Daily stories of Pennsylvania

by Frederic Antes Godcharles

By the act of April 17, 1795, the president and managers of the Schuykill and Susquehanna Navigation, and the president and managers of the Delaware and Schuykill Canal Navigation, were authorized to raise by means of a lottery, a sum of $400,000 for the purpose of completing the works cited in their acts of incorporation, under a prohibition that neither of them should form the same into capital stock, upon which to declare a dividend of profits.

An Act Passed March 4, 1807, authorized the said companies to raise their respective sums separately, subject to the prohibition as to dividends.

The two companies were consolidated by act of April 2, 1811 into a corporation known as the Union Canal Company of Pennsylvania. The new company was authorized to raise money by loan to complete the canal and to use the proceeds of the lotteries already authorized, and by the twenty-eighth section of the act authority was given to raise the residue of the original sum equal to $340,000 by a lottery.

By the act of March 29, 1819 the proceeds of the above lottery were pledged as a fund for the payment of an annual interest of 6 per cent upon the stock of the company.

By these and subsequent acts it appears that the lottery grants were given in the first instance, to the two companies, and afterwards continued to the Union Canal Company to aid and encourage the construction and completion of a canal and lock navigation uniting the waters of the Susquehanna and Schuylkill.

In consequence of these lottery grants, individuals were induced to invest their funds in the furtherance of the work, and loans to the amount of $830,400 were made upon the credit of the capital stock and the profits of the lotteries.

The Union Canal Company entered into contracts for the conduct of these lotteries, the last one, October 6, 1824, for five years, which expired December 31, 1829.

There was much sentiment against these lotteries and as there were laws in force for suppressing and preventing lotteries, there was objection made when the extension of this lottery was brought to the General Assembly. The Committee on Ways and Means, February 9, 1828, reported that it was inexpedient to resume the lottery grants to the Union Canal Company at this time and further resolved, “that the committee be instructed to bring in a bill to regulate lottery brokers, and to restrain the sale of lottery tickets within this Commonwealth.”

For more than half a century after the founding of the Province, Pennsylvania was dominated by the Quakers, who were constantly opposed to all games of chance. At the very first meeting of the Assembly, at Chester, in 1682, an act was passed against cards, dice, lotteries, etc. This and similar acts were annulled by the English Government.