Source:Fleming-canal/content
THIS week an entirely new phase of Pittsburgh history is presented; that is, new in this series of articles. It is a story of progress—a great step in that onward march—now a memory only in the minds of old people.
It is the story of the canal—mainly the Pennsylvania Canal, but there were others—parts of a great and costly system of transportation undertaken and carried to success by the state.
The new building of The Gazette Times stands nearly over the canal that extended toward the Monongahela, just above Try street, at the Panhandle Railroad bridge.
From the upper windows of The Gazette Times Building, looking east, the approaches to the Pennsylvania Station, Eleventh street and Liberty avenue, the Washington street bridge and two old buildings at Penn avenue and Eleventh street serve to recall the canal days in Pittsburgh that lasted for about 30 years.
The story of the canal is a story of evolution, an evolution of methods that worked a revolution in transportation. The pack horses of the early traders had given way to the lumbering Conestoga wagons. There was no gain in speed, but a great gain in capacity.
Both were slow and expensive. Horses were costly and had to be fed and cared for. An army of men had to be hired and boarded for this purpose.
There were other expense items, shoeing, harness and harness repairs, wagon repairs and many more. Necessarily freight rates were high.
Conestogas Are Abandoned.
After three decades the conestogas went their way to oblivion, the same as their companions, the drays, did 50 years later.
The dozens of conestogas that lined Liberty street and filled the wagon yards at the hotels of John Beitler Sturgeon and Lightcap disappeared. The rough and jolly drivers found new jobs, many on the canal boats. The era of canals came.
The canal cheapened freights; the boats hauled more and made better time.
A great event in the history of Pittsburgh was the opening of this waterway. The new method of transportation cheapened the cost of living; cheapened the cost of dress goods; cheapened the cost of all the necessaries of life that had to be brought from the East. It brought a new indutsry [sic] to Pittsburgh, the building of canal boats.
It engaged the capital and business qualities of scores of men who hired thousands who worked on the boats, and along the wharves of the "slips" or canal dock. It made necessary the use of more drays, hence more horses and more draymen.
From the canal basins or slips, goods had to be transported to the Monongahela wharf for reshipment by steamboat. Busy days, busy nights, hustle, confusion, turmoil, commercial activity, profit, success.
Had it been possible to have done so, there could have been emblazoned on any of our city's steep hillsides the glittering truth: "The Canal and Prosperity."
Then there was the reciprocal phase. The canals carried to tidewater our glass, merchant iron and steel, and by reason of cheaper freight brought increased trade to Pittsburgh manufacturers. We had new fields in which to compete.
We still have Canal street on the North Side, but Canal street in Pittsburgh has been Eleventh street since the numbering of the streets in 1868. Hence we now have but the single commemoration.
As our elderly residents saw the canal go, so we of this generation have seen the steamboat go. They are about gone.
Packets Are Scarce.
Where are the Monongahela river packets, the Cincinnati packets, the Muskingum river packets, the boats to St. Paul, St. Louis, the Missouri river, Memphis, New Orleans, Nashville, Little Rock? All gone, killed by the quicker railroads—cheaper, faster freight, just as the canal killed the conestoga wagon and that wagon the pack horse and the pack saddle.
We look back upon the evolution of the canal and it is the same story of evolution. Why may not those who saw the canal go welcome the era of airships and these wonders applied to the wants of men, and not to their destruction?
Strange thoughts arise from the contemplation of a past era—an era in which much of the early progress of the nineteenth century wended its slow but sure way. And that slow but sure way was a mighty factor in the development of Pittsburgh as a city.
Pittsburgh was the Gateway of the West, the mighty West, a land of promise and glory. From Pittsburgh stretch thousands of miles of navigable waters, the vast Mississippi river system.
The canal fitted into the system of water transportation as readily as the king bolt into the wagon tongue.
Any story of development along lines of good for men is interesting. The story of the canal is along those lines.
The law authorizing the building of the canal and providing for its cost was passed by the Legislature of Pennsylvania April 25, 1826. Three years and eight months later the first canal boat entered Pittsburgh. This was November 10, 1829.
Lake Erie Canal.
Lake Erie had been already connected by a canal with the Hudson River through the foresight and enterprise of De Witt Clinton. The deflection of the western trade to this route aroused the people of Pennsylvania to the realization of a quicker and cheaper method of transportation across the state.
Pittsburgh was represented on the original Board of Canal Surveys by William Darlington, John Sargeant, Robert Parkinson, David Scott and Abner Lacock.
From the accurate and voluminous public documents issued by the commonwealth in 1878 under the general title of "Pennsylvania and the Centennial Exposition," comprising the preliminary and final reports of the state's board of centennial managers, after full history and complete data of the exposition there is appended a series of articles relative to the industries, resources and capabilities of the commonwealth and a history of the development of the various industries.
From one of these, in the matter pertaining to canals, these paragraphs are taken:
This part of the main line of the canal completed the chain of communication with Pittsburgh, extending from the terminus of the Allegheny Portage Railroad at Johnstown. Its western end terminated in both Allegheny City, now the North Side, and Pittsburgh.
At Allegheny City there was an outlet lock by which boats passed into the Allegheny River. An aqueduct led the canal across the Allegheny into Pittsburgh, where there was another outlet lock into the Monongahela.
The original aqueduct fell in 1844, and in 1845 John A. Roebling erected in its place a suspension aqueduct, consisting of a wooden trunk suspended from heavy wire cables. There were seven spans of 162 feet each.
This canal was constructed along the Conemaugh, Kiskiminetas and Allegheny Rivers. Its length was stated in 1856 at 104 miles. On the line there were 11 dams, 65 locks, 43 culverts, 46 overfalls, 18 towing-path bridges and 89 roads and farm bridges.
The construction of this part of the canal commenced on the Allegheny River in 1826. In the autumn of 1827 water was first let into the levels at Leechburg. In 1829 contracts were made for the construction of the canal near Johnstown and for a basin at that place to make a depot for boats.
On August 21, 1829, it was opened for navigation from Pittsburgh to Blairsville, and on December 10, 1830, it was opened its whole length to Johnstown. While being constructed it was divided into five "lines"—Allegheny, Pine Creek, Kiskiminetas, Conemaugh and Ligonier.
The first canal boat built or run west of the mountains was the Gen. Abner Lacock, a freight and passenger packet, built at Appolo, Armstrong county, by Philip Dally, under the auspices of Patrick Leonard of Pittsburgh.
In 1834 an unsatisfactory attempt was made upon this canal to use steamboats.
The upper part of the canal was found to be but imperfectly supplied with water from the Stony creek at Johnstown and in 1835 Sylvester Welch recommended the construction of a reservoir for the storage of water, to be used in case of necessity, on the South Fork of the Conemaugh, about 10 miles east of Johnstown and two miles from the Portage Railroad.
Reservoir Is Built.
This reservoir, when full, covered 465 acres, was 65 feet deep and its cubical contents were 524,000,000 cubic feet. The water of the reservoir was discharged into the Conemaugh River when needed and thus flowed down to a dam at the head of the basin at Johnstown, passing into the basin through a short feeder.
The work was contracted for on November 6, 1839, and commenced in 1840, but it was not then finished and was suspended for lack of funds until May 1, 1851, when it was again put under way, partly finished in 1852, so that water was obtained from it for the canal, and completed in 1853.
In 1857 this division was sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and it was gradually abandoned. The upper part of the division was abandoned first, but the lower part was not closed until 1864.
The Western Pennsylvania Railroad, completed in 1865, occupies the canal for the greater part of the western half of it. In the report for 1852 its cost was stated at $3,096,522.30.
The Western Pennsylvania Railroad is now the Conemaugh Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
The South Fork Reservoir was purchased after it had been abandoned for a decade or more by the South Fork Hunting and Fishing Club of Pittsburgh. The dam was built higher, backing the waters of the little stream farther up, thus making a lake about three miles long by one-half mile wide. This was known as Conemaugh Lake. Fine summer homes were built along its banks, sail boats flitted over its clear waters; a large club house was erected and for a decade this part of the South Fork of the Conemaugh was an ideal summering place for the club members and their friends.
There came a time when "the rains descended and the floods came," and on one of these days, May 31, 1889, the South Fork dam gave way with a mighty crash and three miles of water 60 feet deep went down the mountain at whirlwind speed—and that is the story of the Johnstown flood.
Stories of the Canal.
Stories of canal days are yet told and the canal boatmen have yet their annual reunions. A day will soon come when these will cease. Concerning these pioneers in an evolution long gone we can recall the opening of Daniel Webster's address to the soldiers of the Revolution. He said:
"Venerable men, you have come down to us from a past generation." Surely a long time past, but in that generation there sped the tide of empire steadily to the West.
"Sam" Young, the "literary drayman," editor of the Connoquenessing Valley News and other papers during the first oil excitement in Western Pennsylvania was a native of Pittsburgh, born in 1821. He wrote the story of his life in 1890 and tells much of what he saw of Pittsburgh in his youth.
He saw the water let into the canal and recalls that he, a mere child, with hundreds of other children stood on Penn street (now avenue) and watched the water slowly fill the excavation intended for it.
The day, he says, was dark and gloomy, but it was a gala day in Pittsburgh, and it was the beginning of a new era, a step in evolution. The excitement of that event—a wonderful event, made Pittsburgh people forget all else but the canal—itself the wonder.
There came a day when these childish celebrators grown up saw the first locomotive enter Pittsburgh, and heard in its shrill whistle the doom of the canal boat. Evolution oft moves swiftly. Witness the speed in the Twentieth century.
From Johnstown the canal followed the Conemaugh to Blairsville, crossing at Lockport Station and coming through the Pack Saddle on the side now occupied by the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad, but between the tracks and river.
Villages Grow Up.
It recrossed to Blairsville and came on down the Conemaugh and Kiskiminitas to Freeport and down the west bank of the Allegheny to that city, crossing to Pittsburgh at which is now Eleventh street.
Villages grew up along its banks—thriving towns today some of these—Tarentum, Leechburg, Saltsburg, Blairsville were given life by the canal and were busy, hustling towns.
The aqueduct was erected in 1829. Its cost was $100,000. It was 35 feet above the level of the river at an ordinary stage, the same height as the first Sixth Street Bridge.
Jean Barbeau and Lewis Keyon's map of Pittsburgh, made in 1830, shows fully the route of the canal, its outlet in Pittsburgh and its outlet in Alleghenytown. The map records that S. Lothrop was the architect of the aqueduct bridge.
Coming across the city the outlet touched Watson's road, subsequently the Fourth street road, and now Fifth avenue, between Tunnel and High streets, the later now Sixth avenue.
The Watsons owned all the land to Washington street—to the Fort Pitt Glass Works site. Sukes Run entered the canal about where Fifth avenue would intersect Diamond street if put straight through the jail extension.
Above the mouth of the outlet, which was under the present bridge of the Panhandle Railroad, there was a boat yard known as the Eagle boat yards, and this was across the city line.
The entrance to the tunnel was between Seventh street, now avenue, and Strawberry alley, now way, about where The Gazette Times Buildings [sic] stands at Gazette Square.
Canal Crosses Road.
There was no Wylie street laid out in 1830, but Chatham street shows on the map above mentioned to Coal lane, now Webster avenue.
Senator James Ross owned all the land from Fourth street, now avenue, to a diagonal line reaching from the head of Virgin alley, now Oliver avenue, and Grant street to Watsons road.
The canal outlet crossed that road at Try street in the valley below the morgue building. The outlet crossed Try street, Fourth, Third and Second streets, now avenues, the latter of which was bridged. First avenue was Front street then and ended at the canal.
About the site of the Pennsylvania Station Barbeau and Keyon's map locates the steel and file manufactory of Broadmeadow & Co. and adds a line—"1st of its kind in America." This factory was immediately back of the Methodist Church and graveyard at the outlet bend in the canal there.
There was another bend after coming out of the tunnel in the rear of the present Jones & Laughlin's building at Third avenue and Ross street.
At the Alleghenytown end of the aqueduct there was an embankment leading up to it. On the upper side was one of the many Voeghtly tracts and on the lower side the Hope cotton factory about where the old Marshall Kennedy flour mill stands at Hope and Lacock streets.
The Allegheny outlet came down between Lacock street and the South Common to a point opposite the beginning of Rebecca street, now Reedsdale; between Darragh and Craig streets.
The North Outlet.
There was a basin at this turn and from it the outlet went in a straight line to the river, crossing Lacock and Robinson streets. Between the outlet and Craig street the lot was Craig property.
There was a pier at the other end and the Juniata rolling mill on the lot between the outlet and Darragh street. This lot reached to Robinson street, now dubbed Gen. Robinson street, named for the first white child born in Alleghenytown and a son of the town's first mayor.
Referring again to the Portage road we have some data that are interesting by comparison. The canal had one bad feature—it sometimes froze solid and navigation was suspended, often for months.
During its first year we are told that the Portage road carried 50,000 tons of freight and 20,000 passengers. The passenger fare from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia was $12.
The route was by the Western Division of the canal, the Portage Railroad and the Columbia Railroad from Columbia on the Susquehanna River. The trip occupied three days and 19 hours.
Great ravelers came to Pittsburgh via that route. Charles Dickens tells of it in his "American Notes." Daniel Webster traveled it and William Henry Harrison and all the notables of that day.
They could also come, and many did, by the National pike to Brownsville and thence to Pittsburgh via the Monongahela River packets.
The Portage road was 36.69 miles long; the ascent from Johnstown to the summit was 1,751.58 feet in 26½ miles; the descent to Hollidaysburg was 1,398.71 feet in 10.10 miles.
Engines For Planes.
The engines at the top of the planes were 35 horsepower and were built in Pittsburgh. The rails were imported from England and cost $40 51 a ton. The entre [sic] road cost $1,634,537 69 and was in operation 20 years.
Isaac Harris' Directory of Pittsburgh, published in 1837, gives us some canal information and a list of firms and their boats by name.
The collector of canal tolls at Pittsburgh at that time was Thomas [Fa⸺man], the weighmaster Capt. James Herriot. The office was at the confluence of the canal in Alleghenytown.
The tons of merchandise shipped East from Pittsburgh from the commencement of March 1, 1837, to July [⸺], 1837, was 14,034. The June report was not fully made up.
This tonnage can now be carried [by?] 10 trains of 60 cars each, 25 tons to a car, and on some levels more than [⸺] cars to a train.
These were the principal canal boat owners and operators in 1837, each having his line designation:
James O'Connor, Railroad Line, [⸺] boats; William Stewart, Despatch Line, 5 boats; James M. Davis, Reliance Line, 8 boats; Kier & [Roy⸺] Merchants' Line, and Mechanics' Line, together 11 boats; Robert [Donn⸺] Pilot Transportation Line, 6 boats; A Henderson, Pioneer Line, 5 boats; Peter Graff, Union Transportation Line, 10 boats; Milholland's Pennsylvania and Ohio Line, 5 boats; Leech & Co.'s Express Packet Line, 9 boats and freight line, 11 boats.
These were not all Pittsburgh lines but their terminal was here. [Leeches] were Leechburg people and Graff [a?] Blairsville merchant.
There were other boat owners later, among them Luke Taafe of Pittsburgh.
Fast Express Boats.
As there were fast stages, so were there fast canal expresses. Slick horses that could do a mile under three minutes hauled these packets, and they were popular boats and had popular names, statesmen, virtues and animals predominating in this nomenclature.
At the time of the sesqui-centennial of Pittsburgh, in 1908, many old Pittsburghers wrote reminiscent letters [to?] The Gazette Times. A few of them the writer hereof corresponded with and obtained much historical matter.
James E. Brown, an old-time Pittsburgh typo [sic], was one, then living [in] Wilcox, Neb. Concerning the canal, Mr. Brown wrote:
I think the aqueduct had five [pieces] which were supported by cables. The towpath was on the upper side, the causeway for foot passengers on the lower side.
The warehouses for goods were quite extensive. They extended from north of the end of Grant street to Penn avenue. These were destroyed by fire in 1852. Around and [about?] the warehouses were a number of slips for boats.
Some of the boats were built in sections for the purpose of conveying them across the mountains [by] the Portage Railroad.
This method was supplanted by a better method of transporting the whole boat, as shown in the picture.
Mr. Brown continued:
Much of the market stuff was brought into the city by canal market boats. Packets ran at scheduled periods between Tarentum and the city. To these three horses were attached and the teams were changed frequently.
The advertisements of the canal days from Harris' Directory of 1840 [invoke] a quiet smile. Surely, for the [period] they tell of going some.
The picture of the aqueduct is the best attainable and has been made from an oil painting by Russell [Smith].
In 1829, when the canal came, Magnus M. Murray was mayor of the city; [its?] population was 22,461 in 1830. This [is?] the old city, not including the North and South sides. There was then [but] one street between the bluff and Watsons Road—Locust street.
