Daily stories of Pennsylvania

by Frederic Antes Godcharles

This was the era when stupendous plans for the internal improvement of the Commonwealth were adopted and put into execution. The Schuylkill navigation canal, which had been projected almost thirty years previously, although not commenced until 1815, was completed in 1825. The occasion was one of great rejoicing and the success of the enterprise gave an impetus to other improvements.

Shortly afterward the Union Canal was also finished, and the great Pennsylvania Canal was prosecuted with vigor. Governor Schulze hesitated somewhat at this stupendous plan of internal improvements by the State and opposed the loan of $1,000,000 authorized by the Legislature. He was obliged to yield, however, to the popular will, and before the close of his second term $6,000,000 had been borrowed.

At the session of the General Assembly in 1826 a Board of Commissioners for internal improvements was established. The Legislature authorized the Commissioners to contract for a canal from Middletown extending up the Susquehanna River as far as the mouth of the Juniata, and from Pittsburgh to the mouth of the Kiskiminitas, a navigable feeder of a canal from French Creek to the summit level of Conneaut Lake, and to survey a canal from there to Erie. These enterprises were started with the modest appropriation of $300,000, which was to be borrowed.

The board made two contracts, one for twenty-two and one-half miles along the Susquehanna and twenty-four miles along the Allegheny. At the following session the canals authorized were to be extended farther up the Susquehanna, the Juniata, and up the valley of the Kiskiminetas and the Conemaugh, another between Bristol and Easton and others of lesser importance.

In 1826 Governor Shulze was renominated and received within 1000 of all the votes cast for Governor. This was the nearest to a unanimous election ever known in Pennsylvania, and was an evidence of the confidence the people had in him, his fine character and intelligence.

Previous to 1827 the only railroads in America were a short wooden railroad constructed at Leiper’s stone quarry, in Delaware County, Pa., and a road three miles in length opened at the Quincy granite quarries in Massachusetts in 1826.

In May, 1827, a railroad nine miles in length was constructed from Mauch Chunk to the coal mines. This was, at the time, the longest and most important railroad in America.

In 1828 the State determined to engage in railroad building. The canal extending through the center of the State was to be connected by a railroad crossing the Allegheny Mountains, and with Philadelphia by a railroad extending to Columbia. Thus by railroad and canal a system of highway improved communication would extend from the Delaware to the Ohio.

The expenditures were now so rapid and enormous that the State began to suffer. Governor Shulze convened the Assembly in November, 1828, a month before retiring from office, and explained the tense situation. Funds had given out, the work was stopped and something must be done. But as he was soon to retire, he smoothed over the situation, leaving his successor to wrestle with the problem.

On December 15, 1829, George Wolf, of Northampton County, was inaugurated as Governor of Pennsylvania. He had defeated Joseph Ritner, who attempted to seek this high office on the rising wave of the anti-Masonic era, which at this time changed the political horizon of the State and Nation.