USA > Indiana > History of Indiana from its exploration to 1922, Vol. I > Part 30
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1 American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge for the year 1840, 105.
400
HISTORY OF INDIANA
session, the future policy of the United States toward internal improvement was being decided. In the ses- sion of Congress, convened in 1816, a select commit- tee,2 appointed on motion of John C. Calhoun, intro- duced a, bill setting aside the bonus of $1,500,000, paid by the Second Bank of the United States, and the an- nual dividend on $7,000,000 of stock, owned by the United States, as a fund for building roads and canals. This measure passed Congress by virtue of votes from the middle and western States, but it was vetoed by Madison. Three months after the first Indiana As- sembly adjourned-April 15, 1817-the legislature of New York undertook the construction of the Erie canal, and every resource of that State, from the in- come of lotteries to the labor of her convicts, was pledged to its completion.
In his message to the General Assembly of Decem- ber 2, 1817, Governor Jennings of Indiana referred to a letter from DeWitt Clinton of New York, dis- cussing the practicability of connecting the Great Lakes with the Ohio-Mississippi system, thus making all-water connection between the Hudson and Missis- sippi.3 In the same message, he notified the General Assembly of a resolution of the Pennsylvania legisla- ture, inviting the governors of Ohio, Virginia, Ken- tucky, and Indiana to meet the governor of Pennsyl- vania in a conference on internal improvements, espe- cially looking to the better navigation of the Ohio.
Even then there were two parties in State politics that continued through the whole era to divide the counsels and energies of the young State. The settlers along the Ohio and Wabash rivers looked to New Or- leans as their commercial emporium; while all those settlers, and they were rapidly increasing in numbers and influence, who came over the National road, looked
2 McMaster, A History of the People of the United States, IV, 411.
8 House Journal, 1817, 8.
401
CANAL LAND GRANT
to New York and the seaboard cities as the best mar- kets. During the next ten years the "System" was the commonest subject of discussion. No one knew exactly what was meant by the "System," but it was felt that as soon as possible the State, by some means or other, would construct some kind of a system of transportation that would answer the needs of the people.
In response to memorials, Congress, May 26, 1824, donated to the State a strip of land 320 feet wide through the public domain, on condition that the State, in twelve years, would construct a canal thereon. The committee on canals of the Indiana General Assembly reported the grant illiberal, and moved another me- morial.4 The governor urged in his message of 1825 that the grant be accepted at once and a further me- morial sent to that body asking a section of land for each mile.5 This, they thought, would easily build it. Thus a continuous waterway from New York to New Orleans would be opened across the country. This canal needed to be only twenty-eight miles long. Fur- ther, there was a great demand, continued the gov- ernor, for a canal from Lawrenceburg to Fort Wayne. A company, in fact, was already surveying the route. A commissioner was then examining White river, and ere long, wrote the governor, two hundred miles of waterways would there be opened for navigation. In- ternal improvements were demanded by necessity and the spirit of the time. The State must have canals.
The question of a canal at the portage between the Maumee and Wabash rivers was an old one. Every statesman of this and the preceding period who was interested in the northwest had studied the problem of an all-water trade route between the seaboard and the Ohio valley. Washington repeatedly discussed it; and in a letter to his secretary of war, Henry Knox,
4 House Journal, 1825, 176.
5 House Journal, 1825, 38.
402
HISTORY OF INDIANA
suggested the Maumee portage as the most feasible point of connection.6 The first definite information was based on surveys and observation by Capt. James Riley, a United States surveyor. While surveying land for a settlement he noted the ease with which the two rivers could be united. He reported to his superior, a report which soon found its way to Congress, that a canal six miles long would connect the St. Mary and Little rivers, from which navigation by the Maumee to Lake Erie and by the Wabash to the Ohio was easy. The swampy prairie through which the canal would run was reported to be so wet that no feeder would be required. This first observation was made in 1818, and during the following season he ran a line of levels. The canal, he thought, would need to be six miles in length.
§ 67 THE WABASH AND ERIE CANAL
THE history of the canal system of Indiana begins in earnest with an act of Congress, approved March 2, 1827.7 The party of Clay and Adams, driven from power in the nation, thus, on the eve of dissolution, be- queathed its principles and its policy to the State of Indiana. This act granted to the State, for the pur- pose of aiding to build a canal, uniting at navigable points the waters of the Maumee and those of the Wa- bash, a strip of land one-half of five sections wide, on either side of the canal, reserving alternate sec- tions to be selected by a land commissioner under the direction of the President. In the preceding ses- sion of the Indiana Assembly the canal committee had reported a bill providing for a canal board and some surveys. This bill failed on account of the reluctance
6 Writings, IX, passim.
7United States Statutes at Large, IV, 236.
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS
403
UN MICHIGAN
MICHIGAN CT LAPORTE
LAGRANGE
STEVBEN
ST. JOSEPH
ELKMART
PORTER
DE KALO
STARKE
KOSCIUSKO
FORT WAYNE
NEWTON
FULTON
WHITLEY
PULASKI
ALLEN
LOGANSPORT
PERU
WELLS
WHITE
WABASH
HUNTING- -TON
ADAMS
MIAMI
GRANT
CARROLL
JAY
LAFAYETTE
WARREN
CLINTON
TIPPE CANOE
DELAWARE
HAMILTON
RANDOLPH
FOUNTAIN
LAFAYETTE
BOONE CRAWFORDSVILLE
MADISON
MONTGOMERY
WAYNE
MARION'
HANCOCK
HENDRICKS
PARKE
PVINAM
NATIONAL
TSHELBY
UNION
GREENCASTLE
FAYET
VIAGO
MORGAN
JOHNSON
WILLE HAUTE
CLAY
FRANKL
OWEN
BARTHOLOMEW
DECAT
MONROE
COBLOOMINGTON
RIPLEY
. BURG
PIK
GREENE
. JACKSON
JENNINGS
AD
KNOX
DAVIESS MARTIN
JEFFERSON VIMADISON
VINCENNES
ALBANY PAOLI
SALEM
CLARK
ORANGE
KE
DUBOIS
CRAWFORD
FLOXD
GIBSON
HARRISON
PERRY
VANDER
WARRICK
PostY
SPENCER
INDIANA IN 1836 E.V. SHOCKLEY
EVANSVILLE
MICHIGAN
MIAMI INDIAN
SERVATION
-
VERMILION
ROAD
VARIANAPOLIS
CITY
RUSH
MADIZSOL
MICHISON
CREEN JOURG
SULLIVAN
DEAR BORN
LAWRENCE BEDFORD
SWITZERLAND
WASHINGTONI SCOTT
JEPPER SONYKL
HENRY
JASPER
CASS
NOBLE
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS
404
HISTORY OF INDIANA
of the majority to raise taxes.8 Surveyor James Shriver was then surveying the Whitewater for a com- pany organized to build a canal from Lawrenceburg to Fort Wayne.9
Meantime the settlers on the upper Wabash were clamoring for aid. Produce could not be sold nor could they get goods from any place. Salt was hauled by ox teams from Michigan City at a cost of $12 per barrel, the trip requiring two weeks. In 1826 a corps of United States engineers, under the charge of Colonel Shriver, then at work on the Whitewater, was sent to survey the portage at Fort Wayne. All were soon sick and Colonel Shriver died. Asa Moore continued the survey to Tippecanoe, and then down the Maumee as far as the rapids, where he also died in his tent, Octo- bcr 4, 1828.10
On January 5, 1828, Indiana accepted the gift from the nation and committed the State to the building of the canal.11 The act of acceptance provided for a board of canal commissioners to consist of three men whose duties were to select land, hire surveyors, lo- cate the canal, make estimates, lay off town sites, and finance the undertaking.12 The sentiment of the State was strong for internal improvements; all parties favored them, and the country was delirious with internal improvement fever.
8 House Journal, 1826, 214.
9 Governor's Message, House Journal, 1826, 46.
10 Knapp, History of the Maumee Valley, 397.
11 Laws of Indiana, 1827, ch. 7. See also Joint Resolution, ch. 98.
12 This board consisted of Samuel Hanna, of Fort Wayne; Robert John, of Franklin county, and David Burr, of Jackson county. The board did nothing more than Investigate and re- port to the next Assembly. The Assembly seemingly had gone as far as it could. When it came to expending money, there was a deadlock. The tax levy of the previous year had netted $33,000, which barely covered expenses. See Governor's Message, De- cember 4, 1827. The annual message of the Governor may be found elther in the House, Senate, or Documentary Journal.
405
CANALS OR RAILROADS
Two of the canal commissioners, Burr and John, met on the call of Governor Ray at Indianapolis, July 17, 1828, organized, and proceeded to the Wabash ; but on studying the law they found themselves without authority.13 An eight years' war opened then in the State Assembly, fought on the floor in session and in the newspapers out of session. The lowest estimates on the Wabash canal called for an expenditure of $991,000. The Whitewater members cared little for it and hung back for a deal. The Ohio river group opposed openly and stoutly. The speaker, Ross Smiley of Union county, favored railroads. Governor Ray also favored railroads because of less cost. The group that favored the canal, called the "Wabash Band," lacked unity. Mutterings of discontent over high taxes reached all parts of Indiana from the people of Ohio, who were building a system of canals. Added to this, there was no definite knowledge furnished by engineers. The settlers on the Wabash were impatient lest the State let the land-grant forfeit. The members from the south opposed, because the State had lost some money on the Ohio Falls canal. The canal com- mittee of the General Assembly of 1828, headed by Samuel Judah of Vincennes, made a lengthy report in favor of canals, and again introduced a bill looking toward construction, and again the General Assembly turned them down. Some opposed it because they did not think it necessary, others because they wanted more definite information; while a large third party would not run the State into debt for something not absolutely needed.
When the surveys commenced, an unexpected trouble arose. Navigable points on the two rivers could not be united without building part of the canal in Ohio. This Indiana could not do. Accordingly, Ohio appointed Willis Silliman its agent to confer
13 Indianapolis Gazette.
406
HISTORY OF INDIANA
with Jeremiah Sullivan with like power from Indiana. The men met in Cincinnati, October 3, 1829, and agreed that Ohio should take a part of the land grant and dig that part of the canal within her boundary.14
During the following October land sales began at Logansport and Lafayette. The tracts were put up at auction and spirited competition was shown. The prices, however, were a disappointment. The highest prices at Logansport were $4.06 per acre; lowest, $1.25; average, $1.75. From Lafayette came better reports, lots selling as high as $6 to $9 per acre. Two hundred and thirty-four thousand acres had been offered and 41,000 sold in 547 tracts or lots. There were no speculators buying.
The people grew more impatient to see digging begin, but the railroad party, under the lead of David Hoover of Wayne county, was strong enough to block the General Assembly for a whole session. The sup- plemental acts of 1832 put the project on its feet.15
14 Western Sun, January 9, 1830.
15 Laws of Indiana, 1831, ch. 1, 108. We are apt to judge the leaders of this period hastily and accuse them of losing their heads. They did make a gigantic mistake, but there are some mitigating conditions. This venture was considered, and held before the public ten years before work was commenced. Then it was undertaken only in despair of any better means of reaching a market with thelr produce. A bushel of corn at Indianapolis was worth 12 to 20 cents. On the river board it was worth 50 cents. An ordinary acre of farm land would produce sixty bushels-a loss on each acre, due to lack of transportation facilities of $18. The loss on one hundred acres was $1,800 annually. The State had within its boundaries millions of such acres whose value and usefulness to the State depended on commercial communication with the world. Now the nation was offering to donate land worth $1,000,000 toward a canal whose estimated cost was only $1,100,000, and vest the title in the State. The proposed canal, however, was far to the north of the settled portion of the State, and could never benefit nine-tenths of the people who were to build it. And it was only on the tacit agreement that it was to be the first of a system, reaching all parts of the State, that it was undertaken. It is not the undertaking, but the business method that comes in for most censure. There were too many commissioners, engineers, staff officers, land agents, paymasters, finance agents in New York, Baitimore and Boston.
407
BUILDING CANALS
Surveyor Joseph Ridgeway had prepared final esti- mates that the canal complete would cost $1,081,970. A canal fund was constituted and placed in charge of three commissioners, known as fund commissioners. Money was to be borrowed at six per cent, pledging land, tolls, and the faith of the State. Lands were placed in three classes : The first, to sell at $3.50; sec- ond, at $2.50; third, at $1.50; and the canal board was to open sales again in October, 1832. Work was ordered commenced on the canal before March 2, 1832. The canal board began letting contracts, March 1, 1832. The canal was divided into sections about one-half mile long, for which the engineers had made full plans and specifications, and then each section was let to the lowest bidder. During the first year thirty-eight con- tracts were made, covering about twenty miles, and calling for $117,000 in payment. The canal board hired Jesse L. Williams to do its work of supervising construction.
The opposition to the canal gradually melted away till 1834, when there was no active trace of it left. It was then accepted as the settled policy of the State. The question with each locality was no longer, how can we oppose the Wabash and Erie, but how can we get a canal for our own county or neighborhood.16
Meanwhile the Wabash and Erie crept steadily westward from Fort Wayne to the mouth of the Tippe- canoe, which was considered the head of navigation for the Wabash. The long line of huts resembled bar- racks to a fortified camp; and, if reports are true, the line resembled a camp in another very real way. The diggers were all Irish, and about equally divided be- tween "Corkers" and "Way Downers" from Kerry. Members of the different bands never met without a fight.17 On one occasion four hundred militia were re-
16 See Judge David Kilgore's Speech in Constitutional Con- vention of 1850. Debates, index.
17 Helm, History of Wabash County, 68.
408
HISTORY OF INDIANA
quired to stop an impending battle near Lagro, in which four hundred Corkers had armed themselves and were moving up the line to clean out their ene- mies.18 The board reported that about 1,000 men had worked on the canal during the summer of 1834.
After a careful examination of the Wabash river, the commissioners decided that Lafayette should be its southern terminus, and they had already assumed authority to make preliminary surveys. The canal had cost, thus far, $729,000, and to go down to Lafayette, which, they said, was the great steamboat landing and commercial center of that region, would cost nearly $100,000 more. The General Assembly in 1834 ordered the extension, the canal to cross the Wabash at Bal- lard's bluff in the pool of a dam. At the Birmingham bluff the canal was to be built out in the river and protected by brush rip-rap.19 By the fourth of July, 1835, boats were running on the section west of Fort Wayne, but the tolls were not enough to keep it in repair. Already the wooden aqueducts were rotten. The State finally finished the line, and on July 4, 1843, it was opened from Lafayette to Toledo. The event was fitly celebrated in an oration at Fort Wayne by Gen. Lewis Cass.
§ 68 THE SYSTEM OF 1836
THE opposition to State internal improvement dis- appeared with the beginning of active work on the canal. The mania rapidly gathered headway after 1830. The time of the General Assembly was almost entirely taken with such schemes. Reports from all canals built in the east were flattering.20 The Indiana legislature of 1832 incorporated a number of stock companies to build various lines of railroads. These
18 Documentary Journal, 1835, 18.
19 General Laws of Indiana, 1834, ch. 16.
20 Niles' Register, December 1, 1835.
409
THE CANAL SYSTEM
included roads from Lawrenceburg to Indianapolis ; from Madison via Indianapolis to Lafayette; from Jef- fersonville via Salem, Bloomington, Greencastle, to La- fayette ; from Harrison to Indianapolis via Greensburg and Shelbyville; from Lafayette to Lake Michigan; from Jeffersonville via Columbus, Indianapolis, and due north to the Wabash. These were not the idle dreams of irresponsible adventurers, but on their charters are the names of the best men of the State.
The years during the presidency of Adams and Jackson were an era of great commercial prosperity in the United States. Every resource was being de- veloped to its utmost. Transportation facilities fell far behind the capacity for production. Seaboard prices remained high and steady. Every section was studying the same problem-how to get to market. New York had finished her great canal, but was eager for a waterway from the Lakes to the Mississippi valley. As a result of this work, New York City was rapidly running away from Baltimore and Philadel- phia in wealth and population. Pennsylvania was spending vast sums of money to get a canal or rail- road through from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh on the Ohio. Baltimore, in conjunction with Maryland and Virginia, was building a canal and a railroad from the Potomac to the Ohio along the old Braddock route. Ohio had taken the suggestion of New York, and had almost completed two magnificent canals from Lake Erie to the Ohio. The echo of all this activity was caught up in the newspapers of Indiana, and her farm- ers, already producing two and three times as much as could be consumed, read them eagerly. Borrow money was the argument, and build canals.21
Still, with the sentiment of the State overwhelm-
21 Governor Noah Noble's Message, House Journal, 1834, 12. See further House Journal, 1835, 12, where the same idea is ad- vanced more holdly.
410
HISTORY OF INDIANA
ing for the system, there was a serious political prob- lem to be solved. All realized that there must be some limit to the number of works undertaken. The "Wa- bash band" were interested in a first-class canal to Lafayette, and a navigable Wabash from there to the Ohio. The Whitewater members-the strongest of the interests-were sure of their position, but wished to hold the State to as few lines as possible so as to in- sure a rapid prosecution of the Whitewater canal. In the absence of well-organized and disciplined parties, the project was not so easily carried as planned. The session of 1834-35 was spent in vainly trying to or- ganize the Assembly on this basis. As finally organ- ized, this party controlled every county in the State but seven-Harrison, Posey, Crawford, Switzerland, Hendricks, Perry, and Spencer-and six of these were on the Ohio.22
The Whitewater canal was the starting point in all these discussions.23 The settlers in the valley, the most populous district of the State, as early at 1832 had petitioned for a canal. The Assembly of 1833 ordered a preliminary survey, a report of which by Surveyor Gooding was laid before the Assembly De- cember 23, 1834.24 The valley was reported to be shallow and the fall excessive, requiring a great num- ber of locks. There were many washed banks where the canal would have to be built over the river. The survey began at Nettle creek near Cambridge City in Wayne county, close to the crossing of the National road. Thence it passed down the west bank to Som- erset at the Franklin county line, where it crossed, recrossing again at-Brookville and following the west bank to the Ohio at Lawrenceburg. The length was
22 Documentary Journal, 1836, No. 5.
23 For an excellent description of how this law was carried, see speech by Judge David Kilgore, Debates in Constitutional Con- vention, 1850, index.
24 House Journal, 1834, 255.
411
THE WHITEWATER CANAL
seventy-six miles, seven dams were necessary, fifty-six locks, and 491 feet of lockage. The estimated cost was $1,142,126.
It would give an outlet for Franklin, Rush, Fay- ette, Henry, Randolph, and Hancock counties, as well as large parts of Wayne, Union, Decatur, and Dela- ware a district aggregating 3,150 square miles. Pro- duce could be transported by this means at an average cost of $3.56 per ton as against $10, the current cost. This would save $221,000 for the section each year. The water power would turn 318 pairs of millstones. This argument is given in some detail to show the nature of the discussions that occupied the General Assembly and the newspapers during the decade from 1830 to 1840.25
The time of the session of 1834 was taken by the Assembly in framing a bill for a general system of improvements. It developed into a game of legisla- tive seesaw with the Whitewater canal as its center. Every member was willing to vote for the latter pro- vided his own county was not neglected. No system could be determined which it was thought the State could build. When the Assembly of 1835 met, it at once went to work on the unfinished bill. The only fight left over was on the route from Vincennes to New Albany. The influence of the lobby prevailed, however, and it was included.
As a study of the political activity of the times the agitation for this road is worth noting. The move- ment was started by a letter signed "Knox" in the Western Sun in the early summer of 1835. Acting on the suggestion, the citizens of Daviess county met in mass meeting at the courthouse in Washington, Octo- ber 5, and appointed delegates to meet similarly ap-
25 House Journal, 1834, 344. This is a good summary of the argument for and against canals as they viewed them at thar time.
1
412
HISTORY OF INDIANA
pointed delegates from all other counties interested at Paoli, October 26, to deliberate on the affair of a turnpike road.26 After due discussion it was decided to send a lobby to the General Assembly, consisting of one man from each county. It was further decided to work for a macadam road. Petitions were prepared to be circulated in each county, and a committee of twenty appointed to present this united petition.27 The agitation that backed each route provided by the pend- ing bill was similar to the above, though usually stronger and more insistent.
On January 27, 1836, Governor Noah Noble signed the Mammoth Internal Improvement Bill.28 Taken in all its aspects, its consequences immediate and remote, it was the most important measure ever signed by an Indiana governor. It carried appropriations aggre- gating $13,000,000, or one-sixth of the wealth of the State at that time, fixing the policy and mortgaging the resources of the State for half a century. The act provided that the governor, by and with the consent of the senate, should appoint six men to act with the canal board already appointed. These men were to serve three years, except that one-third of the first ap- pointees were to serve one year, and one-third two years. The governor in making appointments was to have regard to local situations so that one member should be near each work. This board was to locate and superintend the works provided for, meet semi- annually, and make a detailed report to the General Assembly every session. Aside from necessary ex- penses, each member was to receive $2 for every day actually and necessarily employed. This board was to take such measures as were necessary to commence, construct, and complete the following works:
26 Western Sun, October 10, 1835.
27 Ibid., October 31, 1835.
28 General Laws of Indiana, 1835, ch. 2.
413
THE MAMMOTH BILL
1. The Whitewater canal over the route formerly designated. Also a canal to connect the Whitewater with the Central, from some point near the National road to some point in Madison or Delaware county if possible; if a canal could not be built, then connect them by a railroad. For these the sum of $1,400,000 was appropriated.
2. The Central canal, commencing at the most suitable point on the Wabash between Fort Wayne and Logansport, via Muncietown, to Indianapolis, down White river to the forks; thence by the best route to Evansville. Provided: The board may select the Pipe Creek route and build a feeder to Muncie if thought best. Appropriation, $3,500,000.
3. An extension of the Wabash and Erie canal from Tippecanoe river down to Terre Haute; thence by Eel river to the Central; or, if the board think best, strike the Central at the mouth of Black creek, in Knox county. Appropriation, $1,300,000.
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