New York State Barge Canal

Note: Unless otherwise stated, this history comes from Whitford

The entrance of the Barge Canal idea into New York State's waterway plans marked a new and radically changed era in the history of the State canals.   Viewed from one angle, the Barge Canal is simply the enlargement of 4 existing canals, the Erie, the Champlain, the Oswego, and the Cayuga & Seneca Canals.   On the other hand, the Barge Canal is technically and commercially very different from the old canals.   A report from the Committe of Canals said that the efficiency of the canal depends as much on the way the business is handled as on their physical size.   It advised against the expenditure of money for its enlargement unless it be accompanied with measures that will lead to the adoption of modern methods of conducting a water transportation business.(7)   The old canals boats were obsolete and animal power was even more antiquated.   Locks were worked by canal tender muscle instead of machinery.   Management methods were obsolete.   The failure of the Nine Million Dollar Project shocked the legislatures and people about the ineffectiveness of minor improvements to the canals.   However, this awakening instigated new thinking about how to make the canals financially successful.(8)

There was much sentiment against improving the State canals, especially from their main competitors, the railroads.   Canal advocates countered that canals kept railroad rates low, and the railroads would not prorate charges for mixed transportation modes, nor use differential rates among the cities they served, nor issue bills of lading.   Railroads were such fierce competitors that they seemed to spend as much time trying to put competitors, both canals and other railroads, out of business as they did serving their customers.(10)   New York State had always been the foremost commercial and manufacturing state, but by the 1880s, it began to feel the impact of great industrial changes that were taking place throughout the country.   There was now steam on the ocean and in the rivers, more railroads on the land, large warehouses and grain elevators were located at the docks, refrigerator cars appeared, telephones were in use, corporations grew in size, and electrical power was widespread and cheap.   New York City faced stiff competition from the lake and ocean ports in the midwest and Canada.   The New York Produce Exchange and Board of Trande and Transportation showed considerable interest in improved canal navigation to maintain low transportation costs of grain and foodstuffs.(18, 19)   However, there were many canal opponents and former canal advocates who were discouraged by the failure of the Nine Million Dollar Project.

There was also considerable agitation for a ship canal between the Great Lakes and the Hudson River.   Many engineering studies were conducted by the Federal government.   They concluded that it would be cheaper to build a barge canal with two cargo transfers, ship to barge and barge to ship, than to build a ship canal over the entire route.   It was also doubtful that a ship could be built that would be able to navigate the lakes, the canal and the ocean.(35)   It was generally acknowledged by experts that a ship canal from the lakes through the St. Lawrence River to the Atlantic Ocean would be the best way to ship cargo from the west, but this was considered commercial suicide by the New Yorkers and was never considered.(36)   That would have to wait until 1959 when the St. Lawrence Seaway was completed as a joint project of the U.S. and Canada.

On March 8. 1899, Governor T. R. Roosevelt appointed 7 men to serve as a Committee on Canals having the purpose to determine a canal policy that would maintain New York State's commercial supremacy. (42)   While this study was being made, canal advocates in May 1899 called for a State Commerce Convention that met on October 10 through 12, 1899.   Delegates represented 53 Chambers of Commerice, boards of trade or other businesws associations, four county boards of supervisors, mayors of 11 cities, and the presidents of 19 villages.   The strength of its canal improvement advocacy was printed in its resolutions that substatially influenced political opinions and party platforms.(44)

On January 15, 1900, the Committee on Canals transmitted its report to the Governor.   It recommended that the Erie, Oswego, and Champlain canals should be maintained and enlarged and that the Black River and Cayuga and Seneca Canals should be maintained as navigable feeders, but not enlarged.   It also said that any enlargement to a ship canal should be the proper object of the Federal government, not the State.   It further recommended that the Oswego and Champlain Canals be enlarged according to the 1895 Nine Million Dollar Project at an estimated cost of $2,642,120.   Finally, it recommended that the Erie Canal enlargement follow either of two plans:(46)

1. Complete a 9-foot deepening of channel with locks capable of passing boats 125 feet long, 17½ feet wide and 8 feet draft and 450 tons capacity.   One of the double locks would pass a single boat and the other lock would pass two boats traveling tandem with pneumatic or mechnical lift locks at Cohoes and Lockport and new locks at Newark and Little Falls.   There would be a new canal by river canalization between Clyde and New London and from Cohoes to Rexford and possibly to Little Falls and a new route from Cohoes Falls to the Hudson River.   Cost was estimated at $21,161,645.(46)

2. Construct a canal along the same route of the present canal, but of sufficient size to carry boats 150 feet long, 25 feet wide, and 10 feet draft with a cargo capacity of 1,000 tons and with locks about 310 feet long by 28 feet wide.   Cost was estimated at $58,894,668.   The improvements were to be paid for by issuance of 18-year bonds to be paid by taxes levied on countries bordering the canals, the Hudson River, and Lake Champlain.   Mechanical power would replace hand and animal power.(46)   The report included a study of European canal operation and engineering recommendations.   The report discussed the alternative of abandoning the canal traffic to the railroads and making it into a ship canal.(47)   Both of these alternatives would place New York City and Buffalo at a disadvantage to railroads operating through other major cities.   It said that a ships could not be built to navigate lakes, canals and oceans in a way that would be commercially successful. (48)   It estimated the cost of improving the three canals at $61,536,788: $58,894,688 Erie, $818,120 Oswego, and $1,824,000 Champlain.(49)

On January 25, 1900, the New York Commerce Commission submitted a report to the Governor.   This committee was appointed by Governor Black in 1898 to inquire into the causes of the decline in New York commerice.   Its hearings were held in New York State and in western states.   The Governor transmitted this report to the Legislature on the same day with the recommendations that (1) the canals cannot be abandoned, (2) a ship canal ought not be built by the state, and (3) the present canal must be enlargened.   He and others thought that the canal would force the abandonment of railroad differential rates that favored cities other than New York: The New York Central Railroad could charge high shipping rates because it was the only one with direct access to New York City whereas cargo to other cities with several competitive railroads were shipped at lower rates.(51)   The enlarged canal, it was thought, would enable New York City and the State to improve its competitiveness as a port for foreign trade.(53)

The presentation of these 2 reports to the Legislature was followed by 3 years of Barge Canal political agitation.   Canal advocates were pleased by the magnitude of the recommendations, but canal enemies were determined to scuttle favorable canal acts.   The governor sided with the canal advocates and signed the referendum on April 7, 1903, that would allow the voters to determine whether the canal should be built.(55)   A bill for $300,000 to produce a survey and estimate for the Erie, Champlain and Oswego Canals was signed by the governor on April 12, 1900.   The Oswego was to have a depth of 9 feet while the Champlain's depth was to be 7 feet.   The Erie was to be able to pass boats 150 feet long, 25 feet wide, and 10 feet draft with a cargo capacity of 1,000 tons.   The minimum dimensions of the prism were to be 75 feet bottom width, 1,125 square feet section area, and 12 feet deep except at structures where it might be 11 feet deep.   The locks were to be not less than 310 feet long, 28 feet wide, and 11 feet of water over the sills.   The locks were to pass 2 boats in 1 lockage.   Four routes were proposed. (57)   Unlike the Erie Canal locks that wee made of cut stone, the new locks would be of concrete except for the cut stone for the hollow quoins.   Dam construction specifications were not given.   The limitation of $50,000 of capital stock for canal transportation companies was removed in 1901.(72)   Great Lakes shippers disliked this restriction because it meant they had to deal with many small boatmen.   Railroads were not to hold stock in canal boat companies.(73)

In his 1901 report, the Superintendent of Public Works remarked on the 3 fleets composed of 18 steel canal boats that had been operating successfully for a few years and that had been considered highly successful, but eventually sent to the Phillipines.   These boats built by the Cleveland Steel Canal Boat Company were an innovation in boat construction.   They made possible the use of boats between Cleveland and New York City because insurance companies would insure these steel boats on the lakes, something they would not do for wood boats.   The trial trip of the first fleet, 1 steamer and 5 boats, was made in August, 1895.   It was so successful that more boats were added in 1896.   They made the Cleveland to New York trip in 10 to 12 days and were able to withstand heavy lake gales.(73)   The boat owners said they made a profit by using them on the canal, but they said they could make more money using the boats elsewhere.   They said the low profits were caused by the lack of terminal facilities at Buffalo and New York and the lack of cargo loading and unloading machinery.   Without such facilities, the company thought that the canal would be a failure.   No steel barges were used on the Barge Canal until 1918 when used by the Federal government.(74)

In 1902, the Legislature proposed a constitutional amendment that enabled use of surplus monies in the treasury to pay interest and principle of indebtedness.   If surplus monies were sufficient to meet the needs ofr interest and sinking fund in any year, then a direct tax for that year need not be imposed.   This became section 11 of article 7 of the State Constitution.   In eliminated direct state taxation for several years in spite of money being spent on canals and other public works.(78)

During the election campaigns of 1902, the candidates and parties committed themselves to canal improvements, which prepared the voters to vote favorably on the canal referendum of that year.

On January 13, 1903, the executive committee of the Canal Association of Greater New York formally adopted the caqnal bill that appropriated $81,000,000 to provide for deepening the Erie and Oswego Canals to 12 feet and the Champlain Canal to 7 feet.   On January 26, a conference of canal advocates from various parts of the state in Albany resulted in modification of this bill to appropriate $82,000,000.   The increase was to deepen the Champlain to 12 feet.   Many hearings on this bill followed in the Legislature.   Increases for labor, materials, and contingencies pushed the total to be appropriated to $91,674,553.   Then work supposed to be conducted by the Federal government was added because it was thought that it would not after all undertake this work: enlargint the Champlain to 12 feet, $7,355,965; a junction lock near Fort Bull, $129,168; and improving the Hudson River from Troy to Waterford and the Niagara River from Tonawanda to Buffalo, $1,403,307.   The junction lock wold render available as a navigable feeder a long section of the existing Erie Canal.   In this way, the total to be appropriated was pushed to $100,562,993.   This was the state of the bill as sent to conference on March 10, rounded to $101,000,000.(87-91)

In conference on March 11 a company known as the International Towing and Power Company introduced an alternate plan of electric towage that would replace the proposed enlargment bill.   It planned on the berme side of the canal a steel construction that carried rails on which two electric tractors would run, being able to pass each other in opposite directions and so located as not to obstruct the towpath, which might still be used for horses.   Boats would be towed from Bufrfalo to Albany for 30¢ per ton.   The cost of installation would be $7,500,000.   The two committees rejected this plan because it was unclear how this plan would be implemented on the canalized rivers.(92-93)   On April 7, 1903, the Governor signed the canal referendum bill and it was now up to the voters on whether the Barge Canal would be built.(103)   Between this time and the November election, considerable efforts were made by the canal advocates and opponents to persuade the voters to vote their interests   These voters who went to the polls in November, 1903, had to decide whether the State should improve its canal system.(13)   They voted for a Barge Canal.

The new canal route differed in some ways from the old one.   The big cities were avoided except for access spurs and river canalization was used, instead of being avoided in the days prior to steam machinery.   Minimum prism dimension were 75 feet bottom width, 12 feet water depth, 1,128 square feet water cross-section, except at aqueducts and through populated areas.   Locks were 328 feet between hollow quoins, 28 feet clear width, 11 feet minimum depth of water in lock chamber and on miter sills.   Clearance between water surface and bridges was not less than 15½ feet.(117-118)

The law made the Canal Board, composed of 13 member, the supreme governing body for constructing the canal.   It was created in 1826 and always had considerable power over canal events, but now it was given this additional power of construction.   Contracting methods were tightened.(118-119)