USA > Connecticut > The Connecticut River and the valley of the Connecticut, three hundred and fifty miles from mountain to sea; historical and descriptive > Part 24
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Valley. When the boats were speeding under a spanking breeze and there was rest from poling, their songs echoed over the River banks : and some of them were glorious singers. Marvellous tales are told of their wondrous strength. There was one "Bill" Cummins, who was wont jauntily to " lift a barrel of salt with one hand by putting two fingers in the bung-hole, and set it from the bottom timbers " of a boat " on top of the mastboard."
As traffic increased, or after the opening of the Enfield Canal, larger freight-boats were constructed. The per- fected type was a flatboat of stout oak, averaging seventy feet in length, twelve or thirteen in width at the bow, ten at the stern, and fifteen at the mast, which stood about twenty-five feet from the bow. In the stern was a snug cabin. The mast was high, rigged with shifting shroud and forestays, a topmast to be run up when needed, the mainsail about thirty by eighteen feet, and the topsail twenty- four by twelve feet. The capacity of this class of boat was from thirty to forty tons. Smaller boats, generally built in the Upper Valley, were of about twenty-five tons bur- den. These were without cabins. The captain and crew of the larger type lived on board during the voyage north and return ; the crews of the smaller craft boarded at farm- houses along shore. The passage was made only in the daytime, the boats being tied up to the shore at night. The upward course naturally occupied the longer time, the length varying with the wind. The average time was twenty days for the up-trip from Hartford to Wells River, and ten days down to tide-water. Sometimes the voyage up and return was made in twenty-five days. Between Hartford and Bellows Falls the round trip averaged about two weeks. The downward voyage from Bellows Falls usually occupied three days, Northfield being made the
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first day, Springfield the second, and Hartford the third.
At several points helpers had to be employed beside the crews of polemen. About Bellows Falls particularly difficulties were not infrequently encountered which profited the pockets of the dwellers in the neighborhood. When a strong south wind was blowing boats coming down stream after leaving the canal became entangled in the eddy of the River at this point, the contrary currents being much stronger then than now. A rope running through a ring on a post, which was set into the River at the south end of the eddy, was provided, by which a boat could be pulled into the outward current by helpers. One "Old Seth Hapgood," who lived near by, was for years especially active in this work, keeping a pair of oxen in readiness for it. Hitching his team to one end of the post-rope, the other end of which was fastened to the boat, he would bestride the "nigh " ox, drive out into the River as far as possible, and tug into the proper current. It became a common saying among River men that "Old Seth Hapgood prayed every morning for a south wind." At Enfield Falls, on the up voyage, as many men as there were tons of freight on board were required to pole a boat over the rapids except when the wind was favorable. Only about ten or twelve tons could be carried over, the excess of cargo being carted around by wagons, and reshipped at Thompsonville, five miles above Warehouse Point. The extra polers were called " Fallsmen." It required about a day to make the passage.
Barnet, ten miles above Wells River village, was the ultima thule of navigation, the Fifteen-Miles Falls barring all boat progress beyond that point. But Wells River vil- lage remained the practical head of the river transporta- tion. With the opening of the upper canals larger amounts
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of goods began to be brought up to this depot and distrib- uted thence by wagons and carts farther up country. The records of a storage warehouse here, from 1810 to 1816, quoted by the historian of Newbury, show that towns sixty miles north received their supplies in this way. The cost of transportation fluctuated with the circumstances attend- ing it, and the changing rates of the canal tolls. In the early twenties the combined tolls between Hartford and Wells River averaged four dollars a ton. The added ex- pense of extra help on the up voyage and pilotage down, brought the average total cost to nearly six dollars a ton each way.
Still the River transportation business grew and con- tinued profitable to the boating companies and the lower River towns ; and for a considerable period they controlled the best of the the up-country trade during the boating seasons, though competitors from other directions were pressing in. Till the eighteen-twenties the chief compe- tition was with the eastern seaport towns, connected with the north by way of the Middlesex Canal from Boston to the Merrimack River, built largely by Boston capital, and opened in 1803. By this way freight was transported up the Merrimack to Concord, New Hampshire, without break- ing bulk, and thence teamed north. Through transporta- tion rates, however, were higher than by way of Hartford and our River. Projects were early conceived for extend- ing the eastern system to the upper Connecticut by canals from the Merrimack, but none was carried beyond the mak- ing of surveys for routes. The first survey was from the mouth of the Contoocook in Concord to the mouth of Sugar River in Claremont, made in 1816. The last, made eight or nine years later, started from the Pemigewasset, at the town of Wentworth, and reached the Connecticut at
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Haverhill, near the Wells River head of navigation. Other surveys of the later period from the east were for canals projected from Dover, New Hampshire, and Portland, Maine.
Meanwhile competition from the nearer seaboard had threatened the lower River transportation centres. A move had been made by New Haven to divert the trade to her port through a canal connecting New Haven with the River at a point above Hartford. This was the blow direct to Hartford's interests. Her merchants and allied business men combined to parry it with a larger enterprise. Then ensued a warm campaign under the impulse of which greater projects developed.
The New Haven scheme began with the projected canal from tide-water at New Haven to Northampton. The counter enterprise of Hartford comprehended the locking of the Enfield Falls, getting control of the existing canals above, and improving the River's whole navigable course up to Barnet. The New Haven project was embodied in "The President, Directors, and Company of the Farming- ton Canal," a Connecticut corporation chartered in 1822, empowered to build from New Haven to the Connecticut state line at Southwick, Massachusetts; and in "The Hampshire and Hampden Canal Company," chartered by Massachusetts the following year, to complete the work from Southwick to Northampton. The Hartford design was organized in " The Connecticut River Company," char- tered in 1824, first by Connecticut, then by Vermont and New Hampshire, to " improve the boat navigation through the Valley of Connecticut River from Hartford toward its source."
The forces thus arrayed were soon in strenuous rivalry, and the popular talk of the Valley became all of canals.
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The next year, 1825, the flowering season of canals in other parts, was full of action. In the middle of Febru- ary a great convention of two hundred delegates from the principal towns assembled at the Vermont Windsor and adopted a memorial to Congress for aid in schemes of upper River improvement. Less than ten days after, Massachu- setts was moving for a canal from Boston Harbor to the Connecticut and on to the Hudson. During the summer surveying parties were diligently at work up and down the River. A United States engineer sent from the War Depart- ment in prompt response to the Windsor memorial, was engaged upon surveys from the region of the upper head- waters down to Barnet; and from Barnet toward Canada, for routes for a canal to Lake Memphremagog. Simulta- neously, Holmes Hutchinson, an engineer who had been employed on the Erie Canal, was making a careful survey from Hartford up to Barnet, at the instance of the Connec- ticut River Company. While these surveys were under way the negotiations of the Connecticut River Company for the purchase of the existing canals were progressing. In the autumn this company issued a public memorial, out- lining an elaborate series of improvements, based on Hut- chinson's report, and moved for a broader charter to carry out the entire work. Accordingly the Vermont Assembly passed an act subject to confirmation by the three other states concerned, which provided for a board of commis- sioners, three for each state, to promote the Connecticut River Company with sufficient capital, for the purpose of making good the River's navigation from Hartford to Barnet.
The next year, 1826, New Hampshire and Connecticut confirmed this act, the latter state, however, with a proviso protecting New Haven's interests in the Farmington and
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Northampton canal. Earlier the report of the United States engineer's survey had appeared; also the reports of the surveys for the proposed Boston canal to the Connec- ticut and the Hudson ; all of which excited much interest in the Valley. One of the Massachusetts surveys covered a route entering the Connecticut at the mouth of Miller's River. Another, made by General Epaphras Hoyt, of Deerfield, was carried through the Turner's Falls canal across the River to Sheldon's Rock, and thence followed the west bank of the Deerfield River up to the present Hoosac Tunnel, where the mountain was to be cut through, and Troy reached by the Hoosick River.
While these various plans were developing, the New Haven canal party had been broadening their scheme. This now also comprehended a system to Barnet. In June of 1827, Governor Clinton of New York, "the great mogul on canal matters," was brought into the region in the interest of this project. With General Hillhouse and other solid New Haven men he made a tour of inspection from the then partly completed Farmington canal to the upper country, following pretty closely the line of the pro- posed extension. All along the way, - at Northampton, Deerfield, Greenfield, Brattleborough, and above, - distin- guished civilities, dinners, with toasts, public receptions, "ovations," marked the progress of the explorers, and great expectations were aroused. During the same summer United States engineers, sent at the instance of the gov- ernor of Vermont, were again in the Valley surveying, this time to determine the practicability of canal connec- tion between the River and Lake Champlain. The next year, 1828, the New Haven plans had so far matured that authorization was obtained for the Hampshire and Hamp- den Company to extend the system from Northampton
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to the Massachusetts north line, at Northfield. Finally, in 1829, the scheme was perfected in charters obtained from Vermont and New Hampshire establishing "The Connecticut River Canal Company," empowered by the former state to build from its south line, at Vernon, to Barnet and thence to Lake Memphremagog; and by New Hampshire, from its south line, at Hinsdale, to the mouth of Israel's River, at Lancaster : thus making provision for a navigable canal from the tide-waters of Long Island Sound to the Canada line. When these acts were secured the New Haven system had just been finished to Westfield, fifteen miles short of Northampton, and the event cele- brated by the launch of a fine new canal-boat in the basin.
At the same time, however, the Connecticut River Company had made a greater advance with the completion of the Enfield Canal throughout. This accomplishment was marked by a gayer celebration. It was, too, a more momentous affair in the Valley, since it included a demon- stration by the first steamboats built for regular service on the River above tide-water. The manœuvres of these little steam-craft, indeed, constituted the chief feature of the occasion. One of them, the "Vermont," having her paddles at the stern, came down from Springfield with a party of celebrators from up-river and sailed triumphantly through the length of the canal to the foot of the rapids. There she was met by the " Blanchard," which had come up from Hartford with another party. " The stockholders present, with others from Hartford, Springfield and the neighboring towns, then went on board the 'Vermont' and two other boats [flatboats] towed by horses, and set sail for the head of the falls. The boats were one hour and ten minutes passing through the canal, a distance of five and a half miles, including the detention at the locks.
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At this place, after an exchange of friendly salutations, the gentlemen from Springfield parted from the company and proceeded on their passage home to Vermont. After a short time spent in examining the excellent and sub- stantial construction of the Guard Lock, the rest of the party returned in the boats down the canal to the foot of the falls." "It is almost superfluous to add," the reporter remarks in closing his decorous account, "that the excur- sion was attended with a high degree of interest, and the party returned home much gratified with the scenes they had witnessed."
The work fully merited the commendation it received. It was built for water-power as well as for navigation, the corporation wisely recognizing the water-power as a valu- able part of the franchise. It comprised a wing dam at the head of the falls reaching to the middle of the River ; a long pier extending down from the lower end of the dam parallel to and a hundred feet from the west bank, so raised above the River as to form a basin and safe entrance to the guard lock; a high breast-wall of solid masonry at right angles to the pier, extending toward the bank, and there united to the guard lock ; twelve sluices through the breast-wall with sliding gates, for the free advantage of water for hydraulic purposes ; and at the lower end of the canal, three locks of masonry, each of ten feet lift, sepa- rated by wide pools in which ascending and descending boats could pass each other. Sixteen boats loaded with merchandise passed through the canal on the opening day ; and soon the fine boats of the larger type, which now could pass around the rapids, were built and added to the River's fleet.
A few years later the New Haven system was completed to Northampton, and there it stopped. Nothing was done
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under the Vermont and New Hampshire charters. Nor did the Connecticut River Company carry their scheme beyond the Enfield Canal. The day of canal and river transportation was passing with the steady approach of the era of railroads. Spirited efforts for the sustenance of the fading system were made to the last. In the autumn of 1830 another convention was held at the upper Windsor to foster it. Delegates were present from each of the four states, and various measures to this end were adopted. Congress was again invoked for aid in completing the schemes for clearing the channels. A plan for relays of steam freight and passenger boats at the series of locks to quicken transportation was developed. Subsequently the system of towing strings of flatboats by steamers was instituted.
At the height of these efforts the first charter for a railroad in Vermont was granted. In the early eighteen- forties railways were building in the Valley. Within a few years the new system had so extended that competition was hopeless. Then all the canals, save that at Windsor Locks, were abandoned for traffic, and transformed to use for manufacturing purposes. So ended this chapter of great endeavors in the closed history of the up-stream commerce of the Beautiful River.
Entrance of the Enfield Canal at Windsor Locks.
XXIII
Steamboats and Steamboating
Connecticut Valley Inventors of the Steamboat - Claims of John Fitch and Samuel Morey to Priority over Fulton - Morey's tiny Steamer on the River - First Steamboats in Regular Service - Gallant Efforts for Steam- boat Navigation to the Upper Valley - Triumphant Progress of the Pioneer " Barnet " up to Bellows Falls -The "Ledyard's " Achievement in Reach- ing Wells River- A Song of Triumph by a Local Bard -The last Fated Up-River Enterprise - Steamboating on the Lower Reaches - Dickens's Voyage in the "Massachusetts "- End of Passenger Service above Hart- ford.
0 N a wall of the entrance hall of the State House at Hartford is a bronze portrait in bas-relief with this inscription : " This tablet erected by the State of Connec- ticut commemorates the genius, patience, and perseverance of John Fitch, a native of the town of Windsor, the first to apply steam successfully to the propulsion of vessels through water."
Two hundred miles up the River, in the Vermont vil- lage of Fairlee, is deposited the model of the engine of the first American steamboat propelled by paddle-wheels, in- vented by another Connecticut Valley man, - Captain Samuel Morey of Orford, opposite on the New Hampshire side, - and launched on our River.
Fitch's first steamboat was in successful operation more than twenty years before Fulton's " Clermont " was put on the Hudson ; Morey's fourteen years before. Fitch made his original experiments in Pennsylvania, and his first boat plied the Delaware. Morey's first boat was directly asso- ciated with the Connecticut, for on its waters it was con- ceived and constructed as well as operated.
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For both of these Connecticut Valley inventors claims of priority over Fulton in discovering the principles de- veloped in his boat were defended by ardent advocates with vigor if not asperity in the controversy which followed Fulton's achievement ; and the facts of record well sustain their contention. Without disparaging the fame of Ful- ton as the earliest to combine and utilize certain principles in the construction of the practically useful steamboat, to Fitch and Morey, independently of each other, may fairly be accorded the honor of having originated the idea, and to Morey the credit of inventing the mechanism which Fulton applied. To Fitch is ascribed the distinction with- out question (for James Rumsey's claim to priority Fitch completely disproved) of having first exhibited in American waters a steamboat propelled by movable paddles. From Morey, before Fulton, dispassionate examiners of the record trace the development of steamboat propulsion by paddle- wheels. In their judgment, the title bestowed upon him of "the father of steamboat navigation in America " is fully warranted.
While Fitch's achievements, attained elsewhere, are commemorated in the lower Valley by virtue of its having been his birthplace, in the Upper Valley, where it was de- veloped, Morey's invention is held in closer remembrance, though yet unmarked by public memorial. Fitch's steam craft had been sailing the Delaware some time before Morey's experiments began, but there was no competition or inter- course between them. They were working in different fields, and on different lines. Both were remarkable char- acters, but with few qualities in common except that of inventive genius. Morey was a farmer, a man of affairs, and a speculator in scientific matters. Fitch was an artisan, possessed of much mechanical ingenuity. Leaving
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his home in the Valley at twenty-five, and pushing west- ward, he employed his talents in various pursuits before making his essays in steamboat construction. He had been a journeyman watchmaker in New Jersey ; a gun- smith for the American forces during a part of the Revo- lution; an itinerant vendor of watches and clocks, and a deputy surveyor for Virginia.
When Fitch conceived his great idea, which came sud- denly to him, as he afterward related, he was "ignorant altogether that a steam-engine had ever been invented," and " the propelling of a boat by steam was as new as the rowing of a boat by angels." That was in the spring of 1785. During the following summer he succeeded in fashioning a rude engine in a blacksmith shop with the help of the workmen there; and by autumn he had completed drawings and models of a steamboat which he presented to the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia. The next year his first crude boat was on the Dela- ware. Upon its showing and his declarations he then se- cured from New Jersey the exclusive right for fourteen years of constructing and using all kinds of water-craft "impelled by the force of fire or steam," on all the navi- gable waters of that state. The next year similar rights were obtained from the states of New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. These further franchises were secured probably upon the exhibition of his second and more perfected boat, the trial trip of which in August of that year was witnessed by members of the convention for framing the Federal Constitution, then in session in Philadelphia, and other public men. This boat was forty-five feet long, twelve feet beam, with an engine of twelve-inch cylinder, and six oars, or paddles, on each side. Raising funds through the sale of a map of the Northwest
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Territory, which he drew and engraved himself, and in- teresting a, few men of means in the hazard of a stock company, he now proceeded to build a larger boat and of dif- ferent pattern. This was sixty feet long, eight feet beam, and had paddles at the stern. Its trial trip was on a run of twenty miles. The best time made was only three miles an hour, and the performance discouraged the stockholders. After a while, however, they rallied, and Fitch produced another boat, encouragingly named "The Perseverance." Although an improvement on its predecessor, its average run per hour was only ten minutes better. So the " Perse- verance " was also pronounced unsatisfactory. Immedi- ately Fitch set to work upon the construction of a boat with larger machinery. This took the water in April, 1790, and great was the joy of the indomitable inventor when it displayed a speed of eight miles an hour ! "Thus has been effected by little John Fitch and Harry Voight," he exclaims, "one of the greatest and most useful arts that has ever been introduced into the world ; and although the world and my country do not thank me for it, yet it gives me heartfelt satisfaction." The principle upon which this boat worked lay in the application of the cranks to twelve oars, suspended perpendicularly from an elevated frame, and making a stroke upon the water similar to the paddle of a canoe. During the summer of 1790 it was run as a regular passenger boat between Philadelphia and Burlington.
Fitch now felt assured of success, and after obtaining a United States patent he planned a boat large enough to carry freight, with the intention of sending it to New Orleans for navigation on the Mississippi. But when the machinery was nearly completed a storm broke the boat from its moorings and drove it on an island. This was a
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final blow to the stock company. The stockholders refused to put out more money ; and since the inventor's own resources were exhausted, the enterprise had to be aban- doned. A few years later Fitch was in France, at the solicitation of Aaron Vail, a former stockholder, and at that time United States consul at L'Orient, who believed that Fitch's steamboat could be profitably introduced abroad. But it was the time of the French Revolution, and the requisite pecuniary aid could not be obtained. Then leaving his papers and specifications with Mr. Vail (which Fulton when later in France making his studies was permitted to examine), Fitch went to London, whence he returned to America, working his passage as a common sailor. Coming back to his birthplace in the Valley he made his home for a while with his kindred at East Wind-
sor. Still intent upon his invention, he soon contrived a rude steamboat out of a ship's yawl moved by a screw propeller, which was given a trial in New York on the old "Collect " (the large pond where is now the "Tombs ") with Chancellor Livingston, the patron of Fulton, among those on board. Next drifting to Bardston, Kentucky, his last attempt was in the model of a steamboat only three feet long sailed on a neighboring stream. Then in the summer of 1796, worn and wearied with misfortune and hardship, he died by his own hand in the village tavern. He left a bundle of papers in a sealed packet to the Franklin Library of Philadelphia, to be opened thirty years after his death. They were found to include a memoir together with a detailed account of his experi- ments. From these documents the story of his work has been drawn.
Morey's experiments were begun in 1790, the year of Fitch's highest achievement. For a decade before Morey
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