Erie Water West: A History of the Erie Canal, 1792-1854

3. Survey and Report

3 Survey and Report WHILE IT appeared unlikely that the Forman resolution and the surveys of 1808 would yield tangible federal aid, a fresh boost to the prospects for a canal to Lake Erie came in March of 1810 as the promoters of the failing Western Inland Lock Navigation Company revived their efforts for support. Thomas Eddy, the company treasurer, called upon Jonas Platt, who was a Federalist senator from the Western District and also candidate for governor running on a platform of "Platt and Commerce" in those days of the Embargo and restrictions in European trade.1 Eddy's object was to interest the legislature in new explorations for a company-constructed canal from Oneida Lake to the Seneca River. But Platt, who had himself been long associated with the canal company's projects, astonished the lobbyist with a more sweeping proposal: "why not make application at once for a canal to connect the waters of Lake Erie with the waters of the Hudson River?" Eddy feared that the legislature would be so frightened by the proposal that he "would lose even what I am sent here to obtain," but together they devised a plan for the state to set up a board of commissioners to explore the two routes to Lake Erie preparatory to constructing a canal. What was needed for the success of their plan was the Survey and Report 39 support of a prominent Democratic Republican to counter the predominantly Federalist complexion of the canal company. De Witt Clinton was the available man. He was nephew of Governor George Clinton, former mayor of New York, a land speculator, naturalist, and educator and the ascendant leader of the Republicans in the state senate. Moreover, it was Clinton who, as a shareholder of the Western canal company, had publicly attacked Schuyler for using the company to the advantage of the New York Federalists in 1793. At Platt's behest, Clinton consented to back a canal resolution provided the names of the commissioners be left blank. Platt then introduced a resolution to appoint a board of commissioners to examine and survey the entire interior route from the Hudson to Lake Erie as well as that to Lake Ontario and around the Niagara Falls, and to report on the most eligible path. Clinton seconded it and it passed both senate and assembly by unanimous vote.~ Three thousand dollars were appropriated to defray the cost of the survey. How far the canal idea had spread since the timid response given to Joshua Forman's resolution of 1808! The seven-man board of commissioners was given a nice political balance; the entire canal project might stand or fall on their reputations. Gouverneur Morris, Stephen Van Rensselaer, William North, and Thomas Eddy were Federalists; Simeon De Witt and Clinton were Republicans , and Peter B. Porter led the Tammany faction known as "Martling Men," Republicans, but politically opposed to Clinton.H At the same time these men knew each other 1 New York Evening Post, April 10, 1810. 2 Rubin, "An Innovating Public Improvement," p. 40. 3 Only North and Porter among the commissioners had not been stockholders in the Inland Lock Navigation companies. North was an heir to the Von Steuben estate and Porter was a landholder on the Niagara River. Miller, Enterprise of a Free People, p. 218, n. 32. 40 Erie Water West well; they had dealt with each other in business, politics, and land speculation, and as men of substance they presented a strong claim to public confidence. Divisions among the commissioners over the rival routes to Lake Erie did not become manifest until the success of the canal itself was more assured. Peter B. Porter, one of the most prominent of the commissioners, worked zealously for the canal although his personal interests centered upon the use of the Ontario route. Such a route would mean a canal through his own lands at Black Rock, three miles down the Niagara River, following the portage path over which his brother Augustus had long held a monopoly.4 As a member of Congress in 1810, Porter had made a widely publicized speech in the House where he sought unsuccessfully to secure national aid for a canal constructed on the Ontario route as part of the Gallatin plan.5 But Porter's name was affixed to all the reports of the commissioners even as they increasingly recommended the interior route. The...