American Merchant Ships and Sailors

CHAPTER VII.

THE GREAT LAKES--THEIR SHARE IN THE MAR­ITIME TRAF­FIC OF THE UNIT­ED STATES--THE EAR­LI­EST RECORD­ED VOY­AGERS--IN­DI­ANS AND FUR TRADERS--THE PIGMY CANAL AT THE SAULT STE. MARIE--BE­GIN­NINGS OF NAV­IGA­TION BY SAILS--DE LA SALLE AND THE “GRIF­FIN”--REC­OL­LEC­TIONS OF EAR­LY LAKE SEA­MEN--THE LAKES AS A HIGH­WAY FOR WEST­WARD EM­IGRA­TION--THE FIRST STEAM­BOAT--EF­FECT OF MIN­ER­AL DIS­COV­ER­IES ON LAKE SU­PE­RI­OR--THE ORE-​CAR­RY­ING FLEET--THE WHALE­BACKS--THE SEA­MEN OF THE LAKES--THE GREAT CANAL AT THE “SOO”--THE CHAN­NEL TO BUF­FA­LO--BARRED OUT FROM THE OCEAN.

In the heart of the North Amer­ican Con­ti­nent, form­ing in part the bound­ary line be­tween the Unit­ed States and the British pos­ses­sions to the north, lies that chain of great fresh­wa­ter lakes bor­dered by busy and rapid­ly grow­ing com­mon­wealths, wash­ing the wa­ter-​fronts of rich and pop­ulous cities, and bear­ing up­on their steely blue bo­soms a com­merce which out­does that of the Mediter­ranean in the days of its great­est glo­ry. The old salt, the able sea­man who has round­ed the Horn, the skip­per who has stood un­flinch­ing­ly at the helm while the green seas tow­ered over the stern, looks with con­tempt up­on the fresh-​wa­ter sailor and his craft. Not so the man of busi­ness or the states­man. The growth of lake traf­fic has been one of the most mar­velous and the most in­flu­en­tial fac­tors in the in­dus­tri­al de­vel­op­ment of the Unit­ed States. By it has been sys­tem­atized and brought to the high­est form of or­ga­ni­za­tion the most eco­nom­ical form of freight car­riage in the world. Through it has been made pos­si­ble the enor­mous re­duc­tion in the price of Amer­ican steel that has en­abled us to in­vade for­eign mar­kets, and promis­es to so re­duce the cost of our ships, that we may be able to com­pete again in ship-​build­ing, with the yards of the Clyde and the Tyne. Along the shores of these un­salt­ed seas, great ship­yards are spring­ing up, that al­ready build ships more cheap­ly than can be done any­where else in the world, and de­spite the ob­sta­cles of shal­low canals, and the treach­er­ous chan­nels of the St. Lawrence, have been able to build and send to tide­wa­ter, ocean ships in com­pe­ti­tion with the sea­coast builders. The present of the lake ma­rine is se­cure; its fu­ture is full of promise. Its sto­ry, if lack­ing in the el­ements of ro­mance that at­tend up­on the ocean's sto­ry, is well worth telling.

A decade more than two cen­turies ago a band of Iro­quois In­di­ans made their way in bark ca­noes from Lake On­tario up Lake Erie to the De­troit Riv­er, across Lake St. Clair, and thence through Lake Huron to Point Iro­quois. They were the first nav­iga­tors of the Great Lakes, and that they were not peace-​lov­ing boat­men, is cer­tain from the fact that they trav­eled all these miles of primeval wa­ter­way for the ex­press pur­pose of bat­tle. His­to­ry records that they had no dif­fi­cul­ty in bring­ing on a com­bat with the Illi­nois tribes, and in an at­tempt to dis­place the lat­ter from Point Iro­quois, the in­vaders were de­stroyed af­ter a six-​days' bat­tle.

It is still a mat­ter of de­bate among philo­soph­ical his­to­ri­ans, whether war, trade, or mis­sion­ary ef­fort has done the more to­ward open­ing the strange, wild places of the world. Each, doubt­less, has done its part, but we shall find in the sto­ry of the Great Lakes, that the war ca­noes of the sav­ages were fol­lowed by the Je­suit mis­sion­ar­ies, and these in turn by the bateaux of the voyageurs em­ployed by the Hud­son Bay Com­pa­ny.

Af­ter the Iro­quois had learned the way, trips of war ca­noes up and down the lakes, were an­nu­al oc­cur­rences, and war­fare was al­most per­pet­ual. In 1680 the Iro­quois, 700 strong, in­vad­ed Illi­nois, killed 1200 of the tribe there es­tab­lished, and drove the rest be­yond the Mis­sis­sip­pi. For years af­ter the Iro­quois na­tion were the rulers of the wa­ter-​front be­tween Lake Erie and Lake Huron. While this tribe was in undis­put­ed pos­ses­sion, com­merce had lit­tle to do with the nav­iga­tion of the Great Lakes. The In­di­ans went up and down the shores on long hunt­ing trips, but war was the prin­ci­pal busi­ness, and ev­ery ca­noe was equipped for a fray at any time.

A sto­ry is told of a great naval bat­tle that was fought on Lake Erie, near­ly two cen­turies be­fore the first steam­er made its ap­pear­ance on that placid wa­ter. A Wyan­dot prince, so the tale goes, fell in love with a beau­ti­ful princess of the Seneca tribe, who was the promised bride of a chief of her own na­tion. The war­rior failed to win the heart of the dusky maid­en, and goad­ed to des­per­ation, en­tered the Senecas coun­try by night, and car­ried off the la­dy. War im­me­di­ate­ly fol­lowed, and was pros­ecut­ed with great cru­el­ty and slaugh­ter for a long time. At last a fi­nal bat­tle was fought, in which the Wyan­dots were worsted and forced to flee in great haste. The fugi­tives planned to cross the ice of the Straits (De­troit) Riv­er, but found it bro­ken up and float­ing down stream. Their on­ly al­ter­na­tive was to throw them­selves on the float­ing ice and leap from cake to cake; they thus made their es­cape to the Cana­di­an shore, and joined the tribes of the Pot­tawatomies, Ot­tawas, and Chippe­was. A year lat­er the Wyan­dots, equipped with light birch ca­noes, set out to de­feat the Senecas, and suc­ceed­ed in in­duc­ing them to give com­bat on the wa­ter. The Senecas made a fa­tal mis­take and came out to meet the en­emy in their clum­si­ly-​con­struct­ed boats hol­lowed out of the trunks of trees. Af­ter much ma­neu­ver­ing the birch ca­noe fleet pro­ceed­ed down Lake Erie to the head of Long Point, with the Senecas in hot pur­suit. In the cen­ter of the lake the Wyan­dots turned and gave the Senecas so hot a re­cep­tion that they were forced to flee, but could not make good their es­cape in their clum­sy craft, and were all slain but one man, who was al­lowed to re­turn and re­port the catas­tro­phe to his own na­tion. This closed the war.

Leg­ends are pre­served that lead to the be­lief that there may have been nav­iga­tors of the Great Lakes be­fore the In­di­ans, and it is gen­er­al­ly be­lieved that the lat­ter were not the first oc­cu­pants of the Lake Su­pe­ri­or re­gion. It is said that the Lake Su­pe­ri­or coun­try was fre­quent­ly vis­it­ed by a bar­bar­ic race, for the pur­pose of ob­tain­ing cop­per, and it is quite pos­si­ble that these peo­ple may have been skilled nav­iga­tors.

[Il­lus­tra­tion: THE WOOD­EN BATEAUX OF THE FUR TRADERS ]

Com­mer­cial nav­iga­tion of the Great Lakes, cu­ri­ous­ly enough, first as­sumed im­por­tance in the least ac­ces­si­ble por­tion. The Hud­son Bay Com­pa­ny, al­ways ex­tend­ing its ter­ri­to­ry to­ward the north­west, sent its bateaux and ca­noes in­to Lake Su­pe­ri­or ear­ly in the sev­en­teenth cen­tu­ry. To ac­com­mo­date this traf­fic the com­pa­ny dug a canal around the falls of the St. Marie Riv­er, at the point we now call “the Soo.” In time this pigmy pro­gen­itor of the bus­iest canal in the world, be­came filled with de­bris, and its very ex­is­tence for­got­ten; but some years ago a stu­dent in the thriv­ing town of Sault Ste. Marie, por­ing over some old books of the Hud­son Bay Com­pa­ny, no­ticed sev­er­al ref­er­ences to the com­pa­ny's canal. What canal could it be? His cu­rios­ity was aroused, and with the aid of the Unit­ed States en­gi­neers in charge of the new im­prove­ments, he be­gan a painstak­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion. In time the line of the old ditch was dis­cov­ered, and, in­deed, it was no more than a ditch, two and a half feet deep, by eight or nine wide. One lock was built, thir­ty-​eight feet long, with a lift of nine feet. The floor and sills of this lock were dis­cov­ered, and the Unit­ed States Gov­ern­ment has since re­built it in stone, that vis­itors to the Soo may turn from the mas­sive new locks, through which steel steamships of eight thou­sand tons pass all day long through the sum­mer months, to gaze on the strait and nar­row gate which once opened the way for all the com­merce of Lake Su­pe­ri­or. But through that gate there passed a pic­turesque and his­toric pro­ces­sion. Ca­noes spurred along by tuft­ed In­di­ans with black-​robed Je­suit mis­sion­ar­ies for pas­sen­gers; the wood­en bateaux of the fur traders, built of wood and pro­pelled by oars, and car­ry­ing gangs of tur­bu­lent trap­pers and voyageurs; the com­pa­ny's chief fac­tors in swift pri­vate craft, mak­ing for the west to ex­tend the in­flu­ence of the great cor­po­ra­tion still fur­ther in­to the wilder­ness, all passed through the lit­tle canal and avoid­ed the roar­ing wa­ters of the Ste. Marie. It was but a nar­row gate, but it played its part in the open­ing of the West.

War, which is re­spon­si­ble for most of the checks to civ­iliza­tion, whether or not it may in some in­stances ad­vance the skir­mish line of civ­ilized peo­ples, de­stroyed the pi­oneer canal. For in 1812 some Amer­icans be­ing in that part of the coun­try, thought it would be a help­ful con­tri­bu­tion to their na­tion­al de­fense if they blew up the lock and shat­tered the canal, as it was on Cana­di­an soil. Ac­cord­ing­ly this was done, of course with­out the slight­est ef­fect on the con­flict then rag­ing, but much to the dis­com­fort and loss of the hon­est voyageurs and trap­pers of the Lake Su­pe­ri­or re­gion, whose in­ter­est in the war could hard­ly have been very se­ri­ous.

So far as his­to­ry records the first sail­ing ves­sel to spread its wings on the Great Lakes be­yond Ni­agara Falls, was the “Grif­fin,” built by the Cheva­lier de la Salle in 1679, near the point where Buf­fa­lo now stands. La Salle had brought to this point French ship-​builders and car­pen­ters, to­geth­er with sailors, to nav­igate the craft when com­plet­ed. It was his pur­pose to pro­ceed in this ves­sel to the far­thest cor­ners of the Great Lakes, es­tab­lish trad­ing and trap­ping sta­tions, and take pos­ses­sion of the coun­try in the name of France. He was him­self con­cil­ia­to­ry with the In­di­ans and liked by them, but jeal­ousies among the French them­selves, stirred up sav­age an­tag­onism to him, and his ship nar­row­ly es­caped burn­ing while still on the stocks. In Au­gust of 1679, how­ev­er, she was launched, a brig­an­tine of six­ty tons bur­den, mount­ing five small can­non and three ar­que­bus­es. Her mod­el is said to have been not un­like that of the car­avels in which Colum­bus made his fa­mous voy­age, and copies of which were ex­hib­it­ed at the Columbian Ex­po­si­tion. Bow and stern were high and al­most alike. Yet in this clum­sy craft La Salle voy­aged the whole length of Lake Erie, passed through the De­troit Riv­er, and St. Clair Riv­er and lake; pro­ceed­ed north to Mack­inaw, and thence south in Lake Michi­gan and in­to Green Bay. It was the first time any ves­sel un­der sail had en­tered those wa­ters. Maps and charts there were none. The swift rush­ing wa­ters of the De­troit Riv­er flowed smooth­ly over lime­stone reefs, which the steam­ers of to-​day pass cau­tious­ly, de­spite the Gov­ern­ment chan­nels, cut deep and plain­ly light­ed. The flats, that broad ex­panse of marsh per­me­at­ed by a maze of false chan­nels above De­troit, had to be thread­ed with no chart or guide. Yet the “Grif­fin” made St. Ig­nace in twen­ty days from hav­ing set sail, a record which is of­ten not equaled by lum­ber schooners of the present time. From Green Bay, La Salle sent the ves­sel back with a car­go of furs that would have made him rich for life, had it ev­er reached a mar­ket. But the ves­sel dis­ap­peared, and for years noth­ing was heard of her. Fi­nal­ly La Salle learned that a half-​breed pi­lot, who had shown signs of treach­ery on the out­ward trip, had per­suad­ed the crew to run her ashore in the De­troit Riv­er, and them­selves to take the valu­able car­go. But the traitors had reck­oned with­out the sav­age In­di­ans of the neigh­bor­hood, who al­so cov­et­ed the furs and pelts. While the crew were try­ing to dis­pose of these the red men set up­on them and slew them all. The “Grif­fin” nev­er again float­ed on the lakes.

It is dif­fi­cult to de­ter­mine the time when sail­ing ves­sels next ap­peared up­on the lakes, but it was cer­tain­ly not for near­ly sev­en­ty-​five years. Cap­tain Jonathan Carv­er re­port­ed a French schooner on Lake Su­pe­ri­or about 1766, and in 1772 Alexan­der Har­vey built a forty-​ton sloop on the same lake, in which he sought the site of a fa­mous cop­per mine. But it was long be­fore Lake Su­pe­ri­or showed more than an in­fre­quent sail, though on Lake Erie small ves­sels soon be­came com­mon. Even in 1820 the furs of Lake Su­pe­ri­or were sent down to Chica­go in bateaux.

Two small sail­ing ves­sels, the “Beaver” and the “Glad­win,” which proved very valu­able to the be­sieged gar­ri­son at De­troit in 1763, were the next sail­ing ves­sels on the lakes, and are sup­posed to have been built by the En­glish the year pre­vi­ous. It is said, that through the re­fusal of her cap­tain to take bal­last aboard, the “Glad­win” was cap­sized on Lake Erie and lost, and the en­tire crew drowned. The “Roy­al Char­lotte,” the “Boston,” and the “Vic­to­ry” ap­peared on the lakes a few years lat­er, and went in­to com­mis­sion be­tween Fort Erie (Buf­fa­lo) and De­troit, car­ry­ing the first year 1,464 bales of fur to Fort Erie, and prac­ti­cal­ly es­tab­lish­ing com­mer­cial nav­iga­tion.

It is hard to look clear­ly in­to the fu­ture. If the rec­om­men­da­tions of one J. Collins, deputy sur­vey­or-​gen­er­al of the British Gov­ern­ment, had gov­erned the des­tiny of the Great Lakes, the traf­fic be­tween Buf­fa­lo and the Soo by wa­ter, would to-​day be in boats of fif­teen tons or less. Un­der or­ders of the En­glish Gov­ern­ment, Collins in 1788 made a sur­vey of all the lakes and har­bors from Kingston to Mack­inac, and in his re­port, ex­press­ing his views as to the size of ves­sels that should be built for ser­vice on the lakes, he said he thought that for ser­vice on Lake On­tario ves­sels should be sev­en­ty-​five or eighty tons bur­den, and on Lake Erie, if ex­pect­ed to run to Lake Huron, they should be not more than fif­teen tons. What a stretch of imag­ina­tion is nec­es­sary to con­ceive of the great vol­ume of traf­fic of the present time, pass­ing De­troit in lit­tle schooners not much larg­er than cat­boats that skim around the lakes! Imag­ine such a cor­po­ra­tion as the North­ern Steamship Com­pa­ny, with its big fleet of steel steam­ers, at­tempt­ing to han­dle its freight busi­ness in sail­ing ves­sels of a size that the av­er­age wharf-​rat of the present time would dis­dain to pi­lot. What a rush of busi­ness there would be at the Ma­rine Post-​Of­fice in De­troit, if some day this com­pa­ny would de­cide to cut off three of its large steam­ers and send out enough schooners of the size rec­om­mend­ed by the En­glish of­fi­cer, to take their place! The fleet would com­prise at least 318 ves­sels, and would re­quire not few­er than 1500 sea­men to nav­igate. It is some­times said that there is a con­tin­ual panora­ma of ves­sels pass­ing up and down the rivers of the Great Lakes, but what if the En­glish­man had guessed right? Hap­pi­ly he did not, and ves­sels of 1500 tons can nav­igate the con­nect­ing wa­ters of Lake Huron and Lake Erie much bet­ter than those of fif­teen tons could in his time. That the ear­ly ship-​builders did not pay much at­ten­tion to J. Collins, is ev­ident from the fact that, when the De­troit was sur­ren­dered to the Amer­icans in 1796, twelve mer­chant ves­sels were owned there of from fifty to one hun­dred tons each.

[Il­lus­tra­tion: “THE RED-​MEN SET UP­ON THEM AND SLEW THEM ALL”]

At the close of the eigh­teenth cen­tu­ry the Amer­ican sailor had hard­ly su­per­seded the red men as a nav­iga­tor, and lake ves­sels were not much more plen­ti­ful than air­ships are nowa­days. In­deed, the en­tire fleet in 1799, so far as can be learned, was as fol­lows: The schooners “Nan­cy,” “Swan,” and “Naegel;” the sloops “Sag­ina,” “De­troit,” “Beaver,” “In­dus­try,” “Speed­well,” and “Arabas­ka.” This was the fleet, com­plete, of Lakes Huron, Erie, and Michi­gan.

“A wild-​look­ing set were the first white sailors of the lakes,” says Hub­bard in his “Memo­ri­als of Half a Cen­tu­ry.” “Their weird­ness was of­ten en­hanced by the dash of In­di­an blood, and they are bet­ter de­scribed as rangers of the woods and wa­ters. Pic­turesque, too, they were in their red flan­nel or leather shirts and cloth caps of some gay col­or, fin­ished to a point which hung over on one side with a de­pend­ing tas­sel. They had a gen­uine love for their oc­cu­pa­tion, and mus­cles that nev­er seemed to tire at the pad­dle and oar. These were not the men who want­ed steam­boats and fast sail­ing ves­sels. These men had a re­al love for ca­noe­ing, and from dawn to sun­set, with on­ly a short in­ter­val, and some­times no mid­day rest, they would ply the oars, caus­ing the ca­noe or barge to shoot through the wa­ter like a thing of life, but of­ten con­tend­ing against head winds and gain­ing lit­tle progress in a day's row­ing.”

[Il­lus­tra­tion: ONE OF THE FIRST LAKE SAILORS]

One of the ear­li­est Amer­ican sailors on a lake ship big­ger than a bateau, was “Un­cle Da­cy” John­son, of Cleve­land, who sailed for fifty years, be­gin­ning about 1850. “When I was a chunk of a boy,” says the old Cap­tain in a let­ter to a New York pa­per, “I put a thir­ty-​two pound bun­dle on my back and start­ed on foot to Buf­fa­lo. I made the jour­ney to Al­bany, N.Y., from Bridge­port, Conn., in six­teen days, which was noth­ing re­mark­able, as I had $3 in mon­ey, and a bun­dle of food. Many a poor fel­low I knew start­ed on the same jour­ney with noth­ing but an axe. When I ar­rived at Buf­fa­lo I found a very small town--Cleve­land, San­dusky, and Erie, were all larg­er. There were on­ly two light­hous­es on the lakes, one at Buf­fa­lo, which was the first one built, and the oth­er one at Erie. Buf­fa­lo was then called Fort Erie, and was a strug­gling lit­tle town. My first trip as a sailor was made from Buf­fa­lo to Erie, which was then con­sid­ered quite a voy­age. From Buf­fa­lo to De­troit was looked up­on as a long voy­age, and a ves­sel of thir­ty-​two tons was the largest ship on the lakes. In 1813 I was one of a crew of four who left Buf­fa­lo on the sloop 'Com­mence­ment' with a car­go of whisky for Erie. While beat­ing along shore the En­glish frigate 'Char­lotte' cap­tured us and two boat­loads of red-​coats board­ed our ves­sel and took us pris­on­ers. We were paroled on ship­board the same day, and be­fore night con­coct­ed a scheme to get the En­glish­men drunk on our whisky. One of our fel­lows got drunk first, and told of our in­ten­tions, the plot was frus­trat­ed, and we nar­row­ly es­caped be­ing hung.”

[Il­lus­tra­tion: “TWO BOAT-​LOADS OF RED­COATS BOARD­ED US AND TOOK US PRIS­ON­ERS”]

Once be­gun, the con­quest of the lakes as a high­way for trade was rapid. We who live in the days of rail­roads can hard­ly ap­pre­ci­ate how tremen­dous was the im­pe­tus giv­en to the up­build­ing of a re­gion if it pos­sessed prac­ti­ca­ble wa­ter­ways. The whole his­to­ry of the set­tle­ment of the Mid­dle West is told in the sto­ry of its rivers and lakes. The tide of im­mi­gra­tion, avoid­ing the dense forests haunt­ed by In­di­ans, the rugged moun­tains, and the broad prairies in­to which the wheel of the heavy-​laden wag­on cut deep, fol­lowed the course of the Po­tomac and the Ohio, the Hud­son, Mo­hawk, and the Great Lakes. Streams that have long since ceased to be thought nav­iga­ble for a boy's ca­noe were made to car­ry the set­tlers' few house­hold goods heaped on a flat­boat. The flood of fam­ilies go­ing West cre­at­ed a de­mand that soon cov­ered the lakes with schooners and brigs. Land­ed on the lake shore near some lit­tle stream, the im­mi­grants would build flat­boats, and painful­ly pole their way in­to the in­te­ri­or to some spot that took their fan­cy. Ohio, In­di­ana, Michi­gan, and Illi­nois thus filled up, towns grow­ing by the side of streams now used on­ly to turn mill-​wheels, but which in their day de­ter­mined where the pros­per­ous set­tle­ment should be.

The steam­boat was not slow in mak­ing its ap­pear­ance on the lakes. In 1818, while it was still an ex­per­iment on the seaboard, one of these craft ap­peared on Lake Erie. The “Walk-​in-​the-​Wa­ter” was her name, sug­ges­tive of In­di­an nomen­cla­ture and, with­al, ex­ceed­ing­ly de­scrip­tive. She made the trip from Buf­fa­lo to De­troit, not in­fre­quent­ly tak­ing thir­teen days. She was a side-​wheel­er, a mod­el which still holds fa­vor on the low­er lakes, though vir­tu­al­ly aban­doned on the ocean and on Lake Su­pe­ri­or. An oil paint­ing of this lit­tle craft, still pre­served, shows her with­out a pi­lot-​house, steered by a cu­ri­ous tiller at the stern, with a smokestack like six lengths of stovepipe, and huge un­boxed wheels. She is said to have been a prof­itable craft, of­ten car­ry­ing as many as fifty pas­sen­gers on the voy­age, for which eigh­teen dol­lars was charged. For four years she held a monopoly of the busi­ness. Prob­ably the ef­forts of Ful­ton and Liv­ing­stone to pro­tect the monopoly which had been grant­ed them by the State of New York, and the de­ter­mi­na­tion of James Roo­sevelt to main­tain what he claimed to be his ex­clu­sive right to the ver­ti­cal pad­dle-​wheel, de­layed the ex­ten­sion of steam nav­iga­tion on the lakes as it did on the great rivers. Af­ter four years of soli­tary ser­vice on Lake Erie, the “Walk-​in-​the-​Wa­ter” was wrecked in an Oc­to­ber storm. Crowd­ed with pas­sen­gers, she rode out a heavy gale through a long night. At day­break the ca­bles part­ed and she went ashore, but no lives were lost. Her loss was con­sid­ered an ir­repara­ble calami­ty by the set­tlers at the west­ern end of the lake. “This ac­ci­dent,” wrote an em­inent cit­izen of De­troit, “may be con­sid­ered one of the great­est mis­for­tunes which has ev­er be­fall­en Michi­gan, for, in ad­di­tion to its hav­ing de­prived us of all cer­tain and speedy com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the civ­ilized world, I am fear­ful it will great­ly check the progress of im­mi­gra­tion and im­prove­ment.”

It is scarce­ly nec­es­sary to note now that the ap­pre­hen­sions of the wor­thy cit­izen of Michi­gan were un­found­ed. Steam nav­iga­tion on the lakes was no more killed by the loss of the pi­oneer craft than was transat­lantic steam nav­iga­tion end­ed by the dis­ap­prov­ing ver­dict of the sci­en­tists. Nowhere in the world is there such a spec­ta­cle of mar­itime ac­tiv­ity, nowhere such a con­tin­uous pro­ces­sion of busy car­go-​ships as in the De­troit Riv­er, and through the colos­sal locks of the “Soo” canals. In 1827 the first steam­boat reached the Sault Ste. Marie, bear­ing among her pas­sen­gers Gen­er­al Win­field Scott, on a vis­it of in­spec­tion to the mil­itary post there, but she made no ef­fort to en­ter the great lake. About five years lat­er, the first “smoke boat,” as the In­di­ans called the steam­ers, reached Chica­go, the pigmy fore­run­ner of the fleet of huge leviathans that all the sum­mer long, nowa­days, black­en Chica­go's sky with their tor­rents of smoke, and keep the hur­ry­ing cit­izens fum­ing at the open draw of a bridge. All side-​wheel­ers were these pi­oneers, wood­en of course, and but sor­ry spec­imens of ma­rine ar­chi­tec­ture, but they opened the way for great things. For some years longer the rush­ing tor­rent of the Ste. Marie's kept Lake Su­pe­ri­or tight­ly closed to steam­boats, but about 1840 the rich­ness of the cop­per mines bor­der­ing up­on that lake be­gan to at­tract cap­ital, and the need of steam nav­iga­tion be­came cry­ing. In 1845 men de­ter­mined to put some sort of a craft up­on the lake that would not be de­pen­dent up­on the whims of wind and sails for propul­sion. Ac­cord­ing­ly, the sloop “Ocean,” a lit­tle craft of fif­teen tons, was fit­ted out with an en­gine and wheels at De­troit and towed to the “Soo.” There she was dragged out of the wa­ter and made the pas­sage be­tween the two lakes on rollers. The “In­de­pen­dence,” a boat of about the same size, was treat­ed in the same way lat­er in the year. Scarce­ly any­thing in the his­to­ry of nav­iga­tion, un­less it be the first suc­cess­ful ap­pli­ca­tion of steam to the propul­sion of boats is of equal im­por­tance with the first ap­pear­ance of steam­boats in Lake Su­pe­ri­or. It may be worth while to aban­don for a mo­ment the or­der­ly his­tor­ical se­quence of this nar­ra­tive, to em­pha­size the won­der­ful con­trast be­tween the com­merce of Lake Su­pe­ri­or in the days of the “In­de­pen­dence” and now--pe­ri­ods sep­arat­ed by scarce­ly six­ty years. To-​day the com­merce of that lake is more than half of all the great lakes com­bined. It is con­duct­ed in steel ves­sels, rang­ing from 1500 to 8500 tons, and ev­ery year sees an in­crease in their size. In 1901 more than 27,000,000 tons of freight were car­ried in Lake Su­pe­ri­or ves­sels, a gain of near­ly 3,000,000 over the year be­fore. The locks in the “Soo” canal, of which more lat­er, have twice had to be en­larged, while the Cana­di­an Gov­ern­ment has built a canal of its own on the oth­er side of the riv­er. The dis­cov­ery and de­vel­op­ment of the won­der­ful de­posits of iron ore at the head of the lake have proved the great­est fac­tors in the up­build­ing of its com­merce, and the ne­ces­si­ty for get­ting this ore to the mills in Illi­nois, Ohio, and Penn­syl­va­nia, has re­sult­ed in the cre­ation of a class of colos­sal car­go-​car­ri­ers on the lake that for ef­fi­cien­cy and re­sults, though not for beau­ty, out­do any ves­sel known to mar­itime cir­cles.

[Il­lus­tra­tion: A VAN­ISH­ING TYPE ON THE LAKES]

At the present time, when the project of a canal to con­nect the At­lantic and Pa­cif­ic oceans at the Cen­tral Amer­ican Isth­mus has al­most passed out of the sphere of dis­cus­sion and in­to that of ac­tion, there is sug­ges­tive­ness in the part that the canal at the “Soo” played in stim­ulat­ing lake com­merce. Un­til it was dug, the lake fleets grew but slow­ly, and the steam­ers were but few and far be­tween. Freight rates were high, and the schooners and sloops made but slow pas­sages. From an old bill, of about 1835, we learn that freight rates be­tween De­troit and Cleve­land, or Lake Erie points and Buf­fa­lo, were about as fol­lows: Flour, thir­ty cents a bar­rel; all grain, ten cents a bushel; beef, pork, ash­es, and whisky, thir­teen cents a hun­dred pounds; skins and furs, thir­ty-​one cents a hun­dred weight; staves, from De­troit to Buf­fa­lo, $6.25 a thou­sand. In 1831 there were but 111 ves­sels of all sorts on the lakes. In five years, the fleet had grown to 262, and in 1845, the year when the first steam­er en­tered Lake Su­pe­ri­or, to 493. In 1855, the year the “Soo” canal was opened, there were in com­mis­sion 1196 ves­sels, steam and sail, on the un­salt­ed seas. Then be­gan the era of prodi­gious de­vel­op­ment, due chiefly to that canal which Hen­ry Clay, great apos­tle as he was of in­ter­nal im­prove­ments, said would be be­yond the re­motest range of set­tle­ments in the Unit­ed States or in the moon.

At the head of Lake Su­pe­ri­or are al­most il­lim­itable beds of iron ore which looks like rich red earth, and is scooped up by the car­load with steam shov­els. Tens of thou­sands of men are em­ployed in dig­ging this ore and trans­port­ing it to the near­est lake port--Du­luth and West Su­pe­ri­or be­ing the largest ship­ping points. Rail­roads built and equipped for the sin­gle pur­pose of car­ry­ing the ore are crowd­ed with rum­bling cars day and night, and at the wharves dur­ing the eight or nine months of the year when nav­iga­tion is open lie great steel ships, five hun­dred feet long, with a ca­pac­ity of from six thou­sand to nine thou­sand tons of ore. Per­haps in no branch of ma­rine ar­chi­tec­ture has the type best fit­ted to the need been so sci­en­tif­ical­ly de­ter­mined as in plan­ning these ore boats. They are car­go car­ri­ers on­ly, and all con­sid­er­ations of grace or beau­ty are rigid­ly elim­inat­ed from their de­sign. The bows are high to meet and part the heavy bil­lows of the tem­pes­tu­ous lakes, for they are run as late in­to the stormy fall and ear­ly win­ter sea­son as the ice will per­mit. From the for­ward quar­ter the bul­warks are cut away, the high bow shel­ter­ing the fore­cas­tle with the crews, while back of it ris­es a deck-​house of steel, con­tain­ing the of­fi­cers' rooms, and bear­ing aloft the bridge and wheel-​house. Three hun­dred feet fur­ther aft ris­es an­oth­er steel deck-​house, above the en­gine, and be­tween ex­tends the long, flat deck, bro­ken on­ly by hatch­es ev­ery few feet, bat­tened down al­most lev­el with the deck floor. Dur­ing the sum­mer, all too short for the work the busy iron car­ri­ers have to do, these boats are run at the top of their speed, and on sched­ules that make the econ­omy of each minute es­sen­tial. So they are built in such fash­ion as to make load­ing as easy and as rapid as pos­si­ble. Some­times there are as many as four­teen or six­teen hatch­es in one of these great ships, in­to each of which while load­ing the ore chutes will be pour­ing their red flood, and out of each of which the au­to­mat­ic un­load­ers at Cleve­land or Erie will take ten-​ton bites of the car­go, un­til six or sev­en thou­sand tons of iron ore may be un­load­ed in eight hours. The hold is all one great store-​room, no deck above the ves­sel's floor ex­cept the main deck. No wa­ter-​tight com­part­ments or bulk­heads di­vide it as in ocean ships, and all the ma­chin­ery is placed far in the stern. The ves­sel is sim­ply a great steel pack­ing-​box, with round­ed ends, made strong to re­sist the shock of waves and the im­pact of thou­sands of tons of iron poured in from a bin as high above the floor as the roof of a three-​sto­ry build­ing. With ves­sels such as these, the cost of car­ry­ing ore has been re­duced be­low the lev­el of freight charges in any part of the world.

Yet com­fort and speed are by no means over­looked. The quar­ters of the of­fi­cers and men are su­pe­ri­or to those pro­vid­ed on most of the ocean lin­ers, and vast­ly bet­ter than any­thing of­fered by the “ocean tramps.” Many of the ships have spe­cial guest-​cab­ins fit­ted up for their own­ers, ri­valling the cab­ins _de luxe_ of the ocean grey­hounds. The speed of the new­er ships will av­er­age from four­teen to six­teen knots, and one of them in a sea­son will make as many as twen­ty round trips be­tween Du­luth and Cleve­land. Of­ten one will tow two great steel barges al­most as large as her­self, great ore tanks with­out ma­chin­ery of any kind and mount­ing two slen­der masts chiefly for sig­nal­ing pur­pos­es, but al­so for use in case of be­ing cut adrift. For a time, the use of these barges, with their great stowage ca­pac­ity in pro­por­tion to their to­tal dis­place­ment, was thought to of­fer the cheap­est way of car­ry­ing ore. One min­ing com­pa­ny went very heav­ily in­to build­ing these craft, fig­ur­ing that ev­ery steam­er could tow two or three of them, giv­ing thus for each en­gine and crew a load of per­haps twen­ty-​four thou­sand tons. But, seem­ing­ly, this ex­pec­ta­tion has been dis­ap­point­ed, for while the barges al­ready con­struct­ed are in ac­tive use, most of the com­pa­nies have dis­con­tin­ued build­ing them. In­deed, at the mo­ment of the prepa­ra­tion of this book, there were but two steel barges build­ing in all the ship­yards of the great lakes.

An­oth­er form of lake ves­sel of which great things were ex­pect­ed, but which dis­ap­point­ed its pro­mo­tors, is the “whale­back,” com­mon­ly called by the sailors “pigs.” These are cigar-​shaped craft, built of steel, their decks, from the bridge aft to the en­gine-​house, round­ed like the back of a whale, and car­ried on­ly a few feet above the wa­ter. In a sea, the greater part of the deck is all awash, and a trip from the bridge to the en­gine-​house means not on­ly re­peat­ed duck­ings, but a fair chance of be­ing swept over­board. The first of these boats, called the “101,” was built in sec­tions, the plates be­ing forged at Cleve­land, and the bow and stern built at Wilm­ing­ton, Del. The com­plet­ed struc­ture was launched at Du­luth. In af­ter years she was tak­en to the ocean, went round Cape Horn, and was fi­nal­ly wrecked on the north Pa­cif­ic coast. At the time of the Columbian Ex­po­si­tion, a large pas­sen­ger-​car­ry­ing whale­back, the “Christo­pher Colum­bus,” was built, which still plies on Lake Michi­gan, though there is noth­ing dis­cernible in the way of prac­ti­cal ad­van­tage in this de­sign for pas­sen­ger ves­sels. For car­go car­ry­ing there would seem to be much in the claims of their in­ven­tor, Alexan­der Mc­Dougall, for their su­pe­ri­or ca­pac­ity and sta­bil­ity, yet they have not been gen­er­al­ly adopt­ed. The largest whale­back now on the lakes is named af­ter Mr. Mc­Dougall, is four hun­dred and thir­ty feet over all, fifty feet beam, and of eight thou­sand tons ca­pac­ity. She dif­fers from the old­er mod­els in hav­ing a straight stem in­stead of the “pig's nose.”

[Il­lus­tra­tion: THE “WHALE­BACK”]

The iron traf­fic which has grown to such mon­ster pro­por­tions, and cre­at­ed so no­ble a fleet of ships, be­gan in 1856, when the steam­er “On­ton­agon” shipped two hun­dred and nine­ty-​six tons of ore at Du­luth. To-​day, one ship of a fleet num­ber­ing hun­dreds will car­ry nine thou­sand tons, and make twen­ty trips a sea­son. Mr. Wal­don Fawcett, who has pub­lished in the “Cen­tu­ry Mag­azine” a care­ful study of this in­dus­try, es­ti­mates the to­tal ore car­goes for a year at about 20,000,000 tons. The ships of the ore fleet will range from three hun­dred and fifty to five hun­dred feet in length, with a draft of about eigh­teen feet--at which fig­ure it must stop un­til har­bors and chan­nels are deep­ened. Their cost will av­er­age $350,000. The car­goes are worth up­ward of $100,000,000 an­nu­al­ly, and the cost of trans­porta­tion has been so re­duced that in some in­stances a ton is car­ried twen­ty miles for one cent. The sea­men, both on quar­ter­deck and fore­cas­tle, will bear com­par­ison with their salt-​wa­ter brethren for all qual­ities of man­hood. In­deed, the lot of the sailor on the lakes nat­ural­ly tends more to the de­vel­op­ment of his bet­ter qual­ities than does that of the salt-​wa­ter jack, for he is en­gaged by the month, or sea­son, rather than by the trip; he is nev­er in dan­ger of be­ing turned adrift in a for­eign port, nor of be­ing “shang­haied” in a home one. He has at least three months in win­ter to fit him­self for shore work if he de­sires to leave the wa­ter, and dur­ing the sea­son he is rea­son­ably sure of see­ing his fam­ily ev­ery fort­night. A strong trades-​union among the lake sea­men keeps wages up and reg­ulates con­di­tions of em­ploy­ment. At the best, how­ev­er, sea­far­ing on ei­ther lake or ocean is but an ill-​paid call­ing, and the earn­ings of the men who com­mand and man the great ore-​car­ri­ers are sore­ly out of pro­por­tion to the prof­its of the em­ploy­ing cor­po­ra­tions. Mr. Fawcett as­serts that $11,250 net earn­ings for a sin­gle trip was not un­usu­al in one sea­son, and that this sum might have been in­creased by $4500 had the own­ers tak­en a re­turn car­go of coal in­stead of rush­ing back light for more ore. As the ves­sels of the ore fleet are owned in the main by the steel trust, their earn­ings are a con­sid­er­ation sec­ond to their ef­fi­cien­cy in keep­ing the mills sup­plied with ore.

The great canal at Sault Ste. Marie which has caused this prodi­gious de­vel­op­ment of the lake ship­ping has been un­der con­stant con­struc­tion and re­con­struc­tion for al­most half a cen­tu­ry. It had its ori­gin in a gift of 750,000 acres of pub­lic lands from the Unit­ed States Gov­ern­ment to the State of Michi­gan. The State, in its turn, passed the lands on to a pri­vate com­pa­ny which built the canal. This work was whol­ly un­sat­is­fac­to­ry, and very wise­ly the Gov­ern­ment took the con­trol of this ar­ti­fi­cial wa­ter­way out of pri­vate hands and as­sumed its man­age­ment it­self. At once it ex­pend­ed about $8,000,000 up­on the en­large­ment and im­prove­ment of the canal. Scarce­ly was it opened be­fore the ra­tio at which the traf­fic in­creased showed that it would not long be suf­fi­cient. En­larged in 1881, it gave a ca­pac­ity of from four­teen feet, nine inch­es to fif­teen feet in depth, and with locks on­ly four hun­dred feet in length. Even a ditch of this size proved of in­es­timable val­ue in help­ing ves­sels to avoid the eigh­teen feet drop be­tween Lake Su­pe­ri­or and Lake Huron. By 1886 the ton­nage which passed through the canal each year ex­ceed­ed 9,000,000, and then for the first time this great wa­ter­way with a sea­son lim­it­ed to eight or nine months, ex­ceed­ed in the vol­ume of its traf­fic the great Suez canal. But ship­pers at once be­gan to com­plain of its di­men­sions. Ves­sels were con­stant­ly in­creas­ing both in length and in draught, and the de­vel­op­ment of the great iron fields gave as­sur­ance that a new and prodi­gious in­dus­try would add large­ly to the size of the fleet, which up to that time had main­ly been em­ployed in car­ry­ing grain. Ac­cord­ing­ly the Gov­ern­ment re­built the locks un­til they now are one hun­dred feet in width, twen­ty-​one feet deep, and twelve hun­dred feet long. Im­me­di­ate­ly ves­sels were built of a size which tests even this great ca­pac­ity, and while the traf­fic through De Lessep's fa­mous canal at Suez has for a decade re­mained al­most sta­tion­ary, be­ing 9,308,152 tons, in 1900, the traf­fic through the “Soo” has in­creased in al­most arith­meti­cal pro­por­tion ev­ery year, at­tain­ing in 1901, 24,696,736 tons, or more than the com­bined ton­nage of the Suez, Kiel, and Manch­ester canals, though the “Soo” is closed four months in the year. In 1887 the val­ue of the iron ore ship­ments through the canal was $8,744,995. Ten years lat­er it ex­ceed­ed $30,000,000. Mean­while it must be re­mem­bered that the Cana­di­an Gov­ern­ment has built on its own side of the riv­er very com­modi­ous canals which them­selves car­ry no small share of the Lake Su­pe­ri­or ship­ments. An il­lus­tra­tion of the fash­ion in which su­pe­ri­or fa­cil­ities at one end of a great line of trav­el com­pel im­prove­ments all along the line is af­ford­ed by the fact that since the canal at the “Soo” has been deep­ened so as to take ves­sels of twen­ty-​one feet draught with prac­ti­cal­ly no lim­it up­on their length, the cry has gone up among ship­pers and ves­sel men for a twen­ty-​foot chan­nel from Du­luth to the sea. At present there are sev­er­al points in the low­er lakes, no­tably at what is called the Lime Kiln Cross­ing, be­low De­troit, where twen­ty-​foot craft are put to some haz­ard, while be­yond Buf­fa­lo the shal­low Welland Canal, with its short locks, and the shal­low canals of the St. Lawrence Riv­er have prac­ti­cal­ly stopped all ef­fort to es­tab­lish di­rect and prof­itable com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween the great lakes and the ocean. Such ef­forts have been made and the ex­pe­di­ents adopt­ed to get around nat­ural ob­sta­cles have some­times been al­most pa­thet­ic in the sto­ry they tell of the ea­ger­ness of the lake ma­rine to find an out­let to salt-​wa­ter. Ships are cut in two at Cleve­land or at Erie and sent, thus dis­joint­ed, through the canals to be patched to­geth­er again at Que­bec or Mon­tre­al. One body of Chica­go cap­ital­ists built four steel steam­ers of about 2500 tons ca­pac­ity each, and of di­men­sions suit­ed to the locks in the Welland Canal, in the hopes of main­tain­ing a reg­ular freight line be­tween that city and Liv­er­pool. The ves­sels were load­ed with full car­go as far as Buf­fa­lo, there dis­charged half their freight, and went on thus half-​laden through the Cana­di­an canals. But the loss in time and space, and the ex­pense of re­ship­ment of car­go made the ex­per­iment an un­prof­itable one. Scarce­ly a year has passed that some such ef­fort has not been made, and con­stant­ly the won­der­ful de­vel­op­ment of the ship-​build­ing busi­ness on the Great Lakes great­ly in­creas­es the vig­or of the de­mand for an out­let. Steel ships can be built on the lakes at a ma­te­ri­al­ly small­er cost than any­where along the seaboard. In the re­port of the Com­mis­sion­er of Nav­iga­tion for 1901 it is not­ed that more than dou­ble the ton­nage of steel con­struc­tion on the At­lantic coast was re­port­ed from the lakes. If lake builders could send their ves­sels eas­ily and safe­ly to the ocean, we should not need sub­si­dies and spe­cial leg­is­la­tion to reestab­lish the Amer­ican flag abroad. By the re­port al­ready quot­ed, it is shown that thir­ty-​nine steel steam­ers were built in lake yards of a ton­nage rang­ing from 1089 tons to 5125. Wood­en ship-​build­ing is prac­ti­cal­ly dead on the lakes. In June of that year twen­ty-​six more steel steam­ers, with an ag­gre­gate ton­nage of 81,000 were on the stocks in the lake yards. Two of these are be­ing built for ocean ser­vice, but both will have to be cut in two be­fore they can get through the Cana­di­an canals. It is not sur­pris­ing that there ap­pears among the peo­ple liv­ing in the com­mon­wealths which bor­der on the Great Lakes a cer­tain doubt as to whether the ex­pen­di­ture by the Unit­ed States Gov­ern­ment of $200,000,000 for a canal at the Isth­mus will af­ford so great a mea­sure of en­cour­age­ment to Amer­ican ship­ping and be of as im­me­di­ate ad­van­tage to the Amer­ican ex­porter, as a twen­ty-​foot chan­nel from Du­luth to tide-​wa­ter.

Though the old salt may sneer at the fresh­wa­ter sailor who scarce­ly need know how to box the com­pass, to whom the art of nav­iga­tion is in the main the sim­ple prac­tise of steer­ing from port to port guid­ed by head­lands and lights, who is sel­dom long out of sight of land, and nev­er far from aid, yet the per­ils of the lakes are quite as re­al as those which con­front the ocean sea­man, and the skill and courage nec­es­sary for with­stand­ing them quite as great as his. The sailor's great­est safe­guard in time of tem­pest is plen­ty of sea­room. This the lake nav­iga­tor nev­er has. For him there is al­ways the dread­ed lee shore on­ly a few miles away. An­chor­age on the sandy bot­tom of the lakes is treach­er­ous, and har­bors are but few and most dif­fi­cult of ac­cess. Where the ocean sailor finds a great bay, per­haps miles in ex­tent, en­tered by a gate­way thou­sands of yards across, of­fer­ing a har­bor of refuge in time of storm, the lake nav­iga­tor has to run in­to the nar­row mouth of a riv­er, or round un­der the lee of a gov­ern­ment break­wa­ter hid­den from sight un­der the crest­ed waves and of­fer­ing but a pre­car­ious shel­ter at best. Chica­go, Cleve­land, Mil­wau­kee--most of the lake ports have wit­nessed such scenes of ship­wreck and death right at the door­way of the har­bor, as no ocean port could tell. At Chica­go great schooners have been cast far up up­on the boule­vard that skirts a wa­ter­side park, or thrown bod­ily athwart the rail­road tracks that on the south side of the city bor­der the lake. The writ­er has seen from a city street, crowd­ed with shop­pers on a bright but windy day, ves­sels break to pieces on the break­wa­ter, half a mile away but in plain sight, and men go down to their death in the rag­ing seas. On all the lakes, but par­tic­ular­ly on the small­er ones, an ug­ly sea is tossed up by the wind in a time so short as to seem mirac­ulous to the prac­tised nav­iga­tor of the ocean. The shal­low wa­ter curls in­to break­ers un­der the force of even a mod­er­ate wind, and the ves­sels are put to such a strain, in their strug­gles, as per­haps on­ly the craft built es­pe­cial­ly for the En­glish chan­nel have to un­der­go. Some of the most fa­tal dis­as­ters the lakes have known re­sult­ed from iron ves­sels, thus racked and tossed, saw­ing off, as the phrase goes, the riv­ets that bound their plates to­geth­er, and founder­ing. Fire, too, has num­bered its scores of vic­tims on lake steam­ers, though this dan­ger, like in­deed most oth­ers, is great­ly de­creased by the in­creased use of steel as a struc­tural ma­te­ri­al and the great im­prove­ment in the mod­el of the lake craft. Even ten years ago the lake boats were ridicu­lous in their clum­si­ness, their slug­gish­ness, and their lack of any of the charm and com­fort that at­tend ocean-​go­ing ves­sels, but progress to­ward high­er types has been rapid, and there are ships on the lakes to-​day that equal any of their size afloat.

For forty years it has been pos­si­ble to say an­nu­al­ly, “This is the great­est year in the his­to­ry of the lake ma­rine.” For es­sen­tial­ly it is a new and a grow­ing fac­tor in the in­dus­tri­al de­vel­op­ment of the Unit­ed States. So far, from hav­ing been killed by the prodi­gious de­vel­op­ment of our rail­road sys­tem, it has kept pace with that sys­tem, and the years that have seen the great­est num­ber of miles of rail­road built, have wit­nessed the launch­ing of the biggest lake ves­sels. There is ev­ery rea­son to be­lieve that this growth will for a long time be per­sis­tent, that the cli­max has not yet been reached. For it is in­cred­ible that the Gov­ern­ment will per­mit the bar­ri­er at Ni­agara to the com­merce of these great in­land seas to re­main long un­bro­ken. Ei­ther by the Mo­hawk val­ley route, now fol­lowed by the Erie canal, or by the route down the St. Lawrence, with a deep­en­ing and widen­ing of the present Cana­di­an canals, and a new canal down from the St. Lawrence to Lake Cham­plain, a wa­ter­way will yet be pro­vid­ed. The rich­est coast in the world is that bor­der­ing on the lakes. The cheap­est ships in the world can there be built. Al­ready the Gov­ern­ment has spent its tens and scores of mil­lions in pro­vid­ing wa­ter­ways from the ex­treme north­west end to the south­east­ern ex­trem­ity of this wa­ter sys­tem, and it is un­be­liev­able that it shall long re­main vi­olent­ly stopped there. New de­vices for dig­ging canals; such as those em­ployed in the Chica­go drainage chan­nel, and the new pneu­mat­ic lock, the pow­er and ca­pac­ity of which seem to be prac­ti­cal­ly un­lim­it­ed, have vast­ly de­creased the cost of canal build­ing, and mul­ti­plied amaz­ing­ly the val­ue of ar­ti­fi­cial wa­ter­ways. As it is ad­mit­ted that the great­ness and the wealth of New York State are much to be cred­it­ed to the Erie canal, so the pros­per­ity and pop­ulous­ness of the whole lake re­gion will be en­hanced when lake sailors and the lake ship-​builders are giv­en a free wa­ter­way to the ocean.

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