JAMES RENWICK, LL.D.

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CHAPTER XI.

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Western Limit of the early Settlements on the Mohawk. – Claims of Massachusetts. – These Claims are partially Admitted. – Influx of Emigration from New-England. – Voyage of the Wadsworths. – State Roads. – Western Inland Lock Navigation Company. – Its slow Progress and unsuccessful Result. – Communication between the Hudson and Lake Champlain. – Northern Canal.

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At the close of the Revolutionary war, the extreme western settlements of the State of New-York extended only a short distance beyond the Little Falls of the Mohawk. Even these had been disturbed and driven in during the war, as was Cherry Valley, which had been the scene of a massacre by the united forces of the Indians and Tories. The settlers of the Valley of the Mohawk, except for a short distance above Schenectady, were all of German blood. A relic of Palatines, driven from the banks of the Rhine by the arms of Louis XIV., had received assistance from the government of Queen Anne, and had been directed to the Colony of New-York. Their earliest seat was on the Schoharie Creek, whence for several years their only communication with the other parts of the colony was by a footpath, over which their products were carried on the backs of men, as was even the grain intended to be ground for their own consumption. The settlers in the Valley of the Mohawk made use of the river as far as Schenectady, whence a tolerable carriage-road led to Albany.

The cessation of hostilities speedily led to an extension of cultivation as far as the Indian title had been extinguished; and the enterprising natives of New-England began to turn their eyes towards the new countries of the West, as a receptacle for the swarms of their teeming population.

The State of Massachusetts set up a claim both to the right of the soil and of government of all the country not actually occupied which lay north of the forty-second degree of latitude, and thus to all that part of the state which lies west of Utica. A compromise was effected, by which the jurisdiction was held by New-York, but the right of soil to a large portion of the tract was vested in Massachusetts. Much of this was almost immediately sold to parties who undertook to extinguish the Indian title.

The territory which New-York had retained for itself, namely, all lying east of the Seneca Lake, and extending from Lake Ontario southward to a line nearly coinciding with the southern end of the first-named lake was divided by the Legislature of New-York into lots, which were granted to the soldiers and officers who had served in the State line during the Revolutionary war. The state thus departed from the policy of the colonial government, which had granted large tracts and manors to a few favourites, who had endeavoured to perpetuate the system of leasehold property. Such a tenure was repugnant to the natives of New-England, among whom, in the land of their birth, it was unknown. As the habits of soldiers are rarely adapted to the purpose of clearing and settling a wilderness, many of their lots were speedily offered in the market, and real estate in fee thus became accessible to the emigrant. Even where the great grants made by the State of Massachusetts existed, it became necessary to offer the lands for sale instead of attempting to lease them.

The tide of emigration was thus directed into the western part of the state. Those who proposed to settle embarked at Schenectady in boats, and followed the course of the trader, or of the Indians themselves, through the streams and over the portages we have described.

Among the earliest of these pioneers of civilization were James and William Wadsworth, natives of the State of Connecticut, who left their homes at an early age, and abandoned the society of which, by their education and connexions, they might have been the ornament, for the purpose of reclaiming a wilderness. The voyage of these enterprising men, by the Hudson, which had not ceased to be regarded as perilous, and through the unimproved water-courses, which have been described, would furnish a tale of no little interest, while the recording of the persevering and successful labours would serve as an admirable lesson to the young and ambitious. Understanding fully the prejudices and feelings of their eastern brethren, they saw that no region, however fertile, could allure them to settle in it, if they could not obtain the lands on other terms than those of leasehold. They also knew that the greater part of the emigrating population had no other property than their own strong limbs and resolute spirits, and that thus they could not purchase. They, in consequence, introduced a system of contracts, by which the industrious could be assured of obtaining the fee of their settlements by the fruits of their labours, while the landholder was secured a fair price for his property. This method speedily acquired almost universal adoption, and has contributed in no small degree to peopling the west of the state with a hardy and independent population. It, in fact, did away with all the objections to the immense size of the tracts granted by Massachusetts, which covered all the country west of the Seneca Lake, and formed what would otherwise have been an odious monopoly.

The modes in which the early settlers penetrated to the more remote points, and by which the foreign products that have become the necessaries of civilized life were conveyed to them, were, as may be seen from the account of the original state of the communications, slow and laborious.

The growing importance of the region demanded means of conveyance, which, if not cheaper, should be more rapid, and the state was induced to make a road, which, taking its departure from Utica, was gradually extended to Buffalo. With the state road, two lines of turnpike, the one following the Valley of the Mohawk, the other passing through Cherry Valley, were brought into communication. And, by means of these, the cost of transportation by land was brought to a price as low as that by water, in spite of the improvements which were made in the navigation in the interval.

In the year 1792, a company was chartered under the name of the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company. This association commenced its operations at the Little Falls of the Mohawk, around which a short canal, with a number of locks, was constructed; this was finished in 1796. The next step was to unite the Mohawk with Wood Creek at Fort Stanwix; and, finally an obstruction in the Mohawk at German Flats was overcome by a short cut and two locks. With these works, the improvements of the company ceased in 1799; and, although the charter permitted the extension of its operation to the Seneca Lake, nothing farther was done except in the way of surveys for the improvement of the Oneida outlet. Boats carrying seven or eight tons could, after the improvements which have been mentioned were finished, make their way from the head of the Cayuga and Seneca Lakes to Schenectady; but the voyage was both laborious and dangerous. The labour of men was the principal dependence for progress, as the structure of the vessels allowed sails to be used only when the wind was fair, and as towing-paths did not exist on any part of the communication. The return was still more difficult. The Mohawk, when full, could hardly be ascended at all, and, when less rapid, was so much interrupted by shallows and bars as to cause the most annoying delays, and to render it necessary to limit the upward freight to little more than half of that which could be carried down the stream. Finally, the necessity of discharging at Schenectady, and the long portage thence to Albany, gave to the route by water but little advantage in cost over that by the roads, while it was vastly more tedious.

In this state the communications with the western district remained until the Erie Canal was commenced. That region, expressly suited by nature for the growth of wheat, could not sent it to market, because the cost of transportation from all points to the west of Lake Cayuga exceeded the value in Albany. The fertile district beyond this lake was therefore either to be condemned to solitude, or to be thrown into dependance on the British possessions in Canada. But this danger was not limited to the State of New-York; the whole of the shores of the upper lakes, a region of much greater extent and almost equal fertility, was in the same position. A temporary impulse was given to the cultivation of the western district during the war of 1812, when the demand for the supply of the armies brought a market to the doors of the settlers; and now, for the first time, money entered into the operation of trade, which had hitherto consisted of little more than barter and credits on the books of the merchants. In 1810, Buffalo counted only forty houses, while the present site of Rochester exhibited a clearing of a few acres and a single log house.

The statesman who took the lead in procuring the act of incorporation of the Western Navigation Company was General Schuyler. He has not hesitated to avow his obligations for hints derived from Elkanah Watson; but the soul of the undertaking existed in the enterprising merchants of the City of New-York, who were willing to adventure their capital in this bold undertaking. Among these are particularly to be noticed Robert Bowne, Thomas Eddy, and John Atkinson. The operations of the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company were of considerable benefit to the public, and, until the roads of which we have spoken were constructed, furnished the only channel for trade; but they were wholly unproductive to their stockholders, upon some of whom they entailed ruin, and they ceased to be of any real value to the public after the system of turnpikes was introduced, except by maintaining a competition. The inefficiency of the operations of this company grew out of a radical defect in its plans. The object which was kept continually in view was that of improving the navigation of natural streams in their own beds, as contradistinguished to the method of making an artificial channel to serve as a substitute for the stream throughout its whole course, with its obvious extension into canals over grounds lying far from any natural water-course.

So long as mere preliminary calculations were alone resorted to, it might have been thought best to improve the means afforded by nature; the original cost of such operations is the least, and it might be hoped that the low rate of tolls which would be the consequence would more than compensate any extra cost in propelling the vessels. By actual trial, however, all such calculations have been shown to be unfounded; for the difficulties and delays which attend a navigation in the bed of a stream, subject to alternate floods and droughts, are such as to set all calculations at defiance; and the uniform result of experience is, that the transportation on a canal wholly artificial is far less costly than any attempt at improving the bed of a turbulent and variable river. It is probable, however, that, had this fact been well understood, the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company would never have entered upon its enterprise; for the capital for a canal even from Albany to Utica could not have been collected among individuals at so early a date, and a knowledge of the true state of the case would have prevented the little that was subscribed from being contributed. The ill success of this enterprise was made use of as an argument against any further operations; and it was urged that, where individual enterprise had failed, the state could not hope to be successful.

On the other hand, it was fortunate that this enterprise had not been attended with such profitable results as to induce its proprietors to desire to retain the chartered privileges they possessed, and thus to prevent action on the part of the state. It would, in truth, have been a most disastrous circumstance had this great line of internal communication become private property. The delays, which the public did not regard, and the obstacles, which the sovereign power overcame with facility, would have disheartened a private association or prevented its progress; but, in the event of complete success, a monopoly would have been created which would have had interests very different from those of the public, and a continual struggle, fatal perhaps to the one, and injurious to the other, must have been the result.

It has been reserved for the experience of the State of New-York, when compared with that of some of its neighbours, to exhibit the advantage of keeping the great lines of internal communication in the hands of the sovereign power. It has also solved the question of the propriety of contracting a debt to be applied to the purposes of public improvement. The experience of New-York has, indeed, been more fortunate than could have been anticipated; for the interest of the debt has not only been paid, but the principal in a great measure extinguished by the profits of the enterprise. But it hardly requires a demonstration to prove that, even had the New-York canals failed to pay the interest on their cost, the state must still have derived a benefit, which would have rendered a tax to pay this interest no real burden to the community; and we shall find it recorded, to the credit both of the subject of our memoir and of the Legislature of the state, that, when the practicability of the canals was once ascertained, a resort even to direct taxation, that bugbear of aspiring politicians, would not have been a barrier to their proceedings.

Besides the route from Albany to the westward, the continuous valleys of the upper Hudson and Lake Champlain pointed out a channel for an artificial navigation to the north. There was a time when the latter appeared even more important than the former. It was, when the subject of canals first attracted the attention of the Legislature, the seat of a more dense population and more extensive commerce. Circumstances in the soil and climate, however, have prevented this region from increasing in wealth as rapidly as the West. The line of the Hudson attracted attention even earlier than that of the Mohawk, and was intended to have been rendered practicable by a lock navigation, under a charter granted the same year as that of the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company. It was also improved by the state at the same time with the Erie Canal; but the results and consequences of this enterprise fell far short of those of the Western Canal. We shall not have occasion to refer to them hereafter, but can speak of the Northern Canal as a most praiseworthy enterprise, which has fulfilled every expectation that could have reasonably been formed in respect to it.

It is in its bearing upon the defence of the country that the Champlain Canal is most apparent. The United States is more vulnerable by the line of that lake and the Hudson than in any other part, and in two successive wars the British government has chosen it for the direction of hostile operations. At present, by the aid of steam communications on the river and lake, and of the canal which joins them, the same army may be ready to act, as circumstances may direct, in the defence of the City of New-York, or on the Northern frontier; and within four days, a body of troops collected on the seacoast to oppose invasion, may, if the danger of descent be over, be threatening Montreal or moving upon Quebec. The latter is the key of the more valuable British possessions; and, should hostilities again arise, it is hardly probable that, in defiance of the experience of the late war, the importance of acting against it, to the exclusion of all other objects, will be overlooked.

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Transcribed from the original text and html prepared by Bill Carr, last updated 12/10/99.