The Welland Canal.
The necessity of devising means to overcome the stupendous obstacle to navigation caused by the Falls of Niagara had long been apparent, but it was not until 1824 that work was commenced on the Welland Canal which was to connect Lake Ontario with Lake Erie and the west. This important work was completed in 1829, chiefly through the energy and perseverance of the Hon. William Hamilton Merritt, son of a U. E. Loyalist family, born in New York State in 1793. A man of great enterprise; he had this project on the brain for years, but like Cunard and his steamships, had difficulty in “raising the wind”—the people and the Government of Upper Canada being at that time both alike poor. He crossed the Atlantic, and, on the ground of military expediency, was said to have secured a subscription of £1,000 from the Duke of Wellington, which greatly aided him in the formation of a joint stock company who carried the work to its successful completion. The original locks were constructed of wood, 120 feet in length, 20 feet wide, with 7½ feet of water on the sills. The entire length of the canal was twenty-six miles. This accommodated vessels carrying 5,000 bushels of wheat. Half a million of pounds were spent upon it up to the year 1841, when it was assumed by the United Canadas[45] and immediate steps taken for its enlargement. With locks 145 x 26 x 9, vessels loaded with 20,000 to 23,000 bushels could pass from lake to lake. A second enlargement (1873-83) increased the depth of water to twelve feet; and a third, in 1887, gave the canal a uniform depth of fourteen feet, admitting the passage of vessels with a carrying capacity of 75,000 to 80,000 bushels. When this depth shall prevail throughout the entire system of the St. Lawrence canals, vessels of 1,600 to 1,800 tons register will be able to bring full cargoes from the Upper Lakes to Montreal, and to cross the ocean if their owners see fit.[46] In the meantime the Montreal Board of Trade are memorializing the Government to have the Welland enlarged so that the largest vessels navigating the lakes may be able to tranship their cargoes at Kingston or Prescott as they now do at Buffalo; in other words, to locate the ship canal projected by the Deep Waterways Commission on Canadian territory instead of on the American side of the Niagara River.
The Rideau Canal, connecting Kingston with Ottawa, was undertaken as a military work by the Imperial Government at the instigation and under the personal superintendence of Colonel John By, of the Royal Engineers, from whom the obsolete Bytown derived its name. A stupendous undertaking it was considered at the time—126¾ miles long, with forty-seven locks, 134 feet by 32 feet each. It was begun in September, 1826, and on the 29th of May, 1832, the works being completed, the steamer Pumper passed through from Bytown to Kingston. The limit of this canal is a draught of five feet. Its cost is said to have been about one million pounds sterling. It was transferred by the Imperial authorities to the Provincial Executive in 1856.
CANADIAN SHIP CANAL AT SAULT STE. MARIE, 1895.
The St. Lawrence Canal System, with a uniform depth of nine feet of water, was completed in 1848. The canals are eight in number, viz.: the Lachine Canal, 8½ miles; the Beauharnois, 11¼ miles; the Cornwall, 11½ miles; Farren’s Point, ¾ of a mile; Rapid du Plat, 4 miles; Galops, 7⅝ miles; the Welland, 26¾ miles, and the Sault Ste. Marie, ¾ of a mile—in all 71⅛ miles, with 53 locks, and 551¼ feet lockage. In 1871 the Government decided to enlarge the locks of the whole system to 270 feet by 45 feet, and to deepen the canals to fourteen feet. These dimensions were decided upon after consultation with the Boards of Trade of Oswego, Toledo, Detroit, Milwaukee and Chicago; but so great has been the increase of commerce on the lakes since then, so much larger are the vessels now employed in the trade, and so keen has the competition become in the transportation business, it is already apparent that the limiting of the locks to 270 feet has been a mistake, and that before the work in hand is finished there will be a call for locks of at least double that capacity.
Under the new arrangement the Lachine Canal has two distinct systems of locks, giving two entrances at each end. The Cornwall Canal has in the same manner two sets of locks at its lower entrance, and has in other respects been greatly improved. The Beauharnois Canal was not enlarged, but, instead, an entirely new canal on the north shore of the river is being constructed, fourteen miles in length, of the same dimensions as the other enlarged canals, at a cost of $5,000,000. The total cost of the St. Lawrence canals and river improvements west of Montreal has been $29,000,000; of the Welland Canal, $24,000,000; the Sault Ste. Marie, $3,258,025; of the Ottawa and Rideau canals, about $10,000,000; and of the whole canal system of the Dominion about $75,000,000. The total revenue derived from tolls and hydraulic and other rents for the year 1895 was $339,890.49; 2,412 vessels passed through the Welland during the season of 1894, carrying 1,008,221 tons of freight. The quantity of freight moved on the St. Lawrence and Ottawa canals was 1,448,788 tons, and on all the canals over 3,000,000 tons, whereof the products of the forest, 1,077,683 tons; agricultural products, 993,348 tons—the remainder being general merchandise and manufactures.[47]
The deepening of Lake St. Peter and other shallow reaches of the St. Lawrence between Montreal and Quebec has created what may be called a submerged canal, fifty miles long, three hundred feet wide, with a minimum depth of 27½ feet, permitting ocean steamers of the largest class now in the trade to discharge their cargoes in the port of Montreal, which is undergoing enlargement at the present time at a cost of many millions of dollars.
During the season of 1897 the number of sea-going vessels that arrived at Montreal was 796, with a total tonnage of 1,379,002; 752 of these were steamers, aggregating 1,368,395 tons. The inland vessels numbered 6,384, with a tonnage of 1,134,346. The sea-going steamers were eighty-three in excess of the previous year, with a marked increase of tonnage.[48] During that summer steamships of 10,000 and even 12,000 tons burthen were to be found loading and discharging cargo alongside the wharves of Montreal.
The total value of merchandise exported from this port during the year 1897 was $55,156,956. The chief articles of export were as follows:
| Quantity. | Value. | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Produce of the mines | ... | $ 188,127 | |
| "" fisheries | ... | 120,242 | |
| "" forest | ... | 5,731,583 | |
| Horses | (Number) | 12,179 | 1,205,941 |
| Horned Cattle | " | 119,188 | 7,151,280 |
| Sheep | " | 66,319 | 340,060 |
| Butter | (Pounds) | 10,594,824 | 1,878,515 |
| Cheese | " | 162,322,426 | 14,325,176 |
| Eggs | (Dozen) | 4,806,011 | 575,782 |
| Meat of all kinds | (Pounds) | 16,377,806 | 1,345,894 |
| Wheat | (Bushels) | 9,900,308 | 8,415,261 |
| Indian Corn | " | 9,172 676 | 3,121,753 |
| Other grains (barley, oats, peas, etc.) | " | 10,298,444 | 3,904,128 |
| Flour | (Barrels) | 891,501 | 3,120,253 |
| Apples | " | 175,194 | 350,000 |
| Manufactured and miscellaneous articles | ... | 3,954,919 | |
CHAPTER IX.
STEAM COMMERCE OF THE GREAT LAKES.
United States and Canadian Commerce of the Great Lakes—The Sault Ste. Marie Ship Canals—The Erie Canal—Transportation Business—The Elevator—Deeper Waterways Commissions—The Ottawa and Georgian Bay Canal.
DURING the last quarter of a century the commerce of the Great Lakes—the United States commerce especially—has grown with a rapidity almost exceeding belief. It has become enormous! At the present time it is stated on competent authority that the steam tonnage of these inland seas largely exceeds the combined tonnage of this character in all other parts of the United States put together. Not to speak of the vast amount of shipping employed in the iron, the coal, and the lumber trade, the Lake Superior grain and flour shipments for 1896 were 121,750,000 bushels. The Lake Michigan grain and flour shipments for the same year were 273,820,000 bushels, together making 395,570,000 bushels of grain and flour shipped in one year from these two quarters! It is difficult to realize the magnitude of such a statement. Mr. Keep, already quoted, in his report for 1890 puts it strikingly when he says: “If the freight carried on the Great Lakes in the United States coastwise and foreign trade during the year 1890 were loaded into railway cars of average size and capacity, the cars so loaded would cover 13,466 miles of railroad track.” The Commissioners appointed by the Canadian Government to meet with a similar Committee appointed by the United States Government to consider the subject of international and deeper waterways, preface their report by alluding to the commerce of the Great Lakes in these terms: “It is impossible to convey, within reasonable space, an adequate idea of the extraordinary[49] development of inland water transportation on the Upper Lakes—which for rapidity, extent, economy and efficiency has no counterpart even on the ocean. More than half of the best steamships of the United States are imprisoned above Niagara Falls, and more than half of the tonnage built in the United States in 1896 was launched upon the lakes.” This inland water commerce has built up twelve cities on the southern shores above Niagara, five of which have over 200,000 population, and one of them over a million. Within these limits there are twenty-seven dry docks, the largest of which is on Lake Superior and is 560 feet long, 50 feet wide, and 18 feet depth of water. There are sixty-three life-saving stations upon these lakes, ten of which are Canadian. “Unusual prosperity has stimulated ship-building to such an extent that there are now in course of construction at the various lake shipyards, sixty-five vessels, thirty of which are steel freight steamers which will average 400 feet in length and 4,000 tons capacity—costing in all $9,000,000.”[50]
Up to a comparatively recent date the bulk of the lakes commerce was done by sailing vessels. Every town of any importance had its little fleet of schooners. As time went on, the vessels increased in size, and eventually a very fine class of three-masted schooners, with some brigs, barquentines, and even full-rigged barques, were employed in the carrying trade. One of the largest of these was the barque Utica, of 550 tons, which sailed on the Buffalo and Chicago route in the forties. A few of these clipper schooners may still be met with, but they are rapidly being supplanted by iron and steel steamships of great size, such as the Maryland, the Owego, the E. C. Pope, and the Manitou, representatives of fleets of first-class steamships, ranging from 300 to 350 feet in length, over 1,900 tons register, with triple expansion engines, a speed of from fourteen to sixteen miles an hour, and a carrying capacity of 120,000 to 125,000 bushels of grain. These, and many others like them, were accounted “queens” a few years ago; they are fine ships still, but there are much larger and finer than they now.
The Manitou here represented is one of the finest ships of her class on the lakes, built in 1893 by the Chicago Ship-building Company. Her hull is of steel, length over all 295 feet, breadth of beam 42 feet, and depth of hold 22 feet. Her average draught of water is 15 feet. She has triple expansion engines, a single four-bladed screw propeller 13 feet in diameter. Her gross tonnage is 2,944 tons. She is handsomely fitted up with sleeping accommodations for four hundred passengers, has a freight capacity of 1,500 tons, and develops a speed of eighteen miles an hour. Her route is between Chicago and Sault Ste. Marie, where she connects with the Lake Superior lines. She cost $300,000.
THE “MANITOU,” 1893.
The James Watt, the first of the Rockefeller fleet and the largest steamship on the lakes, is 426 feet long, 48 feet beam, and 29 feet deep. She cost $260,000, and will carry from 4,000 to 6,000 tons of ore, according as she is trimmed to draw 14 or 18 feet of water. The Empire City, owned by the Zenith Transportation Company, is of the same dimensions, less one foot in depth. She is now the largest grain carrier on the lakes, having capacity for 213,000 bushels. The Minnesota Iron Company have a fleet of fourteen steamships, each carrying from 100,000 to 180,000 bushels of grain. The Lehigh Valley Transportation Company own a fleet of large and powerful steel freight steamers which ply between Buffalo and Chicago. These are but a few of the many transportation companies that do business on the Great Lakes. As to the vessels at present employed in the trade, it is safe to say that they are to be regarded only as the precursors of a still larger class of freight steamers that will navigate these waters when the contemplated twenty-one foot channel shall have been established from Lake Superior to Buffalo. At present there is a navigable channel of 17½ feet all the way.
Many of the large steamers take a number of barges in tow, and in this way enormous quantities of grain are sometimes moved by a single shipment. The Appomattox, for example, with three consorts in tow, recently left Duluth with a combined cargo of 482,000 bushels, or 14,460 tons of wheat. Assuming the average yield of that cereal to be twenty bushels to the acre, this single shipment represented the produce of 24,100 acres!
SS. “NORTH-WEST,” 1894.
The Northern Steamship Company of Buffalo has perhaps the finest fleet of steamers on the Great Lakes, consisting of eight steamships. Six of these are steel freight and emigrant ships of 2,500 tons each. They are named the Northern Light, Northern Wave, Northern King, Northern Queen, the North Star, and the North Wind. The other two, the North-West and the North-Land, are exclusively passenger ships, up-to-date in every respect. They are identical in size, being each 386 feet long, 44 moulded breadth, and 26 feet in depth. Their gross tonnage is 5,000 tons apiece. They have quadruple expansion engines of 7,000 indicated horse-power. The boilers are worked at a pressure of 275 pounds to the square inch, and use up 70 tons of water per hour. The twin screws are 13 feet in diameter and 18 feet pitch, make 120 revolutions per minute, and drive the ships at a speed of from 22 to 25 statute miles an hour, as may be required. The bunkers hold 1,000 tons of coal. A double bottom, 42 inches deep, extends the whole length of the ship, and is utilized for adjustable water ballast. Luxurious accommodation is provided for five hundred first-class and forty second-class passengers. Nearly twenty-six miles of electric wire are used in conducting the subtle fluid for 1,200 lights. The electric search-light has one hundred thousand candle-power. The refrigerating plant, besides creating ample cold storage, makes one thousand pounds of ice per day for the ship’s use. The grand saloon is, in American parlance, “a magnificent achievement.” The routes of these twin ships is from Buffalo to Duluth, at the head of Lake Superior, a distance of 1,065 miles, each of them making the round trip in a week. The fare for the round trip is $30 for transportation, meals and staterooms being charged extra.
For many years two causes prevented the building of vessels of such large dimensions as those just described for lake navigation. One of these was the insufficient size of the lock at Sault Ste. Marie, and the other was the shallowness of the water on the St. Clair flats and at other points. The former difficulty disappeared in 1881 when the first of the large locks was opened at the Sault; the second difficulty was overcome by the Northern Steamship Company in the peculiar construction of their vessels with a water ballasting system that permits of sinking the ship to the depth required for navigating the deep waters of the lakes and of floating them over the shoals and bars that obstruct the navigation. This ingenious device, however, can only be regarded as a temporary expedient, pending the action of the United States Government, which contemplates the making of a twenty-one foot channel at all points where the shallows occur. This is a measure felt to be due to the lakes’ marine, which has already done so much to develop the resources of the North-West, especially the mineral resources, which would otherwise have lain comparatively dormant. “The United States have expended some $12,000,000 in widening and deepening channels, which has already been more than repaid by the rapid development of commerce. The largest item in the lakes’ traffic is the transportation of iron—the richest ores are now being mined along a line of coast of one thousand miles, dotted with manufacturing towns.”[51]
It helps one to realize the immensity of the lakes’ traffic to learn that the number of vessels that cleared from the district of Chicago in 1893 was 8,789, with a gross tonnage of 5,449,470 tons—actually a larger tonnage than cleared from the port of Liverpool in 1892.[52] The tonnage passing down the Detroit River from lakes Superior, Michigan and Huron, during the seven or eight months of navigation, is, by official statements, greater than the entire foreign and coastwise trade of London and Liverpool combined in twelve months. It is estimated by competent experts to be three times greater than the foreign trade of the port of New York, and to exceed the aggregate foreign trade of all the seaports of the United States by 10,000,000 tons!