lowered. At that time the state owned 886 miles of canals and received $5,000,000 in annual tolls. Up to 1881 the canals had cost $126,000,000 and had made a net profit of $87,000,000. The actual cost to the people of $39,000,000 has been repaid to them in trade. and commerce over and over again.

CHAPTER XXXI.—THE CANAL DEVELOPS THE STATE

Effect of the Canal on Western New York.-The Erie Canal system gave to western New York new life and spirit, new industries, and a remarkable growth in population and wealth. New towns sprang into existence. along the main route and its branches, while cities already planted, like Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Rome, and Utica, doubled and quadrupled in a few years. The population west of Seneca Lake, which was 23,000 in 1800, had grown to 575,000 in 1835, while that of the state, 589,000 in 1800, had become 2,175,000, making New York the first state in this respect, a place held to the present time.

The Increase in Wealth and Industry was still greater than that in population. Saw-mills, flour-mills, ironfoundries, and salt-works employed men and money. Forests were cut down and soon replaced by fields of grain. Lumbering became a paying industry. Stores, taverns, and blacksmith shops did a thriving business. Carpenters, stone-masons, and workmen were needed to build factories, churches, schools, houses, and barns. Ten years after the canal was completed the acres of improved land in the state had increased from 7,256,000

to 9,655,000, about two-third of the state. Real and personal property had gone up to $220,000,000. The imports of New York City had advanced from $36,000,000 to $73,000,000, while so great was the home consumption that the exports had fallen off $800,000, though they still amounted to $13,700,000.

66

Travel." The mud dried up, and the muskrats and the ague and the fever and the bears left the country." The price of land rose, and the crops brought four times as much as before. Farmers paid for their farms, got deeds, and put up good frame and brick buildings. Before 1825 a buggy was no more known or used than a balloon." The canal was used for passenger as well as freight traffic. Packet-boats with comfortable quarters, drawn by three or four horses driven tandem, made six miles an hour. One could go from New York to Buffalo in ten days. Before it usually took six weeks. To-day the distance can be covered in eight hours. Many a family in western New York still owns a "packet-trunk" used for business and pleasure travel on the canal. The fare from Buffalo to Albany was $5 without board. The "Red Bird Line" made the trip on the canal from Buffalo to Rochester in one day. By 1834 daily lines were in operation, but the passenger traffic soon went to the railroads. Old persons still speak of the comfortable packet, the sociable times on it, the good meals served, the library, and the games.

Progress Compared. A comparison of the industries before the War of 1812 with their condition in 1835 shows what wonderful progress was made. The first cotton-mill was established in 1807 at Whitestown, and ten years later the first power-loom was used,

Before the war 33,000 hand-looms made $5,000,000 worth of cloth, and 427 fulling-mills and 413 carding-machines did a $680,000 business. By 1835 there were 111 cotton-mills and 235 woolen-mills, making over $6,000,000 worth of cloth; 965 fulling-mills and 1,060 carding-machines, doing a business amounting to $5,500,000; and 10,000,000 yards of cotton, linen, and woolen cloth were still made by hand-looms. The value of tannery products had increased from $1,300,000 to $6,000,000, and brewery products from $350,000 to $1,300,000. Distilleries were fewer, but their output had doubled; paper mills had tripled in number and in goods made; glass-works had doubled in number; and there were 300 iron-factories with a production of $4,000,000, in place of 70. Grist-mills ground grain worth $20,000,000, and saw-mills worked up lumber worth $70,000,000. In short, the total value of industrial products increased from $16,000,000 to $222,000,000.

Agriculture.—There was great advance in stock-raising and agriculture. Horses increased in number from 300,000 to 525,000; sheep from 1,280,000 to 4,000,000; and cattle from 1,000,000 to 2,000,000. Threefourths of the people were farmers (1824). A society to promote arts, factories, and agriculture was early formed in New York City (1764), and revived after the Revolution (1791). By 1801 local societies came into existence. In 1819 a board of agriculture was established for two years with an annual appropriation of $10,000. This was followed by the Agricultural Convention at Albany (1832), and the organization of the New York State Agricultural Society with a grant

of $8,000 for each of five years (1841). That body held the first state fair at Syracuse (1841). In 1880 an agricultural experiment station was created.

Population. In 1800 there were only a few widely scattered log shanties in western New York. In 1811 a traveler said that "the houses were so thick along the road" from Buffalo to Batavia that he "was seldom out of sight of one." From the east and south and from over the sea came the thousands who developed the west, by 1835, into a powerful political and industrial factor in the state. The 30 counties of 1800 had become 55 by 1835. The 452 towns, 300 villages, and 5 cities of 1811 grew twenty years later to 786 towns, 1,458 villages, and 8 cities. Tonawanda changed from a log tavern (1825) to a village of 1,000 (1835). Lockport was a wilderness before the canal was built, but had a population of 6,000 in 1835. Batavia, organized in 1802 and incorporated in 1821 with a population of 2,600, doubled in a decade (1830). In 1835 Canandaigua was a village of 5,200, Auburn of 5,400, Waterloo of 2,200, Oswego of 2,200, Geneva of 3,000, Ithaca of 3,500, Schenectady of 6,000, and Utica of 8,000.

66

Rochester and Syracuse. The site of Rochester was purchased (1808) by Colonel Rochester of Virginia, a friend of Washington and Jefferson. In 1817 the village was incorporated. When I saw your place in 1810," said Clinton, "who would have thought that in 1826 it would be. the scene of such a change?" In 1835 it was the fifth city in size in the state and had a population of 14,500. There the first daily paper west of Albany was established (1826). By 1838 Rochester had the largest flour-manufactory in the world and an

enormous canal trade. The editor of the New York Commercial Advertiser in 1820 found Syracuse to be "a few scattered and indifferent wooden houses erected amid the stumps." "Do you call this a village?" he asked. "It would make an owl weep to fly over it." "Never mind," replied a loyal citizen, “you will live to see it a city yet." The population in 1835 was 4,100, and in 1840 the same visitor exclaimed, The change seems like an enchantment."

66

Buffalo and Other Cities.-In 1795 Buffalo was a "small collection of four or five houses" called Lake Erie. When burned by the British (1813) it had about 200 inhabitants. "A reward of $5 was voted for every wolf killed in town" (1816). The canal made it the chief city of the Great Lakes. It had 7,000 people in 1828, and when incorporated as a city 15,000 (1832). Troy grew from a vilage of 1,800 at the end of the century to a city of 11,500, while Albany, then the greatest beef-packing center in America, had a population of 24,200 (1834).

New York City's Advancement. The canal benefited New York City as well as western New York. Her commerce with the west increased almost $44,000,000 in the seven years after the opening of the canal. The population jumped from 96,000 (1811) to over 207,000 (1834). She still dominated the state, and her primacy on the continent was rapidly being recognized. In 1825 there were in her port 700 American merchant-vessels, 1,400 foreign vessels, and 50 steamboats. More than 320,000 people came to and left the city by water annually. Her population was moving northward by one wave of stone and brick after another. Six-story