USA > New York > A short history of New York State > Part 26
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As the days of crisis sped by, more and more New Yorkers came to accept the forthright thinking of Dix and Clinton. The Union was too precious to be abandoned at the demand of a violent minority. In the Union was strength-economic strength resulting from internal trade be- tween sections and from the power to bargain effectively for international trade agreements, physical strength enabling the nation to stand against foreign aggression and to spread into the rich lands of the West. When South Carolina bombarded the federal garrison at Fort Sumter in Charles- ton Harbor on April 12, New Yorkers were ready to take up the gage of battle. Within a week the Seventh Regiment was on its way to the na- tional capital, and four more states-Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia, seceded. On April 20 Major Robert Anderson, who had commanded the forces at Fort Sumter, arrived in New York City, and the occasion was marked by a stupendous demonstration. By July almost forty-seven thousand New Yorkers had enlisted for service in defense of the Union.
Within a short time an army of thirty-six thousand assembled at Wash- ington. Soon Horace Greeley's Tribune took up the cry: "Forward to Rich- mond!" The clamor was joined by other voices. Yielding to public pressure,
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NEW YORK SUPPORTS THE UNION
the federal government ordered the advance. The troops were inadequately trained and the confusion was indescribable. On July 21, 1861, the first major battle of the Civil War was fought at Bull Run. By late afternoon the routed Union forces raced back to the national capital more in the manner of a mob than an army. It was a bitter defeat. New Yorkers now knew that the war would be long and hard. They had reason to know- one-third of the Union casualties in this first battle were citizens of the Empire State.
Chapter 20
Building the Transportation
Network
Railroads are all the rage of latter years- They talk of one to go from here to York, To quell the city people's anxious fears And carry down the Dutchess County pork.
The cars are wondrous things to load our trash on,
And tho' our boatmen starve, 'twill be in fashion.
-Dutchess Intelligencer, January 1, 1832
TRANSPORTATION is the key to the development of the political, social, and economic history of New York in the years between 1825 and 1860. The amazing success of the Erie Canal in raising land values, stimulating the growth of cities, and providing easy access to markets converted all but the most skeptical to the importance and desirability of internal im- provements. Agitation for canals, railroads, or plank roads filled the news- papers and absorbed the attention of politicians. Every town-indeed every farmer-felt the impact of the changes brought about by the exten- sion of canals, railroads, and highways.
Few undertakings have so completely fulfilled the highest claims and fondest hopes of its sponsors as did the Erie Canal. The slashing of freight- ing costs (by more than 90 per cent from Buffalo to Albany) released a torrent of produce dammed up by the prohibitive costs of hauling freight overland. Each year after 1825 saw a sharp increase in the number of boats operated and in the amount of tonnage carried. The 218,000 tons carried in 1825 swelled to 4,650,000 tons in 1860 and reached a peak of 6,000,000 tons in 1872.
The Erie Canal was a financial success from the start. The stream of revenues poured into the state treasury so rapidly that it soon paid off the original cost of construction (approximately $7,000,000). The legis- lators were delighted. They used the revenues not only to build feeder
244
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BUILDING THE TRANSPORTATION NETWORK
or lateral canals but also to defray the general expenses of the govern- ment. They guarded this moneymaker jealously and prohibited railroads along the route of the canal from carrying freight during the season of navigation.
Central and western New York received the greatest benefit from the canal for the first two decades. The wheat grown in the region west of Utica, formerly turned into whisky or fed to pigs, could reach tidewater for a few cents per bushel. Cities along the Erie-Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo-became boom towns. The impact on Rochester was explosive. By 1840 Rochester boasted over twenty thousand inhabit- ants and produced more flour than any other city in the country. Buffalo grew almost as rapidly because of its strategic position as warehouse for commerce passing down the Lakes. A brisk trade sprang up with Cleve- land, the main outlet for the expanding Ohio region. Emigrants by the tens of thousands boarded schooners and steamers at Buffalo harbor and later, as farmers or lumbermen in the Midwest, sent the product of their labor to the harbor for shipment over the canal. The rising volume of traffic also brought prosperity to Albany and Troy.
Some regions of the state received no benefits from the construction of the Erie and Champlain canals. In fact, farmers tilling the worn-out fields of eastern New York found it impossible to compete with those who grew wheat on the rich lands of the Genesee Valley and in the Midwest. Residents in the southern tier of counties complained that it cost them more to get their produce to market than farmers living on the shores of Lake Michigan. Most of the Hudson River ports between New York and Albany which were terminals of the overland road network failed to grow. An exception was Kingston, which grew rapidly because it was the eastern terminus of the Delaware and Hudson Canal.
Canal business gave employment to thousands. The captains usually owned their own boats and picked up cargo wherever they could find it. A few companies maintained regular service between canal ports. East- bound cargoes were easy to secure because wheat and lumber took up much space. Since westbound cargoes consisted mainly of merchandise, the skippers often filled their boats with emigrants bound for the West. Boatmen were rough and profane, liking nothing better than a chance to fight for the first place in going through a lock. Hundreds of saloons and brothels lined the banks of the Erie Canal, sometimes labeled the "Big Ditch of Iniquity.'
Travelers using the packets complained of tedious delays and over- crowded quarters. The ordinary berth was only five and one-half by two feet, and three berths lined each wall of the tiny cabins. During the 1830's packets charged five cents a mile, including food, and managed to cover about one hundred miles a day. The packets lost most of their passenger
WATERTOWN
Black R. CARTHAGE
CANAL
LAKE ONTARIO
ROME &
BLACK ,RIVER
WHITE HALL
LOCKPORT
ROME
ERIE CANAL
ROCHESTER
WELLAND
CANAL
SARATOGA SPA
GENEVA
SYRACUSE
CANANDAIGUA
EAGLE BRIDGE
BUFFALO
ATTICA
ATTICA&
CANAL
CORTLAND
ALBANY
DANSVILLE
DUNKIRK
HORNELLSVILLE
ON R.R.
ERIE R.R.
HORNELLSVILLE
GENES
CHEMUNG
CANAL
OWEGO
BINGHAMTON
OLEAN
ELMIRA
KINGSTON
DELAWARE & HUDSON CANAL
HUDSON RIVER R.R.
HARLEM R.R.
****** RAILROADS =CANALS
PORT JERVIS
----- ALBANY & SUSQUEHANNA R.R.(in progress)
TROY
LAKE ERIE
VALLEY
ITHACA
CHENANGO CANAL
SCHENECTADY
CHAMPLAIN CANAL
UTICA
BATAVIA
OSWEGO & WATER TOWN RR
OSWEGO GCANAL
AUBURN
BUFFALO &
HUDSON
CORNINGE
1
Map 9. Railroads and canals, 1859.
247
BUILDING THE TRANSPORTATION NETWORK
business after 1842 when the railroads provided through service between Albany and Buffalo.
At first, freight originated largely within the borders of New York. Gradually the amount of freight originating in the western states increased, and by 1847 it equaled that of New York. Four years later it was more than double the New York figure. After 1850 the backbone of canal traffic consisted of grain and lumber from the Lake states, for Erie Canal boat- men were unable to prevent pork, beef, cheese, butter, wool, and hides from slipping to the railroads during the 1850's.
People in other states and in all parts of New York clamored for canals during the early 1830's. Pennsylvania almost bankrupted itself with its elaborate canal system across the Allegheny plateau. The Lake states of Ohio and Indiana constructed canals to connect Lake Erie with the Ohio River ports.
Farmers and businessmen in the "sequestered counties" of New York demanded that the legislature grant as much aid to them as it had to the counties along the routes of the Erie and Champlain canals. Citizens in the Chenango Valley agitated for a canal linking the Erie Canal at Utica with the Susquehanna River at Binghamton, and in 1833 the legislature approved Governor Marcy's recommendation and authorized the ninety- seven-mile-long waterway. The coal brought up from Pennsylvania en- abled capitalists, by 1846, to use steam power in the new textile mills of Utica. Important as this coal trade became, the Chenango Canal never paid its operating costs.
In 1836 the legislature ordered work begun on the Black River and the Genesee Valley canals. Neither waterway paid for the cost of mainte- nance, to say nothing of meeting the interest on the cost of construction.
The Oswego Canal became the most important subsidiary of the Erie because it managed to secure a share of the wheat traffic to the seaboard, despite the hostility of Buffalo. During the early 1850's Buffalo's millers had wrested first place in milling from Rochester, but the millers at the falls of the Oswego River were also grinding millions of bushels of wheat into flour. The merchants and millers of Oswego had the choice of send- ing their goods directly to Syracuse or up the Oswego River to Oneida Lake where a short branch canal connected with the Erie.
Canals also tied the Finger Lakes into the Erie system. From Monte- zuma a link ran to Cayuga Lake, which, in turn, was connected with Seneca Lake. Seneca Lake had two other artificial outlets: a short canal to Penn Yan on Keuka Lake, and the Chemung Canal from Watkins Glen to Elmira.
The Delaware and Hudson Canal, running from Kingston to Port Jervis, thence via the Delaware River and canal to Honesdale, where rail- road connections were made with the coal fields, was the only important
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A SHORT HISTORY OF NEW YORK STATE
private canal within the state. The Wurtz brothers of the Lackawanna region and Philip Hone, mayor of New York, sought to bring coal to the Hudson. The company began digging in 1825 and soon ran through its resources, but the state legislature lent the company $800,000, which was repaid out of the profits.
Few lateral canals ever paid even their operating costs. Revenues de- clined for several reasons: the reduction in tolls, the decline in tonnage due to exhausted woodlands and the shift from wheat, and the compe- tition from the railroads in the 1850's. Canal employees and local busi- ness interests, however, kept the lateral canals open until the 1870's. The people of the state voted in 1874 to keep open only the Erie, Oswego, Cayuga and Seneca, Black River, and Champlain canals. Shortly there- after the rest were abandoned. The Delaware and Hudson Canal Com- pany transformed itself into a railroad system connecting the coal fields with Montreal.
Canal policy became a major issue dividing the parties. The Whigs, drawing support from merchants, shippers, and contractors, unstintingly supported internal improvements of all kinds. The Democratic party split over the canal issue, the Barnburner faction insisting upon retrenchment and the Hunker wing demanding state aid. During the 1830's a campaign for double locks on the Erie Canal got under way, and in 1838 the Whigs authorized $40,000,000 for a gigantic program of aid for canals and rail- roads in almost every section of the state.
This debt increase seriously impaired the credit of the state. The Barn- burners pushed through their famous "stop and tax law" of 1842 which brought all construction to a halt for four years. The Democrats wrote into the Constitution of 1846 several provisions designed to limit major ex- penditures unless approved by the people. They even assigned canal reve- nues to maintenance expenses and set up a sinking fund for retirement of the canal debt.
The Whigs were eager to complete the enlargement of the Erie Canal. But how were they to surmount the constitutional barriers? Governor Washington Hunt in 1850 devised a clever scheme whereby the comp- troller would sell canal revenue certificates worth $9,000,000. Twelve economy-minded senators resigned their seats in 1851 in order to leave the Senate without a constitutional quorum. The Whigs, however, won many seats at the fall election, and a majority of the "resigners" were re- tired from office. Thereupon, the comptroller was empowered to sell canal revenue certificates worth up to $3,000,000. The Court of Appeals found this act invalid but the canal supporters would not give up. In 1853 Gov- ernor Horatio Seymour, a procanal Democrat, called a special session of the legislature to submit an amendment authorizing loans of not more than $2,250,000 in each year during the next four years. It was overwhelm-
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BUILDING THE TRANSPORTATION NETWORK
ingly approved. Many citizens voted for the measure because they be- lieved that the New York Central Railroad discriminated against upstate shippers in noncompetitive points in favor of through freight from Buffalo and Chicago.
The natural waterways of New York State-lake, river, sound, and ocean-carried a volume of freight far exceeding that of the canals and railroads. Indeed, the chief function of turnpikes, canals, and railroads before 1850 was to connect navigable bodies of water.
The lakes and rivers of New York were crowded with a variety of vessels. Over nine thousand schooners, barks, brigantines, and brigs cleared Buffalo harbor in 1855. The buckets of ten elevators unloaded the holds of these vessels speedily and efficiently. Traffic on Lake Ontario, although smaller in volume, grew, especially after 1833, when the Ca- nadian government opened the Welland Canal, allowing ships to pass around Niagara Falls. By 1860 tonnage carried on the Great Lakes was second only to that on the Atlantic Ocean in the western hemisphere.
Lake Champlain carried much less freight than either of the Great Lakes bordering on New York. High-quality iron ore was sent down to the forges surrounding the lake and as far south as the iron and steel forges of Troy and Albany, but lumber was the major item on Lake Champlain as well as on the other lakes. By 1850 the steamboat had sup- planted the sailing vessel on the lake.
The Hudson River, called the "American Rhine" by admiring foreigners, remained one of the nation's major arteries. About two hundred vessels plied between Albany and New York in 1827, and 163 ships were carry- ing flour, pork, lard, butter, and wool between Albany and Boston in 1828. The steamboat gradually outmoded the sailing vessels, first in the passenger traffic and after 1840 in freighting. By 1840 there were over one hundred steamboats on the Hudson, some of them making the trip from Albany to New York in eight hours. Even after the railroads took most of the passenger traffic, barges and canal boats towed by steamboats car- ried the bulk of farm produce during the summer months.
The steamboats engaged in rate wars in order to gain customers. The owners of the major lines organized the Hudson River Steamboat Asso- ciation to fight interlopers breaking the three-dollar fare from New York to Albany. They paid Cornelius Vanderbilt a bonus of $100,000 in addi- tion to a yearly retainer of $5,000 to withdraw from the Hudson River business. Steamboat captains also competed in speed, tying down the safety valves and skipping the smaller landings. Not infrequently the boilers blew up and the ships burned. Accidents, however, did little to deter steamboat travel, which Americans found the cheapest and most pleasant means of travel.
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A SHORT HISTORY OF NEW YORK STATE
Long Island Sound was the major channel down which the trade and travel of lower New England flowed to Manhattan. The curiously in- dented coastline of Connecticut and Rhode Island hampered the con- struction of a shore-line railroad that could serve Bridgeport, New Haven, New London, and Providence. Furthermore, boats offered passengers greater comfort and the chance to sleep. Each of the cities on the sound and a few beyond hoped to monopolize the transfer trade between Boston and New York. At first, Providence took the lead, but Stonington, Nor- wich, and Fall River made their bids. In 1847 Fall River capitalists began the historic Fall River Line to New York City. Competition of the most savage sort broke out as rival lines and cities tried to gather in a larger share of the through traffic. Not until 1881 did the various lines enter into a lasting agreement.
The life of Cornelius Vanderbilt was an epic of the Steam Age. As a youth he rowed passengers from his native Staten Island to Manhattan, then extended his operations throughout New York harbor and up and down the coast. In 1818 he became a steamboat captain for Thomas Gib- bons, who was challenging the steamboat monopoly of New York waters granted to the Livingstons. Ten years later Vanderbilt felt confident enough to establish his own steamboat route. In the next three decades he won the soubriquet of "Commodore" because of his shipping activities, which, incidentally, netted him a fortune of over $20,000,000. Until he was bought out by his rivals, he ran his boats from Manhattan to points in Jersey, along Long Island Sound, and up the Hudson. During the 1850's Vanderbilt operated a line of ships to Nicaragua and Panama and engaged in the transatlantic shuttle. In the same period he became in- terested in the Harlem Railroad and other railroads connecting with his ships. The hard-driving Commodore retired from shipping in 1864 and directed all his energies to building up a railroad empire.
During the 1830's many New York communities became enthusiastic supporters of railroads. In general, however, the wealthy men of New York City showed much more caution in promoting railroads than did the cap- italists of Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Domestic and foreign commerce was thriving, and few merchants thought the railroad would ever displace the Erie Canal as a freight carrier. Furthermore, the state legislature discouraged railroads paralleling the Erie Canal from carrying freight.
The first railroad in New York was the famous Mohawk and Hudson between Albany and Schenectady. On August 9, 1831, thousands of spec- tators watched the tiny "De Witt Clinton" draw three coaches over the wooden scantlings or rails, reinforced on top by strips of iron a half-inch thick and two inches wide. The managers quickly adopted improve-
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BUILDING THE TRANSPORTATION NETWORK
ments. New long cars replaced the first crude bodies adapted from the stagecoach, and more powerful locomotives proved more reliable.
Even before the completion of the Mohawk and Hudson line, the legislature granted a charter to the Saratoga and Schenectady, which rapidly built a line to the fashionable watering place. By 1833 two trains left Albany each day for Schenectady to connect with cars leaving for Saratoga Springs. Some citizens of Troy who wanted to get control of the passenger traffic to Saratoga organized the Rensselaer and Saratoga Railroad in 1831 and also captured control of the Schenectady and Sara- toga. These moves infuriated the businessmen of Albany. In 1836 Troy citizens organized the Schenectady and Troy, one of the few steam rail- roads financed, constructed, and operated by a municipality. This ven- ture, however, failed to divert the passenger traffic to Troy because the Utica and Schenectady Railroad threw its business at Schenectady to the Mohawk and Hudson line. In 1852 the Common Council of Troy, under pressure from the taxpayers, sold their road to Edwin D. Morgan, presi- dent of the Hudson River Railroad, who almost immediately transferred the line to the newly formed New York Central.
Promoters projected a series of short lines across the state. The Utica and Schenectady opened in 1836 and made handsome profits, although its charter prohibited it from transporting freight. The next links, the Syracuse and Utica and the Auburn and Syracuse, began to operate trains in 1839. Two years later the Auburn and Rochester was completed, touch- ing the villages of Geneva and Canandaigua. The direct road between Syracuse and Rochester was not opened until 1852, but it soon supplanted the earlier route. Meanwhile capitalists in Rochester had constructed a line westward to Batavia. When the Attica and Buffalo made connections with the Rochester and Batavia in 1842, the chain across the state was complete.
The all-rail route from Albany to Buffalo posed many problems, espe- cially uncertain schedules and frequent changes of cars. In 1842 repre- sentatives of the various lines agreed to arrange through trains. The ban on freight carriage was irksome to railroads and shippers alike. In 1847 the legislature permitted the railroads to carry freight provided they paid equivalent tolls to the canal fund. Shippers kept complaining about the high rates, and after considerable agitation the tolls were repealed in 1851.
Finally, in 1853, Erastus Corning, an Albany merchant, consolidated the eight short lines across the state into the New York Central. Shippers of high-class and perishable freight immediately began using the rail- road instead of the Erie Canal. By 1858 the canal boats had lost all but two major types of freight-lumber and grain products.
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A SHORT HISTORY OF NEW YORK STATE
During this period Troy and Albany were competing to become the chief terminal for railroads stretching across from Boston and up from New York. Boston capitalists had extended the Western Railroad to the New York State line, where it connected with the Albany and West Stock- bridge line, which was largely financed by the city of Albany. As a result of this connection Bostonians could travel by rail to Buffalo as early as 1842. New York merchants realized that their rivals had stolen a march on them. Western storekeepers could visit the warehouses of Boston long before the ice had melted in the Hudson River.
At first the businessmen of New York City paid little attention to Boston's advantage. They failed to throw their full support to railroads connecting this great seaport with the western waterways. The New York and Harlem, chartered in 1831, pushed northward at a snail's pace. The Hudson River Railroad was hardly more than a paper enterprise until 1845, when citizens of Poughkeepsie stirred up action. Then promoters collected $3,000,000 and hired John B. Jervis, the most famous engineer of the day. Jervis built a water-level route on the east bank and by 1851 trains were running into East Albany. A few months later the New York and Harlem, following an inland route, also reached East Albany.
Meanwhile, Troy was trying to make rail connections with Boston and New York. Passengers and freight could cross the Hudson at Troy by bridge whereas at Albany they had to undergo the inconvenience, ex- pense, and danger of crossing the river by ferryboat. The businessmen of Troy fought the proposal for a bridge at Albany in 1841 and again in 1845, 1854, and 1856 by lining up most of the steamboat and canal in- terests. These latter feared that bridge piers would obstruct navigation to the upper Hudson. The victory of Albany became certain when the completion of the Pennsylvania and the Baltimore and Ohio railroads threatened to divert passenger travel and high-class freight away from New York City. The political allies of the New York Central forced through a charter for a bridge at Albany in 1856 but the span was not completed until 1866.
The citizens in the southern tier of counties joined the chorus for rail- road facilities. In 1832, over the opposition of the "Canal Ring" in Albany, Eleazur Lord and a number of other promoters took out a charter for the Erie Railroad, which was to run across the state from Piermont to Dun- kirk. Difficulties of every description beset them. The hilly terrain and river crossings troubled the engineers. The region had a sparse popula- tion, without a single city of more than three thousand inhabitants along the route. Capital was hard to raise, especially after the Panic of 1837 forced the Erie into bankruptcy. The state of New York advanced $6,000,- 000, and the local governments along the route gave much aid. After its
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BUILDING THE TRANSPORTATION NETWORK
reorganization in 1847, the Erie forged ahead rapidly, and by 1851 trains carried Fillmore's cabinet to Dunkirk over the longest continuous rail- road line in the world.
Troubles continued to bedevil the Erie. The poor location of its terminals hampered smooth operations. The thirty-five-mile trip by steam- boat from Piermont to New York City was inconvenient and, in winter, dangerous. Later, the railroad built an extension to Jersey City. Dunkirk was also a bad selection since most freight coming down the Lakes made for Buffalo. The Erie later made connections with Buffalo over two locally built roads-the Buffalo and Cochecton and the Attica and Hornellsville. Overcapitalization and poor management proved more disastrous to the company than its awkward terminals and nonstandard six-foot gauge. Heavy freight traffic could not save the line from bankruptcy in 1857, when the railroad fell into the hands of Daniel Drew. For the next dozen years its history is an epic of mismanagement and corruption in which Drew, Jay Gould, Jim Fisk, and other scoundrels dissipated the road's dwindling assets.
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