The honor of originating the plan of a canal from the Great Lakes to the Hudson will forever lie with the brilliant, visionary Gouverneur Morris. The idea must have suggested itself to other minds even if it occurred to Morris originally; this cannot be disproved; but Morris’s shoulders were broad enough for an honor too great for many, and his persistent labors in behalf of the project are altogether consistent with this verdict of a century. In 1777 Morris was known to have hinted of what we know as the Erie Canal. In that year he was sent to General Schuyler’s army at Fort Edward, then slowly retiring before Burgoyne’s advancing regiments. Morgan Lewis, then quartermaster, later governor of New York, leaves this testimony, in a letter dated May 26, 1828: “One evening in particular, while describing in the most animated and glowing terms the rapid march of the useful arts through our country, when once freed from a foreign yoke; the spirit with which agriculture and commerce both external and internal would advance; the facilities which would be afforded them by the numerous water courses, intersecting the country, and the ease by which they might be made to communicate; he announced, in language highly poetic, and to which I cannot do justice, that at no very distant day the waters of the great western inland seas would, by the aid of man, break through their barriers and mingle with those of the Hudson. I recollect asking him how they were to break through these barriers. To which he replied, that numerous streams passed them through natural channels, and that artificial ones might be conducted by the same routes.”[17]
In his diary for October, 1795, Morris describes his feeling on viewing the Caledonian Canal in Scotland; “when I see this,” he writes, “my mind opens to a view of wealth for the interior of America, which hitherto I had rather conjectured than seen.”[18] In a letter to Mr. Parish in January, 1801, he observes, after seeing a number of ships riding at anchor in Lake Erie, “Hundreds of large ships will, at no distant period, bound on the billows of these inland seas. At this point begins a navigation of more than a thousand miles [to the extremity of Lake Superior]. Shall I lead your astonishment up to the verge of incredulity? I will. Know then that one-tenth of the expense, borne by Britain in the last campaign, would enable ships to sail from London through Hudson’s River into Lake Erie.”[19]
“The merit of first starting the idea of a direct communication by water, between lake Erie and Hudson’s river,” wrote Simeon De Witt to William Darby, February 25, 1822, “unquestionably belongs to Mr. Gouverneur Morris. The first suggestion I had of it was from him. In 1803, I accidentally met with him at Schenectady. We put up for the night at the same inn and passed the evening together. Among the numerous topics of conversation, to which his prolific mind, and excursive imagination, gave birth, was that of improving the means of intercourse with the interior of our state. He then mentioned the project of tapping Lake Erie, as he expressed it himself, and leading its waters, in an artificial river, directly across the country to Hudson’s river. To this I very naturally opposed the intervening hills and valleys as insuperable obstacles. His answer was in substance, labor improbus omnia vincit, and that the object would justify the labour and expense, whatever that might be. Considering this a romantic thing, and characteristic of the man, I related it on several occasions.”[20] J. Geddes wrote William Darby, February 22, 1822, as follows: “In the year of 1804, I learnt for the first time, from the surveyor-general [Simeon De Witt] that Mr Gouverneur Morris, in a conversation between them in the preceding autumn, mentioned the scheme of a canal from lake Erie across the country to the Hudson river. The idea of saving so much lockage by not descending to lake Ontario made a very lively impression on my mind.”[21]
With canal building going on in other portions of the country, it was inevitable that the suggestion made by Morris could not down. The opportunity offered here in central New York was so favorable, that a people with only half the ambition and ability of New Yorkers would have profited sooner or later by it. Having studied the tremendous tasks undertaken by the Marylanders and Pennsylvanians, it can be understood why the Erie Canal was under consideration at a comparatively early date; the Mohawk offered a gateway through the northern foothills of the Alleghenies, and beyond lay lakes and rivers in the direct route to Lake Erie. There could be no question of water supply at the summit level; the waterways to be crossed, however, might cause the engineers no little trouble.
“I have not been able to trace,” Mr. Watson leaves record, “any measure, public or private, tending towards this great enterprize, till the 27th October, 1807, when an anonymous publication, under the signature of Hercules, appeared in the Genesee Messenger of Canandaigua, which is attributed to Jesse Hawley, Esq. now [1820] collector of the port of Rochester.”[22] It is affirmed that these communications were not inspired by the prophetic words of Morris;[23] they were fourteen in number, and were contributed weekly from October, 1807, to March, 1808. Hawley had thought out his problem with great seriousness and detail, and had splendidly planned a canal from Buffalo to Utica, where improved navigation on the Mohawk was to be depended upon. The cost he estimated at five millions. It is not at all unlikely that Hawley’s attention was the more quickly attracted to this subject because of the celebrated message of President Jefferson to Congress in this fall of 1807, just when Hercules was writing his articles.
It was probably the general discussion of this great theme, more than the result of any one influence, which led to the crystallization of the movement, when on February 4, 1808, Joshua Forman, a member of the New York legislature, from Onondaga County, offered the following bill:
“Whereas the President of the United States by his message to Congress, delivered at their meeting in October last, did recommend that the surplus money in the treasury, over and above such sums as could be applied to the extinguishment of the national debt, be appropriated to the great national objects of opening canals and making turnpike roads. And whereas the state of New York, holding the first commercial rank in the United States, possesses within herself the best route of communication between the Atlantic and western waters, by means of a canal, between the tide waters of the Hudson river and Lake Erie,—through which the wealth and trade of that large portion of the United States, bordering on the upper lakes, would for ever flow to our great commercial emporium. And whereas the legislatures of several of our sister states, have made great exertions to secure to their own states the trade of that wide extended country, west of the Alleganies, under natural advantages vastly inferior to those of this state. And whereas it is highly important that these advantages should as speedily as possible be improved, both to preserve and increase the commerce and national importance of this state:—Resolved, (if the honourable the senate concur herein) that a joint committee be appointed to take into consideration the propriety of exploring, and causing an accurate survey to be made of the most eligible and direct route for a canal to open a communication between the tide waters of the Hudson river and Lake Erie; to the end that congress may be enabled to appropriate such sums as may be necessary to the accomplishment of that great national object.” In the general appropriation bill now passed the sum of $600 was allotted to a survey of this proposed canal and the work was done by James Geddes, whose report, at a later day, became important.[24]
Mr. Forman’s motion passed, but amounted to nothing. In 1810 Thomas Eddy, the treasurer of the old Western Inland Lock Navigation Company, called on General Platt, a member of the New York senate, and the two conversed seriously about the great plan which was slowly coming more and more to the front. Platt affirmed that he would offer a resolution in the legislature looking toward increasing public interest in the great dream of the farthest-seeing men of New York. Perhaps the two drafted this resolution; at least, the very next day Platt handed De Witt Clinton a draft of a resolution. Clinton liked it. Its author thereupon offered it in the senate and Clinton supported it and it passed, March 13, 1810. It began: “Whereas, the agricultural and commercial interests of the state, require that the inland navigation from the Hudson river to lake Ontario and lake Erie, be improved and completed on a scale commensurate to the great advantages derived from the accomplishment of that important object: And whereas, it is doubtful whether the resources of the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company are adequate to such improvements:
“Therefore resolved, that if the honourable the assembly consent herein, that Gouverneur Morris, Stephen Van Rensselaer, De Witt Clinton, Simeon De Witt, William North, Thomas Eddy and Peter B. Porter, be and they are hereby appointed commissioners for exploring the whole route, examining the present condition of the said navigation, and considering what further improvements ought to be made therein; and that they be authorized to direct and procure such surveys as to them shall appear necessary and proper in relation to these objects; and that they report thereon to the legislature, at their next session, presenting a full view of the subjects referred to them, with their estimates and opinion thereon.”[25] On April 5 following $3,000 was appropriated for the expenses of the surveys called for in the above resolution.[26]
Accordingly the commissioners named explored the country between the Hudson and Lake Erie through which the prospective waterway would run, in the summer of 1810 with Jesse Hawley’s contributions of 1807-08 in their hands. At the next meeting of the legislature they presented an elaborate report. It would seem that the committee had passed over the route of the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company from Schenectady to Lake Ontario; James Geddes, the experienced engineer who had given some little study to the region under survey, made a map and a few rough estimates. The report opens with the declaration that the idea of making small rivers navigable had long ago been exploded in Europe; this was a polite way of saying that the days of the Lock Navigation Company were fairly numbered. The report affirms that a canal parallel with the rivers improved by the Navigation Company (Mohawk, Wood Creek, and Oswego) is practicable as far as Oswego Falls (Rochester). The twelve remaining miles to Lake Ontario might well be covered by a railway.