BY HENRY WAYLAND HILL, LL. D. I. EARLY USE OF NATURAL WATERWAYS. A critical examination of the history of New York will disclose the predominance of the commercial spirit of its people, who derived their first impressions in the broad domain of statecraft from the Dutch. Its laws and institutions are an expression of this spirit and the embodiment of the political maxim of Hamilton, its greatest creative genius, that "a prosperous commerce is perceived and acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen to be the most useful as well as the most productive source of national wealth." The early institution of the aggressive policies of the Dutch in the Province of New York gave it a commercial impetus similar to that of the Netherlands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and the modification of these policies thereafter by the English did not destroy their effectiveness. The commercial spirit of Great Britain, then reaching out to compass the entire globe, rather intensified the interest of the people of this Province in extending their domestic and foreign commerce to include a wider range of subjects, and to other countries, than those to which they were limited under the Dutch regime. The successive occupations of this territory by the aborigines, the Dutch and 3 English, developed its domestic and expanded its foreign commerce, until at the Revolution the latter was extensive enough to provoke the jealousy of the mother country. This commercial development was made possible at first only by the utilization of the natural waterways of the Province, and later by the establishment of navigable water communication between the Great Lakes on the west and tide-water on the east. It was foreseen that this would enable New York to do much of the carrying trade of several interior states and to control to some extent their domestic and foreign commerce. This would add immensely to the domestic and foreign commerce of New York. It has so proved. Furthermore, the volume of tonnage passing through this State over its artificial waterways was so much greater than was anticipated by their projectors, that it became necessary, in order to meet the increasing demands made upon them, to enlarge their capacity on two occasions; and now a third enlargement is in progress. An account of the origin, extension and improvement of the State's waterways together with the resulting benefits there from to the State forms an essential part of its history. It is my purpose in this paper to review that part of the State's history. It may properly be prefaced by an historical review of transportation over the lakes, rivers and other natural waterways of the State. This necessitates our tracing from its aboriginal occupation the efforts and achievements of the peoples of the Province and the State of New York through three centuries of its history. Such a review, however, must deal with events more or less disconnected, owing to the frequent hostile invasions of this territory prior to the Revolution and the isolated data relating to the period. These invasions were often predatory and intercepted the usual routes of trade and travel, to the annoyance of the inhabitants and the serious interference with their early commercial relations. The data relating to the aboriginal and early Dutch and English trade relations of the Province are scattered through early Dutch, French and English papers and are incomplete; but from what exists, some conception may be formed of the extent of the use of the lakes, rivers and other waterways at that time. This is an important phase of the history of transportation in this State and naturally precedes the era of canal construction, which is to be reviewed later in this paper. The foresight of the Dutch, English and American pioneers in this Province and citizens of this State in discerning the adaptability of its topography to waterway construction and in taking advantage of this and of its unique position between the Great Lakes on the west and the Atlantic Ocean on the east, across whose territory must ultimately pass much of the vast tonnage of the states bordering on these bodies of water, was as keen and comprehensive as that which dominated the policy of the Greeks in taking possession of and colonizing for commercial purposes the most strategic places in and about the Mediterranean sea. From the first occupation of this territory by the Dutch, as already stated, the genius of its people has been essentially commercial, as contradistinguished from that which is agricultural, or industrial; although the people of this State have excelled in both these latter fields of human endeavor. The commercial spirit, however, has predominated over the others and its cities have become great commercial centers, far outranking ancient Tyre, said to be "the crowning city [of Phoenicia], whose merchants were princes, whose traffickers were the honorable of the earth." The history of the commercial development of this State would fill several volumes and only certain phases of it are presented in these papers. Some of the contributors to the present volume had an active part in the movement, which will result in the construction of a system of barge canals from the Hudson to Lake Erie and Ontario on the west and to Lake Champlain on the north. The Buffalo Historical Society is thus fortunate in being able to publish the original papers of some of the prominent participants in one of the largest projects ever undertaken in this or any other State. This subject has so dominated the thought of successive generations and it is so interwoven through all the important Colonial, Provincial and State legislation, that it would be presumptuous on my part to claim that this or any other paper is complete in itself. I trust, however, that a resume of the successive steps taken and a summary of the principal constitutional measures and legislative acts in the movement may serve to keep alive the interest of the people in a great public improvement, which is regarded by students of transportation problems as indispensable to the State's commercial supremacy. This is especially so since the renaissance of interest in canal construction and in transportation by water in Europe and America is now as marked as was the Italian Renaissance of learning under the Medici family, stimulated by the spirit of discovery and exploration of the fifteenth century. For three fourths of a century, through their canals, the people of this State have done an appreciable part of the carrying trade of seven great inland states and thereby added millions of dollars annually to their wealth. The evolution of transportation over the State's waterways from the Indian canoe to the modern thousand ton barge has been going on for three centuries. No one will undertake to say just how much earlier the aborigines utilized the water courses of the territory now comprising New York, for no one knows whether the league of the Five Nations was formed as far back as 1400-1450, as stated by Lewis Morgan, or an hundred years later; but, whenever it occurred, it is certain that from the time when the "Hodenosaunee" or "the people of the Long House" migrated from the territory north of Montreal up the St. Lawrence with their primitive belongings in canoes, crossed Lake Ontario and settled in central New York along the lakes named after them, the natural water-courses of this State have been uninterruptedly utilized. The eastern door of the Long House was in the keeping of the Mohawks in the vicinity of Albany, while the western door was guarded by the Senecas of the Genesee valley and on the shores of Lake Erie; and after the Tuscaroras were added to the confederacy in 1714, by the latter nation also, who formed the outer guard in Niagara County. The Central Council was with the Onondagas, south of Syracuse. In a poem entitled "Onondaga Castle" the Six Nations are thus described: "Proud rulers of the far-extended north, Their war-song waked each echoing woody dell, East of the Long House, near the head waters of the Hudson, dwelt the Mohicans. Still farther east on the banks of the Connecticut were the Hohegans, or river Indians. These latter and other tribes occupying eastern New York were said to belong to the Algonquin family, which Champlain found in possession of the St. Lawrence valley upon his arrival in 1608. Prior to the Iroquois Confederacy the Algonquin family occupied territory southeast and northeast of the Hudson, and the Huron-Iroquois families extended northwest into Canada and southwest into Pennsylvania and Ohio. Long before its discovery, Lake Champlain had been the battleground of the Algonquin and Iroquois nations, and both the lake and its outlet were called after the latter nation. The Indians informed Samuel Champlain that the mountains on the east belonged to the Iroquois, and that the large islands at the north end of the lake were formerly occupied by the same tribe. Most of the lakes and rivers of New York take their names from the Indian tribes, which had settled along their shores and on their banks. The establishment of the Iroquois Confederacy as well as the migration and intercourse of the various nations with each other are evidences of their intercommunication by water. The use of canoes on the lakes and rivers of the State and the well-beaten carrying-places, such as that at Cohoes, that at Little Falls and that at Wood creek, are also evidences that the aborigines, long before the advent of the white man into this territory, anticipated him in the use of water transportation from lakes Champlain and George and the Hudson river on the east to lakes Oneida, |