In the session of 1808, Mr. J. Forman, being then a member of the assembly from Onondaga county, after an appropriate preamble, referring to President Jefferson's message of the preceding year, in which he had suggested the propriety of devoting so much of the national revenue as the exigencies of the government did not require to making roads and canals, proposed 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." If we except the bill introduced into the assembly, by Jeffrey Smith, in 1786, which has been already noticed, this is the first legislative measure that had reference to a direct canal from the Hudson to Lake Erie of which there is any record. The following letter from Mr. Forman, in answer to one addressed to him by me, soliciting more detailed information relative to his services than had appeared in the public journals, contains so ample and interesting a story of his measures, the circumstances which induced them, and the important results which flowed from them, that further comment, on my part, is rendered unnecessary.

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Letter from Joshua Forman.

DEAR SIR,

In answering your kind letter, requesting such information as I can communicate of the early history of the canal, with a view to do justice to the claims of all who took an interest in that great work, I shall endeavour to state such facts and circumstances, in relation thereto, as appear to me important to be known, with the candour that the subject merits; submitting to the soundness of your judgment, and the justness of your intentions, to give such importance to them as they deserve.

"Whereas, the President of the United States, by his message to Congress, delivered at their meeting in October last, did recommend, that the surplus moneys in the treasury, over and above such sums as could be applied to the extinguishment of the national debt, be appropriated to the great national objects of opening canals and making turnpike roads. And whereas, the state of New-York, holding the first commercial rank in the United States, possesses within herself the best route of communication between the Atlantic and western waters, by means of a canal between the tide-waters of the Hudson River and Lake Erie, through which the wealth and trade of that large portion of the union, bordering on the upper lakes, would for ever flow to our great commercial emporium. And whereas, the legislatures of several of our sister states have made great exertions to secure to their own states, the trade of that widely extended country, west of the Alleghany, under natural advantages vastly inferior to those of this state. And whereas, it is highly important that those advantages should, as speedily as possible, be improved, both to preserve and increase the commercial and national importance of this state: - Therefore,

Fired with the novelty and importance of my project, and somewhat piqued at the manner of its reception in the house, I took pains to prepare myself on the subject, conversed with several of the members at their rooms, and when it was called up, addressed the house in support of the resolution. I stated in evidence of its being practicable, that after following the valley of the Mohawk to Rome, it would have the valley of the Oneida and Seneca Rivers to the head of Mud Creek, an uncommonly flat country; and from the west, (if no better route was found,) from Niagara up the Tonnewanta and down Allen's Creek to the Genesee River, the intermediate country, although nothing particularly favourable was known, yet as there was no high mountains or large rivers intervening, it would most likely be found practicable without any of those expensive tunnels or aqueducts common to canals in Europe. I presented a probable estimate of its cost, calculated from that of the Languedoc Canal, at 4,500,000 dollars; this doubled, for the advanced price of labour, which I considered a large allowance, and adding a million for inexperience, gave 10,000,000 dollars, in my opinion an ample estimate for the work, which must appear a bagatelle to the value of such a navigation, whether considered in relation to the state, in improving the western district, and enriching the city of New-York by the trade of the rich and growing country bordering on the western lakes; or as respected the United States, whose forty or fifty millions of acres of land, bordering on the lakes, would be enhanced in value beyond the whole expense by causing their rapid settlement, form a dense frontier barrier towards Canada, and by forming an outlet for their trade through our own territory, instead of its flowing down the St. Lawrence, it would be an indissoluble bond of union between the Western and Atlantic states - and I recollect distinctly observing, that it would chain them to our destinies in any national convulsion.

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MONTICELLO, Dec. 12, 1822.

I thank you, dear sir, for the little volume [Letters of Hibernicus] sent me on the natural history and resources of New-York. It is an instructive, interesting, and agreeably written account of the riches of a country to which your great canal gives value and issue, and of the wealth which it creates, from what without it would have had no value. Although I do not recollect the conversation with Judge Forman, referred to in page 131, I have no doubt it is correct, for that I know was my opinion; and many, I dare say, still think with me that New-York has anticipated, by a full century, the ordinary progress of improvement. This great work suggests a question, both curious and difficult, as to the comparative capability of nations to execute great enterprises. It is not from greater surplus of produce, after supplying their own wants, for in this New-York is not beyond some other states; is it from other sources of industry additional to her produce? This may be; - or is it a moral superiority? a sounder calculating mind, as to the most profitable employment of surplus, by improvement of capital, instead of useless consumption? I should lean to this latter hypothesis, were I disposed to puzzle myself with such investigations; but at the age of 80, it would be an idle labour, which I leave to the generation which is to see and feel its effects, and add therefore only, the assurance of my great esteem and respect.

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The story has found its way into the newspapers without mention of my name; but as the whole proceeding had been without any newspaper remarks, and the discoveries of Judge Geddes so recent, there cannot remain a doubt that the communication made by me was the first he had heard on the subject, and I think he was not a little surprised so soon to have such a claim made on his proposed fund for internal improvement. Although I have not conversed with Mr. Kirkpatrick on the subject, I have no doubt of his recollecting the conversation, and I confidently appeal to him for the correctness of the statement.

The report of Judge Geddes in Canal Documents, Vol. 1. p. 13 to 38, proving beyond a doubt the practicability of a canal on the interior route, and putting at rest all further question of the one through Lake Ontario, came in during the session of 1808-9, and rendered the project of such a canal as a feasible one, familiar to a great body of the men of intelligence in the state. The board of commissioners, appointed under General Platt's resolution of the ensuing session, took this report from the office of the surveyor-general, and with it in their hands explored the route there designated, and satisfied with his examination, never caused any surveys with a view to the Ontario route - and the surveys and plans at the Boyle summit and Gerundegut embankment, comparing exactly with the canal as now executed, establish incontestably its identity as the first stage of that splendid work which reflects so much credit upon the state and nation. Judge then my surprise, (when after the middle section was competed, all opposition having ceased, both parties were competing which should gain popularity by forwarding the canal policy, and a scramble had commenced for the credit of originating the measure,) to see it stated by Ferris Pell, in his Review, page 177, that a resolution introduced by me in 1808, "was adopted and resulted in nothing." He then dates the origin of the canal from Judge Platt's resolution, and divides the honour between him, Governor Clinton, and Thomas Eddy, as the suggestor of the measure.

Some time after, Colonel Haines professing to write the history of the canal, gives nearly the same account of the matter, denying that any thing was done under the resolution of 1808. Although I had not been so ambitious of fame as to enter the lists in the general scramble with Elkanah Watson and others, I was not satisfied to see the thing falsely stated, and called on Col. Haines for an explanation. He told me he had been so informed by the surveyor-general and by Thomas Eddy, who had furnished him the article published in his work. On my way home, I asked the surveyor-general how he could tell Colonel Haines that nothing had been done under my resolution, when he must remember Geddes' survey. He denied telling him so, but said he could find nothing in his office relating to it, and had told Colonel Haines so, and that he did not know what had become of Geddes' Report. I then informed him that the commissioners under the resolution of 1810, to whom he had loaned it, had left it on their travels, where it would have been irrecoverably lost, had not the person who found it, seeing the name of Judge Geddes in it, sent it to him, where it had remained safe for several years, while such a disposition had been manifested to cover up and deny the whole affair. The report was soon after procured, and deposited in the secretary's office, where the original resolution required it to be places, and in the end is published in its proper place among the Canal Documents.

I should have been satisfied, so far as I am concerned, to rest the decision of the question to posterity on the face of the Documents, had not the surveyor-general, in a letter to William Darby, published in Canal Doc. Vol. I. p. 38, (I know not with what propriety,) given a new turn to the investigation. He states a question that had arisen in relation to the Erie Canal - "Who is most entitled to the honour of it;" and although he admits most conclusively, p. 41, that the investigations of 1808 settled the question - "that a canal from Lake Erie to Hudson's River was not only practicable, but practicable with uncommon facility," yet as he awards to Gouverneur Morris the credit of first starting the idea of a direct communication by water, between Lake Erie and Hudson River, to him in a conversation in 1803, which he considered "a romantic thing, characteristic of the man," and related it as such to Judge Geddes in 1804. He (Judge Geddes) told it to Jesse Hawley, and he published some essays in the newspapers, and then states that I brought in a resolution to survey the rivers, streams, and waters in the usual route of communication between the Hudson and Lake Erie - giving an impression that my resolution had grown out of that suggestion of Gouverneur Morris, and by suppressing the terms of my resolution for a direct canal, and substituting the words of the joint committee, deprives it of its importance, and causes it to be inferred that his and Judge Geddes' preconceived notions led them to look for the interior route. Now I do most solemnly declare, that the idea of a direct canal was original with me, whoever else had thought of it before - that I had never heard of Gouverneur Morris' suggestions, nor of Mr. Hawley's essays - that when it was broached by Judge Wright, he then, and has always since said, it was entirely new to him - that when it came into the house, it was treated as at once new and visionary - for several years I was called visionary projector, and have been asked hundreds of times if ever I expected to see my canal completed; to which I uniformly answered, that I did as surely as I lived to the ordinary age of man - that it might take ten years to get the public mind prepared for the undertaking, and as many more to accomplish it. No man suggested to me that I was building on another's foundation, until the spring of 1810, when I saw it suggested in a newspaper, that the idea was derived from Hawley's essays in the Geneva paper, which I did not take, and not having attracted sufficient notice to be republished, had never come to my knowledge. I have seen them very cursorily in a file of paper in the hands of General Granger, when he was a senator, and think Mr. Hawley entitled to much credit for his efforts to call public attention to an inland navigation through the country; but whether his views actually amount to a direct canal, or a combination of canal and improved river navigation, I cannot recollect. I never claimed that I first thought of such a plan, nor is that the question in issue; but I do claim to have been the first man who, having conceived the idea, appreciated its importance, and set about carrying it into effect, and by the happy expedient of turning the eyes of the legislature to the general government for its accomplishment, induced them to take the first steps in a project too gigantic for them to have looked for at a moment as an object to be accomplished by the means of the state. Gouverneur Morris had travelled, and seen canals in other countries, and no doubt had bright visions of the future improvements of this country, and occasionally astonished his friends by detailing them in conversation; but 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 to the legislature. The surveyor-general thought of those suggestions only to relate them for their extravagance, and Judge Geddes, a member of the legislature, at the time he heard them, was not so impressed by them as to offer any proposition to the legislature on the subject. His suggestions, therefore, had produced no action - they had literally sunk into the earth, and in reality had no more effect in producing the canal than the ancient poet's song of the Fortunate Islands beyond the Atlantic had in producing the discovery of America; and no man can now point out the person who, had I not done it, would have at once conceived the idea, appreciated its importance, and had the moral courage to meet the ridicule of proposing so wild a measure in earnest. It might have lain for years, and at length a canal been made to Lake Ontario, towards which public attention was then directed, had not the ice been broken by that resolution, and an impetus given to a direct canal by the discoveries made under it.

I have ever felt that justice has not been done to the importance of that measure by those who have written on the subject, which I can only account for by supposing each claimant of honour thought his own share would be the greater by depreciating that of others, and have sat still in the confidence that some impartial historian would discriminate between the importance of thinking of a thing and doing it - between taking the first step and any other in the same course. An incident evincive of this spirit occurred at the canal celebration, with assurances of their "high consideration" and "the first legislative projector of the greatest improvement of the age."

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{ROCHESTER, October 19, 1819 (?).

Dear Sir,

It having been mentioned to our committee of arrangements for celebrating the completion of the Erie Canal, that the first legislative proceedings ever had, in relation to this great work, were upon a resolution offered by yourself in 1808, as a member of the assembly from the county of Onondaga, it was instantly and unanimously resolved to invite you to participate in the approaching celebration, as a guest of the citizens of Rochester.

In transmitting the invitation of our committee, we beg leave to add assurances of our high consideration and esteem for the first legislative projector of the greatest improvement of the age.

JOSHUA FORMAN, Esq.

P.S. Our celebration is on the 27^th inst. The favour of an answer is respectfully requested.

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I attended the celebration at Rochester, and heard from the orator, in the presence of thousands, a highly honourable notice of the measure introduced by me, and the important results growing out of it. You may appreciate my feelings when, afterwards reading the printed oration, I found that paragraph suppressed. I have never inquired by whom or for what purpose it was done.

I returned, with the committees, in the Rochester boat as far as Weed's Basin, and from thence pushed on, by land, to Syracuse, to aid in having all things in readiness for their reception. There I found the Syracuse committee had depended on me as president of the village to address the governor and committees on their arrival. It occurred to me, that, as the over-zealous advocates of Governor Clinton had been in the habit of attributing to him the originating as well as the execution of the canal project, it was a fair occasion, by giving him credit for what was his just due (and great indeed it was), to furnish him an opportunity of disclaiming such meretricious honour. There were but two or three hours to spare, in which I drew up the address subjoined, as copied from the Syracuse Gazette, Nov. 2^d, 1825.

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Gentlemen,

The roar of cannon rolling from Lake Erie to the ocean, and reverberated from the ocean to the lake, has announced the completion of the Erie Canal; and you are this day witnesses, bearing the waters of the lakes on the unbroken bosom of the canal to be mingled with the ocean, that the splendid hopes of our state are realized. The continued fete which has attended your boats, evinces how dear it was to the hearts of our citizens. It is truly a proud day for the state of New-York. No one is present, who has the interest of the state at heart, who does not exult at the completion of a work fraught with such important benefits; and no man, with an American heart, that does not swell with pride that he is a citizen of the country which has accomplished the greatest work of the age, and which has filled Europe with admiration of the American character. On the 4^th day of July, 1817, it was begun and is now accomplished - not by the labour of abject slaves and vassals, but by the energies of freeman, and in a period unprecedently short - by the voluntary efforts of its freemen, governed by the wisdom of its statesmen. This, however, is one of the many benefits derived from our free institutions, and which marks a new era in the history of man, the example of a nation whose whole physical power and intelligence are employed to advance the improvement, comfort, and happiness of the people. To what extent this course of improvement may be carried, it is impossible for any mere man to conjecture; but no reasonable man can doubt, that it will continue its progress, until our wide and fertile territory shall be filled with a more dense, intelligent, and happy people, than the sun shines upon in the wide circuit of the globe. It has long been a subject of fearful apprehension to the patriot of the Atlantic states, that the remote interior situation of our western territory (for want of proper stimuli to industry and free intercourse with the rest of the world) would be filled with a semi-barbarous population, uncongenial with their Atlantic neighbours; but the introduction of steamboats on our lakes, and running rivers and canals to connect waters which nature has disjoined, (in both which this state has taken the lead, and its example has now become general,) have broken down the old barriers of nature, and promise the wide spread regions of the west all the blessings of a seaboard district. But while we contemplate the advantages of this work, as a source of revenue to the state and of wealth and comfort to our citizens, let us never forget the means by which it has been accomplished; and after rendering thanks to the All-wise Disposer of events, who has, by his own means and for his own purposes, brought about this great work, we would render our thanks to all citizens and statesmen who have, in and out of the legislature, sustained the measure from its first conception to its present final consummation. To the commissioners who superintended the work, the board of engineers (a native treasure unknown till called for by the occasion), and especially to his excellency the governor, whose early and decided support of the measure, and fearlessly throwing his character and influence into the scale, turned the poising beam, and produced the first canal appropriation, - keeping the public opinion steady to the point. Without his efforts in that crisis, the canal project might still have been a splendid vision, - gazed on by the benevolent patriot, - but left, by cold calculators, to be realized by some future generation. At that time all admitted, that there was a high responsibility resting on you; and, had it failed, you must have largely borne the blame. It has succeeded! and we will not withhold from you your due meed of praise.

Gentlemen, in behalf of the citizens of Syracuse and of the county of Onondaga here assembled, I congratulate you on this occasion. Our village is the offspring of the canal, and, with the county, must partake largely of its blessings. We were most ungrateful, if we did not most cordially join in this great state celebration.

Judge Forman having concluded his address, Governor Clinton replied in a very happy and appropriate manner. In the course of which he adverted to the important views presented in the address, and observed, that they were such as he had expected from an individual who introduced the first legislative measures, relative to the canals, and had devoted much thought and reflection to the subject. His excellency also adverted to the prosperous condition of Syracuse and of the county, and concluded by expressing his congratulations on the final accomplishment of this great work.

N.B. The above address was printed in my absence from the hasty draft, and has many errors and omissions, which the reader will readily supply. In one instance, before the words "keeping the public opinion," &c. a whole line is omitted, - "by his talents and exertions" keeping the public opinion steadily to the point. - J.F.

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Gov. Clinton in his reply, which was short, adverted to the important views presented in the address, and with great candour observed, they "were such as he had expected from an individual who had introduced the first legislative measure relative to the canal, and who had devoted much thought and reflection to the subject." And walking from the boat to the hotel, Gen. Tallmadge being on my left and Gov. Clinton on my right, he remarked, that I had been very happy in the address, and that he was gratified with the discrimination I had made; which expressions were distinctly recollected by the general, in a late conversation with him on the subject.

As one of a committee from Syracuse, I attended the fete to the mingling of the waters of Lake Erie with the ocean off Sandy Hook; and from that day to the receipt of your letter, have been attending to my own concerns, satisfied with having, in any degree, contributed to so great a public benefit - and trusting that an impartial posterity would render to each person concerned his just meed of praise. Nor should I have deemed it at all important to have detailed these facts, occurring since the contest for fame began, had not the singular circumstance occurred, that the origin of a great public work, but just completed, should so soon be involved in obscurity, and the facts, relating to its incipient stated, confidently denied, so that thousands who are experiencing the benefits of the canal, are in doubt to whom they are indebted for the boon, instead of possessing such a clear statement of the case as would enable them justly to appreciate the share each person took in it, from its conception to its final consummation.

I submit these facts and remarks, hastily thrown together, to your discretion, to make such use of them as you shall think proper.

TO DAVID HOSACK, M.D.

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Mr. Ellicott's communication, says Tacitus, also contained a perspicuous description of the country, and was accompanied by an explanatory map. All which papers, it is added, with the writing of Mr. Hawley, were in the possession of the canal commissioners, appointed in 1810; and, unquestionably, the idea adopted by that board, of the Erie canal originated from these investigations, fortified by the observations under their direction.

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