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Freight Capacity and Utilization of the Erie and Great Lakes Canals before 1850

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2010

Thomas F. McIlwraith
Thomas F. McIlwraith
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Abstract

This paper deals with the relationship between tonnage capacity and utilization of the Erie, Welland and St. Lawrence River canals before 1850. Estimates are presented for the capacities of the canals, as built and modified. Comparison with the actual tonnage carried eastward for selected years shows that the British canals were grossly and increasingly underutilized, while the Erie's utilization was closely correlated with its capability, particularly through its eastern half. Reasons for this situation are given and it is argued that had British funds been redirected away from canal enlargement and applied to the construction of vessels and harbor facilities, the British might have entered upon a prosperous carrying trade within North America in the second quarter of the nineteenth century.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 36 , Issue 4 , December 1976 , pp. 852 - 877
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1976

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References

1 One of the most forceful of many documents on this subject of enlargement is the “Report on the Inland Navigation of the Canadas,” called for by Lord Glenelg's dispatch to the Earl of Durham, London, August 23, 1838 (hereafter cited as “Phillpotts' Report,” MS in Public Archives of Canada: RG1, E12, vol. 3). See esp. pp. 96-115. For remarks on the spirit of expansionism see, for example, Riegel, Robert E. and Athearn, Robert G., America Moves West, 5th ed. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971), esp. pp. 342–43Google Scholar; for visual expression of the same theme see Larkin, Oliver W., Art and Life in America, rev. ed. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960), ch. 16Google Scholar, “Westward the Course of Landscape.”

2 Waterway dimensions and construction dates cited in this section are taken from Patton, M. J., “Shipping and Canals,” in Canada and its Provinces, ed. Shortt, Adam and Doughty, Arthur C. (Toronto: Publishers' Association of Canada, 1914), 10, 505–29Google Scholar, and Shaw, Ronald E., Erie Water West: A History of the Erie Canal, 1792-1854 (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1966), ch. 5.Google Scholar Other instructive sources include Aitken, Hugh G. J., The Welland Canal Company: A Study in Canadian Enterprise (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954), pp. 18–21Google Scholar; address in January 1825 of Governor De Witt Clinton of New York State to the State Assembly regarding internal improvements, reprinted in Colonial Advocate (York, Upper Canada) January 20, 1825; Leggett, Robert F., Rideau Watenvay (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1957)Google Scholar; and McCarthy, A. J. P., “The Oswego River: A Study in Historical Geography” (Ph.D. diss., St. Louis University, 1965)Google Scholar.

3 “New York State Canals: Report of the State Engineer for 1869,” reprinted in American Railroad Journal, February 26, 1870, second quarto series (vol. 26, no. 9, whole no. 1767), pp. 252-53. As further examples, see Barker, Edward J., Observations on the Rideau Canal (Kingston, Upper Canada, 1834)Google Scholar, for an informal but instructive description of the functioning canal as a medical doctor saw it; also a report in the old Quebec Gazette, June 1, 1829, praising an imagined, but in fact nonexistent, early spring navigational advantage of the Welland Canal over the Erie. See also McIlwraith, Thomas F., “The Logistical Geography of the Great Lakes Grain Trade, 1820-1850” (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1973), 155–67Google Scholar, for a wider range of examples of biased and imprecise data.

4 Lebergott, Stanley, “United States Transport Advance and Externalities,” Journal of Economic History, 26 (Dec. 1966), 450–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar, an explanation of some length. The Erie Canal had 675 feet of displacement in 83 locks, as built, and the original Welland 330 feet in 40 locks, giving the 8-foot average. See , Shaw, Erie Water West, p. 87Google Scholar; , Aitken, Welland Canal Company, p. 59.Google Scholar The first Erie Canal experiment gives the time for emptying an unidentified lock in 1848 as one minute, surely representative of nothing except a one-foot lock. “New York Canals Report,” 253.

5 See, for example, , Barker, Rideau Canal, p. 14Google Scholar, regarding the locks at Kingston Mills.

6 “New York Canals Report,” p. 253, reported in the first experiment.

7 Passages of six or seven minutes through locks on the Erie Canal about 1840 are described in Appendices to the Journals of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada (hereinafter cited as “Canada Assembly Appendices”) for 1842, Appendix F, app. C, with the remark that “it is not to be expected that the locks, less favourably situated in respect to their supply of water, will be able to maintain so rapid a rate.” The importance of water supply in establishing the frequency of lockages is stressed in comments accompanying Lebergott's article. Scheiber, Harry N., “Discussion,” Journal of Economic History, 26 (Dec. 1966), 463.Google Scholar Further remarks on water supply problems appear in Appendices to the Journal of the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada (hereafter cited as “Upper Canada Assembly Appendices”), 1830, pp. 180-81, and 1839, p. 142; also in , Aitken, Welland Canal Company, p. 65Google Scholar.

8 “New York Canals Report,” p. 253.

9 Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, 12 (1845), 432.

10 It may quite reasonably be assumed that the experiment was conducted under maximum traffic conditions, since the report is intended to demonstrate the vast potential of the canal.

11 Kingston, W. H. G., Western Wanderings (London, England, 1856), p. 103Google Scholar.

12 “New York Canals Report,” p. 253.

13 Albany Argus, November 11 and 24, 1843, as cited in Shaw, Erie Water West, p. 237.

14 “New York Canals Report,” p. 253.

18 Lights at Lockport are described by Shaw as if they were a new feature. Erie Water West, p. 292. A report of “new lights” on the Welland in 1851 may mean they had been in use there previously—Niagara Chronicle, March 27, 1851. The Welland Canal could be used twenty-four hours a day “if necessary,” according to a memorandum from a Port Colborne canal official to the Receiver-General of the Province of Canada, as reported in Niagara Chronicle, July 17, 1851.

16 One commentator who was attempting to strengthen the case for Erie Canal navigation inflated the duration of the frozen period on the St. Lawrence to seven months. Haines, Charles G., ed., Public Documents Relating to the New York Canals (New York, 1821), p. xxiv,Google Scholar cited in , Aitken, Welland Canal Company, p. 20Google Scholar.

17 Erie Canal data for Schenectady appear in Hunt's, 18 (1848), 223. Welland Canal data come from various sources—Free Press (Hallowell, Upper Canada), December 13, 1831; Upper Canada Assembly Appendices: 1833-34, p. 193; 1839, vol. 2, p. 142; and Canada Assembly Appendices: 1841, app. D; 1842, app. F; 1848, app. N; 1849, app. BB; 1850, app. HH.

18 See Cross, Whitney R., The Burned-over District (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1950),Google Scholar an important work on the Sabbatarian movement. Statements on Sunday trade are also made in , Shaw, Erie Water West, pp. 225–28Google Scholar, and Canada Assembly Appendices, 1852-53, app. DDDD.

19 Canada Assembly Appendices, 1852-53, app. DDDD.

20 , Shaw, Erie Water West, pp. 226–27Google Scholar.

21 Cornwall Observer, n.d., as reported in the Montreal Gazette, May 23, 1835.

22 Welland Canal Company, Annual Report (St. Catharines, Upper Canada, 1836).Google Scholar A list of seventeen serious interruptions on the Welland and Eri e canals in the 1820s and 1830s is presented in the Appendix to illustrate th e variety of things which could, and did, go wrong.

23 , Lebergott, “Transport Advance,” p. 443Google Scholar.

24 Hunt's, 12 (1845), 438.

25 , Aitken, Welland Canal Company, p. 60Google Scholar; Canada Department of Transport, Canals of Canada (Ottawa, 1937), pp. 9–19Google Scholar; Canada Assembly Appendices: 1843, app. Q; 1845, app. AA.

26 Whitford, Noble E., History of the Canal System of the State of New York (Albany, 1906), 2, 1466Google Scholar; Hunt's, 12 (1845), 432; , Shaw, Erie Water West, pp. 292, 295, 324Google Scholar; , McCarthy, “Oswego River,” pp. 132, 158Google Scholar.

27 Oswego canal data are from Oswego Palladium, February 5, 1835; Hunt's, 5 (1841), 287-88; Hunt's, 12 (1845), 432-44; and New York Senate Document no. 59 (1846), 7. The data from these sources are apparently overlapping and somewhat incomplete, and definitions of categories not fully compatible; hence all values are more or less estimated. Erie Canal data are from New York State Assembly Documents no. 36 (1833), no. 65 (1836), and Senate Documents no. 58 (1835), no. 59 (1846), no. 50 (1848). Hunt's, 5 (1841), 287; 12 (1845), 389-90; 16 (1847), 364; and 22 (1850), 355-56. Also United States Eighth Census (Washington, D. C., 1860), 3, pp. cxlviii, cl; United States Patent Office Reports for 1847 and 1849; Andrews, Israel D. “Report on the Trade, Commerce, and Resources of the British North American Colonies…” (United States, 31st Cong., 2nd sess., Senate Executive Doc, No. 23, Washington, 1851—hereafter cited as “First Andrews Report”), pp. 574–75Google Scholar; and Canada Assembly Appendices, 1850, app. HH. Some of this material is tabulated in Clark, John G., The Grain Trade in the Old Northwest (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1966), p. 117.Google Scholar The figure for Buffalo in 1832 includes an estimate of 5,000 tons of goods other than wheat and flour; the Utica figure for 1832 is an estimate based on known tonnages of wheat and flour for the four years 1832-35, but total tonnage only for 1835. Welland and St. Lawrence canal data are from Upper Canada Assembly Appendices: 1832-33, p. 51; 1833-34, p. 193; 1835, app. 46; 1836, app. 2; and Canada Assembly Appendices: 1841, app. D; 1842, app. F; 1844-45, app. AA; 1850, app. HH. Also from British Colonial Office records series CO47, vols. 132-135 and 139; United States Senate Document no. 23 (1851), and Stuart, Charles B., Report on the Great Western Railway (London, England, 1847), p. 38.Google Scholar St. Lawrence data for 1842 are missing, also all tonnage except wheat and flour for 1845-47 on the St. Lawrence; hence an estimated figure appears for 1848 in Table 1. Fuller explanation may be found in , McIlwraith, “Grain Trade,” pp. 43, 351-55, 371Google Scholar.

28 Cargo volumes eastward from Lake Erie were fairly steady between 1835 and 1839, doubled in 1840, and held steady for several years before rising again; CO47, vols. 139, 140; Canada Assembly Appendices, 1841, app. D, and 1842, app. F; New York Senate Document no. 33 (1842); United States, Eighth Census, pp. cxlviii, cl.

29 Grain volumes—mainly corn—eastward from Lake Erie rose 50 percent over previous levels between 1845 and 1848, and other freight correspondingly. Stuart, Great Western, p. 38; Canada Assembly Appendix, 1850, app. HH; Hunt's, 16 (1847), 364; “First Andrews Report,” pp. 574-75.

30 One observer described the cost of unloading a schooner as comparable to thirty miles of travel through a canal. If one doubles the figure to allow for the most labor-intensive form of reloading (remembering our observer was speaking of canals less than sixty miles in length), it was more efficient to send a cargo through in a laker than to transship—that is, to build a ship-sized canal. Hon. A. Bronson to Lt.-Col. Phillpotts, n.d., transcribed in “Phillpotts' Report,” 2, app. J, 37.

31 Canada Assembly Appendices, 1844-45, app. AA.

32 , Aitken, Welland Canal Company, pp. 59–60Google Scholar.

33 Report of the Board of Works, Province of Canada, as reported in Niagara Chronicle, September 2, 1841.

34 More than 100,000 barrels of flour clogged Kingston harbor at one point in the spring of 1840, being over 20 percent of the entire flour shipment down the St. Lawrence that year. “Phillpotts' Report,” 2, 138-39, and Patriot and Farmers' Monitor, July 17, 1840.

35 , Aitken, Welland Canal Company, pp. 107–9Google Scholar.

36 Easterbrook, T. W. and Aitken, H. G. J., Canadian Economic History (Toronto: Macmillan, 1956), pp. 268–69.Google Scholar Creighton states that there was no doubt in Britain that the loan was to be spent on canals. Creighton, Donald G., The Empire of the St. Lawrence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1938, and Toronto: MacMillan, 1956), pp. 328, 343.Google Scholar, Aitken, Welland Canal Company, p. 134Google Scholar, notes that th e enlarged St. Lawrence canals wer e neede d to demonstrate th e capabilities of th e Welland. Such was th e momentu m that had developed.

37 £1,074,000 was earmarked for spending between 1841 and 1845 from the Lachine to Port Colborne on Lake Erie, and by January 1849, £2,836,000 had been laid out on this section; Niagara Chronicle, September 2, 1841, and Hincks, Francis, Canada: Its Financial Position and Resources (London, 1849), p. 25Google Scholar.

38 On the Maysville Road, see Goodrich, Carter, The Government and the Economy, 1783-1861 (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1967), pp. 42–44Google Scholar, and for the Stop and Tax Law, see Shaw, Erie Water East, ch. 16.

39 , Shaw, Erie Water West, p. 307Google Scholar.

40 This is the theme of Creighton's Empire of the St. Lawrence.

41 The proposed Utica ship canal from Oswego to the Hudson River is reported in the First Report of the Committee on Trade and Commerce, in Upper Canada Assembly Appendices, 1835, app. 11, first p. 20, taken from a report to the citizens of Utica, New York, February 5, 1835. The survey of the American Niagara River canal is reported in the Welland Canal Company's Annual Report for 1836.

42 Evidence on numbers of vessels is extremely scattered, never having been subject to official counts in Canada before mid-century. Among sources giving reports are Niles' Weekly Register, 31 (1826), 87, and 47 (1835), 413; Upper Canada Assembly Appendices, 1826-27, app. N, and 1839-40, vol. 1, pp. 1-20; Canada Assembly Appendices, 1844-45, app. HHH; United States Senate Documen t no. 4 (1847); Picken, Andrew, The Canadas (1832), p. 306Google Scholar; and Barton, James L., Commerce of the Great Western Lakes, 2nd ed. (Buffalo, 1846), p. 19Google Scholar.

43 The round trip passage time comes from calculations using newspaper reports of ship arrivals and departures in the Oswego Palladium during 1839 and th e log of the schooner Prosperity during 1831 (William H. Merritt MSS, Public Archives of Canada, MG24, El, pp. 8498 ff.), and other scattered sources cited in , McIlwraith, “Grain Trade, “pp. 230-31, 236, 243.Google Scholar Vessels laden with bulk cargo took more time than those carrying freight in barrels.

44 Scarcity of vessels is reported in Montreal Gazette, December 10, 1831; Oswego Palladium, July 29, 1835; Niles', 55 (1838), 195, for example.

45 Hunt's, 12 (1845), 389-90; United States, Eighth Census, 1860, vol. 3, “Agriculture,” pp. cxlviii, cl; Upper Canada Assembly Appendices, 1837-38, p. 333; Canada Assembly Appendices, 1850, app. HH.

46 See Encyclopedia Americano, international edition (New York: Americana Corp., 1974), 10, p. 547Google Scholar, regarding the Ericsson screw propeller.

47 Province of Canada, Blue Book, 9 (1843), 262.Google Scholar Sidewheelers had been usable on the Rideau only between locks, and not through them.

48 Dart, Joseph, “The Grain Elevators of Buffalo,” Publications of the Buffalo Historical Society, 1 (1879), 401–2Google Scholar.

49 The Governor of Upper Canada arranged the duty-free importing of milling machinery to the C. & J. MacDonald mill at Gananoque in 1825; Upper Canada Sundries, MSS in Public Archives of Canada, p. 42136. Operation of the provincial steam dredge is mentioned in Upper Canada and Canada Assembly Appendices on many occasions—see 1836-37, p. 347, and 1841, app. R, for example.

50 Philip Vankoughnet, member of the Upper Canada Assembly, describes such a system in hearings before the select committee on the Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Superintend the Improvement of the River St. Lawrence. Upper Canada Assembly Appendix, 1833-34, p. 197.

51 On the American experience, see Haites, Erik F., Mak, James, and Walton, Gary M., Western River Transportation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), p. 108Google Scholar.

52 On the function of the port of Buffalo in the 1840 s, see Thomas D. Odle, “The American Grain Trade of the Great Lakes.1825-1873,” Inland Seas 8 (1952), 177-92, 248-54, and 9 (1953), 52-58, 105-9, 162-68, 256-62.

53 Kirkland, Edward C., Men, Cities and Transportation (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1948), pp. 171–75Google Scholar.

54 , Odle, “trai n Trade,” Inland Seas, 8 (1952), 188, and 9 (1953), 52, 251Google Scholar.

55 Creighton, Empire, ch. 8. Th e resurgence of th e St. Lawrence route is treated in Careless, J. M. S., The Union of the Canadas (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1967), pp. 132–34Google Scholar.

56 Trade betwee n Cleveland and Montreal is th e subject of many of th e letters in th e correspondence of Stanley and Abne r Bagg, Montreal grain merchants, MSS in th e McCord Museum, Montreal. See letters dated January 21, February 25, March 28, 1837, and January 10, January 17, May 20, August 4, and August 8, 1840.

57 , Easterbrook and , Aitken, Canadian Economic History, pp. 290–91Google Scholar.

58 Scheiber, Harry N., Ohio Canal Era (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1969), pp. 258, 260Google Scholar.

59 Childe, J., McAlpine, W. J., and Kirkwood, J. P., Report on the Improvements of the Harbour of Montreal (Montreal, 1857), p. 16Google Scholar.