Landmarks of Oswego County, New York, Part 35

Author: Churchill, John Charles, 1821-1905; Smith, H. P. (Henry Perry), 1839-1925; Child, W. Stanley
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason
Number of Pages: 1410

USA > New York > Oswego County > Landmarks of Oswego County, New York > Part 35

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1893 .-- Mayor, William J. Bulger ; recorder, Chas. N. Bulger ; clerk, John H. Kelly ; attorney, Bernard Gallagher; city chamberlain, Bart Lynch; aldermen, first ward, John Clancy ; second ward, Patrick H. Moran ; third ward, Robert H. Jones; fourth ward, Alfred E. Rice; fifth ward, James Dalton; sixth ward, Arthur E. Miner ; sev- enth ward, Edward Sculley ; eighth ward, Timothy Sweeney ; supervisors, first ward, James Redmond; second ward, Chas. H Donoghue ; third ward, David S. Stone ; fourth ward, Alfred A. Wellington; fifth ward, Timothy Mahoney ; sixth ward, Edgar E. Frost; seventh ward, John Werner ; eighth ward, John F. Kelly.

1894 .- Mayor John D. Higgins; recorder, Charles N. Bulger; clerk, Fred D. Wheeler; attorney, Frank E. Hamilton ; city chamberlain, Bart Lynch ; aldermen, first ward, Alfred Moran, jr .; second ward, Patrick H. Moran ; third ward, John Thompson ; fourth ward, Benjamin Denton; fifth ward, Robert Long ; sixth ward, Thomas A. Smith; seventh ward, Henry Fleischman ; eighth ward, Charles Bechstedt; super- visors, first ward, Peter Dougherty ; second ward, John Young; third ward, David S. Stone; fourth ward, Alfred A. Wellington ; fifth ward, John Woods; sixth ward, Ed- gar E. Frost; seventh ward, Fred E, Sayer ; eighth ward, Joseph Wilbur.

The charter of the city, with its various amendments, has been care- fully revised and rewritten during the present year, making substantially a new instrument, which became a law April 24, 1895. Municipal elec- tions in Oswego are hereafter to be held in November of each odd numbered year.

Oswego Harbor-The following history of the improvements in Oswego harbor from 1727 to 1895 has been prepared for this work from the records of the United States Engineers' office, and is authoritative and exhaustive :

344

LANDMARKS OF OSWEGO COUNTY.

The history of Oswego harbor dates from the time of the first occupation of the place by the English in May, 1727, when Governor Burnet sent workmen from New York who built "a stone house of strength sufficiently strong against an attack of small arms." 1 For protection against the French or Indians, the workmen were accompanied by a captain, two lieutenants, and sixty soldiers, and it was “ intended to keep an officer and twenty men always in garrison." About 200 traders took immediate advantage of this opportunity for a safe convoy and profitable and protected trade, and built seventy cabins close beside the stronghold ; constituting an "armed Militia ready to join in de- fense of the building and their Trade."

This fortified settlement was on the west side of the harbor, close to the shores of both river and lake, fronting upon the sheltered "cove" formed behind the point of gravel and stones which forms the nucleus of what is now known as the "Upper Island " and lies just north of the line of Schuyler street. The trading post was located at this place because this was the natural terminus of the interior waterways of the State, and especially of the waterway from the Hudson River at Albany to the Great Lakes and the West. This natural route was by the way of the Mohawk River to its head at Fort Stanwix, where there was a five-mile carrying-place across the summit to Wood Creek, down which boats ran to Oneida Lake and thence by the Oneida River and the Oswego River to Lake Ontario at Oswego. This primitive route of the early bateaumen will undoubtedly be again followed by a great ship canal, whenever one shall be built to connect the lakes and tidewater.

The construction of the trading-post at Oswego made it the depot at which was stored the cargoes of bateaux which came from Albany; those goods which were designed for the West there awaiting favorable conditions of weather and of trade for the hazardous trip along the lakes. Oswego was thus the first harbor, and the starting point of commerce on the Great Lakes. Its possession was considered by the English (who called it Oswego) to be of the first importance, while the French (whose rendition of the same name was Chouaguen) considered that unless the English post could be de- stroyed, their own possession of the lakes was endangered. These opinions led the English to strongly fortify and garrison the place until 1756, when the French equipped a stronger force who captured and destroyed it, and with it a fleet of English vessels and bateaux which must have quite filled the little harbor. The history of these opera- tions has been elsewhere given.

A French map of the place made in 1727 by M. Chaussegros de Lery, shows the en- trance to the river to be 190 feet wide, and the river itself at about Cayuga street, to be 512 feet wide, which is almost precisely its present width at this point. The gravel point which then sheltered the west cove was smaller than the present " Island wharf," of which it forms the nucleus ; the wharf having been made by surrounding the point with cribs and then filling behind them with the material obtained by cutting away the neck which joined the point with the west shore. The cove which was sheltered by this point was then about 150 feet wide and 320 feet long. The navigable depth of the entrance to the harbor was seven and one-half feet and of the harbor within the river-

1 Extracts from report of Governor Burnet, dated New York, May 9, 1727.

Plan of Oswego 1727

from Paris Doo. VIIL

Reference

Plan de la redoute a Machicoulis que Ics .. Inglais ont fait construire à l'entrée de la Riviere Chouaguen avec maconnerie de moilons et terres glaise

B Elevation de la dite Redoute

C Vingt bateaus de bois auc.Anglais

D) Huit Canots d'Écorce.

E 70 C'abanes aut Marchands Anglois et Flamands

I' Tentes des Troupes ou campent 60 Soldats

¿ Situation de la redoute

I 200 Piene de Cedre de 15 pieds delong quen croit être destines a faire un fort.

1 Mouillage des Barques

Entrée de la Riviere Chouaguen, scituce a la Cote du Sud, du ' Lac Frontenac

Choweguen

Plan of the Redout with Galleries which the English built with rough masonry and day at the mouth of the River Chouaguen

B Elevation of said Redout

C' Twenty Battraux belonging to the English.

D Eight Bark l'anoes

E 70 Cabins belonging to the English and Dutch Traders

Riviere

F Tents of the Troops where til) Soldiers Camp

G Situation of the Redout

H 200 Cedar packets 15 feet long intended

'lis supposed for the erection of a fort

I .Anchorage of the Vessels

Just a Montreal ce : Juillet 1728

"Ligne Chanfsupras de Leiy

Partie du Lac Frontenac/ anciennement

Appellé Ontario

300

200

JOU TOISES

SỐ

Translation of the Reference

345

OSWEGO AS A VILLAGE AND CITY.

mouth was probably about ten feet at the extreme low-water level of the lake, the cove being probably less, with shelving sides on which the bateaux were hauled up to be un- loaded. These bateaux which traded between Albany and Oswego were of a capacity of 1,200 to 1,500 pounds of freight each, and usually made the trips in fleets of 200 to 600 boats as a security from Indians. No larger craft used Oswego harbor until 1755, when an English schooner of forty feet keel was built and launched here. Five others were built here in 1756, making in all an Oswego-built fleet mounting seventy guns.

Up to this time, the English commerce upon the lakes was much hampered by the hostility of the French and of the Indians whom they controlled. But the campaigns of 1758, 1759, and 1760 (which were conducted from Oswego as the English base for all operations as far east as Montreal), destroyed the French power in Canada, and opened the lake to an unrestricted English commerce, and from this time the impor- tance of Oswego harbor increased with the general growth of trade. This growth was greatly accelerated by the building in 1821 of a stone lighthouse upon the high bank on the east side of the river-mouth, near Fort Ontario, and by the construction of the gov- ernment breakwaters and piers at Oswego in 1827, 1828, and 1829, forming an artifi- cially sheltered harbor with good anchorage, where there had formerly been only an open roadstead outside of the river-mouth. Until this time, the natural harbor had been within the river-mouth, where it had been directly exposed to northerly winds and waves, from which the breakwater gave perfect protection. At this time and until 1847, the entrance to the river-mouth was obstructed by a gravel bar stretching across the channel of the river, at the north extremity of the upper island, upon which bar there was only seven and one-half feet depth at extreme low water. The original sur- vey upon which the construction of the harbor was based was made under a paragraph of the River and Harbor Bill of 1826 appropriating "$200 for making a survey of Oswego Bay and Harbor for ascertaining the expediency and expense of constructing piers to improve the navigation thereof."

The operations under this act were assigned to Captain John Lind Smith of the U. S. Corps of Engineers, who engaged Augustus Ford, civil engineer, to make a survey of the bay and river, with a plan and estimate for the proposed works of improvement. This was done during September, 1826, and the map and estimate were received and approved by Captain Smith on September 27. The estimated cost was $33,348.64 and on March 2, 1827, an appropriation of that amount was made by Congress.

On April 26, 1827, Capt. J. L. Smith came again to Oswego, had a model made of the proposed crib-work, and on April 30 received proposals for building the piers in accordance therewith. A contract was made with the lowest bidder, Moses Porter Hatch, to furnish all material and to complete the work for $13.26 per lineal foot of pier. Daniel Hugunin, jr., was appointed the superintendent of the work, under the local supervision of James Cochran, John Grant, jr., and Henry Eagle as commissioners, with Capt. J. L. Smith as non-resident engineer. The work was in progress during 1827, 1828, 1829.

In the fall of 1827, the incomplete work received extensive damages, for the repair of which an appropriation of $9,583.39 was made on May 9, 1828. During 1828, the harbor works were examined by Capt. Theodore W. Maurice, of the Corps of Engineers,

346

LANDMARKS OF OSWEGO COUNTY.

who approved of them, but recommended "as an additional security," that a mole of random stone be formed "on the outside of the work next the lake." In 1829 the originally planned crib-work breakwaters were completed by contractor Moses P. Hatch, and the formation of the mole was begun and was continued from 1830 to 1837. It consisted of a mass of loose stone, thirty to forty feet in width, rising in a regular slope from the lake-bottom to three to five feet above water at the breakwater against which it rested. This mass was [paved with large blocks of Chaumont limestone of about three tons each, and the foot of the slope was secured with larger blocks about two and one-half feet square on the ends and about ten feet long, weighing about five tons each. This mole was damaged by every storm, and its only effect on the crib-work was to guide the waves up the slope and to increase their destructive force in wrecking the pier and in throwing sand and gravel over it into the harbor.

The general plan of the harbor as then built was as follows: The west breakwater started from the shore of the lake at the foot of West Third street, and extended out into the lake 250 feet to where the depth was about ten feet. Here it turned east- ward for about 1,200 feet, to where a pier-head was formed in about twenty-one feet depth, and an opening of 250 feet was left opposite the river channel, for the passage of the current and for the entrance of vessels. (The channel opening was later widened to 357 feet, by the destruction of 107 feet of the east breakwater.)

The east breakwater formed a prolongation of the same line for 660 feet eastward, where it turned toward the shore under Fort Ontario for 170 feet. These structures enclosed a triangular shaped area, outside the original lake shore line, about one-half mile from west to east, and about one-quarter mile from north to south, of about forty acres' extent, which area was gradually surrounded and more or less occupied by wharves and piers for the loading and unloading of cargoes of vessels and canal boats, The original structure was composed of cribs of timber each thirty feet wide and thirty feet long, which were filled with loose stones and were sunk end to end upon the natural lake bottom as closely in contact as was practicable. The cribs were formed of round logs hewn flat, framed together and bolted with iron drift bolts and wooden treenails. They had floors of slabs and were allowed to settle upon the natural bottom for a part of the season before building upon them the continuous superstructure of 12 by 12 hewn tim- ber. This superstructure was built to a height of seven feet above extreme low water level, or two feet above extreme high water level; was sheathed on its lake face with vertical plank three inches thick, and its top was covered with a deck of three-inch pine laid across the pier. The natural depths in which the cribs were placed, increased gradually from nothing, at the origin of the shore-arm on the west side of the mouth of the river, to about twenty-one feet (at extreme low water level) at the pier head next the river channel. After leaving an opening, as above described, between the west and the east breakwater, the depths in which the cribs forming the east break- water were placed gradually decreased from about eighteen feet next the channel to nothing at the east shore line.

The original Oswego and Syracuse Canal, four feet deep, with locks 90 by 15 feet connecting Oswego harbor with the Erie Canal, had been completed in 1828, and in 1829 the original Welland Canal (Canadian), eight feet deep, with locks 110 by 22 feet,

347

OSWEGO AS A VILLAGE AND CITY.

connecting Lake Ontario with Lake Erie, was completed and opened. The immediate effect of these works was to stimulate the growth of commerce upon the lakes, and no place was so much affected by this growth as was Oswego,

In 1828 the total tonnage of vessels owned at Oswego was 180 tons. In 1829 the total number of arrivals of vessels by lake was about 200, with a total tonnage of about 37,000 tons, the value of imports being about $150,000, and of exports about $127,000. The canal tolls collected at Oswego were $14,660. At this date the population of Oswego was 1,400.

Up to this time the only lighthouse had been the original one built in 1821 on the east side of the river near the fort. The small stone house still standing there was the light- house keeper's dwelling and adjoined the lighthouse. In 1834 the construction of the pres- ent cut-stone lighthouse on the west pier-head was begun, and it was completed and lighted in 1836. In 1837 the construction of a permanent superstructure of cut-stone masonry was begun upon the shore end of the west pier at the foot of Third street. In 1837 the population had more than trebled since 1828 and the volume of commerce had more than doubled. The canal tolls collected at Oswego in 1837 were $31,564.

The arrival of the canal packet boat was the daily event of greatest importance, and the bugle notes which announced its approach were the signal for a gathering at the landing place "to see the packet come in," while the horses which towed it made a spurt for the finish. The landing was at the east end of the lower bridge, to which the packets came down in the water power canal or mill race, and landed their passen- gers on the level of Bridge street opposite the Arcade Block. The canal boats bound to and from the harbor were locked down into the present canal basin from the power- canal by two combined locks, whose remains are yet visible half buried in the bank between the power-canal and the present first lock. This arrangement of the canal terminus was changed in 1850 to 1854 by the construction of the present locks and of . the wall forming the canal basin.

The following is the summary of the commercial statistics given by Capt. Wm. Smith- Fraser of the Corps of Engineers in his annual report for 1837:

American vessels entered and cleared at Oswego I18 -17,130 tons

Foreign vessels entered and cleared at Oswego. -302. -56,989 tons

Total -420- -

74,119 tons

Value of imports received at Oswego

$199,1IO

Value of exports cleared at Oswego.

356,615

Duties collected at Oswego, about 20,000

Canal boats cleared from Oswego, 1,773 boats, taking 41 tons each as the average cargo.

Imports received at Oswego by canal 25,357 tons

Value of imports. $1,517,578

Exports cleared from Oswego by canal

15,087 tons

Value of exports

$1,527,498

Canal tolls collected at Oswego.

31,564

(This included 66,002 barrels of flour.)

In 1840 the construction of a permanent superstructure, formed of concrete faced with cut-stone masonry, was still in progress upon the shore end of the west break- water, using for it blocks of limestone, which, between 1830 and 1838, had been placed in front of the west breakwater to form a mole. From October 11, 1838, the work

348

LANDMARKS OF OSWEGO COUNTY.

was in charge of John W. Judson, U. S. civil engineer, on whose recommendation the maintenance of the mole was abandoned in 1839, as its only effect had been to guide waves up its slope and to destroy the crib-work.

His annual report for 1841 to the chief topographical engineer at Washington is the only available and accurate record of the state of Oswego's harbor and commerce at that date, and might profitably be reprinted in full. The following quotation shows the commercial growth :

In 1828 the Oswego Canal was opened, and the harbor improvements had begun to give some shelter to the shipping. In that year the tonnage of the port amounted to 18c tons. In 1840 she had three steamboats and seventy-six rigged vessels whose aggregate tonnage was 7,586 tons.

In 1827 its population was 606 ; in 1840, 4,658. In 1829 the canal tolls on property transported to and from Oswego amounted to $1,466 ; in 1840 to $51.899.

In 1831 Oswego received from the upper lakes through the Welland Canal wheat and flour equal to 41,750 bushels ; in 1840, 751,482 bushels.

Engineer Judson's report goes on to give a description of the various mills, factories, and ship-building facilities, and makes the following statements and prophecy which are of interest : 1

It is thus shown that Oswego harbor was the birth-place of lake steam screw navi- gation,2 as well as the building place in 1755, of the first English sailing craft, and the original starting point in 1727 of English lake commerce itself.

In 1838 the water level of the lake was phenomenally high, having ever since been referred to as "the high water of 1838," and having only once (1870) been equaled. Up to this time no attention whatever had been given to the periodic changes of level of the waters of the Great Lakes, and Mr. Judson at once saw the importance, to all future harbor works on the lakes, of definite and accurate knowledge on this subject ; especially as to what might be the extreme low water level. By careful research and examination of natural water marks and of ancient quarries along the lake shore, Mr. Judson determined that the extreme low water level of former years had been four and ninety-five one-hundredths feet below its high stage in 1838, and he established the United States gauge with its zero at that point, and had its foot-marks and figures cut in the east face of the stone pier fifty-five feet north of its south end, where they can still be seen. The water levels have been here read and recorded three times per day ever since; these records forming a basis for all studies of lake fluctuations.

1 This report forms Appendix A of the Report of the Chief of Topographical Engineers to the Secretary of War, dated November 15, 1841 ; also part of Senate Document No. 56, Ist Session, 25th Congress, and of House Document No. 2, 2d Session, 27th Congress.

A vessel is now on the stocks and will be ready for service in the month of July, 1841, in which the spiral or Ericsson's propellors are to be employed. She is designed for the upper lake trade and will test the merits of this application of steam-power to the coasting trade of our inland waters. The recent experiments in the case of the steam packet Clarion, accounts of whose highly successful voyage to Havana have just reached me (May 20th), would leave little doubts of the merits of the invention. . Should these experiments prove successful, the propellors will be generally adopted. We may then anticipate a revolution in the trade of the lakes equal to that already wrought by steam power on our navigable rivers and on the Atlantic. By giving to lake navigation celerity and certainty of arrival, the steam-coasters will maintain the current of western trade toward Lake Ontario in defiance of every obstacle.

2 Mention of the first propeller is made elsewhere.

John Hudson

349

OSWEGO AS A VILLAGE AND CITY.

Nearly sixty years of daily observations have confirmed the accuracy of Mr. Jud- son's judgment, for the water level has never gone below this zero, though it reached it for a few days in 1846, 1848, 1872, 1891 and 1895. All other gauges on Lake On- tario are set to agree with it. This zero mark is seven and seventy-nine one-hun- dredths feet below a point on the top surface of the edge of the cut limestone pave- ments of the pier at the point before described. The mean level of the lake has been found to be two and four-tenths feet above zero. In 1875 government engineers con- nected this zero by a line of minutely accurate levels, with mean tide level in New York harbor, and found it to be 244 and twenty-one one-hundredths feet above the latter.

During the period from 1837 to 1849, the general government was under an adminis- tration which was opposed to the policy of internal improvements, and there was a general cessation of appropriations for the care, preservation or extension of harbor works on the lakes. For Oswego harbor, appropriations were made in 1838, in 1844, and not again until 1852. The works which had been built at great expense were allowed to be gradually destroyed, the small appropriations made in 1844 being expended in partial repairs and maintenance from time to time. During this period, the harbor works and the limited operations for their maintenance continued in the charge of John W. Judson as United States agent, and his report for 1847, together with that of the collector, George H. McWhorter, gives full information as to the con- tinued growth of commerce even under this blighting policy. This growth was largely due to the liberal policy of the Canadian government, whose commercial wisdom was and still is in striking contrast with the short-sighted folly of our own government. Between 1841 and 1846 the original Welland Canal was enlarged and all the locks entirely rebuilt, the original wooden locks 110 feet long by twenty-two feet wide and eight feet deep being replaced by masonry locks, each 150 feet long by twenty-six and one-half feet wide and nine feet deep.

At this time (1846), and for many years afterward, the commercial rivalry between Oswego and Buffalo was great. Buffalo being the Lake Erie terminus of the Erie Canal, and Oswego the Lake Ontario terminus of the same canal, freight bound for tide-water could go by way of either place, Buffalo offering the inducement that its freight need not pass through the Welland Canal and Lake Ontario, which Oswego offset by the fact that the cargoes transferred to canal boats at Oswego had then 168 miles less of canal to traverse to reach New York and proportionably less canal tolls to pay than from Buffalo. The canal trips from Oswego required twenty per cent. less time than the canal trip from Buffalo. The enlargement of the Welland Canal was therefore of the greatest advantage to the Oswego trade ; permitting as it did the pass- age of much larger vessels. It was fully utilized by Oswego, although the object of the enlargement was to provide a continuous Canadian route to Montreal and tidewater ; the St. Lawrence canals, with the same depth, but with larger locks, being also com- pleted and opened in 1846.

A comparison of the commercial business of Buffalo and of Oswego in 1847 will be of interest in this connection.

Lumber received : Oswego 34 million feet B. M .; Buffalo 42 million feet B. M. Grain received, Oswego 4,392,000 bushels ; Buffalo, [9,354,000 bushels. Flour received, Oswego 153,286 barrels ;

350

LANDMARKS OF OSWEGO COUNTY.

Buffalo, 1,884,292 barrels. Salt shipped, Oswego 380,761 barrels ; Buffalo 133,438 barrels. Vessels and steamers arrived, omitting daily steamers to and from Canada at each place. Oswego, 2,406 in number with a tonnage of 511,425; Buffalo, 3,430 in number with a tonage of 822,528.

The following statistics show more fully the commerce of Oswgo in 1847.1

Lake Commerce :

American vessels entered at Oswego,

In home trade, 1731 -325,420 tons.

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Landmarks of Oswego County, New York, Part 35

Author: Churchill, John Charles, 1821-1905; Smith, H. P. (Henry Perry), 1839-1925; Child, W. Stanley Publication date: 1895 Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason Number of Pages: 1410

Author: Churchill, John Charles, 1821-1905; Smith, H. P. (Henry Perry), 1839-1925; Child, W. Stanley
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason
Number of Pages: 1410