In 1923, Stanley Newton published, “The Story of Sault Ste. Marie and Chippewa County.” This is part seventeen of a continuing series about the history of Sault Ste. Marie and area in its early years. I have left punctuation and grammar intact. – Laurie Davis
“They have besides planned a ship canal here. When this canal is completed, a vessel may load in the Thames, and discharge her burthen at the upper end of Lake Superior.” This prophecy made nearly one hundred years ago, is already reality in a small way. There is a special obligation upon us in the north country to help develop this small beginning to a gigantic materialization. The Great Lakes-to-the-Sea Waterway is bound to come in its fullness.
No one knows who first conceived an American ship canal around the rapids here. Perhaps the honor should belong to Samuel Hawkins, a special agent of the Government who came here in 1817, with reference to the disputed boundary line between the United States and Great Britain. He reported, apparently incidentally, that immediately above the falls on the American side of the river, there was a cove which might serve as the head of a canal; and that a strip of low and marshy land curved from it to a point below the falls. He thought that a canal for vessels drawing ten feet of water might be cut through this cove and strip, at an inconsiderable expense.
Ship Canal Authorized
Twenty years later, Michigan having become a state, the Legislature, in line with the recommendation of Governor Mason, passed an act authorizing the loan of not to exceed five million dollars to be expended for internal improvements. At the same time, another act was passed authorizing the construction of a ship canal around St. Mary’s Falls and arranging for a survey. John Almy was the surveying engineer appointed by Governor Mason, and his report was filed in December 1837. He estimated the cost of a canal and three locks to be $112,544.80, the proposed width of the canal to be 75 feet, the depth 10 feet, and the width of the locks 32 feet. Mr. Almy proposed to divide the locks into three lifts of six feet each, to avoid great hydraulic pressure on the side walls and gates. He stated that the canal would be large enough to accommodate the larger class of sailing vessels then used.
Other internal improvements contemplated by the Legislature, were the building of three railroad trunk lines across the lower part of the Lower Peninsula, and the construction of a canal from Lake St. Clair to the Kalamazoo River. None of the projects materialized at the time, although the Michigan Saulteurs were so sure of their canal that maps were drawn and are still in existence, showing the canal with its three locks, intersecting the line of the old-water power canal, which was dug by soldiers from Fort Brady in the twenties. This canal or raceway came down through what is now Upper Canal Park, about one hundred feet north of the location of the Weather Bureau on West Portage Avenue and Douglas Street. Here the old sawmill was constructed, possibly two hundred feet from where the Park Hotel now stands. After the water had turned the mill wheel, it returned to the river through a tail race or sluice, which ran north where Douglas Street now is, and somewhere near the fountain site in Lock Park.
This raceway was the means of delaying our first hip canal for many years. Smith & Driggs of Buffalo contracted with the State for the construction of the upper level of the canal and assigned a third interest in their contract to Aaron Weeks of Mount Clemens.
Government Soldiers Interfere
Mr. Weeks, in active charge of operations, began his excavations with a crew of men at the point where the proposed canal crossed the mill race, stating that he could not allow water to flow through the race where the line of the canal, crossed the same. He immediately found himself and his men in conflict with Captain Johnson and about thirty armed regulars from Fort Brady, the Captain acting under orders from the U.S. War Department forbidding interference with the race, which was, of course, Government property. The workmen were driven from the ground by the soldiers. This was in May 1839.
After much negotiating between State and Government officials, an agreement was reached in August, whereby the contractors could proceed, but Tracy McCracken, canal engineer, reported in December that no further work had been done by the contractors. John H. Goff, in his excellent “History of the St. Mary’s Falls Canal,” asks whether the contractors did not wish to legally abandon the work. The contract was taken at what appear to have been absurdly low figures.
The canal project remained in limbo until December 1839, when United States Senator Norvell, introduced in the Senate, a bill donating 100,000 acres of land to aid in the construction of a canal. The following year the Michigan Legislature asked Congress for a grant of lands. Henry Clay, Senator from Kentucky, and others opposed the bill, on the grounds that the population of the country surrounding the rapids was sparse, that the State of Michigan had comparatively few inhabitants, and that it was “in reality a work beyond the remotest settlement in the United States, if not in the moon.” It hardly seems possible, but Henry was considered a great statesman in his day.
Local Sentiment Opposed Canal
Local sentiment in Sault Ste. Marie did not favor a canal. Its operation apparently meant a loss of work and wages to many dwellers in the village.
An amended land grant bill passed the Senate in 1850, expedited by the Michigan Senators Cass and Felch, but it failed in the House.
The two Senators renewed their efforts in 1851, and this time they were aided by Senators and Congressmen from many other states. The need of the canal was becoming more and more apparent. The desired bill was finally passed by the House and Senate and approved by President Fillmore, on August 26th, 1852. It granted to the State of Michigan, the right of locating a canal at St. Mary’s Falls through the public lands known as the military reservation. It granted 750,000 acres of land to the State to enable it to construct the canal. It provided that the canal should be at least one hundred feet wide, twelve feet in depth, and that the locks should be at least two hundred and fifty feet long and sixty feet wide. It was considered a mighty poor bill in Sault Ste. Marie.
Meanwhile, the transportation of merchandise around the rapid was continued by the slow, laborious, and costly means of portaging. After the construction of the mill race, the portage was not so lengthy as before, of course, for the voyageurs used this race above the dam. The American Fur Company built a log warehouse at the head of the rapids in 1835, and in the same year, they built and launched nearby, the schooner John Jacob Astor, of 112 tons, the first American vessel of any size to sail on Lake Superior. Her first captain was Charles Stannard, and her second was his brother, Benjamin Stannard.
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