Fifty Years In The Northwest / With An Introduction And Appendix Containing Reminiscences, Incidents And Notes

by William H. C. Folsom

This money has been expended under the supervision of Maj. Farquier and Charles J. Allen of the United States engineering corps, with headquarters at St. Paul. The improvements carried out consisted in removing snags and all impediments in the channel or along shore, removing sandbars, thus deepening the channel, building wing dams, and riprapping the shores. The work has been well done, and the expenditure is a most judicious one.

INLAND NAVIGATION.

As the prosperity of a country depends, next to its natural resources, upon the avenues of communication with other countries, the people of the Northwest naturally took a great interest in the improvement of their waterways. The states lying along the Mississippi and its tributaries found by these streams an advantageous southern outlet for their produce. But much needed to be done in the direction of improving navigation by clearing away obstructions, deepening the channels, and affording facilities for crossing rapids. As the settlements extended toward the great lakes, it became evident that the prosperity of the country would be greatly enhanced by communication with the lakes. In the absence or scarcity of navigable streams this communication, if obtained, must be by the improvement of navigation of the upper portion of these streams having their source near the lakes and their connection by canals with the lakes or their tributaries. By this means it was thought a better route to the Atlantic and to the Eastern States would be afforded for grain and other products than that afforded by the Mississippi. In the Minnesota state legislature of 1875 a bill was introduced making an appropriation of $10,000 for a survey of the route connecting the waters of Lake Superior with those of the St. Croix. This bill met with much opposition, but was finally passed, the amount having been reduced by amendment to $3,000. Lucas R. Stannard and Robert B. Davis were appointed commissioners, and with the meagre amount did all that was possible to be done in surveying the route. As the author of the bill, I insert here, as a matter of history, and as a sufficient explanation of my own views and those of the friends of the measure, a synopsis of the arguments presented to the senate advocating the measure:

"The route from Duluth via the lakes and St. Lawrence, and the Atlantic to England, according to correct computation, is about six hundred miles shorter than the route via Chicago and New York. The northern route is being made feasible by the improvements made by the British government on the Welland canal and Lachine rapids, and by the improvements made by our own government on the St. Clair flats and the Sault Ste. Marie canal, by which a depth of water is obtained sufficient to float vessels drawing twenty feet. This route to Europe will be traversed in much less time than the New York route. Vessels will be constructed for this inland American trade, and starting from the west end of Lake Superior with a cargo of grain that two weeks before was waving in the sunlight on northwestern prairies, will pass direct to Europe without breaking of bulk or reshipping, while the southern route requires reshipments at Buffalo and New York. Figures can scarcely do justice to the vast business that will be transacted on this open route as the northern part of the United States and the adjacent British possessions are settled.

"The opening of this route will tend to create new treaty stipulations and unlooked for interpretations of the old with the Dominion government, and establish commercial confidence and secure trade not realized to-day. Cheap transportation is the demand of the age, and this route will afford to the hundreds of millions of bushels of wheat and the commerce of Central North America the desired outlet to the best markets of the world. To many these ideas may seem chimerical, but we believe that the progress of the country and the development of her commerce in the not distant future will justify them, and that predictions now regarded as fanciful will be fulfilled to the letter.

"Minnesota as a state is just in the age of development. She is rising to power and influence. Much depends upon our legislature, more than depended upon the legislature of New York when, actuated by good counsels it connected the waters of the Hudson with those of Lake Erie by the 'Clinton Ditch,' so called in derision by the enemies of the measure. But the wisdom of Dewitt Clinton, the originator of that famous waterway, advanced the settlement of the great West at least a quarter of a century.

"Minnesota in her location holds the key that will unlock the largest body of fresh water on the globe, and open to it one of the most fertile and extensive wheat growing districts on the continent, a country that will soon vie with the country around the Black sea in the quantity and quality of its grain production.

"Shall we stand idly by whilst our neighboring states are moving to secure cheaper communications with the seaboard states? Cheap transportation, the lever that moves the world, is claiming the favorable attention of Congress, and men and means have been provided to ascertain the most feasible routes on which to bestow her aid for the transferring of the surplus products of the country to the markets of the East.

"The reports made thus far by the national committee make no allusion to Minnesota's great gateway to the East by Lake Superior, nor to the improvement of the Sault Ste. Marie canal. The committee dwelt somewhat elaborately upon the project of connecting the Mississippi with the lakes by means of a canal between the waters of Wisconsin and Fox rivers, neither of them good navigable streams. No authorized survey has ever commended this as a cheap route. Only one plan can be adopted by which a thoroughfare can be made profitable to the government and to the Northwest over this route, and that is to construct a ship canal along the Wisconsin river from the portage to the mouth.

"If the government can be prevailed upon to open up this route no one will deny that it will be of incalculable benefit to the people of Wisconsin, and to those further up the valley of the Mississippi. Let its friends do all they can to push forward the great movement.