History of Steam on the Erie Canal

NEW YORK, JANUARY, 1873.
NEW YORK: EVENING POST STEAM PRESSES, 41 NASSAU STREET, COR. LIBERTY. 1873.
With Respects of the Author,
155 Broadway, N. Y.
During the maple sugar season of the spring of 1858, a well-to-do farmer, of western New York, whittled out a spiral or augur-like screw-propeller, in miniature, which he thought admirably adapted to the canal. He soon after went to Buffalo, and contracted for a boat to be built, with two of his Archimedean screws for propulsion by steam.
Although advised by his builders to substitute the common four-bladed propellers, he adhered to his original design, and with one propeller at either side of the rudder—called twin-propellers —she was soon ready for duty. She is the vessel known to history as the Charles Wack .
She carried three-fourths cargo and towed another boat with full cargo, and made the trip from Buffalo to West Troy in seven days, total time, averaging two miles per hour. But she returned from Troy to Buffalo, with half freight, in four days and sixteen hours, net time; averaging three and one-twelfth miles per hour, without tow.
This initiated the series of steamers from 1858 to 1862, and, with others that soon followed, created a general enthusiasm in behalf of steam transportation, which led to a trip through the canal that fall, on a chartered steam-tug, by the Governor of the State, the Canal Board, and other notables, and with public receptions, speeches, &c., at different cities along the route.
That boat was soon followed by the S. B. Ruggles , a first-class steam canal-boat, built by the Hon. E. S. Prosser, of Buffalo, with a first-class modern propeller, and with double the engine capacity of the former.
The P. L. Sternburg soon followed, and was a first-class boat, with modern twin-propellers, but with less engine capacity than the Wack .
The same season there were some local steamers built to run regularly between different cities on the line of the canal.