USA > New York > Monroe County > Rochester > Settlement in the West : sketches of Rochester with incidental notices of western New-York > Part 33
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" Governor Clinton recommended the construction of this canal as early as 1824. A survey was made under the direction of Judge Ged- des in 1828.
" An act passed in 1834 authorizing a resurvey. The survey was accordingly made during the season under the direction of F. C. Mills. It was then estimated to cost $1,890,614 12. A law was passed by the Legislature in May, 1836, 'to provide for its construction.' No part of the canal, however, was put under contract until June, 1837,
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SKETCHES OF ROCHESTER, ETC.
when about two miles was let. In November following about 28 miles more was put under contract.
" The canal is located on the west side of the Genesee River to the village of Mount Morris, where it is to cross to the east side by an aqueduct. At this place a large amount of lockage occurs. The ca- nal ascends the hill by a succession of consecutive locks-in a dis- tance of about 4 miles rising 450 feet. After passing this elevation, the canal pursues a nearly direct course to the Portage Hills-along the northern or western face of which it is to be constructed-passing in its course along the very brink of the Nunda Falls. The perpendicular banks of the river at some points between the second and third falls at Nunda are between 300 and 400 feet above its level. These banks are generally of alluminous shale or graywacke, with occasional strata of sand rock sufficiently hard for building purposes.
" This is the most picturesque and also the most expensive portion of the canal. At Portage, beside Nunda Falls, the canal recrosses the river by an aqueduct, and pursues the valley until it enters the valley of Black Creek, which it follows to the summit. Descending from the summit, the canal follows the valley of Oil Creek to Hinsdale, where it receives a feeder from the Ischua. From Hinsdale the canal pur- sues the valley of Olean Creek to the Allegany River, where it is to terminate.
" The deficiency of water on the summit level is to be supplied by artificial reservoirs. This level is about 12 miles long ; is 79 feet above the Allegany at Olean point, 1057 feet above the Erie Canal at Rochester, and 1484 feet above low tide at Albany.
" A side cut is to be constructed along the Canaseraga Valley from Mount Morris to Dansville, a distance of 15 miles. The whole amount of lockage on the main canal from Rochester to Olean is 1057 feet, and on the side cut about 100 feet. The distance from Rochester to Mount Morris by canal is 37 miles ; from Rochester to Dansville, 52 miles ; and from Rochester to Olean, 106 miles."
Opinions respecting the value of the Genesee Canal.
The magnitude of the subject will excuse a further reference to the Genesee (or Rochester and Olean) Canal. The apathy which has so long prevailed on this matter having now happily been dissipated by the spread of knowledge respecting it, and the work fully sanctioned by the legislative authority, the writer of these notes, actuated by the same views that prompted him twelve years ago, when calling attention to the subject through the daily paper of which he was editor (estab- lished in Rochester in 1826), cannot refrain from quoting with hearty satisfaction the sanguine calculations now made by some of the most intelligent men of the state respecting the value of the Genesee Canal, in every point of view which could render it desirable as a work of im- mense value, not merely to this state or to the local interests of the sec- tion through which it runs, but to a large portion of the American con- federacy.
In the " Appeal to the People of the State of New-York and to their Representatives in the Legislature," made by a committee of citizens in New-York in 1833 (Christian Bergh chairman, and Edwin Williams secretary), in favour of a " Canal from Rochester on the Erie Canal to Olean on the Allegany River," it is stated that, after a full discussion,
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GENESEE VALLEY CANAL.
it was unanimously resolved, " That, in the opinion of the meeting, from information obtained from authentic sources, the proposed canal will have an important bearing on the growth and prosperity of the state, particularly of the City of New-York ; inasmuch as it will open a new and great thorougfare through the rich valleys of the Genesee and Ohio to the Mississippi." In the same appeal the proposed work is styled " a new branch of the Erie Canal, which can scarcely be sufficiently de- scribed by a name so limited as the Genesee and Allegany Canal"- while it is asserted by these New-Yorkers that " this canal, as a pub- lic highway, is preferable at the present time to every other mode of connecting the great western rivers with the waters of New-York Har- bour."
In reply to a request from the New-York committee that he would " communicate any statistical facts having a bearing on the proposed Genesee and Erie Canal," EDWIN WILLIAMS, the well-known author of the Annual Register and Universal Gazetteer, said in 1833-
" This canal appears to me to be the most important work of internal improvement that has been proposed in this state since the construction of the Erie and Champlain Canals. It is proposed to connect the Erie Canal at Rochester with the Allegany River at Olean by a canal about 90 miles in length, following the valley of the Gen . esee River. I understand this was a favourite project of the late Governor Clinton, who considered the connexion of the waters of the Allegany River with those of the Hudson second in importance only to the connexion between the latter and the great lakes. Indeed, it may be doubted whether the union of the waters of New-York with the Ohio Valley by this route is not equal in importance to the extension of the Erie Canal to Lake Erie. It has been a matter of surprise to many intelligent per- sons that the state has so long delayed the construction of a work promising such incalculable benefits as the proposed canal. When completed, it is believed that more property will pass upon it, to and from Rochester, than on the Erie Canal west of that place.
" The proposed canal will pass through part of the counties of Monroe, Livingston, Allegany, and Cattaraugus, intersecting one of the most fertile sections of the state, and a considerable portion of it abounding in valuable timber, of the utmost impor- tance to the towns and villages on the Erie Canal, on the Hudson River, and to New- York city in particular, for the purposes of building. For this object alone, and from justice to the people of a sequestered portion of the state, now deprived of a good mar- ket for their lumber and produce, this work ought to be constructed from motives of policy, interest, and justice.
"But when we take into view the vast extent of country embraced in the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys, our sense of the immense consequence of the proposed canal to this state and the internal commerce of the City of New-York is greatly enhanced. The Allegany River is navigable for steamboats a great part of the year-may, at small expense, be much improved-and unites with the Monongahela to form the Ohio at Pittsburgh, 260 miles below the termination of the proposed canal. Upward of 20,000 miles of navigable rivers, it is estimated. pour their waters into the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, and of the fertile regions bordering on these waters, it is believed at least two thirds would find the Genesee and Allegany Canal the most convenient channel to a market on the Atlantic. A large portion of the states of Ohio, Pennsyl- vania, Virginia, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee, would make use of this communication. They would by this means avoid the uncertain market of New-Orleans, the circuitous route by the Ohio Canal and Lake Erie, and a pas- sage by railroads over the Allegany Mountains. It is evident that the route we pro- pose to establish by this canal must be preferred FOR CHEAPNESS, SAFETY, and EXPE- DITION combined, to any other that can be named, for the transportation of produce and merchandise to and from the Ohio Valley and the Atlantic ports.
" The benefits which the City of New-York would derive from this work are evi- dent to every person of observation. It would greatly extend our trade with the in- terior, and open new channels for enterprise in the establishinent of manufacturing and commercial villages, which would pour their increasing trade into this commer- cial mart of America. Taking into view the great increase of trade and population which bas resulted to this city from the construction of the Erie and Champlain Ca- nals, it is deemed safe to estimate the enhanced value of real estate in the City of New-York, in consequence of the completion of the Genesee and Allegany Canal, when
446,169,620 advance
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SKETCHES OF ROCHESTER, ETC.
that event shall take place, at five per cent. on the present amount, which was ap- praised last year at $104,042,405.
" The distance of Rochester from Albany by the Erie Canal is 270 miles ; from thence to Olean by the proposed canal, say 90 miles ; total distance from Albany to Olean, 360 miles, and from New-York to the same, 510 miles. From Olean to Pitts- burgh is 260 miles ; thence to the mouth of the Ohio, 960 miles ; thence to New-Or- Jeans, 990 miles. Total distance from Olean to New-Orleans, 2180 miles, making an inland navigation from New-York to New-Orleans of 2690 miles." -
As an appropriate conclusion to these opinions respecting the Ro- chester and Allegany Canal, the opinion of another active citizen of New-York may be quoted, who says-
" Viewing it only as a link in a grand communication with the Ohio, by a ready, cheap, and direct route, and a sufficient reason is presented for its construction. But when we consider it in a more national and enlarged sense, and recognise in it AN EXTENSION OF OUR GRAND CANAL, by which the City of New-York will be united with the immense regions of country through which flow the navigable rivers of the great and fruitful west, it SWELLS FROM THE MINOR IMPORTANCE OF A BRANCH CANAL to a RIVALRY WITH THE GREATEST RIVER ON THE FACE OF THE HABITABLE GLOBE."
3. Rochester and Auburn Railroad.
The cheering intelligence has just spread before the public that this important enterprise is added to the list of public works which are to be completed with all practicable speed, the delays having been occa- sioned by the condition of the money market, and the desire to secure a modification of the charter. Preparations are made for immediate operations on the route. Among the works first undertaken will be the Railroad Bridge across the Genesee in Rochester, a few rods from the brink of the Middle or Main Falls, together with a Railroad Depôt on the west side of the river, and other important improvements. The depôt will occupy part of the premises of Messrs. Everard Peck and Walter S. Griffith, between the west bank of the river and Mill-street, on which street the depot will front. In connexion with this, a street is to be opened in front of the depôt through to State-street, through the block owned chiefly by Messrs. W. W. Campbell, of New-York, and E. Darwin Smith, of Rochester. As the whole route between Auburn and Albany will be completed about the same time as the Rochester and Albany Railroad, we may anticipate that, in the course of three years, the journey between Rochester and New-York will be made by railroad and steamboat within twenty-four hours, or between sunrise on one day and the same period on the following day ! Visionary as the prediction may seem at first sight, a little calculation will show its practicability and probability.
Robert Higham, the well-known engineer and commissioner of the Rochester and Auburn Railroad, declares that "the whole distance between Rochester and Auburn may be passed without having any grade to exceed twenty-eight feet ascent or descent per mile, and that without any deep cuttings on the summits or high embankments in the valleys. The curves generally will be of a large radius, only one being as low as 1000 feet." "The route estimated upon," adds Mr. Higham, " commences at the termination of the Auburn and Syracuse Railroad, and passes through the several places mentioned in the char- ter, to wit, Seneca Falls, Waterloo, Geneva, Vienna, Canandaigua, and Victor, and extending to a point on the west side of the Genesee River, in the central part of the City of Rochester, where the Tonnewanta (or Rochester and Batavia or Buffalo) Railroad can be connected with it by
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TONNEWANTA RAILROAD.
a route that admits of using locomotive power to the junction of the two roads in Rochester. The distance from the village of Auburn to the City of Rochester by this route will be 78 1-2 miles." And a beautiful route it is, passing through a country rich by nature and by im- provement, and through several of the finest towns of Western New- York. Mr. H. thinks the work will be finished in two years.
The commissioner further declares that " the work throughout will be of a plain and easy character, without any heavy rock excavation or expensive river walling, and with as little perishable structure as perhaps any road of the same extent in the United States." "Considering this as one of the links in the great chain of Western Railroads from Bos- ton to Buffalo and the 'Far West,'" he adds, " the estimates are made on a scale of corresponding character and magnitude to accommodate the business of this great and increasing thoroughfare; and nothing short of a double track will, in my opinion, be adequate for any great period. This is indicated by the fact that the travel of the Utica and Schenectady Railroad, which forms another link in the same chain, already requires the second track to do the business of carrying pas- sengers only ; and the fact that the Tonnewanta Railroad (from Ro- chester to Batavia), with its present accommodations, having only a single track, is inadequate to the business, although trains of cars run day and night." Simon Traver, Resident Engineer.
4. Tonnewanta Railroad, on the line between Lake Erie and the Atlantic.
The President of the Tonnewanta Railroad Company is David E. Evans ; the Vice-president, Jonathan Childs; the Treasurer, A. M. Schermerhorn ; the Secretary, Frederic Whittlesey. All, save the first-named gentleman, reside in Rochester. Mr. Evans lives at Ba- tavia. The engineer was Elisha Johnson.
This work might have been more appropriately named from the towns which it connects than from the stream through whose valley it partly passes. It is finished now as far as Batavia, but is to be continued to Attica, and will connect with the proposed route from one of the latter points to Buffalo. The present agent at Rochester is A. Sprague.
Travelling by locomotives was commenced on this road between Ro- chester and Batavia in May, 1837. The length of this route is a frac- tion less than thirty-two miles, which is a shorter distance than that of any other road existing between the two points. There are but few curves, and those are so slight as to be scarcely perceptible, in this rail- road. The average ascent is about twelve feet per mile. The grade has been of comparatively easy construction, except in the section near Batavia, where two heavy excavations and two considerable embank- ments greatly retarded the completion of the work. The construction and importance of this railroad have elicited remarks from the Buffalo press, which show that the character of the work is fully appreciated elsewhere than in the city of Rochester.
Preferring generally in this volume to quote the testimony of those whose local position or other circumstances may be supposed to free them from undue partialities on questions particularly connected with the affairs of Rochester, we here substitute some remarks from the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser in lieu of our own observations.
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" The charter of the Tonnewanta Railroad Company extends for fifty years from April 24th, 1832. The capital stock is $500,000, in shares of $100 each-$70 per share have been paid in upon the stock, making, in the whole, the sum of $350,000. There have been expended by the company about $375,000. In addition to the expenditure upon the road itself, the company have purchased lands in Rochester and Ba- tavia, for the necessary purposes of the road, to the amount of about $20,000. They have erected an engine-house, machine-shop, car- houses, shops for making cars, and other buildings about the Depôt in Rochester.
" The road has been constructed with great solidity, upon a plan be- lieved to have been heretofore untried, proposed by Elisha Johnson, of Rochester, chief engineer of the work. This plan is probably prefera- ble to that of any road not made of more durable materials. The yearly expense of repairs will be much less than upon other roads, while the danger arising from cars running off the track is much di- minished by the fact that they will, in such cases, have a smooth road of earth to run upon, unobstructed by any cross timbers above ground. Much of this road has stood the test of two winters, and has exhibited the effects of frost much less than the common railroads.
" The whole expense of acquiring title to land for the road, and for constructing the railway and fixtures thereon, is something less than $10,000 per mile. The construction of the track from Batavia upon the Tonnewanta Creek to Attica, twelve miles, will cost about $100,000. The cost of constructing the entire road, and finishing it fully, with cars, locomotives, and depôts, $700,000.
" A glance at the map of Western New-York will show the importance of this route. The entire travel which throngs through the western part of the state now either passes through Rochester by canal or stage on one route, or through Avon, Le Roy, and Batavia by stage on an- other route still farther south. This railroad passes from an important point on one route to an important point on the other, and connects the two. It is also a connecting link in the great chain of railroads from Boston to Buffalo ; or, to carry out the plan, from Bangor in Maine to Rock River on the Mississippi ! This chain is rapidly forging, link by link. The important point for us to reach directly is Boston ; but the march of improvement is pushing thence northeastward by railroads, through Salem, Newburyport, Portsmouth, and Portland to Bangor, in distant Maine !
" It is a swelling thought to contemplate the vast, the varied, the im- portant interests which these lines of direct and swift communication, with their far-reaching ramifications, will embrace, unite, and strength- en ! All the thousand ties of daily mutual intercourse twining stronger and stronger together the many-stranded cord of national union ! * * *
" When the entire route from Rochester to Buffalo is completed, even before the Rochester and Auburn Road is finished, it is estimated that not less than four or five hundred passengers will pass daily from point to point during the travelling season of the year. The price of passage from Rochester to Batavia is one dollar and fifty cents ; from Rochester to Buffalo it will be three dollars. The whole road will be run, it is contemplated, under a single arrangement with one set of cars and locomotives.
" A slight calculation from the above data will show how great must be the income, even after making every allowance for expenses. If we
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suppose the receipts of the route from Rochester to Batavia to be $1000 per day (which is less than the above estimate would warrant) for 240 days, it would give for receipts $240,000. If we suppose the ex- penses to be $200 per day for the same time (which is much greater than present expenses would justify), it would give for expenses $46,000, and the balance or profit would be nearly $200,000, which, upon a capital of $700,000, would be nearly thirty per cent.
" The carrying of produce and merchandise will be a very important item in the receipts of the Tonnewanta Railroad. It will give, accord- ing to computation from the business done upon the road last fall, an aggregate of more than ten thousand tons annually, requiring at least one hundred freight cars drawn by locomotives. It will, at any rate, aid in defraying, if it does not quite defray the expenses of the pas- senger trains, and leave almost the entire income from passengers a clear profit.
" The speedy completion of the railroad from Batavia to Buffalo is now a very desirable thing. It has been already commenced on the line between Batavia and Pembroke, the land requisite having been some time since purchased by the company who have undertaken the project, and the necessary surveys made. The route is one of the most feasible in the United States-is a straight line for the whole distance, and the descent is uniform, not averaging more than eight feet to the mile, and requiring no stationary power. When this is completed, the whole line from Rochester to Buffalo will be nearly straight, and the distance less than 67 miles; while the distance between the two places by the present travelled road is 74 miles, and by the canal 93 miles. The railroad can be traversed in three, or at the most in four hours, while the stages consume from fifteen to eighteen hours, and the canal-packets about twenty-four hours in passing between the two places.
" The company engaged in the Buffalo and Batavia Railroad con- sists of some of the most wealthy citizens of Buffalo, associated with several other gentlemen of Batavia and Rochester. The capital stock is $480,000. The cost of the road is not accurately estimated, but will probably be considerably less per mile than that of the Tonnewanta Railroad. As much progress will be made in the work this season as practicable, and next year will most probably witness its completion. In- deed, we are hardly too sanguine in assuming that within two years, or in the year 1840, the entire route from Boston to Buffalo (through the city of Rochester) will be in active and successful operation."
Rochester Railroad.
The President of the company is John Greig ; the Treasurer, A. M. Schermerhorn ; the Secretary, F. M. Haight. Mr. Greig resides at Can- andaigua, the other gentlemen at Rochester.
The road has been in operation a few years. Its length is about two miles on a straight line. It runs between the east end of the Canal Aqueduct in the southern part of Rochester and the Ontario Steamboat- Landing at the northern boundary of the city-thus connecting the trade of the Erie Canal with that of the Genesee River and Lake Ontario. The road runs close to the east bank of the river, and at some points passes within a few feet of the edge of the perpendicular banks, about one hundred and fifty feet high. Horace Hooker & Co. are lessees of this road-Mr. Hinsdale the agent.
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TRADE>AND MANUFACTURES OF ROCHESTER.
Preliminary Notice of the Genesee River.
Besides the particulars of this stream incidentally included in the ac- . count of the climate and soil of the valley, some further information is necessary to a correct appreciation of the characteristics of the Gene- see. As the river runs through the centre of the city, furnishing the hydraulic advantages which form prominent ingredients in the prosperity of Rochester, such particulars may be appropriately introduced here, preliminary to an account of the manufactures and other business of the city.
The name, expressive as the generality of Indian designations, is in- dicative of the characteristics of the country through which the river flows. The word Genesee signifies Pleasant Valley. Few rivers of equal extent have scenery more picturesque-there are none with banks more fertile. From its rise in Pennsylvania, till it mingles its waters with Lake Ontario near the City of Rochester, the shores of the Gen- esee present a succession of beauties, such as in other lands would at- tract crowds of admiring travellers .*
The SOURCE is not less remarkable than the COURSE of the Genesee. The table land in which it originates is about 1700 feet above the At- lantic level, and furnishes within a space of six miles square streams which flow towards the ocean in opposite directions-through the St. Lawrence, the Chesapeake Bay, and the Gulf of Mexico ! The bold and romantic features of its shores are strikingly exemplified in a brief portion of its course through Allegany county, in the State of New- York. Within a couple of miles the river is precipitated upward of three hundred feet ! This great descent embraces threet perpendicu- lar pitches-the FALLS OF NUNDA-presenting much of the sublime and
* Setting aside ancient associations, how will the celebrated cataracts of the Nile compare even with the falls of the Genesee in Rochester ? Let the young American traveller, Stephens, reply :--
" The road lay nearly all the way along the Nile, commanding a full view of the cataracts, or, rather, if a citizen of a New World may lay his innovating hand upon things consecrated by the universal consent of ages, what we who have heard the roar of Niagara would call simply ' the rapids.' * * * The principal cataract (I con- tinue to call it cataract by courtesy) is a fall of about two feet ! * * * And these were the great cataracts of the Nile, whose roar in ancient days affrighted the Egyptian boatmen, and which history and poetry have invested with extraordinary ideal ter- rors! The traveller who has come from a country as far distant as mine, bringing all that freshness of feeling with which a citizen of the New World turns to the sto- ried wonders of the Old, and has roamed over the mountains and drunk of the rivers of Greece, will have found himself so often cheated by the exaggerated accounts of the ancients, the vivid descriptions of poets, and his own imagination, that he will hardly feel disappointed when he stands by this apology for a cataract. Here the Nubian boys had a great feat to show, viz , jump into the cataract and float down to the point of the island. The inhabitants of the countries bordering on the Nile are great swimmers, and the Nubians are perhaps the best of all; but this was no great feat. The great and ever-to-be-lamented Sam Patch would have made the Nubians stare, and shown them, in his own pithy phrase, 'that some folks could do things as well as other folks;' and I question if there is a cataract on the Nile at which that daring diver would not have turned up his nose in scorn."-Incidents of Travel in Egypt, &c.
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