USA > New York > Niagara County > Outpost of empires; a short history of Niagara County > Part 19
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Today most of the grapes grown are the deep purple Concord, though a few Niagaras remain. In 1954 there were better than three-quarters of a million grape vines in the county. And the num- ber of newly planted vines, not yet producing fruit, was double that of fifteen years before.
Niagara grew most of the state's peaches
Golden Jubilees, Red Havens, Burbanks, Hale Havens, Elbertas-which will you have? All are famous peaches which are grown in Niagara peach belt.
The outstanding township is Porter. The river and the lake protect the peach orchards of this township from low temperatures. In 1934, after a bad freeze the winter before, the peach trees of Porter produced nearly 75 per cent of the peaches raised in New York State. The other towns were hard hit, but Porter escaped with little damage. This is a good illustration of the way bodies of water help keep temperatures mild.
About one-third of the state's peach trees grow in Niagara County. In 1954 this was about 300,000. They produced about 488,000 bushels of the many varieties grown here. In addition, about 35,000 trees had been planted but were not yet producing peaches.
Pears were abundant In 1851, a Niagara County nurseryman offered 40,000 pear trees for sale. It takes a pear tree about as long as an apple to begin bearing full crops. This is about ten years. The eighteen-fifties, over a century ago, saw a great many pear orchards started in the county.
The number of trees was greatest just after World War I, when there were better than one-half million trees in county orchards. Today there are about 85,000. A large proportion of these are Bartletts.
Cherry trees in- creased in number
Though apples and pears have declined in the number of trees planted in recent years, another fruit has increased. This fruit is
the cherry. The chief varieties are the Montmorency, a sour cherry; and several sweets, the Bing, Napoleon, Lambert, and Windsor. Although there are more varieties of sweet cherries, most of the crop is sour cherries.
There has been a steady increase in the number of cherry trees. From about 27,000 in 1889, the figure had risen to better than 150,000 by 1954. The sours outnumbered the sweets by four to one. In late years, the cherry had been attacked by virus diseases. In some cases this has meant the destruction of entire orchards.
Plum and prune trees became more important
Plum and prune trees are also important in the orchards of the county. There were about 90,000 trees in 1954. The leading varieties were the Stanley, the Fellenberg, and the Damson. New varieties for the fresh fruit market are being intro- duced.
How did vegetable production turn out?
Vegetables are an important part of agricultural production, too, in Niagara County. Such items as cabbages, tomatoes, green beans, peas, lima beans, and many other common garden vegetables are raised. Most of these go to canning factories or cold storage plants, but some are sold on the fresh vegetable market. Of course, the roadside stand is still very much in evidence on the highways of the county.
Some changes are occurring in this part of farming as well. Canning factory peas have practically gone, although a few years ago there were many acres of this crop. Climate and weather fac- tors are important here. Other areas of the United States can pro- duce them at a lower cost. Niagara County farmers cannot sell at the low prices these areas can. As a result production of this vege- table has shifted to other areas of the nation.
Another example of the effect other parts of the nation have on Niagara County is cabbage. This vegetable is also grown in the Texas Panhandle and in Georgia, among other areas. The principal cabbage crop of Niagara County is a late storage, or Danish cab- bage. If the Texas growers have a good crop year, their cabbage comes to market fresh and green in January. The Niagara cabbage, which has been in storage for some months by this time, comes to market somewhat "blanched" or white. The shopper in the market naturally prefers the nice green cabbage. As a result, the success of the "cabbage year" in Niagara County depends partly on how good a season other areas of the United States have.
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NIAGARA FALLS
POWER WATERWAYS
NIAGARA FALLS POWER HOUSES
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POWER STATIONS
HYDRAULIC
CANAL
LOWER
PRESSURE
TUNNEL
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NIAGARA RIVER
بير
PORT DAY ?
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UPPER NIAGARA RIVER
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0 400 800 ft.
SCALE
R. WILHELMS
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TAIL- RACE TUNNEL ( EVERSHED TUNNEL )
BRIDGE TO CANADA
Farming becomes a big business as well as
a way of life
Farming in Niagara County today is much more complex than it was a century ago. Through the leadership of the New York State College of Agriculture and the Geneva Experimental Station, the farmer knows a good deal more about his business. Each county in the state has a farm agent who has spent years studying agriculture and knows how to aid the farmers of his area.
Many bulletins are published on various agricultural subjects. A farmer can get bulletins on potato growing, raising broiler chickens, repairing and maintaining various types of equipment on his farm, and on many more topics. Cost-accounting bulletins are published which will tell him how much his crops cost to raise.
Today farming is still a way of life. But it is also a business, and a business with guidance. There are 3200 related farm busi- nesses in Niagara County in this period of farm bulletins, special agents, hay balers, milking machines, power sprayers, city-made and packaged goods, frozen foods, television, and commercial recre- ation. Would the farmer of one hundred years ago recognize the farmer of today? He probably wouldn't until they began talking crops !
13. Invention and skill provide power to start new industry
Niagara uses water power early in its history
How did Joncaire get power for his sawmill?
One day in the year 1757, Chabert Joncaire, Jr., stood on the bank of the American Rapids just above the falls. A short distance up-river from where he stood, the Niagara is as smooth and broad as a lake. But then it narrows somewhat and begins dropping. This drop makes it pick up speed. Before reaching Goat Island, it races into the rapids and then plunges over the falls.
Joncaire had seen all this before. In the beginning it had amazed him. But later he saw that the falls really meant delays and hard work in shipping fur. And many times since he had become Portage Master he had wished that no falls existed at Niagara. Then nothing would keep ships from sailing smoothly between New France (Canada) and the West.
But on this day he did not think about the trouble that the falls caused him. Instead he gazed at the water boiling along among the rocks in the American Rapids. And his mind was on something else -power. He would make Niagara work for him. Its racing water could turn a wheel. And a wheel was only a step away from a saw- mill where he could see himself sawing logs into the planks that would mean boats for the western fur trade. And so he rolled up his sleeves and pushed his spade into the earth. He dug a narrow canal, or mill-race, that ran inland from the edge of the river for a short distance and then turned and flowed back into the river again. In it he piled up rocks and timbers and made a dam. Below this dam he set up a water wheel and built his sawmill.
This is the way it worked. Joncaire drew water from the Ameri- can Rapids and let it sweep inland along his canal. It spilled over his dam and hit the water wheel blades, making the wheel go around and turn the shaft for his saw. The water then ran on and gushed back into the Rapids-a very simple arrangement. And it was nothing new. Americans had brought the idea from Europe. Pio- neers put such wheels in streams that nature provided or in mill- races they dug. And they ground their grain and wove cloth and sawed lumber with machinery driven by shafts, belts, and pulleys. This, in fact, was largely the way men got power from falling water until they produced alternating electric current near the end of the nineteenth century.
Joncaire's crude and clumsy water wheel began the conquest of Niagara power. Of course, he had tapped only a tiny part. Niagara holds the power of six million horses. Its water comes from the overflow of the upper Great Lakes. Its usual flow is about 93,150,000 gallons a minute. This is more than 1,500,000 gallons each second. The water that rushes down Niagara every forty-eight hours would cover Manhattan Island with a flood sixty feet deep-the height of a five-story building. Although some falls are higher and wider, more water flows over Niagara than over any other falls in all the world.
As it happened, Joncaire did not keep his sawmill going for long. The French and Indian War, remember, hit Niagara in the summer of 1759. And this was just two years after he built it. The war made him burn down his sawmill to keep the British from getting it.
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In late July, the French at Fort Niagara gave up after a hard fight. Niagara then became an outpost of the British Empire. It remained such for the next thirty-seven years. The British were interested mostly in the portage and fur trade. They did practically
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nothing for Niagara where power was concerned. John Stedman, the British Portage Master, did dig out Joncaire's old mill-race and rebuild his sawmill. But this was about all.
How did Americans aid development of Niagara's power?
About the time the British moved out, a surveyor named Augus- tus Porter came to Niagara. He was restless and ambitious. The quiet life in a New England village could not hold him for long. Thus he jumped at the chance to come west with some surveyors going to Ohio. On the way there the party stopped at Niagara. Porter was enchanted by the falls. But for him, as had been the case with Joncaire, they really meant power. Here there was power enough to turn all the wheels in the United States. And he easily imagined an industrial town rising from the surrounding forest.
Porter married and settled at Canandaigua on the New York frontier. Each year, however, he spent some time roaming the western woods on surveying trips. And he often went to Niagara. Finally he made up his mind to stop surveying and go into business there. He moved his wife and family into Stedman's house near Fort Schlosser.
Augustus Porter, his brother Peter B., Benjamin Barton, and Joseph Annin leased the portage from the state and bought land along the Niagara River. This gave them the sole rights to the portage carrying trade. Business there turned out well. In time Porter, Barton and Company expanded greatly.
But Porter desired to use Niagara's power. So he dug a mill-race along the American Rapids and started some industries. Settlers had begun coming in and a village slowly sprouted near the Ameri- can Falls. Porter named it Manchester. It was named for the great industrial city in England. Just before war flared in 1812, Man- chester had a blacksmith shop, a sawmill, a flour mill, a tannery, and a rope walk. All were owned by Porter. The war turned Ni- agara into an armed camp. With men fighting on both sides of the river, Manchester did not escape misfortune. The British and In- dians attacked and burned it in December of 1813.
Peace came in 1815. Things began humming again. Manchester was rebuilt and so were Porter's industries. Porter now turned his eye to Bath Island out in the rapids. This island meant a new power site. So he put a bridge across the rapids. It went all the way to Goat Island. And he did not stop here. He also dug a new canal, known as the "upper raceway," along the rapids above Manchester.
A parade of industries gradually appeared after the war. But Porter did not own them all. A woolen mill went up in 1816. A
blacksmith's forge came next, and then a nail factory and rolling mill. Porter put up a large flour mill in 1822. In the following year a paper mill was built on Bath Island. Meanwhile, Manchester buzzed with talk about the canal that was slowly crawling across New York State.
The Erie Canal changes Niagara County
Americans turned to the conquest and settlement of the West when the War of 1812 ended. The need of western pioneers for supplies helped rebuild the carrying trade over the portage, and this business in turn aided the settlement of the West. But as towns sprouted in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, westerners wanted an easier and cheaper transportation link to the East. Answering western demands for a better route, gangs of laborers, armed with picks and shovels and black powder, began digging and blasting the Erie Canal in 1817. The "Big Ditch," as it was called, took eight years to complete.
It opened in 1825. That autumn, crowds cheered as horses pulled the barge Seneca Chief from Buffalo on its first voyage along the canal. Signal cannons, set all along the new waterway, thun- dered one after another, bringing the news of the opening to New York City.
How did it bring progress?
The roars of these cannons, echoing through the woods and valleys of New York, marked the end of Porter's carrying trade on the portage road. Freight going between New York City and Buffalo could now be moved along the canal waterway much more cheaply. Transportation time, for instance, now dropped from twenty days to eight days and the rates fell from one hundred dol- lars to between eight and fifteen dollars a ton. The Erie was, in fact, the most important route between the western states and the East until railroad lines appeared in the middle nineteenth century.
How did the canal make the Tonawandas?
The lumbering industry began
Naturally, the Big Ditch sparked the growth of settlements along the way. An important settlement that later became two villages sprang up on Tonawanda Creek, a part of the canal waterway. Irish canal workers settled here, stores and taverns opened, and a handful of cabins soon grew to become Niagara Village. Niagara Village remained a canal village for some years. However, the Erie Canal and the upper Great Lakes promised to this settlement an industrial future.
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This began in the 1830's. Lumbermen started cutting down the white oak trees on nearby Grand Island, and sawmills soon hummed there and in the Tonawandas. In those days men built ships of wood and they liked white oak best. So barge after barge, decks stacked high with lumber, went along the canal waterway to shipyards in New York City. Since there was more than enough, a lot of lumber was also sent to shipyards in New England.
The lumbering industry in the Tonawandas grew steadily. In the 1840's, Colonel Lewis T. Payne set up a steam sawmill there. By the end of the 1840's, lumberjacks had pretty well cleared Grand Island of trees and the land was put up for sale to farmers. But the "jacks" kept swinging their axes and working along the lakes. During the Civil War, Henry P. Smith began rafting logs down the lakes from Michigan to the lumber docks in the Tonawandas.
By the 1870's, lumbering was a big industry, and most of the people in the Tonawandas worked in it. In the mills great saws whined as blades bit into thick logs and scattered sawdust. Tower- ing stacks of lumber bordered the waterfront and lumber docks stuck out like fingers all along the Niagara River. These were the golden years for the twin towns. Their mills furnished boards, shingles, lath, and other building materials for the markets of the world.
But the boom days of the Tonawandas as a leading lumber cen- ter actually lasted only about twenty years. During this period, however, they challenged Chicago's lead as the world's biggest lumber market. By the time the 1890's rolled around, the industry had reached its peak. It gradually died down after this because the supply of trees around the upper Great Lakes gave out. With its decline, the twin cities turned to manufacturing.
Modern industry became diversified
Probably Wurlitzer is the best-known indus- try in the Tonawandas today. Wurlitzer makes electric organs, coin-operated phono- graphs, and other products. But other modern factories there make many different products for our nation and the world. Some of the most important industries produce aircraft equipment, guided mis- siles, steel and paper products, office supplies, grinding wheels and abrasives, chains, hoists, insulation, chemicals, and fibre and plastic products.
How did the Erie Canal slow Manchester's growth?
The Big Ditch put the Tonawandas on the map. But it slowed down the growth of Manchester. Homeseekers on horsedrawn canal boats pushed on directly to Buffalo, at that time a booming settlement on Lake Erie. Manchester's tourist trade, however,
thrived during these years. In 1829, the performances of daredevil Sam Patch focused the attention of the nation on Niagara Falls. And by the 1830's thousands of sightseers flocked to the falls each year, eager to see and to spend.
But most important for our story here, the Erie Canal held back the development of Niagara power. Some years before the Irishmen dug and blasted out the Big Ditch, pioneers had begun setting wheels in waterways all around Niagara County. Saw and grist mills went up at Manchester, Suspension Bridge, Youngs- town, Wilson, Newfane, and Lockport-in any place, in fact, where running water would turn mill wheels. But it was Niagara Falls that had the greatest industrial prospects for the future.
What did the canal do for Lockport?
However, for much of the nineteenth century, mills needed only a tiny part of Niagara's power. Besides, tapping Niagara was a costly business, and after 1825 waterpower was close at hand in other places. Surplus water from the canal was run off through mill-races to mills. The Big Ditch, strung as it was across the state, had opened many such new power sites and made cheap and man- ageable waterpower available in the amounts manufacturers needed in those days. So these men steered clear of Niagara and bought up power sites along the canal in Lockport.
Thus it was that Lockport, a nearby canal town, mushroomed into a power center. And it remained the most important power center in Niagara County for many years. Months before the Erie Canal opened, New York put overflow canal water up for lease. Investors liked Lockport because here canal water drops sixty feet from the upper to the lower locks. This drop meant abundant, cheap, and manageable water power.
Lockport's power story begins with a man named Darius Com- stock. He owned the land around the locks when New York adver- tised for sale the right to use surplus canal water. Since he owned much of the land near the canal, he thought his bid of fifty dollars a year rent for the water was enough. However, another man, Richard Kennedy, later in partnership with Junius Hatch, bid 200 dollars a year rent for the surplus canal water, but these men did not own land on which to use the water.
In 1825, before the bids on water rights had been taken, Lyman A. Spaulding bought Comstock's land and his bid. Spaulding also bought more land along the canal for water power development. In all, Spaulding spent $5,500 dollars for land. He wasted no time in digging a mill-race on his property. Then he built a flour mill
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and sawmill and began using the surplus canal water. Since Ken- nedy and Hatch did not own any land on which to build mills, Spaulding thought he would get the lease for water from the state. However, according to law, the lease went to the highest bidder. So Kennedy and Hatch got the lease to use the canal water.
Meanwhile, the Albany Land Company moved into the area and bought 100,000 acres of land below the escarpment from the Hol- land Land Company. The Albany Company planned to develop this land and build Lowertown to rival Upper Town as the village busi- ness center. The Company's agent, Lott Clark, was in charge of the development. Clark, looking for water power, bought the water lease from Kennedy and Hatch. So Spaulding and the Albany Com- pany were now involved in the use of surplus canal water. Spauld- ing owned the land and the wealthy Albany Company the lease. But Spaulding had support from citizens who feared the develop- ment of Lowertown would threaten Upper Town. Citizens even went so far as to stop Albany Company men from digging a mill- race through Spaulding's property.
The Albany Company finally took Spaulding to court to stop him from using surplus canal water. The Albany Company won the long court battle that followed. In 1832, Spaulding sold out to the Albany Company for $35,000. This ended the dispute over surplus canal water.
The Albany Company now finished the mill-race and a cotton factory went up. Cries for more mill space led the Company to make the mill-race longer. Lockport's industrial growth went on in spite of cholera and the financial troubles during the Panic of 1837. The next important development in the Lockport power story took place in 1856. William Marcy and Washington Hunt leased the canal water and that year started the Lockport Hydraulic Company. This company again extended the mill-race.
During the Civil War water power needs expanded. A big step forward was made at Lockport during these years. The Hydraulic Company blasted a tunnel through the solid rock of the escarpment and tapped the Erie Canal at the head of the locks. This tunnel supplied water to the Holly Manufacturing Company. The Holly Company was a leading Lockport industry in the nineteenth cen- tury. It produced sewing machines, pumps, and hydraulic ma- chinery.
In 1869, the company extended this tunnel for the Richmond Company, makers of machinery for processing grain into flour. By this time a fortune had been spent developing waterpower at Lock- port. In the years that followed, the Erie Canal became a power
source for many industries there. Until late in the 19th century this city was the most important power center in Niagara County. After this it was surpassed by Niagara Falls.
Some important industries in Lock- port today
One of Lockport's oldest existing industries was begun in 1851 by a man named T. R. Bailey. Bailey manufactured machines for
making baskets, boxes, and crates for the fruit growers of Niagara County. This business is now a part of Merritt-Solem, a giant in the veneer and plywood industry.
W. S. Levan opened an important Lockport industry in 1870. It is now known as Lockport Mills and it is the largest plant of its kind in the United States. Lockport Mills makes cotton and wool batting, parts for air-conditioning equipment, flame-proof insula- tion, and the flame-proof cotton batting used under Christmas trees.
Harrison Radiator Corporation ranks as Lockport's biggest in- dustry today. It was started in 1910 and joined General Motors eight years later. The General Motors cars and trucks that speed over the highways of the world are equipped with radiators, heaters, defrosters, and thermostats made by Harrison Division of General Motors at Lockport.
Many factories in and around the city pour out a flood of other products. Chemicals, alloy steel products, high-pressure gas valves, molded plastics, fiberboard, felts, and tackle blocks made in Lock- port are used around the globe.
Niagara's power development spurts ahead
How did Porter propose to increase power output?
He enlarged and built a new mill-race
In 1825, the year the Erie Canal was com- pleted, Augustus Porter tried to get bankers and manufacturers to put up money for a new mill-race at Niagara Falls. This race would furnish power for many mills. Porter met with no success. The next year he swung into action on his own. He had the upper raceway extended and a few mills went up there. Then he built a large paper mill on Bath Island for himself. It later burned down and the Niagara Falls Paper Manufacturing Company replaced it with a bigger mill.
Not many industries used Niagara Power in 1831. A nail mill, two flour mills, a woolen mill, a sawmill, and Porter's paper mill on Bath Island completed the list. Power development went ahead slowly here because Lockport's boom in power from overflow canal water met most demand for power in Niagara County. It was not until 1845 that a new mill-race was dug. This canal was
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called the lower raceway because it began at the Goat Island bridge and ran to a point near the American Falls. A paper mill, a nail mill, and a woolen mill went up on this new mill-race.
A hydraulic canal was planned Porter tried stirring up interest in Niagara power development again in 1847. This time he drew up a plan for a "hydraulic canal," in other words, a large raceway. This canal would take water from above the rapids and carry it through the village to a water storage basin on the high bank below the falls. The water in the basin would then run through short mill-races to mills that Porter hoped would be built on the high bank. Then the used water, after pushing mill wheels, would spill from outlet tunnels called tail-races down into the gorge and join the river once more.
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