Such a channel would mean a saving from $7,000,000 to
$10,000,000 in the rock cut alone and a corresponding sav-
19
ing in the earth cut. Amendments to provide for changes
in the Drainage Act in this respect are now pending in
Springfield.
To sum up: What has been done by the drainage board
is to ascertain that such improvements as the Drainage Act
provides for will cost more than the law allows. It has
taken seventeen months and $175,000 to find this out.
III.
WHY DO THE DRAINAGE COMMISSIONERS HESITATE AND PAUSE,
AND WHY DO THEY NOT PROCEED TO ExECUTE THE FUNC-
TIONS WHICH THEY VOLUNTARILY ASSUMED ON BEHALF OF
THE PEOPLE”
When the drainage law was passed, it was well under-
stood that the cost would be enormous, but Chicago is a
great city, and will, in our judgment, eventually become
one of the largest cities in the world, and we do not believe
that the drainage channel, gigantic as it may be regarded, will
be one particle too large. When the present court house was
erected, it was declared that it would easily accommodate
all the departments of our local city and county govern-
ments for years to come, and that the city and county
should unite and save the expense of two structures. But
what is the consequence, and what do we see to-day? That
structure is overcrowded from top to bottom and entirely
inadequate for the public wants, and the time has arrived
unless the county and city governments are absolutely con-
solidated, when a great city hall will be required, and when
a great hall of public records will be required to file away
and keep from destruction the records of the courts of this
county, which are becoming more numerous than that of
Great Britian. The abstract men alone swarm through all
the halls and corridors of the court house and require about
as much space as the Auditorium.
A few years ago structures of three and four stories were
considered very pretentious, and amply sufficient for all
practical purposes. To-day nothing will suffice but sky-
Scrapers of from ten to fourteen stories in height, and it is
20
a fact which may as well be acknowledged first as last, that
“ the sun do move.”
We remember when there was not a public conveyance
in the city of Chicago, to convey one along any route, either
long or short, north or south, and when there was not a single
omnibus line nor a horse railroad line in operation in our
midst.
To-day we have not only omnibuses but horse railroads,
and elevated railroads and cable cars, and more are being
projected and built all the time; and yet the public is not
properly served, and all combined are entirely inadequate.
If this is so to-day will somebody tell us what the condition
of things will be twenty years hence?
In like manner, if the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and the
country ditch which some are agitating, shall, as they
surely will, prove insufficient for either drainage or sewer-
age purposes, then resort must be had to the Kankakee river,
to the Illinois and Michigan Canal, the Desplaines river,
Rock river, or a deep canyon, or a tunnel, connecting with
Niagara Falls, or “anywhere, anywhere out of the world.”
We were city attorney under John C. Haines, and in
order to build Polk street bridge legal proceedings were
resorted to to obtain land to swing the bridge.
At that time the street commissioner, together with a
committee of the city council, visited the locality and were
rowed up the river for some distance beyond, and we found
the river as crooked as a ram's horn.
Upon consultation it was resolved that it should be
straightened as far up as Twelfth street, and surveys were
made and plans adopted, but when it was found that the
cost and expenses would exceed $10,000, it was aban-
doned.
We thought then that the city would at least reach Twelfth
street, but had no idea that it would engulf Bridgeport, and
we think that many thought that Bridgeport would not be
reached in a hundred years, and that if the river was im-
proved as far as Polk street, it would be ample for all of the
demands of comumerce for ages. What is the result?
21
Bridgeport has been reached, and the cry now is, “far
Cathay !”
The present Drainage Commissioners are all men of high
character and we do not, in anything that we may say, wish
it to be understood that we are seeking to impugn their
motives, neither are we questioning their patriotism or
integrity; but we do doubt the policy of delay which seems
to characterize their movements, and we urge upon them
in the most earnest manner that they proceed with the work
that they were selected and elected to perform by the peo-
ple. They were not, so far as we are advised, instrumental
in procuring the passage of the law, and have no greater
interest in the same than the rest of their fellow citizens.
The people are, so far as we are advised, very well satisfied
with the law, so far as it relates to the extent of the water-
way, and as they are but the agents of the people, we do not
think it will be regarded as at all improper if the people
ask them why they hesitate and pause.
The drainage law provides for a large and deep channel,
and would, if constructed as provided by the law, give satis-
faction, not only to the people of Chicago, but to all the
Illinois valley towns. But for some reason or other
the commissioners do not seem to wish to carry out this
law, and desire to have the law amended so that they may
only dig a large open ditch. To this we, as well as thousands
of others of our fellow citizens, most strenuously object.
H. B. Hurd, Esq., who has given a great deal of study to
the drainage question, in a recent address before a commit-
tee of the House of Representatives, among other things,
said:
“I think I can assure the committee and all who hear
me that there is not a man who was active in securing
the passage of the law now on the statute books who is in
favor of such a change as is here proposed. I don’t know
of any considerable number of persons in Chicago that
are in favor of it. There are some persons in favor of a
change in the law. They are the same persons we had
to contend with when we sought to have this law passed.
22
They have rival interests, and they would be glad to see the
law repealed, or anything done to prevent the making of a
ship canal from Chicago down the Illinois river. They
have in mind a canal of their own which they think they
can induce Congress to make. They say if this one is
constructed theirs will not be. The channel proposed by
these amendments would be a miserable failure. To con-
struct it would be to construct something that we know be-
forehand will not answer the purpose. I am not now
speaking of it as a waterway, but as a provision for the dis-
position of the sewage of the sanitary district alone. But
fortunately the best drainage channel will be large enough
for a water way throughout this entire length. This is the
conclusion arrived at by most capable engineers after a
full and careful investigation of all the conditions. The
conditions have not changed in character. They are still
the same, only they are better known, and their force is
better appreciated by those who were giving attention to
them. The problem is, how can the sewage be kept out
of the lake and the purity of the water supply insured?
The cheapest way of doing this is found to be the construc-
tion of a channel by means of which the water can flow
through the Desplaines river into the Illinois river, carry-
ing the sewage with it. Two questions are involved: first,
the amount of sewage and the storm water to be dealt
with ; and, second, the dilution necessary. The trouble the
city is suffering from is that in storm times the current of
the Chicago river is turned outward into the lake, carrying
with it the sewage of the city. It was taken for granted
by the board of engineers that proposed the plan contem-
plated in the law, that no sewage system would be perfect
that did not contemplate the keeping of the sewage out of
the lake altogether. This could be done by making a chan-
nel that would produce continual flow from the lake. The
conclusion has been inevitably arrived at that such a chan-
nel must have a capacity of not less than 600,000 cubic feet
per minute.
If it were any less than this there would be times whne
23
the current in it would be reversed and the contents dis-
charged into the water to pollute the water supply as before.
How frequently this would happen and the length of time
it would continue at each occurrence would depend upon
how much less than the required capacity the channel
should have. It is certain that it would carry into the lake
the entire sewage of the city for the length of time it should
continue to flow that way. There was no guessing about
this, nor did the question of navigation have anything to
do with it. While it is true that the capacity of Chicago
river is important when considering the question of dilu-
tion and navigation, it has no controlling interest on this
board. It is plain, then, the channel must be capable of
keeping the sewerage from discharging into the lake at all
times, or it will be a miserable failure, and this will be so
surely as that the rains will continue to fall as heretofore,
and that water will continue to run down hill, and thus
whether the population remains at 1,200,000 or increases to
3,000,000, and regardless of the question of dilution or any
other consideration, except the stability of the laws of
nature.”
Mr. Hurd went on to show that the requirements of dilu-
tion were identical with those keeping sewage out of the
lake. He concluded that the only reason offered in support
of the amendments was the cost as estimated by engineers
Worthen and Newton, which greatly exceeded the estimates
of the engineers who preceded them in investigation of the
subject. Concluding, Judge Hurd said he had estimated
the cost of excavation for a channel 160 feet wide, eighteen
feet deep and having a fall of seven inches to the mile, which
would carry 600,000 cubic feet per minute, at $13,136,455.
This estimate was based on the calculation of fifteen cents
per cubic yard for clay, thirty.cents per cubic yard for hara
pan, and seventy-five cents per cubic yard for rock cutting.
A better channel for navigation as estimated to cost
$11,454,370. These estimates were for the excavations only.
In conclusion he said: “It is not true that the people of
Chicago are dissatisfied with the law. The trustees may
24
think that the people would like to see the law amended.
They may think the people are dissatisfied; but they are mis-
taken. They mistake the dissatisfaction with the conduct of
the trustees for dissatisfaction with the iaw itself.”
During the discussion preceding this argument Benezette
Williams, a civil engineer, read a paper of some length,
showing that a volume of water less than 600,000 cubic feet
per minute is insufficient to properly dilute the sewage of
Chicago. “Chicago,” said he, “is the greatest filth-producer
in the world in proportion to its population, approximating
at times the city of London. There is no escape from the
conclusion that 20,000 cubic feet per minute to every 100,000
inhabitants is the very smallest amount of water that would
properly dilute the sewage of Chicago. I feel justified in
asserting that a channel of 250,000 cubic feet per minute
will not materially improve the sanitary condition of Chi-
cago.”
We do not approve of many of the details of the drainage
law, and think some of them positively bad; but we do
approve of a large waterway and do not think that the re-
quirements of the law relating to its dimensions ought to
be changed.
IV.
THE BATTLE ROYAL BY THE PUBLIC PRESS over THE QUES-
TION WHETHER WE SHALL HAVE A DRAINAGE DITCH
WITH A SHIP CANAL ATTACHMENT OR OTHERWISE.
The public press of the city of Chicago as well as the
country press, are now engaged in a most vigorous war
upon the subject of amending the drainage act, so as to re-
duce the capacity of the channel as well as the volume of
water to be carried down the valley, and the contest has
become animated in the extreme. The diplomatic corps has
retired from the field and trained soldiers are hurrying for-
ward to the Balkans, or are taking up positions Command-
ing the defiles and overlooking the valley of the Desplaines
and the Illinois.
25
** All the while
Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds,
At which the universal host upsent
A shout that tore hell’s concave and, beyond,
Frighted the reign of Chaos and Old Night.”
—Milton.
The Herald and the Inter Ocean were at last accounts eyu-
gaged in deadly grapple, and the Inter Ocean, in its edition
of Sunday, May 3d, discourses as follows:
* A SUBVERSIVE AMENDMENT.
The Herald of yesterday makes an appeal to the repre:
sentatives at Springfield and to the Illinois valley people to let
the Prendergast amendment to the drainage bill go through.
In a fatherly way it takes those children on its knee and
talks to them in a tone of affectionate authority, assuring
them that the changes proposed are for their own good.
Nobody wants contagious diseases to rage anywhere, and
certainly Chicago can not afford to have the valley swept
by the besom of pestilential devastation, and therefore the
amendment is friendly, not hostile. After devoting a good
deal of space to such puerility, the Herald winds up with
the threat that the work will be at a stand-still during the
next two years unless the trustees are allowed to put their
mere sewage ditch theory into practice.
Such a threat will hardly make any very deep impression,
being of a piece with the sophisms which were designed to
lead up to it and give it effectiveness. The truth is that
nothing could be more obvious than that the members of
the General Assembly next in interest to Chicago and the
greater part of the Chicago delegation, are utterly opposed
to the subversive Prendergast amendment. Some of them
are in favor of unconditional repeal, and are using the fail-
ure of the present board as an argument for repeal, but we
believe that a majority of them will stand by the original
bill, with such modification as may be necessary to secure
a board of trustees who will prosecute the work in good faith.
Speaking of the changes proposed by the Prendergast
amendment, the Herald says that “they invade no protect-
26
ive clauses. They are not designed to relax the provisions
by which the purity of the drinking water along the route
is to be preserved.” But Mr. Benezette Williams, whose
familiarity with the subject, ability as an engineer, and
sturdy honesty are well known, says that the proposed
changes would reduce the capacity of the channel about
forty-two per cent, as compared with the one required by
the statute as it now stands. Other radical differences be-
tween the law as it is now and as it would be under the
proposed Prendergast amendment, are pointed out by the
same high authority, and arguments presented for pursuing
the line of policy prescribed by the statute. Mr. Williams
aptly characterizes the change advocated by Mr. Prender-
gast as subversive of the drainage, no less than the water-
way feature of the great enterprise. It is hardly conceiva-
ble that the amendment will command any considerable
support in the face of such an exposure as Mr. Williams
has made.
While the Daily News speaks as follows:
“The drainage board elected and sworn to execute the
drainage law has gone to work deliberately to prevent its
execution. Instead of doing what they were elected and
solemnly intrusted with doing, the trustees are using their
positions to prevent the fulfillment of the trust. At the
same time they are drawing pay for their efforts to defeat
the wishes of the people.
The drainage district was formed by a vote of the people
almost without a dissenting vote. They wanted the law
enforced as it stood. s
There has been no manifestation of any change on the part
of the people.
A covert opposition that was in existence, and which got
its finger into the pie when it came to selecting trustees, has,
since the election, manipulated them and used them to undo
and prevent the doing of what the people desire.
These trustees do not assume to represent the people of
the district. The president of the board went to Springfield
and appeared before a legislative committee to ask for an
27
amendment of the law to suit the men who are operating
him by a private wire.
In opening his remarks he said: “We are here to-day as
representatives of the taxpayers,” and so forth. The presi-
dent of the board neglected to say whether or not he repre-
sented the professional posing taxpayers as an attorney or
merely as their sympathetic friend. It did not matter
much, however, as he served them to the best of his ability,
and forgot all about the people.
The proposition to amend the law has been announced
and known by the public for some time. It was also known
that the amendment was to be in the direction of Securing
the right of way of the Illinois and Michigan Canal and
confining the channel to limits that would be permitted by
the canal. But while this much was known, nothing else
was known and nobody could find out what was set forth
definitely in the wording of the amendments.
The trustees had prepared some copies of the amend-
ments, but they were kept secreted until publicity became
unavoidable. But even after an examination of the amend-
ments and the sections amended, it is not clear to the
ordinary reader unused to legal verbiage what these amend-
ments will be in their effect on the channel and the drain-
age system.
It is worth while looking over the amendments and put-
ting them into plain newspaper English. The people are
entitled to know what these trustees are doing with their
law and the purposes of their district.
The grand objective point of the trustees who are figuring
to defeat the will of the people is to prevent the digging of
a channel which can be used for shipping purposes. They
want to dig a ditch so small that it will be useless for
anything except canal boats. They don’t want to do any-
thing that will interfere with the digging of a ship canal
through the Calumet river and some swamps owned by cer-
tain syndicates of influential gentlemen. Therefore they
propose to use the right of way owned by the State of
Illinois and used for the canal.
2S
The amendment to accomplish this purpose is to be found
in a simple alteration of section 17 of the law. This section
says that the Chicago district shall not occupy any portion
of the canal outside of Cook county, except to cross it. The
section as amended, reads: “That no such district shall occupy
any portion of the canal except in such a way as not to
impair the usefulness of the said canal or the injury of the
right of the State therein.”
It will be seen that this gives the people of Chicago the
right to use the Illinois and Michigan Canal for a drainage
channel, and when they get through deepening it, at the
expense of millions, to give it over to the State again with the
improvements they have made.
The trustees' amendment of section 20 of the law cuts at
the vital feature of the law. As it stands the law provides in
express terms that the main drainage channel shall be of a
capacity sufficient to permit a continuous flow of at least
200 feet a minute for each 1,000 population of the district
drained thereby.
It has been demonstrated by experiment that this amount
of dilution is necessary to render inoffensive the discharges
of the sewers. Instead of providing a definite dimension or
a definite accommodation of water, the amendment provides
nothing more than that the channel shall be of capacity equal
to the capacity of the south branch of the Chicago river.
In other terms, the Illinois and Michigan Canal is to be
enlarged only enough to accommodate the amount of the
water which can be drawn through the south branch of the
Chicago river.
A startling fact in this connection is that the law as it now
stands provides for a gravity flow by saying, “ of sufficient
size and capacity to produce a continuous flow of water,”
but the proposed amendment says that the enlarged canal
shall be of “equal capacity for the purpose of flowing water
with the south branch of the Chicago river.”
The amendment does not provide that the enlarged canal
shall be constructed to “produce a flow” as is provided in
the law as it now stands. This means that the trustees will,
29
by resolution perhaps, determine and declare the flow of the
south branch and increase the capacity of the canal accord-
ingly. This increase may be accomplished by raising the
banks and increasing the capacity of the Bridgeport pumps.
Anything to secure a cheap and nasty ditch—one that will
not in any way interfere with the magnificent projects of
the gentlemen who own the swamps of the Calumet region.
LIMITING THE CHANNEL CAPACITY.
The trustees ask for the amendment of section 23 by
striking out the provisions that the capacity of the channel
shall be of the capacity of 300,000 cubic feet a minute; that
its depth shall be in rock eighteen feet, in clay fourteen feet,
with a width of 160 feet at the bottom; that if the popula-
tion exceed 1,500,000 the channel shall be made and kept
of a size sufficient to produce a flow by gravitation of 200
cubic feet a minute for each 1,000 population, and for the
treatment of the matter of overflows in the valleys of the
Illinois and Desplaines rivers.
The trustees ask for an amendment to section 24, striking
out words which stipulate the amount of water to be provided
for. The trustees ask for the amendment of section 25, strik-
ing out a provision for 200 feet a minute for each 1,000 of
population, and inserting a provision that the capacity of the
channel shall not be less than the flowing capacity of the
south branch of the Chicago river.
After waiting over a year the trustees now ask that the
amendments be passed as an emergency, which would ena-
ble the board to act under them at once, instead of waiting
until the law would go into effect, July 1st.
These amendments are all directed at the vital features of
the law as it was passed. They are designed to place in the
hands of the board a right to arbitrarily determine the ca-
pacity of the channel by any method they may see fit to
employ.
The whole proposition to amend is of a character to cre-
ate the greatest mistrust of the schemes that are hidden in
the darkness covering the motives of the men who are
30
pushing them. Nobody can estimate the damage that may
be inflicted on Chicago by intrusting the determination of
the vital questions of drainage to certain men who have to
get other men to do their official thinking for them.”
The Chicago Tribune, which has always favored a most
liberal and enlightened policy of inland navigation and
sanitation, contends that it would be a mistake to undertake
to construct the projected drainage and ship canal in accord-
ance with the present law, which was passed by the General
Assembly, and favors the amendments which have been
proposed, and which are now pending before the Legislature,
and proceeds to reply to the position taken by the News in
the most vigorous manner—as follows:
Judge Prendergast said in his remarks before the legis-
lative committee:
“The fall of the river from La Salle to Grafton is about
27 feet, from Joliet to La Salle 80 feet, and from Chicago to
Joliet 50 feet.”
So little is known about the Illinois river, and so few will
understand, without explanation, the full significance of
Judge Prendergast's observation, that it is worth while to
dwell a little on this point. The following table shows the
height during low water of the surface of Lake Michigan
above the various places mentioned, Utica being a few miles
this side of La Salle.
Below Fall
Distance the lake between
apal t. level. places.
Lake Michigan............................................... ...... ...... ......
Lockport ...... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33.5 7.5 7.5
Dam No. 1, Joliet............................................ 38.8 41.5 34.0
Dam No. 2, Joliet............................................ 39.4 51.5 10.0
Lake Joliet.................. ................................. 41.9 76.3 25.0
Kankakee River............................................. 54.2 93.0 16.5
Marseilles dam............................................... 79.7 101.5 8.5
Foot of Marseilles rapids................................. 81.1 118.7 17.2
‘Utica........... ........…......…...........…. 97.0 141.0 22.3
These figures show that while it is an easy matter to make
the Illinois navigable between La Salle and Grafton, to do
so between La Salle and the mouth of the Kankakee, or
La Salle and Joliet, is something calling for engineering
ability of a higher order, and the expenditure of a great
deal of money.
31
The general government ordered that surveys and esti-
mates of costs be made for fourteen-foot and eight-foot
waterways from Chicago to La Salle in the beds of the Des-
plaines and Illinois rivers. The total estimate of cost from
Chicago to La Salle was for the fourteen-foot project
$48,282,000, and for the eight-foot one $26,883,000. The
estimates from Joliet to La Salle were: fourteen-foot,
$25,533,000; eight-foot, $9,757,000. From the mouth of the
Kankakee to La Salle on the Illinois river the estimates
were: Fourteen-foot $20,488,000; eight-foot $6,938,000.
The government engineer’s estimate for a fourteen-foot
channel from Chicago to Joliet is $22,748,000. These are
the careful figures of an expert who had to deal with a
fourteen instead of an eighteen-foot cut and with a canal,
not a flowing stream. The proposition is, that this district
shall not only give four feet more water than the govern-
ment project, but make a stream which shall have a current
of over two miles an hour. In other words, while the bot-
tom of the proposed canal would be all the time at the same
level below the surface of the lake, the bottom of the Chi-
cago deep channel would be sinking lower and lower all
the time, to give the necessary fall. This would necessitate
going many feet deeper into the rock and would add enor-
mously to the expense. Jt would be at least half as much
again.
Would any but a delirious man expect the government
would spend $20,000,000 to make a fourteen-foot channel
for twenty miles in the Illinois, when the depth of water in
the Mississippi, from the mouth of the Illinois to St. Louis,
is but six feet, and that from St. Louis to Cairo not over
eight? Is the government to spend $20,000,000 in making
the navigation between the mouth of the Kankakee and
{Jtica better than between St. Louis and Cairo?
And if it costs the government $20,000,000 to carry four-
teen feet from the mouth of the Kankakee to La Salle, what
will it cost to carry eighteen feet from Joliet to below Cairo?
Has it the countless millions? Until it gets them and will
spend them, why should Chicago make an eighteen-foot
32
channel to Joliet, especially when the government engineers
say that such a channel, with its proposed discharge of
600,000 cubic feet a minute, will interfere with their plans
for the improvement of the Upper Illinois? Capt. Marshall
says:
As the State law stands, demanding unnecessarily great
and expensive channels not demanded or suitable for the
commerce to be subserved, a compliance with its terms does
not seem advisable for the United States.
An insistence on the law as it is, therefore, will lessen the
likelihood of the general government doing anything in
Illinois. Will it spend twenty-five and a half millions
between Joliet and La Salle when its engineers tell it the
work will be interfered with seriously by the eighteen-foot
Chicago channel with its immense discharge? Unless that
part of the Illinois and Desplaines which has a fall of eighty
feet in about sixty miles is made navigable by locks and
dams, no Mississippi steamers can reach this city. The
State will improve that section of the stream. This city
can not be forced to do it. And the Federal Government
will not touch it with the Chicago Sanitary Drainage Law as
it stands, rendering the Federal Government liable to dam-
ages from annual overflows from an excessive discharge of
lake water. *
The main point made by Judge Prendergast before the
legislative committees was one which has not been given
the prominence it deserves. That is that the “waterway ’’
for which Means and other Peruvians, Senecans, Ottawans
and Peorians are clamoring is not the waterway of the
Drainage Act, but the impracticable creation of their fevered
imaginations, the result of an attack of too much water on
the brain. It never was intended by Chicago to dig a
channel deep enough to float the great lake propellers down
to Joliet, Marseilles, Peoria, Grafton, Alton, St. Louis and
New Orleans, for the one sufficient reason, out of many, that
the Illinois river can not be given or made to contain a
depth of water such as is needed for lake navigation without
flooding and destroying the whole valley. If lake propellers
33
are to go down the Illinois it will be necessary to pour into
that stream a summer flood which will cover as much land
as the high spring freshets do. But while the high waters
of February and March soon subside and do not interfere
with the use of the land for farming purposes, summer
floods would make it impossible to raise any crop, except of
catfish, on a hundred million dollars' worth of fine farm
lands.
Is the Federal Government ready to foot those damages,
and, if not, who will? And is it ready, also, to pour
out the millions which will be necessary to maintain lake
navigation in the Mississippi, from Grafton to St. Louis,
Cairo, Memphis, Vicksburg and New Orleans? Its total
revenues could not do it. But of what use would eighteen
feet of water in the Illinois be if there were but six in the Mis-
sissippi from Grafton to St. Louis or Keokuk? This idea
of lake navigation in the Illinois is the wild chimera of a
disordered mind.
All that was ever conceived to be practicable was, as
Judge Prendergast showed, so to improve the navigation of
the Illinois, as to allow Mississippi river barges and steam-
ers, with a draft of from six to seven feet, to ascend the
stream as far as La Salle, and above there to Joliet when-
ever the Federal Government furnished the money to over-
come the fall of eighty feet, and from Joliet to Lake Michi-
gan, using a channel cut with Chicago money for sewage
dilution, but one of the incidents of which would be im-
proved navigation.
That is the utmost limit of the ship canal scheme which
ever entered the head of any sensible man. It never oc-
curred to any but a valley dreamer that the head of navi-
gation of the lakes and the St. Lawrence should be carried
to Grafton, or that lake propellers should try their luck in
a rock-bound channel with a swift current, from here to
Joliet. All that people who have their wits about them
wanted was that Lake Michigan should be made the head
of navigation of the Mississippi, so that the stern-wheelers
drawing five, six or seven feet, which ply on that river and
34
its tributaries, could unload at the wharves of Chicago. If
the valley people say they do not want the kind of waterway
which permits that to be done, but must have one which
will allow great lake steamers to sail past their doors, then,
like the dog in the fable, they are dropping the substance
and grabbing at the shadow. As Judge Prendergast says:
“It is beyond the agency of human power to send lake ves-
sels down the Illinois river below Joliet.” Chicago can do
a great many things, but it can not work miracles. It can
not furnish eighteen feet of water in the Illinois. And, by
insisting that it shall do so, and by forbidding it to con-
struct any other kind of a channel than that specified in
the law, the people in the valley towns are cutting their
own throats.
Time and engineers' investigations have shown that the
law is even more defective than it was thought to be two
years ago. When it was passed the surveys and borings
were very imperfect. Since then the ground has been gone
over thoroughly. It was believed in 1889 that the eighteen-
foot rock channel would not have to begin much this side of
the Sag. It appears now that under the terms of a law
which the malignant kickers imposed on the city, it will begin
nine miles this side of there. The estimates made of the cost
of the work in 1889 were necessarily conjectural, and it
now turns out they were altogether too low.
REPLICATION DE INJURIA.
To this plea the News filed the following replication,
which appears to be according to the precedents, and is
what is known in legal parlance as a plea de injuria.
DRAINAGE TRUSTEES AND CHICAGO.
“The question of proper sanitation for the people of Chi-
cago, present and future, is vastly more important than
hair-splitting considerations as to ways and means. Simi-
larly, the project of a great waterway between Lake Michi-
gan and the Gulf of Mexico is born of the necessities of the
period. It can not be permanently retarded by any failure
to grasp the opportunity of the present.
35
These two necessities—the sanitation of Chicago and the
creation of a waterway from lake to gulf—are indissolubly
inter-related by the common consent of the highest engi-
neering authority of the age. The drainage law, as it stands
to-day, without any amendment, is the crystallization of ex-
pert opinion. It represents the needs not only of the people
of the sanitary district, but of the whole State. It provides
for a permanent solution of Chicago's sanitary problem,
and at the same time gives the entire commonwealth a val-
uable return in the shape of a permanent waterway for the
privileges granted to the sanitary district.
This being so, the question may well be asked, who au.
thorized the drainage board “delegation * to apply to the
Legislature for radical amendments to this law?
Certainly it was not the people of the sanitary district,
neither was it the people of any other part of the State.
The valley communities are especially emphatic in opposing
the purposes of this self-constituted “delegation.” In fine,
the “delegation ” represents the drainage board of trustees,
and no one else. This board has begun at the question
wrong end foremost. Instead of starting out to comply
with the provisions of the law in its entirety, it has appar-
ently devoted all its energies to a futile effort to show why
the law should not be complied with. Instead of using the
drainage law as a basis for actual work, it has attempted to
set itself up as a judge of the wisdom of the law.
The power vested in the sanitary board of trustees by the
drainage law has evidently been misunderstood by certain
members of the board, either willfully or otherwise. That
power is executive, not legislative, so far as the main prin-
ciple and purposes of the law are concerned. If the present
board is unable to comply with the terms of the law, it
should give place to another that will represent the spirit of
the law as well as its letter.
There has been no expression of opinion from the people
that the drainage law needs annendment in any of its mate
rial features. There is a widely prevalent suspicion, how
36
ever, that the drainage board needs radical amendment, if
not repeal and re-organization.”
The Illinois river valley towns are always under arms,
and their “army of observation” and “army of occupation,”
are not only strong in numbers, but are commanded by
generals equal to Vauban or Von Moltke.
The country press is, too, very able and—
“Their discords sting through Burns and Moore,
Like hedgehogs dressed in lace.”
But bless you my children, what are the wild waves say-
ing? Listen—
“ Howe er it be, it seems to me,
'Tis only noble to be good.
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.”
We most cheerfully present the two sides of this contro-
versy, as we conceive that every fact pertaining to this
important matter should be most thoroughly understood
and that some conclusion should be reached as speedily as
possibly, for we most firmly believe that the future health
and prosperity of the people of the city of Chicago depend
upon provision being made for the disposition of the sewage
so that it shall in no way contaminate the drinking water
that we are now compelled to make use of.
We have investigated the sewage systems of Berlin, Paris
and London, and while all are imperfect, we are firmly con-
vinced that the plan that is now proposed is as good as any
that can possibly be devised and will, if carried out, answer
for a century to come.
Those who advocate the transmission of the sewage into
the country by pumping and piping and using the same as
a fertilizer, will look in vain for the vast sandy plains which
environ Berlin and which absorb such quantities of the
liquids poured out upon it, and those who look for its con-
Sumption in any other way than by dilution and oxidiza-
tion will, we think, look in vain.
What discoveries may be made in regard to this matter
in the future is hidden from our view and we must act with
37
such light and such information as God, in his providence
has vouchsafed to us.
Any plan that can be named will be attended with great
expense, but it must be borne patiently and philosophically
as one of the conditions of human existence.
V.
THE SEWAGE SYSTEM OF LONDON.
On the 8th day of January, 1889, a few months after our
return from a visit to Europe, and before the enactment of
the present drainage law, we published in the Chicago
Times the following article in regard to the Sewage system
of London, which explains itself:
The sewage system of London is among the most mar-
velous of her public works. For centuries the princi-
pal channel for conveying the sewage of the metropolis
into the Thames was the Fleet ditch. Its commencement
was from springs on the Southern slopes of the ridge of
Hampstead and Highgate hills, and in its course toward the
Thames at Blackfriars. It received the drainage of parts
of Hampstead and Highgate, of ail Kentish town, Camden
town, and Somers town, of parts of Islington, Clerkenwell,
and St. Sepulchre, and nearly all that part of Holborn
division lying south of the Euston road from Paddington
to the city. In the course of time this system became so
offensive that it could no longer be tolerated, and a system
of receiving reservoirs or cesspools was devised, but without
avail.
Prior to 1847 all the sewage of the metropolis of London
was conducted into cesspools and hence into the river, but
after the organization of the general board of health cess-
pools were abolished and the drainage of houses was made
directly into the sewers.
But the evil which had been so greatly complained of in
regard to the cesspools, it was soon found, had only been
transferred, not removed, for all the sewers by which the
cesspools were superseded flowed directly into the Thames,
3S
and the result was that in about ten years from the com-
mencement of this reform the foulness of the river became
unbearable, and measures were taken for the construction
of a system of main drainage, by means of which the sewage
is conveyed to a more harmless distance below the city. A
metropolitan board of commissioners was organized, called
“The Metropolitan Commissioners of Sewers,” comprising
the city of London proper, Westminster, Holborn, and
Finsbury, the Tower hamlets, Poplar and Blackwall, Surrey
and Kent, Greenwich and St. Catherines, and various proj-
ects and plans were agitated and proposed, but it was not
until 1854 that final action was taken.
At that time Mr. Bazalgette, the chief engineer of the
commission of Sewers, With whom was associated Mr.
Haywood, was directed to prepare a scheme of inter-
cepting sewers, intended to effect the main drainage
of London. The plans remained under consideration
until the formation of the metropolitan board of works,
two years later, when fresh plans for the drainage of the
metropolis were drawn by Mr. Bazalgette. After some
further delay these plans were eventually adopted, and the
works were commenced in 1859.
The chief object sought to be attained by the main drain-
age works was the interception of the sewage so as to divert
it from the river near London. New lines of sewers were
accordingly constructed, laid at right angles to those already
existing, and a little below their levels, so as to intercept
their contents and convey them to outfalls about fourteen
miles below London bridge. These outfalls are situated at
Barking creek, in Essex, and at Crossness Point, in Erith
marshes.
As large a proportion of the sewage as practicable is by
this means carried away by gravitation into the Salt water,
and for the remainder a constant discharge is effected by
pumping with powerful engines and machinery.
At the outlets the sewage is received into reservoirs on the
banks of the Thames, and placed at such a level as will en-
able them to discharge into the river at or about the time of
39
high water by the flow of the tide, which runs with great
power in the Thames.
By this arrangement the sewage is not only at once diluted
by the large volume of salt water in the Thames at high
water, but is also carried by the ebb tide to a point in the
river some twenty-six miles below London bridge, and the
possibility of its return by the following tide within the met-
ropolitan areas is by this means effectually prevented. The
drainage of London on the north side of the Thames is
effected by three lines of sewers—the high level, the middle
level, and the low level. The first of these commences by a
junction with the old Fleet sewer at the foot of Hampstead
hill, passing through upper Holloway, Stoke Nevington and
Hackney Wick to Abbey Mills pumping station near Plais-
tow. The second commences at Bayswater, and, skirting
Hyde Park, passes along Oxford street, High Holborn, and
by the railway station in Farringdon road and Old Street
road, and joins the high level sewer at Old Ford. While the
low level sewer with its branches extends from Cheswick
and Acton to Abbey Mills, passing on its way by Chelsea
and Pimlico, where there is located a large pumping station,
and so on to the Houses of Parliament and along the Vic-
toria embankment. From the pumping station at Abbey
Mills, the drainage is conveyed across Plaistow marshes by
the outfall sewer to the great reservoir at Barking creek.
On the south side of the Thames the intercepting sewer ex-
tends from Upper Norwood, Clapham, Putney, on three
main lines to Deptford, where they unite and thence pass
on through Charlton and Woolwich and across Plumstead
marsh to the pumping house and reservoir at Crossness
Point. The western pumping station was finished in 1874,
and cost about £183,000.
This station provides pumping power to lift the sewage
and a part of the rainfall contributed by the district, to-
gether estimated at 38,000 gallons per minute, a height of
eighteen feet in the lower level sewer, which extends from
Pimlico to the Abbey Mills pumping station, near Barking
in Essex. The requisite power is obtained from four high-
40
pressure condensing beam engines, of an aggregate of 360-
horse power. Supplementary power, to be used in case of
accident to the principal engines, or on any similar emer-
gency, is provided by an additional high-pressure, non-con-
densing engine of 120-horse power, supplied from two boil-
ers, similar to those for the principal engines. This engine
and its boilers are erected in a separate building to the rear
of the main buildings near the canal.
The works further comprise coal vaults, settling pond and
reservoirs for condensing water, repairing shops, stores and
dwelling houses for the workmen and superintendent in
charge of the works, and occupy nearly four acres.
The principal engine house is situated facing the main
road and river, and the height of this building rises to up-
ward of seventy-one feet. But all this is dwarfed by the
chimney shaft, which rises to nearly the height of the great
fire monument. *
The shaft is square, and the sides are relieved by three
recessed panels, arched over a short distance below the en-
tablature, which surmounts the shaft. Altogether, this chim-
ney makes a most conspicuous object for a long distance off.
This system of main drainage, which we have been de-
scribing, comprises over 117 square miles of sewers, and cost
nearly, if not quite, $25,000,000 in our money.
The main sewers are much larger in London than they
are in this country, but we were assured that they are none
too large, as at times the rainfall alone will cause the water
to rise in them within a few hours from two to three feet.
Some of the great main drains are from 12 feet high
by 12 feet wide to 9 feet high by 10 feet wide; then
8 feet 6 inches wide by 8 feet 3 inches high. The chan-
nel of the old Fleet river, which has been arched over,
is one of the largest sewers. The sewer from Holborn
Bars to Holborn bridge (formerly the channel of the old
Bourne) is one of the most considerable feeders of the Fleet.
It is 5% feet high and 4% feet in width. The smaller public
sewers are from 44 feet high by 24 feet wide to 54 feet high
by 3 feet in width, the average size being 4% feet by 2% feet.
41
The private drains from each house enter the main sewer
in all cases about 2 feet from its level and have a descent of
1 inch in 36, their diameter being 9 inches. These drains
carry off every description of refuse with the exception of
such as is carried away by the dustnen or garbage men.
Notwithstanding all of these sewers have a gravitating
force by reason of the fall in them that propels the water,
both surface and such as constantly goes into them from the
10,000 houses and buildings forward, it was found that
he re was a deposit at the bottom which averaged one-half
inch yearly, and that they needed constantly flushing to
prevent putrefaction, malaria and the plague. An ingen-
ious apparatus for using water in flushes was consequently
devised by which the sewers are effectually scoured. The
water used was supplied by the water companies, and when
a sewer was to be cleansed the water was backed up, and
when let off cleared the sewer to an extent proportionate to
the quantity of headwater, the fall of the sewer, and the
depth of the deposit. In this way it was found that an
immense quantity of sediment was removed and the saving
effected was very great. *
And right here we would inquire, why can not the
Bridgeport pumps and the Fullerton avenue pumps be used
to flush the sewers of this city? What is to hinder? If
this is not practicable why not make provision in the new
system of water works for the South Side to use the pumps
from time to time to flush all the South-Side sewers? Could
not, at least, pipes be so arranged as to at times direct a
flow of water into the sewers and clean them out instead of
resorting to the primitive method now employed for that
purpose?
Chicago lies but a few feet above the level of Lake Michi-
gan and is surrounded on all sides by a low lying, flat
country, mostly a muck soil, yet a great part is underlaid
with heavy clay.
It is easily converted into mud and retains moisture for a
considerable length of time. Water can be easily obtained
by digging a few feet beneath the surface, and in many
42
places the soil is soaked with water. It has been frequently
asserted that if Berlin can dispose of her sewage by trans-
ferring it to the waste lands which surround that city on
all sides, Chicago can, and if not in this State, by transfer-
ring the same to the adjoining State of Indiana. We deem
this impracticable. There is but slight resemblance in the
conditions which environ us here with those found at
Berlin, except in this: The topography of both cities is
flat and both are afflicted with sluggish sewers that are any-
thing but favorable to underground drainage. All else is
different. Let us direct our attention for a moment to
Berlin.
Berlin, the metropolis of the German empire, is situated
in the center of a vast Sandy plain and lies about 120 feet
above the level of the Baltic. Its annual temperature is 40.2
degrees Fahrenheit, the maximum recorded heat being 99.5
and maximum cold 16.1 degrees Fahrenheit. The average
rainfall is 21.74 Prussian inches, and Berlin has on the
average 120 rainy, 29 Snowy and 17 foggy days in a year.
The sandy district is interspersed with the marshy district,
and the city lies on both sides of the river Spree, not far
from its junction with the Hanel, one of the principal tribu-
taries of the Elbe.
By the canals it has also direct communication with the
Oder. The Spree rises in the mountain region of Upper
Lusatia, is navigable for the last 97 English miles of its
course, enters Berlin on the Southeast as a broad, sluggish
stream, retaining an average width of 420 feet and a depth
of 6 or 7 feet until it approaches the center of the city on the
northwest. Here, after receiving the waters of the Panke,
it is still a dull and sluggish stream, but with an average
width of only 160 feet and with its depth increased from to
12 to 14 feet. Within the boundaries of the city it feeds
canals and divides into branches, which, however, reunite.
The river with its canals and branches is crossed by about
fifty bridges. The population is not far from 2,000,000.
The rate of mortality is high. According to the reports with
which we have been furnished it was twenty-eight to every
43
1,000 in 1875, which is considered a most favorable year.
Taking the deaths as a whole, fifty-eight per cent were of
children under ten years of age, and the rateis on the increase.
Prof. Virchow, in a report to the municipal authorities,
stated that dividing the last fifteen years into periods of five
years each the general mortality in each of the three periods
was as five, seven, nine. The mortality of children under
one year in the same three periods was as five, seven, eleven
—that is, it had more than doubled. w
In the year 1872, out of 27,800 deaths, 11,136 were chil-
dren under one year. The city is well supplied with water-
works of the most approved character, which are owned by
the city. Manufacture and trade absorb more than seventy
per cent of the entire population, and yet it is the greatest
center of intelligence, science and art in the world. A sys-
tem of underground drainage has been established not
unlike our own—but it has been found not to work satisfac-
torily, and it has been proposed to abandon this system
entirely and to resort to the simpler plan of absorption—
that is, the transference of all the sewage of the city to the
Sandy wastes which environ Berlin on all sides for nearly
100 miles. In other words, establish a vast pipe line for
sewage, the same as the pipe lines for oil exist in this coun-
try. Nor is this entirely a simple project or experiment,
for already the people of Berlin have actually put it into
practice and are to-day pouring a continual stream of sew-
age into the country, and are rapidly converting a howling
wilderness into an elysium of parks and gardens and utilizing
the same for agricultural purposes. Some twenty distrib-
uting stations have already been established in the country,
and the results seem to be very satisfactory.
This experiment has, however, been undertaken and car-
ried forward under the most favorable conditions that it is
possible to conceive of Trees, shrubs and flowers, it is true,
grow in profusion, and vegetable life is greatly stimulated
although the vegetables themselves become, in many in-
stances, so highly flavored by the fertilizing matter as to be
almost totally unfit for human food. They have, however,
44
found a remedy for this, and the ground now, after becom-
ing thoroughly Saturated with the sewage, is left for Some
time exposed to the chemical action of the atmosphere, and
crops are alternated in order to prove at all remunerative.
If the city of Chicago owned the northern and eastern
half of Indiana and the vast range of sand dunes that stretch
along the coast line of Lake Michigan, from the State mon-
unment near Chicago to Michigan City, the Berlin experi-
ment might perhaps be repeated here and would not be
beyond human hope and human endeavor, and might in-
deed, prove in the end a success. But Chicago is not Berlin
and the conditions here are entirely different from what
they are there. Berlin has bought up and owns uncounted
thousands of acres of Sand on which it is making its experi-
ment, and if anybody can make the absorption system a
success it will be the people of that city, for they could not
be more favorably situated for the purpose unless they were
planted in the midst of the Lybian desert.
Here everybody knows that we have no such conditions
and we will be required to deal with this matter on a gigan-
tic scale and almost everything against us. Said one of
the most experienced hydraulic engineers of the age: “The
soil is everything in such an experiment, and while the ab-
sorption of sewage would be perfectly feasible in the deserts
of Arabia it would utterly fail if applied in vast quantities
on any soil composed of muck and clay.”
We submit to any candid observer that this must be so,
and we further submit that the only practical plan for us
is to drain into the Desplaines river or into the Illinois and
Michigan Canal and deepen them so that we can have a
much lower level than is afforded us at the present time.
Said the late Mr. Chesbrough to me in a conversation
in which he went all over the subject in his office with the
outstretched map before him: “The great mistake that we
made at the very start was in not fixing the grade of all the
city at least three feet higher than it is now; then we
could have had some fall to our sewers and they could have
been flushed without trouble; now it is almost impossible.
45
“Another thing,” said he, “the sewerage system for the
West side ought to have been graded so that commencing
at Western avenue there could be a dip toward the Chicago
river on the east and toward the Desplaines on the west.
“To raise the grade of this city we know would cost mill-
ions, but either that must be done or else the channel of the
Illinois and Michigan Canal or the Desplaines lowered
below Joliet.”
This was the deliberate opinion of the father of our Sewer-
age system, in which Mr. Clark, then acting as chief engineer
of the sewerage department, concurred; but he felt himself
powerless to cope even with the enlightened selfishness with
which he stood confronted at that time. The sewerage
problem is now upon us. The city of Chicago is yet in its
infancy, and within a period not remote will be as populous
as London is to-day. What shall we do then? But let us
not concern ourselves with what we shall do then—rather
let us concern ourselves with what we shall do to-day and
in the intervening time.
This question is the supreme question of the hour, and
yet what do we see? What preparations have been made
to lay before the General Assembly such legislation as shall
meet the approval of our fellow citizens? And who is to
guide and direct this legislation in the senate and on the
fioor of the house? This question requires the knowledge
of experts, with abundance of facts and statistics, and should
be made a special study.
Chicago has now, in the midst of divided counsels, to meet
in the halls of the General Assembly at Springfield, at the
ensuing session of the Legislature, the combined prejudice
of the State. The campaign has already opened. Conven-
tions have been held, resolutions passed, terms specified,
and some enthusiasts have gone so far as to announce their
ultimatum under which legislation can be obtained. It is.
demanded that we shall, before proceeding further, build a
ship canal large enough to unite the waters of Lake Michi-
gan with those of the Mississippi river, and with a capacity
sufficient to enable commerce, as well as sewage, to go un-
46
vexed to the sea. The project is in itself a most laudable
one, and is quite as feasible as that which demands that we
shall transfer the sewage of this city to the sand hills of In-
diana, but we do not think that such generosity ought to be
insisted upon wholly at our expense. We are in favor of a
ship canal that shall be large enough and deep enough to
enable the largest vessel that floats the ocean to pass from
New Orleans to the vast inland seas that we are favored with,
provided the means can be obtained to build the same,
but that must be a national work and not a local one.
The people of this State like to be regarded as an edu-
cated, enterprising and “go-ahead” people. Yet, having
suffered in their early history all of the woes of poverty,
hunger, disappointment, disaster, humiliation and defeat
in our efforts to develop the resources of the State, ap-
proaching even the repudiation of our State debt, the tradi-
tion of that period has come down to us in all its force, and
stalks like a ghost through the halls of the General Assem-
bly, until every representative stands aghast at any proposi-
tion which may be made in the nature of a public work.
This spirit manifested itself most particularly in the sessions
of the constitutional convention of 1870, when, after days
and weeks of weary debate, it was finally declared that “the
General Assembly shall never loan the credit of the State,
or make appropriations from the treasury thereof in aid of
railroads or canals; provided that any surplus earnings of
any canal may be appropriated for its enlargement or exten-
sion.” This is, as one of the witty members of that body
said, equivalent to saying: “If anybody can lift himself
over a fence by the straps of his boots, he is at liberty to
do so.”
This, therefore, may be regarded as the fixed policy of
the State of Illinois, which has been incorporated into the
organic law of the State and which sets bounds to her enter-
prise in that direction. We do not think that this language
is so broad and comprehensive as to prevent the deepening
of a river, the digging of a ditch, or even constructing as a
new and independent project a ship canal from Chicago to
47
Cairo, or from Chicago to Rock Island or any other point,
by which the waters of Lake Michigan may be united with
those of the Mississippi river.
The city of Chicago should be dealt with as an integral
part of the State of Illinois and not as a foreign province.
The city of Chicago is yet in its infancy, and before
another century shall have passed will, as we have said,
number as many souls as London does to-day. No plan
that has yet been devised is on a scale too gigantic for our
future wants and necessities, but we can not outrun our
generation and transfer all the waters of Lake Michigan into
the Mississippi valley at once in order to retain the
friendship of neighboring cities or neighboring States. In
the fullness of time all these things will be fulfilled. In
the meantime
“Draw you to the Tiber banks and weep your tears
Into the channel, till the lowest stream
Do kiss the most exalted shores of all.”
VI.
THE PROBLEM STATED.
It is the old, old story—so often told, and yet never ended.
How shall the city of Chicago, which has but just passed
its half century of existence, with its million and a quarter
of people, take care of its sewage? What provision shall
be made for to-day and for fifty years hence? We can not
pollute and contaminate the great reservoir that supplies
us with fresh water; neither can we cast it forth upon the
land and let it create untold nuisances. We do not believe
that the sewage of the city of Chicago can be converted into
fertilizing material; and therefore it must be disposed of in
Some other way.
We believe that there is but one way that can be devised
which can successfully cope with this question and solve this
problem, and that is by dilution and transporting it down
the Mississippi river. Those who have adopted this theory
alternately speak of the means to be adopted as that of the
Deep Canyon theory or the Ship Canal theory. We care but
48
very little by what name it may be called, for the Deep Can-
yon theory and the Deep Cut and Ship Canal are essentially
one and the same in theory—although one may not be used
for commercial purposes, while the other may.
M. D. Ross has presented, in a very striking manner, the
Deep Canyon theory, and claims for it the following advan-
tages:
First—Thorough and adequate drainage.
Second—Freshness and purity of water supply.
Third—A passage for the transportation of ships between
Lake Michigan and the Mississippi valley.
Fourth—A valuable water power in the heart of the city
of Chicago.
My scheme, says he, is called “A Deep Canyon System.”
The greatest problem at present before the people of Chicago,
and one imperatively demanding a speedy solution, is that
of providing proper and adequate drainage for the city, not
only as it now is, but as it is likely to become. The system
must be such that it can be extended and ramified in all
directions, whatever may be the future increase of popula-
tion, or the extension over space.
The immense and rapid growth which has characterized
the city in the past is still going on in increasing ratio,
and seems to indicate that it is destined to become one
of the largest, if not the largest in the United States. Its
position, also, in the middle of the continent, favors this
opinion. But it is an absolutely essential condition to such
growth that there shall be an ample supply of pure water,
and thorough and adequate drainage, Lake Michigan
offers the city an unlimited supply of the best and purest
water in the world, and it behooves its inhabitants simply
to preserve its purity as it flows from its northern source
and reaches the city.
The growth of the city seems at present to tend in a south-
easterly direction, and should it ever reach or approximate
the size of London, having a population of 5,000,000 or more
which even moderately sanguine people predict), its esti-
49
mated center would probably be midway between the Chi-
cago and Calumet rivers.
Based on these assumptions, it is proposed to select on the
shore of Lake Michigan, Some point between the Chicago
river and Hammond, from which to extend a channel to a
convenient point for a water-power station, where there will
be a dam providing for a fall of twenty feet. The channel
is to be of sufficient width, depth and length to form a capa-
cious harbor and docks. From the lower side of the dam
a deep canyon or canal is to extend to Joliet, having a water-
way 180 feet wide and 18 feet deep, with a descent of five
inches to the mile, which is expected to produce a current of
two or three miles an hour, and a flow of 600,000 cubic feet per
minute. The dam is to be provided with a lock or locks, and
sluices to regulate the supply of water drawn from Lake
Michigan, and also with arrangements for the use of the
water for producing power. Six hundred thousand cubic feet
of water per minute on 20 feet of fall, is capable of produc-
ing 17,000 horse-power night and day, which is fully double
the water-power at Holyoke (the largest in New England)
or three times that at Lowell, Manchester or Lawrence.
Below the dam, the drainage from all parts of the city is
to be conducted into the canyon by means of intercepting
sewers at points below the level of Lake Michigan, and this
scheme affords a most efficient drainage because of the great
depth of the canyon, and available slope for the cut-offs.
The surface of the water in the canyon will be at least twenty
feet below the surface of the lake. Thorough and adequate
drainage is thus assured.
The continuous current produced by the waterfall over
the dam will insure a constant change in the water supply
of the lake, drawing off any impurities which may enter
therein from any source, either from the Calumet or Chi-
cago rivers, or from the surface of the streets. The purity
of the water at the point from whence it is drawn for do-
mestic uses in the city, even if the city be extended for a
distance of many miles along the shore of the lake, will
thus be secured.
50
The channel constructed from Lake Michigan will be
of great commercial advantage to the city by affording space
for extension of the dock system.
The depth of water in the canyon, eighteen feet, provides
the necessary link in Chicago for connecting by water the
great lakes and the Mississippi river.
The value of such an immense water power in the very
heart of the city can hardly be overestimated. It would fur-
mish power for pumping all water needed for domestic use,
fire service, etc., for moving the street cars, as well as for
generating electricity for lighting and for small manufact-
Ul l’él’S.
The intelligence and skill which characterizes the engi-
neers, mechanics and manufacturers of Chicago may be relied
upon to estimate the monied value of the water power which
the deep canyon alone can give to Chicago. They can
show the financiers of the city how far the income from this
source will aid them in paying the interest on any increased
loan which may be needed to pay the extra cost, if any, of
the proposed deep canyon system over that of any other
scheme which may be under consideration to accomplish
the same ends. M. D. Ross.
E. L. Corthell, the distinguished engineer, has presented
the subject in a very clear manner, as follows:
CHICAGO AND THE CANAL.
“At Chicago is the lowest line cross section of the trough
or ‘thalweg' through which the waters of the lakes flowed
southward. The bottom of this trough is only about eight
feet above the present level of Lake Michigan, with a natu-
ral drainage and a steep slope down the Illinois river
valley, from the immediate suburbs of the city. At this
location has been built, within the last half-century, the
second city of the continent, and at this point, connecting
the lake with the tributaries of the Mississippi river, there
was projected, in 1670, a canal to the Illinois river. It was
proposed by one of the earliest pioneers—Joliet—to dig a
canal across the Chicago divide, for commercial and mili-
51
tary purposes. In 1804, AlbertGallatin, Secretary of Treas-
ury of the United States, spoke of the national character
of this proposed waterway. In the first comprehensive
report on internal communication, DeWitt Clinton and
Gouverneur Morris, in 1808 to 1825, urged the proposed
ship canal, as an extension of the Erie canal to the
Mississippi, in order to open up water communication
by the lakes, from the Hudson river to the Gulf of
Mexico. The Congress of the United States assisted in
the project, and made a land grant of 284,000 acres, in
1827, for the construction of the work. The first canal was
opened for navigation in 1848. In 1865, the State of Illi-
nois provided for its completion; it was completed by the
city of Chicago for drainage purposes, in July, 1871, but
the flow through it proved insufficient for the purpose, and
in 1881 the State required the city to erect pumping machin-
ery of a capacity of not less than 60,000 cubic feet a minute,
which was put into operation in 1884. The original canal
was six feet deep, sixty feet wide at surface, thirty-six feet
wide at bottom in earth, and forty-six wide in rock, with
Hocks 110 feet long, eighteen feet lift, and six feet on the miter
sills.
MORE ADEQUATE DRAINAGE FOR CEIICAGO.
The rapid growth of the city requires a much more ade-
quate drainage for its sewage than is now provided. This
is necessary to prevent the pollution of the only source of
its water supply and to carry the sewage away from the city
as quickly as possible. A channel for drainage purposes as
well as for navigation purposes has been authorized by the
State Legislature. Nearly the entire area of the city has,
under the State law, been organized into a drainage dis-
trict. The law requires (and this requirement, it may be
stated, was demanded by the towns and cities located along
the Illinois river) a continuous flow of not less than 300,000
cubic feet a minute, with a current not exceeding three
miles an hour, and 600,000 cubic feet a minute when the
population of the district draining into the channel exceeds
52
1,500,000, with a requirement for a still larger volume when
the population exceeds the number last named. It is speci-
fied that the water shall not be less than eighteen feet deep
through the channel, and that the width of the channel
shall not be less than 160 feet at the bottom. By a joint
resolution the Legislature requires the United States Gov-
ernment ‘to aid in the construction of a channel not less
than 160 feet wide and twenty-two feet deep, with such a
grade as to give a velocity of three miles an hour from Lake
Michigan at Chicago to Lake Joliet, a pool of the Desplaines
river immediately below Joliet, and to project a channel of .
similar capacity and not less than fourteen feet deep from
Joliet to La Salle, all to be designed in such manner as to
permit future development to a greater capacity.’ It is
apparent, from the rapid growth of the city, that long
before these works, so great in magnitude and costing prob-
ably $25,000,000 or $30,000,000, shall have been completed,
there will be at least 2,000,000 of people in the drainage
district. The normal growth of the city will, no doubt,
make the population as great as this before the year 1900.
The large quantity of water to be sent through this channel
into the Illinois river valley will, it is expected, raise the
low-water level of the Illinois river about seven feet, and
that of the Mississippi river at St. Louis at least one foot,
and probably six inches at Cairo at the junction with the
Ohio river.
On the Mississippi river itself the United States Govern-
ment is expending large sums of money in deepening and
rectifying the channel for navigation, with the ultimate
purpose of obtaining a minimum depth of ten feet at low
water between New Orleans and Cairo, a distance of about
one thousand miles by the course of the river. As is well
known, it has expended a large amount of money in remov-
ing the obstructions at the mouth of the Mississippi, and
has created by the works there a channel thirty feet deep
between the river and the Gulf of Mexico. This result was
obtained in 1879, and the channel has increased rather than
diminished in size since that day through the jettied channel.
53
As incidentally of interest, it may be stated that the United
States Government is about to connect the navigable waters
of the Illinois river with those of the Mississippi river by a
canal across the country from Hennepin on the Illinois
river to Rock Island on the Mississippi river. This is not
to be a ship canal, but a boat and barge canal. The depth
on the miter sills of the locks is to be seven feet, the width
at surface of the water eighty feet, and the locks are to be 170
feet by thirty feet. There will be thirty-seven of these locks.
The height to be surmounted from Hennepin going west-
ward to the summit, in a distance of twenty miles, is 208
feet. The difference in level between this summit and the
Mississippi river at Rock Island is 102 feet; the length of
the canal will be seventy-seven miles. The entire distance
between Chicago on Lake Michigan and Rock Island on the
Mississippi river, by way of the Illinois river and the Illi-
nois and Mississippi Canal, will be 1934 miles. The plans
are made for the work, and construction is expected to begin
SO() I).
IT WOULD NOT AFFECT THE LAKES.
One question in relation to the proposed drainage and
waterway channel between Chicago and the Mississippi
river is, what effect, if any, will the abstraction of so
large a volume of water from Lake Michigan have upon
the level of that lake and of Lake Huron, and upon the
volume flowing through the Detroit river into Lake Erie?
This is an international question and should be briefly con-
sidered in connection with the general subject which we are
discussing.
On September 8, 1888, a paper by Mr. George Y. Wisner,
civil engineer, was read before the Western Society of En-
gineers, entitled, ‘Levels of the Lakes as Affected by the
Proposed Lake Michigan and Mississippi Waterway.” Mr.
Wisner had had, at that time, about twenty years' experi-
ence on the rivers, harbors and lakes of the Northwest, and
was connected with the Great Lakes surveys. The opinion,
as stated by Mr. Wisner, was, that ‘probably the low water
54
level of the lake would never be affected to exceed 2% inches.
by withdrawing 10,000 cubic feet a second from Lake Michi-
gan for the proposed waterway. The lowest stage occurs in
winter, when navigation is closed.’ The annual rise of the
lake usually covers a period of about four months, and con-
sequently the variation in the yearly fluctuation of the lake
surface, due to withdrawing such a volume of water, could not
exceed one inch. When we consider that hourly fluctua-
tions of the lake's surface of from 6 to 30 inches in ampli-
tude are constantly taking place, it is evident that the with-
drawal annually of a volume of water from Lake Michigan
equivalent to 3 inches in depth over the surfaces of the two
lakes would not be appreciable in any ordinary set of gauge
readings, and would certainly have but little effect upon the
depth of water in the connecting waterways.” Somewhat
similar artificial conditions have been produced by the
deepening of the St. Lawrence rapids below Ogdensburg
from 10 to 16 feet, adding from six to eight per cent. to the
free channel of the river. The question was considered at
that time, and was referred to the United States engineer
department, and the conclusion from the investigation was
that the effects would extend to no great distance, and that
the level of Lake Ontario would not be impaired. The
deepening at the Lime Kiln crossing of the Detroit river,
where the depth has been increased from 13 to 20 feet, and
at the St. Clair flats, which have been deepened from 9% to
nearly 20 feet, are cases generally similar to what is practi-
cally the deepening of the channel now existing between
Lake Michigan and the Illinois river, and yet no injurious
results have been experienced, nor are they anticipated.
We may, therefore, dismiss any fears that may exist in
regard to the deleterious effects of this channel-way upon the
harbors and the connecting waterways of the lakes.
We think that the ship canal plan is by far the best, and
we think that however objectionable the drainage act may
be in other respects, the requirement for a deep and wide
channel is right, and time will prove it so.
55
VII.
H. B. HURD AND L. E. CooDEY's ExPLANATION OF THE OB-
JECTS AND SCOPE OF THE DRAINAGE ACT.
H. B. Hurd, Esq., whom we have already had occasion to
refer to as being one of the most capable and thorough
investigators of the advantages to be realized, and the diffi-
culties to be overcome in carrying into effect the drainage
law, among other things says :
The one question that leads and controls all others in
reference to the size and capacity of the drainage channel,
and the one that has been most generally overlooked in the
discussions now going on upon that point is, what is the
channel expected to accomplish in the way of drainage?
Is it to keep the sewage out of the lake altogether, or only
during a part of the time? In other words, is it to effect a
radical cure of the evil of pollution of the water supply, or
only a modification of it 2 If a radical cure, it must be of
such a capacity as will maintain a flow of water through the
Chicago river and into the Desplaines river at all times; as
well in rainy weather as in dry weather; as well during the
spring and other freshets as during the ordinary rainfalls.
It is not possible that it needs any argument to convince
any one who has witnessed one of these spring or other
freshets, or has any knowledge of their effects upon the
water supply, that any channel that will not keep up such
a flow and consequently keep the sewage out of the lake at
all times, will be a miserable failure, not worth the money it
will cost, no matter how small the amount. It is these
freshets that are most alarming. They will not be smaller
or less frequent or carry out into the water supply less filth
after the channel is built than before, unless controlled. As
there will be more people to create filth, so there will be
more filth for these freshets to carry off. Then, as now,
there will be the winter and summer accumulations in back
yards, alleys, streets, docks, slips, slaughter houses, renderies
and other foul places, and these freshets will find them and
wash them out, with the contents of the sewers, into the
56
Chicago river. If the channel is large enough, it will carry
all this foul mass into and down the Desplaines, keeping it
moving until the water has purified itself. If it is not large
enough, the current in the river will be turned toward the
lake, and this same mass will be carried out into the lake,
and more or less of it into the water supply, as now.
NO DIFFICULTY IN THE WAY.
There is no insuperable obstacle in the way of the con-
struction of a channel of the requisite capacity, and there is
no difficulty in ascertaining what that capacity must be.
It is the same problem that has to be solved whenever any
sewer is constructed. The amount of storm water and sew-
age that is to be carried off is first found and then the width,
depth and grade of a channel that will carry it off. This
has already been done. It was done in 1887 by the drain-
age and water supply commission, of which Samuel G.
Artingstall, who has lately been appointed chief engineer
of the sanitary district, was a member. That commission
found that if the flood waters of the upper Desplaines and
North Branch were diverted into the lake at a point where
it was practicable to do so, a channel 200 feet wide and
eighteen feet deep, with a sufficient slope to enable it to
carry 600,000 cubic feet of water per minute, or its equiva-
lent, would answer the purpose, and that this is the least
capacity that will answer the purpose from the point where
the channel will intersect the Desplaines river at Summit
down to Joliet. If these figures are correct, there is an end
of the question as to the size of the channel through the
rock cut, for this embraces the rock cut, or we must give
up the expectation of preventing the pollution of the water
supply during the freshets, the times when it is most polluted.
If, as is known to be the fact, there will be during the great
freshets 600,000 feet of water per minute to be carried off, it is
folly to suppose a channel of 300,000 cubic feet per minute,
the size contended for by some, will do the work. The
point where the largest amount of water will seek the chan-
nel is Summit, where the waters of the Desplaines will fall
into the channel and meet the water coming from the Chi-
57
cago river. The water of the Desplaines alone will at such
times exceed 300,000 cubic feet per minute. Whatever
amount there is in excess of the capacity of the channel
from that point south will flow east through the Chicago
end of the channel into the Chicago river, turning the cur-
rent of that river back into the lake and carrying the entire
sewage and wash of the city and surrounding country into
the lake for the length of time such excess shall continue.
STORM WATER. MUST BE CONSIDERED.
From what has been said it will be seen that the question
of the size of the channel to effect the object to be attained
is not controlled by the capacity of the Chicago river.
Whether 250,000 feet per minute or more or less is the
measure of the capacity of that river to carry water from
the lake into the channel is a matter of indifference in
arriving at the requisite capacity of a channel to prevent its
being flushed out into the lake in storm times. It is enough
to know that it has always heretofore carried into the lake
the storm water of the entire Chicago basin at every storm,
and that it will continue to do so until a channel outlet is
constructed of sufficient capacity to prevent this, and that
capacity has been ascertained as stated.
Neither is it necessary to determine how much less thau
20,000 cubic feet of water per minute for each 100,000 pop.
ulation will be sufficient for dilution. As the channel requi-
site beyond Summit to keep the sewage out of the lake must
have a capacity sufficient for 3,000,000 population, at the rate
stated, there is no room for controversy on that point in
determining what the capacity of that part of the channel
shall be. If the 300,000-foot channel this side of Summit
which the law allows should at any time prove to be insuf-
ficient for dilution, it can be enlarged to the requisite capac-
ity. It will be in clay, and the excavation will cost scarcely
less per yard to enlarge it than in the original construction.
So, also, if at any time more water shall be required for
dilution or for navigation than can be got through the Chi-
cago river, there will be found plenty of ways of furnishing
5S
it. We need not now stop to point them out. The lake is
at hand with an abundance of water, and when the time
connes that it will be wanted it will be obtained. w
QUESTION OF NAVIGATION.
The question whether the channel beyond Summit is to
be used as a waterway or not, has no controlling influence
in determining its capacity. It may be conceded that a
300,000 cubic feet per minute channel would be as good,
or even better in every respect for navigation. Still, this
would not signify. The fact still remains that there
is 600,000 cubic feet of water per minute to deal with, and
the channel must have that capacity to carry it off, no mat-
ter what may be said about navigation. Whether a chan-
nel of the same capacity can be made less, if it is to be a
sewage channel only, than if it is also to be a navigable
channel, has not been definitely ascertained. So far as the
investigations llave gone, they tend to show that the differ-
ence will not be material; that the cheapest channel for.
drainage, will be the best one for navigation. It is hardly
possible to construct a drainage channel that will not be a
magnificent waterway. I have before me some figures on
several different channels, that were made in the office of
the sanitary trustees. They were made for a 600,000-foot
channel, and cover only the cost of excavation. The rates
per cubic yard are the same as those adopted by the Her-
ing commission, viz.: clay, 15 cents; hard pan, 30 cents;
rock, 75 cents per cubic yard. I quote two of them. One
is 160 feet wide by 18 feet deep, with a grade of 7 inches to
the mile; total cost of excavation, $13,136,455. Another is
160 feet wide by 25 feet deep, grade, 2,177 inches in rock,
and 200 feet wide by 25 feet deep, grade, 1 1-5 in clay, cost
of excavation $12,844,500. It will be seen that the last of
these channels would be the best for navigation, as it is the
widest in clay—that is, at the Chicago end, and has a less
grade throughout, and consequently will have a less rapid
current. The reason why this latter channel is cheaper
than the other is that the proportion of rock excavation in
59
it is much less than in the other. Nothing but downright
perversity can devise a suitable drainage channel that will
not also be suitable for navigation.
AS THE DBAINAGE ACT STANDS.
While the capacity of the channel through the rock cut
required by the drainage act as it stands—600,000 cubic
feet—was insisted upon as a minimum by the valley people,
to insure adequate dilution and a navigable waterway, its
insertion in the bill was consented to by the friends of the
bill upon the assurance of the engineers referred to that no
less channel would answer the purposes of drainage for the
reasons hereinbefore stated. We made a virtue of this ne-
cessity and won our cause by so doing. It still remains no
less a necessity, and I am confident it will prove a virtue in
many ways. It procured the attention and favorable action
of Congress to the extent of the investigation and surveys
that have recently been made. If Congress will take hold
of the matter and improve the Illinois and Desplaines
rivers by locks and dams from La Salle to Lockport, as I
am confident it will do, it will save us about $1,500,000,
which it will otherwise cost the sanitary district to carry the
water through Joliet.
To sum up what is said above: 1. The sewage must be
kept out of the lake at all times. 2. To do this a channel
must be constructed from the Chicago river to and down
the Desplaines river to Joliet of sufficient capacity to pro-
duce a continuous flow that way at all times. 3. The least
capacity of channel that will answer this purpose is one
that will carry 600,000 cubic feet of water per minute from
the point where it intersects the Desplaines river, and not
less than 300,000 from Chicago to that point, 4. The ca-
pacity of the channel dictated, from Summit down, being
more than ample for diluting and for a navigable water-
way, the consideration of these points in determining the
size of that part of the channel is important. 5. The
requisite channel for drainage purposes, if perfectly con-
structed, will answer sufficiently well the purposes of dilu-
60
tion and navigation, and this, most likely, without increased
expense on these accounts. HARVEY B. HURD.
It having been determined officially, that the construction
of the Drainage and Sewage Ship Canal will not exhaust
the supply of water at present stored up in Lake Michigan,
or destroy its equilibrium, the next thing is to understand
the uses and capacity of the proposed waterway and make
suitable provision for utilizing the same.
Mr. Cooley, an eminent engineer of great experience
and observation, says: “The drainage problem is one of
many State ramifications. The original Chicago drainage
plan was that of Engineer Chesborough. It was based on
the elevation of the grades of the city to a height of fourteen
feet and discharge of sewage into the lake. In 1871 the
sewage was diverted to the Illinois valley by reversing the
current of the Chicage river. The new problem of dispos-
ing of the sewage of Chicago, consists in cutting a channel
through the Water-shed at Summit and providing a sufficient
dilution for the sewage of the city which is poured into the
Illinois valley. Chicago is the greatest filth producer in the
world in proportion to its size. Most of this filth is organic
and the result of special enterprises. The Sewage product is
equal to that of 3,000,000 population in London. A part of
this filth goes to the lake all the time, and in times of espe-
cially heavy rains nearly all the sewage of the river goes to
the lake also. In fine, one-third of our sewage goes into the
lake, one-third into the canal, and one-third of it rots on the
ground. In 1889 there was a typhoid fever epidemic which
was directly traceable to sewage contamination. In 1890
there was a similar epidemic, and last winter still another,
all of which are attributable to the contamination of the
drinking water.
The design of the present drainage law is to provide a
channel so large that all the storm water and sewage shall
be diverted from the lake and sent down the Illinois valley.
But the law requires that the water discharged into the val-
ley be in a sanitary condition. The channel proposed
would be ample to dispose of the sewage of this city for
61
about twenty-five years. A channel 200 feet wide in the
clay and 165 feet wide in the rock, twenty-five feet deep
between here and Lockport, will be cheaper than the pro-
posed channel 160 feet wide all the way. The future can
be provided for without great additional cost. The deep
channel system will provide for Chicago such a harbor as
it has never had, and that is an essential consideration, for
her marine commerce is already twice as great as that pass-
ing through the Suez Canal, greater than Manchester's and
second only to that of New York. We may as well solve
the navigation question at the same time that we solve the
drainage problem. If that is not done our commercial
interests will suffer. If the United States Government will
furnish as much money as Chicago will have to do, a four-
teen-foot channel can be made from the lake to the Missis-
sippi. A reasonable estimate of the cost of the proposed
canal is about $25,000,000. As near as can be estimated it
is little less than the cost of the Manchester ship canal.
With wise management he believed that the project could be
carried out with very little cost to the people, because the
valuable property created by the completion of the channel
with its harborage and dockage facilities would be enor-
mous.”
VIII.
THE KICKERS OF THE WALLEY.
It is not our desire or intention to treat lightly the claims
to immunity which our friends of the valley have put forth
in regard to Chicago sewage and the quality of the water
which it is proposed to supply their region with. It is
not to be expected that civilized men will look with adora-
tion upon those who wish to resolve earth, air and water
into destructive elements, for their religion, we assume,
is more of profound homage to the great Creator, as God
of purity and light, than that of the Brahmins. As
an illustration—Burke, when told that, at Benares, the very
spot where Hastings had committed some of the outrages
which were charged against him in the first article of his
62
impeachment, the natives had erected a temple to commend
his virtues, replied that he saw no reason for astonishment
at the incident, for he knew something of the mythology of
the Brahmins—he knew that as they worshiped some
gods from love, so they worshiped others from fear. He
knew that they erected shrines, not only to the benignant
deities of light and plenty, but also to the fiends who
preside over small-pox and murder.
Our friends of the valley can not be expected to go quite
as far as that. They are an entirely different race from the
Brahmins, and we do not expect them to erect shrines and
temples to commend our beneficence by showering upon
them contamination, even in a diluted form.
The question which is presented is, however, one of
necessity, if not justifiable homicide, according to Crowner's
quest law.
Shakespeare has presented this matter in the clearest
manner in Hamlet, where the two clowns discuss the re-
sponsibility of suicide by drowning, in which the first
clown says: “It must be se offendendo; it can not be
else; for here lies the point: if I drown myself willingly, it
argues an act; an act hath three branches; it is to act, to
do and to perform; argal, she drowned herself willingly.
2 Clown. Nay, but hear, you goodman delver—
1 Clown. Give me leave. Here lies the water; good,
here stands the man; good; if the man go to this water and
drown himself, it is, will he, mill he, he goes—mark you
that; but if the water come to him and drown him, he
drowns not himself; argal, he that is not guilty of his own
death shortens not his own life.” &
How plain this is, and being so, what if all the people of
the Illinois valley were “cut off even in the blossoms of their
sins, unhousel’d, disappointed, unamel'd; no reckoning
made, but sent to their account with all their imperfections
on their heads”—what of it? There would be no responsi-
bility anywhere and it would be simply se offendendo.
No; water is a thing that is within the control of the
State, and it must never be overlooked nor forgotten that
63
it can not be monopolized, and while all riparian owners
have the right to use the same, such right is not exclu-
sive, and whenever any individual, body politic or cor-
porate, is authorized by the State to also use the same,
that which otherwise might become a nuisance would not
be regarded in law as a nuisance; and that in civilized
communities there is no such thing as a navigable or non-
navigable stream, “flowing unvexed to the Sea.” The peo-
ple who inhabit the sources or upper parts of a stream have
a right to demand that it shall not be dammed up or ob-
structed, and those owning property along the same have the
right to demand that, in case more wateris turned into it than
by nature belongs there, that those who do it shall make
provision for preventing its overflow, or that it shall not
create or cause nuisances, and a riparian owner must
take subject to this servitude. In other words, the public
exigencies may become such that the public may require
the use of running water in a different manner than what
nature provided for; or the State may authorize the creation
of artificial streams and rivers and water-courses, and the
widening and deepening of the natural beds or threads of
streams, and nobody can prevent the same, however in-
convenient the same be, and however unpleasant the conse-
quences which may ensue.
It was in accordance with these fundamental principles,
it appears, from the current history of the times, that the
present drainage law was framed, and it further appears, ac-
cording to Mr. Sanford, of Morris, that before the General
Assembly would pass it, that “a bargain * was made and
entered into by and between the urban residents of Chicago
and sub-fluvium advocates who dwelt in the valley, to the
following effect:
1. That the people of Chicago and of the respective
drainage districts, should at their own cost and expense dig
a ship canal.
2. A flow of 300,000 to 600,000 cubic feet a minute.
3. Non-interference with the Illinois and Michigan
Canal excepting in Cook county, and this only in such a
64
way as not to impair its use, and under the direction of the
Canal commissioners.
4. Liability on the part of the drainage district for
damages by overflow in the valley.
5. Action to be brought in the county where damages
may be sustained, and attorney fees to be recovered against
the drainage district.
6. That the channel should be kept and maintained of
such size and condition that the water should be neither
offensive nor injurious to the health of any of the people in
the State, and before any sewage should be discharged into
the channel, all garbage, dead animals and parts thereof
and other solids, should be taken therefrom.
7. That no water should pass into the canal until three
commissioners, residents of the valley, should decide that
the law has been complied with.
If these were the terms and conditions upon which the
legislation in question was obtained, then we say that it was
obtained at a most fearful cost, and the valley people “have
us upon the hip,” and the extensive possessions of our friend
Sanford along the canal or along “the invaded river,” are
safe from destruction and are as good as a gold mine,
and the lawyers who inhabit that favored region need no
longer repine at their lot, for this bill “furnishes potential-
ities,” as old Doctor Johnson said of the brewery, “beyond
the dreams of avarice.” In view of these things, we do not
wonder that our valley friends should resist to the death all
amendments to the present law, for, in the language of the
Scriptures:
“The people which sat in darkness saw a great light;
and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death,
light is sprung up.”
As a matter of fact, the harvest for lawyers has just com-
menced, and each one who inhabits the Illinois valley may
repeat the Lord's prayer every morning with unction, and
adore him with heart and soul strengthened for the conflict,
as the giver of every “good and perfect gift.”
The drainage law not only provides the lawyers of the
65
Illinois valley clients in advance, but provides how they
shall be paid and who shall pay them. In this regard
they are among the most favored of mortals and nothing
like it has occurred since the days of the Apostles.
“Behold the fowls of the air; for they sow not, neither do
they reap nor gather into barns; yet your Heavenly Father
feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?”
“And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the
lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do
they spin.”
“And yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his
glory was not arrayed like one of these.”
“Therefore, take no thought saying what shall we eat or
what shall we drink, or where withal shall we be clothed?”
for the drainage law takes care of all that. All you have
got to do is to go in and win—the prize is yours.
The people of the Illinois valley—and especially the
lawyers—should not, in view of all these things, deem it a
reproach to be called the “Kickers of the Valley,” for they
are in truth the “Lilies of the valley ’’ with whom Solomon,
in all of his glory, could not compare.
This Drainage Statute is the first direct institution of
“The Order of the Coif '' by positive law in America, and is
the first recognition of “Grand Sergeantry;” we believe, that
has ever occurred in this country.
There is an air of innocence about many of the provisions
of this Drainage Act that reminds us of the emblematic
figures that adorn the gateways of the Inner and Middle
Temples in London—the figure of a winged horse spans
the garden gate of the Society of the Inner Temple,
while a lamb peacefully reposes over that of the Middle
Temple.
These devices were long the subject of much speculation,
but the wits of the time at length explained their meaning
by the following epigrams:
“As by the Templar's haunts you go,
The horse and lamb displayed,
In emblematic figures show
The merits of their trade;
66
That clients may infer from thence
How just is their profession,
The lamb sets forth their innocence,
The horse their expedition
O happy Britons, happy isle,
Let foreign nations say
Where you get justice without guile
And law without delay !”
This explanation was very pretty until another wit, with
a truer realization of their import, brought out their full
meaning in the following lines:
“Deluded men their holds forego
Nor trust such cunning elves;
These artful emblems tend to show
Their clients, not themselves.
'Tis all a trick, these all are shams
By which they mean to cheat you:
But have a care—for you’re the lambs
And they the wolves that eat you!
Nor let the thoughts of 110 delay
To these their courts misguide you;
'Tis you’re the showy horse, and they
The jockeys that will ride you !”
The present drainage law has all the significance of the
horse and lamb and the kickers of the valley “are the jock-
eys that will ride us.” If that provision in regard to law-
yers’ fees is permitted to stand, we anticipate that their
fees will amount to more than the entire cost of digging
the ship canal.
Hon. E. Sanford, of Morris, a gentleman of culture and
who has given a great deal of study to this subject, has
written a pamphlet, in which he has treated of the legal
aspects of the questions involved with great learning and
acuteness, in and by which he undertakes to show that no
amendments to the present drainage law should be made,
The Chicago Tribune in a recent issue takes up one or two
points made by him and combats them as follows:
His main point is that this city has no right to cut through
the limestone uplift and drain into the Illinois. He says:
67
“We have been unable to find the decision of any court
of last resort, in this country or in Europe, which has given
legal sanction to any municipality to cut through a natural
divide and go outside its territory to deposit its filth into
territory outside its own limit and not in its natural basin.”
The Tribune remembers no case, except that of Chicago,
where a “natural divide” has been cut through for drainage
purposes. The absence of court decisions on the subject is
not surprising, therefore. It may be well, however, to call
the attention of Mr. Sanford, who, in his study of microbes
in water, has neglected that of the legislation of his own
State, to the fact that early in the '30's Illinois set to work to
cut a canal across the Lemont divide, a few feet below lake
level, so that the waters of the lake and the prospective
sewage of Chicago should flow into the Illinois. The laying
out of the town was a part of the canal legislation, and
those who were invited to settle on the banks of what was
then a stagnant bayou, were promised a perfect means of
sewage disposal. The State told the settlers that Sanford's
“natural divide,” separating them from the Illinois basin
should be pierced, and that lake water should again run
into the Illinois, through the Chicago bayou or river, as it
had done in ancient times. No court enjoined this action.
The State itself began work on the “low-level” plan, but
it got short of money after the panic of 1837. When it was
able to borrow some money and begin again, it did so on the
“high-level” plan. The promise to the people of Chicago
was broken. The Summit level was about eight feet
above lake datum. It became necessary, in 1848, to supply
the canal with water. For that purpose the State built
great lifting pumps, set them up at Bridgeport, and pumped
Chicago Sewage water from the South Branch into the canal.
That water ran into the Desplaines and Illinois. No court
interfered to prevent it.
By 1865 Chicago had grown so much that it became neces-
sary to make some better provision for the disposal of the
city's sewage than pumping it into the canal. As the State
did not seem inclined to finish the work of deepening the
6S
canal, Chicago agreed to advance the money, and deepened
the canal on the original low-level plan. *
Since then the Chicago river water has flowed by gravity
down the canal and into the Illinois when the pumps are
not running. No court forbade it or told the sovereign
State of Illinois that it had no right to cut deeper the chan-
nel of the old water course, so that the waters of the lake
might again flow into those of the Mississippi.
Owing to the neglect of the canal by State officials it was
allowed to fill up so that its water-carrying power was
lessened materially. It was not the fault of the city but of
the State, which would not dredge out the deposits from the
canal bed.
In 1881, though the city was not to blame, and the foul
water of which residents of the valley complained was due
to the failure of the canal authorities to allow Chicago to
furnish sufficient dilution, the Legislature ordered the city
to put up pumps at Bridgeport, and throw 60,000 cubic feet
a minute into the canal, or as much thereof as the commis-
sioners could take care of. The city did so, and no court
has stopped it.
This legislation shows that the city of Chicago has a legal
right to send its Chicago river water into the Illinois basin.
ſt has exercised the right for forty-three years. So much
for Mr. Sanford's bad law. The city has a lawful right to
drain into the Illinois river. All that any court can call on
it to do is not to exercise that right offensively to the people
along the Illinois river. And it is in order that there may
be no complaints that it is committing a nuisance that this
city is asking now for the annendment of the Drainage Act,
so that it may properly dilute the sewage. Pass those
amendments, and there will be no nuisance anywhere in
the Desplaines or Illinois.
AGAIN, WHY NOT HAVE THE STATE TIRY SHIP-CANAL BUILDING2.
A navigable waterway from Chicago to the mouth of the
Illinois will have to consist not only of a canal from here
to Joliet, but from there to La Salle. It is impossible so to
69
improve the Illinois river between the upper dam at Joliet
and Utica, with its fall of 100 feet in fifty-five miles, as to
make practicable navigation, especially if this city should
throw 600,000 cubic feet a minute into the river channel.
If there has to be a canal with 18 feet of water from Joliet
to La Salle, who will build it? The General Government
will not, that is sure. The days of the “billion Congress”
are past, and also those of great treasury surpluses, which
gave so much trouble to squander. But if that canal is, as
the valley dreamers say, to be such a grand thing for the
State, then let the State build it. Let it issue a hundred
million bonds for a grand waterway improvement between
Joliet and Grafton, at the mouth of the Illinois, and then
Chicago will feel a little more like spending a hundred
millions between here and Joliet, and furnishing 600,000
cubic feet of water for navigation.
At present the Legislature can not do that, for the Con-
stitution of the State forbids it to spend a cent on canals.
It can not even improve the Illinois and Michigan Canal
except out of its net revenues. In the Constitutional Con-
vention of 1870 the Chicago and a few of the valley dele-
gates fought hard to preserve to the Legislature the right
to construct new canals or improve old ones, but the rest of
the State, fearing to be saddled with their share of an im-
mense debt for the benefit of Chicago and the valley coun-
ties, voted them down, by 35 to 25, after a long and hot
debate. -
But it appears now from the statements of the valley
people, that there is one canal which will be of great benefit
to all Illinois. If that be so, give Illinois a chance to build
it. The Legislature is in session. Get it to submit a consti-
tutional amendment allowing the State to issue bonds and
go into the canal building business, and give the people an
opportunity to express their views on the subject. If they
favored the amendment and also a further one giving Chi-
cago the authority to spend ninety or a hundred millions
in taxes and bonds to cut commercial channels across the
70
city to furnish 600,000 cubic feet of water per minute, then
there would be a grand old canal time.
But everybody knows the people would vote down such a
canal-building amendment by half a million majority. The
State will neither build a vast ship canal nor attempt to
make the Upper Illinois navigable for vessels. The Federal
Government will not touch it. The proposed Hennepin
canal, for which half a million was log-rolled out of the
“billion Congress,” but which may never get another ap-
propriation, is to be but seven feet deep, instead of eighteen
feet. Hence it will only be a horse boat canal.
These being the facts, why is Chicago asked to blast out
an eighteen-foot channel for eighteen miles of the way to
Joliet, which will discharge 600,000 cubic feet of water,
when it is impossible for it to get half that much water
through the Chicago river, or furnish it in any other prac-
tical way ?
IX.
THE COST AND MAGNITUDE OF THE WORK."
The Erie canal was built at a less cost, perhaps, than any
other work of the kind ever known, and where the contract-
ors did not encounter rock or swamps, and did not have to
build viaducts or aqueducts, proceeded in some parts at a
mile a week. We candidly believe that the cost of construct-
ing the projected ship and sewerage canal has been grossly
exaggerated, and as proof of it, we take the opinions of expe-
rienced contractors upon the subject. In the Chicago Trib-
wºme of April 30, 1891, appears the following:
“Michael Haley, a prominent retired engineering con-
tractor, gave expert testimony before the Drainage Board
committee on engineering, yesterday, to throw light upon
the cost of dredging. Chairman Hotz referred to the quoted
remark of Engineer Williams, that with certain machinery
excavation could be done for two or three cents a cubic
yard, and pronounced it absurd. Prominent engineers, he
was sure, would not be practically united in placing the
71
cost at twenty-five cents or more, if it could be done for the
small sum Mr. Williams was reported to have named.
‘The first ten miles of the canal can be dredged for ten
cents a cubic yard at the utmost,' Mr. Haley said. “That
price would include the deposition of all matter eighty feet
from the edge of the canal. The gravel should be taken
out for fifteen cents a cubic yard, the detached rock and
hardpan for forty cents. In order to do this the best ap-
pliances must be employed. Work in the rock is more
difficult to estimate. Contracts on the canal ranged as high
as $2.25 a cubic yard.
‘The most practicable way to do this work, provided the
canal route is decided upon, would be to drill from floating
scows directly into the rockbed, blast the rock in such a
way that it would be much broken up, and remove with
floating dredges. There is no way cheaper than wet dredg-
ing. Wherever dredging can be done, the detached rock
can be removed for fifty cents a cubic yard.’
Mr. Haley, continuing, said that there was little good
Constructive material below the level of Lake Michigan,
but the substrata were of excellent fluxing qualities, and
any quantity of that stone could be profitably disposed of.
It would be as valuable for that purpose, finely broken, as
otherwise.
‘The clay of the first four miles would be worth far more
than the cost of excavation,” said Mr. Haley. “I estimate
that the dredging between Summit and Bridgeport could be
completed in a year, and the brickmakers would more than
pay the cost for brick-clay.’”
A short time since Mr. Edward Roby published his views
in regard to the drainage question, which were of such a
practical character as to attract great attention, a portion of
which we venture to produce here. In discussing the sub-
ject he asks:
“First. What is practical?
The practical route is so plain and simple that a practical
man, acting on the enterprise as his own, would choose it
in walking over it or driving near it.
72
It admits of no engineering problems. A practical
man would tell a surveyor where to run the lines; and
any ordinary land surveyor or draughtsman would plat
it out. It would start from the Bridewell and strike
the main channel of the Desplaines a mile south of River-
side. Thence it would follow the bed of the river as
much as practicable, but keeping a nearly straight course,
nearly parallel to the western bluffs of the Desplaines to
Ilockport. There should be no cut-off to carry the flood
waters of the Desplaines to Lake Michigan, but these waters
should always flow down the channel into the Illinois, for
that will insure against all claims for damages for flooding
the lands along that river.
Second. What will it cost?
The engineers have given estimates of cost that are worse
than guesses.
It may be best to buy 400 feet wide, to give room to store
the earth and rock excavated, and to have the land to en-
large the canal when that may be desired.
That would be twenty-four acres per mile. The first
mile might cost $3,000 per acre, while beyond the first mile
it would run down to nothing, or perhaps $100 per acre,
if the grantors could have the excavated stone and earth
which the State does not require to use, provided the land
is acquired within the next sixty days, while the people
are willing almost to give the land to secure the location
and building of the channel.
Practical men thought if they had a fair chance to bid
for the job they would be willing to do the rock work, 160
feet wide and eighteen feet deep below the level of Lake
Michigan for thirty-three cents, or less, per cubic yard.
They say the simplest means would protect them from any
inconvenience from water; that steam drills and modern
explosives will break the soft, stratified limestone sufficiently
to hoist out, and heavy cranes will hoist out two or three
yards at a time at a very small expense. This would ex-
cavate the most expensive mile for $300,000, and the aver-
age of the rock work would not reach $250,000 a mile.
73
As to the earth work, practical men say that they will
excavate the job, if they have a fair opportunity to bid on it,
for twelve or fourteen cents a yard. At fourteen cents a
yard the most expensive mile of earth cutting would cost
less than $130,000, while the average would be about
$100,000 per mile.
So long as required only for drainage, the clay banks
want no docking. Experience on the Chicago river and
the Calumet river demonstrates that. The result is, that if
you go at it as the West Park people did to get their land,
a strip 400 feet wide, twenty-six miles long, would take 524
acres, and would be got for less than $250,000. A drainage
tax of a million per year would excavate three miles of
rock channel and three miles of clay channel per year.
This would extend the work over five years, and any firm
that got a job of that size could afford to construct the neces-
sary machinery. Of course, the biddings would be either
on the whole job or on the rock work and earth work sepa-
rately. *
Practical men in the business say that $5,000 a year will
pay all the engineering required. Of course, it will be
necessary to have a rock dam or build a dam at the first
fall to the south, to control the current, to let off what can
go safely through the Chicago river. And it may be neces-
sary to deepen the channel of the river through Joliet.
That can be done by excavating the bottom about fifteen
feet, without disturbing the bridges or their supports. When
required for navigation, swing bridges would be put in, but
the drainage district need not meddle with that. They say
deepening that channel can be let with the other rock work
about the same rate. Chicago's greatness has been achieved
by practical men, who have done what there was to
do in their business in the simplest and most direct meth-
ods. Would it not be well to try the same methods with
this important subject?”
The city of Chicago has once before had dealings with
the Illinois and Michigan Canal by way of deepening the
same at the cost of three millions of dollars. The work that
74
was then performed was well done and for a time seemed to
be sufficient to carry off the sewage and stagnant water, but
it was soon found to be entirely inadequate and the channel
entirely too small to effect the purposes contemplated, and
it seems to us that the experience then acquired should be
of some value and profited by.
Why not proceed on the old lines and widen and deepen
the same old canal so as to meet the wants of the present as
well as future generations? To do this would not, we
think, require a great outlay of thousands of dollars in pre-
liminary surveys, and of vast hordes of men such as assisted
in building the pyramids or in turning the bed of the Tiber.
But if this be thought not best, then open the contest with
Poseiden at once, in his own dominions, and sink the bed
of the Desplaines to the very bowels of the earth and teach
the rocks that they must give up their beds for the require-
ments of commerce and of mankind. There seems to be
great reluctance in compelling this displacement, but the
trilobites and the whole tribe of extinct saurians and fossil-
iferous monsters must surrender to the invasion of the ex-
isting and more animated horde of microbes. An elemental
war has been inaugurated and a reconstruction of a consid-
erable portion of this mundane sphere has become necessary.
The people of the Illinois river valley and the Mississippi
valley, must have pure water from Lake Michigan or they
will die, and it is to avoid that calamity that we urge with
so much earnestness immediate action on the part of the
non-partisan Board of Drainage Commissioners, who have
been so long in experimenting with terrestrial objects that
they present to us nothing but neutral tints. For the city
of Chicago to build a great ship canal to float its sewage
down the Mississippi valley is a most colossal undertaking,
and in all fairness the people of the State should share in
the expense, or the ship canal feature be abandoned entirely.
We think that the drainage commissioners should no
longer hesitate in regard to the route to be selected for the
drainage ship canal, since Mr. Guthrie has demonstrated
that eight thousand years ago a most accommodating,
75
useful and well behaved glacier passed down the Des-
plaines valley to Joliet and onward, setting stakes and
blazing the trees for the puny surveyors and engineers who
were to follow in its wake.
“ Fellows in arms whose deeds are known to fame
And you whose ardour hopes an equal name,
Since not alike endu’d with force or art,
Behold a day when each may act his part |
A day to fire the brave and warm the cold
To gain new glories or augment the old.
Urge those who stand, and those who faint, excite;
Drown Hector's vaunts in loud exhorts of fight;
Conquest, not safety, fill the thoughts of all;
Seek not your fleet, but sally from the wall;
So Jove once more may drive their routed train
And Troy lie trembling in her walls again.”
XII ILIAD.
X.
EARLY ATTEMPTS TO CONSTRUCT A HARBOR AT CALUMET AND
A CANAL FOR DRAINAGE PURPOSES CONNECTING WITH THE
ILLINOIS AND MICHIGAN CANAL.
We are somewhat familiar with the canal and drainage
question and have become inured to its discussion. As early
as 1857, Roswell B. Mason, Paul Cornell, Charles Walker,
Eli S. Prescott, John P. Chapin and myself procured an
act of incorporation entitled, “The Harbor and Canal Im-
provement Company and for Drainage Purposes,” which
was passed and approved February 18, 1857. (See Private
Laws of 1857, p. 1341)
The object of this corporation as expressed and set forth
in the several sections composing it, was, first, to establish
a great harbor at the mouth of the Calumet river and then
to straighten and widen the river so as to connect with the
Illinois and Michigan Canal near Blue Island with power
also at our discretion to build a canal from the Calumet
river to Chicago and connect with the canal near Bridge-
port. The late Isaac N. Arnold was at that time the attor-
ney of the Canal Company and a member of the General
Assembly and he became apprehensive that in some way
76
what we proposed to do would (how and in what manner
he never disclosed) interfere with the Illinois and Michigan
Canal, and in our absence proceeded to insert a number of
provisos and restrictions in the bill and ended off by pro-
viding that before we should do anything we must make
elaborate surveys and submit them to the canal board, and
in this manner he tied us up in the most. ridiculous man-
ner, ruining the project. In order that this may more
clearly appear we would say that the 2d section of the act,
as originally drawn, was as follows:
“Said corporation is hereby authorized and empowered
to construct a harbor at or near the mouth of the Calu-
met river, in the county of Cook, and also a canal lead-
ing from the said harbor up and along or near the said
Calumet river into the Illinois and Michigan Canal, or the
South Branch of the Chicago river, by widening and deepen-
ing said river, or otherwise; and the said company is hereby
authorized and empowered to enter into and upon any lands
belonging to the State, or any person or persons, body poli-
tic or corporate, and to survey and take levels of the same or
any part thereof, and to ascertain, set out and appropriate
such parts or parcels of said land or lands as they shall
think necessary and proper for making and constructing
said harbor and canal, and for all purposes connected there-
with, for which purpose the said corporation are authorized
and empowered to have, take, appropriate and hold any
land or lands so set out, ascertained and appropriated as
aforesaid, the damages occasioned by the appropriation of
said land or lands, unless otherwise settled for, to be assessed
and paid for in the manner provided by law for railroads
obtaining the right of way. Provided, that any appeal that
may be allowed under the provisions of said laws shall not
affect the possession by said company of the lands appraised,
and the final decision or award shall vest in the Corporation
hereby created all the rights, privileges, franchises and im-
munities as in said act or acts provided for obtaining rights
of way.”
This we deemed right and proper, and was the usual pro-
77
vision inserted in many other corporations, but right here
Mr. Arnold's ingenuity if not his sagacity was brought into
action and he commenced adding proviso after proviso,
which so altered the bill that we didn’t know it when We
saw it. *
His provisos were as follows:
“Provided further, that none of the powers herein con-
ferred, except to organize the board of commissioners to
receive subscriptions and the receiving of the subscriptions
as hereinafter provided, shall be exercised until the capital
stock is subscribed, and an organization is perfected, as
hereinafter provided; and no charges or tolls of any kind
shall be made for the use of said harbor herein mentioned,
and for two miles from its mouth: Provided, that said cor-
poration shall not have the right to condemn any property
for the purposes acquired by this act, situated within the
limits of the said city of Chicago: Provided, also, that if
said company shall undertake to construct a canal to the
South Branch of the Chicago river, before they shall do so
they shall first obtain the consent of the common council
of the city of Chicago thereto: Provided, that no canal or
ditch shall be constructed by said company the effect of
which shall be to divert any part of the Calumet river from
the Illinois and Michigan Canal or feeder thereof; and before
any work shall be done which shall directly or indirectly
affect the quantity and supply of water in the Calumet
feeder of the said canal, or the canal itself, a full survey
and plat and plan thereof shall be laid before the presi-
dent of the Board of Trustees of the Illinois and Michigan
Canal, for his approval; and it shall be his duty to approve
the same, unless the cause will injuriously affect said canal;
and no work shall be done under the provisions of this act
until his approval thereof shall be first had in writing, and
filed in the recorder's office of Cook county.
The powers herein and hereby granted and conferred
shall not be so construed as to authorize the construction
of piers, wharves, break-waters, ships, basins, channels,
docks, harbors, or any other works on Lake Michigan, or to
78
dig up, excavate or enter upon the bed of Lake Michigan, in
front of any land owned by any individual or corporation,
other than the corporation hereby created, except with con-
sent of the owner or owners thereof, or upon full compen-
sation made to the owner or owners of such lands, which
compensation shall include the value of the right to improve
such land by building piers and docks out to the navigable
portion of said lake from the shore, and all other rights
incident to or connected with the ownership of the land
fronting on Lake Michigan, in the same manner as if such
riparian owner had an absolute title to the center of the lake
under the waters thereof, and in no event shall any of the
structures of any description be erected in front of any park
or public ground in the city of Chicago.”
It is needless to say that this action on the part of Mr.
Arnold filled the projectors with a large measure of disgust,
and presents to-day the finest specimen of hostile legislation
that this or any other country ever afforded in legislative
annals. It beats Calhoun’s ideas of nullification all to pieces,
for it not only nullified each and every part of the bill, but
rendered the accomplishment of the objects proposed
impracticable if not absolutely impossible. In short Mr.
Arnold was as a legislator an entire success.
XI.
STEPHEN A. Douglas' GREAT HARBOR AND CANAL PROJECT,
AND WHAT BECAME OF IT.
Those who were interested in the project had investi-
gated the matter pretty thoroughly, and as land was
cheap around the Calumet they thought that a great deal of
money could be made in carrying out this project, among
whom was no less a person than Stephen A. Douglas, who
entered into the scheme with enthusiasm, and proceeded to
interest Fernando Wood, August Belmont and a number
of other persons in New York, who purchased up a large
quantity of land belonging to the Illinois Central Railroad,
and others.
79
Mr. Douglas sent for me at the Tremont House, some time
after the charter had been obtained, and in a long interview
explained to me what he wished to do, and what persons he
could interest in the scheme, and said that he looked for-
ward to the time when he would retire from politics, and
that he wished to make money enough to live at his ease,
and that he thought the government would, on proper rep-
resentation, aid in improving the Calumet river, and that
the Calumet lake could be converted into a great inland
harbor, which might be connected with the Illinois and
Michigan Canal. We told Mr. Douglas that we doubted
whether he would ever see the day when he would quit
politics, but he said that we were mistaken, and that he
would demonstrate to us that he meant business. We had
contracted to purchase by a written contract at that time
Some two or three hundred acres of land fronting on
Lake Michigan, near Cheltenham Beach, which he wished
to obtain, and which, by the aid of his New York friends
and one May, of Indiana, a distinguished democratic politi-
cian, he actually purchased of us, and he followed this up
by having the same parties purchase other lands south
of the mouth of the Calumet river, and along the same,
amounting in all to nearly seven thousand acres.
In furtherance of the scheme we proceeded to purchase all
the lots that we could get hold of in the old town of Cal-
umet and George's addition thereto—and we recollect that
Charley Farwell, who was county clerk, afterward Hon.
Charles B. Farwell, U. S. Senator, at about this time,
knowing that we were in quest of Calumet lots, at a tax sale
in our absence caused “the whole outfit” to be struck off to
us for the unpaid taxes, and as we did not have the money
to pay for them, notified us of our good fortune, and then
proceeded to carry them for us until we obtained the money
to pay for them. It is needless to say that Mr. Douglas in due
time returned to his duties in the Senate and became more
deeply absorbed in politics than ever, and the syndicate that
he had formed finally abandoned all hope of success and
sold out their lands, and we never saw or heard anything
S0
more of Mr. Douglas in connection with this matter,
until he was nominated for president, when we casually
met him and reminded him of his great land project,
and of his intention to abandon politics and go into
business. Mr. Douglas laughed heartily over this rem-
iniscence, and said that he would join me in the under-
taking of making a great harbor at Calumet just as soon
as he had downed Buchanan and had finished his term
at the White House. He was drawn into the great vortex
of politics deeper and deeper, and was eventually swallowed
up in its maw, and amid the tumults of war and the shock
of battle yielded up his life for his country, and died a poor
man—his visions of glory dimmed, and all his hopes dis-
sipated. -
Mr. Douglas had great hopes and expectations of util-
izing not only the Calumet river, but the Calumet lake, and
when shown our harbor charter, and after having had
explained to him Mr. Arnold's hostility to the same, he
suddenly arose from his chair and said that “he doubted if
God, from his throne on high, ever beheld such a nullifica-
tion act as that.”
This was our first experience in the canal business, but
we have been conversant with the literature of the subject,
both ancient and modern, ever since.
XII.
SHALL CHICAGO HAVE AN OUTER OR INNER HARBOR.?
This is a subject of great importance not only to the
people of Chicago, but to the entire country, for to-day the
inland commerce carried on upon the Mediterranean seas
of the north, equals, if it does not greatly exceed, the entire
foreign commerce of the United States.
We have ourselves written much upon this subject, corn-
mencing in 1869. In the winter of that year we made an
elaborate and carefully prepared speech upon the Lake
Front bill, which we delivered in Old Farwell Hall, and
which was published in full in the Chicago Tribune.
81
In that speech we took up the subject of riparian rights,
and the right of the State over inland waters, tracing the
origin and development of jurisdiction over the same by
the United States courts in admiralty cases and coming
down to the objective point, which was the Lake Front bill.
We protested at that time against surrendering the con-
trol of any portion of the Lake Front, or what might in the
future constitute the harbor of Chicago, to any private cor-
poration whatever.
The mass meeting, which was then called, passed strong
resolutions in regard to this matter, which were drawn up
by Horace White, at the present one of the editors of the New
York Post, and myself and several other persons whom I do
not now recollect. The Lake Front bill was passed,
however, against all remonstrances, yet, much to the credit
of John M. Palmer, at that time governor of the State, was
vetoed, but passed over his veto. When the Constitutional
Convention was called to meet in December following, the
echoes of that strife had not died away, and we endeavored
to settle the Lake Front question by a constitutional enact-
ment, and on the 10th of January, 1870, see Vol. I of Con-
stitutional Debates, pp. 154, 454, introduced the following:
“All that portion of fractional section fifteen, town thirty-
nine, range fourteen east, which was dedicated to public use
by the canal commissioners by act of the Legislature of the
State of Illinois, approved February 27, 1836, as public
grounds, known in the City of Chicago as Lake Park, and all
that part of Fort Dearborn addition to Chicago which was
dedicated to public use by the United States government
June 7, 1839, and marked on the recorded plat, ‘public
grounds forever to remain vacant of buildings, in the City of
Chicago,' and known as Dearborn Park, shall be and forever
remain public grounds, and neither the State of Illinois nor
the City of Chicago shall have power to grant, sell, lease or
alien the same or the submerged lands and riparian rights in
front of the same, and any act of the General Assembly here-
tofore passed providing for the sale of the same is hereby
declared null and void.”
S2
The proposition as originally introduced did not have the
repealing clause in it, but it was afterward added in the
course of the debate upon canals, as will appear by refer-
ence to Vol. I, p. 454 of the Debates.
In order to bring this matter more particularly before the
country, we were instrumental in procuring the convention
to print, for the use of the convention, Governor Palmer's
veto messages, among which was his veto message of the
Lake Front bill, and which we regard as one of the ablest
legal arguments against that swindle which has ever been
made. See Journal of the Constitutional Convention, 1870,
p. 157, where this message is printed in full.
The convention refused, however, to adopt the amend-
ments offered by us repealing the Lake Front bill, as the
convention was not engaged in legislating although much
of the business of a Constitutional Convention consists in
legislating of the most serious character. It suffices to say
that the Lake Front question was not settled then and is
not settled yet, and is to-day found in various stages of de-
cay, in our local courts, in the United States Circuit Court
and the United States Supreme Court at Washington, and is
being discussed in the public prints, in the Legislature, in
conventions and mass meetings with all the vehemence
that characterized the discussion nearly a quarter of a
century ago. We think that it is about time that this pestif-
erous question should be placed in a course of ultimate ex-
tinction. Most people have been led to believe that the
proper thing for Chicago to do, owing to our situation, was to
construct a great outer harbor and transfer all of the ship-
ping interests and docks to that point. But it seems that this
proposition is not considered as the wistst thing to be done,
by some eminent Scientists, and serious arguments are ad-
duced, much to our surprise, against it. Among the most
plausible and Scientific presentations of this view of the case
which has come under our notice is the argument of Bene-
zette Williams in the Economist of this city, who is reputed
to be an engineer of great skill, observation and experience.
His presentation of the subject is so clear and forcible that.
83
we quote from it at considerable length, and is as follows:
A STATEMENT OF FACTS.
The situation to-day is as follows:
The United States Government has deepened the St. Clair
river canal and the Detroit river at the Lime Kilns to a
depth of twenty feet, so that Lakes Erie, Huron and Mich-
igan are navigable for vessels which can pass through a
twenty-foot channel.
The Government is also engaged in the construction of a
lock for the Sault Ste. Marie canal, with twenty-one feet of
water over the miter sill. When this is completed the
whole chain of lakes above Niagara Falls will be connected
by deep channels. The question is being agitated for the
same or greater depth to Montreal. Thence to the Atlantic
ocean deep water now exists. Such a fruition is a logical
necessity of the situation. The vast empire tributary to the
great lakes, that sends yearly 9,000,000 of tons of freight
through the Sault Ste. Marie canal, and 22,000,000 of tons
through the Detroit river, will demand it, and in demand-
ing will get it.
By thus inviting the building of deep-draught vessels, the
necessity arises for harbor facilities by which they can han-
dle their cargoes.
CHICAGO's INADEQUATE HARBORS,
The city of Chicago now has two harbors, neither of
which can accommodate such vessels, one consisting of the
Chicago river and its branches, in which, during 1886 to
1889, inclusive, there was handled an average of over
9,000,000 tons of lake and 804,546 tºns of canal commerce
annually, and the other consisting of the Calumet river, in
which, during the same four years, was handled an average
of 607,536 tons of freight annually. The Chicago harbor,
in all its ramifications, is 20.7 miles in length and has 37.6
miles of dockage, not including street ends. The Calumet
harbor is about six miles in length, including slips, and
about the same length of dockage.
In his report to the Secretary of War upon the “Survey
of a water way from Lake Michigan to the Illinois river,”
S4
dated February 28, 1890, Capt. W. L. Marshall says of the Chi-
cago harbor: “The arrivals and departures of vessels have
reached the enormous aggregate of over 22,000 annually in
a season of navigation of about seven months, making Chi-
cago the first port in the United States as far as the num-
ber of arrivals and departures is concerned. Along this
river are great lumber and coal yards, grain elevators,
meat packing establishments and generally all the means
and appliances and paraphernalia of the great commerce
by lakes centering at Chicago, as well as the facilities for
transfer from rail to water transportation.”
The depth of the Chicago harbor at low water is gener-
ally only 14 feet and over the river tunnels but little more.
This renders it impracticable to so deepen it as to admit
deep-draught vessels without the destruction of the tunnels.
Then the high, massive buildings built on the river banks
with their foundations adapted to present depths would
incur destruction in an effort to obtain sufficient depth and
width. -
What is to be done with the immense shipping interests,
shown to exist, when the era of deep-draught vessels shall
have fully culminated, as it is rapidly doing? Shall we allow
it to suffer decadence, as to Capt. Marshall seems inevitable,
do away with swing bridges and handle the lake commerce
of the city by tugs and barges and, to use the captain’s
words, “by the construction of an extensive outer harbor
for lake vessels, with wharves and docks along the lake
front of the city, or by the utilization of the great facilities
of the Calumet system of lakes and rivers, making fixed
bridges across the Chicago river a possibility?” I hope to
make it clear that this should not be done.
The measures proposed by the Sanitary Board are strictly
in harmony with those advocated by Capt. Marshall and
his predecessor, Maj. T. H. Hanbury, so that these two offi-
cial forces, the United States Engineers and the Sanitary
Board, may be said to be working together, though sepa-
rately, to the consummation of certain defined ends. Let usin-
quire what these ends are and where they will land this city.
85
The Government engineers' side of this combined plan
consists in the development of the Calumet harbor at the
expense of the United States and the building of an eight-
foot channel without grade via Blue Island to Sag Junction,
thence to Lockport, and the development of the river below,
so as to attain about the same depth to the mouth of the Illi-
nois. Also the construction of a Lake Front harbor to take
such portions of the business of the Chicago harbor as does
not go to the Calumet, or that is not transacted by tugs,
barges and lighters.
The Sanitary Board's side of the combination consists
of the construction of a drainage channel from the
west fork of the South Branch to Lockport, limited in
capacity to that of the South Branch of the Chicago river,
which is wholly to be relied upon to feed the channel. By
the statements made by the president of the board be-
fore the joint committee of the General Assembly at
Springfield, on the 28th ultimo, it is learned that the
channel which the board proposes is to have a ca-
pacity of 250,000 cubic feet of water per minute and a
velocity of one mile per hour, or 1.47 feet per second, and
a depth of not less than ten feet. Thus it is seen that by this
statement the capacity is to be about forty-two per cent of
the requirements of the law. It is claimed by the president
that the change asked for by the board is in no wise to
interfere with the navigability of the channel. The pro-
posed bill, however, amending the Sanitary District Act,
makes no stipulation as to the capacity of the channel, ex-
cept that it shall be equal to the capacity of the South Branch
of the Chicago river. It also provides that it shall have a
current of not more than three miles an hour. The stipu-
lation, then, as to the capacity and velocity is wholly in the
speech of the president of the board and not in the proposed
amendment to the law. Should it become a law, upon
whom would it devolve to say what the capacity of the
South Branch is and what the velocity should be in the main
drainage channel? It could with some show of reason be
maintained that the capacity of the South Branch is
86
not much if any greater than 150,000 cubic feet per min -
ute, on the grounds that a greater velocity would inter-
fere with its use for harbor purposes by creating an
injurious current and a reduction of the depth of water
near the entrance of the canal. If to a channel of so small
a capacity a velocity of three miles per hour, or 4 4-10 feet
per second should be given, it would not be navigable so as
to be of use for transportation.
The amended law, then, as proposed, would put it wholly
in the hands of a board of trustees antagonistic to the water-
way features of the measure, to defeat entirely any project
of navigation. It is hence impossible to say with any cer-
tainty what the Sanitary Board’s side of this combined plan
is. It may be for a small channel navigable for light-
draught boats or it may be for a sewer-ditch with so swift a
current as to utterly prohibit navigation.
Capt. Marshall seems to favor co-operation between the
United States Government and the Sanitary Board in the
execution of this combined plan, to the extent of allowing
the sanitary district to avail itself of the work which the
government may do between Sag Junction and Lockport.
He says, page 32 of his report: “If, then, the capacity of
the channel required by national interests should be first
definitely decided upon and the work constructed by the
general government in accordance with this decision across
the rock uplift at Lemont, and the city of Chicago be then
allowed to avail herself, under proper conditions, of this
work, by enlarging and deepening such parts of it as are
necessary for her purposes, it would detract but little from
its value as a navigable channel, due to the introduction of
a current into an otherwise slack-water canal over such a
short portion of the route, while saving at the same time
probably fifty to sixty per cent of the cost of this most expen-
sive part of her drainage canal to the city of Chicago. Such
a solution would seem just and proper, provided that if the
United States should be held responsible for flowage dam-
ages along the Illinois river, due to the water thus artifi-
cially introduced into the river through its channel, they
87
should be allowed to control the discharge of the canal thus
constructed for such periods as it might cause overflows and
damage and possible great obstruction to navigation in the
river below that would not occur without this addition.”
Roughly speaking, what will be the cost for all the work
above Lockport to the general government and the sani-
tary district in thus co-operating for its execution? Capt.
Marshall estimates the cost of an eight-foot channel, with-
out grade, from the Calumet river to Sag bridge, at
$5,793,303. The cost of a Lake Front harbor might run
anywhere from $5,000,000 to $20,000,000, according to the
amount of shipping to be accommodated. If all the
marine interests of the port of Chicago were transferred
to the Lake Front, it would be difficult to accommodate it
between Jackson and Lincoln parks; and the cost of
proper improvements for this purpose, including complete
dock facilities, is not likely to be less than $20,000,000.
If a large part of this business should be driven to the
Calumet, and some of it transacted in the Chicago river
by crafts that will pass under fixed bridges, in accordance
with Capt. Marshall's suggestions, less space would be
needed on the Lake Front, though with the continued in-
crease of business at this port it is impossible to place a
limit to the requirements. It is not likely in any event
that a less expenditure than ten to twelve millions of
dollars would be required for this purpose. To the above
items should be added the cost of deepening the Calumet
harbor and of excavating Lake Calumet to form the
turning basin and land-locked harbor, of which Capt.
Marshall speaks. Thus it is seen that the general govern-
ment, or the general government with some municipality
that may own the outer harbor, will, for the purpose of
harbor facilities and to obtain an eight-foot channel from
the Calumet river to Sag, have to expend anywhere from
$17,000,000 to $27,000,000. In addition to this, the Sani-
tary Board will have to expend, according to the presi-
dent of the board, not less than $15,000,000 for a non-
"descript channel from the Chicago river to Lockport.
SS
Indeed, he thinks it probable that it will cost $18,000,000
to $20,000,000. Thus to carry out this combined plan on
the part of the general government and the Chicago sani-
tary district will cost in round numbers, at the lowest,
from $31,000,000 to $40,000,000. In this scheme an op-
portunity for fixed bridges across the Chicago river would
be afforded, but no provisions are made for compensation
for dock property in the Chicago river, which would be
ruined. f
Capt. Marshall speaks of the property becoming more
valuable for other purposes than for dockage. In this the
Captain may be right so far as concerns the main river and
the South Branch possibly as far as 12th street and
perhaps the North Branch for a few blocks north of the
main river. He is doubtless wrong, however, as regards
the great bulk of such property. Close the bridges and fur-
mish no other inlets to the river and such property would
become well nigh valueless.
If instead of this combined plan the sanitary law should
be carried out fully in the light of the best engineering
requirements and with due regard to the public good—the
doctrine of the greatest good to the greatest number being
kept constantly in mind—we would have a very different
state of affairs, which may be described as follows:
1. In the way of navigation and harbor facilities there
would exist, on the full completion of the work, a main
drainage and waterway channel from the Chicago river to
Lockport, with a depth of say twenty-four feet and a width
of perhaps 200 feet to the rock up-lift near Lemont, tapering
out to a less depth and less width through the rock section.
On the north of the city the Desplaines flood-water would be
diverted to the North Branch and thence to the lake through
a deep, navigable channel, which would become the North
Branch Harbor. On the south, seeking the lake at some
point between the Calumet harbor and 39th street, would be
a wide, deep channel which would admit all the water re-
quired to supplement the capacity of the Chicago river, and
which would be the inlet for the South Branch harbor and
S9
the outlet to the lake for the Illinois river ship canal.
These harbors should be of such depth that on the carrying
out of a deep waterway to the seaboard via the St. Lawrence
river, ocean-going steamers would unload and take on car-
goes at our door.
2. The requirements for sanitation would be fully met in
conformity to the sanitary district law, and the problem of
an outlet for local drainage for certain parts of the city solved.
3. The worst features of the bridge nuisance would be
done away with. Fixed permanent bridges of stone as
wide as the streets could be built over the North and South
Branches progressively, as shipping should be driven out by
the demands of business willing to pay more for the land.
At first it would probably be feasible to close the bridges
over at least a mile and a half of these branches between
Kinzie and 12th streets. The main river from a point east
of Rush street to a point west of Market street can be en-
tirely filled up, and the ground sold for building sites, pro-
vided an arrangement should be made with the riparian
owners, thus contributing largely to the reduction of the
cost of executing the work.
It is impossible to give the cost of such a work with
exactness. The Hering commission for the purpose of esti-
mate, assumed a channel uniformly 200 feet wide and eight-
een feet deep, with a capacity of 600,000,000 cubic feet per
minute, and with the data then at hand estimated the cost,
including bridging and docking, at from $17,000,000 to
$21,000,000. Since then more extensive borings have re-
duced the amount of rock, and a more economical design of
channel has also made a material difference in cost, so that
it is safe to say that $18,000,000 is an ample amount to
allow for such a channel. To conduct the water through
Joliet $1,000,000 should be allowed. The Desplaines cut-off
was carefully estimated in detail by this commission at
about $2,500,000. We will place it at $3,000,000, making
$22,000,000 for these three items. The cost of the south
channel to the lake has not been estimated, no location
ever having been decided upon.
90
It is safe to say that it will not increase the total cost of s
the work beyond that shown to be probable for the com-
bined plan heretofore described, viz., $31,000,000 to $40,-
000,000. It is feasible to so locate the north and South
channels that the benefits conferred upon adjacent property
will exceed the damages, so that by the exercise of the spe-
cial assessment feature of the sanitary law at least as much
as the cost of the right of way would be thus provided for.
Other locations may be chosen, however, in which this
would not be the case.
By closing the main river between the points named a
frontage of 4,680 feet on the north and south streets from
Rush street to Market street inclusive will be created. It
would seem reasonable to assume that some arrangement
could be made with the riparian owners by which the dis-
trict should profit by such a creating of valuable land, which,
with the enhancement of values that will follow this opera-
tion, and by opening up uninterruptedly these main north
and South thoroughfares, it is not extravagant to appraise
at over $10,000,000. Indeed, considering that the business
center can not grow south much beyond Van Buren street,
because of the barrier created by the railroads, it is alto-
gether possible that the selling value in a decade would be
very much more than that given. Here, then, is a great
sum which ought to largely be turned so as to aid the pro-
posed work.
In view of the large amounts of money which the general
government will have to expend to carry out the plan of
Capt. Marshall for works this side of Lockport, probably
not less than $17,000,000 and perhaps much more, why
should it be thought impracticable to secure aid from this
source? For two such deep-water harbors and a deep ship
canal to Lockport it would not be extravagant to expect at
least $15,000,000 from the United States Government, if after
the work was done the harbors should be placed under gov-
ernment control, as are the present Chicago harbors. With
the unanimity of action and half the energy displayed in
securing the Columbian Exposition for Chicago, Congress
91
"could surely be brought to aid in the accomplishment of
this great work.
Capt. Marshall is willing that the sanitary district should
avail itself of work done by the government; then why
should he object to the government availing itself of work
done by the sanitary district, when this work is a full and
satisfactory substitute for what otherwise the government
will have to do at great expense?
The provision of deep harbors at Chicago commensurate
with the present and future needs of the city is certainly a
measure which can not be shirked by the government, since
that same government is providing deep channels connect-
ing the lakes, and thus inviting the building of deep-draught
vessels.
What with government aid, and with indirect revenues
which ought to be realized in various directions, such as the
sale of the bed of the main river and the taxing resources at
the disposal of the sanitary board—which, by the issue of
bonds and by direct tax levies, it is estimated may be at least
$30,000,000 in ten years—there can be no doubt about
the ability to carry out any work which can be shown to be
necessary to the public health or desirable to secure the
commercial supremacy of the city. For reasons stated it is
well within bounds to say that to do the right thing will
involve no more actual outlay than to do the wrong thing.
The plan of Capt. Marshall and of the sanitary board
involves no indirect revenue, but it does involve destruction
of property that has been created and the disturbance of
values in a ruinous manner. -
The proper development of the plan upon which the san-
itary law is based does not tear down but build up. It is a
healthy adaptation of the natural functions of the city to a
fuller life and an enlarged environment, and not an ampu-
tation accompanied with an effort to ingraft a new organ
unfit to perform the functions for which it is designed.
For these reasons the combination plan will not do. But,
most of all, it will not do because, should it be executed, the
sanitary district will have a sewage ditch wholly inadequate
92
and reeking with filth as the canal is to-day, the contents
of which will be belched out into the lake by the flood waters
of the Desplaines and other tributary areas, contaminating
the water supply as much as, if not more than, under the
present conditions, while the United States Government will
have added another so-called waterway much further
behind the needs of commerce than was the Illinois and
Michigan Canal when constructed, and which will suffer
decadence as have so many of the inland canals of the
country because of its shallowness.
In a commercial way the city will have a Lake Front har-
bor, utterly spoiling the water front, but most of all com-
pelling the hauling of millions of tons of freight by trucks
through streets now congested beyond endurance and
other millions by rail across the central part of the city,
where the handling of cars at grade crossings is fast becom-
ing a public Calamity.
Beyond all question the place for the docks of Chicago is
in the existing branches of the river and other channels
which may be dug in properly carrying out the sanitary
law. The place to handle water-borne commerce is as near
as possible to the point where it is used, and this is where
people live. It should be remarked that 66 per cent of the
lumber and 75 per cent of the coal brought to Chicago by
vessels is used in the city; also that to transfer coal to light-
ers or to transship in any way to reach the consumers will
cost about as much as the whole cost of transportation from
Buffalo to Chicago.
The various questions associated with or dependent upon
the sanitary problem have been sufficiently digested to al-
low of the statement of a few principles relative to a future
Chicago harbor which are almost axiomatic :
1. A lake harbor will not do; shipping must mainly be
kept in the rear of the city and not placed in the front.
2. A harbor not less than twenty feet—and which can be
deepened to twenty-four feet—and much wider in its main
channel than the Chicago river, must be provided,
3. Such a harbor can not be furnished by the Chicago
93
river because of tunnels and buildings, which will not ad-
mit of widening and deepening within the heart of the city,
but also because the down town bridges must be closed.
4. The cheapest way to furnish such a harbor, even
if it all had to be constructed from the beginning, is to
dredge channels through the low grounds west of the city,
rather than to build breakwaters and docks on the Lake
Front.
5. It is useless to think of closing the entrance to the
Chicago river without providing other inlets which will
preserve the value of dock property now in existence and
allow of the indefinite expansion of shipping interests in
the rear of the business center of the city.
The harbor and bridge problems are facing this com-
munity just as truly and just as emphatically, each in its
particular province, as does the sanitary problem; there is
no shirking them or it. They can all be solved together at
a cost within the power of the sanitary district to compass
if gone about resolutely and in the right way. To adopt the
makeshifts proposed is to waste public money and ruin pri-
vate property in a most reckless manner.
It is to hold out a promise of sanitary relief which will
be but a mockery, and to fritter away the grandest oppor-
tunity for commercial supremacy ever presented to a great
city.
To stand the presiding genius of the great lakes and of
the Mississippi valley is the opportunity before us to-day.
Will we embrace it?”
XIII.
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS WANT A SHIP CANAL.
IF CHICAGO WILL BUILD IT, BUT ARE PERFECTLY INDIF-
FERENT ABOUT ASSISTING IN ITS CONSTRUCTION.
For more than forty years the leading statesmen of Illi-
nois have grown garrulous over the subject of a ship canal.
The most eminent engineers in the employ of the United
States Government and in the employ of the city of Chi-
cago have been engaged upon this problem for more than
94
a quarter of a century, and the facts, figures, reports,
statistics, arguments, discussions, writings and speeches of
the men who have taken an interest in this matter, either
in an official capacity or as disinterested citizens, would, if
collected together, constitute a body of literature equal to
the Chinese classics. When the Illinois and Michigan
Canal was first proposed, it was wholly a southern project;
but when the capital of the State was removed north to
Springfield, the people of the southern part lost all interest
in the project, and became its bitter opponents.
The State of Illinois, although one of the greatest States in
the American Union and swarming with statesmen of the
first order in every town and county, exhibits some strange
vagaries that can Scarcely be accounted for on any rational
theory that appertains to an enlightened government.
In the first place the great majority of the people seem to
be wholly indifferent to their own history and the Legislature
steadily refuses to make any appropriation to preserve and
publish the records of its own history, or the history of the
pioneers, and in the Second place, while urging upon all other
governments the necessity of adopting a liberal policy in their
intercourse with this State and in carrying forward public
improvements, the Legislature seems to forget the relation
that the country sustains to their own great city, and has
for years treated it precisely as if it was a foreign, if not a
hostile city, and refuses, as we think, sometimes, to join with
it in fostering and developing its great interests in the man-
mer that they should do. The people would like to have a
great ship canal built through its domain so that the cost of
transportation could be cheapened to tide water and the
products of the farm could be sent to market at slight expense;
yet they are against constructing any such canal at public
expense and have effectually prohibited any such thing
being done by an organic enactment. We insist that such
a policy is not only wrong but narrow and selfish in the
extreme and that the spirit of the age demands that public
improvements shall be made of such a character as will most
effectually meet all public exigencies.
95
We are in favor of enlarging the Illinois and Michigan
Canal or digging a new one of sufficient capacity for Missis-
sippi steamboats to pass up and down the same, and in case
of a war—either foreign or domestic—for gunboats to trav-
erse the same with rapidity and dispatch. We criticise the
general government because it appears to be indifferent to
the advantages which would accrue to the people of this
country if such a means of protection was afforded in case of
war, and we think that government should lend its aid in
the constructing of a great ship canal between Lake Michi-
gan and the Mississippi river as a war measure; but if the
general government will not do anything, then we, as a
State, should.
XIV.
DEATH TO CANALS, OR THE DEBATE IN THE CONSTITUTIONAL
CONVENTION, IN 1870, UPON THAT SUBJECT, AND WHAT BE-
CAME OF IT.
In 1870, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention,
which was called to revise and amend the Constitution,
were subjected to one of the longest and most exhaustive de-
bates upon the subject of canals that probably ever occurred
in the history of this or any other country. It lasted for
weeks and positively became a weariness of the flesh. The
ball was opened by Hon. L. D. Whiting, of Bureau county,
who had devoted a lifetime to gathering statistics, and who
presented an array of facts and figures, showing that the
Illinois and Michigan Canal Ought to be enlarged and con-
verted into a ship canal, but all of his arguments seemed
to produce but little effect. The majority of the delegates
were opposed to this scheme, and instead of enlarging the
canal, seemed bent upon destroying the same. The an-
tipathy which was displayed toward the canal and any
enlargement of the same seemed to be in the nature of a
personal grievance, and became venomous. At times the
convention swayed to and fro as if under the influence of a
frenzy. The policy avowed was that of death to any canal
enlargement, and they resolved to utterly prohibit the State
from ever doing anything whatever with the canal, except-
96
ing to let it fall into decay and then abandon it. We resisted
this policy with all our power, and in doing so were attacked
and badgered from all sides, as will be seen by reference
to the following speech which we made in the Constitutional
Convention on Wednesday, February 2, 1870. The question
which was before the Convention was whether the General
Assembly should be prohibited from ever spending any
money to enlarge or extend the canal, and whether it should
ever be sold or leased. There never was such hostility ex-
hibited toward any public improvement as was manifested
in that Convention, and on that occasion various proposi-
tions had been submitted to the Convention, together with
amendments and substitutes, and the debate had taken a
wide range. We had become somewhat restless at the
Onslaught made upon the canal and its advocates and we re-
Solved to do what we could to stem the tide that seemed to
be rising to a most unwonted height. In other words we
resolved to strike back, and we struck with all the power
that we possessed. Our speech seemed to stir up a con-
siderable portion of the Convention and it soon became
“free for all.” What we said was in the committee of the
whole and was as follows:
Mr. ANTHONY. Mr. Chairman: I call for the reading
of the report that we are debating.
Ti.e clerk read the report of the committee on Canal and
Canal Lands, as follows:
ARTICLE —.
“SECTION The Illinois and Michigan Canal and any
addition or extension which may be made thereto, and the
navigable waters of the State, shall never be sold, leased,
or otherwise disposed of to any person or corporation what-
ever, but shall remain forever the property of the people of
this State, and under their management and control: Pro-
vided, however, nothing herein shall be construed to inter-
fere with any existing rights, nor to prevent the State from
entering into any compact with the United States for the
improvement and use of said waters, or any of them.”
Mr. ANTHONY. I call for the reading of the substitute
also.
97
The clerk read the substitute and amendments, as fol-
lows:
(Amendment offered by Mr. Vandeventer.)
Strike out of the second line of the first section the words
“ and the navigable waters of the State.”
(Amendment offered by Mr. Pillsbury.)
Whenever, in the judgment of the General Assembly,
the prohibitions in the first section hereof shall have become
oppressive and injurious to the people of this State, the
General Assembly shall submit to the electors of this State,
at the next general election, whether section 1 hereof shall
cease to be a part of this Constitution, and if a majority of
all the votes cast at such election upon such submission shall
be in the affirmative, then such section shall no longer be a
part of this Constitution.
(Substitute offered by Mr. Bromwell.)
The Illinois and Michigan Canal, and any addition or
extension hereafter made thereto, shall never be sold to any
person or corporation whatever, nor shall the same be
leased in any way that will remove the same from under
the power of the State to control the rates of the tolls
thereon; and the said canal, and its extensions, and all the
navigable waters of the State shall ever remain open and
navigable for all the people of the United States and of this
State, and no charter or contract shall ever be granted or
entered into by the State, which shall have any force or
effect to hinder or prevent in any way the people of the
United States, or of this State, from opening a water coln-
munication on any line between the waters of the Missis-
sippi and Lake Michigan, for the free use of the people or
otherwise.
Mr. ANTHON.Y. Mr. Chairman: This debate has now
been in progress nearly a week, and there is no mem-
ber probably upon this floor who has not made up his
mind as to how he will vote upon the question, but we have
had these amendments read in order to see if there are any
gentlemen who are in favor of selling out the Illinois and
Michigan Canal.
Now, sir, in order that we may understand where we are,
we propose to follow a line of argument that we have marked
9S
out for ourself. And in doing so, we will not inflict upon this
Convention, if we can help it, any long speech.
First. We desire to call the attention of this committee to
the origin and history of this canal.
Second. Its cost to the people of the State.
Third. Its benefit to the people of the State.
Fourth. Shall it be owned and forever controlled by the
people of this State?
1st. As to the origin and history of the Illinois and
Michigan Canal, and its connection with the Illinois river.
So much has been said about the Illinois, the Calumet
and Kankakee rivers, in connection with the Illinois and
Michigan Canal, and the water routes leading from the
interior of the State to the great lakes, that I am tempted
to commence what I have to say, with that romance of his-
tory descriptive of the discovery of the Illinois river.
The ordinance of 1787 provides, in the fourth article,
that—
The navigable waters leading into the Mississippi and St.
Lawrence, and the carrying places between the same shall
be common highways, and forever free as well to the
inhabitants of the said territory as to the citizens of the
United States, etc.
The earliest explorers of these water routes and carrying
places were the Jesuits—the most noted of whom were
Marquette, Joliet, Hennepin and LaSalle. LaSalle and Hen-
nepin were among the first who, circling around the shores
of Lake Michigan, entered the mouth of the St. Joseph
river, ascended it to where it bends northward tin rough In-
diana to Illinois, then descended the Kankakee, and finally
the Illinois river.
“On the 3d of December, 1669, LaSalle, with a party of
thirty-three, in eight canoes, ascended the chill current of
the St. Joseph, bordered with dreary meadows and bare
gray forests. When they approached the site of the present
village of South Bend, and looked anxiously for the port-
age leading to the headquarters of the Illinois, LaSalle
landed and got lost in the woods. Hennepin, who was with
LaSalle in the expedition, remained with the canoes. Night
99
came on, but not their lost leader. Muffled in their blank-
ets, and powdered by the thick falling snow flakes, they
sat ruefully speculating as to what had befallen him; nor
was it till four o'clock of the next afternoon that they saw
him approaching along the margin of the river. His face
and hands were besmirched with charcoal, and he was
further decorated with two opossums, which hung from
his belt, and which he had killed with a stick, as they were
swinging, head downward, from the bough of a tree, after
the fashion of that singular beast. He had missed his way
in the forest, and had been forced to make a wide circuit
around the edge of a swamp, while the snow, of which the
air was full, added to his perplexities. Having found his
party, they shouldered their canoes and baggage, and began
their march for the sources of the river Illinois, some five
miles distant.
“Around them stretched a desolate plain, half covered
with snow, and strewn with the skulls and bones of buffalo,
while on its furthest verge they could see the lodges of the
Miami Indians, who had made this place their abode. They
soon reached a spot where the oozy, Saturated soil quaked
beneath their tread.
“All around were clumps of alder bushes, tufts of rank
grass and pools of glistening water. In the midst a dark
and Jazy current, which a tall man might bestride, crept,
twisting like a snake, among the reeds and rushes. Here
were the sourcesof the Kankakee, one of the heads of the
Illinois.
“They set their canoes on this thread of water, embarked
their baggage and themselves, and pushed down the slug-
gish streamlet, looking at a little distance like men who
sailed on land. Fed by an incoming tribute of the spongy
soil, it quickly widened to a river, and they floated on
their way, through a voiceless, lifeless solitude of dreary
oak barrens, or boundless marshes, overgrown with
reeds.
“At night they built their fire on ground made firm by
frost, and bivouacked among the rushes. A few days
brought them to a more favored region. On the right hand
and on the left stretched the boundless prairie, dotted with
leafless groves, and bordered by gray and wintry forests;
scorched by the fires kindled in the dried grass by Indian
hunters, and strewn with the carcasses and the bleached
skulls of innumerable buffalo.
>k >< >k > >k >{< >k
100
“At night the horizon glowed with distant fires; and by
day the savage hunters could be descried at times roaming
on the verge of the prairie.
“The scene changed again as they descended. On
either hand ran ranges of woody hills, following the course
of the river; and when they mounted to their tops, they
saw beyond them a rolling sea of dull green prairie, a
boundless pasture of the buffalo and the deer, in our own
day strangely transformed—yellow in harvest time, with
ripened wheat, and dotted with roofs of a hardy and valiant
yeomanry.
“They passed the site of the future town of Ottawa, and
saw on their right the high plateau of Buffalo Rock, long a
favorite dwelling place of Indians. A league below, the
river glided among islands, bordered with stately woods.
Close on their left towered a lofty cliff (Starved Rock),
crested with trees that overhung the rippling current;
while before them spread the valley of the Illinois, in broad,
low meadows, bordered on the right by the graceful hills at
whose feet now lies the village of Utica.
>k >k >k >}< >< >k >k
“On New Year's day, 1680, they landed and heard mass,
which was conducted by Hennepin with great solemnity.
He wished LaSalle and all his men a happy New Year,
and then he and two of the brethren embraced all the com-
pany, and exhorted all to patience, faith and constancy.
Two days after they reached the long expansion of the
river, then called Pimitoui, and now known as Peoria lake,
and leisurely made.their way downward to the site of the
city of Peoria.”
After remaining in the vicinity of Peoria for some time,
and leaving a few of his party to form a settlement, LaSalle
and his party returned by the way of the Illinois river, and
struck Lake Michigan at Calumet, at the point to which
reference was made by the gentleman from Stephenson yes-
terday.
In the following year, 1681, LaSalle, who was one of the
most daring explorers of modern times, returned by the St.
Joseph and Kankakee. -
“When last he had passed here,” says Parkman, “all
101
was solitude, but now the scene was changed. The bound-
less waste was thronged with life. He beheld that wondrous
spectacle still tobe seen at times on the plains of the re-
motest west, and the memory of which can quicken the
pulses and stir the blood, after a lapse of years. Far and
near the prairie was alive with buffalo; now like black
specks dotting the distant swells; now tramping by in pon-
derous columns, or filing in long lines, morning, noon and
night, to drink at the river; wading, plunging and snorting
in the water, climbing the muddy shores, and staring with
wild eyes at the passing canoes. It was an opportunity not
to be lost. The party landed and encamped for a hunt.
Sometimes they hid under the shelving banks and shot them
as they came to drink; sometimes flat on their faces, they
dragged themselves through the long dead grass, till the
Savage bulls, guardians of the herd, ceased their grazing,
raised their huge heads, and glared through tangled hair
at the dangerous intruders; their horns splintered, and their
grim fronts scarred with battles, while their shaggy mane,
like a gigantic lion, well nigh swept the ground. The hunt
was successful. * * * They cut the meat into thin
flakes, and dried it in the sun, or in the smoke of their
fires.”
They continued their journey, and came to the spot where
there had been a great Indian town.
“Before them lay a plain, once swarming with wild
human life, and covered with Indian dwellings, now a waste
of devastation and death, strewn with heaps of ashes, and
bristling with the charred poles and stakes wheh had
formed the framework of the lodges. At the points of
most of them were stuck human skulls, half picked by
birds of prey. Near at hand was the burial ground of the
Village. The travelers sickened with horror as they entered
its revolting precincts. Wolves in multitudes fled at their
approach, while clouds of crows or buzzards, rising from the
hideous repast, wheeled above their heads, or settled on the
naked branches of the neighboring forest. Every grave
had been rifled, and the bodies flung down from the scaf-
folds, where, after the Illinois custom, many of them had
been placed.
“The field was strewn with broken bones and torn and
mangled corpses. A hyena warfare had been waged against
the dead.
“LaSalle knew the handiwork of the Iroquois. The
102
threatened blow had fallen, and the wolfish hordes of the
Five Cantons had fleshed their rabid fangs in a new vic-
tim,”
LaSalle visited Chicago in 1682, and set out from there
on his great expedition to the Mississippi, and in search of
the “Vermillion sea,” which had been his dream, as Cortez
and Pizarro had dreamed of “Eldorado’’ in the far-off
South. It is sad to think that, after having endured every
hardship, almost, known to man, he should have fallen a
victim by the hand of an assassin, at the age of forty-
three, while pursuing his explorations in the valley of the
Mississippi, a thousand miles from where we are now as-
sembled.
He was born at Rouen, in 1643—received the name of
Robert Cavalier; but he is better known as LaSalle. His full
name was Reus Robert Cavalier Sieur de LaSalle—LaSalle
being the name of an estate near Rouen, belonging to the
Cavaliers. “America owes him an enduring memory; for,
in his masculine figure, cast in iron, she sees the heroic pio-
neer who guided her to the possession of her richest heri-
tage”—and Illinois is his monument.
We pass now to another pioneer. So much has been said
in this discussion about the county of Cook, that I should
be derelict in my duty as a representative of that county, if
we did not stand up in defense of the memory of him who is
known as the father of the Illinois and Michigan Canal,
and whose name my county now bears. The project of
connecting the waters of the Mississippi with those of Lake
Michigan was agitated as early as 1814.
In 1818, Governor Bond pressed it upon the attention of
the first Legislature, then sitting at Kaskaskia, and Governor
Coles, in 1822, again did the same.
In 1823, canal commissioners were appointed, and a tour
of inspection was made under Colonel J. Post and B. Paul,
of Missouri.
In 1827, Hon. Daniel P. Cook, member of Congress from
this State, obtained a grant of land in aid of this canal, and
thus obtained the title of “Father of the Illinois and Michi-
103
gan Canal.” At that time this project was wholly a South-
ern Illinois enterprise, and Mr. Cook was a representative
from that portion of the State. He was a member of Con-
gress, commencing with the second session of 1819, and
served with great distinction in that body eight years. He
was elected at the early age of twenty-five, served eight
years, and I believe, died at the age of thirty-five.
He was a most remarkable man, possessed of great fore-
sight and sagacity, and was the compeer of Clay, Calhoun,
Wirt, Stephenson and McDuffie. He was chairman of the
important Committee of Ways and Means, in the House,
during his last session, and, it is said, bid fair to be the
foremost man in this nation. He was early impressed
with the idea of improving the waterways of our State,
and of building a canal from the Mississippi river to Chi-
Cago.
In 1824, the Legislature of this State passed a law, giv-
ing to a private company the Illinois river, and the power
of making a canal. So averse was he to this that he left
his seat in Congress, came home to Illinois, procured the re-
peal of the charter, and then procured the land grant which
resulted in building the canal.
We should be derelict, we say, in our duty as a representa-
tive of my county, if we should not to-day pay tribute to his
memory. His name should be kept green in our hearts;
to-day let us not forget him. He has done much in build-
ing up this great State of ours.
In 1821, the Legislature appropriated $10,000 for the
Survey of the route of the Illinois and Michigan Canal.
In 1825, an act was passed incorporating a company to
build it. But nothing was effected then. The work was
commenced in June, 1836, but was not accomplished until
1845. At the completion of the Erie canal in 1825 —
Mr. TURNER. Will the gentleman permit me to ask
whether he is citing the statistics of Mr. Edwards?
Mr. ANTHONY. No, sir, I am not touching on his statis-
tics. I am drawing my information from the official history
of the State of Illinois.
104
Mr. TURNER. Are you referring to Mr. Edwards?
Mr. ANTHONY. Not a word of it. The gentleman from
Stephenson [Mr. Turner] has not got over those statistics
yet. We are not on the statistics of Mr. Edwards at all,
but are giving a history, in brief, of the canal as an enter-
prise.
At the completion of the Erie canal, I say, in New York,
in 1825, a great celebration took place at Buffalo, and in
the presence of DeWitt Clinton the following sentiment was
proposed: “The State of New York—she has added an-
other wonder to the world; her prosperity, in the full frui-
tion of these blessings, will guard with grateful recollections
the rich bequests of their fathers;” and, gentlemen, here
to-day, we indorse that sentiment in regard to the Illinois
and Michigan Canal, and in regard to Daniel P. Cook, and
we say—
“That the fathers in glory shall sleep,
That gathered with thee to the fight,
But the sons shall eternally keep
The tableſ of gratitude bright.” .
The name of Daniel P. Cook, as father of the Illinois and
Michigan Canal, is entitled to the respect of every citizen of
the State of Illinois, and the people here to-day should
weave a chaplet for his memory that should endure when
we have left these halls and mouldered into dust. Daniel
P. Cook was a pioneer, and stands in the same relation to
our canal that DeWitt Clinton does to the Erie canal. The
sentiment which was offered to the memory of DeWitt
Clinton, we offer here to-day to his memory. The Illinois
and Michigan Canal is not accounted of much value now,
but there was a time when its opening was hailed with joy
and delight. s
With this introduction, let us now proceed. Between the
years 1836 and 1841, the State of Illinois became possessed
of a mania for internal improvements, and loaned her
credit to these projects, establishing a State bank, with
branches. We call the attention of this committee to one
thing, which we regard as rather unfair, and that is, for gen-
105
tlemen to attribute all the misery and sufferings of the
people of the State of Illinois to the system of internal im-
provements, without mentioning the State bank, which,
when it fell, like Sampson of old, drew upon the people of
the State, almost to a man, disaster and destruction. Why
has not some gentleman mentioned that fact, which is part
of the history of the State of Illinois, instead of piling
everything on its internal improvements? At that time a
great revulsion swept over this country, like one of those
cyclones that sweep through the tropics, blasting and
scorching not only the vegetable world, but all animal and
physical nature.
That revulsion and that crash was not confined to the State
of Illinois alone, but extended throughout the country—
aye, sir, throughout the world. Night and despondency,
like that which overspread the middle ages, set in and con-
tinued for more than twenty years. But during that time
Illinois was gathering strength, and like the coral islands of
the ocean which ascend silently and unseen from their liquid
depths, gradually lifting themselves above the foaming
crests, solid as a rock, and enduring as the ages, so Illinois
has grown and uplifted herself.
This canal is no new thing. In 1847, while the Conven-
tion that framed our present Constitution was in session,
occurred the great river and harbor Convention at Chicago,
which was attended by the most illustrious men of modern
times, at which resolutions were passed indorsing the
canals and calling upon the general government to improve
our harbors and rivers.
I ask the gentlemen of this committee to read the resolu-
tions passed then by the great men there assembled, and
see if they were not worthy of statesmen and worthy of
Western meln.
Read these words of Thomas H. Benton:
“The lake and river navigation of the Great West,” says
he, “to promote which your Convention is called, very early
had a share of my attention, and I never had a doubt of the
eonstitutionality, or expediency of bringing that navigation
106
within the circle of internal improvements by the Federal
government, when the object of the improvement should be
of general and national importance.
“ The junctions of the two great systems of water which
occupy so much of your country, the Northern lakes on the
one hand, and the Mississippi river and its tributaries on
the other, appeared to me to be an object of that character,
and Chicago the proper point for effecting the union; and
nearly thirty years ago I wrote and published articles in a
St. Louis paper in favor of that object, indicated and almost
accomplished by nature herself, and wanting from man
little to complete it. These were, probably, the first
formal communications upon authentic data, in favor
of the Chicago Canal. The nationality of the Chicago
Canal and the harbor at its mouth, are by no means
new conceptions with me. The river navigation of the
Great West is the most wonderful on the globe, and since
the application of steam-power to the propulsion of ves-
sels, possesses the essential qualities of open navigation.
Speed, distance, cheapness, magnitude of cargoes, are all
there and without the perils of the sea from storms and
enemies. The steamboat is the sloop of the river, and finds
in the Mississippi and its tributaries the amplest theater for
the diffusion and display of its power. Wonderful river,
connected with seas by the head and by the mouth, stretch-
ing its arms toward the Atlantic and Pacific-—lying in a
valley, which is the valley from the Gulf of Mexico to the
Hudson Bay—drawing its first waters, not from rugged
mountains, but from the plateau of the lakes in the center
of the continent, and in communication with the sources of
the St. Lawrence, and streams which take their course with
the Hudson Bay, draining the largest extent of richest
land, collecting the products of every clime, even the
frigid, to bear the whole to market in the sunny South, and
there to meet the products of the entire world.”
Such were the words of Benton, and they are as timely
to-day, as they were in 1847. Thomas Benton was not talk-
ing wildly about internal improvements—but he was speak-
ing upon the very question now before this Convention,
to-wit, preserving and extending the Illinois and Michigan
Canal to the Mississippi river, and thereby uniting the Gulf
of Mexico with the Gulf of St. Lawrence—and he spoke to
the question. I shall, as far as I am able, follow his ex-
ample—but at a respectful distance.
107
I see that old gigantic form now, stalking into this Con-
vention, and calling us to order—and if he had heard
the gentleman from Crawford, [Mr. Allen], the gentleman
from Stephenson, [Mr. Turner], the gentleman from Jersey,
[Mr. King], or the gentleman from Whiteside, [Mr. Mc-
Coy], he would, no doubt, have been amazed that any son
of the West could be found to wander so wide of the mark,
or fall so far below his standard of statesmanship.
The Illinois and Michigan Canal is the only public work
owned by the State, and under its control. Not one single mile
of railroad is owned by the State, and not one single river,
lying wholly within this State, except the Illinois river, is sus-
ceptible of permanent improvement without great expense.
Its situation is such that it is a connecting link between the
great lakes and the Mississippi. It lies in the very track of
commerce. If the Illinois river was improved and ren-
dered navigable, it would connect Chicago and the Missis-
sippi river, and make a continuous line to the east by the
Erie Canal and the Hudson to New York, or by the St.
Lawrence to the Ocean.
2d. This is the first grapple of the people with mo-
nopolies. You may disguise it as you please, you may
disclaim it as you please, it is the first grapple with mo-
nopolies by the people, because this is the only public work
owned by the people, that you propose to put up at auction
and sell out to the highest bidder. It is the only great
public conveyance that we can control, and shall we, while
denouncing monopolies, set the bad precedent of turning
this, the people's highway, over to those same grasping
corporations we so much decry?
Gentlemen have arrayed themselves against this canal,
and yet they say they are not in the interest of monop-
olies. The gentleman from St. Clair, [Mr. Snyder], would
have it sold for old clothes or anything that can be obtained
at a grocery. Shall we surrender this at the first onset, and
throw our doors wide open to the first marauder who passes
this way?
108
The canal is earning the State of Illinois more than
$132,000 per year, over and above expenses. I ask those
gentlemen who are such zealous friends of free trade, where
now are your principles? Are you willing to throw away
$132,000 per year? I would ask the gentleman from Craw-
ford, [Mr. Allen], how he can consistently oppose this
measure, when he is for having everything in this country
free as the air we breathe? Our State is a great agricult-
ural State; and the great thing our people demand is cheap
freight; our position is as fine as that of any other on the
globe. De Tocqueville says there is no place on the face of
the earth that can compare with the valley of the Mississippi.
Ours is one of the greatest producing States of the world;
and in spite of all that has been said to the contrary, it
stands out before the people of this country as the leading
State in producing the cereals and breadstuffs—and is the
granary of the world. &
We wish to call the attention of this committee, right here,
to a few words in the report of the superintendent of the
last census.
The superintendent of the last census thus speaks of
Illinois:
“Illinois presents the most wonderful example of great,
continuous and healthful increase. In 1830 Illinois con-
tained 157,455 inhabitants; in 1840, 476,183; in 1850, 851,-
470; in 1860, 1,711,951. The gain during the last decade
was therefore 860,481, or 101.06 per cent. So large a pop-
ulation more than doubling itself in ten years, by the reg-
ular course of Settlement and natural increase, is without
parallel. The condition to which Illinois has attained
under the progress of the last thirty years is a monument
to the blessings of industry, enterprise, peace and free
institutions.” $
And he then added:
“The remarkable healthfulness of the climate seems to
more than compensate for its rigors, and the fertility of the
new soil leads men largely to contend with and overcome
the harshness of the elements. The energies thus called
into action have, in a few years, made the States of the
Northwest the granary of Europe; and that section of our
109
Union, which, within the recollection of living man was a
wilderness, is now the chief source of supply in seasons of
scarcity, for the suffering millions of another continent.”
The population in 1865, was 2,511,000, and is now nearly
if not quite 3,000,000.
It contains 55,405 square miles, or 35,459,200 acres of
land; it has 10,000 more square miles than New York
or Ohio, and is nearly as large as all the New England
States.
The situation of our State you all know. It is outlined by
Water.
There is the Wabash, that makes the dividing line be-
tween our State and that great empire of the East. There
rolls the Ohio, and there sweeps past in mighty floods the
lordly Mississippi, which takes its rise in the snows of the
North and boils its waters in the tropics.
Away to the North are those vast inland seas—greater
than the Baltic, the Black, and the sea of Azof, with an
inland commerce of more than $600,000,000 a year, more
than double all the foreign commerce of the Nation, while
upon its shores there is a greater population than the
entire population of the United States in 1812, and cities
greater than any city on the western continent at that time.
The cereals which are grown on these prairies alone,
gathered together and placed in barrels, side by side,
would span the Atlantic and reach to the confines of Asia.
Assemble the hogs which are now fattening in the pens
of the farmers of this State and marshal them into droves,
and they would reach from the capitol of the State to
the docks of Liverpool.
Said Samuel B. Ruggels, in his address at the great canal
convention, held at Chicago in June, 1863:
“What human being in his senses, not wholly idiotic, or
utterly blinded by political bigotry, or lust of political
power, could assert that this God-given, exuberant, and all
but virgin West, has now reached its culminating point?
For one, I stand awe-struck at the immeasurable pros-
pect opening before us, I can see nothing smaller, nothing
more diminutive, nothing less stupendous than a yearly
110
product of cereals to be measured, not as now by hundreds,
but by thousands of millions of bushels, a result so vast, so
solemn, so fraught with consequences so momentous to our
Nation and to the world, that I can but bow with reveren-
tial gratitude, before such a wonderful manifestation of the
providence of our great Creator. Never before in human
history did He lay out a garden so wide-spread and fertile;
never before did He provide a granary so magnificent for the
use of man. For what was ancient Sicily, the granary of
Rome, or the fertile plains of the Po, or the exuberant valley
of the Nile itself, compared with this, our great continental
garden, pouring forth yearly volumes of food so enormous
and yet so inevitably, resistlessly increasing? In view of
such a power to feed our race, who will venture to depict
or limit the commercial and the political destiny of this
unequaled portion of the earth?
And then he adds:
“The manifest destiny and high office of this splendid
granary, of which this Chicago of yours and of ours is
the brilliant center, stands out plain as the sun in the
heavens. It is unmistakably marked by the finger of
God, on these wide-spread lands and waters, that it is to be
our special duty to feed, not ourselves on this new world
alone, but that venerable, moss-covered fatherland—that old
father-world of ours across the ocean—as the pious Grecian
daughter nourished her aged sire—to carry abundant food,
and that, too, in the truest Christian spirit, to that over-
crowded but under-fed European Christendom, to which
we owe our common origin.”
Let us then come fully up to the measure of this world-
wide idea. Let us, by cheapening the transit of food to our
seaboard, prepare vigorously to carry out the predestined
and providential arrangement of God Himself to increase
the happiness of man.
Now, sir, we demand that the product of this country
should be carried to market. Where is that market? If a
farmer raises a bushel of wheat, and it is worth to him
50 cents, what is it worth to him when he has paid 50 cents
more for the transportation of it to a market? Cheap freights
are what we want, and anything and everything which con-
tributes to that object, is worth our while to undertake;
and if this canal can in the least do it, I am for the canal.
1 11
We wish to say a word about the cost of this canal, and
we assert from the best sources of information we can
obtain, that this canal never cost the State of Illinois much
more than half a million of dollars actually paid out by
them—all the rest having been paid from sales of lands
given by the general government.
Cost of Illinois and Michigan Canal compiled from official documents, by IIon.
Ninian Edwards.
Cost of Canal. independent of the trust to Dec. 1, 1846. See
H. Reports, 1847, page 98....................................... ...... $5,133,062 21
Cost of Canal under trust—organized June, 1845. See H.
Reports, 1858........................................................ .... 1,429,606 21
Total cost of construction............................ * * * * * * * * * * * * e º a s s a e $6,562,668 42
The above embraces the cost of the main canal, the feeders and steam en-
gines, including buildings for same.
RECEIPTS FROM SALE OF LANDS DonATED BY GENERAL gover NMENT, INDEPENDENT
OF TRUST.
From 1836 to Nov. 1, 1844. H. Reports, 1844–75 page 21...... $ 832,407 91
In 1845 and 1846. H. Reports, 1847, page 98..................... 136,067 76
Under trust, from 1846 to Nov. 30, 1868. Canal report, 1868 4,667,718 42
Total receipts from lands and lots to Nov. 30, 1868. . . . . . . . $5,736,194 09
RECEIPTS AND ExPENDITURES FROM coni MENCEMENT of TRUST To Nov. 20, 1868.
Receipts on account of
1. Construction ............................................................ $ 2,132 25
2. Contingent and general expenses.................. ................. 3 00.
3. Canal lands, lots, etc................................................... 4,667,718 42
4. Maintenance and repairs......................... .................... 64,478 72
5. Loan of $1,600,000......................... ............................ 1,601,891 90
6. Interest and exchange................................................. 167,165 88
7. Tolls........................................................................ 3,997,281 22
8. Premium on gold re-sold.............................................. 923 27
e e º 'º e ºn e º 'º º ºs e º gº e º e º e g º ºs e º e º ºs e º e º is ſº e º e º ºs e º & e º ºr e º ºs s e is a tº e º e º e º ºs e º & e is e º e º 'º & e º 'º e º e º gº º $10,501,594 66
ExPENDITURES FROM commenceMENT OF TRUST To Nov. 30, 1868.
Expended on account of
1. Construction...................................... ..................... $1,429,606 21
2. Contingent and general expenses................................... 386,475 47
3. Canal property—lands, lots, etc.................................... 1 J2,583 23.
4. Maintenance and repairs............................................. 1,628,340 48
5. Loan of $1,600,000...................................................... 2,152,771 31
6. Arrears of interest on registered bonds........................... 152,622 38.
7. Principal and interest on registered bonds...................... 1,872,784 01
8. Interest and exchange................................................. 20,848 68
9. Tolls.'....................................................................... 144,079 94
10. Canal damages......................................................... 21,943 32
11. Premium on gold to pay dividends on bonds in London..... 303,280 19
Total............................................ . ...................... $10,229,345 19
112
Receipts................................................................... .... 10,501,594 66
Expenditures............... ................................................. 10,229,345 19
Apparent balance..................................................... . $ 272,249 47
Reported balance...................................................... 257,685 95
Loss on uncurrent moneys........................... e tº e º e º e º ºs e º sº e ºs $ 14,263 52
It will be seen from the above that the Trust have paid out of the re-
ceipts—
Arrearages of interest on registered bonds........................... $2,155,622 38
On principal of registered bonds. ..................................... 1,872,794 01
On principal of registered bonds....................................... 1,600,000 00
On interest on Same............., * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 553,771 31
Total payment on principal and interest........................... $6,182,187 70
Receipts from sale of lands under trust to November, 30, 1868 $4,667,718 64
Amount paid from sale of lands under trust for construction, 3,302,400 20
Amount paid for interest, etc... ...................................... ... 1,365,318 20
$4,667,719 42
Besides the payment from receipts there is a balance of cash
November, 30, 1868, on hand of........... • * * * * * * * * * * * * * e º s e º e e e s e a $ 257,685 95
On notes for sale of lands and lots ................................... 13,972 76
271,658 71
‘Cost of construction without interest.................. .............. 6,562,668 42
Total receipts from lands and lots to November 30, 1868........ 5,736,194 09
Difference between amount received from lands and cost......... $ 826,474 33
If we deduct balance on hand ($271,658 71), the cost to the
State would be only............................................... tº gº tº E tº de $ 554,815 62
This balance would be still reduced from unsold lands.
CAN AL DEBT AT DIFFERENT PERIODS.
Canal debt, January 1, 1845............................................ $5,630,605 14
Canal debt, December J, 1846......................................... 6,009,187 57
Canal debt, December, 1, 1850.......................................... 7,848,028 43
Canal debt, January 1 1853............................................. 8,079,246 86
Canal debt, January 1, 1857 .......................................... 5,508,841 11
Canal debt, December 1, 1868, (See Governor Oglesby’s mes-
sage, January, 1869)................................................... 1,431,550 89
Of the amount due Dec. 1, 1868–
Registered.................................................................... $ 516,366 67
Not registered................... ........................................... 915,214 22
ºmº-ºº-ºº-ºº ºmºmºmº ºmºmº:
$1,431,550 89
Average net earnings from tolls for ten years, ending November 30, 1868, is
$144,919 per annum—which pays an interest of 9% per cent, on the cost of
completing by the trustees.
3d. There are gentlemen here who have arraigned this
canal project in language strong and vigorous. They say
it does not concern thern or their people, and hence they are
against it; that it is to tax the people of all the State for the
benefit of those living in a small section. But does this
113
kind of statesmanship apply here? It was shown this
morning what amount had been taken by acts of the Legis-
lature and applied to localities. I have in my hand an offi-
cial report from the Auditor showing the state of facts on this
subject, and we will read it for the benefit of the gentleman
from St. Clair [Mr. Snyder] and the other gentlemen, to show
that if this canal does not run through their own counties,
and they are to be guided in their statesmanship by re-
gard only to their own constituencies, we may see how that
principle applies.
A State is sometimes denominated a body politic. We
are all members of that body politic, and are all interested
in its welfare. It is a great partnership, in which each one
composing the partnership is supposed to act for the
good of the whole; and we do not understand that type of
statesmanship which limits its grasp to the door-sills of one’s
own country village. There has been altogether too much
of that kind of talk, in my judgment, on this floor. Now is
the time to inaugurate a different state of things. Let us
blot out that imaginary line which divides the North from
the South, and let us, from the Calumet to the Wabash, act
together in peace and harmony.
There are many here who seek to make capital out of this
discussion, by appealing to the prejudices of the people
against Chicago, and by crying out that this is a “Chicago
measure.” We are aware that there is a geat deal of prejudice
against Chicago; and while we do not hesitate to expose and
denounce all forms of abuses which exist there, we hesitate
neither in saying that, so far as Chicago's public relations
to the State are concerned, her treatment for years has been
most shabby.
The State of Illinois has never spent a dollar on Chicago,
but everywhere, and at all times, conspiracies have been
formed against her to rob and despoil her. What public insti-
tution, educational or eleemosynary, planted by the State, is
in her midst? Not one. Chicago is situated in the third
grand division of this State, and contains over 300,000 in-
habitants. Its courts are overflowing with law business,
114
and more than 19,000 cases go upon its court dockets in
a year. We furnish nearly nine-tenths of all the business in
that district; and have we got the Supreme Court there?
Does the Supreme Court even hold a term there? No, sir.
Away down at Mount Vernon, in the woods, the State can
build a court house, and locate a Supreme Court there. It
can do the same at Springfield and Ottawa, but not at Chi-
Cago.
We had at one time a large quantity of lands belonging
to the college and seminary fund of this State located in
our county, and valuable. The people of southern Illinois
found it out in 1861, got an act through the Legislature
incorporating the Illinois Agricultural College, came up and
took those lands, sold them, squandered the money, and
laughed us to scorn.
Look at the history of legislation in this State for the last
few years. I hold in my hand an official report from the
Auditor, which shows that self-aggrandizement has not alone
characterized Chicago. The Auditor says:
SIR:—I have the honor to herewith present the information asked by you this
morning, as follows:
The American Bottom Levee Company get the State tax on all
property assessed in four (4) townships in St. Clair county, for
five (5) years under private laws, 1867, vol. 2, page 795. As-
sessed valuation of said townships in 1868, $1,534,125 00. Es-
timated revenue fund tax for 1869........................................ $12,273 00.
The St. Clair and Monroe Draining Company gets the State tax on
the increased valuation of subsequent years over valuation of
1859, for fifteen years from 1865, under private laws, 1865, vol.
2, page 2, in certain districts in the counties of St. Clair and
Monroe. Estimated amount of State revenue tax for 1869, in
surplus val. of 1869 over 1859....................... ..................... 2,000 00.
The Kaskaskia River Navigation Company, under private laws
1860, page 872, gets the State tax on all property assessed in
nine (9) townships for ten (10) years, from 1868 (in Randolph
county). Net valuation in 1868 amounts to $1,089,555 00. Es-
timated amount State revenue tax for 1869, thus given............. 8,400 00.
Alexander county, under public laws 1869, page 330, gets all State
tax collected in said county for the years 1869–70. Estimated
amount of revenue fund tax for 1869.................................... 14,000 00
Mound City (Pulaski county), under private laws 1867, vol. 1,
page 837, gets State tax on all property in said city for ten years
from 1867. Estimated revenue fund tax for 1869 thus given..... 2,500 00
City of Shawneetown (Gallatin county), by its charter, private
laws 1861, page 272, gets State tax on all property assessed in
said city for 20 years. Revenue fund State tax on assessment
1869, in said city, estimated to exceed................................... 3,500 00
115
Wabash river and its tributaries in Allison Prairie Levee Company
(Lawrence county), gets the State tax on all property assessed in
six (6) townships for ten (10) years from 1866, laws 1867 (pri-
vate), page 305, vol. 2. The property in said township assessed
for 1868, $418,461. Estimated revenue State tax for 1869........ 3,300 00
Surplus, etc., revenue tax (State), on assessment, 1869, over as-
sessment 1868, given to counties, townships, cities and towns, in
aid of railroads, public laws 1869, page 316, estimated by Aud-
itor, in levying rates of taxes for 1869, to amount to, for 1869... 4,728 00
Total amount of revenue tax on assessment 1869, estimated to be
disposed of for one year, by the foregoing laws..................... .. $50,701 00
In estimating the foregoing amounts, only the revenue fund State tax was
taken into consideration. Heretofore it has been considered said acts appro-
priated the tax levied to pay interest on the State debt, but in a recent case
that came before me, I held that said interest tax could not be so diverted.
Should this ruling be contested in the Supreme Court, and not sustained by
said court, the amounts I have given in each case, as well as the aggregate,
would be increased one-eighth. *
Very respectfully,
C. E. LIPPINGoTT,
º Auditor P. A.
Chicago pays one-fifth of all the taxes of the State. Men
from the country are constantly crowding into our city.
They come to us from all parts of this State, and from all
parts of the earth. They bring with them a great deal of
filth and dirt, and because we wish to keep clean you grum-
ble at us. Many do not understand the laws of health,
much less those great sanitary laws which are so essential
to keep off malaria, disease and death. You grumble at us
because we want to supply you with some of that pure lake
water in which you can see yourself as in a mirror, and
which, if you once taste, will do away with all that old
Bourbon, rye and other kinds of whisky, about which my
friend from St. Clair [Mr. Snyder] asks to be protected by
the sovereign power of this Convention.
But enough of this.
4th. I am opposed to selling or leasing the canal if it
were shown that it did not pay one dollar to the State—
because it is the people's highway—and you might just as
well talk about selling the public roads of the State as to
talk about selling that.
Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Chairman: Will the gentleman yield
so far as to allow me to ask him if there is a single dollar—
any portion of that tax which is to be applied to drainage
116
in St. Clair county—raised outside of the immediate district
interested?
Mr. ANTHONY. Mr. Chairman: The taxes of that dis-
trict belong to the State of Illinois, and its proportion of the
State revenue was, by an act of the Legislature, taken from
the people of the whole State, including my constituents, to.
the amount of $12,273—for one single year—and you are to
take the same amount each year for five years.
Mr. SNYDER. One other question: Does the gentleman
propose to improve and keep up the canal in the same
way-–by money taken from the district interested?
Mr. ANTHON.Y. No, sir. I am opposed to that system of
legislation—totally opposed to legislating in behalf of one
locality to the exclusion of any other. º
Now, sir, we should not have referred to this subject,
had we not thought that the gentleman from Crawford [Mr.
Allen] was going out of his way to attack the city of Chicago,
and the county of Cook. We repeat it, sir, that the county of
Cook pays one-fifth of the State taxes. It has one-eighth of
the population, and pays one-fifth of the taxes, and pays in
the city, for the trial and conviction of its own criminals,
which no other city does. Therefore, when gentlemen have
gone out of their way to attack the county of Cook upon
this canal bill, we come back on them with the facts, and
see how they Squirm.
The city of Chicago has never asked from the State of
Illinois one dollar of money to be applied in making any
public improvements, and no public improvement of any
character can be shown in the city of Chicago or in Cook
county, for which a single dollar of State money has been
expended. We can not even get a term of the Supreme
Court held in the city of Chicago. The prejudice that has
long existed in this State against the city of Chicago,
culminates every time that city is mentioned. We do not
know that gentlemen here are so prejudiced against us that
they will not do us justice in forning the organic law; but
it so happens that the city of Chicago, Mr. Chairman, is the
terminus of the canal.
•
117
Now, sir, we stand by this canal for this reason: It is the
great public highway belonging to the people of the State,
and the only public highway, we repeat, that the State has.
It produces to the people of the State of Illinois, and has,
for the nine years last past, more than $132,000 per year.
It is paying its way. It is paying all of its expenses, and
puts into the State treasury that amount over and above
everything else.
Now, Mr. Chairman, we wish to say a word in regard to
this improvement that they say Chicago is so much inter-
ested in as a sanitary matter. In 1865 the managers of
the canal desired to proceed to deepen that canal on the
original plan, in order to save the expense of pumping.
It may not be known by all the members of this com-
mittee, that, at low water, the Illinois canal has to be sup-
plied with water by punnping from the lake, at a large
expense. If the channel of the Illinois and Michigan Canal
was deepened, it would let the water from Lake Michigan
flow into it, and dispense with the expense of pumping.
When the suggestion was made by the canal managers that
the time had arrived when it should be deepened, a con-
ference was held with the city authorities, and it was finally
decided, as the canal had not the money sufficient to go for-
ward with the work, the city of Chicago should do it—
should deepen the canal; and they called it a sanitary
measure. Now, sir, it does not widen the canal one foot;
it does not furnish anything more to commerce, excepting
it deepens the bed of the canal, and thereby dispenses with
the expense of pumping. Now, we will submit in all fairness
to any gentleman upon this floor who has assaulted that
project, or who has assaulted the city of Chicago for doing
that—whether the city of Chicago does not, by every dollar
it expends, give value to the State, and to this canal prop-
erty? We submit in all candor that it does. Every dollar
that it has expended in deepening the canal is so much value
received by the people; because, at the moment that it is done,
thirty-two miles from the city of Chicago, as the engineers
report—the level of the land is coincident with the water
11S
level; so that when it is deepened to that extent, the water
of Lake Michigan can pour in and furnish a supply to the
whole country.
Mr. TURNER. I would like to ask the gentleman if early
discoverers did not follow the route I indicated for the
canal?
Mr. ANTHONY. Mr. Chairman: I think it quite likely
that Father Hennepin and Father La Salle did follow the
Same route.
Now, sir, the position of the gentleman was this, as I
understood him. He first took the floor upon another
report—the report on municipal indebtedness, and threw
all his great influence against this canal. It was under-
stood in this Convention that he had defined himself against
this canal. Yesterday, when he found his position doubt-
ful, he comes to the rescue, and even produces to this Con-
vention, a private charter, which he had himself obtained,
in which he takes the job off from the State.
Mr. TURNER. I would like to correct the gentleman. I
did no such thing. I have always thought the canal should
be a national work—built through the Illinois river to Lake
Michigan. I did procure a charter a number of years ago—
before the gentleman ever dreamed the thing could be
done—for the purpose of building a canal from the mouth
of the Rock river, across, to intersect this canal. That is
what I procured a charter for, and that is what I expect to
do with it some day—at least I expect to be instrumental in
having it built.
Mr. ANTHONY. I only referred to that to prove a point,
and if the gentleman will pay attention, I will tell him
what my point is. If it is a good thing for private individ-
uals to build that canal, and own it, and take its tolls, is it
not a good thing for the State of Illinois to own it, and take
the tolls, and put them into the State treasury?
Is the sum of $100,000 so small that we should not save
it? I ask the gentleman from Crawford [Mr. Allen], who
has stood up here twice and indicted all modern improve-
ments—even civilization itself—read an indictment for two
119
days against this whole canal—and we ask any gentleman
upon this floor, if he is now, after all the light we have got
upon this subject, in favor of selling or leasing this canal?
If you ask these gentlemen to consider this report, they fly,
like the eagle, over this whole land, and proceed to de-
nounce all systems of internal improvements. And when
we ask to have read at the clerk’s desk the proposition
before the Convention, lo! and behold! it turns out that we
have before us only this single proposition, that the Illinois
and Michigan Canal, that is built and paid for, and pouring
its tolls into the treasury, should not be taken from the
treasury—should not be sold out to its rivals and monopolists.
Mr. SNYDER. That is the proposition of the gentleman
from McHenry [Mr. Church].
Mr. ANTHON.Y. Now, in regard to the proposition made
by the gentleman from McHenry [Mr. Church]—did he
not bring it before the Convention, with the request that it
should be sent to the Committee of the Whole, as much as
to say, he was in favor of the canal, and then did he not
make a speech against the whole thing?
Mr. CHURCH. Will the gentleman now state to the Con-
vention that he is in favor of the General Assembly engag-
ing in, and carrying on, a general system of internal im-
provements upon the credit, and with the taxes of the State?
Mr. ANTHONY. I will answer the question, as it is a broad
one, and includes everything in the world under the head
of internal improvements. I will say “No, I am not in
favor of it.” And allow me to ask the gentleman from
McHenry [Mr. Church], is he in favor of selling or leasing
the Illinois and Michigan Canal outright?
Mr. CHURCH. I will answer the gentleman that I am not
in favor of it, and that in the substitute which I offered, my
position is as emphatically expressed as it can be in any
language that I can commit to paper.
Mr. ANTHONY. I will then ask him why he made the
speech he did, and why he threw the powerful influence
that he has in this committee, against this report?
Mr. CHURCH. If the gentleman says that I made any
120
remark in my speech, or any part of it, favoring, or tending
to favor in any manner, the sale of this canal, he is mis-
taken; and if he will refer to my speech, he will find that
he is mistaken. On the contrary, I insisted that the sub-
stitute that I had offered did more effectually guard the
canal as a work of this State, than the report of the com-
mittee did. That he will find throughout the whole of my
remarks—
Mr. ANTHONY. What was your position about leasing?
Mr. CHURCH. It is not a question of leasing it now; but
it is the question presented by this report, as to whether it
ever can be leased. My position, in regard to leasing it,
was, that I was in favor of committing it to the care of the
general government, whenever it would give guarantees to
the State, that the State should have a revenue, not com-
mensurate with what it had cost, but with what we are
now deriving from it, and should also secure to this State
some privileges peculiar to this State, instead of throwing it
without any guards, as is proposed by this report, into the
hands of the United States, to let them use it for purposes
of revenue to them, on the votes of members of Congress of
the other States, in which our State has but a small voice.
Mr. ANTHONY. It is evident this gentleman requires a
second speech on the canal question. He says he is not in
favor of selling it or leasing it now. But what was his
speech? We submit, with all candor, that his speech was
a general attack on the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and
an attack on all internal improvements of every character
and kind. It has got so, in Some quarters, that the moment
the Illinois and Michigan Canal is mentioned, that moment
a general tirade against all internal improvements takes
place, and gentlemen refer us to Pennsylvania, Indiana,
Ohio and all the other States, as striking examples of the
consequences thereof, drawing us off from the issue entirely.
These are the tactics of an old lawyer. Whenever a man is
driven to a corner, and wishes to draw off the attention of
those who are listening to him from any particular thing,
he invites attention to something else.
121
The people of the State of Illinois own this canal. It is
paying. I have here, before me, the statistics, compiled
from official sources, by a gentleman who is worthy of all
credit. No gentleman has shown that the facts presented
here by the Hon. Ninian Edwards are incorrect in any
particular.
Mr. TURNER. If the gentleman will allow me a single
question, I ask him whether Mr. Edwards, the very gentle-
man that furnished these statistics, is not in favor of these
very propositions of my friend from McHenry [Mr. Church],
my friend from Cook [Mr. Cameron], and myself, who have
been in favor of this from the commencement?
Mr. ANTHONY. I have not asked Mr. Edwards that ques-
tion; but whatever be his views, we will state to the gentle-
man from Stephenson [Mr. Turner], we have some views of
our own, and we will not make two speeches to define our
position. I am for the Illinois and Michigan Canal, first,
last, and all the time.
Mr. CHURCH. It is very seldom I interrupt a gentleman,
but when a gentleman gets on this floor, and, in my opin-
ion, intentionally misrepresents me, I desire to ask him, in
the middle of those remarks he is making, to read my
proposition and thus correct himself.
Mr. ANTHONY. I beg pardon. I do not wish to be put
under cross-examination by any gentleman. I will say I do
not intend to misrepresent anything the gentleman has said.
I will repeat what I understood his position to be. I under-
stood him to say he was not for selling or leasing the Illi-
nois and Michigan Canal, excepting the lease contained the
several provisions he has set forth in his proposed amend-
mentS.
Mr. CHURCH. Will you read it? [Handing Mr. Anthony
a copy of the official report, containing the remarks referred
to.]
Mr. ANTHONY. I do not propose to read anything what-
ever at the present time, except what comes within the line
of my argument. I do not intend to misrepresent the gen-
tleman from McHenry [Mr. Church], or any other gentle-
122
man; and if I place him in a false position, I shall regret
it. To make the thing fair, I will call for the reading of
his proposition.
Mr. CHURCH. Mr. Chairman: The gentleman from
Cook [Mr. Anthony, says he does not intend to misrepre-
sent me. I take back that part of my remarks in which I
said that he did intend to misrepresent me, if he corrects
himself.
Mr. ANTHONY. Mr. Chairman: I do not intend to mis-
represent the gentleman; and that I may not be misunder-
stood upon the matter, I call for the reading of the proposi-
tion submitted by the gentleman from McHenry [Mr.
Church], that all may see if I am misrepresenting him. I
am not in the habit of misrepresenting anybody in the
world.
The clerk read the proposition, offered by Mr. Church, as
follows:
“The Illinois and Michigan Canal, and any extension or
improvement of the same, or of any river navigation im-
provement thereof, shall never be sold, nor shall the same
be donated or leased, except in such manner and on such
terms as shall secure the whole value of the net revenues
arising therefrom to the State; and under such restrictions
in respect to rates of transportation that the agricultural,
commercial and all other industrial interests of the citizens
of the State shall be effectually guarded against oppression
and extortion by the lessee, and with such conditions in the
lease as shall work a forfeiture on failure to keep the same in
repair for public use, on fair terms. But the General Assem-
bly shall not have power to authorize and carry on a general
system of internal improvements on the credit nor with the
resources of the State arising from taxation on private prop-
erty or railroads, nor shall they make appropriations there-
for, other than the net revenues arising from said improve-
ments; but they shall imake laws of liberal and general
character, whereby all such persons, associations and cor-
porations as will guarantee to the public exemption and
protection against extortion and oppression, shall be en-
couraged to engage in the same.’’
Mr. ANTHON.Y. Mr. Chairman: I will say to the gen-
tleman from McHenry [Mr. Church], that it is just as I
123
understood it—that the gentleman is in favor of leasing the
canal upon the terms set forth in his proposition. I appeal
to the gentleman if I misrepresent him in any particular.
Mr. CHURCH. Mr. Chairman: The gentleman appeals
to me again. I will ask him, then, if the measures which I
did oppose were not the measures avowed by the friends of
this report—that they proposed to enlarge the power of the
General Assembly, to create a State debt beyond the $250,-
000, proposed by several committees, and that, if they could
not enlarge the State debt, the people would have to become
subject annually to such additions to their taxes as they
find this year, and that as another sequence to the report, the
waters of this State could never be improved by anybody or
in any way, except by creating a State debt, or special
annual taxes.
Mr. ANTHON.Y. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman appears to
be greatly disturbed; what question is he asking me? I will
allow any gentleman who sees fit to ask me a question, to do
so; but I do not design to detain this committee by going out-
side of the question contained in the report under considera-
tion. I had no hand in making this report. I had no hand
in suggesting a single word upon it. And, sir, so far as the
gentlemen from Cook county are concerned, they have taken
their own position in this Convention, without the slightest
consultation. My opinion is made up from the facts that
come within my knowledge. When the gentleman from
McHenry [Mr. Church], addressed the Convention the other
day, he charged that this report was being put through by
a “ring,” but if there is a “ring,” I do not know it.
And now I propose to proceed. The report reads:
The Illinois and Michigan Canal, and any extension made
thereto, and the navigable waters of the State, shall never be
sold, leased or otherwise disposed of.
Now, I wish to call the attention of this committee to one
thing; that the learned gentleman from Montgomery [Mr.
Rice], day before yesterday, made a legal argument to the
Convention, in which he attempted to show the absurdity of
these words in the organic law. I understood the gentle-
124
man from Crawford [Mr. Allen] to discuss this provision in
the same light—that it was absurd and nonsensical, and
would bring us into contempt with the people of the State.
I confess that the gentleman from Montgomery [Mr. Rice]
is an able lawyer. I suppose he must have studied this
thing well before he made his statements. But, sir, I wish
to call his attention, and the attention of this committee, to
one or two things.
We will see what the law upon that point is. -
This term, “navigable waters,” is one of similar import
with that used where the boundaries are defined, in article
first of the Constitution, where they are described as “begin-
ning at the mouth of the Wabash, thence up the same
and with the line of Indiana, to the northwest corner of
said State; thence east with the line of the same State, to the
middle of Lake Michigan; thence north along the middle
of said lake, to north latitude forty-two degrees and thirty
minutes; thence west to the middle of the Mississippi river,
and thence down along the middle of that river, to its con-
fluence with the Ohio river, and thence up the latter river,
along its northwestern shore, to the place of beginning;
Provided, that this State shall exercise, such jurisdiction
upon the Ohio river as she is now entitled to, or such as
may hereafter be agreed upon by this State and the State of
Kentucky.”
Now, sir, the “navigable waters” of this State are the
words here used defining boundaries. What is the jurisdic-
tion of the State? How far does it extend? “To the
middle of Lake Michigan,” “to the middle of the Missis-
sippi river,” etc. But I understand the gentleman from
Montgomery [Mr. Rice] to say that the State of Illinois is not
the sovereign ruler and controller of such waters. I would
like to ask the gentleman—
Mr. RICE. I did not mean to assert that the navigable
waters of the State, as included in these boundaries, are not
within the jurisdiction of the State. They are within the
jurisdiction of the State. But what I meant to say was this,
that so far as these waters are navigable, they are national
125
highways, and so far as their value depends upon their
being navigable, they are common property, and the rights
of the State are held subordinate to the rights of the national
government.
Mr. ANTHONY. I understood the argument the other day
to be somewhat different; but that a State can grant away
rights on navigable waters, riparian rights, and rights to
submerged lands, has been proved to our great detriment
and I am for putting a stop to it, if I can.
I believe with the gentleman from Montgomery [Mr.
Rice], as I now understand him, that the proprietary is
one thing, and the right of jurisdiction is another thing.
Mr. RICE. Will the gentleman allow me to ask him a
question? d
Mr. ANTHONY. Yes, sir.
Mr. RICE. Is it supposed to be necessary that this should
be in the Constitution, in order to prevent the Legislature
from selling the jurisdictional rights of the State?
Mr. ANTHONY. No, sir. If this should be considered of
importance, I would move in Convention that this be
amended so as to read as follows: “The navigable waters
of the State, and the submerged lands thereof.” I will say
that I do not myself consider it of any particular importance
in this report, but it is an assertion that the people of Illinois
control the navigable waters; and if they control them, they
also control the submerged lands thereof.
The importance of that is here. In the history of our own
State, no longer ago than last winter, we had the “Lake Front
bill” passed by a combination here at the capital, by which
they undertook to steal a mile of the lake front in front of the
city of Chicago, and a mile out into the lake, together with
several blocks of land. That was put through this last Legis-
lature. In my judgment, it was one of the most odious and
outrageous bills ever passed by a Legislature; it was a fraud
and a swindle upon our people in every particular. I do
not make a single reservation. It passed in spite of the
efforts of the Governor. In his veto of this bill the Governor
says:
126
“Corporations and individuals have already succeeded to
an alarming extent in usurping the control of great public
interests, to the entire exclusion of the interference of the
people, acting through the departments of the government,
and when a grant is made like this, enough of power should
be reserved to the State to enable it to interfere, to prevent
abuses and protect the rights of the people. The tract offered
to the Illinois Central Railroad Company extends along the
shore of the lake for a distance of nine thousand five hundred
and eighty feet, and contains a superficial area of about one
thousand and fifty acres. That which is described in the last
clause of the third section of this bill as “the submerged
lands, constituting the bed of Lake Michigan,” and by that
description granted in fee to the Illinois Central Railroad
Company, is indeed a part of the navigable waters of the
lake.
As I have stated, the superficial area of the tract embraced
in the descriptive words of the section is about one thousand
and fifty acres, covered by the waters of the lake to an
average depth of sixteen feet; but, in fact, varying from ten
to twenty-four feet. This tract is not land in any technical
sense, and has never been so treated by the United States or
the State of Illinois. Like the soil beneath all navigable
waters of the State, it belongs to the State as the sovereign,
and does not pass by technical grant, but by law. This being
the character of the interest of the State in the navigable
waters, the land is held subservient to the public right of
navigation, and any grantee of the State must take subject
to all such servitudes, and every use of the property must be
consistent with, if not subservient to public rights. The im-
portance of this property, in view of the uses to which it may
be, and, indeed, must be devoted, can not be easily estimated
or overrated.
Extending along the lake shore from the Chicago river
for a distance of nearly two miles, and for a distance of one
mile from the shore, it covers the great business center of
the city.”
I wish I had time to read all of this veto message of the
Governor in regard to this Lake Front swindle. If there is
any member who, on examining the history of that bill,
does not become convinced that we want something in Our
organic law, protecting us against our navigable waters
being stolen, then he must be possessed of the moral senti-
ments of the devil himself. The history of that Lake Front
127
Swindle is a history of one of the most gigantic frauds
and swindles ever perpetrated; and yet it was done by a
conspiracy, entered into by men in all parts of the State,
to commit highway robbery, to plunder your chief city of
alſ that it possesses upon the lake, of its future harbor
and docks, and give it over to a band of monopolists who,
when they have gotten it, will grasp you tighter around the
throat.
I do not want any gentleman to tell me, after the pas-
sage, over the Governor's veto, of such a bill as that Lake
Front bill is, it is an idle ceremony to prohibit a legisla-
ture from selling the navigable waters of the State. The
absolute necessity of such a provision is contained in the
Governor's veto message, and I wish that every member
on this floor would study it, word by word, as he would
the Lord’s prayer.
Mr. RICE. Mr. Chairman: May I ask the gentleman, as
we have come pretty near together on one point, if in his
opinion the proviso in the article reported by the Committee
on Internal Improvements, and the Committee on Canal
Lands, would save any rights that might have been
acquired by the Central Railroad to Lake Front, and
the engagement of the State with the city of Chicago—
in other words, would it legalize those two transactions?
Mr. ANTHONY. If I had the slightest suspicion that it
did, if I believed that the provision attached to this article
would legalize in any manner the Lake Front bill, I would
move to strike it out.
Mr. WHEATON. Do I understand the gentleman from
Montgomery [Mr. Rice] that he would like to propose an
amendment by which that portion of the proviso which
Saves existing rights, shall be stricken out?
Mr. RICE. I asked the gentleman from Cook [Mr. An-
thony] if he thought that that conflict would occur, and if
it may not be held to ratify there, for I know that he is a
lawyer, and I presume as well posted in the authorities as
any gentleman in this Convention—better posted, at any
128
rate, than I profess to be. I asked him whether it would
bear that construction.
Mr. ANTHONY. I will say to the gentleman that, not
having paid very particular attention to that, but directing
my attention to the main proposition, I did not notice it
until just this moment, and I thank him for calling my
particular attention to the proviso. I now believe that
from the wording of it, it would bear the construction
he indicates, and I think it should be stricken out at all
hazards. . .
Mr. RICE. I think it is a dangerous provision, without
some qualification.
Mr. ANTHONY. I would say to the gentleman, that I am
in favor of preserving the Illinois and Michigan Canal, but
I am against the Lake Front. If the State of Illinois can grant
away one mile out into the lake, and if that act should be
declared constitutional, then the gentlemen who passed the
Lake Front bill last winter, will have a property which is
estimated at two hundred millions of dollars—taken from the
State of Illinois—taken from the people in my ow. In county;
and we ought to be protected in our organic law against any
such thing ever being repeated in our history. I will say here
that I am told by the most competent engineer in this coun-
try, that the depth of water at this distance being only
twenty-four feet, docks can be run out for the distance of a
mile, that streets and avenues could be laid out, that it
would become the most valuable property on the face of the
earth; and this was taken from the city of Chicago, be-
cause there was nothing in our organic law which pro-
hibited such a thing. I hope the Convention, before we
adjourn, will join with the Cook county delegation and put
into our organic law a provision that will protect us in that
matter.
Now, Mr. Chairman, I meant to confine myself solely to
the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and the words, “navigable
waters of the State.” I have said just about all I intended
to say upon that subject. I do not intend to detain this
committee by undertaking to marshal before them any
129
great quantity of figures. I leave that to the gentlemen
who have made it their business. I do take this position:
That there is a public highway already built, which, in the
estimation of the Hon. Ninian Edwards, cost the State of
Illinois only $554,815.62—the actual cost to the people of
the State was that amount—which, in his judgment, has fur-
nished for the last ten years, ending November 30, 1868,
an income of $134,919 per annum, which pays an interest
of nine and a half per cent on the cost of building the
work.
Mr. TURNER. Will the gentleman allow me to ask him a
question right here?
Mr. ANTHONY. Yes, sir.
Mr. TURNER. While the canal has been yielding that
amount of revenue, I ask the gentleman to state to this
Convention whether it has been governed by the trustees
of the canal, under their lease. In other words, whether
it has been governed by legislative or by private means
and men.
Mr. ANTHONY. As I understand it, the management of
that canal has been partly under private operations, and
partly under the State; that these trustees are State officers
under and by virtue of the laws of the State. In other words,
I understand that the trustee is an officer of the State; and
I will remind the gentleman that there are two cases, which
have just been decided by the Supreme Court of the State,
not yet reported, in which he will find that our Supreme Court
have decided that the trustees of the Illinois and Michigan
Canal are a part of the State government. That, therefore,
is a legal decision, and a legal answer to the question put
to me by the learned gentleman from Stephenson [Mr.
Turner].
Mr. GooDHUE. Will the gentleman from Cook [Mr. An-
thony] allow me to make one statement right here?
Mr. ANTHON.Y. Certainly.
Mr. GooDHUE. Mr. Chairman: I desire to say, in an-
swer to the gentleman from Stephenson [Mr. Turner], that
upon a question that was propounded some time since to a
130
gentleman who has been acting for the trustees, as to whether
he believed the trustees were interested in making as much
as possible for the State, his answer was that they were
not; and said substantially, that it would have been better
for the State had the State controlled it absolutely. He went
on to state in addition to this, that these trustees were per-
fectly sure that their money would be paid; that the debt
had been so far reduced there was no question about that;
and they felt less interest in the canal than public officers
should feel.
Mr. ANTHON.Y. Now, Mr. Chairman, a question which is
often asked upon this floor is this: “Does this canal pay?”
And the gentlemen say, “If it does not pay, let us fill it up
—close it up, or get rid of it the best way we can.” My posi-
tion is, that there is a public highway belonging to the
people, and a man might just as well come to me and ask
me if I will vote to sell out the public highway that surrounds
the capitol of this State, as to ask me to vote away the Illi-
nois and Michigan Canal.
Now, Mr. Chairman, as I do not wish to detain the com-
mittee any further, I am willing that the report of the
committee be amended as proposed by my colleague.
Will my colleague [Mr. Medill] be good enough to
read?
Mr. MEDILL: I would suggest the following amend-
ment :
“The Illinois and Michigan Canal, or any improvements
which are, or may be, made on the navigable waters of the
State, shall never be sold.”
Mr. TURNER. That approximates, Mr. Chairman, very
nearly to what every gentleman, except the gentleman from
St. Clair [Mr. Snyder], has been advocating upon this floor.
We have been denounced as the enemies of the canal.
Will the gentleman from Cook [Mr. Medill] now be de-
nounced as the enemy of that measure, because he offers that
amendment?
Mr. ANTHONY. The amendment just read by my colleague
[Mr. Medill], and drawn up while I have been speaking, does
131
not go quite far enough. I want a provision utterly pro-
hibiting the sale or lease of the navigable waters, and the
submerged lands thereof, for I am afraid of “Lake Front”
swindles if we do not have it.
I was astonished that the gentleman from Crawford [Mr.
Allen], being a lawyer, should make use of the words he
did, viz., that this provision about navigable waters would
go forth to the world as nonsense, because the words “navi-
gable waters” are technical words, and are well understood
by lawyers who have made the subject of riparian rights
their study.
Mr. ALLEN, of Crawford. The gentleman from Cook
[Mr. Anthony] is mistaken; I am not a lawyer, but a
farmer.
Mr. ANTHONY. Well, sir, you had better be careful, or
these Lake Front chaps will steal not only your farm, but
steal you out of paradise.
I will say, in conclusion that I shall do nothing as a
representative upon this floor, but what I think will
redound to the general good of the State. I will do nothing
which will check the development of my country; and my
ideas are not limited by the Wabash or the Illinois. I am
for fostering every interest in the State; and in order to do
it, we must—
“Bid harbors open, public ways extend,
Bid temples worthy of the God ascend,
Bid the broad arch the roaring flood contain,
The mole extended break the roaring main,
Back to her bounds the subject sea command,
And roll obedient rivers through the land.”
After weeks of discussion, the Convention finally adopted
the following provision:
“The Illinois and Michigan Canal shall never be sold or
leased until the specific proposition for the sale or lease
thereof shall first have been submitted to a vote of the
people of the State at a general election, and have been ap-
proved by a majority of all the votes polled at such election.
The General Assembly shall never loan the credit of the State
132
or make appropriations from the treasury thereof in aid of
railroads or canals, provided that any surplus earnings of any
canal may be appropriated for its enlargement or extension.”
The latter portion of this article contains “the sting ” and
shows on its face a most narrow, if not absolutely selfish
policy, and is a most solemn enunciation of that Conven-
tion's utter contempt for the canal and all of its belongings.
We questioned the wisdom of such a restriction then and we
question it now. We have but little faith in ever interesting
the general government in the construction of a ship canal
between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi, and we firmly
believe that such a work ought to be made, and that too by
the State itself, if the general government will not give us
their aid.
PART II.
The Story of the Frie Canal.
~
.*
2^
22
THE STORY OF THE ERIE CANAL.
XV.
How TO REACH THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS BY A CANAL–IF THEY
CAN NOT BE SURMOUNTED BY ORDINARY ENGINEERING
SKILL, “THEY SHOULD BE SURMOUNTED BY A TURNPIKE
ROAD. *
What a different spirit the people of the State of New
York have exhibited toward her canal system and especially
toward the Erie Canal.
The story of that great enterprise is worth rehearsing,
and is most creditable to all of the inhabitants of the great
Empire State, and to the people of this country. De Witt
Clinton and Joshua A. Forman, at the beginning, and later
Governor Seymour and Samuel J. Tilden devoted their
lives to constructing and enlarging the same.
Its construction marked an era in the world’s history, and
its effects have been far-reaching and of the most beneficial
character. It not only threw open to actual settlement and
improvement a vast tract of country in the interior of the
State of New York, but furnished a convenient means of
communication to the far West and of transferring whole
colonies thither. Illinois shared in its benefits quite as
much, if not more than any other Western State, and it is
most fitting that it should, even at this late day, pay its
acknowledgments to that transcendent enterprise.
Cadwallader Colden, the grandson of Governor Colden,
one of the early governors of the province of New York, and
who wrote what he calls a “Memoir” of the Erie Canal and
(137)
13S
of the ceremonies attending its completion in 1825, grows
very enthusiastic over the subject of canals, and proceeds to
show that if the Ohio river and Lake Erie could be con-
nected, or the Mississippi river and Lake Michigan could be
united by a canal, that a continuous route could be formed by
the way of the Hudson river to New York City, and the
world circumnavigated by means of a short inland voyage
that would surpass all the achievements of ancient or nod-
ern times. He seemed to be somewhat puzzled as to how to
reach the Rocky Mountains, and to surmount them when he
had got there, but he thought that some way could be de-
vised, and he thought that steamboats and canal boats might
reach Astoria by following up the Missouri, and then in
some manner taking “Lewis River and the Oregon down to
the Pacific ocean.” But he urges upon the general govern-
ment the propriety of digging a canal to the Rocky Moun-
tains, and then, if a canal could not be carried over or
through some of the passes in the same, then let the canal
stop there and the rest of the way “could be traversed by a
turnpike road.”
In explaining this matter he says: “The principal navi-
gable rivers west of the Alleghany Mountains which are trib-
utary to the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri, with which
(supposing the Ohio Canal to be opened) we shall have
an internal water communication extending more than six
thousand miles; and thus, if we take the northern rivers,
the shores of the lakes, the Ohio, the Mississippi, the Mis-
souri and the other principal tributary rivers above men-
tioned, we shall have an internal navigation connected with
the city of New York, by the canals of this State, of more
than fifteen thousand miles. If we take into account the
innumerable minor navigable streams which are branches of
the great watercourses above enumerated, and the rivers
discharging themselves into the Gulf of Mexico, independ-
ently of the Mississippi, such as the Apalachicola, the Ala-
bama, the Tombeckbee, Pearl river and others, the estimate
made by the Assembly in their answer to the Governor’s
speech, in 1818, that the internal navigation which would
139
be connected with the Hudson by the canals, would amount
to forty or fifty thousand miles, will not appear exaggerated.
But supposing no other communication to be completed
than that with the Mississippi, which will be formed by the
canal that Ohio is now executing, we shall then have a per-
fect line of internal navigation from the City of New York,
by the Hudson, the Erie Canal, Lake Erie, the Ohio Canal,
the Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri and Jefferson rivers, to the
foot of the Rocky Mountains, a distance of nearly five thou-
sand miles, and with less interruption than there is in the
great China canals. By Lewis river and the Oregon, we
shall have an internal navigation from the Atlantic to the
Pacific. From Astoria at the mouth of the Oregon, to China,
would, in a steamboat on the Pacific Ocean, be a passage of
some fifteen or twenty days.
And thus will be found a northwest passage to India, for
which Hudson was searching when he discovered the river
which bears his name. -
It is possible, that the route above indicated, may be that
which will hereafter be pursued by travelers between the
western shores of the European and the eastern shores of
the Asiatic continents. New York, Albany, Utica, Buffalo,
Cleveland and St. Louis may become port towns on the
common high road to India.
This route would hardly be half as long as that which
is now pursued by sea, and though a journey to China
through our canals, lakes and rivers, and over the North
Pacific, would be longer than the route over the European
and Asiatic continents, yet the former could be accom-
plished with much greater ease.
A person embarking on the Thames, by pursuing always
a westerly course, with some deviations to follow the sinu-
osities of the rivers and canals, might arrive at China with-
out setting his foot on land, except to cross the Rocky
Mountains, over which we shall, in time, if a canal be im-
practicable, have a turnpike road.”
This, it will be observed, was the prediction of one of the
140
most far-seeing and enterprising men of the age, and that
age was 1825. *
In the “Memoir” just referred to the historian exults
with just pride at the success which had attended the great
enterprise, and exclaims, “The history of this canal is one
of the proudest monuments that the present age will trans-
mit to posterity.”
Joining for a moment in this exultation and the bound-
less prospects and future capabilities of our country, let us
briefly inquire as to the origin of the Erie Canal, and who
first suggested the alliance of the Hudson with the great
lakes.
XVI.
GEORGE WASHINGTON AND THE ERIE CANAL.
It may not be generally known that George Washington
was in his time deeply interested in the subject of inland
navigation and that after the close of the war he made
a tour of exploration through New York State in order to
determine the feasibility of making canals to unite the differ-
ent portions of the country by water communication, but he
did. In 1784 he personally explored not only what is now
the route of the Champlain canal, but the route which the
Western Inland Navgiation Company adopted for their im-
provements. That is to say, the route by the Mohawk,
Wood Creek, Oneida lake and Oswego.
In a letter soon after this, addressed to the Marquis of
Chastellux, he says: “I have lately made a tour through
the lakes George and Champlain, as far as Crown Point;
then returning to Schenectady I proceeded up the Mo-
hawk river to Fort Schuyler, crossed over Wood Creek,
which empties into the Oneida lake and affords the water
communication with Ontario; I then traversed the country
to the head of the eastern banks of the Susquehanna, and
viewed the Lake Otsego and the portage between that lake
and the Mohawk river at Canajoharie. Prompted by these
actual observations, I could not help taking a more contem-
141
plative and extensive view of the vast inland navigation of
these United States and could not but be struck with the im-
mense diffusion and importance of it, and with the good-
ness of that Providence who has dealt his favors to us
with so profuse a hand. I shall not rest contented until I
have explored the western country and traversed those lines
which have given bounds to a new empire.”
Owing to the fact that the white people had engaged at a
very early day in hunting and trapping and exploring the
country and in engaging in Indian wars, they had become
very familiar with the watercourses and carrying places far
into the interior, and in the absence of roads, the necessity of
using these watercourses to convey goods from one part of
the country to the other early suggested itself, and their im-
provement was also very much discussed and agitated.
In 1724 the then surveyor general of the province of New
York, made a report to the colonial Governor in which he
describes the watercourses and carrying places between
Albany and Montreal by way of Lake Champlain and be-
tween Albany and the Cataraqui lake, which is now called
Ontario, by the Mohawk river, and the river which runs
into the Oneida lake, with as much accuracy, Colden says,
as they could be described at this moment. The carrying
place between the Mohawk and the stream which is known
to everybody as Wood Creek, he describes as “a portage
only three miles long, except,” says he “in very dry
weather, when the goods must be carried two miles further.”
He then describes the passage down the Onondaga river
to the Cataraqui (Ontario) lake and shows that goods might
be carried from Albany to that lake by the Molhawk, the
Oneida and the Onondaga river, cheaper and much more
conveniently than as they were then transported, to the
mouth of the Oswego river by way of the Hudson, Lake
Champlain, Montreal and the River St. Lawrence.
The historian of the Five Nations informs us that Gov-
ernor Burnet erected a fort and trading houses at the mouth
of the Onondaga river, “On account,” says he, “ofits water
communications with the country of the Iroquois, and for
142
the facility of transportation between the lakes and Schen-
ectady, there being but three portages in the whole route
and two of them very short.” These, no doubt, were the
carrying places at the Little Falls, the Wood Creek and at the
Oswego Rapids. Carver, who traversed the lake country in
1766, represents that a water passage between the Mohawk
and Wood Creek was at that time effected at Fort Stanwix
by sluices,
In 1768, Sir Henry Moore, in a message to the Colonial
Assembly, stated that “the obstruction of the Mohawk river
between Schenectady and Fort Stanwix, occasioned by the
falls of Canajoharie, had been constantly complained of,
and that it was obvious to all who were conversant in mat-
ters of this kind, that the difficulty could be easily reme-
died by sluices, upon the plan of those in the great canal of
Languedoc in France, which was made to open a communi-
cation between the Atlantic ocean and the Mediterranean.”
We have made these references to show that at a very
early day, not only the Champlain route to Montreal, but
what may be called the Ontario route to the upper lakes,
were perfectly well understood; and that it was well known
that the watercourses running westwardly and northwardly,
and those running southwardly and eastwardly, were sepa-
rated by low lands of very little extent. Any one that had
traversed these portages, or heard them described, and
knew that artificial ways had been constructed in other
parts of the world, must have thought of completing these
water communications by canals.
XVII.
WHO FIRST SUGGESTED THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE ERIE
CANAL–THE IRISHMAN, CHRISTOPHER COLLES.
As to who first suggested the construction of the Erie
canal, has always been somewhat a mooted question, but
the credit has been given to Christopher Colles, a native of
Ireland, who settled in New York before the Revolution,
and after looking the country over, human nature asserted
143
itself and he resolved that what the people wanted more
than anything else was a canal, and this he resolved to have.
According to all accounts he was the very first man who
ever started suggestions with respect to canals and inland
improvements in Western New York. De Witt Clinton
himself declares this fact, saying: “He was an ingenious
mathematician and mechanician. His memorials to the
Legislature were presented in 1784–85, and met with a favor-
able report, although some thought his scheme visionary.
The Legislature appropriated $125 to enable him to prose-
cute his examination of the Mohawk river.
He again appeared before the Legislature and the public
with a proposition to form an association to improve the
inland navigation between Oswego and Albany,
Although these propositions were sensible and well
founded, no public action crowned his efforts; yet he
kept on. He published a pamphlet in 1785, entitled, “Pro-
posals for the speedy settlement of the frontier of Western
New York by which the internal trade will be increased,
the country will be settled and the frontier secured.”
After several years of agitation the Legislature of New
York was induced to pass an act, March 24, 1791, directing the
commissioners of the land office to cause to be explored and
the necessary survey to be made, of the ground between the
Mohawk river in the county of Herkimer, and to cause an
estimate to be made of the probable expense of making
canal locks, etc., and report to the Legislature at its next
meeting,
The sum of £100 was voted to defray the expense of
this and of a similar survey in the northern part of the
State.
The commissioners reported favorably, and in March,
1792, incorporated the Western Inland Lock Navigation
Company for the purpose of opening a canal and lock nav-
igation from the navigable waters of the Hudson river to be
extended to Lake Ontario and to Seneca lake.
144
XVIII.
How THE WORK WAS PROSECUTED, AND WHEN IT WAS COM-
PLETED. g
The work was to be completed throughout in fifteen years,
making the waters of Wood creek, the Oswego river and
the Seneca river, navigable. The State reserved the right
of taking it to themselves at any time, by paying the cost
of construction and a reasonable compensation. By some
of the restrictions and limitations of the act, those who were
most anxious in the matter were dissatisfied; and, at the
next session of the Legislature, petitioned for an amend-
ment of the charter, which was granted, allowing the com-
pany to construct a canal of any size they saw fit, not less
than ten feet on the bottom, and the locks should be at
least seventy feet long; and their charter was not to be for-
feited, if water was not, at certain seasons of the year, two
feet deep. And the company were authorized to erect mills
or other hydraulic works at such places as the water was
not needed for the canal. Notwithstanding these favorable
terms, the corporation did not flourish, nor the work pro-
gress. Nearly one-half of the shareholders forfeited their
first installments of stock; and, although the remaining
shareholders were willing, yet they were unable to prose-
cute the work; and in order to do so with vigor and en-
ergy, they again prayed legislative relief. Accordingly, the
Legislature in 1795, authorized the treasurer of the State to
subscribe for 200 shares of the stock, with the privi-
lege of voting on shares like individuals, and to receive
dividends of stock, tolls, etc. Under these provisions the
work was commenced, and the canal and locks completed
around Little Falls.
Again, in 1796, the sum of £15,000 was loaned them by
the State, and a bond and mortgage taken on their real
estate at Little Falls, for Securing the payment, at an inter-
est of six per cent per annum. In 1797, the company re-
quired a further sum of $250,000, in order to prosecute the
145
plan, which sum was granted, and in 1800 the work was
completed.
Although this improvement gave relief for the time being,
and greatly aided the facilities for transportation, still as
business increased with the population of the country, it
was found quite insufficient for the requirements of the pub-
lic. Further improvements were thought to be necessary;
a canal direct from Lake Erie to the Hudson river soon
became a theme of conversation and finally of serious con-
sideration. In a casual conversation with the surveyor
general, Simeon De Witt, Gouverneur Morris, in 1803,
remarks: “Lake Erie must be tapped and the waters car-
ried across the country to the Hudson.” With thousands,
the idea of a canal was scouted as wild and chimerical; still
there were those, and men of comprehensive minds, who
could believe and advocate the plan as feasible and worthy
of adoption. But the minds of the mass of the community
had first to be prepared for it. With this view, Jesse Haw-
ley, Esq., of Ontario, produced those valuable papers signed
“Hercules,” and in 1810, Dr. Hugh Williamson, of New York,
produced several able papers, all strongly urging the merits
of the canal and setting forth, in the ablest manner, the
most substantial reasons why such a measure should be
speedily accomplished, considering the ability of the State
of New York to successfully consummate so magnificent a
project. Judge Joshua Forman, of Onondaga county, be-
came enlisted in the cause, and in 1807, was elected a mem-
ber of the Legislature by the people of Onondaga, with
express reference to moving in that body the grand project
of a canal. In 1807, President Jefferson proposed to Con-
gress to devote a part of the public revenue to making roads
and canals, and Mr. Gallatin made an able report on the
subject.
On the 4th of February, 1808, carrying out the views of
his constituents, Judge Forman rose in his place and
called up a resolution which had been previously submit-
ted and ordered to lie on the table. This resolution pro-
posed that a joint committee should be appointed to take
146
into consideration the propriety of exploring and causing
an accurate survey to be made of the most eligible and di-
rect route for a canal, to open a communication between the
tide waters of the Hudson river and Lake Erie, to the end
that Congress might be enabled to appropriate such sums as
should be necessary to the accomplishment of that great
national object, and in case of such concurrence, that
Messrs. Gold, Gilbert, German, Hogeboom and Forman be
a committee on the part of the House. The Senate con-
curred in the resolution, and appointed, on the part of the
Senate, Messrs. Taylor, Nicholas and Ward, a committee to
confer with the House. The resolution, says Judge Forman,
was adopted on the ground, as expressed by several mem-
bers, “ that it could do no harm, and might do some good.”
The proposition was startling, and it is said was at first re-
ceived by the House with such expressions of surprise and
ridicule, as are alone due to the most wild and foolish proj-
ects. It was fortunately, however, firmly sustained by Mr.
Forman, who, on all occasions, stood foremost with a few
friends, the fearless champion of the work. But the joint
committee, prepossessed in favor of the Oswego route, di-
rected the surveyor general to cause a survey to be made
of the rivers, streams and waters in the usual route between
Hudson river and Lake Erie, and such other route as he
might deem proper, thus shifting upon the surveyor gen-
eral the responsibility of countenancing a project deemed by
them absurd.
April 11, 1808, a law was passed authorizing the sur-
veyor general to draw upon the treasury of the State, for
such sum or sums as he might require to prosecute the Sur-
vey contemplated in the resolutions of the joint committee,
not exceeding in the whole the sum of $600, and this was all
that was appropriated for the first survey and exploration of
the grand Erie Canal. Upon this the surveyor, general
appointed James Geddes, Esq., of Onondaga, to make the
survey, and in his commission and instructions to Mr.
Geddes makes these remarks: “As the provision made
for the expenses of this business is not adequate to the
147
effectual exploring of the country for this purpose, you will
in the first place examine what may appear to be the best
route for a canal from Oneida lake to Lake Ontario, in the
town of Mexico, and take a level and survey of it; also
whether a canal can not be made between the Oneida lake
and Oswego, by a route in part to the west of Oswego river,
so as to avoid those parts along it, where it will be imprac-
ticable to make a good navigation. The next object will be
the ground between Lakes Erie and Ontario, which must
be examined with the view to determine what will be the
most eligible track for a canal from below Niagara Falls to
Lake Erie. If your means will admit of it, it would be
desirable to have a level taken throughout the whole dis-
tance between the lakes.” The surveyor general refrains
from instructing Mr. Geddes to make an interior Survey,
because of the inefficiency of the appropriation for that pur-
pose. Mr. Geddes entered with zeal and earnestness upon
his duties, and in 1809 submitted his report of three differ-
ent routes. The first, a communication between Lake
Oneida and Lake Ontario. Second, the Niagara river
route; and third, an interior route, without descending to,
or passing through Lake Ontario.
In comparing the Ontario with the interior route, the
report is strongly in favor of the latter. In addition, Mr.
Geddes was directed to examine, by inspection, a canal route
from Lake Erie to Genesee river, and thence to the waters
running east to the Seneca river, and gather all the infor-
mation in his power for the prosecution of the great work,
should the Legislature think fit to provide for it. The
report was favorable on the practicability of an interior
route from Lake Erie, and it is worthy of remark that
Judge Geddes' plan and route was mainly followed in the
final location of the canal. The country from the Seneca
river in the Cayuga valley, to the Mohawk river at Rome,
and thence to the Hudson river, was so well known as to
leave no apprehensions of insuperable difficulties. Thus,
by the operations of 1808, through the instrumentality of the
true men of Onondaga, the fact was satisfactorily established
148
that a canal from the Hudson river to Lake Erie was not
only practicable, but practicable with uncommon facility.
In January, 1809, in company with Wun. Kirkpatrick, then
member of Congress from Oneida county, Judge Forman
waited on President Jefferson and informed him that, in
in view of his proposition to expend the surplus revenues of
the Nation in making roads and canals, the State of New
York had explored the route of a canal from the Hudson
river to Lake Erie, and had found it practicable; and when
Mr. Forman had laid all the estimates, plans, surveys, descrip-
tions and anticipated advantages before Mr. Jefferson, and
portrayed its commercial prospects and the profits which
would accrue to the United States, as well as to the State of
New York, the President very coolly replied: “It is a splen-
did project, and may be executed a century hence. Why,
sir,” said he, “here is a canal of a few miles projected by
General Washington, which, if completed, would render
this a fine commercial city, which has languished for many
years because the small sum of $200,000, necessary to com-
plete it, can not be obtained from the general government,
or from individuals—and you talk of making a canal of
350 miles, through a wilderness. It is little short of mad-
ness to think of it at this day.” "
In 1810, so favorable and satisfactory had been the report
of the engineer, James Geddes, and so much in favor was
this grand project with discerning men, that the Legisla-
ture passed an act for the appointment of a board of com-
missioners, composed of Gouverneur Morris, Stephen Van
Rensselaer, DeWitt Clinton, Simeon DeWitt, William North,
Thomas Eddy and Peter B. Porter, to which were afterward
added Robert R. Livingston and Robert Fulton. These gen-
tlemen were instructed to explore the inland navigation
route, and they reported favorably the next year. It is
worthy of remark that the canal commissioners, in casting
about for competent engineers for laying out the Erie Canal,
were at a loss where to apply. Supposing there was not a
*Hosack's Life of Clinton, page 347, and Clark's History of Onondaga
County.
149 -
man in America of sufficient science and ability to accom-
plish the task, they ordered a correspondence with an Amer-
ican gentleman, at that time in London, authorizing him to
engage William Weston, Esq., then considered the most
accomplished engineer in Europe, to come over and Survey
the route of the canal, aud proposed as a maximum Sal-
ary $7,000 per year. Fortunately Mr. Weston's engage-
ments were such that he thought proper to decline.
In this dilemma, Benjamin Wright and James Geddes,
Esqrs., held a consultation and agreed to go before the
board of canal commissioners and offer to survey the canal
route, provided they would give them their confidence. The
proposition was accepted; to them the work was assigned,
and they were engaged at a salary of $1,500 per year.
It may be considered a fortunate circumstance that Mr.
Weston did not accept the offer of the canal commissioners,
because from the ostentation usually displayed by foreign
engineers and the great expense attending their movements,
the people of this frugal and republican country would have
become discouraged, and it is more than probable the work
would have been abandoned, or at least indefinitely deferred.
It is worthy of remark that the engineers employed on the
Erie and Champlain canals were Americans, except in two
instances, where a French, and an Irish gentleman were en-
ployed in subordinate stations for less than a year.
Gouverneur Morris and De Witt Clinton were commis-
Sioned to proceed to Washington and present a memorial
to Congress, but were unsuccessful in their application to
that body for assistance. In March, 1812, the commis-
Sioners again made a report “that now sound policy de-
manded that the canal should be made by the State of New
York on her own account.” This year the commissioners
reported estimates of the cost of building and completing
the canal, cost of transportation on it when completed,
probable amount of tolls to be received, revenue, impor-
tance to the State, individual opposition, the procuring and
application of funds for construction, and everything that
could have a bearing upon the great question; Congress
150
was again solicited for aid, some of the States were ad-
dressed for assistance, Mr. Morris and Mr. Clinton waited
on President Madison, who, though an enthusiast person-
ally in the matter, was nevertheless embarrassed by
scruples derived from his interpretation of the Constitution.
Although favorable mention of the matter was made in his
next succeeding message to Congress, and that body at one
time entertained favorable views, still, a few days of delay
was sufficient to produce a change of opinion, and the sub-
ject was dismissed. The war of 1812 caused a suspension
of the project, and it was not again resumed until after its
close. In 1815, the subject was again revived. During
the session of 1816 a memorial was presented to the Legis-
lature signed by more than one hundred thousand indi-
viduals from New York and the counties through which
the proposed canal should pass, calling upon its members
to pass laws for the commencement and execution of the
proposed canals. f
The JLegislature authorized a loan on the credit of the
State for a million of dollars, and the section from Rome to
Seneca river was fixed upon as the first to be commenced.
In 1816 Judge Geddes made another report of the state and
general view of the country from Black Rock rapid to the
Cayuga marshes, and Benjamin Wright, Esq., upon the
same subject, from the Cayuga marshes to Rome, and from
thence through the Mohawk valley to Albany. De Witt
Clinton, Stephen Van Rensselaer, Samuel Young, Joseph
Elliott and Myron Holley were appointed canal commission-
ers, and were directed thoroughly to explore the route of
the proposed canal, make estimates of expenses, calcula-
tions, surveys, maps, field-books, plans, drafts, models, etc.,
and to present the same to the Legislature within twenty
days after the commencement of its next regular session,
and a sum not exceeding twenty thousand dollars was ap-
propriated for that object. Accordingly the whole was
carefully surveyed, and estimates were made for the con-
struction of a canal from Lake Erie to the Hudson river,
and finally set down at five millions of dollars.
151
Early in the year 1817, as a last resort, Congress was
again memorialized upon the subject of the New York ca-
nals, and solicited to construct them on the authority and
patronage of the United States, but without success. Thus
the State of New York was thrown entirely upon her own
resources. The commissioners were everywhere active in
gathering information. No point was left unexamined.
The route was divided into three sections. The levels and
surveys of the previous years were reviewed, and, in order
to test their accuracy and correctness, it was deemed expe-
dient that Mr. Geddes should start at a given point on the
canal line at Rome, and carry a level along the road to the
east end of Oneida lake; thence to the west end along the
southern shore, and connect this level with the Onondaga
lake, and thence to the canal line; thence working east, lay-
ing off sections on said line. This was accomplished, and
nine miles thus laid off into sections. Mr. Wright had car-
ried a level along the canal line, and the commissioners re-
marked that when the level of Mr. Wright had been carried
to the place where Mr. Geddes had terminated his line, the
levels of these two engineers—which embraced a circuit
from the place of departure to the place of conjunction, a
distance of nearly one hundred miles—differed from each
other less than one inch and a half. This result, so satis-
factory, exhibits in the engineers a degree of care, skill and
precision in the delicate process of leveling, which has, per-
haps, never been exceeded. -
All things were now ready for a commencement and rapid
prosecution of the work. The first contract was dated 27th
June, 1817, and the remaining part of the whole middle
section was under contract very soon thereafter, and on the
4th of July following, the excavation was commenced at
Rome with appropriate ceremonies. The first contract was
given to Judge John Richardson, of Cayuga. At the com-
mencement of the ceremony, Judge Hathaway, of Rome,
gave the spade to Commissioner Samuel Young, who placed
it in the hands of Judge Richardson. Each presentation of
the spade was accompanied by a short and pertinent ad-
152
dress. Judge Richardson broke the first ground, and was
soon followed by several citizens and laborers, accompanied
by the acclamations of thousands of spectators, who had
congregated, and the discharge of cannon from the United
States arsenal. It is, perhaps, a singular coincidence that
the first movement in the halls of legislation relative to the
Erie Canal was made by a member from Onondaga—that
the first exploration was made by an engineer of Onondaga,
that the first contract was given to, and the first ground
broken by, a contractor who had been several years a resi-
dent of Onondaga, and all of whom had been judges of the
County Courts and members of the Legislature from Onon-
daga county. The work progressed with unusual rapidity.
The zeal and perseverance of the commissioners and the
activity and industry of the contractors was everywhere
exerted.
In 1819 the middle section, from Utica to Seneca river,
including a lateral canal to Salina, about ninety-four miles,
was reported by Governor Clinton, in his annual message
of 1820, as completed. The animation which the comple-
tion and use of this section gave to the internal trade and
intercourse, and the revenue which promised to be derived
from it, inspired all the advocates of the work with renewed
vigor, and many who had been its stern opposers, or silent
witnesses of its progress, acknowledged the incorrectness of
their views, entered heartily into the measure, and readily
consented that the western and eastern sections should be
completed. By the opening of this portion of the canal the
resources of Onondaga were more fully ascertained and de-
veloped. Her salt, gypsum and lime found their way to a
ready market, and the produce of the agriculturist an out-
let, affording more ample remuneration for his labor;
a new and vigorous impulse was given to her advancement
and prosperity, which placed her among the first counties
of the Empire State, a position which she is destined long
to enjoy. Notwithstanding these favorable results, there
were still narrow minds and selfish spirits actively employed
to defeat the further progress of the work. Many judged
153
that the income of the whole canal would not equal the
portion already completed. Local feelings had to be com-
bated and prejudices overcome, indignities to be borne, and
every species of contumely and perverseness dealt with
by the friends and supporters of the plan. With a devotion
above all praise, the commissioners and advocates of the work
stayed not their hands, till finally, in November, A. D. 1825, a
period of only eight years and four months, it was pro-
claimed to the world that the waters of Lake Erie were
connected with those of the Hudson river, without one
foot of portage, through one of the longest canals in the
world; the cost, according to the books of the comp-
troller, including the Champlain canal, was $8,273,122.66,
and it is considered one of the most stupendous and magnifi-
cent works of this or any other age. The middle section of
the canal cost at the rate of about $13,000 per mile. The
eastern section about $28,000 per mile; the western about
$20,000 per mile. The illustrious Jefferson, who lived
till after it was completed, declared that “it exceeded
even calculation itself. New York has anticipated by a
full century the ordinary progress of improvenient.”
“To the honor of originating the project of connecting
the waters of the Hudson with the lakes, Mr. Clinton
never made the slightest pretension. His was not the
mind so narrowed by sordid envy as to claim or desire
the credit belonging to others. He knew that many pow-
erful minds had been directed to this subject, and that
all these had contributed their quota to the development
and perfection of the original idea of a water commu-
nication through the valley of the Mohawk to the lakes.
He was aware that Washington, in his letters, Hawley,
in his essays, and Forman, in his introduction of the
subject into the Legislature, had preceded him in his
inquiries, and that the united efforts of many more distin-
guished men, had assisted to bring forward and mature the
vast enterprise. Although others claimed it for him, yet
Mr. Clinton never claimed for himself the original idea of
the canal.”
154
Although Gouverneur Morris said in a casual conversation
with Simeon De Witt, that “Lake Erie must be tapped,”
and had traveled and seen canals in other countries, and
no doubt had bright visions of the future improvements in
this country, and occasionally astonished his friends by de-
tailing them in conversation, it was nowise probable that
he viewed them as works to be accomplished in his day,
or as a patriot he would have proposed the subject himself
to the Legislature, of which he was a member, and brought
the project into favorable notice. It was James Geddes, of
Onondaga, who traversed the wilderness of Western New
York, and gathered all the materials and reported all the
facts upon which statistics were based, and Joshua Forman,
of Onondaga, who from the beginning was the uncompro-
mising, unflinching defender and eloquent advocate of the
great work, and it was not till after these men had laboved
long and faithfully in the cause, that the giant intellect and
master mind of De Witt Clinton was aroused to a sense of
the importance of this magnificent undertaking. These two
men of Onondaga, from the beginning to the end, were in-
timately connected with the work, in fact, identical with it,
and indispensable to it. They labored faithfully and effect-
ually throughout; Judge Geddes as an able engineer, Judge
Forman as the unwavering promoter of its utility. These
two men furnished more solid information relative to the
canal, than all others put together. Till they took hold of
it, the whole matter was considered by most men but an idle
dream, a delusion, a false, unfeasible project.
The first ground broken on the Erie Canal, in the county
of Onondaga, was by Mr. Elias Gutmaer in the town of Man-
lius. Oliver Teall, Esq., took several contracts in the east-
ern part of the county. Messrs. Northup and Dexter and
Jeremiah Keeler built a section or two through Syracuse.
Hazard Lewis, of Binghamton, built the locks. The first
locks were built of Elbridge sandstone. Commissioners,
engineers, builders and masons had no idea that the Onon-
daga limestone could be cut for facing-stone for locks, so
little was this valuable material then understood. After the
155
canal was completed all things were ready, and the water
was let in. For a long time it would not flow further west
on the Syracuse level than the Stone bridge; the water all
disappeared in a bed of loose gravel. Many despaired of
ever making the canal tight, but after a deal of , perplexity
this place was stopped, and the water ran on to the Raynor
block and there performed the same freak, and it was several
weeks before this level could be filled.
The first boats used on the canal were the Mohawk boats,
with wide walking-boards for poling up the Mohawk river.
Oliver Teall was appointed the first superintendent on the
Erie Canal, and Joshua Forman the first collector, office at
Syracuse.
In 1819 the canal commissioners recommended the con-
struction of a water communication from the Erie Canal to
the salt works at Salina, which work was completed simul-
taneously with the middle section of the Erie Canal. The
following year the Legislature directed the canal commis-
sioners to open a boat navigation between the village of
Salina and Onondaga Lake, and the Seneca river. This
was named the Salina canal, but afterward when the im-
provement was continued to Oswego, the whole was desig-
nated as the Oswego canal, which was completed in 1826–7,
and has since been used as the greatest avenue for the ex-
portation of Onondaga salt.*
XIX.
JAMES GEDDES AND THE ENGINEERs EMPLOYED IN THE SUR-
VEYS AND ON THE WORK.
When the construction of the Erie Canal was first
broached one of the greatest difficulties that the projectors
had to encounter was to procure engineers, and it was
thought that there was no one in this country who had the
capacity to make a survey of the route, which they could
adopt and act upon, William Weston was brought over
from England at large expense, and he surveyed the route
* See Clark's History of Onondaga Co.. Vol. II, p. 52.
156
around the Little Falls, from Fort Stanwix to Wood Creek
in 1788, but it was soon found that their only reliance must
be on their own surveyors, and most fortunately a man
was discovered in the person of James Geddes, who proved
to be not only a surveyor and engineer of great capacity,
but a great man in every respect. He was born on the
22d day of July, 1763, near Carlisle, in the State of Pennsyl-
vania. His father and mother were both descended from
Scotch families, and he passed his early life on a farm.
While a youth following the plow, he carried in his pocket
a book, and when his team stopped to rest he perused its
contents. In after life he frequently observed that this
reading in the field was of great advantage to him, as he
had full time to digest all that he read while holding the
plow, and later in life could draw from these stores, treas-
ured in his juvenile years, with pleasure and profit. He
studied mathematics under the charge of a Mr. Oliver, who
was a thoroughly educated man. Languages he studied
without masters, and he became a belles-letters scholar of
the first order. In fact few men ever acquire a knowledge
of the English language that equaled his.
At an early age he visited the State of Kentucky, crossing
the Alleghanies with a large party for protection against
the Indians, and found at various places along his pathway
the unburied bones of many persons who had fallen victims
to savage warfare. He found that slavery had already be-
come established in Kentucky, and having a great repug-
nance to that institution he returned East and took up his
abode at the Salt springs in Onondaga county, at a place
known ever since as Geddes, where he engaged in the manu-
facture of salt.
In 1798 he moved to lands that he had purchased of the
State at the present town of Camillus. He was soon found
to be well versed in mathematics, and was employed by the
surveyor general of the State as one of his assistants, and
from that time on devoted himself to the profession of Sur-
veying and engineering, disqualifying him for the fatigue
of out-door labor.
157
In 1804 the surveyor general said to him that Gouver-
neur Morris had mentioned to him the project of “tapping
Lake Erie.” The surveyor general considered this a ro-
mantic thing, but not so the man to whöm he communicated
the crude and undigested thought. He knew that Mr. Wes-
ton had reported the Oswego river, from the falls to Lake
Ontario, as “hardly susceptible of improvement by means
of canaling,” and if there was a way that the waters of the
upper lakes could be led across the country without going
down to the level of Ontario and then rising to the summit
again at Rome, that vast results must grow from it, and at
once his untiring industry and energy was put into requisi-
tion. Maps were examined, surveyors were inquired of, and
every means within his reach resorted to, to ascertain the
topography of the country through which since has been
constructed the Erie Canal, and it is to his sagacity, skill and
ability that that route was first marked out and selected.
His maps and field books, which have been deposited in the
Surveyor general’s office, show him to be a man of great ac-
curacy, and his accompanying remarks the keenest compre-
hension and penetration of mind. In 1809 Mr. Geddes
was appointed an associate justice, and in 1812, a judge of
Onondaga County Common Pleas. In 1813 he was elected
a member of the 13th Congress, and in 1821, a member of
the Legislature. He died at Camillus on the 19th of August,
1838, at the age of seventy-five. His son, George Geddes,
survived him and became one of the most distinguished
citizens of the State of New York.
The principal engineers that were employed on the Erie
Canal and in directing the work, and on some of the other
camals, were Mr. Wright, Mr. White, Mr. Thomas and Geddes.
The commissioners in reviewing the work and the parts
performed by these individuals, severally, say that to Wright
and James Geddes the State is mostly indebted. Possessing
much local information, competent science, long experience
in many kinds of business bearing some analogy to canal
operations, and well established characters for industry and
158
fidelity, these gentlemen have rendered the most essential
services in all the duties of their department.
Mr. Geddes was among the very earliest engineers of the
State, who took an active part in planning and executing
the canals, and he did at a very early period express the
Opinion that a canal might be made from Erie to Rome.
Mr. Geddes made the first survey of the route for the
Erie Canal “ between the tide waters of the Hudson river
and Lake Erie,” in accordance with the resolution originally
introduced into the Legislature by Forman, and in Janu-
ary, 1809, made a report in favor of the practicability of
the route, commencing on the shores of Lake Erie and
extending to the Hudson.
The appropriation made for this survey was originally
$600.
Joshua Forman, the founder of Syracuse, at the session
of the Legislature in 1808, while a member from Onondaga
county, proposed in that body a concurrent resolution to
direct a survey to be made “ of the most eligible and direct
route of a canal to open a communication between the tide
waters of the Hudson river and Lake Erie.” This is the
first legislative proceeding of which there is any trace that
had reference to a canal from the Hudson to Lake Erie.
In 1810, Jonas Platt, a man of great foresight and enter-
prise, who had taken up his abode on the frontier at Whites.
borough, just this side of Utica, introduced into the Legis-
lature a resolution calling for the selection of Gouverneur
Morris, Stephen Van Rensselaer, William North, Thomas
Eddy and Peter B. Porter, as commissioners to explore the
whole route for inland navigation from the Hudson river
to lake Ontario and Lake Erie.
De Witt Clinton, who was at that time a member of the
Senate, supported Mr. Platt in all of his endeavors to fur-
ther the project, and from that time until the close of his
life was an enthusiast upon the subject of canals, and his
name and fame are forever identified with the Erie Canal,
as the greatest and strongest promoter of that enterprise.
The commissioners selected to explore the route did their
159
work faithfully and well, and they made a report upon the
practicability of the scheme to the Legislature in 1811,
which was drawn up by Gouverneur Morris, and which set
forth the advantages of the canal in the most graphic
1Yl 3, 1) 1) e I’.
Mr. Clinton brought in a bill to proceed with the work
which was passed on the 8th of April, 1811. This was the
first law passed on the subject. It added Robert R. Living-
ston and Robert Fulton to the former commissioners. Mor-
ris and Clinton were empowered to visit the National Capital
and solicit aid from the general government, and although
Thomas Jefferson had favored national aid for the purpose
of developing inland navigation, and although Albert Gal-
latin had made a report favorable to such objects, Congress
could not be interested in the scheme, and they had to fall
back upon their own resources.
XX.
WHEN THE WORK was COMMENCED–THE PUBLIC INTEREST
MANIFESTED IN THE PROGRESS OF THE WORK.
On the 4th of July, 1817, the canal was commenced at
Rome; that is eight years and four months prior to the
day when the first boat entered the canal from Lake
Erie. The commencement ceremonies were not very elab-
orate, but De Witt Clinton, who was at that time the presi-
dent of the board of commissioners for constructing the
canal, and who had been chosen governor at the previous
election in 1817, attended with the other canal commission-
ers and engineers.
The first earth was removed from the canal path amidst
the acclamations of a large concourse of people, exulting
in the past, enjoying the present and anticipating the future.
Many shook their heads and said that “we had undertaken
this great enterprise a hundred years too soon, and that till
the lapse of another century the strength of our population
and our resources would be inadequate to such a work.”
But Governor Clinton suffered no obstacles to discourage
160
him, and his whole life, hopes and future fame seemed to be
involved in the success of the great undertaking, and in
his message to the General Assembly in 1818, he not only
congratulated the Legislature on the auspicious commence-
ment of the work, but assumed that it would be speedily
completed, and proceeded to expatiate on the great advan-
tages which agriculture, manufacture and commerce would
derive from the canals, and the influence which they would
have on our political institutions, and he assured the Legis-
lature that the resources of the State were adequate to the
work, and that all extraneous aid was unnecessary.
The Legislature, in accordance with the usages of the
time, made a formal answer or response to the message of
the Governor, as our English friends of the House of Com-
mons respond to the speech from the throne at the present
day, in which they expressed themselves as highly pleased
at the assurances given to them as to the success of the
work, and proceeded to expatiate at considerable length in
regard to the great advantages that the whole country would
derive from the construction of the canal, and concluded by
saying that “besides the advantages which your excellency
has enumerated, and which it is obvious will be the result of
the accomplishment of this stupendous work, there is cer-
tainly a national glory connected with the enterprise, calcu-
lated to excite the pride of every patriot, when we consider
that every portion of the Nation will feel the animating
spirit and vivifying influence of those great works; that
they will receive the benedictions of posterity and command
the approbation of the civilized world; we are required to
persevere, so far as a prudent regard to the resources of the
State will permit, by every consideration which ought to
influence the consciences and govern the conduct of a free,
enlightened and magnanimous people.”
At the session of the Legislature of 1819, Governor Clin-
ton spoke of the progress of the work, and said that there
was then no difficulty of procuring the necessary funds to
defray the expenses, as the ordinary revenues of the State to
be raised by taxation would be amply sufficient,
161
The canal commissioners submitted a very favorable
report, and among other things speak in high terms of the
use of several labor saving machines employed in the canals,
by which forest trees could be prostrated, their stumps erad-
icated, and their roots cut off. “These were all the inven-
tions of our own countrymen, and though they may not
seem of sufficient consequence to be mentioned on this
occasion, yet these and other ingenious machines which
were contrived for the occasion were of very great impor-
tance in the completion of these works. Indeed, to see a
forest tree which had withstood the elements till it attained
maturity, torn up by its roots and bending itself to the earth
in obedience to the command of man, is a spectacle that
must awaken the feelings of gratitude to that Being who
has bestowed on His creatures so much power and wisdom.
At the opening of the session of 1820, Governor Clinton
had the gratification of announcing in his speech to the
Legislature, “that the middle section of the western canal,
including a lateral cut to Salina, and comprising a distance
of nearly ninety-six miles, had been completed. That on
the 23d day of the preceding October, the commissioners
navigated it from Utica to Rome, and found their most san-
guine expectations realized in the celerity, economy and
excellence of its execution. That on the 24th day of the
previous November the whole Chalmplain canal was also in
a navigable state. That thus in less than two years and
five months, one hundred and twenty miles of artificial
navigation had been finished.”
The business of constructing the canal had thus far pro-
ceeded in the most economical manner, and all of the
canal commissioners had, we believe, given their time and
services without compensation. At this session a law was
passed allowing canal commissioners a salary of $2,000
a year, but it contained a clause that this provision
should only extend to three of the commissioners, who
should be actually engaged in the superintendence of
the works. This was intended to meet the arrangement
which the commissioners had previously made as to them-
162
selves. Mr. Young, Mr. Seymour and Mr. Holley had been
active and immediate superintendents of the execution of
the canals, and hence arose the designation of acting com:
missioners, which was applied to them, and afterward to
W. E. Bouck, who was the next year appointed one of the
board.
From this time on the communications from the execu-
tive and the reports of the commissioners to the Legislature
were details of the uninterrupted and fortunate progress of
the great work, and congratulations on the rapidity with
which the period was approaching when the State and the
Nation would be in possession of the incalculable advan-
tages which must result from the completion of the New
York canals.
By the first of October, 1823, the eastern section of the
canal was completed. In the meantime the western section
had progressed from Montezuma toward Erie, so that
when the lock which forms the communication between the
canals and the artificial basin in the Hudson river at Al-
bany was opened, on the 8th of October, 1823, there was a
continuous canal navigation from the Genessee river, and
from Whitehall at the head of Lake Champlain to Albany.
In 1825, and prior to that time, the construction of canals
seems to have been the great and all-absorbing theme, and
when the celebration of the opening of the Erie Canal took
place in 1825, one of the principal historians of that event
says: “The great work of improving or creating inland
navigation in the United States has but commenced. In
our own State there are a hundred paths over which navi.
gable waters are yet to be led; and within our national terri-
tory the field for such improvements is boundless, and almost
uncultivated.”
At the commencement of the Revolution the population of
the territory which now forms the State of New York
amounted to no more than 180,000; at its close the popula-
tion was about 200,000; yet in the year 1788, when a treaty
with the Indians was held at Fort Stanwix, the now beauti-
ful, populous and cultivated country, westward to the shores
163
of Lake Erie, did not contain so far as we know a single
white inhabitant.
XXI.
THE COMPLETION OF THE CANAL AND THE CELEBRATION
WHICH ENSUED, CoNSISTING OF A “GRAND SALUTE * AND
OTHER CEREMONIES,
When the canal had been finished from Albany to Buffalo
so far as to permit the passage of boats, public notice of that
fact was given to the world, and a great celebration was
planned to take place on the 26th of October, 1825.
The arrangements were of the most elaborate character,
and almost every town along the entire line took part in
the same. -
The preparations at Albany and New York City were of
gigantic proportions and surpassed anything ever before
attempted. A canal boat suitably fitted up and appropri-
ately decorated for the purpose, by the citizens of Buffalo
and Black Rock, was made ready to pass from Lake Erie to
the canal through to Albany, and from that city in tow of
a steamboat tº New York and outward to Sandy Hook,
where “an epithalamium” took place, and the waters of
Iake Erie and of the Atlantic were mingled together.
Other boats joined this and a great aquatic procession was
formed and went rejoicing through the land.
The day of the celebration was proclaimed a holiday and
the people were most cordially invited by the State authori-
ties to make it a “ day of jubilee.” *
At that time great faith was placed in the uses of gun-
powder and a most accurate programme was arranged for
gun-firing at the time the boats first entered the canal at
Buffalo, which was to be repeated along the entire line to
New York City, and a return fire was to be made which was
to imply that the news of this great event had been re-
ceived.
Guns of heavy calibre were distributed all along the line
and a time-card was so arranged that when the firing did
take place, according to the official account rendered by
164
the ordnance bureau of the occasion, “The report of the
cannon from the north and west was received on the 26th
inst. at New York, in one hour and forty minutes, and was
returned to Buffalo in nearly the same space of time, mak-
ing a communication, on a line of 1,100 miles, in less than
three hours.”
From the published accounts of the time, it appears that
nothing occasioned more anxiety on the part of the patriotic
citizens of that day than arranging for the “Grand Salute
from Buffalo to New York City,” and to obtain cannon was
for a time a subject of the most serious consideration, Occa-
sioning the greatest anxiety.
The Commercial Advertiser of October, 18, 1825, in speak-
ing of this matter, annong other things says: “During the
late war the guns belonging to most of the artillery com-
panies between this city and Albany were ordered to be
taken to the frontiers by the then commander-in-chief and
they have never been returned. The committee, however,
resolved last evening to make the effort, and voted an ap-
propriation for that purpose. But it will be seen by the
following letter addressed to us by the editor of the Roch-
ester Telegraph that the difficulty no longer exists. The
patriotic committee of that village have taken the matter up
efficiently and the guns are now on the way. Our commit-
tee will thus be relieved of much trouble while the object
is certain of being accomplished. Our committee will, of
course, pay a liberal proportion of the expenses; and we
would beg leave respectfully to suggest whether it would
not be proper to send a sub-committee immediately to
Albany to superintend the planting of can non along the
margin of the river.
The Rochester people wrote “To the Editors of the Com-
'mercial Advertiser,” as follows:
“GENTLEMEN:—Having understood that the project of
planting cannon upon the Erie Canal had failed in conse-
quence of Mr. Meech's inability to obtain them, our com-
mittee have ventured to anticipate the wishes of the citizens
of New York and Albany by employing Messrs. Van Slyck,
165
Mathews, Meech and Ely, of this village, to plant cannon
upon the whole route in accordance with the views of the
New York and Albany committees. Mr. Mathews goes east
and Mr. Meech west to-night to place the cannon.
Two boats have been already despatched with 32 pounders
and two more leave to-morrow. The gentlemen who have
won undertaken this business have the cannon in their
possession and will carry the arrangement into full effect.
Yours, etc.,
ROCHESTER, Oct. 12, 1825. * J. WEED. '
It had been arranged that the procession of boats which
was to traverse the entire length of the canal, from Buffalo
to New York, should be headed by the canal boat Seneca
Chief, on board of which was the Governor and Lieutenant-
Governor of the State, with many other celebrities. Every
town, almost, along the line, arranged celebrations, and the
Governor and all those accompanying him were kept busy
in Inaking speeches. Redmond Prindiville, one of our old-
est and most respected citizens, says that J. W. Cochrane,
known to very many of the old residents of Chicago, was at
that time the private secretary of De Witt Clinton, and that,
coming to one of the small towns late at night, a great call was
made for the Governor, and they would not be satisfied
without he appeared. After a considerable delay the ex-
pected Governor made his appearance enveloped in a heavy
cloak, and was received with great cheering. After silence
had been somewhat restored, the Governor commenced, in a
deep bass voice and quite husky, to address the multitude, and
succeeded in charming all by his eloquence; but it was not
till some hours afterward that it was discovered that the
Governor had a double, and that Cochrane had carried off
the honors by receiving all of the applause, while the chief
executive lay in his bed fast asleep.
That those who took part in that celebration and who
were on board the Seneca Chief had a high old time all the
way down and back is traditionary, and we can well film-
agine that, amid the beauties of the autumn scenery and the
166
joy of the people, all must have felt good, and that there
was a never-ending feast of reason and flow of soul.
Hon. Philip Howe, Mayor of New York in 1826, was de-
puted to go to Albany and meet the Western delegations
and welcome them to the city of New York on the occasion
of the celebration of the opening of the Erie Canal, and in his
speech on that occasion he, among other things, said: “The
pen of the historian will inscribe on the tablet of fame
the names of Schuyler, Morris, Clinton, Van Rensselaer,
De Witt Clinton, Porter, North, Eddy, Platt and Forman,
and other active supporters of the canal system, and poster-
ity will award to them the illustrious title of benefactors of
the State.”
XXII.
THE GRAND TRIUMPHAL ACQUATIC PROCESSION FROM BUF-
FALO TO NEW YORK.
William L. Stone has written a most elaborate and interest-
ing narrative of the voyage which the Seneca Chief made
to New York and return, and among other things speaks of
its arrival at Lockport, and says: “When the grand salute
from Buffalo east had passed, the boats commenced ascend-
ing through the locks; and during their ascension they were
greeted by a continued discharge of artillery and the cheers
of hundreds of joyous citizens. When the boats had as-
cended, the Throne of Grace was addressed by the Reverend
Mr. Winchell; after which an appropriate address was
delivered by J. Birdsall, Esq.
After the address the boat started for Tonawanda Creek.
The cannon used on the occasion were those with which
Perry conquered upon Erie; the gunner was a lieutenant
who had belonged to the army of Napoleon, and the leader
of the band was the cabin boy of Captain Riley, who suf-
fered with him in his Arabian captivity.
During the passage the company were introduced to the
venerable Enos Boughton, of Lockport, the pioneer of the
Western District, the man who planted the first orchard
and built the first frame barn west of Utica.
167
Many very interesting incidents are recórded as having
occurred on the arrival of the western contingent on its
way to New York, but one very amusing scene took place
at Rochester. There, there was an aqueduct, and a boat,
called “The Young Lion of the West,” was stationed to
protect the entrance. The pioneer boat on approaching
was hailed by “The Young Lion,” and the following dia-
logue ensued:
Question. “Who comes there? Answer. Your brethren
from the West on the waters of the great lakes.
Q. By what means have they been diverted so far from
their natural course? A. By the channel of the grand
Erie Canal.
Q. By whose authority and by whom was a work of
such magnitude accomplished? A. By the authority and
by the enterprise of the patriotic people of the State of New
York.”
After this palaver “The Young Lion of the West” gave
way, and the brethren from the West were permitted to
enter the spacious basin at the end of the aqueduct.
Rome had a grievance, and on the 26th of October, it pro-
ceeded to celebrate the completion of the canal in a most
unique manner, which partook of joy and Sorrow, of chagrin
and satisfaction. “It will be remembered,” says the his-
torian Stone, “that the inhabitants of Rome contended for
the location of the canal through their village instead of the
route finally determined on, not so much as a matter of jus-
tice to them, as one of expediency and economy. Their
lıopes were frustrated and they have never ceased to feel
that they have been dealt by unjustly; and to manifest these
feelings they commenced their celebration by forming a
procession in front of the hotel at eleven o’clock A. M.; uni-
form companies of citizens—soldiers preceded—immediately
after them followed a black barrel filled with water from
the old canal which passes through Rome, supported by four
men; citizens followed, and in this order, with muffled
drums, they marched to the new canal into which they
poured the contents of the black barrel. They then in quick
168
time returned to Starr's hotel, where they put aside their
ill-humor and joined with heart and hand in celebrating
the event which had on that day congregated thousands of
their fellow-citizens.”
At the distance of one mile from Syracuse the canal as-
cends, says the narrative, two feet. Here commences the
long level of sixty-seven and a half miles, passing through
the towns of Salina (in which it commences), Manlius,
Sullivan, Lenox, Verona, Rome and to Frankfort in Her-
kimer county, where it terminates near Myers' Creek by a
lock of eight feet descent; on this long level it passes over
the Butternut, Limestone, Chitteningo, Canasaraga, Oneed,
Wood, Orekong and Sadaquda creeks, by aqueducts of
various extent, having, in its course, crossed Madison and
Oneida counties, a part of Onondaga, and entered the
county of Herkimer.
At Utica the boats arrived at half past twelve o’clock on
Sunday, the thirtieth. The committees and high officers
in company were received by a deputation from the village
corporation and conducted to church in the afternoon.
At eight o'clock on Monday morning a procession, the
most numerous ever known in Utica, including several
well-informed and disciplined corps of troops, moved from
Shepherd’s hotel to the academy, under the orders of Col.
Smith, where a congratulatory address was delivered by
Judge Bacon in behalf of the citizens of Utica, to which his
excellency, Governor Clinton, replied.
Of the manner in which they were delivered, it was ob.
served that Judge Bacon, who always does such things well,
was never more happy. Governor Clinton was sensibly
affected and delivered his reply with much feeling. The
address expressed in a forcible and eloquent manner the
congratulations of the citizens of Utica, and paid appropri-
ate and merited compliments to all those who had planned
or assisted in the execution of the stupendous work. The
reply of the Governor contained a well-turned and well-
merited eulogium on the Hon. Judge Platt, who by his
exertions in the Senate and in the Council of Revision.
169
afforded powerful and efficient aid to the cause of the canals,
and to whom also we were first indebted for the favorite
and popular expression of “The Young Lion of the West.”
Judge Platt and Doctor Alexander Coventry here joined
the committees as delegates from Utica to represent them
during the remainder of the fete.
The route from Utica to Little Falls, a distance of twenty-
three miles, presents some very picturesque scenery, and
the construction of the canal at Little Falls was the most
formidable labor executed.
During some mighty convulsion of nature, it is said the
waters of the West, at a former period, evidently tore for
themselves a passage through what previously had been a
barrier of mountain granite, and the hills rise on either side to
a height of nearly five hundred feet, and at one point the
cragged promontories approximate nearly to the toss of a
biscuit. Through this chasun the Mohawk tumbles over a
rocky bed, and falls, in the distance of half a mile, to the depth
of forty feet. Above, the rocks impend in rugged and fear-
ful grandeur; while beneath, the foaming torrent of the
Mohawk dashes from rock to rock, until it leaps into a basin
of great depth, and then steals tranquilly through the rich
vale extending to the falls of the Cohoes. The village stands
upon the north side and is connected with the canal by a
stupendous aqueduct, thrown over the river by means of
three arches viz., an elliptical one of seventy feet, embracing
the whole stream in an ordinary state of its waters, with one
on each side of fifty feet span, elevating the surface of the
canal thirty feet above that of the river.
It was already evening when the boats reached this inter-
esting region; but bonfires blazed upon the crags and brows
of the mountains, and at the junction of the aqueduct with
the canal the procession from the West was met by a com-
mittee, and an able address was delivered by George H.
Feeter, Esq., to which a suitable reply was made.
Schenectady, it appears, had a “private grievance,” and
the people failed to materialize to any great extent, but the
students of Union College turned out in force and they were
170
saluted in the most uproarious manner by the college guards.
The shades of night set in soon after the boats crossed the
aqueduct leading over the Mohawk into the county of Sar-
atoga. The night was dark and dreary, and a view of the
sublime scenery of the Cohoes Falls and the formidable
range of locks by which the canal descends into the vale of
the Hudson, was entirely lost, much to the regret of those
who were not already familiar with that region of rich and
picturesque scenery.
At two o'clock A. M. the boats made a halt and daylight
found the company at the half-way house between Troy and
Albany, for a long time kept by the heroic landlady,
who, several years since, shot a desperate robber in the act
of plundering her house at night.
As the procession approached Albany, “ the banks of the
canal were lined with people and the roads were filled with
horses and carriages galloping and whirlingtoward the scene
of the anticipated festivities.” At the lock above the man-
sion of the Patroon (General Stephen Van Rensselaer) the
boats were met by Alderman Wyckoff and Assistant Alder-
man Hone, of the conmittee of the New York corporation,
who were received on board, and the boats proceeded rap-
idly and arrived at the last lock at half past ten A. M. Twenty-
four pieces of cannon were planted on the pier, from which
a grand salute was fired as the boats passed from the canal
into the basin, down which they proceeded, towed by yawls,
manned by twenty-four masters of vessels, and cheered
onward by bands of music and the huzzas of thousands of
rejoicing citizens who crowded the wharves, the South bridge,
the vessels, and a double line of canal boats, which extended
through the whole length of the basin.
The exercises which took place were of the most imposing
character, ending with a grand collation. The tables were
presided over by “the late Lieutenant Governor Taylor and
Judge Spencer, assisted by Martin Van Buren, Benjamin
Knower, John Townsend, Allen Brown, Tennis Van Vech-
ten, Elisha Jenkins, Ebenezer Baldwin and Richard J.
Knowlson, Esquires.”
171
XXIII.
THE VOYAGE Down THE HUDSON FROM ALBANY TO NEw
York, AND THE MINGLING OF THE WATERS OF LAKE ERIE
WITH THOSE OF THE ATLANTIC OCEAN.
Thursday morning, November 3d, was designated for the
fleet to proceed down the river to New York, where the
greatest preparations had been made to celebrate “the great
event of the ages,” and a more beautiful day never dawned.
It seemed as though a benignant Providence, smiling upon
the labors and triumphs of human genius and enter-
prise had purposely chained the storms in their caverns.
The hour of nine was appointed for the departure of the
fieet, but by some unavoidable delays it was near ten
before everything was prepared. In the meantime the city
and surrounding country poured forth its population in
immense numbers to view the beautiful spectacle. The
docks, stores and vessels along the whole river in front of
the city, presented thick Inasses of people. The several
steamboats, formed in their proper order, gorgeously deco-
rated, were ranged in a line, and a brisk northwest wind
caused the gay banners and streamers to flutter in the air,
so as to be seen to the best possible advantage. And the
beauty of the scene was still further heightened by the large
columns of steam rushing from the fleet, rising majestically
upwards, and curling and rolling into a thousand fantastic
and beautiful forms, until mingled and lost in surrounding
vapors. Every boat was filled with passengers and each
was supplied with a band of music. The delight, may enthu-
siasm of the people, was at its height. Such an animating,
bright, beauteous and glorious spectacle had never been
seen at that place nor at that time excelled in New York.
The fleet consisted of the following steam vessels, viz.:
The Chancellor Livingston, having in tow the elegant canal
packet boat, “The Seneca Chief of Buffalo;” the Constitu-
tion, having in tow the Rochester boat “Young Lion of the
West,” on board of which were two living wolves, a fawn, a
fox, four raccoons and two living eagles. Noah's Ark, having
172
on board a number of bears and Indians, did not arrive in
time to go with this tow. Next came the Chief Justice
Marshall having in tow the “Niagara,” of Black Rock.
Then followed the Constellation, the Swiftsure, the Olive
Branch, having in tow the safety barge, Matilda, and the
Richmond. The Saratoga, a small but very swift boat acted
as a tender on the voyage, landing and taking in passen-
gers from all the boats and landing places, sporting about
like a dolphin. The pageant was the grandest that had
ever been presented in the new world, and the voyage down
the river was enlivened by the most enthusiastic demonstra-
tions of the people at all of the towns. It seemed as if the
river banks were lined with artillery and the roar of cannon
echoed and re-echoed from every hill and mountain top. A
few minutes after nine, on the morning of the 4th of No-
vember, the flotilla was sighted by the escorting fleet, com-
posed of war vessels, gun boats, steamboats, sloops and ves-
sels of all kinds, and were surrounded and taken past the
city onward toward Sandy Hook where the grand cere-
mony of mingling the waters of Lake Erie and of the
Atlantic was to take place.
The sea was tranquil and smooth as a summer lake; ,
and the mist, which came on between seven and eight in
the morning, having partially floated away, the Sun: shone
bright and beautiful as ever. As the boats passed the Bat-
tery they were saluted by the military, the revenue cutter,
and the Castle on Governor’s Island; and in passing the
Narrows they were also saluted by forts La Fayette and
Tompkins. They then proceeded to the United States
schooner Porpoise, Captain Zantzinger, moored within
Sandy Hook at the point where the grand ceremony was to
be performed. A deputation, composed of Aldermen King
and Taylor, was then sent on board the steamboat Chancel-
lor Livingston to accompany his excellency, the Governor,
the Lieutenant-Governor and the several committees from
Buffalo, Utica, Albany and other places on board the steam-
boat Washington. The boats were thereupon formed in a
circle around the schooner, preparatory to the consumma-
173
tion of the great ceremony, when Mr. Rhind, addressing
the Governor, remarked that he had a request to make,
which he was confident it would afford his excellency great
pleasure to grant. He was desirous of preserving a portion
of the water to be used on this memorable occasion, in or-
der to send it to our distinguished friend and late illustrious
visitor, Major-General La Fayette; and for that purpose
Messrs. Dummer & Co. had prepared some bottles of Amer-
ican fabric for the occasion, and they were to be conveyed
to the general in a box made by Mr. D. Phyfe from a log
of cedar brought from Erie in the Seneca Chief. The Gov-
ernor replied that a more pleasing task could not have been
imposed upon him, and expressed his acknowledgments to
Mr. Rhind for having suggested the measure.
His excellency, Governor Clinton, then proceeded to per-
form the ceremony of commingling the waters of the lake
with the ocean, by pouring a keg of that of Lake Erie into
the Atlantic; upon which he delivered the following ad-
dress: “This solemnity, at this place, on the first arrival
of vessels from Lake Erie, is intended to indicate and com-
memorate the navigable communication which has been
accomplished between our Mediterranean Seas and the At-
lantic 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.” Doctor Mitchell
supplemented this by pouring into the briny deep bottles of
water from the Ganges and Indus, of Asia; the Nile and
the Gambia, of Africa; the Thames, the Seine, the Rhine
and the Danube, of Europe; the Mississippi, the Columbia,
the Orinoko, the La Plata and the Amazon; after which he
delivered a most learned and interesting discourse.
| 74
YXIV.
THE GORGEOUS DISPLAY AT NEW YORK AND THE CLOSING
CEREMONIES.
A contemporary writer, who goes into ecstacies over the
gorgeous display, among other things, says: “Never before
was there such a fleet collected, and so superbly decorated, and
it is very possible that a display so grand, so beautiful, and
we may even add, sublime, will never be witnessed again.
We know of nothing with which it can be compared. The
naval fete given by the Prince Regent of England, upon the
Thames, during the visit of the Allied Sovereigns of Europe
to London after the dethronement of Napoleon, has been
spoken of as exceeding everything of the kind hitherto
witnessed in Europe. But gentlemen who had an oppor-
tunity of witnessing both, have declared that the spectacle
in the waters of New York so far transcended that in the
metropolis of England, as scarcely to admit of a compari-
son. The day, as we have before remarked, was uncom-
monly fine. No winds agitated the surface of the mighty
deep, and during the performance of the ceremonies, the
boats, with their gay decorations, lay motionless in beauty.
The orb of day darted his genial rays upon the bosom of
the waters, where they played as tranquilly as upon the
natural mirror of a secluded lake. Indeed, the elements
seemed to repose, as if to gaze upon each other, and partic-
ipate in the beauty and grandeur of the sublime spectacle.
Every object appeared to pause, as if to invite reflection and
prepare the mind for deep impressions—impressions, which,
while we feel them stealing upon the soul, impart a con-
sciousness of their durability. It was one of those few
bright visions whose evanescent glory is allowed to light up
the path of human life—which, as they are passing, we feel
can never return, and which, in diffusing a sensation of
pleasing melancholy, consecrates, as it were, all surround-
ing objects, even to the atmosphere we inhale.”
Returning to New York, the great celebration and fes-
tivities immediately commenced with a procession of the
175
most extensive and elaborate character imaginable, and at
night there were fire-works and a great banquet.
The history of the celebration, after detailing at great
length what occurred in New York, says that during the
visit of the Western committees, they received every atten-
tion from the corporation. They were accompanied by
committees on visits to the principal institutions, and a
dinner was given them at Bellevue. They remained sev-
eral days enjoying the hospitalities of the city, and when
they departed with their boats for the West, they were fur-
nished with a keg of water taken from the “briny deep ’’
for the purpose of being mingled with the waters of Lake
Erie. The keg was handsomely ornamented with the arms
of the city, over which were the words, in letters of
gold, “Neptune's return to Pan,” and under the same
words, “New York, 4th Nov., 1825.” Upon the other side
of the keg were the words, “Water of the Atlantic.”
The Seneca Chief arrived at Buffalo on Wednesday,
November 23d, after a quick and prosperous passage. The
committee was received with a hearty welcome, and it was
resolved to complete the grand ceremonies by mingling
the waters on Friday, the 25th. Accordingly, on that day,
a large and respectable number of ladies and gentlemen,
with the village band of music, repaired on board the boat
at the upper dock, and were towed from thence through
the basin into the lake by several yawl boats, which were
politely furnished by the masters of the different vessels
then lying at the wharves. At 10 o’clock A. M., the cere-
mony of mingling the waters, under a salute from Captain
Crary’s artillery, was performed by Judge Wilkeson, who
delivered an appropriate address on the occasion, after
which the boat was towed back to the dock, and the com-
pany dispersed with all those feelings of gratification which
the interesting ceremony was calculated to produce.
In the evening the gentlemen of the village assembled at
the Eagle Tavern, and unanimously passed sundry resolu-
, tions expressive of their sincere acknowledgments for the
polite and hospitable treatment their committee had re-
176
ceived from the corporation and citizens of New York and
Albany, and the respective villages along the whole line of
the canal.
Thus closed the ceremonies, as Judge Wilkeson said,
“which have grown out of an event hereafter to be held in
grateful remembrance and commemorated by annual dem-
onstrations of gratitude, as one of the most important
which has distinguished the history of mankind and one
from which not only the present but generations yet unborn,
even to the latest posterity, are to derive innulnerable
blessings.”
XXV.
THE RECORD OF THE PROCEEDINGS AND THE MEDAL STRUCK
IN COMMEMORATION OF THE SAME.
The record of the proceedings of the New York celebra-
tion, together with Cadwallader Colden’s “Memoir of the
New York Canal" and Mr. Stone’s “Voyage of the Seneca
Chief,” together with a great many other things, have been
carefully preserved in a handsome volume profusely illus-
trated, in which great attention seems to have been bestowed
upon the different fire companies which took a prominent
part in the procession on the great occasion of the mingling
the waters of Lake Erie with the Atlantic Ocean. This
volume is very scarce and of rare interest, but our fellow
townsman, a most worthy and loyal Son of New York, D.
W. Sutherland, Esq., is the happy possessor of one of these
volumes, to whose courtesy we are indebted for the use of
the same in preparing this sketch and for other valuable
information relating to the subject.
The corporate authorities deemed the occasion of such im-
portance that they ordered a medal to be struck in commem-
oration of the event in the highest style of the art, of the
following character: On the face of the medal is repre-
sented Neptune, who, with brotherly cordiality, returns Pan's
visit to the ocean; the motto, “Union of Erie with the At-
lantic.” Under the emblem are the initials of the artists,
“R., Del. W., Sc.” On the reverse are the armorial bearings
177
of the State, the sole agent in the great work; on the right
of which are appropriately represented canal aqueducts and
locks; and on the left is a view of the harbor and city of
New York; the motto, “Erie Canal Comm. 4th July, 1817;
Comp. 26th October, 1825;” the contracted words in this
motto are, “commenced" and “completed.” Underneath
the above is the sculptor's name, C. C. Wright, and below
are the words in small Roman capitals: “Presented by the
City of New York.”
Medals of gold of the highest class were struck off and pre-
sented to the three surviving patriotic citizens who signed
the declaration of independence, to-wit: John Adams,
Thomas Jefferson and Charles Carroll, of Carrollton; and
others were transmitted to James Madison, James Monroe
and John Quincy Adams.
The letters of presentation were acknowledged in an ap-
propriate manner by each one of the distinguished persons
mentioned, and fac simile copies were made and circulated
throughout the country.
The medal was prepared and forwarded to these signers
and to various other distinguished men whom they selected,
and, as the responses which were made are not readily
accessible, we have caused them to be copied from official
sources, and here with present the same to our readers:
NEW YORK, 28th April, 1826.
Sir: The corporation of the city of New York have caused
medals to be struck, to commemorate the completion of the
Erie Canal, which unites the great lakes with the Atlantic
Ocean.
The corporation, influenced by a deep and profound
respect for those distinguished and patriotic citizens who
affixed their names to the Declaration of Independence, and
pledged in its support “their lives, their fortunes and their
sacred honor,” have instructed us, as a committee, to pre-
pare medals of gold, of the highest class, and present, in
behalf of the city of New York, one to each of the three
surviving signers of that great State paper.
In obedience to the order of the common council, and in
17S
behalf of the city, we have the honor to transmit to you, sir,
a medal of gold of the highest class.
It affords us the greatest satisfaction to make this commu-
nication. We accompany the medal with a box made of
maple, brought from Lake Erie in the first canal boat, the
Seneca Chief. A memoir on the New York canals will be
transmitted to you hereafter.
With the utmost respect, we subscribe ourselves,
Your obed, serv.,
R. RIKER, JoHN AGNEW,
THO. BOLTON, WM. A. DAVIS.
Appropriate letters were also transmitted to the President
of the United States and to the ex-President, and to other
distinguished persons to whom medals of gold of the high-
est class had been awarded by the corporation. Fac similes
of their answers, together with those of Mr. Adams, Mr.
Carroll, Mr. Jefferson and Gen. La Fayette, were made and
circulated extensively throughout the country, copies of
which we give as below.
ANSWER OF ME, JOHN ADAMS.
QUINCY, May 24th, 1826.
Gentlemen: I have received your polite letter of the 28th,
with the splendid testimonial of the benevolence of the city
of New York in a gold medal, and a silver one in commem-
oration of the great canal in New York, which is the pride
and wonder of the age, and deserves to be commemorated
by every effort of art. I rejoice that the city of New York
has taken the lead in striking medals on important events.
The Hollanders have a history of their country engraved
on gold and silver medals, and it is the most permanent
history of any.
My gratitude to the city of New York can not be expressed
in words. I pray you, gentlemen, to accept my thanks for
the polite and obliging manner in which you have presented
this splendid token to me.
I am your friend and humble servant,
JOHN ADAMS.
179
ANSWER OF ME. JEFFERSON.
MESSRs. RIKER, AGNEW, BOLTON and DAVIs, a Committee
of the Corporation of New York:
I receive, gentlemen, with great thankfulness the medals
you have been pleased to send me, commemorative of the
completion of the Erie Canal; this great work will immor-
talize the present authorities of New York, will bless their
descendants with wealth and prosperity, and prove to man-
kind the superior wisdom of employing the resources of in-
dustry in works of improvement rather than of destruction.
The surviving signers of the charter of our independence,
to whom you are pleased to send monuments of this great
achievement, have the satisfaction of Seeing in them an
additional manifestation of the blessings resulting from the
measures in which, with a host of departed worthies, they
ventured to embark their country. As an humble individ-
ual of that body, accept my thanks for this mark of atten-
tion, which I render respectfully to the corporation of the
city of New York, and to yourselves particularly, the or-
gans of their communication by your letter of April 28,
just now received, with the assurance of my highest con-
sideration.
TH. JEFFERSON.
MONTICELLO, June 8, '26.
ANSWER OF MR. CARROLL.
BALTIMORE, 9th May, 1826.
Gentlemen: I was this day highly gratified by your let-
ter of the 28th past, and the delivery of the gold medal, of
the highest class, commemorating the completion of the
Erie canal, uniting the great Western lakes with the Atlantic
Ocean, which, as a committee of the corporation of the city
of New York, you were instructed to deliver to me, being
one of the three surviving signers of the Declaration of
Independence of these United States.
I am much honored by this testimony of respect paid to
me, by the order of the common council of the city of New
York, for the part I took in signing that important paper.
180
The completion of the great work, uniting the Western
lakes with the ocean, does honor to the State of New York;
may the benefits resulting from the undertaking amply
reward the wise and patriotic exertions of its citizens, and
perpetuate to the city of New York its growing prosperity.
Accept, gentlemen, my thanks for your letter and the Sat-
isfaction you have expressed in conveying to me this testi-
mony of public respect. I remain with great respect,
gentlemen, y’r most hum. Svrt.,
CH. CARROLL, of Carrollton.
. P. S.: I have also received the medal inclosed in a box
made of the maple from Lake Erie. The memoir of the
canals of New York, when printed, I request the favor of
you to forward to me; it will be a most interesting and
instructive communication.
CH. CARROLL, of Carrolton.
R. RIKER, JoHN AGNEW, TH. BOLTON, W. A. DAVIS,
Esquires.
ANSWER OF MER. MADISON.
MoRTPELIER, May 31, 1826.
Gentlemen: I have duly received your letter of April 28th,
and with it a medal of gold, commemorating the comple-
tion of the Erie Canal, presented in the name of the city of
New York, by order of the common council; the medal
being accompanied by a box made of maple brought from
the lake in the first canal boat, the Seneca Chief.
I beg the corporation to be assured that I feel, in its full
extent, the value of this testimonial of kind respect, and
that no one can offer a more cordial tribute of congratu-
lation than myself on the event commemorated—an event
the more splendid when viewed in its contrast with occa-
sions to which such emblems have been often dedicated.
As a monument of public spirit, conducted by enlightened
councils, as an example to other States worthy of emulat-
ing enterprise, and as itself a precious contribution to the
happy result to our country of facilitated communications
and intermingled interests, bringing nearer and bending
181
faster the multiplying parts of the expanding whole, the
canal which unites the great Western lakes with the Atlantic
Ocean, is an achievement of which the State of New York
may at all times be proud, and which will merit the homage
so aptly paid to it by her great commercial metropolis.
Be pleased to accept, gentlemen, individually, the im-
pression of my high respect and my best wishes.
JAMES MADISON.
R. RIKER, JoHN AGNEw, TH. BoITON, W. A. DAVIS, Esqs.
ANSWER OF ME. MON ROE.
OAK HILL, July 3d, 1826.
Gentlemen: Having been called from home by attention
to my private concerns in another part of the State, I had
not the satisfaction to receive your letter of the 28th of April
until within a few days past.
The accomplishment of the great work undertaken by
the State of New York, by which the Western lakes are
united with the Atlantic Ocean through the Hudson river,
forms a very important epoch in the history of our great
republic. By facilitating the intercourse, and promoting
the prosperity and welfare of the whole, it will bind us more
closely together, and thereby give a new and powerful
support to our free and most excellent system of govern-
ment.
That this great work should be commemorated by the
corporation of New York, in the name of the city, by the
medals which you have caused to be struck, is a proof of the
just estimate which you have formed of its importance, and
of the happy consequences likely to attend it.
For the kind sentiments which you have expressed in my
favor, and the testimonial you have transmitted to me of
the good opinion of the common council, I tender to you my
grateful acknowledgment.
With great respect, I am, gentlemen,
Your very obt. servant,
JAMES MoWRoE.
R. RIKER, JoHN AGNEW, THO. BOLTON and W. A. DAVIs,
Esquires, committee of the corporation of New York.
182
ANSWER OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.
MESSRS. R. RIKER, JoHN AGNEW, W. BoITON, W. A. DAVIs,
a committee of the corporation of the City of New York.
WASHINGTON, 23 May, 1826.
Gentlemen: I have received from the hands of Mr. Cam-
breleng the medals struck by the corporation of the city of
New York, to commemorate the completion of the canal
which has united the waters of the Western lakes with those
of the Atlantic, an event among those most worthy of com-
memoration, in the progress of human affairs; an event
equally creditable to the enterprise and perseverance of the
people of New York, and by the accomplishment of which,
in honouring themselves, they have reflected honour upon
the age and country to which they belong.
Gratefully accepting the medals as a token of the kind
remembrance of your city, I tender to you, gentlemen, my
warm sensibility to the friendly and flattering terms with
which you have conveyed them to me.
With the respectful and friendly salutations of your fel-
low-citizen,
JOHN QUINCY ADAMs.
ANSWER OF GEN. LA FAYETTE.
LA GRANGE, June 27th, 1826.
Gentlemen: The new favor conferred upon me by the
corporation of the city of New York, at the same time it
excites lively feelings of personal gratitude, is the more
gratifying to my heart, as it has been by you intended as a
testimony of regard to the revolutionary army of which I
am the last surviving Major-General; permit me, therefore,
in the name of my brother-soldiers and in my own name to
present the corporation with the most respectful and affec-
tionate acknowledgments.
With every sentiment of patriotic interest and pride I
had followed the rapid progress of an enterprise highly
honourable to" the State of New York, to the American
name, and to the principle, loyally, dignified and produc-
tive, of self-government; its final success, exceeding the most
183
sanguine anticipations, has been witnessed by me with in-
expressible delight, and now I feel additional happiness in
possessing the badges relative to the admirable wish for
which I am indebted to New York's remembrance; depend-
ing on your goodness, gentlemen, to offer to the common
council my grateful and devoted respects, I request you also
to receive the cordial and respectful tribute of the same
Sentiment and have the honor to be, with the highest regard,
Your obed. servant,
LA FAYETTE.
The State of New York has most carefully preserved in
its archives all of the communications and reports of its
engineers, surveyors and superintendents and of those en-
gaged in the construction of its canals, which forms a most
unique and interesting collection.
“These communications and reports,” says Colden, “are
documents of the most interesting and useful character.
They are important, not only as furnishing a detailed and
very circumstantial history of these works in their daily
progress, but as affording minute information which must
be of the greatest use to those who may be engaged in simi-
lar enterprises.”
The State has established an additional claim as the
munificent benefactor of mankind, in authorizing, by law,
a collection and publication of “all the laws, reports and
documents relative to the canals, requisite for a complete
official history of those works, with correct maps delineating
the routes of the Erie and Champlain Canals and designat-
ing the land through which they pass.”
In compliance with this law, two splendid octavo vol-
umes with plates and charts and a large atlas, have been
published. They have been completed under the super-
intendence of a committee of the Legislature, but justice
would not be done were it not acknowledged that the State
owes to the indefatigable industry and ability of John Van
Ness Yates, Esq., the Secretary of State at that time, this
splendid history of works which will be forever connected
with her glory.
184
XXVI.
DE WITT CLINTON.
We feel that this narrative would not be complete with-
out we made a more specific reference to two names which
are inseparably connected in the prosecution of this, one of
the greatest enterprises of modern times, and those names
are DeWitt Clinton and Joshua Forman.
DeWitt Clinton, who became so distinguished in the
State of New York and throughout the world for his con-
nection with the improvement of inland navigation, and
especially with the construction of the Erie Canal, was the
son of General James Clinton, and the nephew of Governor
George Clinton. He was born at Little Britain, Orange
County, New York, March 2, 1769, and died at Albany
February 11, 1828.
He graduated at Columbia College in 1786 with high
honors, and was distinguished for his great Scholastic attain-
ments. He read law in the office of Samuel Jones, at that
time well known as a lawyer and legislator. He did not
complete his studies without some interruption, for on the
death of his elder brother, who was private secretary of the
Governor, he was persuaded to assume that position, which
he occupied for some time.
This was in the midst of the heat of debate on the sub-
ject of the adoption of the Federal Constitution. The son
took sides with his uncle, the Governor, and opposed the
adoption of the Constitution with all his might.
In 1795, John Jay having been elected governor, he again
took up the study of the law, and was admitted to the bar
in 1788, and began the practice of his profession.
In 1797, at the age of 28, he was elected to the State Sen-
ate, and from that date his career as a politician and states-
man commenced. He continued in the Senate from 1797
to 1802. He was mayor of New York in 1803–7, 1809–10,
and 1811–14. He was Governor of the State in 1817–22,
1824–27. w
He was elected under the old Constitution of 1777, a mem-
185
ber of what was known as the council of appointment, with
Ambrose Spencer, John Sanders and Robert Roseboom.
These men undertook to appoint just about all the executive
officers in the State subject to appointment, independent of
the Governor, and this led to an open rupture between Gov-
ernor Jay and the council on the 24th of February, 1801,
with the most far reaching consequences.
Mr. Clinton and Ambrose Spencer were very warm friends,
both very ambitious and very talented, and it was charged
that they ran things with a high hand. Mr. Spencer was
considered a great lawyer while DeWitt Clinton was not,
but he early displayed great ability as a writer and legisla-
tor and he was no doubt the ruling spirit of the time.
As a partial insight of the times we will refer to an inci-
dent or two to show how Clinton and his friends wielded
this council of appointment and the results that followed.
When the political control of the State was transferred
from the federal to the republican party by the elections of
April, 1800 and 1801, the republican party, according to
Hammond in New York, may be said to have had three
leaders.
These were the Clintons, Livingstons and Aaron Burr.
By far the greatest number belonged to that portion of the
republican party who were attached to Governor Clinton;
the Livingstons, as a family, were numerous, more wealthy
and hence the most powerful; and Col. Burr possessed a
small number of friends and admirers, most of whom resided
in the city of New York, but he had a few followers in al-
most every county in the State. He had no family connec-
tions nor were his supporters, generally speaking, men of
wealth. He himself seems always to have been insolvent,
although he received and expended a great deal of money.
But his friends, though few in number, were extremely de-
voted to their chief and most of them were men of consider-
able political tact and uncommonly active.
Before the council which we have above referred to
commenced their operations, Burr had rendered himself ob-
noxious to the animadversions and suspicions of the repub-
1S6
lican party and it was said that the Clintons and Living-
stons resolved that Burr and his immediate partisans should
no longer be considered as members of the republican party
in good and regular standing. The great officers were there-
fore divided. John Blake was appointed sheriff of Orange
county, and Peter Vrooman, sheriff of Schoharie. These
gentlemen, Governor Jay had, on the 24th of February, re-
fused to nominate, and that refusal was the immediate cause
of the breach between him and the council. Sylvanus
Miller was appointed surrogate of New York. He was the
ardent friend of Mr. DeWitt Clinton and continued through
all the changes of fortune which were then in reserve for his
patron, his unwavering supporter. He was at that time a
resident of Ulster county and the people complained greatly
of the council for importing a surrogate from the country
for that city. But as he was a good-natured unan and of
prepossessing manners he soon won many friends, and the
people became reconciled to him, but the council never recov-
ered from this action and it and many other things that it
did finally led to its extinction.
In 1802 DeWitt Clinton was elected to the United States
Senate in place of General John Armstrong, who resigned
his seat in that body.
Immediately after this the war between the Clintons and
Livingstons on one side, and Aaron Burr on the other,
broke out and raged with great fury. Colonel Swartwout,
a strong partisan of Burr, was denounced by Clinton as
“a liar, a scoundrel and a villain,” which led to a duel
between Swartwout and Clinton, in which five shots were
exchanged, Swartwout receiving two wounds, when the
surgeons interfered and put an end to the battle.
In 1804 Clinton resigned the office of United States Sena-
tor to become Mayor of New York, an office which brought
in large fees and large patronage, and was re-elected to
that office several years in succession.
He was the most conspicuous actor in the imposing
ceremonies at the opening of the Erie Canal in the fall of
1825, when, outside of the narrows, he poured a vessel of
187
water from Lake Erie into the Atlantic Ocean, as signifi-
cant of their wedding.
A halo and a glamor has been thrown around the
name of DeWitt Clinton, which it seems almost cruel to
dispel. Among the great mass of mankind he is always
spoken of in terms of unqualified praise, but he had his
defects and his foibles like other men. The purity of his
private character no one ever questioned, but he possessed
a certain coldness and hauteur of manner which repelled
aimost all who approached him. One who had long acted
as his agent said: “In the course of my agency for him, I
sent a great many farmers and laboring men to him to pay
him money, and I do not recollect of a single instance in
which the person I thus sent did not leave him with unfa-
vorable impressions toward him. And yet, no one com-
plained of any act done or word said by the Governor as
unjust or improper.”
As to anything like illiberality in his pecuniary transac-
tions, he was utterly incapable of it. It was evidently an
assumption of superiority and a repulsiveness of manner
which displeased. In this respect his political rival, Gov-
ernor Tompkins, had a decided advantage over him.
John L. Wendell of New York relates this anecdote as
coming from Sylvanus Miller, the gentleman already
referred to as having been appointed surrogate of New York
by Clinton, which most strikingly illustrates the characters
or both Tompkins and Clinton:
A respectable farmer residing in one of the interior counties
in New York, unfortunately had a son who was convicted
of a felony and sentenced to several years confinement in the
State's prison. The father had twice called on Governor
Tompkins with a petition for the pardon of his son, which
had been denied. After Mr. Clinton became the successor
of Mr. Tompkins, the old man being acquainted with Mr.
Miller and aware of his intimacy with the Governor, called
on him and solicited his influence in behalf of his sou. Mr.
Miller, being convinced that it was a case proper for the exer-
cise of the executive clemency, promised to give him his aid
1SS
and forth with called on the Governor, and his representa-
tions produced the same conviction on the mind of Mr.
Clinton.
Mr. Miller, in order to turn the act to some political
advantage, told the Governor that the father of the convict
was a man of considerable influence in the place where he
lived; that he (Miller) would send him to Governor Clinton
and he hoped he would treat him in such a manner as to
secure his esteem and friendship, and with this request the
Governor promised compliance.
The old man called at the Governor's house, according to
the custom of country people, early in the morning, and Mr.
Clinton being informed of his name, went himself to the door,
and urged him to come and breakfast with him. The peti-
tioner did so and the Governor made great efforts to appear
agreeable during the repast and after breakfast delivered to
the anxious father an unconditional pardon for his son.
He went immediately to Mr. Miller's office, who inquired
of him how he had succeeded and how he liked the governor.
“The Governor,” said the old man, “ was so good as to ask
me to breakfast, and promptly pardoned my son. But you
asked me how I liked him, and I must say that, although I
have seen Governor Tompkins but twice, and although at
each time he positively refused to grant me the favor I
desired, and Governor Clinton has granted me that very
favor upon the first time of asking, I like Governor Tomp-
kins better than I like or can like Governor Clinton, I can
not tell the reason why.”
Clinton was an original, bold and fearless man, and, not-
withstanding all of his peculiarities and faults, will ever be
regarded as a first-class statesman.
He loved New York, and every part of it, with the same par-
tiality that a parent does his own family, and he took pride in
its advancement in wealth and greatness. With all his bitter
and sometimes illiberal feelings against political opponents,
whenever those opponents advocated measures, in his judg-
ment calculated to advance the wealth and prosperity of the
State, his hostility for the time being was extinguished, and
189
he came most cordially to their aid. He was, therefore, at
heart a State rights man. The least indication of encroach -
ment by the National upon the State government was
viewed by him with alarm and resisted with spirit. Of the
great men in America, who were jealous of the National
government and for confining its action exclusively to the
powers expressly granted, Mr. Clinton was unquestionably
the most jealous.
He was honest and patriotic, but always defective in tact
and address as a politician in a popular government.
“He was a man of indomitable, personal and moral
courage. In person he was, perhaps, the most perfect speci-
men of humanity, as combining dignity with elegance and
symmetry of features, ever produced in the State of New
York.”
DeWitt Clinton dropped dead in his office, February 11,
1829. The most respectful marks of veneration and sorrow
were manifested everywhere throughout the country for his
memory. When the news reached Washington, the mem-
bers of Congress from New York forth with held a meeting,
without distinction of party, and adopted resolutions express-
ive of their esteem for his character and respect and grat-
itude for his public services,
Mr. Van Buren, on that occasion, delivered a short but
appropriate and elegant address, the concluding part of
which is so beautiful, both in style and sentiment, that we
copy it. “The triumph of his talents and patriotism,” said
Mr. Van Buren, “can not fail to become monuments of
high and enduring fame. We can not, indeed, but remem-
ber that in our public career, collisions of opinions and
action, at once extensive, earnest and enduring, have arisen
between the deceased and many of us. For myself, sir, it
gives me a deepfelt, though melancholy satisfaction to know,
and more so, to be conscious, that the deceased also felt and
acknowledged that our political differences have been wholly
free from that most venomous and corroding of all poisons,
personal hatred. But in other respects, it is now immaterial
what was the character of those collisions. They have been
190
turned to nothing and less than nothing, by the event we
deplore, and I doubt not that we will, with one voice and one
heart, yield to his memory the well deserved tribute of our
respect for his name, and our warmest gratitude for his
great and signal Services. For myself, sir, so strong, so sin-
cere and so engrossing is that feeling, that I, who whilst
living never, no, never envied him anything, now that he
has fallen, am greatly tempted to envy him his grave, with
its honors.” :
The name of DeWitt Clinton is inseparably connected
with the Erie Canal, and it is right and proper that the
glory of that great improvement should be carefully pre-
served and perpetuated as one of the marvels of the age in
which he lived.
JOSHUA FORMAN.
Joshua Forman was born at Pleasant Valley, in the
county of Dutchess and State of New York, the 6th of Sep-
tember, 1777. His parents were Joseph and Hannah For-
man, who, previous to the Revolution, resided in the city of
New York. Upon the breaking Out of the war and the ap-
proach of the British to that city, Mr. Joseph Forman with
his family retired to Pleasant Valley, where the subject of
this sketch was born. At an early age he evinced a strong
desire for learning, in which he was encouraged by his
friends. In the fall of 1793 he entered Union College, at
Schenectady, and in due time graduated with honor. Di-
rectly after his collegiate course was completed he entered
the law office of Peter W. Radcliffe, Esq., of Poughkeepsie,
where he remained about two years. He then went to the
city of New York, and completed his law studies in the office
of Samuel Miles Hopkins, Esq. Soon after the close of his
professional course he was married to Miss Margaret Alex-
ander, a daughter of the Hon. Boyd Alexander, M. P. for
Glasgow, Scotland. In the spring of 1800 Mr. Forman re-
moved to Onondaga Hollow, and opened a law office on the
east side of the creek, where he began early to manifest his
public spirit and enterprise. At the time he settled at On-
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ondaga Hollow the village was mainly situated on the east
side of Onondaga Creek, and he, being desirous of building
up the village and of extending its boundaries, soon located
his father and his brothers John, Samuel and Daniel W.,
near the west end of the present village, on the north and
south road passing through the same, and rapidly built up
the western part. This left a space in the middle compara-
tively unoccupied. Here Judge Forman soon after erected
a large hotel, and afterward a fine residence for himself,
which was occupied many years after Judge Forman left
the Hollow, by his brother-in-law, the late Wnn. H. Sabin.
He was also mainly instrumental in procuring the location
of the academy, church and two or three stores in the same
vicinity before he removed from Onondaga, thereby collect-
ing the whole into one tolerably compact settlement.
By his integrity and straightforward course in the prac-
tice of his profession he soon became distinguished as a
lawyer, and by his talents and gentlemanly deportment be-
came familiarly known throughout the country.
In 1803 William H. Sabin, Esq., joined him as a partner
in the practice of law, and for several years they did an ex-
tensive business. The subject of the Erie Canal became a
theme of deep interest to several of the leading men of
Onondaga, and to none more so than to Judge Forman.
Conversations were held by those who were friends to the
project, and measures were early taken to bring the great
question before the public. Mr. Forman's talents as a pub-
lic speaker and as a man of influence and character, emi-
nently distinguished him to be the individual who should
be foremost in moving in the matter. Accordingly, in 1807
a union ticket was got up, headed by John McWhorter,
democrat, and Joshua Forman, federalist. This ticket was
carried with trifling opposition. It was headed “Canal
Ticket,” and as such received the cordial support of a large
majority of the electors of Onondaga county.
As was anticipated by the friends of Judge Forman and
the great work which he was designated to advocate, he
brought forward the ever memorable resolution in the
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House of Assembly, which alone would render his name
immortal, directing a survey to be made “ of the most eli-
gible and direct route of a canal, to open a communication
between the tide waters of the Hudson and Lake Erie.”
Mr. Forman had studied the subject of canals as con-
structed in foreign countries. His mind had been applied
intently to their construction, utility and cost, and these :
labors had been brought to bear and have weight upon the
subject now under investigation. He had well considered
all the advantages that would accrue to the United States
and the State of New York if this important work should
be completed. He had prepared an estimate of the cost of
construction, based upon statistics of the Languedoc Canal.
While discussing this subject in Albany, during the Ses-
sion, Judge Wright and General McNeill, of Oneida, became
converts to the plan, through the instrumentality of Judge
Forman, and Judge Wright agreed to second the resolution
about to be offered, whenever it should be brought up.
Judge Forman had no confidence that the general govern-
ment would assist New York in the construction of a canal,
but the resolution framed and offered by him was so worded
as to give President Jefferson an opportunity to participate
in the measure if he would. Fired with the novelty and
importance of this project, and somewhat piqued at the
manner of its reception by the members of the House, the
advocate took pains to prepare himself thoroughly upon
the subject, and when the resolution was called up he ad-
dressed the House in a forcible and eloquent speech in its
favor. Fortunately the resolution was adopted, and for this
he was for years called a “visionary projector,” and was
asked a hundred times if he ever expected to live to see his
canal completed; to which he uniformly answered that “as
surely as he lived to the ordinary age of man, he did; that
it might take ten years to prepare the public mind for the
undertaking, and as many more to accomplish it; never-
theless it would be done.” " *
Had not Joshua Forman brought forward the subject as
* - sº -ss-
* Hosack, page 350.
193
he did, it is not easy to conceive who would have had the
moral courage to meet the ridicule of proposing, in earnest,
what was considered so wild a measure. Had it not been
for this timely movement the subject might have lain idle
for years, so far as legislative action was concerned. But
by it the ice was broken, and an impetus given to a direct
canal by the discoveries made under it, and to Joshua For-
man must ever be accorded the high consideration, as the
first legislative projector of the greatest improvement of the
age. *
During all the times of darkness, discouragement and
doubt, he boldly stood forth, the unflinching champion of
its feasibility, utility and worth, till the day of its comple-
tion.
On the occasion of the grand canal celebration, 1st of No-
vember, 1825, Judge Forman was selected by the citizens of
Onondaga county, and as president of the village of Syra-
cuse, to address Governor Clinton and suite, on their first
passage down the canal, accompanied by various county
committees along the line.
As one of the committee from Syracuse, Judge Forman
attended the ceremony of mingling the waters of Lake Erie
with those of the ocean, off Sandy Hook. He had now
passed through all the stages in the progress of the great
work, from its first announcement in the Legislature to
its final consummation in uniting the waters of Lake Erie
with the Atlantic Ocean, His efforts in this great under-
taking will ever be an enduring monument of his wisdom,
and to future generations will his fame extend.
It is not to be supposed that Judge Forman had em-
ployed all his time and talents upon this single object.
As a lawyer he became distinguished; and, on account of
his integrity and legal acquirements, was appointed First
Judge of Onondaga County Common Pleas, in 1813. He
filled the station with credit and ability for ten years; in
fact, he elevated the character of this tribunal to the pitch
which gained for it the high reputation which it has since
enjoyed.
194
He took an early and active interest in the establishment
of churches in this county. “The First Onondaga Relig-
ious Society,” at Onondaga Hill, in 1806, and the “Onon-
daga Hollow Religious Society,” in 1809, owe their early
organization mainly to his efforts. The Onondaga Acad-
emy, founded in 1814, owes its existence to the interest he
manifested in the cause of education, and to his fostering
care. He was also one of the most active in promoting the
organization of the first Presbyterian society in Syracuse,
in 1824, and was one of its first trustees.
In 1807 he took a lease of the surveyor general, for a term
of years, of a part of the reservation lands at Oswego Falls,
for the purpose of erecting a grist mill in that wilderness
county, at which time not a horse was owned by an inhab-
itant between Salina and Oswego. This was the first mill
erected on the Oswego river in modern times, and it greatly
facilitated the settlement of that region.
In 1808 he founded the celebrated Plaster Company of
Camillus, for the purpose of more effectually working the
extensive beds in that town. (See Camillus.) In 1813
Judge Forman built the canal, and excavated ground for
the pond, at Onondaga Hollow, where he erected a grist
mill, which was then considered one of the best in the
County. *
In 1817, while there was yet a strong opposition to the
Erie Canal, and its friends were in the greatest anxiety and
even doubt as to the final result, Judge Forman furnished
a series of articles, which were published in the Onondaga
Register, signed “X,” in defense of the work. These papers
were written with great ability, and are said by competent
judges to be inferior to none that had been written upon
that subject.
In 1821 Judge Forman obtained the passage of a law
(drawn by his own hand) authorizing the lowering of Onon-
daga lake, and Subsequently the lake was lowered about
two feet. The great difficulty had been caused by the high
water in the Seneca river rising to a certain height, which
obstructed the channel of the Onondaga outlet; and such
195
was the nature of the obstructions, arising from the narrow-
ness and crookedness of the passage, that when the Seneca
river subsided to its proper limits, the water of Onondaga
Jake was retained, and in rainy seasons did not fall so as to
make dry ground around it till late in summer, which was
the cause of much inconvenience to the people living in the
vicinity of the lake. To obviate this the lake was lowered,
and by it the lands around Salina and Syracuse were im-
proved, leaving bare a beach about the lake, in some places
of several rods in width. For the cause of philanthropy
and humanity this was a most important measure. The
country around became more healthful, and, although
previously infested with a fatal miasma in August and
September, from that time to this the country about Syra-
cuse and Salina has been considered as healthy as any other
section in the State.
In 1822 Judge Forman procured the passage of a law
authorizing the erection of fixtures for the purpose of
manufacturing coarse salt by solar evaporation, with a
three cent per bushel bounty on salt so manufactured, for a
given number of years. He went to New Bedford, in com-
pany with Isaiah Townsend, Esq., to make inquiries relative
to solar evaporation of salt water, from persons interested
in this mode of manufacturing salt from sea water on Cape
Cod. They engaged Mr. Stephen Smith to come on to
Syracuse with them to manage the salt fields, he having had
experience in this mode of manufacture. Mr. Smith was
appointed agent of the Onondaga Company, and Judge
Forman of the Syracuse Counpany, and these two proceeded
to make the necessary erections for the manufacture of
coarse salt.
Judge Forman was eumphatically the founder of the city
of Syracuse. He came to this place when there was but a
small clearing south of the canal, and lived in a house
which stood in the center of Clinton street—since removed.
When he came to Syracuse it was deemed a doubtful and
hazardous enterprise. His friends earnestly desired him to
withdraw. But at no time did his courage, energy or faith
196
fail him. He foresaw and insisted that it must eventually
become a great and flourishing inland town, and in spite
of much determined opposition, and amidst a variety of
obstacles and almost every species of embarrassment, he
persisted in his efforts till he had laid broad and deep
the foundations of this flourishing city.
The most prominent obstacles were found in the rival
villages in the vicinity, which were likely to be affected by
the building up of a larger one in their midst, and in
the extensive swamps and marshes which everywhere in
this region prevailed, and in the consequent unhealthiness
of the locality.
His work being accomplished, circumstances required his
removal from this scene of his usefulness and the theatre of
his labors. In 1826 he removed to New Jersey, near New
Brunswick, where he superintended the opening and work-
ing of a copper mine, which had been wrought to some
extent prior to and during the Revolution. Soon after his
departure from Syracuse, the State of New York became
sadly convulsed and deranged in its financial affairs. Our
banking system was extremely defective; reform was de-
manded by an abused and outraged community. All saw
and admitted the evil, but no one was prepared with a
remedy. At this crisis Judge Forman came forward with
a plan for relief, and upon the invitation of Governor Van
Buren he visited Albany, and submitted his plan to a com-
mittee of the Legislature, then in session. At the sugges-
tion of the Governor he drew up the bill which subsequently
became a law, and is known as the Safety Fund Act, the
great objects of which were, on the one hand, to give cur-
rency and character to our circulation, and, on the other,
to protect the bill-holder. At the special request of Gover-
nor Van Buren, Judge Forman spent most of the winter in
attendance on the Legislature, in perfecting the details of
this important act.
This plan operated well for many years, and the safety
fund banks of this State sustained themselves under some of .
the severest and heaviest revulsions which the moneyed in-
197
stitutions of the country have ever experienced. And it
may be safely affirmed that no system in practice on this
side of the Atlantic has better stood the test of experience,
or secured so extensively the popular confidence as this.
The safety fund system was exclusively the plan of Judge
Forman, and although modifications have since been made,
and others projected, in our banking laws, it may be ques-
tioned whether the system has been materially improved.
In 1829–30 Judge Forman bought of the government of
the State of North Carolina an extensive tract of land, con-
sisting of some three hundred thousand acres, in Ruther-
fordton county. He took up his residence at the village of
Rutherfordton, greatly extended its boundaries, established
a newspaper press, and was considered the most enterpris-
ing individual in that part of the State; became quite dis-
tinguished as a public man, and noted for his exertions to
elevate the character and improve the mental and moral
condition of the inhabitants in that region.
In 1831, after an absence of about five years, Judge For-
man visited Onondaga. He was everywhere received with
unqualified demonstrations of joy and respect, and every
voice cheered him as the founder of a city and a benefactor
of mankind. The citizens of Syracuse, through their com-
mittee appointed for that purpose, consisting of Messrs. Ste-
phen Smith, Harvey Baldwin, Amos P. Granger, L. H. Red-
field, Henry Newton, John Wilkinson and Moses D. Burnet,
availed themselves of the opportunity to present to him a
valuable piece of silver plate, as a tribute of the high re-
spect and esteem which was entertained for his talents and
character, and in consideration of his devotedness to their
interests in the early settlement of the village. The plate
is in form of a pitcher, and bears this inscription:
A Tribute of Respect,
Presented by the SYRACUSE.
Citizens of Syracuse
to the
HONORABLE JOSHUA FoRMAN,
Founder of that Village.

198
At the ceremony of presenting the plate mutual addresses
were delivered—on the one hand, highly expressive of the
affection and regard of a whole community to a distin-
guished individual who had toiled and exhausted his more
vigorous energies for their welfare, and on the other, the
acknowledgment of past favors at the hands of his fellow
citizens and coadjutors, thankful that he had been the
humble instrument of contributing to their prosperity;
lıoping that the bright visions of the future innportance of
Syracuse, which he had so long entertained, might be real-
ized, he bade her citizens an affectionate farewell.
On his return to his home in North Carolina, Judge For-
man took with him this token of the gratitude of his fellow
citizens, and it remained with him till the year 1845, when
he presented it to his daughter, the lady of Gen. E. W.
Leavenworth, of Syracuse, then on a visit to her father, who
was in feeble health, remarking that it constituted a part of
the history of Syracuse, and that after his death there it
should remain. º
While his health permitted, Judge Forman's business was
principally that of making sales of the lands he had pur-
chased in North Carolina.
In 1846 this venerable man revisited his former friends
and acquaintances of his earlier years, and found in each
full heart an honest welcome. To all it was apparent that
the advances of time had made sad inroads upon his phys-
ical and mental powers. Seventy winters had shed their
snows upon his devoted head. He had heard much of the
growth and prosperity of his cherished city and of his be-
loved Onondaga. He had fixed his heart upon again
treading the soil of his revered county. He had earnestly
desired to return to the land of his fathers before his course
on earth should be closed, to witness the result of those
wonderful improvements in the accomplishment of which
he had taken so deep an interest and so active a part, and
to see the fulfilment of those predictions which had some-
times acquired for him the name of a visionary projector
and enthusiast, and once again, for the last time, to
199
bell old in the body the few surviving friends of his earlier
years. He could not bid adieu to the world in peace till
this last and greatest of his earthly wishes should be grati-
fied. -
On this occasion a public dinner was tendered to him by
P. N. Rust, Esq., of the Syracuse House. A large number
of the most distinguished gentlemen of the county were
present, together with the few gray-headed pioneers who
still lingered in the land. Nearly all the company were the
personal friends of Judge Forman, many of them having
been sharers or attentive observers of his early and patri-
otiº public efforts for the social, mental and moral improve-
ment of this county. Few, indeed, are the instances where
an individual, mantled in the hoary locks of age, after an
absence of twenty years returns to the scenes of his primi-
tive usefulness with so many demonstrations, on the part of
friends and former neighbors, of joy and thankfulness, as
in the one before us. It was also a season of peculiar grat-
ification to him. Here he beheld the results of his labors
in early, active manhood. Here he beheld the progress of
a thriving town founded by his fostering hand. Here he
received the warm greetings of the friends of his early life,
and here he met with them to bid them a kind, affectionate
and last adieu.
From Syracuse Judge Forman retired to his mountain
home, in the milder climes of the sunny South, carrying
with him the most vivid recollections of the kindness and
hospitality of his friends; looking back upon a well spent
life, much of which was devoted to the service of his coun-
try, without regret—and forward, without a fear, to the
hour when he will be called away from the scenes of society
and earth. - -
Judge Forman died many years ago, but the date of his
demise is unknown to us. Clark, in his “History of Onon-
daga County,” to whom we are indebted for this sketch of
the life and times of this distinguished pioneer and states-
man, sums up his character as follows:
“The character of this distinguished man may be summed .
200
up in a very few words. His mind was of no ordinary
cast, and, whether we view him as a fellow citizen, a neigh-
bor, a legislator, a jurist, a judge, or as a man, we find noth-
ing that we can not respect and admire. Full of life and
energy himself, he infused with uncommon facility the same
spirit into others, and, wherever he was found, in him was
the master spirit of every plan. He possessed a mind of
uncommon activity, never wearying with the multiplicity
of his labors and cares; it was stored with an unusual va-
riety of knowledge, extending far beyond the boundaries of
his professional pursuits, and he possessed a rare felicity in
the communication of his knowledge to others. This fund
of solid and general information, upon every variety of
topic, and his forcible and happy manner of communica-
tion, joined with the most social and cheerful disposition,
rendered him on all occasions a most agreeable and inter-
esting gentleman in conversation, and the delight of every
circle in which he moved. He greatly excelled in the clear
perceptions of the results of proposed measures of public
improvement, and in a capacity to present them forcibly to
others, carrying along with him individuals, communities
and public assemblies by his easy, flowing language, and a
manner at once most ciear, captivating and persuasive.
His whole life was characterized by the most public spirited
efforts for the general good, and the most disinterested be-
nevolence—always comparatively forgetful of his own pri-
vate interest in his zeal for the accomplishment of works of
public utility. Through the long period of his stirring and
eventful life he sustained a character without stain and
without reproach.”
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