Governor Clinton's Observations relative to the Hampshire and Hampden Canals.

The following letter, (says the editor of the New-Haven Herald,) from the late Governor Clinton, will be read by all who feel an interest in the extensive internal improvements, in operation or contemplated, in this and the neighbouring states. The opinion and estimates of this scientific and disinterested person, whose experience in canalling operations was not inferior to that of any man now living, and who could not have been biassed by any interested motive whatever, are worthy of the greatest deference and respect.

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To Samuel Hinckley, James Hillhouse, and Thomas Sheldon, Esqrs. a committee of the Hampshire and Hampden Canal Company.

GENTLEMEN,

In consequence of an invitation from the canal company, of which you are a committee, I had the pleasure to accompany you, and a number of other respectable gentlemen, interested in the cause of internal improvement, from New Haven in Connecticut to Barnet in Vermont. Our object was to inspect the Farmington and the Hampshire and Hampden canals, which are in a train of rapid completion, and to explore the valley of the Connecticut river, with a view to the further extension of artificial navigation. In the performance of this tour I experienced the most hospitable attentions from you, and the inhabitants of the country through which we passed, and which it affords me no common pleasure to acknowledge. Having no other object in view than the interest of internal improvement, I should greatly regret if my visit was misconstrued into an intrusive intermeddling with the concerns of other states, or an officious interference with existing controversies. In the few observations which I intend to make, I shall not touch upon the comparative advantages of improved river or canal navigation, but shall confine myself exclusively to the practicability, advantages, and expense of constructing a canal, from the termination of the Hampshire and Hampden canal to Barnet in Vermont.

It is admitted on all sides that this measure is practicable. Indeed, any engineer pretending to deny it, would ruin his professional reputation, and would exhibit the extremity of ignorance. The only mode to impeach the proceeding, is to surround it with imaginary difficulties, to magnify the expense, and depreciate the advantages. Whether this course has been pursued I know not; but if it has, it reflects no great credit on the candour and judgment of those who have adopted it.

The route from Northampton to Barnet presents no insurmountable difficulties, and but in a few cases, extraordinary ones. Much greater ones have been overcome in the construction of the Erie canal.

The country on both sides of the Connecticut river is abundantly supplied with rivers and streams which run into that river, and which furnish all the water requisite for canal navigation. The high hills and mountains which adjoin the beautiful and fertile valley of that magnificent river, will be the sources of inexhaustible and perennial supplies; and the great precaution to be observed in constructing a canal, is to carry it above the highest floods of the Connecticut river, which, I believe, do not exceed twenty-five feet. If high bluffs extend into the river, they may in some instances be cut through, and in others the canal may be carried around them, as has been successfully done in the Erie canal, and at all events, and in the worst supposable cases, they may be avoided by aqueducts across Connecticut river. The whole difficulty will finally be resolved into a question of expense, and this is indeed the predominating consideration.

The expense of the Farmington canal extending from New-Haven to the Massachusetts line, and about fifty-six miles in length, has been estimated at 420,000 dollars, and the Hampshire and Hampden canal, from the south line of Massachusetts to Northampton, thirty miles, at 290,000 dollars. And it is believed that the works so far as completed fully establish the correctness of the estimates. This would not exceed 8000 dollars a mile. The distance from Northampton to Brattleborough is about forty-eight miles, and it is a very liberal estimate to put down the aggregate cost of a canal at 505,275 dollars. The distance from Brattleborough to Barnet is one hundred and seventeen miles, which at 9000 dollars a mile, would cost for a canal 1,053,000 dollars. The expense of the whole extent of a canal from New-Haven to Barnet would be upon the result of the finished works, and the estimate of the unfinished operations, less than 10,000 dollars a mile; and all our experience with respect to canals, since the construction of the Erie canal, demonstrates beyond doubt, that the maximum expense of any given canal of any considerable extent, not passing over or under high mountains, will not exceed on an average 10,000 dollars a mile.

The remaining inquiry is, whether the resulting advantages will warrant such a great and expensive undertaking?

A canal, as to its results, may be contemplated in a double view? First, as to public benefit; and secondly, as to the profits of the stockholders or proprietors. If productive of great public advantages, there is a strong probability that it will be beneficial to the stockholders who have made investments; for the amount of toll will depend on the quantity of articles transported, and from the quantity of commodities conveyed to and from market, must flow the benefits to the community. That a great, cheap, and a safe highway, from a distance of three hundred and fifty miles near the ocean, into a flourishing country, abounding with the productions of the soil, forests, and mines, and the fabrics of manufactures, covered with cities, towns, and villages filled with a dense population, and the residence of an enterprising and industrious people; that such a country should not derive invaluable blessings from such an operation, no one can pretend to deny. Sources of benefit would be opened of which we cannot now form a conjecture. Motives to exertion - excitements to industry would be created, which are now beyond the reach of human foresight. Towns and villages would spring up in every direction, and the wilderness and the solitary place will become glad, and the desert rejoice and blossom as the rose.

This extended canal, besides the business which it would derive from a fertile expanse of country on both sides of the valley of the Connecticut river, would engross all the trade of the great region from Barnet to the north at an immense distance, and far above the line which separates the United States from the British dominions. The transit duties arising from the descending commodities will be equalled by those arising from the ascending merchandize; for the difference in the bulk of the articles would be made up by the difference in the amount of the tolls: and a country will generally receive for the supply of its own wants an equivalent for what it advances for the wants of others.

It is not an unfair standard of comparison - an unjust measure of appreciation, to estimate the avails of the contemplated line of canals by the proceeds of the Champlain canal, which during the last year amounted to 85,000 dollars; and the expense is about one-fourth. At the same rate the proposed canal of two hundred and fifty miles, would produce annually 340,000 dollars which would be upwards of twelve percent. on an expenditure of two millions and a half of dollars.

DE WITT CLINTON.

ALBANY, Jan. 18^th, 1828.

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Transcribed from the original text and html prepared by Bill Carr, last updated 5/22/99.