Indiana Canal Company

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Where the Indiana Canal would have been built Old Clarksville Site.jpg
Where the Indiana Canal would have been built

The Indiana Canal Company was a corporation first established in 1805 for the purpose of building a canal around the Falls of the Ohio on the Indiana side of the Ohio River. After several attempts, and possible sabotage by a supporter of the Louisville and Portland Canal, the project was ended.

Indiana State of the United States of America

Indiana is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern and Great Lakes regions of North America. Indiana is the 38th largest by area and the 17th most populous of the 50 United States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th U.S. state on December 11, 1816. Indiana borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north, Ohio to the east, Kentucky to the south and southeast, and Illinois to the west.

Ohio River river in the midwestern United States

The Ohio River is a 981-mile (1,579 km) long river in the midwestern United States that flows southwesterly from western Pennsylvania south of Lake Erie to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illinois. It is the second largest river by discharge volume in the United States and the largest tributary by volume of the north-south flowing Mississippi River that divides the eastern from western United States. The river flows through or along the border of six states, and its drainage basin includes parts of 15 states. Through its largest tributary, the Tennessee River, the basin includes several states of the southeastern U.S. It is the source of drinking water for three million people.

Louisville and Portland Canal

The Louisville and Portland Canal was a 2-mile (3.2 km) canal bypassing the Falls of the Ohio River at Louisville, Kentucky. The Falls form the only barrier to navigation between the origin of the Ohio at Pittsburgh and the port of New Orleans on the Gulf of Mexico; circumventing them was long a goal for Pennsylvanian and Cincinnatian merchants. The canal opened in 1830 as the private Louisville and Portland Canal Company but was gradually bought out during the 19th century by the federal government, which had invested heavily in its construction, maintenance, and improvement.

Contents

History

As the Midwestern United States became populated by American settlers, they began to farm produce down the Ohio River to the Mississippi River and New Orleans to be sold. Along this entire route there was only one obstacle, the Falls of the Ohio, a series of rapids between Clarksville, Indiana, and Louisville, Kentucky. At that location goods had to be unloaded from boats, transported by land to below the falls, and reloaded. This caused a considerable delay for transportation and led to the early growth in the area which responded by creating enterprises to accommodate the needs of moving the goods. The expense caused by the need to transport goods overland for the three-mile (4.8 km) stretch was considerable and the price incurred by Cincinnati goods alone was estimated to cost over $50,000 annually. [1]

United States Federal republic in North America

The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico. The State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The extremely diverse geography, climate, and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.

Mississippi River largest river system in North America

The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system on the North American continent, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. Its source is Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota and it flows generally south for 2,320 miles (3,730 km) to the Mississippi River Delta in the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains all or parts of 32 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian mountains. The main stem is entirely within the United States; the total drainage basin is 1,151,000 sq mi (2,980,000 km2), of which only about one percent is in Canada. The Mississippi ranks as the fourth-longest and fifteenth-largest river by discharge in the world. The river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

New Orleans Largest city in Louisiana

New Orleans is a consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of Louisiana. With an estimated population of 393,292 in 2017, it is the most populous city in Louisiana. A major port, New Orleans is considered an economic and commercial hub for the broader Gulf Coast region of the United States.

As early as 1790 it was proposed that a canal be built around the falls so that shipping could easily bypass the rapids. Both Indiana and Kentucky competed to be the first to build a canal, knowing whichever side built the canal would receive a large economic boost. Early promoters of the project included Josiah Stephens and Benjamin Hovey, both of whom believed the canal would create a rapid influx of wealth to Indiana. [2]

First company

Indiana began formal plans to build a canal before Kentucky, authorizing the first Indiana Canal Company on August 24, 1805. The charter was considered favorable, fixing tolls between two and five dollars. The company's board members were made up mostly of men from Clarksville and included Aaron Burr, Davis Floyd and George Rogers Clark. The Indiana Territory granted the company $120,000 in starting money, and the enterprise raised more than $1.2 million from private sources. [2]

Aaron Burr American Vice President and politician

Aaron Burr Jr. was an American politician and lawyer. He was the third vice president of the United States (1801–1805), serving during President Thomas Jefferson's first term.

Davis Floyd was an Indiana Jeffersonian Republican politician who was convicted of aiding American Vice President Aaron Burr in the Burr conspiracy. Floyd was not convicted of treason however and returned to public life after several years working to redeem his reputation. He lost his wealth in the Panic of 1819 and died in obscurity in Florida 1834.

George Rogers Clark American general

George Rogers Clark was an American surveyor, soldier, and militia officer from Virginia who became the highest ranking American military officer on the northwestern frontier during the American Revolutionary War. He served as leader of the militia in Kentucky throughout much of the war. He is best known for his celebrated captures of Kaskaskia (1778) and Vincennes (1779) during the Illinois Campaign, which greatly weakened British influence in the Northwest Territory. The British ceded the entire Northwest Territory to the United States in the 1783 Treaty of Paris, and Clark has often been hailed as the "Conqueror of the Old Northwest".

The company surveyed a route around the falls through a deep, downhill ravine that began near the mouth of the Cane Run creek and continued downhill past the falls, where it opened back into the Ohio River Valley. The plan was to dam the creek near its mouth at the Ohio River, forcing it down into the ravine where it would wash out the valley creating a natural canal. The redirected creek could then be connected to the Ohio River by a lock. The surveyors believed that this route would be far easier to build and cheaper than the cost of digging a route on the opposing side of the river. [2]

The initial company failed before the construction was begun and completely fell apart after the Aaron Burr conspiracy was revealed. Floyd was briefly jailed for part in the plot, and Burr was charged with treason and jailed. Many believed the company was a front to gather funds for Burr's failed plot, but it was never proven that any money was misappropriated as the treason charges were dropped on lack of evidence and no further inquiry was made. [2]

Burr conspiracy

The Burr conspiracy was a suspected treasonous cabal of planters, politicians, and army officers in the early 19th century. The alleged cabal was led by Aaron Burr, the former Vice President of the United States (1801–1805). According to the accusations against him, his goal was to create an independent country in the center of North America including the Southwestern United States and parts of Mexico. Burr's version was that he intended to farm 40,000 acres (160 km2) in the Texas Territory which had been leased to him by the Spanish Crown.

Second and third company

In 1817 Indiana created a second canal company, the Ohio Canal Company. [3] Governor Jonathan Jennings, who was intent on increasing the economic viability of the new state, saw the canal as a way to quickly enhance Indiana's economy. This time the charter for the company provided $1 million in starting funds and gave the board a wider representation from Indiana's now larger population to prevent any possible graft by local members. The charter gave the company tax-free status and power of eminent domain. [3] The company was not able to draw enough investments for the project and in 1818 a third canal company, the Jeffersonville Ohio Canal Company, was created and given the additional powers of settings its own tolls and raising up to $100,000 by a lottery. [3]

By 1819 the company had progressed enough to begin construction. The Cane Run was dammed and forced into the ravine as planned by the first company. The canal was expected to be 2.75 miles (4.43 km) long with an average depth of 45 feet (14 m) and a width that narrowed from 100 feet (30 m) across at the top to 500 feet (150 m) across at the bottom.

Work was progressing well along until the dam failed. Maurice Thompson claimed that someone from the rival canal company in Louisville had sabotaged the dam. Portland newspapers had been criticizing the canal and many of its residents were openly opposed to a construction of any canal, knowing that without the necessity to transport good overland, Portland's businesses would not be needed anymore. It is also possible the earthen dam was the victim of muskrats who destroyed millions of dollars worth of Indiana canals in the 1830s by burrowing through them. The subsequent Panic of 1819 made raising additional funds difficult, and without the means to continue construction the company folded. [4]

Aftermath

Without the funds to repair the dam and begin construction again, the project was allowed to languish. The Indiana General Assembly raised the topic again in 1824 and a commission was appointed, whose members included Christopher Harrison, to study the feasibility of trying to restart the project. After reporting on their findings, the commission was ended. The General Assembly discussed restarting the company but no action was again undertaken to attempt to build a canal on the Indiana side of the River. [4] The debate ended in 1825 when the Louisville and Portland Canal secured federal funding, which virtually guaranteed its success. It was completed in 1831 and was instantly very profitable. [5] The L & P Canal was still in operation in 2008 as part of the McAlpine Locks and Dam.

In 1867 and 1868 a detailed and comprehensive study was conducted by the United States War Department on the feasibility of a "Ship canal around the falls of the Ohio". A report was submitted to congress in 1869 but was never acted upon. [6]

The loss of the canal was a local disaster for Clarksville. Local industry had been building with the expectation that Clarksville would become a major trading hub. The project had focused state attention on the improvement of the area and now many of the state plans where ruined. The state prison had been established in Jeffersonville so criminals could be used to labor on the canal, and other favorable projects had been granted to the area to improve the possibility of a canal. The loss left Clarksville to languish and into a population decline, whereas Jeffersonville began to grow quickly. Seeing the prosperity the L & P Canal brought, Indiana decided to build a series of Canals across the northern part of the state including the Wabash and Erie Canal. [5]

See also

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References

  1. ↑ Dunn, p. 386.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Dunn, pp. 382-383.
  3. 1 2 3 Fatout, p. 291.
  4. 1 2 Dunn, pp. 384-385.
  5. 1 2 Dunn, p. 385.
  6. ↑ Eichbaum, George R. (1869). Annual report of the Secretary of War, Volume 2. U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 539–555.

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