Wedding the waters; The Erie Canal and the making of a nation by Peter Bernstein 2010

 What caused New York to become the biggest US  port  6/2/18

 

I chose to read on this subject because in the movie "12 years a Slave" he mentions that he worked on the Erie Canal, the book on Uriah Levi the first Jewish Commodore in the US navy mentions it.  In England we had a family holiday on the Oxford Canal on a long boat which is a home on the water.

Philadelphia was the most important port at the time and New York only became important in 1824

When I studied South Africa history you discover that in South Africa, soon after you leave the coast has the escarpment with the result that there are no navigable rivers into the country and it could not develop until the invention of the train.

 

Begun in 1817 and completed in 1825, the Erie Canal stretches 363 miles across upstate New York from Buffalo on Lake Erie to Albany on the Hudson River.

The writer is an economist. 

While the American Revolution was on in 1777  Governeur Morris  in the retreating revolutionary army was discussing the need for a canal to Lake Erie. At this stage Philadelphia was one of the most important eastern ports. The Mohawk River ran into the Hudson River into the Hudson Bay.  If the British had spent a tenth of what it cost them in their  war campaign they could have built this canal. A British surveyor general in 1724 had proclaimed the economic and military value of such a project. The concept of using locks was designed in 1485 by Leonardo di Vinci for the Bereguardo River in Italy from Milan to Pavia. Milan in the past was a canalled city like Amsterdam.

In France you had the Canal du Midi -Languedoc opened 1681 which by 1789 was 144 miles long but the Erie was to be 2 and a half times this. This canal through France meant that good could travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean without going via the straits of Gibraltar and the problem of the Barbary Pirates

 Agriculture beyond the Appalachian mountains was far better than on the Eastern side. 

Between Birmingham, Alabama in the south and the St. Lawrence River in the north the only path through the mountains was the Mohawk River Valley between the Appellation mountains in the south and the Adirondacks mountains in the north, nature had worn a gap in this down in the Ice Age

To get through you had to take pack horses or the river and then places with rapids you needed to do portage around the rapids and waterfalls,  which locals along the root offered their labour to help. There was always the worry that the western settlers might break with the USA.

As early as 1788 the Bridgewater canal in England ran from Wolsey to Manchester which ran over aqueducts and through coal mines reducing the cost of coal.

1793 the Western Inland Lock company was floated  but could not raise enough money; they did build some canal and this made it cheaper to travel. They built between the Hudson River and Lake Ontario

Jefferson had a pet canal project. Potomac Company was building a canal in 1808 but he felt that the New York Canal was too grandiose and would never be completed.

1791-1794 The Whiskey Rebellion-  because farmers could not easily get their grains to market they could easily turn it into whiskey now it was easy to transport but the government put a tax on it.

In those days in America you never had trained engineers and the most capable people were surveyors’ in fact because there were always land disputes both lawyers and judges were very much aware of what was involved in surveying. As a result of the canal an engineering school was opened. 

The NY mayor De Witt Clinton supported by his opposition saw political advantages in pushing for this bipartisan project. 

Jesse Hawley wrote an article in the press realizing the canal had to be completely artificial, using rivers as a source of water, going up a river was difficult.

A commission was set up and $15 000 was allocated to start and that it should be publicly funded under state control to avoid private interests. Under President Maddison money could not be raised as the treasury was in deficit from the 1812 war.

Local farmers were also pushing for the canal, and New Yorkers realized the commercial possibilities of  it and lobbied.

De Witt Clinton had been a congressman, had stood for the presidency but lost to Madison, had been mayor of NY. 

1816 A new canal commission under De Witt Clinton was formed.  That year Clinton was elected NY governor by a landslide and the canal was a major issue that the public wanted as they had run a big campaign about this, when they could not get Federal funds.  Now you had Vice President Tomkins who said that the state should use money on ammunition and fortification to be ready for the next war against England.  Chancellor James Kent announced that if we must have a war, or have a canal, I am in favour of a canal; the canal was approved by a margin one vote. The Holland Land Company owned west of Rochester and they were interested in financing the canal to Lake Erie. Putting the canal through to lake Ontario would give access to Canada and not US territory.

2 Building 

They chose to start building in the wilderness from the town of Rome as this the easiest place to build and would be a third of the canal on an easy straight and quickest and cheapest to build.  It had to have a towpath 10 feet wide for horses or mules to walk. Broadhead surveyed the section from Rome to Hudson then handed in his report and spent over a year in England at his own expense travelling British waterways and returned with a new knowledge of cement use and the newest surveying equipment. White made cement locally and got a patent on it but that was taken from him as it was discovered in the course of his work. He sued and settled for $10 thousand.

Many of the engineers here moved over to designing railways which were the undoing of many canals. The canal became the first US school for engineers.

Workers were local farmers in the slack season, freed slaves and native Americans. Irish immigrants arrived from 1818 and made up a quarter of the workers followed by other European immigrants earning 3 times what they could get in Europe. Techniques of pulling out trees and stumps were mastered.  Feeder canals also had to be built to make sure there was enough water where there was a down slope; these also could be used for transport.

By 1819 the piece from Rome to Utica was filled and you could travel the 15 miles at the speed of 4 miles an hour, considered a sensational speed. Clinton’s critics said - 2 years for 15 miles it will never get finished. This stretch immediately started being use for western migration and local farmers as well as the towpath being used as a road. From 1820 the toll for use of 90 miles of flat canal on this was 2cents/ ton /mile. Very quickly other sections were added as the separate contractors completed their section Swamps and malaria slowed things down. They had to put down pillars and wooden walls to keep the mud from oozing up. 18 Aqueducts were built. 

3 Clintons Triumph

1819   $3 million in gold that the Federal Government didn't have had to be paid to France for bonds that came due on the Louisiana purchase of 1803The USA at this time had $60 million in paper notes being circulated but not much gold.  This caused a curtailment of federal funds and depression followed. This was a boon for the canal as wealthy investors including John Jacob Astor were now easy to come by, and 9000 unemployed flocked to work as labourers. The town of Syracuse had a population of 250 in 1820 but 22000 by 1830.

At the Niagara escarpment they now had to cut away a rock surface and build a flight of locks like a giant staircase for a 6 story building, each lock could lift 12 feet instead of 8 feet 4 inches ,and you had a double set of locks. One going up and one going down. When drill bits kept breaking they devised ways of tempering /hardening steel. The canal was completed at Lockport in 1825. . From Buffalo to Lockport a gentle slope flowed 25 miles without locks as there was plenty of water from lake Erie.

The canal was 4 feet deep and 40 feet wide with a 10 foot tow path. The canal even enabled oysters caught on the coast to be transported inland. The canal took the Great Awakening - an evangelical movement that later called for abolition from 1792  

In 1823 Clinton didn’t stand for the NY legislature and his opposition got in. Bucktails of Tammany Hall  removed Clinton as Canal Commissioner,(same corrupt organization that La Guardia had to deal with in 1930s) because the public saw the high cost and were turning against it, but at this stage toll on the incomplete canal were so great that people who called it Clintons ditch realized it was a good investment. Leading Citizens had his power restored.  FIAT JUSTICA

At this time suffrage was extended to all white males over 21 and so Clinton won by a majority. Clinton was offered the post of Secretary of State by John Quincy Adams but turned it down to complete the canal.

3 Weight locks were built at Troy, Utica and Syracuse to determine the toll.  Oct. 1825 canal complete.

Towns bypassed lost business where people had done hauling along the road.

This canal started a migration of farmers to over the Appellation Mountains to richer lands and farm property on the East Coast dropped in value.  

Travel on the Erie.

 Albany to Buffalo would now take 6 days instead of 32. Immigrants moved west while goods moved east. By 1837 the whole debt had been paid by tolls. By this time NY was the busiest port in the States. 

The locks were 15 feet wide and  boats weighed 50 ton. Passenger boats usually had 3 horses and had a greater right of way than cargo and they also travelled through the night. They were all full to capacity. Nathanial Hawthorn as did Charles Dickens wrote about this type of travel. Maximum speed was supposed to be 4mph so as not to damage the canal. The canal froze in the winter months.

People from the nearby farms took jobs on the canal and later moved into industry. James Garfield started as a hogee on his uncle’s boat, later went back to school and ended up a 20th President.

Industries that developed along the canal - Syracuse had a salt factory that could now ship out salt. Gloverville made buckskin gloves, rug making, paper mills, wool mills, plaster factory, brewery distillery, Remington rifles. The used water power but also could get their goods to market. Remington gun factory and Kodak were along the canal.

   1831 the first NY railway ran between Albany and Schenectady and the train was called the De Wit Clinton.  

Outbreak of Cholera in 1832 brought trade and travel to an almost halt. By 1828 every lake was connected to New York when the waterway was connected to Oswego on Lake Ontario.

Canal Craze.

Success of Erie caused half a dozen states to build canals to compete , however no other canal had the advantage like Erie. Grand canal from Philadelphia to Pittsburg was completed in 1834.

Potomac canal was inaugurated by John Quincy Adams in 1828 and also joined to Baltimore but by the time it was nearing completion in 1834 the railways had arrived.

1824-1829 the Canadian built the Welland Canal joining lake Erie to lake Ontario, in 1845 you could go from Montreal to lake Ontario. 

The Chesapeake and Ohio canal cost great fortunes and were already out of date but kept functioning for freight and coal. None of these other canals paid their way but they caused a lot of development and Ohio became the 3rd most populous state in the union.

 By 1848 goods from New Orleans could get to New York via the rivers, lakes and canal and by now there were 4000 miles of built canals. However most were left with enormous debts even though the development of trade had been enormous in these states but left the taxpayer to foot the bill.

 

As early as 1825 the Erie canal could not cope with the traffic on the opened sections. Locks were doubled and a parallel canal was built, on money from the revenue earned and 250 ton boats could use it. Civil War shipping also added to its income.  By 1918 large barges could be used on the enlarged canal which works today. Some places where the original canal was built was state property and highways were built over them.

By the time of the civil war in 1860 the north had become extremely industrial while the south was still agricultural so the south never had a chance all that development had taken place since the canal was built. 

Until 1830 Odessa the Black Sea ports had been the source of grain for Europe now the same mostly Jewish merchants moved to America. Then America became the bread basket and economists like Adam Smith and Ricardo discussed that industrialization needed a cheap source of food to keep wages down when Robert Peel repealed the Corn Laws in 1846,and the British Industrial Revolution could take place.

 

Before the Erie canal Boston, Baltimore and Charleston, Philadelphia had been important ports. NY was the best natural harbour and the Stock Exchange opened there in 1825 but it was the proximity to the Erie Canal that caused the development 

.  In Clinton words NY became the great emporium of America.

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 Timeline

1485 Leonardo di Vinci designed the first canal lock. 1610 Henry Hudson looks for north passage. 1631 to 1789 in France, Canal de Midi to Languedoc 1788 the Bridgewater canal in England ran to Manchester 1775 British troops arrive start of Battles of American Revolution 1789 President George Washington 1790 The $ dollar become the US currency 1791 Whiskey Rebellion 1792 Western Inland Lock Company given charter. 1797 President John Adams 1801 President Thomas Jefferson 1803 Louisiana Purchase 1807 Jefferson has a tax surplus to build infrastructure. 1809 President James Madison 1810 Governeur Morris and de Witt Clinton give Manhattan street and avenue numbers. de Witt Clinton and other do a tour of the route 1812 War 1812 Oliver Perry beat British in battle of Lake Erie. 1816 de Witt Clinton appointed head of Erie Canal Commission. 1817 President James Monroe de Witt Clinton becomes governor of New York NY Stock Exchange constitution established July 4th ceremony to start digging Erie Canal. 1819 3 million $ in gold needed for last payment of Louisiana Purchase 1820 Toll started being taken on canal. 1825 Vote extended to all male white men over 21 1825 President John Quincy Adams Canal completed at Lockport. 70 ton boats 1828 Every lake connected to New York 1829 President Andrew Jackson 1830 First Locomotive Railway Liverpool to Manchester 1836 Upgrade on canal began 1837 Canal debt totally paid off. 1846 Repeal of Corn Laws in England. New York called The Empire State 1860 American Civil War 1862 Upgrade completed for 240 ton boats 1895 Final upgrade began under Teddy Roosevelt for 1600 ton boats The Canal by Ralph K Andrist 1964 142pg Kindle $1.99 10/2/24

Reports returned of the lands that were west of the Apalacians with the easy of growing grains and that the acorns and beechnuts in the forest grew fat hogs. This started a tide of emigration westwards. Despite difficulties the number of people moving increased.

1759 to 1761 The duke of Bridgewater commissioned a canal from his coal mines in Wolseley to Manchester.

1789 Alexander Hamilton was the first US secretary of the Treasury.

Flatboats called Durham boats carried 16 tons of cargo. The canal had to run to lake Erie as at Lake Ontario the canal would have to compete with the St Lawrence River..

The Federal Government had  $6.3 million in surplus cash in 1811 but by the 1812 war it was in a $10.5 deficit.

The canal would be build in  3 sections 165 miles from Lake Erie to the  Seneca River,72 miles from Seneca to Rome and 126 miles downwards from Rome to Albany. It would be 40 feet wide and 6 feet deep, with a towpath 10 feet wide. This canal acted as the first US school of engineering.

Initially many of the workers were farmers in the slack season, some Native American and freed slaves.

1818 the first wave of Irish labourers arrived and made up a quarter of the workforce. Other European families began arriving. Wages were good and good food was organized. The rate for progress improved steadily once the skills improved. There were also feed canals to bring water to the canal and these opened up trade with farms further away. Canal worked were excepted from military service. 

1819 the first section opened from Rome to  Uttica of only 15 miles that was slow but after that the pace quickened. The toll was 2 cents per ton per mile of but half that for farming supplies and equipment, no toll levied on passengers

The middle section presented no obstacles except the crossing of the Montezuma Marshes. Where a farmers land was split the state promised a bridge. In Rochester dozens of mills were set up and it became known as the nations Flour city. 5000 Irishmen worked in section and they had a " jigger boss" who went dispensing whiskey.

People who had been convinced that the canal would never be completed or pay it way changed their minds.

1822 180 miles was completed by now. Financial reports citing toll collection proved that travelers were using the canal parts now available.

1824 Voting was now extended to all white males not just property owners.  

The canal barges took emigrants west both New Englander and Europeans as well as good like bolts of cloth guns, needles , knives, farming equipment. From the wests boats carried potatoes , apples' , cider wheat milled flour, live turkeys, lumber, furs. Along the canal grocery stores , grogshops and livery stables opened. Rates were based on distance , weight and type of freight. Luxury items paid the highest and bricks, clay and manure paid the least.

Migrants talked about land prices in Illinois , Indiana or Ohio and how many bushels of corn grew on the fertile prairies.

Packet boats used 3 horses instead of 2, travelled day and night and always had the right of way each carrying between 30 to 50 people. Families with livestock , household goods usually travelled on line boats. Timber rafts could be several hundred meters long and went through the locks in sections.

1845 There were 4000 boats on the Erie and 25,000 working including lock tenders and maintenance workers. This also attracted gamblers , thieves, fortune tellers and entertainers.

Captains paid men drivers about $12 a month and boys $10 to $7  and they were easier to cheat. Missionary societies tried to help as many as 5000boy hoggees Many of them were orphans Men and women were abandoning farms to work in factories, textile mills.

Syracuse was a city where springs of briny water came out of the earth and extensive slat factories were set up even before the canal arrived, it became the greatest salt producer of the nation when it could ship the salt to markets.  Stump Town shipped fine buck skin gloves to far away markets and changed its name to Gloversville. Amsterdam set up rug looms and became a national carpet manufacture.

1840 Little Falls had 4 iron furnace industries, 3 paper mills a woolen mill,2 plaster factories,. A  fulling mill for cloth a trip hammer, a brewery, distillery and window sash factory.

Rochester became a Flour milling centre with 11mills and produced canal boats. Nearly half the boats of the Erie were made and controlled by these boat yards.

1932 cholera epidemic killed 3000 and this was carried to all the surrounding areas and almost completely stopped the canal traffic in spread to New Orleans where 10,000 people died.

1935 Big Ditch of iniquity, so the Erie Canal Temperance Society formed. 

Canal Fever

Some modest water way were made to help farmers get produce to market, but the enormous success of the Erie and the enormous progress that took place in New York created a canal fever and lots of investment it was considered the engineering marvel of the day and you had trained engineers now to do it.

1820 to 1850 was the great Canal 

1826 Pennsylvania Canal finished in 1834 and became known as the Grand Canal. but had an elevation of 2600feet.

1928  to Oswego on Lake Erie completed.

The Potomac Canal started from Baltimore.

1832 the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal through the Cumberland Gap was finished. Most of  of these fell into disuse other continued being used to carry coal. These canals caused development and Ohio became one of the most populous states before the canal era ended. 

Delaware and Hudson canal whose main business was anthracite coal.

Wabash Canal  this also brought people into Indiana and was important in the development of the west and getting people to the frontier.  These were all financial failure sand many foreign investors lost money as much as $60 million which was a frightening amount at the time.

Chicago canal joined Lake Michigan to the Illinois River and the Mississippi.

1931 People were clamoring for railways.  Tolls did not even cover expenditure for maintenance.

1882 The Erie Canal abolished all tolls by which time it had taken the cost many times over.  

l

Nothing Like It In the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869 2012 (382 reading pages)by Stephen E. Ambrose

  The Railway from Sacramento to  Omaha, Nebraska  Notes of talk given at the history lunchoen club 10/11/2

Western Pacific Co  WP   Theodore Judah built the track to Sacramento.

Central Pacific  Co. CP .-eastwards Sacramento to Promontory Summit Utah 1223km.  Run by    Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins, Leland Stanford, Collis Huntington.  Labourers are mostly Chinese.

Union Pacific Co.  UP  -westwards  from Council Bluffs near Omaha, Nebraska 1749 km  Grenville Dodge , Thomas Durant, Oakes Ames, Oliver Ames, Credit Mobilier Bank. Labourers Irish immigrants, Civil War veterans of both the North and South, freed slaves. 

Total 3077 km of track build. 

The track to Council Buffs on the east was blocked by the Missourie River, this had been build by private enterprise  the Western Pacific built to Sacramento all without goverment aid.

Time Line
1801  ----President Thomas Jefferson 
1803 Louisiana Purchase 
1804 Lewis and Clark Expedition funded by Congress to explore land purchased.
1824 Erie Canal completed.
1829 George Stevenson's first locomotive "The Rocket"
1830 Sept. First railway service  Manchester to Liverpool
1840 Already 3000 miles of rail track in the US more than all of Europe.
1845 ---President James Polk
1846 Captain Freeman and 60 army surveyors in  Oregon territory
           Bear Flag Revolt by US settlers in California against Mexico and John Freeman arrives there.
1847 Treaty of Chulengo,  Alta California become US territory.
         Greenwich Mean Time GMT established to coordinate train time tables.

         Mormon state set up in Salt Lake City, Utah by Bingham Young with polygamy.
1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,  territory ceded to US and $15 000 paid for it  Half of Mexico's territory with only 1% of its population.
1849 California Gold Rush
         ---President Zachary Taylor
1850----President Milliard Fillmore
          US population  now 23 million bigger than that of Great Britian
         Taiping Rebellion in China till 1964 Chinese immigration to West Coast
1853----President Franklin Pierce
               Commodore Perry opens Japan  
         Congress called for a survey to build a railway westwards.
1857----President James Buchanan
             Commercial treaties with China

1858  California Legislature banned the further  importation of Chinese

 1859  Lincoln, while campaigning, met Grenville Dodge and asked for the best route for a railway to the west.
 1860       California already 300 000 population               
1861---- March President Abraham Lincoln

          Theodore Judah  published designs of a track route from Sacramento via Donner Lake through the Sierras.
          12 April at Fort Sumter Civil War began.
          August Theodore Judah had a plan published of the route from California.
           October  transcontinental telegraph completed.
1862 June. Pacific Railway Act signed by Lincoln
           Homestead Act free 160 acres offered to anyone to farm in the Midwest.
1863 The Central Pacific broke ground on January 8, in Sacramento

1865  June Civil War ends at Appotomax
           ----President Andrew Johnson 
          Bessemer rolled steel rails started being produced in the States
          Dec worst recorded winter in the west with snow and floods
1867 Nebraska population increased so fast that it became a state
1869----President Ulysses Grant
         May  Completed railway  at Promontory Point-- Start of American Century.
          November Suez Canal opened.
1877----President Rutherford Hayes

1886 Canadian Pacific Railway completed

1899 The railway construction loans  loans had been paid off after 30 years
1913 Panama Canal Completed
 1914 Trans-Siberian Railway completed, started 1891
1996 Union Pacific and CP become one company.

What if in History!    If the railway line across America to California had been completed before the Civil War that war could have been avoided ?    Quote William Seward, Secretary of State under Lincoln  "When this shall have been done disunion shall have been forever after rendered impossible, there will be no fulcrum for he lever of treason to rest apon"

This was an engineering marvel that brought about a new way of life and destroyed another 
The people who build the UP were the same ones who participated in the war and had learned that no problem was too great to overcome.
The Forty Niners  In Jan 1849, 8000 set sail for California in 90 ships via Cape Horn to get to the gold diggings in California.  Football team in Santa Clara, California
Except for Salt Lake Mormons there were no European settlement along the way.
In 1859 Council Bluffs Iowa, Lincoln while campaigning met Grenville Dodge and asked him which was the best route for a railroad to the pacific and was told through the Platte River Valley along the 42nd parallel. Council Bluffs Iowa, had been established by the Mormons 1846 but they then moved onto Salt lake City.
Lincoln had dealt with the railways in Illinois as a lawyer dealing with the rights of the railways, to the lands they went through and the passenger rights and the tax rights of the Illinois Railways so he was very aware of them.  He established the right of the railway to build bridges over river
1853   Congress called for a survey to build a railway westwards.
Jefferson Davis wanted a line across New Mexico and Arizona on the 32nd parallel because it crossed the least mountains but this would allow for slavery to be extended eastwards. In the north they wanted it from Chicago via Minneapolis  but slave states objected,
In 1858 Dodge met Furnam and Durant at the Rock Island Railway office in NY and they were interested.  The Railway companies supported Lincoln in his election and railway was part of the discussion but the real issue was slavery and Dodge was in Washington during the inauguration.
The track had to go through 3 ranges of mountains the Rockies, the Wasatch and the Sierras. The Sierras reached 7000 feet.
In 1854 Theodore Judah build the Sacramento Valley Railroad and saw the possibility of a track across the mountains. Judah was tipped off to look at the Dannon Lake Valley.  By 1861 Judah had designs published of the route from Sacramento via the Donner Lake through the Sierras through 18 tunnels the longest of 1730feet.  It was California's gold and silver that was paying for the civil war.  It was costing millions to transport troops to protect settlers in the Great Plains.
Judah gave a talk in San Francisco on how he would build this railway and was not taken seriously except that he was approach by the  big 4.

1862 June. Pacific Railway Act signed by Lincoln
           Homestead Act free 160 acres offered to anyone to farm in the Midwest.

The big 4 from California who were all Republican  and abolitionists lead by Leland  Stanford, Collis Huntington. Charles Crocker and Mark Hopkins. They were store keepers and merchants.  They had to put forward capital to start and raise loans to get the equipment, they ran it as a tight business and did not even want to allocate money to build a headquarters but set it up in a shack and above Stanford's store.
A railway would develop the Great Plains trade with Japan and China would jump and what better way to ensure the loyalty of California to the Union and that no foreign army could attack California. 
Grade no more that 115 feet per mile and curves no more than 10%
The railroads received government bonds worth $16 thousand to $48 thousand per mile depending on the terrain and grants of  land on the side of the track which included the coal and mineral rights. Land 15 miles on the side of the track was no longer available for citizens to buy or lay a claim. The railways was the beginning of private enterprise and corporate America.
While the railways began construction the book tells you what battles were being fought in the civil war.

California is totally cut off from the rest of the continent by the Sierras giving it a different climate and vegetation it did not have a native American population 90% of who had died of diseases that come with the Spanish.
Europeans arrived in California and were recruited into working on the rail track but most of them signed up got to the rail face and after working a few days or weeks took off to go mining. The material for track building had to be shipped out to California making it far more expensive that building from the east. At time 3 ships a week were arriving with equipment.
1858 California Legislature banned the further  importation of Chinese but still they came.
Chinese came to California but were not given permission to get a mineral claim. Never the less they were recruited by agent to become servants. Many of them came for 4 years and returned saving every penny to buy land back home and were relative rich there. They were tried out as nobody else was available and  it was found that they were very successful workers. They drank boiled water tea not fresh water so never had enteric diseases. They were hired in gangs of 30 with one in charge and one who cooked for them on Sunday they rested with opium.

At the same time as Europeans were leaving Germany after the 1848 Revolution or the Irish leaving the famine so Chinese were moving into Indonesia, Singapore Malasia and the west coast of America.
The Chinese in America were persecuted -not for their vices  but for their virtues as they were honest industrious and sober and as labourers were hired first. Most Chinese who came were literate.
June 1865 Hunting filed a report with a routemap showing the plan to build to Salt Lake City this was beyond the Navada border in his charter - so now the race was on between the CP and UP
A leading Railway engineer  George Gray in July 1968 inspected and published a report that the CP were building a high quality track and this brought investors. The biggest tunnel now being build No 6 was 500 meters  long. Just the blasting black powder was costing a fortune 
1863 Nov. Crazy Judah died of Yellow fever coming home through Panama.

Grenville Dodge was a leading railway engineer and a General in the army. The UP got the army to release him to be in charge of the track from Omaha April 1866. He got hold of some subordinates from the Union Army and with demobilized soldiers set to work. Pictures show men in blue military coats but also a few grey ones.
Indian Tribes The Pawnee had become part of the army and made peace with the whites but the  Indians of he Plains the Sioux and Cheyenne were hostile and felt their land being taken and their lifestyle being changed.  The Indians tore up track and on an attack a train was derailed and the next train crashed into that. Later an armed train arrived to deal with the Indians who were drunk on whiskey that they found. Even tye cutters in the forests were scared off.
The Missouri River was navigable only part of the year and all the supplies came in on ships and barges from St. Louis and this was a new era of shipping. The UP had 7 ships working continuously.
Henry Morton Stanley and many reporters from the war saw this the continuation of action to be written about. Only a government and armies could organize on this type of scale. Where re railhead went towns hotel and farms developed with the population increasing. As a piece of track was completed it started making money from fares.
1866 July Collis Huntington managed to get an amendment that the CP  was not limited in the distance it could build so that it now became a competition from the east and west and the track would be built faster. 
From the west they were using blasting powder faster than they could get supplies. A ship the Hornet burned at sea delaying supplies. The CP had a lawyer Alfred Cohen.
Winter of 66/67 was the wettest  coldest but they worked right through it with avalanches blocking the track. The CP had 10000 men working 8000 were Chinese. Thinking they would improve the quality of tunneling through granite they hired Cornishmen but they quit very soon, could get work on the mines.
1866 they started using TNT which the mixed nearby. This was up to 8 times more powerful. The granite  tunnels build met up very accurately from each side.  50  Miles of snow sheds were built to keep snow off the tracks where it was so thick. These were wood but were later replaced by concrete and were a great wonder of the CP.
On the UP side this winter washed away long pieces of track but one of their big problem were attacks by Indians and Dodge lost one of his best engineers as well as surveyor's.
Fires were a hazard and a train carry straw caught alight from engine sparks from the locomotive. President Johnson sent Sherman to negotiate a peace deal from tribe to tribe and he promised the Indians compensation for land , but the track will be built. In this period the army was not able to find volunteers needed to protect the  track builders. In 1867 the Springfield rifle was issued to the army and this was far better than the muzzle loaders the Indians had, you also had Pawnee troops fighting their natural enemies.
Durand the leading share holder was voted out of the role of president and Oliver Ames took over. Ames Bros. had a company that supplied tools and provide a lot of credit and so get a big share. Ames tools were used in by prospectors in South Africa.
 The City of Cheyanne became a big railway junction with a later track to Montana northwards and Denver southwards it has a train museum of locomotive's used well into the 50s.
In Salt Lake Valley immense coal deposits were found this was named Carbon. Dodge already saw the potential for a track to Montana Idaho Oregon and Washington far easier than through the mountains.
Hell on Wheels by Dick Kreck  this describes the mobile brothels that followed the laying of the UP track to entertain the workers. Quote : Verily men earn their money like horses and spend it like asses
Dodge in 1867 stated that the best food productions of the Mississippi and Missouri valley will be dwarfed by what will be in the future coming from California and Oregon a true prediction.
Companies could do grading as far as 300 miles ahead of the tracks to lay claim. Because of distance from supplies building west of the Mississippi cost far more than east of it
Stanford as governor of California in 1862 was against allowing Chinese immigrants but now he was keen on it and Chinese wee taken directly to the track face.
1867  August. Summit Tunnel broke through.
As the track was built a new telegraph line had to run next to it (part of the Federal contract)and this was used during construction.
After the floods of winter 1967 Dodge had the track raised and new better bridges om the waterways. 
 
Because the CP were being slowed down by the tunnels they transported equipment beyond them and had worker grading miles ahead. There were times they had the entire workforce removing snow from the tracks and road.
Most of the men on the UP side had participated in winning the war, this taught the American people that ther was no problem in finance or development too great to master. 
In January 1984 Credit Mobilee declared dividends and paid out to stock holders (themselves) leaving the company without  money and heavy debt. They paid out 300% but then could not pay the workers
Durant wanted fuller control and tried to get his pal Seymour to become chief engineer but Grant forceful made sure that Dodge was in charge till the job was completed.
Bingham Young of Salt lake City Mormons was the type who could have been President of the USA. Mormon contractors were hire to survey and grade for the UP. Young wanted the railway and in 1868 3232 of disciples came from Liverpool and were able to get quite close to Salt Lake by train. After the cold winter of 1867 there was a plague of grasshoppers destroyed their crops and Mormons needed work. The grass hoppers on the track made it impossiple to get traction up hill for the train and so many of them pickled in the salt lake leaving a bad smell. Hay had to be brought in to feed the horses as a result and barley and oats were very expensive. CP also wanted Mormon workers and bid higher wages. But the Mormons worked because the wanted the railway even though it never reached their city.
Initially wooden bridges were build to be quick but after wards they were changed to more permanent stone ones.
Codes were used on the telegraph so that the UP would not red CP messages.
Jefferson Davis had imported camels when he was secretary of war some had gone wild in New Mexico. 
In railroad constructions there are 4 essentials 1) money 2)labor 3)ties 4 ) rolling stock.  The problem was getting the rails and rolling stock as they had to be shipped in.
1868 Feb completing the tunnel through the summit caused the CP shares to go up.
Reno was set  up as a major trade centre, tis was 154miles from Sacramento and by 1868 was already giving CP a big income.  In the desert there was over 100 miles without a tree and there was a place that water had to be piped 8miles to the track. 
The final competition between CP and UP was played out in Utah. There were $750 000 owing to the Mormons. 
1889 Jan the track reach a large tree marked now 1000 mile tree as it is that far from Omaha.
1889 April Dodge met Huntington in Washington and offered him $4 million, so  CP would own till Ogdan which became its terminus from Sacramento.
Lodgepole Creek and Bear River bridges had to be replaces and money was needed just when the up was on the brink of collapse. Wells Fargo stagecoaches  now only provided a service between the railheads. The completion would save everyone time and money especially the army who had to protect the frontier of the Far West.
1904 March the line was straightened to go over Salt Lake which had dried out.
Lee's surrender had bonded the union north and south the golden spike at Promontory had joined the Union east to west. This brought the  greatest change through the shortest period. Before the railway it took a person months and could cost as much as $1000 to get to San Francisco emigrants could now do it for $70.  They thought Europe would use it to get to India but Suez opened 6 months later.
1872 March the  bridge over the Missouri rive at Omaha was completed at a cost of $2.9

The Missouri river is frozen up in mid winter and for a few months a year tracks were laid across the ice.
There was a 6 month enquiry against the UP and a scandal, some claimed that the land received should have paid for the railways but a lot of it was worthless at the time unless it had minerals.  The bonds were loans that were paid off over 30 years by 1899. CP extended tracks all over California.
The Mormons never got paid but took all the surplus tools and equipment coaches , flat cars box cars. They themselves immediately built a track and had a service running in a few months.  

Conclusion 
  Now we saw the start of the American Century and by 1900 only 30 years later all freehold agricultural land was occupied by settlers.  The track was paid for.  

The economic development  in the California and the Midwest far outshone the growing of cotton and tobacco in the south. Slavary would  no longer have paid its way.