However, the committee had another plan, that of building the canal straight west from the Oswego to Lake Erie, avoiding Lake Ontario’s winds and waves entirely. Certain interesting commercial questions were here involved. Even with the advantages offered by the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company, New York and Albany could not hold their own in competition with Montreal. Freight rates down the St. Lawrence were marvelously cheap; fifty cents a hundredweight, only, was charged by descending boatmen from Kingston to Montreal—one-half the early rate from Buffalo to New York on the Erie Canal when it was at last built. The rate of freight up the St. Lawrence was only one dollar per hundredweight. If any point east of Niagara Falls was made the terminus of New York’s canal, it was feared that Montreal would profit by it more, perhaps, than the cities it was intended to build up and benefit.

Mr. Geddes favored the direct route to Lake Erie by way of the “Tanawanta” River. He advanced the following rough estimate of distances in the direct route:

Miles
Descent
(feet)
Mouth of Tanawanta105
Genesee River (about)6834
Seneca Lake4623
Cayuga Lake63
Rome (summit)6633
Little Falls3819
Schoharie3819
Summit between Schenectady and Albany (about) 24 12
Hudson River147
————
Totals310155

The actual descent would be 525 feet. Mr. Geddes’s plan included aqueducts across the Genesee River twenty-six feet high and one hundred and fifty yards long, across the mouth of Seneca Lake eighty-three feet high, and across the mouth of Cayuga one hundred and thirty feet high. As a detailed survey had not been made, it was impossible to estimate accurately the expense.

Agitation of the great question was the only tangible result of this investigation. In 1811 Robert Livingston and Robert Fulton were added to the committee, and a report was made to the legislature, March, 1812. This report showed that the friends of the great waterway had resolved to exhaust all resources before relinquishing the work. They applied to Congress through Morris and De Witt Clinton for “Co-operation and aid in making a canal navigation between the great lakes and Hudson’s river, which, in the opinion of the Legislature of New-York, will encourage agriculture, promote commerce and manufacture, ficilitate [sic] a free and general intercourse between different parts of the United States, tend to the aggrandizement and prosperity of the country, and consolidate and strengthen the Union.” The legislatures of the various states were likewise asked to lend sympathy and aid—to co-operate and aid New York in opening the communication between the Great Lakes and the Hudson. “... The general advantage to the whole nation,” it was urged, “is of such preponderating influence, as to render the present object of principal, if not exclusive, concern to the national legislature.” The ways of help suggested were pecuniary assistance in the form of loans or gifts, and a friendly voice in favor of the project in Congress. A letter to President Madison expressed the hope that in his annual message to Congress he would in every consistent way urge the plan of national assistance. Accordingly in Madison’s message, dated December 23, 1812, he enclosed the act of the New York legislature and said: “The particular undertaking contemplated by the state of New-York ... will recall the attention of Congress to the signal advantages to be derived to the United States, from a general system of internal communication and conveyance.... As some of those advantages have an intimate connexion with arrangements and exertions for the general security, it is a period calling for these that the merits of such a system will be seen in the strongest lights.” Thomas Eddy wrote Simeon De Witt January 9, 1812 “... accounts from Washington this days post say that the expectations of our committee respecting aid from Congress are very flattering—the project of a Canal from Erie to the Hudson has many friends West of the Allegany—We are full of the news that De Witt Clinton will be president and Munro Vice p—— —this is the united wish of all parties in this City except Madisonians.”

A great, comprehensive plan of national aid to local improvements was proposed, by means of giving grants of land in Michigan to a large number of improvement schemes in various states. Article seven read: “And be it further enacted, That four million acres of land, part of the tracts above mentioned, shall vest in and belong to the said state of New-York, so soon as a canal shall be opened from lake Erie to Hudson’s river, not less than sixty-three feet wide on the top, forty-five feet wide at the bottom, and five feet deep (and, if practicable, along an inclined plane, descending not more than six feet in a mile,) to Hudson’s river, or a bason within four miles thereof; on condition, nevertheless, that no tax, toll, or impost, shall be levied or taken for the passage of boats not exceeding sixty feet long, eighteen feet wide or drawing more than three feet of water on the same canal, other than such as may be needful to pay the annual expenses of superintending and keeping the same in repair.”[27]

The war which now came on drove all plans of internal improvement from men’s minds until the struggle for honor and independence was won. The bill quoted was never passed by Congress; a law passed by the New York legislature in 1812, authorizing the canal commissioners to borrow five million dollars on the credit of the state, was repealed in 1814.[28] These had been hard years for New York.

In the autumn of 1816, Judge Platt, while holding court in New York City, was in consultation with Clinton and Eddy concerning the canal project, which had temporarily dropped from public attention. Though the outlook was gloomy and discouraging, these men determined to revive public interest in the project if it was in their power. An advertisement was placed in the papers calling for a public meeting at the City Hotel to consider asking the New York legislature to attack the great problem anew. A similar call was issued at Albany for a meeting to be held February 7, 1816, at the Tontine Coffee House, signed by ten friends of the movement.

William Bayard was chosen chairman of the New York meeting, and the speakers were Platt, Clinton, and Swartwout; Clinton, Swartwout, and Thomas Eddy were appointed a committee to prepare a memorial for the legislature. This document was drafted by De Witt Clinton and marks a brilliant crisis in the long, wearing struggle this brave coterie of men had made for their favorite project. New York was recovering from the devastation and prostration caused by the war. The awakening courage of a brave people was stirred by the appeal of Clinton’s; it was so “comprehensive a view of the immense advantages that would be produced to the state by the completion of the canal, that copies sent throughout the state were eagerly signed by thousands, and carried full conviction to every mind. The project immediately became popular, and it was the means of rousing the legislature, and produced several successive laws in prosecuting this great work. A system of finance was drawn up by De Witt Clinton which with some trifling alterations, was adopted by the legislature and is now [1825] in successful operation.”[29]