The artificial River 15/1/24
The Erie canal even enabled oysters caught on the coast to be transported inland still fresh. The canal took the Great Awakening - an evangelical movement that later called for abolition.
1817 the Erie canal construction began and it would be part of the larger transport revolution. The period between the War of 1812 and the Civil War was a dramatic period in the change of people lives in America, with economic development and market expansion. It led to Northerners and Midwesterners to see themselves as different from the South which had a semi feudal economic social system. It was in the rapid economic growth of agrarian upstate NY with growing cities that started the fiery evangelical movement that led to the abolition sentiment.
New Yorkers celebrated the canal as a wonder of human progress and felt it would bind the nation together. Humans could improve and perfect the world around them.
The geological clash between the Adirondack and Appalachian mountains checked the westward expansion of Euro American settlers. These run 3200 km between Canadian Newfoundland and Alabama.
The canal was to run 363 miles and end at Lake Erie. Up to now Dutch and Iroquois traders had used the rivers for trading furs. The upper state NY had farmers who wanted to unload their agricultural surpluses. Access to markets was a prerequisite for settlement. The Dutch Holland Land Company invested heavily in roads connecting and had turnpikes linking farms to waterways. From 1792 The Inland Navigation company improved rivers but this company was not able to make a profit for its investors.
The founding principles of the Republic that the goals of the individuals be subordinated to the common good of the commonwealth. In the years after the revolution the US had to accommodate it swelling population and pay its war debts and reduce its dependence on Europe.
Founding of the American Republic was considered an event only secondary to the creation of the earth and offered adult white men unparalleled rights and responsibilities.
Alexander Hamilton's Federalists supported a strong central government that sponsored industrial expansion.
Thomas Jefferson and James Madison's Democratic -Republicans wanted a limited Federal government and saw that they could use the land for agrarian expansion and rejected some of Adam Smiths ideas of laissez faire.
1800 bringing a ton of goods from the interior 30 miles cost the same as shipping it from England.
1801 Already at this stage the US had to develop a navy to deal with the Barbary pirates in the Mediterranean as they no longer had British protection.
1810 Offices of the Holland Land Company were in Batavia. A transport hub, but to get there, one had to go by ship to Albany and use a wagon on the turnpike. Few settlers had laid claim to the vast fertile land west of the Appalachians. They wanted to get there without the use of the British Lake Ontario.
Jesse Hawley under the nom de plume Hercules wrote 14 essays that influenced the idea of the Erie Canal.
1810 7 Commissioners were appointed to oversee the states canal. Private gain and public good need not be at odds with each other common prosperity with individual opportunity.
1812- War lasted 3 years and was about the trade disagreement with Britain and to stop the Royal Navy from the impressment of American merchant sailors as well as the US native policy encroaching on Canadian territory. it ended with the treaty of Ghent in 1815. Britain had been at war with Napoleon till 1815. Americans could no longer legally trade with Britain and had to make their own cloth and shoes.
The Federal government would not fund the Erie canal in an era where state power was greater than national power. 1815 power looms copied the British models now moved weaving out of the home to water driven factory ones.
1917 loans for the canal would be repaid by tolls, Some land for the canal would come from donors speculating that the canal would increase the value of their remaining property. The route between the Mohawk and the Seneca rivers was known but that of the other 2 section would come later.
The state took on the Erie and Chaplain canals.
1817 4th July it inaugurated and was declared the the US was destined for political , physical and moral greatness with the triumph of human ingenuity and exertion. Later in the 1840 the westward movement was called the countries "Manifest Destiny"
The canal would have an elevation of 680 feet with 83 locks and 18 aqueducts and this was all done with stone structures and not wood. Only in 1824 did the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, would provide graduate courses most of the engineers in the USA.
In 1817 most of the canal workers were locals mainly farmers in their slow seasons of agriculture. but later they were mostly foreigners and by the 1830 most were Irish and it was mostly contractors than government hired workers. English , Scots Welsh and people of German origin arrived as families but Irish tended to be single males were heavy drinkers.
In 1817, 1819, 1822 as well as the Great Famine of 1845 brought an continuous flow of Irish. The Irish were feared as they were Catholics even though there were many protestant amongst them. They saw the US as a poor mans country with affordable farmland available. Most of them were illiterate and left no records. Irish fled poverty and the control of their landlords. Convict laborer's were also used. In the south they relied on slaves.
Before secret ballot the workers were beholden to the boss or the land lord in voting. Property ownership was a prerequisite to suffrage and only property owning whites men. As the canal reached closer to Lockport they had to pay higher wager to attract laborer's out there.. Going through the swamps in 1819 more than a 100 workers were ill, diseases drove up wages. Draining swamps caused forests to decay. Working for contractors was not steady work like farming. Citizens never offered recognition to the largely disenfranchised labor who build the canal. On completing a section of the canal the local resident had something to celebrate as it ended their fields been damaged and crops lost.
1820 Missouri Compromise. Missouri admitted as a slave state and Maine as a non-slave state at the same time, so as not to upset the balance between slave and free states in the nation. It also outlawed slavery above the 36ยบ 30' latitude line in the remainder of the Louisiana Territory. This removed slavery from the national agenda for a time.
1825 40,000 passenger travelled the waterway. Tourist came to see Niagara Falls and this great waterway, and emigrants from Europe with luggage took passage on packet barges, that travelled at 5 mph as apposed to freight boats at 2mph. these barges could accommodate 40 passengers, but conditions were not very comfortable. People had to duck for low bridges. The state excepted the emigrants luggage from the tolls. The bounty of the west got out to the world and eastern manufactures, luxuries got to the west...The very fast pace of settlement eased isolation, plus the chance of travel for mail and visits by using the canal.
1831 Trains started arriving in the Empire State with DeWitt on the maiden voyage between Albany and Schenectady on a train called the De Witt. The states charter did not allow freight except during the 5 month closed winter season. 1847 freight allowed but tolls had to be paid in the canal season, but by 1851 these tolls were removed. Till 1880 the canal carried more freight than the railways.
1837 The canal loan paid off it was a great success, as toll started being taken as sections were completed. Locks increased the travel time considerably and the enlargement of the canal in 1838 and 1842 doubled the locks and widened the canal. Passengers pressed for time could avoid some locks using the stage coach. Aqueducts crumbled , locks malfunctioned and banks burst causing severe delays, silt collected in the canal bed. even shutting the canal for 2 weeks. The canal would freeze up for 5 months in winter, and sudden freezes trapped boats in mid journey, thaws could also be dangerous in spring. These weaknesses lead to the use of the trains.
New mills and factories sprang up diverting the water and a new commercial class developed.
NY state officials oversaw the waterway and not chartered private corporations 1826 a Canal Board was created. This was the first state run enterprise and the board sat in Albany. another 8 canals running north south connected to the Erie. A land owners proximity to the canal outweighed the land appropriated from the farmers. This compensated for the property loss to the owners. Where a farm was split in 2 owners wanted a bridge. Where the canal flooded field they wanted compensation..
Western NY was now quickly transformed into a commercial and manufacturing corridor, with a thickly settle area along the Mohawk Valley.
1835 Canal Enlargement Bill widening the canel from 40 feet to 70 feet and deepening it from 4 feet to 7 feet. This new cannel required 3 fewer locks, and abandoned 13 miles of the old canal By the 1840 more people in NY were employees than self employed. Mercantile activated was promoted over agriculture. Agricultural land now became move valuable as the owner along the cannel could open taverns or trading stores but what if they farmer was not capable of this while h lost land. The new canal bypassed Rome by half a mile instead of it running through the town centre losing the town a lot of trade.. Petitioners to the cannel board always tried to show that what was good for the petitioner was good for the state.
Just the marketing of wheat, crated millowners, ware houses, merchants, forwarders. The state levied different tolls on different freight. This promoted different crops. In many towns the artificial river replaced the main street. Lockport would become one of the largest upstate cities. Farmers grew oats for all the horses used and blacksmiths made horse shoes.
Democrats and Whigs supported economic progress through state intervention. However the economy always experienced booms and busts.
Perils of Progress
1935 1500 grog shops lined the canal.
By 1840 30 thousand workers laboured day and night to keep the canal working, There were 3400 canal boats. The canal became a haven for vice and immorality as workers drank, swore , whored and gambled, and children mostly boys made up more than a quarter of the workforce. Boys mostly worked leading the horses. Girls as maids and cooks but at night as prostitutes. Not many people learned to swim and falling into the 7 foot deep canal could be fatal, life expectancy for boys was on average 12 years from the day they started
Reformers tried to get merchant to be moral guardians of the employees, and teach them religious faith. Businessmen had Paternal responsibilities. Reformers tried to introduce Sabbath observance on the canal.
Evangelism became peaked on the canal in the 1820s and they attracted wage earners.
The Seamans Friend Society , the Bethel Society. Many workers had grown up in pious homes but were away from their families and needed the missionaries to reawaken their religion beliefs and help them with their work troubles. Some workers had bosses who insisted on seeing them in church. Many converted boatmen felt compelled to leave the evil influences and seek other work. Temperance campaigns developed in industrial areas as alcoholism reduced productivity.
1839 with the railways arriving prospects on the canal were discouraging.
Herman Melville worked briefly on a canal boat and some of his rough characters he met were portrayed in Moby Dick. Half the driver boys were orphans, some falsely claimed this to get sympathy. Governor William Seward said that the canal improvement would lead America to her Manifest Destiny. He understood that immigration brought sustaining economic progress. The diversity of the population was a temporary evil that time would overcome.
1842 The Boston Albany railroad opened. Seward said the deprived masses were all capable of getting citizenship. He called for the free labour policy and the concept of upward mobility became central to the idea of progress. At this time the Bethel society and other evangelists and missionaries became big abolitionists. Slave owners denied slaves this upward mobility. 1858 Seward as a Senator observed that the Slave labor of the South and the free labour of the North , 2 system would collide. The north was sending waves of fear throughout the White South
1854 Seward was one of the founders of the Republic Party and they opposed the westward expansion of slavery.
1859 The NY state could not close the canal traffic on the sabbath as it was a public river or road.
1862 by the time of the last expansion of the canal the Republican progress and the commercial era and the public felt the world was theirs to shape leading them from a very different future from the South who succeeded and the civil war broke out.
1793 Eli Whitney's cotton gin so that one slave could do the work of 50 to remove the cotton seed from the cotton. This manufacturing could easily begin to move and develop the north
_________________________________________________________________________
Bond of Union Building the Erie Canal and the American Empire by Gerard Koeppel 2009 sample
1/1/24
1825 October the celebration of the opening of the Erie Canal. NY had recently replaced Philadelphia as the nations largest city. The Appalachian mountains guarded the interior from to Maine threatened to confine America to the Atlantic seaboard.
1812 War proved that the United States was still a shaky nation. The lack of roads had cost the government a fortune in transporting war supplies. The Erie Canal was the boldest and biggest engineering structure undertaken in its century.
Canals were build in ancient times but joined water of the same level. Raising water to a higher level was described by Leonardo Da Vinci using locks and was used in Milan. 500 years later lock gates have the same design. Canals were flourishing in France at the Canal de Midi. From France the technology went to England in the Bridgewater canal to get coal to Manschester.in 1759. James Brindley even build a canal over the Irwell river on a aquaduct.and was considered the greatest canal builder. This canal fed the coal powered Industrial Revolution and the canal fever that followed the Erie canal in America.Erie was build by Yankee born farm families and Irish immigrant labour, it eventually cost $8 million.
The 3 most important people were De Witt Clinton , Jesse Hawley and Samuel Wilkeson. Hawleys nom de plume was Hercules and wrote essays on the subject, bringing everyone into the Canal Age.
James Geddes and Benjamin Wright who were in charge of the great public public works had never constructed a canal but nor had any American.
Canvas White had travelled in Europe discovered water proof cement without which no canal could be build and this marked the birth of the American cement industry. Nathan Roberts a self made math's teacher became a surveyor/ engineer and designed the Lockport 5 double locks. Samuel Wilkinson rallied the Buffalo's settlers to build a harbour making Buffalo the canals western terminus, when he engineer he hired failed he designed it himself, he had been a shipwright..
1817 Ground was broken for the Erie canal. The Virginians wanted a canal west on the Potomac and in fact voted against Federal funds for the Erie project. This was the beginning of the north south split.
Ch2 12000 years ago the Ice Age began to recede. The natives developed canoes and had a river based culture of trade. Native American had been cleared from NY by the time the canal was being build.
1624The Dutch West India Company established Fort Orange on the Hudson River now Albany. After the natives stopped coming to them to trade furs ( because of the French further north) The Dutch began travelling up the Mohawk river. And saw the fall point and waterfalls beyond which you could not go by boat. The American were limited to the coast while the French aspired to create "New France" from Montreal to the mouth of the Mississippi. The only way of travelling this country was by rivers and lakes.
1765 the British started imposing the stamp tax to pay for the war against the French.
1783 Even before the end of the War of the American Revolution, Washington was approached to improve navigation of the Ohio River. Thomas Jefferson's patriotism was gilded by Virginian chauvinism, he realized that soon after the war that New York for the north and Virginia for the south would compete for the wealth of the west .Christopher Colles at this time proposed a canal along the Mohawk River to the Erie. He was an Irish engineer and not taken seriously but his ideas inspired others.
1792 Watson and Phillip Schuyler set up the Western Inland Company to improve the navigation on the Hudson River.. They managed to improve navigation of the Mohawk middle but not the ends, which was beyond their technical ability. This company had lost its share holders money and surrendered its right to the state, after Schuyler early death. They had however succeeded in reducing freight cost by 2 thirds on the route. People still paid tolls on the route but it was extremely dangerous. There were flood and dry periods and the river was not durable. The companies failure had still helped in the development of the Erie effort.
Grain produced in Western New York was plentiful and cheap. Jesse Hawley saw that there was place for a grain merchant to buy up grain and get a high price for it in NY and Albany. His business failed for lack of means of transport and he ended up in debtors jail. It was considered that the NY rivers did not have enough water for a perennial water way but lake Erie was the solution, Hawley wrote articles in the press using the nom de plume Hercules. These article " Observation on Canals " eventually would be on the front page of the Messanger. Hawlwy only revealed himself 29 years alater.
The boats on the rivers were first canoes then the changed to flat bottomed 3 ton battoes. In 1730 the Durhams were used on the rivers and these had a bigger crew and carried 16 ton.
1807 Jefferson turned to the Treasury secretary eager to offer Federal support to roads and canals. A circular called for specifics on canals dimensions, distances, routes , costs water supply, toll and state legislation. Thus there was general federal interests in a canal. In New York articles appeared that if NY is to progress and prosper it to develop a route eastwards. Instead of the 40 locks talked about that would cause great delays. Hawley suggestion that with the unlimited supply of water from Lake Erie as few as 5 locks were needed and it would cost about $5 million to build. Hawley got the type of canal wrong. Hawley had a friend who were agents of a land company that had land in Western NY through which the canal would run. Hercules predicted that all the lake business would come via New York rather than Canada.
1800 Joseph Ellicott was the surveyor for the Holland Land Company, his Great Survey was a document by which the company would sell its lands . His maps were the starting point about the development of Western New York. He read Hercules articles and realized that his company would benefit from a canal. Ellicott sent to the state surveyor general Simon De Witt a description of the terrain between Batavia and the Genesee River unbroken land that he was familiar with., and suggested a canal route.
Robert Fulton and partner Robert Livingston travelled on a paddle wheeled steamboat along the Hudson and travelled from Manhattan to Albany in just over 30 hours. They would be attached to the Erie canal effort.
The hostile relation between England, France and the US would eventually result in the 1812 War.
1793 Eli Whitney's cotton gin so that one slave could do the work of 50 to remove the cotton seed from the cotton. This manufacturing could easily begin move to the north
_________________________________________________
The secrets of the C&O canal by James Rada 2018
Little known stories & hidden history along the Potomac River 13/11/23 Sample
The Chesapeake and Ohio canal runs from Georgetown DC on the Potomac Cumberland MD. This operated between 1831 and 1924. The last 50 miles was only completed in 1840 to reach Cumberland.
It has an elevation of 605 feet and has 74 locks. The Erie Canal, built between 1817 and 1825, threatened traders south of New York City, who began to seek their own transportation.
George Washington formed the Potowmack Company to build a canal to skirt the Great Falls
1828 President John Quincy Adams broke the ground a the Great Falls MA. but by the time the canal reached Cumberland in 1850 the Baltimore and Ohio railway had already been there for 8 years.
Boatman were called Canalers many started as young children and mules were used to pull the barges that could carry 120 tons of coal.
1889 Jamestown flood did such damage to the canal it went into receivership and was taken over by the B&O Railways after that it never ran at a profit. The 1924 Spring floods damaged the canal and closed it for good.
Building the Canal : In 1785 a meeting was called of Maryland and Virginia commissioners as the canal affected both states. It was moved to Mount Vernon, Washington's home. This Mount Vernon Conference gave Washington the idea to get all the States together to cooperate and build a great empire. The next year a convention was held in Annapolis but only 5 states came so there was no quorum.
1787 the colonies sent representatives to Philadelphia and this became the First Constitutional Constitution resulting in something far more important than building a canal.
1785 Washington set up the Potowmack Company to open up the the Potomac to reach Fort Cumberland M. However they could not find sufficient laborer's so used indentured servants and slaves. They could not find a suitable engineer to to the project as there were few trained engineers in the States
1789 Washington was appointed President without knowing it.
__________________________________________________________________
Canal Fever Ohio and Erie Canal from Waterway to Canalway by Lynn Metzger and Peg Bobel 2009
7/12/23 Sample
Before the canals many farmers would float their produce down rives on rafts. However the wanted to get produce to New York. Canals can only go where water course are available to keep the channels full. All the routes followed the Indian pathways that crossed the Continental Divide of north and south flowing. Canal builders needed water available at high points
In the 19Century as a result of the canals western agricultural produce became more economical that growing in the East and so the east coast began to mas manufacture goods. NY banking houses finances the state bond issue and Jacob Astos leant $1million as NY capital understood the value of the canals.
1818 Governor Ethan Allen Brown urged the Ohio legislature to survey the Ohio River and this was started at Cleveland and connects the Cuvahoga with 42 locks going up 395 feet to Arkon Rivers the onto Columbus and the terminus is at Portsmouth. This stretched 309 miles.
1825 Ground was broken and the system was based on the experience of the New York Erie canal. The very same year ground was Brocken for the National Road and it crossed the Ohio canal at Hebron. Both road and canal fell into disuse when the railways arrived.
1827 Ohio released a number of prisoners from the state prison to build the Columbus Feeder.
1832 Canal completed at a total cost of $4.3 million making it less expensive the any other canal of similar length in the US.. It took 7 years to build and it was done at a time that Ohio's population was less than 300,000 Besides the loans Federal Land was granted and the proceeds were used, this was on condition that it could never be charged tolls to use the canal.
1836 2000 vessels called Cleveland home.
Passenger travel was uncomfortable and unpredictable as a storm could rupture an embankment leaving the canal without water. The stagnant water led to insects like mosquitoes and other illnesses.
1847 James Garfield was a hogee on the canal and after getting ill, left to study. He became the 20th US President in 1881.
1850 by this time the patterns of immigration influence could be seen, and the economy of Ohio was rapidly transformed. Mases of grain moved along the canal and Arkon served as a regional milling center. It had gone from a agrarian frontier wilderness to a prosperous agricultural and industrial commonwealth. Also branch canals followed Pennsylvania &Ohio, Sandy & Beaver. However the Beaver was never completed and the company went bankrupt in 1853
Cleveland had a weight lock to access the toll to be paid. After the civil war Cleveland milling industry grew and Quaker Oats head quarters were there. Akron had a large canal boat building industry. The Mahoning Valley was coal rich and profited for 10 years till the railways brought competition.
1861 The interest in this canal had waned and the railways had taken over, and soon 2 railways running through Cleveland.. The City of Cleveland sold it canal development rights to the Valley Railroad Company who used the canal right of way for its new railway line. By 1877 the canal ceased functioning. much was out by flooding. North of Cleveland still carried on to lake Erie and used by farmers.
1913 The Great Dayton flood caused by snow followed by massive spring rains, destroyed the canal, aqueducts and embankments. Lock one had to be dynamited to release the water build up. American Steel and Wire, and Goodrich Rubber used the canal as a source of water and so maintained parts of it.
1970s The Ohio Conservation Division invested in stocking the Fulton section with fish for anglers, and in the other recreation was set up like a replica packet boat for visitor rides.
1996 Sections of the canal was declared part of the National Heritage Canalways by the US Congress
1785 George Washington set up the Potomack Canal company he wanted to bypass the Great Falls of the Potomac. He also suggested that a canal be built from Lake Erie to the Ohio River.
00 Bc China's Grand canal began and Nebuchadnezzar created the Royal Canal of Babylon connecting the Tigris to the Euphrates River.
Republicanism is the political belief that the best form of government is one in which citizens choose their representatives and leaders through free elections. In the U.S., the Founding Fathers were proponents of republicanism. The idea that the government must act by the rule of law .
_____________________________________________________________________________
Canals for a Nation : The Canal Era in the United States 1790 to 1860 by Ronald E Shaw.1990 Sample.
9/12/23
Canals lowered transportation costs , transported vast amounts of grain from farms to the eastern ports, and Pennsylvania coal to New Jersey and NY. We see the transfer of European technology to the US. Canals also preserved republicanism and would bind the union together.
Canals in Europe were developed by the Dutch then the French and the England. Many English canal had been built just as the canal era started in the US.
1790 Beginning of canal building in the US. All the engineers were from England and attempted to join Philadelphia to the local river by canal. Schuylkill, Susquehanna, Conwego, Basingbroke Canals. Many of these were rivers that might have been navigable for short periods of melt in the spring.
George Washington belief in canals was strengthened by his knowledge of surveying. If a can could not be build from Virginia eastwards the colonies would become dependent on the British in the north.
A waterway of 60 miles on the Potomac could save 200 miles by land. This required cooperation between the states. The Potomac had 5 rapids or falls to pass. The Potomac Company 's improvements kept alive the ultimate goal to reach the Ohio River but there were not many settlements upriver and the company faltered.
1795 A 7 mile canal was build between Richmond and the falls at Westham
The Lock Navigation company in the Mohawk Valley illustrates the failures of pioneers canal builders. Locks build of wood would later have to be rebuilt of stone. Boatmen protested the high tolls, but most goods still had to be transported by wagon leaving no profits. The Americans still believed they could overcome the Rivalry of Montreal on the trade of the Great Lakes.
_____________________________________________
Filth and Progress: Immigrants , Americans and the Building of Canals and Railroads to the West.
by Ryan Dearinger 2016 free sample. 20/12/23
1869 The Paradox of American Progress. The Golden Spike at Promontory Summit Utah marked the joining of the Central Pacific to the Union Pacific Railway was celebrated as Americas greatest technological achievement. The completion of the Erie Canal in 1925 was the first of many in steps for the progress enhancing the wealth of the nation. Movement to the west was the ultimate imperative..
This book is about the forgotten people on the economic fringes of society who did the work.
American farmers in lulls of the agricultural cycle worked overtime with the status of ditchdiggers.
The Northern states slowly relaxed property qualifications for suffrage./Citizens distanced themselves from menial laborers and particularly immigrants. Protestants Whites or WASPs were considered .true American citizens. The Southern Canals were build by slave labour and in 1817 New York sanctioned convict labour to be used . Irish immigrants and free African American laboured on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal of 1920. Shoveling dirt was miserable dangerous form of wage labour. The term navies applied to unskilled canal workers and gandy dancer to track workers, or companies called the casual or common labourers or hands. The locals always shunned personal contact. Without these European or Asian cheap labour the nations resources could not be exploited. True American claimed the credit for the progress . The increase in flow of goods from the hinterland and created new markets and consumers. US progress was build on the backs of second class citizens .
1889 President Benjamin Harrison said that these workers were subjected to the peril of a soldier at war. The canals and railways united the North and South East and West.
The Western Frontier was a symbol of independence and incubator of democracy. We see the sheer diversity of these workers who all lived together in construction camps.
_____________________________________________________________
Building the Canal to save Chicago: Richard Lanyon 2016 24/12/23 sample
The Chicago Sanatory and Ship Canal was a man made system and with out this infrastructure Chicago could never expand and develop into the metropolis it is. They have to deal with all aspects in the lives of the city, the water source , water supply, sewerage drainage , storm water , flooding and water sheds and rivers that return to the oceans. Because the whole area of Chicago is so flat the canal system is important. So they reversed the river for Chicago to raise itself out of the mud poor drainage and topography.
Towns downstream litigated as they were worried about receiving the cities wastewater.. The canal system was conceived , financed and implemented by local leadership and protected the health and welfare of the public by efficient drainage and treatment of the waste water.
1855 The polluted water resulting in the cities death rate being the highest of major cities. Typhoid was a big killer and the cities sewers discharged into lake Michigan efficiently, but it was the cities water supply at a time that both sewerage and drinking water was not treated.
1847 The I and M canal opened allowed some water to flow into the Illinois River and even extra pumping into this canal did not help specially in flood years.
1886 The Chicago Commission on drainage and water supply; this was authorized by the Illinois Legislature. This was at a time when the city had to invest in increasing the water supply in any case. Storm water was backflowing into Chicago from the Des Plaines River. One Authority should deal with both the fresh water and the sewerage. Down the Chicago River people never thought that the pollution would be a problem but a canal to Chicago and a water way to the great lakes would be in their interests.
The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, Chicago Drainage Canal, is 45 km) connects the Chicago River to the Des Plaines River flowing out of Lake Michigan. This was for much larger ships than the I& M canal of 1948. This eventually shut down the old I&M canal and it gave practical training for engineers who later build the Panama Canal.
The Erie Canal by Ralph K Andrist 142pg 1964
