Canals:
The canal era was remarkably shortlived due to canals being quickly overtaken by rail as a means of transport but nonetheless, the canal era left a lasting mark on our country, particularly the area of most of the core of our conference, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.
First some background:My home city of Medina, Ohio was established in 1818. People who lived here then were basically subsistence farmers living in a near-wilderness with little or no connection to the outside world. The land of the upper Midwest was (and is) some of the best farmland in the world so a family farm, even in those early days, could easily produce more grain than the family consumed but it was difficult to sell the excess. The problem was that basically everybody living here was farming and they all had their own surplus agricultural products so there was little or no local market since everybody was looking to sell so there weren't buyers.
If you look at a map, there are two basic ways to get surplus agricultural products from the upper Midwest to the national and world market:
- The Mississippi: Put it on a boat and float the boat down to NOLA where grain and livestock could be sold to domestic and international shippers for shipment to other US Cities or London or beyond.
- Overland to the East Coast: Load up the grain and livestock in wagons (or cattle drive some livestock) and walk across the Appalachians to an East Coast port such as Boston, NYC, or Philly. Philly was generally preferred simply because it is closer since it is further West than most East Coast cities being on the Delaware Bay rather than all the way out on the Atlantic.
There were several major problems with the Mississippi:
Steam boats did not appear on the Mississippi until 1811 and they didn't appear in large numbers until much later. Before the advent of steamboats it was, of course, possible to build a riverboat anywhere along the Mississippi or it tributaries and float it down to NOLA using the current but the crew had to walk back. Incidentally, the boats were sold for lumber in NOLA and the lumber was used to build houses in NOLA and for the NOLA shipbuilding industry. The problem was that doing all this just to bring back money that you couldn't buy anything with was pointless. Midwestern farmers wanted European and East Coast manufactured goods such as plows but bringing anything upriver was extremely difficult and generally cost prohibitive.
A second problem, at least for those living east of Louisville, Kentucky was that there is a natural falls on the Ohio River at Louisville. Until a Canal was built around it there were several options to deal with this issue:
- Portage around the falls and resell the items to someone else.
- Wait for the river to rise far enough to float over the falls.
There were several major problems with the overland route:
First it is a long trip. Second, there are mountains to cross. Third, wagons carry substantially smaller amounts of cargo than even relatively small riverboats. The usual solution to this was to distill the surplus grain into whiskey which could be more economically shipped by putting it barrels and loading the barrels into wagons. This led to the Whiskey Rebellion during Washington's Presidency when farmers in Western PA violently opposed tax increases on their product.
All of these problems were solved in remarkably rapid succession:
- The Erie Canal from Albany to Buffalo opened in 1825.
- The Louisville and Portland canal around the Falls of the Ohio opened in 1830.
- The first steamboats on the Mississippi was the New Orleans built in Pittsburgh in 1811 and floated over the Falls of the Ohio in a flood, and reached it's namesake in early 1812. It would be another 15-20 years or so before there were enough steamboats on the Mississippi and it's tributaries to have a significant impact but it all started in 1811.
- Railroads began to be built in the US in the late 1820's. The process was slow at first but as any Civil War historian knows, by the time that war started 30-odd years later there was a significant amount of RR track in use in the US.
I'm focused here on Canals specifically. The opening of the Erie Canal converted literally thousands of frontier wilderness famers in the upper Midwest into members of the global economy. Agricultural products were sent by boat along lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, and Erie (and various rivers flowing into them) to Buffalo then floated East on the Erie Canal to Albany then downriver to NYC where these products were part of the international market. On the return trip manufactured goods from the Eastern United States and Europe were shipped up to Albany, West along the Erie Canal to Buffalo, then on the Great lakes to places as far away as Duluth.
The impact of the Erie Canal on this region cannot be overstated.
Akron:As evident from my username here, I live in Medina, Ohio. Medina is the County Seat of Medina County which is immediately West of Summit County in which Akron is located. Akron was not founded until 1825 and the name comes from an ancient Greek word meaning Summit or high point. Thus Akron and Summit County are both named for the fact that the high point of the Ohio and Erie Canal (from Cleveland to Portsmouth) is in the City of Akron.
As noted above, Akron was not founded until 1825. Contrast Medina which was founded in 1818 and Ravenna which was founded in 1799. Akron's whole reason for existence is the canal. Prior to the building of the canal, the "big" cities in this area were the Ravenna, the County seat of Portage County which is immediately East of Summit County and Medina, the County Seat of Medina County which is immediately West of Summit County. Speaking of Counties, Summit County was not formed until 1840 when it was carved out of Portage, Medina, and Stark (to the South, Canton). The reason it was formed was that due to the growth of Akron as the canal business exploded the businesses of Akron complained to the State that their legal issues had to be resolved miles away in the courts in Medina and Ravenna and they wanted their own County.
The Ohio and Erie Canal in Ohio was related to the Erie Canal in New York in that without the Erie Canal in New York the Ohio and Erie Canal in Ohio would have served little purpose. It would have facilitated trade within the State and beyond along the Great Lakes (excluding Ontario) but there was little demand for that as basically everybody living there had the same products to sell. The completion of the Erie Canal in New York meant that the Great Lakes were part of the global market and thus subsidiary canals into the interior such as the Ohio and Erie Canal opened up those areas to the global market.
Ironically, the Ohio and Erie Canal only carried freight for 34 years from 1827-1861. By 1861 demand ended due to more efficient and reliable (year around) competition from Railroads.
