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harbor at Buffalo, and that plans for a similar improvement at Black Rock had been received.

The committee on internal improvements in the senate, consisted of Jabez D. Hammond, Gideon Granger and Stephen Barnum; and the committee on canals in the assembly, of George Huntington, John T. Irving, David Austin, Elial T. Foote, and Thomas J. Oakley.

A law was passed, suspending the collection of the tax on steamboat passengers, and imposing, by way of commutation, on the North River Steamboat Company an annual tax of five thousand dollars, for the benefit of the canal fund. This company then enjoyed, by grant from the legislature, a monopoly of steam navigation upon all the waters within the state, as a reward to Robert Fulton, Robert R. Livingston and their associates, as public benefactors. The grant was afterward adjudged by the snpreme court of the United States to be void, so far as it affected navigation in tide waters, because it conflicted with the constitution of the United States. The same law appropriated twentyfive thousand dollars for the improvement of the Oswego river; and by other acts, Grand island on the Niagara river, and a portion of the reservation at the Onondaga salt springs, were directed to be sold for the benefit of the canal fund; and the legislature prescribed a general system of police for the manageand protection of the canals.

By an arrangement made by the commissioners, and sanctioned by the legislature, three of the five commissioners were charged with active duties, to be compensated by salaries, while the other commissioners were relieved from such duties. The acting commissioners designated were Mr. Young, Mr. Seymour, and Mr. Holly. During the same year the title of the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company to its property and privileges, was transferred to the state, and a compensation of one hundred and fifty thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight dollars was paid for the same.

In November, 1820, Governor Clinton congratulated the legis lature upon the progress of the public works. He urged the adoption of plenary measures to complete the Erie canal within three years, enforcing the recommendation by the consideration, that Ohio would thereby be encouraged to pursue her noble attempt to unite the waters of Lake Erie with the Ohio river. The

canal commissioners showed in their report that the Erie canal was navigable from Utica to the Seneca river, a distance of ninety-six miles, and that its tolls, during four months, had amounted to five thousand two hundred and forty-four dollars.

An effort was made in the assembly to abrogate the local tax, which failed; a result showing that distrust of the productiveness of the canals still lingered in the halls of the legislature. This, however, was the last effort, and the law has been suffered to remain ever since, unexecuted and unrepealed. William C. Bouck was, during the same session, appointed an acting canal commissioner.

Governor Clinton, in 1822, referred in his speech, to the difficulties and embarrassments which had been encountered with regard to the most eligible routes for the canals, and the most proper designations for the termini of the Erie canal; assuring the legislature, however, that the canal board had not been led astray by local considerations or ephemeral expedients, and that they would be able to combine the accommodation of flourishing cities and villages with the promotion of the general convenience and welfare. He noticed the efforts on the part of Illinois to connect the river of that name with Lake Michigan, and those of Ohio to unite with Lake Erie the river which formed her southern boundary, commending those efforts to the munificent patronage of the national government, and the favorable countenance of New York. He recommended also the institution of a board of public improvements, to be composed of enlightened and public spirited citizens, and invested with power to establish and facilitate all useful channels of communication, and all eligible modes of improvement.

The tolls on the portion of the Champlain canal which had been completed, amounted in the previous year, to one thousand, three hundred and eighty-six dollars.

The legislature at this session directed the canal commissioners to open a boat navigation between the village of Salina, the Onondaga lake and the Seneca river. These improvements when completed, together with those previously directed, created an artificial canal from the Erie canal to Lake Ontario, and constituted a portion of what afterward became known as the Oswego canal.

Acts were also passed to encourage the construction of harbors

at Buffalo creek and Black Rock, and to adapt the Glen's Falls feeder of the Champlain canal to boat navigation.

On the first of January, 1823, the government went into operation under the new constitution, Joseph C. Yates having been elected to the office of governor. The constitution declared that rates of toll not less than those set forth by the canal commissioners, in their report of 1821, should be collected on the canals, and that the revenues then pledged to the canal fund should not be diminished nor diverted before the complete payment of the principal and interest of the entire canal debt, a pledge which placed the public credit on an impregnable basis.

It appeared at the commencement of the session of the legislature in 1823, that the public debt amounted to $5,423,500, of which $4,243,500 were for moneys borrowed to construct the canals. The commissioners reported that boats had passed on the Erie canal, a distance of more that two hundred and twenty miles, and that as early as the first of July ensuing, that channel would be navigable from Schenectady to Rochester. The tolls collected in 1822, upon the Erie canal, were $60,000, and upon the Champlain canal, $3,625. The improvements of the outlet of Onondaga lake had been completed, and the Glen's Falls feeder was in a course of rapid construction. Among the benefits already resulting from the Erie canal, the commissioners showed that the price of wheat west of the Seneca river had advanced fifty per cent. To appreciate this result, it is necessary to understand that wheat is the chief staple of New York, and that far the largest portion of wheat-growing lands in this state lies west of the Seneca river.

Attempts were again made in both branches to provide for collecting the local tax. The proposition was lost in the senate by a vote of nineteen to ten, and in the assembly by a division of sixty-five to thirty-one.

The legislature expressed by resolution a favorable opinion of the inland navigation which New Jersey proposed to establish between the Delaware and Hudson rivers. A loan of $1,500,000 was authorized for canal purposes; a survey of the Oswego river was directed to be made, and estimates of the expense of completing the canal from Salina to Lake Ontario. An association to construct such a canal was incorporated, and authority given to the commissioners to take the work when completed, leaving

the use of its surplus waters to the corporators; and the eastern termination of the Erie canal was fixed at Albany.

The canal commissioners reported in 1824 that the Champlain canal was finished; that both canals had produced revenues during the previous year of one hundred and fifty-three thousand dollars, and that the commissioners had decided that the Erie canal ought to be united with the Niagara river at Black Rock, and terminate at Buffalo.

Myron Holley now resigned the office of canal commissioner; and laws were passed appropriating one million of dollars for canal purposes, and directing a survey for a canal from Lake Champlain to the St. Lawrence, with a view to complete the inland navigation between that river and the Hudson.

On the twelfth of April, 1824, John Bowman presented to the senate a concurrent resolution, that "De Witt Clinton, Esq., be and he is hereby removed from the office of canal commissioner;" and it was carried on the same day through the senate, by a vote of twenty-one to three, and through the assembly by a vote of sixty-four to thirty-four.

As soon as a partial navigation of the canals had commenced, the government of the United States asserted a pretension to exact tonnage duties thereon. The legislature of this state, at its adjourned session, instructed its senators and representatives in Congress to use their utmost endeavors to prevent such unjust and impolitic exactions; and the claim of the government of the United States, although not formally relinquished, has never since been urged.

On the reassembling of the legislature in January, 1825, De Witt Clinton, who, in November of the preceding year, had been again called to the office of chief magistrate, congratulated the legislature upon the prospect of the immediate completion of the Erie canal, and the reasonable certainty that the canal debt might soon be satisfied, without a resort to taxation, without a discontinuance of efforts for similar improvements, and without staying the dispensing hand of government in favor of education, literature, science, and productive industry. Earnestly renewing his recommendation that a board of internal improvement should be instituted, he remarked that the field of operations was immense, and the harvest of honor and profit unbounded; and that if the resources of the state should be wisely applied and forcibly VOL. II.-8

directed, all proper demands for important avenues of communication might be satisfied. The primary design of our system of artificial navigation, which was to open a communication between the Atlantic and the great lakes, was already, he observed, nearly accomplished, but would not be fully realized until Lake Ontario should be connected with the Erie canal and with Lake Champlain; and the importance of these improvements would be appreciated when it was understood that the lake-coast, not only. of this state, but of the United States, was more extensive than their seacoast. The next leading object, he remarked, should be to unite the minor lakes and secondary rivers with the canals, and to effect such a connection between the bays on the seacoast as would insure the safety of boat-navigation against the tempests of the ocean in time of peace, and against the depredations of an enemy in time of war. He pointed out, as portions of this great system, the construction of canals to connect the Seneca, the Cayuga, the Canandaigua, and other lakes in the vicinity, with the Erie canal, and of a navigable channel from the Hudson to the Delaware; a union of the upper waters of the Susquehannah with the Genesee and the Allegany rivers; a connection of the Erie canal with the Susquehannah river, through the Chenango valley; of the same river with the Seneca lake; of the Erie canal at Buffalo with the Allegany river, at the confluence of that stream with the Conewango, and of the Black river with the Erie canal; and the construction of a navigable communication between Gravesend bay and other inlets of the sea, on the shore of Long Island. To these suggestions he added others, concerning the importance of an uninterrupted navigation of the upper waters of the Hudson river, and a road through the southern tier of counties from tidewater to Lake Erie.

Of this comprehensive plan, the Oswego canal, the Cayuga and Seneca canal, the Crooked Lake canal, the Chemung canal, the Chenango canal, and the Delaware and Hudson canal, are already completed; the Black River canal, the Genesee Valley canal, the New York and Erie railroad, and the Long Island railroad, are now in process of construction; while for the Ogdensburgh and the Lake Champlain railroad, the Conewango canal, the improvement of the northern branches of the Hudson, and the projected continuation of the Chemung and Chenango canals, surveys have been made under legislative authority.

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