VI. GOUVERNEUR MORRIS AND OTHER ORIGINATORS.

Gouverneur Morris, lawyer, orator, statesman, diplomat and United States Senator, was Minister Plenipotentiary to France, 1792-4, and had visited other parts of Europe theretofore and was familiar with the internal waterway systems. In his letter to John Parish of Hamburgh, dated at Washington, December 20, 1800, after his return from Europe in 1799, he portrays in glowing terms the natural features of that portion of our country bounded by the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence on the northwest and Hudson river and lakes George and Champlain on the east, and is rather exuberant in his anticipations of its development. He institutes a comparison between the Hudson and the Elbe, St. Lawrence and the Danube, Lake George and the Lake of Geneva, the brilliancy of our atmosphere and that of Italy; and after forecasting, in what then might be regarded as visionary expressions, the vastness of our inland commerce that would float down the Great Lakes, saying, "Hundreds of large ships will at no distant period bound on the billows of those inland seas," he concludes a portion of his most interesting letter in these words: "The proudest empire in Europe is but a bauble compared to what America will be, must be in the course of two centuries, perhaps of one."

General Morgan Lewis in a letter, dated at Staatsburgh, May 26, 1828, in speaking of the visit of Gouverneur Morris at General Philip Schuyler's headquarters at Fort Edward in 1777, says: "Our evenings were usually passed together (that is Mr. Morris, General Schuyler and myself were quartered in the same house), and the state of our affairs generally were the subject of conversation. One evening in particular while describing in the most animated and glowing terms, the rapid march of the useful arts through our country, when once freed from a foreign yoke; the spirit with which agriculture and commerce, both internal and external, would advance; the facilities, which would be offered them by the numerous watercourses intersecting our country, and the ease with which they might be made

to communicate; he announced in language highly poetic, and to which I cannot do justice, that at no distant day, the waters of the great western inland seas, would by the aid of man, break through their barriers and mingle with those of the Hudson."

Mr. Lewis then asked Mr. Morris: "How they were to break through these barriers? To which he replied that numerous streams passed through natural channels and that artificial ones might be conducted by the same routes." 1 Thus was predicted artificial water communication in this State as early as 1777, by one of its most distinguished citizens.

In a letter addressed to William Darby, in 1822, from Simeon De Witt, the surveyor general of the State of New York, he says:

"The merit of first starting the idea of a direct communication by water, between Lake Erie and the Hudson, unquestionably belongs to Gouverneur Morris. The first suggestion I had of it was from him. In 1803, I accidentally met him at Schenectady. We put up for the night at the same inn, and passed the evening together. Among the numerous topics of conversation, to which his prolific mind and excessive imagination gave birth, was that of improving the means of intercourse with the interior of this State. He then mentioned the project of tapping Lake Erie, as he expressed himself, and leading its waters, in an artificial river across the country to the Hudson. To this I very naturally opposed the intermediate hills and valleys as insuperable obstacles. His answer was, in substance, ‘Labor improbus omnia vincet'; and that the subject would justify the labor and expense, whatever it might be. Considering this as a romantic thing, and characteristic of the man, I related it on several occasions. Mr. Geddes now reminds me that I mentioned it to him in 1804, when he was a member of the Legislature; and adds, that afterwards, when in company with Jesse Hawley, it became a subject of conversation, which probably led to inquiries that induced him to write the essays which afterwards appeared in the newspapers, on the subject of carrying a canal from Lake Erie to Albany, through the interior of the country, without going by way of Lake Ontario."2

While standing at Fort Erie near the outlet of Lake Erie, in 1800, Gouverneur Morris in contemplating the

1. Hosack's Memoir of Clinton, 250, 251.

magnitude of the commerce which eventually would be seen at the foot of the Great Lakes, said:

"Here, as in turning a point of wood, the lake broke in on my view, I saw, riding at anchor, nine vessels, the least of them of one hundred tons. Does it not seem like magic? At this point commences a navigation of more than a thousand miles. Hundreds of large ships will at no distant period bound on the billows of those inland seas. . . One-tenth of the expense borne by Britain in the last campaign, would enable ships to sail from London, through Hudson's river into Lake Erie. The proudest empire in Europe is but a bauble, compared to what America will be, must be," etc.1

It has been asserted that Gouverneur Morris on this occasion contemplated the construction of a canal with a uniform "declension and without locks from Lake Erie to the Hudson's river," which he assumed would admit of navigation by ocean-going vessels, which may, in a measure account for his rather extravagant language. But when it is remembered that the Board of Engineers on Deep Waterways made a report to the Government of the United States about one hundred years after Gouverneur Morris' prophecy, in which they recommended the construction of a deep waterway from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario and from Lake Ontario to the Hudson river, admitting the passage of vessels from 480 feet in length, with a width of 54 feet and a draft of 21 feet, with a carrying capacity of 8600 tons to vessels 540 feet in length, with a width of 60 feet and a draft of 28 feet, with a carrying capacity of 12,000 tons; and when it is also remembered that 8,353 vessels, having an aggregate tonnage of 14,659,242 tons, arrived and departed from the port of Buffalo during the season of 1907, some of which vessels were 605 feet in length, 65 feet in width and drew 20 feet of water, having a carrying capacity of from 10,000 to 14,000 tons each-vastly larger than the ocean-going vessels of his day-it will be seen that the prophecy of Gouverneur Morris was not so very extravagant after all, even though such vessels were unable to sail from "London through the Hudson's river into Lake Erie."

Charles C. Brodhead, surveyor and engineer in 1829, in reply to an inquiry made of him in relation to conversations had with Gouverneur Morris, says:

"In the year 1802 or 1803 I met Mr. Morris at Rome, and had a conversation with him on the subject of canals. He had just ascended the Mohawk in a boat, on a tour to the St. Lawrence by way of Oswego; and he inquired very particularly of me as to the situation and soil of the land along the Oneida lake, and the banks of the Oneida and Oswego rivers, and the country lying between the Oneida and Ontario lakes. I do not recollect that Lake Erie was mentioned in this conversation, and it is my opinion that it was not. After I had answered Mr. Morris' inquiries, he expressed much anxiety for a canal from the Hudson river to Lake Ontario."1

Benjamin Wright in reply to a similar inquiry, writing in the year 1829, says: "Relative to the early views and suggestions of Gouverneur Morris in regard to the improvements by water communications, reported at the time the conversations or observations were made by him, about the year 1800, and soon after that period, they all tend to show that Mr. Morris looked only to canaling along the valleys of the natural water courses to Lake Ontario, and thence connecting Lake Ontario and Lake Erie by improvements around Niagara Falls, as contemplated by the Act of 1798." And Judge Wright adds: "I am confident Mr. Morris had no local knowledge of the formation of the country through the interior at that day; neither do I believe he gained any knowledge of the peculiar formation of that part of the State, until after the surveys made by direction of the State in 1808 and 1809. .. After Mr. Morris visited the country as Canal Commissioner in 1810, he took a different view of the whole subject."

In his Annual Message to Congress, under date of December 2, 1806, President Thomas Jefferson in speaking of the application of revenues and the most desirable national objects recommends the application of the revenues to the "improvements of roads, canals, rivers, education, and other great foundations of prosperity and union under the powers which Congress may already possess or such

amendment of the Constitution as may be approved by the States." 1

The early part of the nineteenth century marked the beginning of an era of territorial expansion under the Ordinance of 1787, and of vast public improvements in the United States. The principles of republican institutions had been embodied in the Constitution of the United States and were in operation in both the National and State Governments. The people began to turn their attention to their domestic affairs. The country was new, highways were still to be laid out and railways were unknown. Natural waterways offered the chief means of transportation. The familiarity of many prominent statesmen with European waterways then in successful operation, their knowledge of the adaptability of the topography of our territory for the building of canals and of the facility of transportation over them and the necessities of various sections of the country in its settlement and development for adequate means of transportation, led to the construction of systems of canals in several states. Senator Thomas Worthington of Ohio, voicing well-defined public sentiment on this subject in 1807, introduced a resolution in the Senate of the United States, which was adopted on March 2, 1807, in the following language:

"Resolved, That the Secretary of the Treasury be directed to prepare and report to the Senate, at their next session, a plan for the application of such means as are within the power of Congress, to the purposes of opening and making canals; together with a statement of the undertakings of that nature which, as objects of public improvements, may require and deserve the aid of government; and also a statement of works of the nature mentioned which have been commenced, the progress which has been made in them, and the means and prospects of their being completed, and such information as, in the opinion of the Secretary, shall be material in relation to the object of this resolution."

On April 4, 1808, Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury, in obedience to the resolution of the Senate of

1. "Messages and Papers of the Presidents," by James D. Richardson [Washington, 1900], I, 456.