USA > Washington DC > The chronicles of Georgetown, D.C., from 1751-1878 > Part 21
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cuted it until June, 1846, when, the legislature having met and adjourned without passing an act to restore the credit of the State, and their private means being exhausted, they were compelled to suspend operations.
" The last report made by the chief engineer, previ- ous to the suspension, showed that the work done under the contract according to the revised estimate of August, 1845, which he took as his guide, amounted to the sum of fifty-five thousand three hundred and eighty-four dollars. The contractors, however, had re- ceived from the company no part of this sum, as they had not yet placed themselves in a situation to be en- titled to payments. Although applications were made for an advance of bonds, none had yet been issued.
" The company having made known its willingness to allow the contractors a reasonable time to mature their financial arrangements, they continued actively engaged in the effort to make a negotiation, and se- cured the services of several distinguished gentlemen and financiers to aid them. One of the contractors went to England for the purpose of giving his personal attention to the subject, and with the assistance of con- ditional promises, obtained from the capitalists on this side of the Atlantic, succeeded in arranging for a nego- tiation there, predicated mainly upon the resumption of payment by Maryland, but with reservation of a right to the parties to decline if a change should take place in the money market. As in the case of the loan for the benefit of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, two experi- enced gentlemen had previously been appointed by the English capitalists, to inquire into the probable produc-
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tiveness of the canal when finished, and other matters submitted to them; and they had fully examined the whole subject and made an elaborate and favorable report. At December session, 1846, this state of things was known to the legislature, and the friends of the canal were among the most zealous and indefatigable advocates for the restoration of State faith, both on account of the good name of the State, and the known bearing of the measure upon the procurement of means for the completion of the canal. On the 8th of March, 1847, the Legislature of Maryland passed a law for funding the arrears and punctually paying the interest accruing on the State debt after the 1st of October, 1847. On the application of the contractors, the Leg- islature of Virginia, on the 8th of March, 1847, passed an act, accommodated to the terms of the contract, in regard to a negotiation, and authorizing a guaranty of the bonds to the amount of three hundred thousand dollars, which gave additional efficacy to the provi- sions of the act of 1844; and in the succeeding month, the District cities and certain citizens of Alexandria, subscribed, on similar terms, for one hundred thou- sand dollars of the bonds at their par value, for the purpose of aiding the work. But the guaranty and subscriptions were all conditional, and their availabil- ity depended upon the contractors obtaining from other sources an amount of money, which, when superadded to their aggregate, would constitute a fund sufficient for the completion of the canal. It was supposed that this amount had already been secured by the condi- tional arrangement that had been made in England,
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in as much of the difficulties which then existed had been removed, and the application in that quarter was accordingly renewed. The prospect of success was for a time flattering, but contrary to all expectations, the London parties, through their agent in Boston, ab- ruptly withdrew from the negotiation just as it was about to be concluded, upon the ground that, though Maryland had resumed payment, a change had taken place in the money market. This was the reason given, but it was not considered as the influencing cause of the course that was pursued. The Boston agent had desired distinct and specific information in regard to the questions, Whether the canal could be finished with the aggregate sum of money which would be re- alized by the contractors from the proposed arrange- ment, viz : one million one hundred thousand dollars, which they considered sufficient for their purposes; and, secondly, whether it could be completed with the whole amount of bonds authorized to be issued by the company, under the act of 1844. These inquiries were propounded on the 14th of April, 1847, to one of the gentlemen who, at the instance of the London capitalists, had made the investigations in regard to the canal in 1846, and who was an engineer of ap- proved experience. His reply bears date the 17th of the same month. To the first question, his answer was distinctly in the negative; in reference to the sec- ond, he stated that, if all the bonds at the command of the company could be disposed of without serious loss, and certain legitimate modifications, which he in- dicated were made in the character of the work, the
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means provided would be sufficient, but, in his opin- ion, not otherwise. It was doubtless these replies, to receive which the Boston agent had deferred his final answer for several days, that produced the failure of the negotiation ; for the withdrawal of the proposition of the London capitalists was, thereupon, decisive and absolute.
" The prospects of the company were at this period discouraging. After sounding all the depths of the money markets on both sides of the Atlantic, and offering the bonds at a great discount, the contractors, though aided and strengthened by the Virginia guar- anty and the par subscriptions of Alexandria and the District cities, had been unable to effect an arrange- ment for the funds required by them to comply with their engagements, and the disinclination of capital- ists to purchase the bonds, had arisen, not from an ap- prehension in regard to the productiveness of the canal when finished, but from a belief in the inade- quacy of the amount of bonds authorized and the amount of money that could be realized therefrom for the accomplishment of its completion. And whilst the aspect was thus gloomy without, the state of af- fairs was scarcely more favorable within. During the years 1846 and 1847, this region of country was visited with a series of freshets, which in magnitude and rapidity of succession were without example. Con- siderable damage was done by them to the canal, par- ticularly on the lower division, and scarcely was suffi- cient time afforded to mend the breaches occasioned by one, before they were renewed by another inunda-
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tion of the Potomac. In the straightened condition of the finances of the company, when it could barely struggle along, in ordinary years, with its annual re- ceipts, this increase of expenses was exceedingly em- barrassing. With the aid of temporary loans obtained from the banks, however, the damage was repaired.
" In regard to the contract for the completion of the canal, the president and directors of the company yielded to circumstances, and, planting themselves firmly upon the position originally assumed-that they would issue no bonds until a satisfactory negotiation had been consummated-acquiesced in a further delay of the operations. The early completion of the canal, important as it was undoubtedly considered, was not the subject of most solicitude, either with them or the friends of the company generally. Under the act of 1844, as we have seen, it was not a question of time, but a question of practicability ; not whether the canal could be finished by a given day, but whether it could be finished with the means provided for the purpose. By the omission of the contractors to prosecute the work continuously, their contract was liable to forfeit- ure at the pleasure of the president and directors of the company ; but such a measure, even under the ex- isting unfavorable appearances, could have produced no benefit, but on the contrary would have tended to make things worse. If the contract had been annulled, the Virginia guaranty and the par subscriptions of Alexandria and the District cities, which the contract- ors had secured and brought to their assistance, would have gone down with it, and the company would have
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been thrown back upon the sheer provisions of the then discredited act of 1844 for the means to complete the canal to Cumberland. Under these circumstances, therefore, the president and directors forbore to exer- cise their power of annulment, and the prudence of their course was justified by the result. Although the last effort of the contractors to raise the requisite means to comply with their contract seemed decisive of failure, it was only the prelude to a final arrange- ment.
"So soon as the London capitalists abandoned the negotiation, the attention of the contractors and their agents was turned exclusively to this country. Two of the gentlemen whose assistance they had engaged, issued a pamphlet bearing date the 10th of July, 1847, in which they explained the provisions of the act of 1844, and the contract made under it for the comple- tion of the canal ; referred to the guaranty act of Vir- ginia, and the subscriptions of Washington, George- town, and Alexandria, and to an agreement made with the sub-contractors, by which they consented to receive two hundred thousand dollars of the bonds at par in payment for their work ; and exhibited a state- ment, showing the sum of money which, in their judg- ment, would be sufficient to accomplish the undertak- ing. This sum was one million one hundred and seventy-two thousand one hundred and sixteen dollars, and it was arrived at by a calculation based upon sub- contracts which, it was stated, had been previously entered into by the contractors for about two-thirds of' the work remaining to be executed between dam No.
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6 and Cumberland. To the exposition thus made the attention of capitalists was invited, and on the 13th of October, 1847, the contractors, through the medium of three distinguished gentlemen of the North, two of whom were the authors of the above-mentioned pam- phlet, succeeded in finally concluding a satisfactory negotiation. According to its terms, which assumed that six hundred thousand dollars of the bonds had been disposed of at par in the manner above indicated, the contractors agreed to sell to certain parties resid- ing principally in Boston, New York, and Washing- ton City, at the rate of sixty cents on the dollar, cight hundred and thirty-three thousand three hundred and thirty-three dollars of bonds they were to receive from the company at par, upon a compliance with the re- spective provisions of their contract, leaving still of the consideration therein mentioned a margin of one hundred and ninety-one thousand six hundred and sixty-seven dollars of the bonds undisposed of, which were regarded as a reserved fund to supply deficien- cies if they should occur. They also at the same time constituted and appointed the three gentlemen, alluded to, their agents and attorneys in the execution of their contract for the completion of the canal, and author- ized them to receive the bonds from the company, from time to time, as they should become payable under its provisions, and sell or distribute them in conformity with the arrangement.
" The Maryland State agents and board of presi- dent and directors, in view of the entire arrangement made by the contractors, including the guaranty and
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par subscription, and of the guards and conservative provisions of the contract for the work, considered the clause in reference to a negotiation as now sufficiently complied with, and accordingly consented to issue and pay out the bonds as the work proceeded.
" We will here remark that a mortgage, pursuant to the 6th section of the act of 1844, to give full effect to its provisions, was subsequently executed by the company, and bears date the 6th of June, 1848.
"Some time after the execution of the contract for the completion of the canal, two of the original con- tractors withdrew from the co-partnership, and Thomas G. Harris, of Washington County, Maryland, became associated with the remaining two, who were James Hunter, of Virginia (whose indomitable perseverance and indefatigable exertions merited better fortune than ultimately befel him in his connection with the work), and William B. Thompson, of the District of Colum- bia. The three became associated in a firm under the name of Hunter, Harris & Co. The contract was ac- cordingly so modified in November, 1847, and the time for completion having been extended, and other satisfactory alterations made in its provisions, under some of which certain specific parts of the work were dispensed with, and changes in the plan of construc- tion made in a few others, with a view to a saving of cost, which was then found absolutely necessary, the operations were resumed and, under the pressure of constant embarrassments, with appeals to the com- pany, frequent and urgent, for relief, which was, from time to time, extended to them, as often, and as far,
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as it could be allowed without hazarding the comple- tion of the canal, were steadily prosecuted under the immediate management of Messrs. Hunter & Harris, until the 11th of March, 1850, when they were sus- pended in consequence of the pecuniary difficulties of the contractors, arising from the large sacrifices they had sustained in their sales of the bonds. They had, indeed, for some time previously, avowedly abandoned the hope of profit, but were stimulated to persever- ance in the prosecution of their arduous undertaking, by an honest ambition to complete the canal and com- ply with their engagements. The suspension, how- ever, only lasted for a few days. Messrs. Hunter, Har- ris & Co., made an assignment of their interest in the contract to two of their agents and attorneys for the benefit of their creditors. The work was again put in motion, under the assignment, and its prosecution con- tinued until the middle of July, 1850, when the agents and assignees finally stopped operations and aban- doned it, from an inability, under the very disagreea- ble and difficult circumstances in which they were placed to complete the canal, with the remaining means that were applicable to the purpose.
" Upon the certificate of the chief engineer in re- gard to the facts of the case, the board of president and directors, on the 17th of July, formally declared the contract abandoned, and on the following day en- tered into a new contract with Michael Byrne, of Fred- erick County, for the final completion of the canal. The aggregate of the work remained to be done at this period was inconsiderable, but it consisted of un-
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finished parts, at numerous places along the line be- tween dam No. 6 and Cumberland, and was, conse- quently, tedious and troublesome in its execution. Mr. Byrne commenced promptly and prosecuted it with diligence. He had so far progressed by the 10th of October, 1850, that, on that day, the canal was opened for the purposes of navigation throughout the entire line to Cumberland, and the through trade then com- menced. He, however, still continued to press for- ward the work, which, being now of an external char- acter only, did not interfere with the passage of boats, and on the 17th of February, 1851, the final payment was made to him under and pursuant to the provisions of his contract. From that period may be dated the completion of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal to Cumber- land. The terms of the contract with Mr. Byrne, and the payments of all the bonds issued under the Mary- land act of 1844, ch. 281, together with the parties to whom and the purposes for which the bonds were issued and paid, have been stated and explained in the preliminary report which precedes this narrative, and need not be here repeated.
" The Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, between George- town and Cumberland, lies on the north or Maryland side of the river, with the advantages of a southern exposure, and pursues the immediate valley of the Po- tomac throughout its whole length, except at a point called the Pawpaw Bend, about twenty-seven miles below Cumberland, where it passes through the moun- tain by a tunnel three thousand one hundred and eigh- teen feet in length, and lined and arched with brick
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laid in cement, by which about six miles in distance have been saved. From the Rock Creek basin in Georgetown, where it first reaches tide-water, to the basin at Cumberland, is one hundred and eighty-four and four-tenths miles, and the total rise from the level of mid-tide at Georgetown to the Cumberland basin, is six hundred and nine and seven-tenths feet. This ascent is overcome by seventy-four lift-locks, and a tide-lock that connects Rock Creek basin with the Po- tomac River. From a point about a mile west of Rock Creek basin, the Alexandria Canal, seven miles in length, diverges from the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal and crosses the Potomac River by an aqueduct eleven hundred feet long, and connects with tide-water at Alexandria. The Chesapeake & Ohio Canal is con- structed for a depth of six feet throughout. From Georgetown to Harper's Ferry, sixty miles, it is sixty feet wide at the surface, and forty-two feet at the bot- tom. From Harper's Ferry to dam No. 5, forty-seven miles, the width at the surface is fifty feet, and at the bottom thirty-two feet; and from dam No. 5 to Cum- berland, seventy-seven and one-half miles, the surface width is fifty-four feet, and the bottom thirty feet. The average lift of the locks a little exceeds eight feet. They are one hundred feet long and fifteen feet wide in the clear, and are capable of passing boats carrying one hundred and twenty tons of two thousand two hundred and forty pounds.
" The present supply of water for the canal is drawn entirely from the Potomac. For this purpose dams are constructed across the river at seven different points.
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" From a statement made out by the clerk from the books of the company, with an additional allowance for a few small unsettled claims, it appears that the cost of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, from the mouth of Tiber Creek in the city of Washington to the town of Cumberland, a distance of one hundred and eighty- five and seven-tenths miles, for construction, engi- neer expenses, lands and other contingencies properly applicable to construction, amounts, in the aggregate, to the sum of cleven million seventy-one thousand one hundred and seventy-six dollars and twenty-one cents, or fifty-nine thousand six hundred and eighteen dollars and sixty-one cents per mile."
On the 10th of October, 1850, the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal was completed from Georgetown to Cum- berland. The following boats loaded with coal started for the District of Columbia : Southampton, Elizabeth, Ohio, and Delaware, belonging to the Merchants' Line of McKaig & Agnew, and the Freeman Raudon be- longing to the Cumberland Line. The levels not be- ing full of water in the new portion of the canal, the boats had great difficulty in passing down, frequently running aground; and it was not till the 17th day of October (when the chronicler was standing on the aqueduct), that he saw the first boat from Cumberland, the Freeman Rawdon. In going around the bend of the canal, at the Columbian Foundry, a gun was fired announcing her arrival as the first boat from the coal regions. She was soon afterwards followed by other boats; and thus the canal trade was opened to George- town, and has continued ever since, except when in-
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terrupted by breaches in the bank of the canal occa- sioned by heavy freshets in the river.
The quantity of coal shipped from Cumberland to Georgetown since the completion of the canal to 31st of December, 1876, was ten millions two hundred and fifteen thousand two hundred and six tons. The capi- tal stock of the company was eight million two hund- red and twenty-six thousand five hundred and ninety- three dollars and sixty-seven cents; the loan by the State of Maryland was two million dollars, on which interest is to be added to 31st of December, 1876, mak- ing in the aggregate the sum of four million four bund- red and ninety-five thousand dollars. Other expenses of the company, such as guaranteed dividends, payable out of the net profits of the canal, nine million fifty-six thousand two hundred and fifty dollars ; tolls collected, water rents, and other revenues, seven million eight hundred and fifty-five thousand eight hundred and fifty- two dollars. The number of boats cleared to George- town from 1870 to 31st of December, 1876, was forty- eight thousand nine hundred and forty-nine, bringing five million four hundred and sixty-three thousand four hundred and fourteen tons of coal ; the number of boats loaded at Cumberland from 1872 to 31st of December, 1876, was as follows ; at the Potomac wharf, ten thous- and eight hundred and fifty-three ; at the Basin wharf, fourteen thousand four hundred and four; at Consoli- dation wharf, ten thousand three hundred and thirty- two. The use of steamers on the canal for the trans- portation of freight will supersede the towing of boats by horses and mules. There are now sixteen steamers
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THE OUTLET LOCK.
running from Cumberland to Georgetown; and dur- ing the year 1876 the following number of trips were made by them : the Arcturus, twenty-nine round trips ; the New Era, twenty-seven round trips; the L. Patten, twenty-four round trips ; the A. Lovel, eighteen round trips; the Star, No. 1, fifteen round trips; the Star, No. 2, fifteen round trips; the W. T. Weld, fifteen round trips; the other steamers made from two to thirteen trips each.
Receipts from all sources, including stock and loans. $35,746,301 07 The whole expenditures of the canal
from its beginning to 31st of Decem-
ber, 1876, have been. 35,659,055 06
Net balance on hand $87,246 01
THE OUTLET LOCK.
To give greater facility to the passage of boats from the canal to the river, a company was formed, in 1875, to build and erect a railway or inclined plane, about a mile above Georgetown, that would pass loaded boats from the canal to the river without the trouble of passing through a series of locks. This invention was projected by our fellow-townsman, II. H. Dodge, Esq., president of the Potomac Lock and Dock Com- pany, and was designed and worked up in its details by W. R. Hutton, chief engineer of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal. The caisson or tank, turbine water- wheel, and all the machinery was built at the Vulcan Iron Works of II. A. Ramsey & Co., of Baltimore.
A railway was constructed in a diagonal line to the 43
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THE OUTLET LOCK.
river, some six hundred feet long, consisting of several tracks. On the middle track is the caisson, one hund- red and twelve feet long, seventeen feet wide, and eight feet deep, closed at each end by gates. On each side of the caisson are several cars, filled with stone and rocks, to balance the caisson when descending the inclined plane with a loaded boat. The mode of ope- ration is as follows : The caisson is first run up to the canal gate, or fore-bay, when the front gate of the caisson is opened, and, being filled with water, the loaded boat is floated into the caisson, which displaces a bulk of water equal to its weight. As soon as the boat is in, the gate of the caisson is closed, when, by the operation of the turbine wheel and the cables fastened to the caissons, the boat gradually descends to the river, while the counter weights ascend. As soon as the caisson has reached the river, the gate is opened, and the boat passes into the Potomac. An empty boat can then pass in, and, displacing but little water, is light, and easily drawn up the inclined plane to the canal, the counter weights, which before as- cended, now descending as the empty boat approaches the top of the railway.
On the 30th day of May, 1877, a serious accident happened at the outlet lock by some derangement of the machinery, while a loaded boat was being passed down the railway, by which accident Michael Reynolds, Sylvester Carroll, and John W. Mead were killed.
The Potomac Lock and Dock Company had used every precaution to have the machinery made of the best iron, to prevent accidents and insure success in
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FORM OF GOVERNMENT.
the working of the lock; but all human foresight is not sufficient to guard against unexpected occurrences, as was shown in this case. And it appears that the loss of life is an incident in all public undertakings, as in the building of the Capitol, State Department, and other public buildings, railroads, and canals, where human life has been lost. As regards the accident above described, no blame can be attached to the owners of the outlet lock.
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