HAMILTON COUNTY OHIO - History of Hamilton County Ohio (published 1881) Chapter XVI *********************************************************************** OHGENWEB NOTICE: All distribution rights to this electronic data are reserved by the submitter. Reproduction or re-presentation of copyrighted material will require the permission of the copyright owner. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net/oh/ *********************************************************************** File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Tina Hursh frog158@juno.com August 11, 2000 Transcribed by Patti Graman *********************************************************************** Ch 16 Canals - pgs 217-221 *********************************************************************** History of Hamilton County Ohio with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches. Compiled by Henry A. Ford, A.M. and Mrs. Kate B. Ford, L.A. William & Co., Publishers; 1881. Pages: 217-221 ~pg 217~ CHAPTER XVI CANALS Full free o'er the waters our bonny boat glides, Nor wait we for fair winds nor stay we for tides; Through fair fields and meadows-through country and town, All gaily and gladly our course we hold on. From the lake to the river, from river to lake, Full freighted or light, we still leave a wake; From the West bearing all that a rich country yields. To the labor which made the morn glad in the fields. Returning again from the river's bright breast, Bear the products of climes far off to the West, And add to the backwoodsman's comfort and east All that commerce can give by its spoils of the sea. --Old Canal-boat Song THE MIAMI CANAL This enterprise was a part of the canal policy of the State from the beginning. As early as 1815, Dr. DRAKE, of Cincinnati, had suggested the desirability and practicability of a canal from that place to Hamilton, on the Great Miami, and in his book, the picture of Cincinnati, clearly foreshadowed and intelligently discussed the enterprise which took form in the next decade. Governor Ethan Allen BROWN, a citizen of Hamilton County, was the first of Ohio governors in his annual messages to press upon the legislature the necessity of an internal improvement system. December 14, 1819, in his inaugural address, he said, " If we would raise the character of our State by increasing industry and our resources, it seems necessary to improve the communications, and open a cheaper way to market for the surplus produce of a large portion of our fertile country." Thereafter, in his messages to the general assembly, Governor BROWN regularly and faithfully called the attention of that body to the inauguration and maintenance of a system of canals within the State, and the adoption of preliminary measures to that end; and in a special communication of January 20, 1820, to the house of representatives, in answer to a resolution of that branch, he presented elaborate, clear, and well-informed statements concerning the practicability of connecting the Ohio River with Lake Erie by canals. In this message Governor BROWN treated at some length, and with evident favor, the project of a canal through the Miami country. He thought that in the valleys of the Mad River little more than excavation and a few locks of slight lift would be required. Down that river to Dayton and thence down the Great Miami, no very serious obstruction would occur until the hills below Franklin were reached. Near Middletown, as the governor sagaciously observed, the choice of two routes could be had, either down the river to its mouth, or "to turn the canal south into the valley of Mill Creek, towards Cincinnati-the line ultimately adopted. A resolution had already been moved at the previous session for the appointment of a joint committee of the House and Senate, to consider the subject of a canal between the two waters, and the expediency of employing engineers to ascertain the most eligible routes therefor, a resolution passed in committee of the whole, of the House, at the same session, for the appointment of such engineer or engineers-but final action on it had been postponed. The next meeting of the law-making power, however, brought not a mere resolution, but a formal act, dated February 23, 1820, providing for the appointment of three commissioners to locate a route between Lake Erie and the Ohio, and the employment of a competent engineer and all necessary assistants. The action of the commissioners was made contingent upon the consent of Congress to make a sale of public lands within the State to the State, for the purposes of this enterprise; and the provisions caused the temporary failure of the movement, since a measure looking to such sale, although it passed the Senate of the United States, remained among the unfinished business of the lower branch at the next session of Congress, and did not become a law. A new act was passed b the general assembly, January 31, 1822, "authorizing an examination into the practicability o connecting Lake Erie with the Ohio river by a canal." It named - and herein is the germ of the Miami canal in legislation-among the routes to be surveyed on "from the Maumee River to the Ohio River." The governor was authorized to employ "an approved practical engineer" to make the surveys and estimates upon this and three other routes named in the act-all between the lake and the river-with a view to ascertain the practicability of uniting those waters by a navigable canal." Messrs. Benjamin TAPPAN, Alfred KELLY, Thomas WORTHINGTON, Ethan A. BROWN, Jeremiah MORROW, Isaac MINOR and Ebenezer BUCKINGHAM, Jr., were appointed commissioners by the act, to cause the necessary examinations, surveys, and estimates to be made. By a supplementary act of January 27, 1823, Micajah T. WILLIAMS, another distinguished citizen of Hamilton County, was appointed a commissioner, vice Jeremiah MORROW, resigned. Most of the other commissioners remained in service until the canals were constructed, and did eminently faithful, self-sacrificing, and useful duty. Mr. James GEDDES (afterwards Judge GEDDES), of New York, was employed as engineer, on the recommendation of the governor and canal commissioners of that State. He retired within the year and was succeeded in September 1814, by Mr. David S. BATES - also of New York, and also subsequently "Judge" - who remained in the canal service of Ohio as principal engineer until March 1829. Mr. Samuel FORRER, one of the resident engineers, "whose industry, skill and general information," say the commissioners in their second annual report, "Promise him a high standing for usefulness and respectability as a civil engineer," was the officer in charge of the preliminary and subsequent work upon the Miami canal from the first, and, after the completion of the same to Dayton, was superintending engineer of the line from Cincinnati to that place. The law providing for the surveys required the examination of a route "from the Maumee River to the Ohio River." The commissioners, however, in their first annual report (January, 1823), set forth among others, but much more briefly than the others, a "route by the ~pg 218~ sources of the Maumee and the Great Miami rivers." They say: The summit bed of these rivers is ascertained to be about three hundred and ninety-nine feet above Lake Erie and by estimation five hundred and fifty feet above the surface of the Ohio River at low water at Cincinnati. This summit must be supplied with water by a feeder from the Great Miami, at or near the mouth of Indian Creek. From this source the engineer has strong hopes that a sufficient supply can be obtained, but if it should fail, he represents that a copious supply can be drawn through a feeder from Mad River. This canal will be longer than either of the others, and the amount of lockage much greater. From this summit level the engineer states there is no obstacle to prevent a canal from being carried over into the valley of the Auglaize River, which will be much shorter than following the valley of the St. Mary's River. The appended report of Mr. GEDDES, the engineer, locates this summit, or the separation of the Maumee and Miami waters, "near the road, about three miles north of Fort Loramie's," and adds: "Supposing the summit cut down to three hundred and eight-three feet above Lake Erie level, and the descent to the Ohio at Cincinnati estimated at four hundred and thirty-four feet, it would make nine hundred and seventeen feet lockage." In the second annual report of the commissioners, January 1824, the Maumee and Miami line receives further, though still, in comparison with the other routes, brief discussion. It is remarked: The unhealthiness of the season, and other causes which have operated to retard the prosecution of the surveys and examinations, have prevented the location of a line of canal on the western or Miami route. The canal line south from the summit would probably cross Made River near its mouth, thence pursuing the valley of the Great Miami to a point where it may be thrown into the valley of Mill Creek, thence along that valley to Cincinnati. The waters of Mad River may be thrown into this line near Dayton, and those of the Great Miami below, and, being conducted in sufficient quantities to the termination of the canal at Cincinnati, would afford power for extensive and valuable hydraulic works, which are there much needed. This line of canal would pass through a section of country inferior to none in America in the fertility of its soil or the quantity of surplus productions it is capable of sending to market. That part of the canal between Dayton and Cincinnati may be with great ease supplied with water, could probably be constructed for a moderate expense, and would become a source of immediate and extensive profit. In May and the summer of 1824, a locating party, under the direction of the commissioners, ran a line for the proposed "western or Miami route," from the Loramie's and St. Mary's summit to Ohio, by way of Cynthiana, the immediate valley of Loramie's creek to its junction with the Great Miami, thence by the valley of the latter stream and the adjacent upland country to Jackson's creek, at a point seventeen miles above Dayton, to that place by the valley of Mad River, and to Cincinnati by Middletown and the Mill Creek Valley. "From Dayton to Cincinnati this line, sixty-six miles seventy-one chains in length, assumes generally a favorable aspect. Two distinct lines were run into the city-one line without locks until near the point of discharge into the Ohio at the mouth of Deer Creek; the other locking down the valley of Mill Creek past the western part of the upper plain to the lower plain of the city." By December 1825, however, when the commissioners made their fourth annual report, a decision was made in favor of the present line, on the high level, notwithstanding an estimated difference of forty-five thousand dollars in cost in favor of the lower line. The commissioners say: Upon a full investigation of the question of the proper point to terminate the canal, which was made in August last, it was deemed advisable, with reference to all the interests connected with the canal, notwithstanding the estimated difference of cost, to adopt the line upon the high level and terminate the canal at the mouth of Deer Creek. The superior value of the hydraulic privileges afforded by the high level; the favorable position which the mouth of Deer Creek affords, when compared with the other point of termination, for a safe harbor for steam and canal boats, both in high and low waters; the great facility it affords over any other, for the construction of dry and wet docks, which the increasing commerce of the Ohio river and the interests of the public will soon imperiously require; and the prominent and mutual advantage, both to the surrounding country and the city, which the level uninterrupted by locks for a distance of ten miles back into the country will afford; all conspired to produce the conviction upon the minds of the commissioners that the adoption of that line was required by the general interests connected with the work. It will be recollected that, in the last report of the board, calculations were made upon the extent and value of the supplies of water which it was believed could be drawn from the Miami River to this point. With a view to this object, the capacity of the upper end of this section of the canal is enlarged for the purpose of receiving and passing forward a greater supply of water. The first ten miles from the river are constructing, with an increase of one foot in depth, and three feet and a half in the width of the top water line; and the next fifteen miles, with an increase of half a foot in depth, and one foot and three-fourths in the width of the top water line. The increase of the capacity of the canal must proportionally enhance its cost, and is another reason for the apparent disparity between the savings on this line, at contract prices, compared with original estimates, that the other lines under contract. It is however, believed that the cost of this increase of the capacity of a part of the line will be more than reimbursed to the State in the value of the surplus water which is anticipated from it. Propositions have already been made by responsible individuals to contract for the use of the whole amount of surplus water which can be delivered at Cincinnati at the price placed upon it in the last report of the board-twenty thousand dollars. The latter part of this passage implies that the great work of internal improvement had been commenced by the State in the more material portions of it. This was the case with both the Ohio & Erie and the Miami canals. On the second of February 1825, an act of the legislature had been approved "to provide for the internal improvement of the State of Ohio, by navigable canals." It passed the senate by a vote of thirty-four to two and the house representatives by fifty-eight to thirteen. It authorized and empowered the canal commissioners to commence and prosecute the construction of a canal on the Muskingum and Scioto Route, so called, from the mouth of the Scioto to Lake Erie, by way of the Licking summit and the Muskingum river, "and likewise a navigable canal on so much of the Maumee and Miami line as lies between Cincinnati and Mad river, at or near Dayton." This was in pursuance of the next preceding report of the commissioners, which, after full discussion of the several routes proposed, declared it practicable to make canals upon those routes, "both of which," they say, "are of unquestionable importance, and ought to be made by the State, as soon as the necessary funds can be obtained and the wants of the people require them. They therefore recommended a law for the entire construction of the Ohio & Erie, and for that part of the Miami stretching from Cincinnati to Dayton -"leaving to succeeding legislatures to determine when it will be ~pg 219~ expedient to complete the western line to the foot of the Maumee rapids." In making recommendation of the line from Cincinnati to Dayton, "the board had been influenced by a consideration of its cheapness, when compared with the summit level of northern part of the route- the case and certainty with which it can be supplied with water-the population and products of the country through which it passes-the present accommodations which it will give-and the certainty which it promises of profit to the State immediately after its completion." The total length of the line, as surveyed from Cincinnati to the foot of the Maumee rapids, was now reported at two hundred and sixty-five miles, forty-two chains, with a lockage of eight hundred and eighty-nine and four-tenths feet, and estimated cost of two million five hundred and two thousand four hundred and ninety-four dollars. The estimated revenue from this division recommended to be constructed, for the first year after completion, was twenty thousand dollars from tolls and a like sum from the rents of waterpower. Contracts for a number of sections of the authorized lines were promptly made. The first ground broken on the Miami route was at Middletown, in 1825. Mr. S. S. L'HOMMEDIEU, in his pioneer address, April 7, 1874, says that Governor Dewitt CLINTON came from New York to perform the ceremony, and that with him was the Hon. Jeremiah MORROW, then governor of Ohio. They were escorted to the place selected for throwing up the first spade full of earth by the Cincinnati Guards and Hussars. The ceremony was duly performed, amid loud acclamations. The people felt that the canal was really begun, and would soon be a practical and useful reality. In the city, where real estate had much declined, it speedily recovered its prices, and then advanced, and an impetus was given to all kinds of business. The work went briskly forward. By the middle of December 1825, thirty-one thousand nine hundred and ninety-four dollars had been expended upon the line. Within a year from that time, thirty-one of the forty-three miles under contract were completed, and the twelve miles remaining, mostly heavy work at the lower end of the canal, were in such a state of forwardness as to promise completion by the first of the ensuing July. The finished work included nine locks, five aqueducts, twenty stone culverts of three to twenty feet chord, with numerous paved waste weirs, road bridges, etc. There were some delays in the further prosecution of the work; but before the close of 1827, this first division of the canal, extending from the head of Main Street in Cincinnati to the mouth of the Miami feeder, then reported as a distance of forty-four miles, was completed. The commissioners say, in their sixth annual report: On the twenty-eighth of November, three fine boats, crowded with citizens, delighted with the novelty and interest of the occasion, left the basin six miles north of Cincinnati1 and proceeded to Middletown with the most perfect success. The progress of the boats was equal to about three miles an hour, through the course of the whole line, including the detention at the locks and all other causes of delay, which are numerous in a first attempt to navigate a new canal, when masters, hands, and horses are inexperienced, and often the canal itself is in imperfect order. The boats returned to the basin with equal success, and it is understood have made several trips since, carrying passengers and freight. On the fourth of July next previous, the first boat navigating the Ohio & Erie Canal had descended triumphantly from Akron to Cleveland, thirty-eight miles, and was received, in its passage and its entry into the city, with great acclamation. The entire line of the Miami canal, so far as authorized, was now under contract, and to be completed by the first of June 1828. By the seventeenth of March damages caused by floods and the effects of the winter upon the lower part of the route had been repaired so as to admit the passage of boats through from Middletown to Cincinnati. The work elsewhere was unavoidably retarded, to the disappointment of the commissioners; and it was not until the month of November that the entire division from Cincinnati to Dayton was finished. Even then the dam over Mad River, for the feeder from that stream, was incomplete, from injuries received in the floods of January preceding. A feeder from the Miami, a short distance above Middletown, had also been made, and a short side-cut to connect the canal with Hamilton had been constructed at a cost of six to seven thousand dollars, of which all but two thousand was contributed by the citizens of Hamilton and Rossville. The length of the division was sixty-five miles, twenty chains and four links, with nearly three miles of side-cut and feeders. It had cost seven hundred and forty-six thousand eight hundred and fifty-two dollars and seventy cents, averaging per mile ten thousand nine hundred and eighty three dollars and twelve cents-an excess above the estimates, when the cost of connecting the canal with the Ohio river is added, of about one hundred and thirty five thousand dollars. The tolls collected on the lower division of the canal, to the first of December 1828, amounted to eight thousand and forty-two dollars and seventy cents. The tolls received during the next year, the first after the completion of the division, were twenty thousand nine hundred and forty-one dollars and thirty-six cents - a remarkably close approximation to the estimate of the commissioners some years before. The canal board now reports, among other matters: "Navigation has been successfully maintained throughout the season on the canal, with the exception of the interruptions caused by two successive failures in one of the heavy embankments on Mill Creek, by which it was suspended in the aggregate considerably upwards of a month. Contracts have been made for the extension of this canal from the heard of Main Street in the City of Cincinnati, to the termination of the level at the head of Broadway, and for the construction of a section crossing the immediate valley of Deer Creek. It is proposed to put the remainder of the line to the river under contract in the ensuing spring." While the work was in progress, in August 1828, the Western Pioneer, published at Cincinnati, thus made a note of it: The Ohio & Miami canals are advancing steadily. The latter is ex- ~pg 220~ pected to be completed and in operation this fall. This grand enterprise has thus far equaled, if not exceeded, the best expectations of its most sanguine friends, whether in regard of other expense of construction, the utility of the improvement itself, or the amount of revenue arising from it. Forty-two miles only of the Miami canal are in operation, and on that part of the line, too, where, from it contiguity to market, it is best needed, and of course least used. But on this part of the line, we were told by the collector of tolls at Cincinnati a few days ago, that the amount received for the quarter ending on the seventeenth ultimo, for tolls, was about three thousand dollars. It should also be taken into the account that this quarter occupies that part of the year when least produce is taken to market, and when of course the smallest amount of revenue would arise from it. In 1824, as before indicated, the remainder of the route, the division running northwardly from Dayton to the Maumee at Fort Defiance, and thence northeastward along that river to its mouth at the west extremity of Lake Erie, had been located in good part, and the next year it was regularly surveyed. This extension was not in the canal policy of the State, as determined by the original law for the construction of the canals; but happily, by the generous action of the General Government, it was able tin a very few years to provide for the completion of the work. In response to a memorial from the State legislature, backed by pressing solicitation of some of the most eminent citizens of Ohio, Congress, in the session of 1827-1828, made a grant of a quantity of public land equal to one-half of five sections in width, on each side of the route proposed for the canal extension, between Dayton and the Maumee, so far as the same should be, located through the Congress lands. In return it was simply provided that all persons or property of the United States should forever pass over said canals free of tolls. The amount of this grant, as afterwards ascertained, was three hundred and eighty-four thousand acres. Estimating its value by the minimum price put by the Act of Congress upon the reserved alternate sections (two dollars and fifty cents per acre), the market value of the grant at that time was very nearly a million of dollars (nine hundred and sixty thousand dollars). The same act granted the State half a million areas more, in aid of its canals. This grant was conditioned upon the completion within five and its completion within twenty years, on penalty of payment by the State to the Federal Government of the value of the lands. The legislature accepted the former, but declined the latter grant, as it was feared that it might be impossible to fulfill the conditions. The Solons of the State were not over-anxious to pledge it to the excavation of a costly work through a long stretch of country, most of which was still a howling wilderness. In this exigency, by great good fortune, Judge Jacob BURNET, of Cincinnati, in the session of 1829-30, took his seat in the Senate of the United States, as successor of General HARRISON, at once manifested a lively interest in the subject, and presently secured the passage of an act repealing the twenty-year and forfeiture clauses, and making the grant equivalent to five sections for every mile of canal located on land previously sold, as well as that unsold, by the General Government. In pursuance of that measure, the land was located under direction of the governor, and by it, undoubtedly, the extension was effected. The Miami Canal, in its earlier years at least, was a financial success. In 1838, the net tolls, beyond repairs and expense of collection, etc., were two hundred and nine thousand seven hundred and seventy-three dollars, or a little more than four and a half per cent on the cost of construction. In the year 1840, the tolls paid over six per cent, on original cost. The canal is still used to advantage, but the extreme lower end of it, in the city of Cincinnati, was abandoned some years ago and turned into Eggleston Avenue sewer. As these pages are closed a measure is being pressed upon the legislature to allow the abandonment of the canal below the basin near Cumminsville, and give up the berme-bank of the six miles thus vacated for railroad purposes, letting the College Hill narrow-gauge, and very likely other railroads, into the city on their own tracks. A MIAMI SHIP CANAL. For many years, and especially during those immediately following the late was, the project was mooted of deepening and widening the Miami Canal, so as to permit the passage of lake-going vessels to and from the Ohio River. At last Congress, during the session of 1879-80, took cognizance of the movement as of national importance, and made a grant from the treasury sufficient to secure a preliminary survey of the line with a view to its conversion into a ship canal. Captain W. S. Williams, of Canton, in the State, a gentleman of long experience in engineering on Ohio canals, began the survey during the warm season of 1880 from Cincinnati to Paulding Junction, one hundred and eighty miles, whence the work was done to the other terminus by Mr. Ward, a Newark engineer. They report informally that it will be necessary to widen the canal to nearly double its present width, deepen it twelve to fourteen feet, strengthen its banks and solidify its bed, and change its course slightly at some points in Cincinnati, probably abandoning the present canal bed from some point near Cumminsville, and there turning the new canal into Mill Creek. The last suggestion is considered specially important in the city, as enabling its people to carry out the plans so frequently discussed there and by the State board of public works, of abandoning the present canal bed in the city limits, using it for railroad purposes, and converting Mill Creek bottom into a great basin where coal could be shipped without transfer direct from the river to the north, and where an immense amount of water power could be obtained without risk on the part of the State or city. Final action in the matter has not yet been taken, as these pages go through the press. THE WHITEWATER CANAL This extended to Cincinnati from the village of Harrison, on the Whitewater River and Indiana State line, reaching the city by way of the Whitewater, Great Miami and Ohio valleys, entering the latter between Cleves and North Bend, through a tunnel of one thousand and nine hundred feet length, upon the old farm ~pg 221~ of General HARRISON, near his tomb. The Dry Fork of Whitewater and the Little Miami were crossed by aqueducts; Mill Creek by a stone arch. The work was twenty-five miles long, and at Harrison joined the Whitewater canal of Indiana, which extended fifty-five miles further, to the National road at Cambridge, in that state. By this connection it made tributary to Cincinnati a rich and fertile district in Indiana, with an area of nearly three thousand square miles, and was justly considered in its day an important improvement. It also brought a large amount of waterpower to the city, estimated as sufficient to turn ninety runs of millstones. This means for its construction, about eight hundred thousand dollars, were furnished as follows: Fifty thousand dollars by the State of Ohio, forty thousand dollars by the city of Cincinnati, ninety thousand by citizens, in stock subscriptions for shares of one hundred dollars each; and the remainder was raised upon bonds and certificates. A great freshet in December, 1846, swept off the feeder, dam, and a mile of the canal south of Harrison; and in order to make the necessary repairs, the city was again called upon to lend its credit to the amount of thirty thousand dollars to the canal; which was accordingly repaired the next summer and fall. During the latter season the entrance to the canal at Harrison was destroyed by high water, which compelled relocation on higher ground the next year, which the city's financial aid enabled the company to make. The second disaster is rather difficult to account for, if the tradition be true that the enterprise was in view so long before its consummation as 1832, when Mr. E. D. MANSFIELD and others of its intelligent friends at Cincinnati availed themselves of the great flood of that year to get the high water mark at Harrison for a point of beginning, and thence make their calculations for the descent to the city. The canal was not finished until more than ten years afterwards, the first boar upon it reaching the city in November 1843. It was used for a number of years, but in 1863, having been abandoned, its bed within the city limits and the Pearl street market place were leased to the Cincinnati & Indianapolis railroad company, for their tracks and depot, for the sum of six thousand dollars per annum for the first five years. The Plum street depot stands at or near the old terminus, and the remainder of the canal bed or town-path to Harrison is partly used by the railroad. THE LOUISVILLE SHIP CANAL. An enterprise in which shippers and merchants in the Miami country have always felt a healthy interest is the canal around the falls of the Ohio, at Louisville. In 1818 the Jeffersonville Canal Company, for the purpose of constructing such canal, was incorporated by the Indiana legislature, and Jacob BURNET, Henry BECHTLE, and other prominent Cincinnatians, were named in the act as among the directors. The charter was not to expire until 1899, but the canal was to be finished under it by the close of 1824. It was to be two and three-fourths miles long, with an average depth of forty-five feet, a width at the bottom of fifty feet, and at the top of one hundred. The capital stock was one million of dollars, in twenty thousand fifty-dollar shares. The privilege of a lottery, with prizes amounting to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, was also granted, and was faithfully used. The lottery was drawn in April 1819, and the work seems to have been waiting for it, since it was begun almost at once, during the next month. The subsequent history of the canal does not specially concern this chapter. ------------------------------------------------------------ 1 Page 219: The boats were obliged to start from this point on account of the accidental breach in one of the aqueducts, which prevented for a little longer time navigation between the basin and the city.