COMMERCE OF THE LAKES. Extract from the Annual Report of the Trade and Commerce of Buffalo, FOR THE YEAR 1862. "IN presenting to the public our Annual Review of the Trade and Commerce of Buffalo, for the year 1862, it will not be inappropriate to revert to the past to show the rise and progress, the extent and growth of the commerce of these vast Inland Seas.' "When in the year 1679, the Chevalier de La Salle obtained permission of the Seneca Indians to build a vessel at Cayuga Creek, six miles above Niagara Falls, which was launched in 1679, and was the first vessel moved with sails upon the waters of Lake Erie, every portion of the great West was covered with its ancient forests. The echoing axe had never rung through their solitudes, and the battle for mastery was yet undecided between the wild beast and his wild foe the savage hunter. The three guns which were fired when the 'GRIFFIN' was launched, were, probably, the first sounds of gunpowder that ever broke upon the stillness of this vast region. The wondering Senecas heard in them the thunders, and saw the lightnings of heaven. The white man was equally an object of admiration and fear. "The arts of navigation, at this period, upon this great inland sea, were confined to the bark canoe and the rude paddle with which it was propelled. Never before had the canvas here opened itself to the wind. The voyage of La Salle was an era in the history of this portion of the world. The immense fur trade with the natives at the extremities of these lakes, which was carried on first by the French and afterward by the English, was then almost entirely unknown. It was but the year before the sites of the first tradinghouses had been selected. La Salle set sail from the foot of Lake Erie, on the 7th day of August, 1679, with a crew of thirty men, and arrived at Mackinac on the 28th day of that month. The first cargo of furs was put on board the Griffin, and she was ordered by La Salle to return with a crew of six men to Niagara. But a storm was encountered, and the vessel and cargo, valued at fifty to sixty thousand francs, with all on board, was lost. Thus was made the first great sacrifice of life and property to the commerce of Lake Erie. "Since that period the changes that have been wrought in the country bordering upon and lying beyond these lakes, surpass the dreams of enchantment. Enterprise and energy have penetrated those vast solitudes; the beasts of prey have slunk back into the deep fastnesses of the woods, the native tribes have vanished away like their own majestic forests, and the white man following fast upon their rustling footsteps, has subdued the wilderness to the forms of civilization. "The country from which the furs were gathered at the trading posts at Niagara, Detroit, and Mackinac, including a large portion of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, now contains a population of 6,926,874. Since the day when La Salle first opened, as it were, to future generations the great highway upon the waters of Lakes Erie and Huron, the progenitors of this mighty multitude have been borne upon its waves by favoring winds; and innumerable little bands gaining the mouth of some fair river, have thence radiated over the wide-spread domain from which their descendants are now pouring down upon the trusting bosom of the lake, the abundant products of an almost inexhaustible fertility. gration to the West, if any had before existed, must have ceased, there cannot be said to have been any commerce on the lakes. "In March, 1791, Col. Thomas Proctor visited the Senecas of Buffalo Creek, and | from him the first authentic notice of Buffalo is given. He mentions a storehouse kept by an Indian trader named Winne, at Lake Erie. "In June, 1795, a French nobleman, named La Rochefoucauld Liancourt, visited Buffalo and the neighboring Indian villages. At this place there were then but few houses. He mentions an Inn where he was obliged to sleep on the floor in his clothes. "Great as has been the change since the country was first explored, it has al- "In August, 1795, Judge Porter, acmost wholly taken place since the year companied by Judah Colt, went to Presque 1800. The population of Ohio in that year Isle, now Erie, through Buffalo. Judge was only 45,365; and that was the only Porter makes mention that one Johnson, State, with the exception of New York the British Indian interpreter, Winne, the and Pennsylvania, of all those bordering trader, and Middaugh, a Dutchman, with upon the great lakes, which contained any his family, lived at Buffalo.' The only considerable settlements, or in which any road between Buffalo and Avon, in the enumeration of the people was taken. year 1797, was an Indian trail, and the Even Ohio was not then admitted into only house on this trail was one, about the Union; and the commercial advantage one and one-half miles east of the present of Lake Erie were scarcely begun to be village of Le Roy, occupied by a Mr. developed till twenty-five years afterward. Wilder. As late as 1812 the roads were The first vessel bearing the American flag next to impassable, and to obtain supplies upon Lake Erie was the sloop Detroit, of from Albany, trade was carried on by a seventy tons, which was purchased of the circuitous route, 'through the Niagara Northwest Fur Company, by the General river to Schlosser, thence by portage to Government, in 1796. She was, however, Lewiston, thence by water to Oswego and soon condemned as unseaworthy, and up the Oswego River, through the Oneida abandoned. Up to the time of the decla- Lake and Wood Creek, and across a short ration of war in 1812, the whole number portage to the Mohawk River, thence by of vessels of all descriptions on these that river and around the portage of Little lakes, did not exceed twelve, and these Falls to Schenectady-and thence over the were employed either in the fur trade, or arid pine plains to Albany.' The late in transporting to the West such goods Judge Townsend and George Coit, Esq., and merchandise as were required for the came to Buffalo as traders, in 1811 by this scattered population that had found their route, bringing about twenty tons of merway there. A few vessels were built dur-chandise from Albany at a cost of fifty ing the war, but, probably, as many or dollars a ton. At this time there were more were destroyed. And during the less than one hundred dwellings here, and three years of its continuance, as all emi- the population did not exceed five hun dred. The mouth of Buffalo Creek was then obstructed by a sand-bar, frequently preventing the entrance of small vessels, and even frail Indian bark canoes were frequently shut out, and footmen walked across its mouth on dry land. Vessels then received and discharged their cargoes at Bird Island wharf, near Black Rock. To remedy the obstructions in the creek by the sand-bar at its outlet into the lake, it was proposed, in the year 1811, to run a pier into the lake, but nothing of moment was done till the spring of 1820, when a subscription was raised, by the then villagers of Buffalo, amounting to $1,361. The late Hon. Samuel Wilkson was the originator and projector of this movement, and temporary improvements were made which carried away the obstructing sandbar. In 1822 the village in its corporate capacity paid John T. Lacy for building a mud-scow for working in the harbor $534. The first corporate notice of the harbor was made in the latter year. Buffalo was incorporated as a village in April, 1813, and as a city on 20th of April, 1832. "Melish says, 'the population by the last census was 365, and it was computed in 1811 at 500, and is rapidly increasing.' In 1825 the population was 2,412; in 1830, 8,668; in 1835, 15,661; in 1840, 18,213; in 1845, 29,973; in 1850, 42,261; in 1860, 81,129; and at the end of the year 1862 the population is estimated at over 100,000. In 1817 the taxable property of the village was $134,400, and on this valuation an assessment of $400 was made during that year. The valuation of the real and personal property of the city in 1862 is $30,911,014. "The population and valuation of property, the harbor and harbor improvements, the manufactures and commerce, the canal, railway, and water connections by lake with other portions of the country, the population and productions of the West and Northwest, the large lake, canal, and railway facilities for transportation at the present time, when compared with what they were fifty years ago, ‘are marvellous in our eyes,' and if some far-seeing mind, a half century since, had prophesied results of such vast magnitude, he would have been denominated an idle dreamer, and a fit subject for a lunatic asylum. "The States and Territories bordering on, and tributary to the great lake basin that had fifty years ago but a few thousand population, have now nearly seven millions, which will soon be augmented by the natural increase and by immigration to thirty millions, and Buffalo with its 500 inhabitants in 1811, 81,000 in 1860, will have a population of three or four hundred thousand before the present century shall have passed away. Within the limits of these lake States, where, less than forty years ago, there were neither canals nor railways, there are now 14,484 miles of railway, and 3,345 miles of navigable canals, of which latter about 760 miles are slack-water navigation. "The whole West and Northwest is now traversed by a net-work of railways, with important canal connections between the different States, where there was a sparsely populated, almost interminable forest or uninhabited prairie. In this march of improvement, making more intimate the social and commercial relations of these widely separated sections of the country, the Empire State has nobly led the way. The far-seeing mind of her honored son, Governor Clinton, projected the Erie Canal, which was completed in 1825, uniting the waters of the Hudson with the lakes. A brighter day then dawned upon the West, the population was rapidly augmented, which was soon succeeded by largely increased agricultural productions that gave new life to commerce. The era of railways was commenced in about the year 1830. "With these largely increased rail facilities, and the capacity of the New York canals nearly quadrupled, the augmenting facilities do not keep pace with the rapid- tion of a canal through the State of New ly augmenting population and largely in- York, that now has a prism forty-five feet creased production. Improved channels at the bottom and seventy feet at the top, of communication, both by rail and water, with seven feet of water, with locks 18 must be made, to enable the producer at feet 6 inches wide by 100 feet long. the West to get his products more cheap- There is also a canal one hundred miles ly to market. A country vast in extent, long connecting the Illinois river with bordering upon the upper Mississippi, the lake Michigan at Chicago, and slack water Ohio, Cumberland, Tennessee, Arkansas, navigation connecting Green Bay, WisconRed, and Missouri rivers and their tribu- sin, with the Mississippi river. By the taries, and the Red river of the North, construction of a ship canal about threetraversed by more than twenty thousand fourths of a mile in length, from Big miles of navigable waters, will soon be Stone Lake to Lake Traver in Minnesota, densely peopled; new States to the west steamboats from St. Paul could navigate of those already admitted will soon knock both the Minnesota river and the Red for admission into the Union; the supera-river of the North to Lake Winnepeg, a bundant products of an almost inexhaustible fertility will be pouring over the lakes and railways, and through the rivers and canals, imparting activity to trade, giving life, strength and vital energy to the largely augmenting commerce of the West. As the star of empire westward wends its way, widening the distance from the great sea-board marts of trade, the prospective wants and increased productions of scores of millions of people will from necessity create cheaper and more expeditious facilities for the transportation of their surplus products to market. There is no country on the face of the globe that has so many natural advantages for a large and extended internal trade as the great West and Northwest. distance of seven hundred miles. The country traversed by these rivers is surpassingly fertile and capable of sustaining a dense population. Lake Winnepeg is larger than Lake Ontario, and receives the Sas-katch-e-wan river from the West. The Sas-katch-e-wan river is navigable to a point (Edmonton House) near the Rocky Mountains, seven hundred miles west of Lake Winnepeg, and only 150 miles east of the celebrated gold diggings on Frazer river in British Columbia. The digging of that one mile of canal, would, there- . fore, enable a steamboat at New Orleans to pass into Lake Winnepeg and from thence to Edmonton House, some 5,000 miles. A move has already been made for constructing this short canal, By en"The great basin east of the Rocky larging the Illinois and Michigan canal Mountains is drained by the Mississippi and improving the navigation of the Illiand Missouri Rivers and their tributaries, nois river, and improving and completing and their waters find an outlet in the the slack water navigation of the Fox Gulf of Mexico. The great lakes, having river in Wisconsin, connecting Green Bay an area equal to one twenty-fifth part of with the Mississippi river, and still furthe Atlantic Ocean, are drained by the ther enlarging the main trunk of the New river St. Lawrence, and find an outlet in York canals, steamers could be passed the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The construc- from New York or the Gulf of St. Lawtion of a few miles of canal makes a nav-rence, either through the canals of New igable connection from the ocean to the great chain of lakes. These natural advantages have been improved to some extent in the United States by the construc York or Canada into the great lakes, and miles. The cereal product of the States bordering on and tributary to the lakes was 267,295,877 bushels in 1840; 434,862,661 bushels in 1850, against 679,031,559 bushels in 1860, and the population of these States has kept pace with their cereal products, being 6,259,345 in 1840; 9,178,003 in 1850, against 13,355,093 in 1860, an increase of nearly fifty per cent. in population and cercal products in each decade. If the same rate per cent. of increase in population and cereal products shall be continued, these States in 1870 will have a population of 20,032,639, with a cereal product of 1,008,557,338 bushels; in 1880, a population of 30,048,958, with a cereal product of 1,512,821,000 bushels; in 1890, a population of 55,073,437, with a cereal product of 2,269,231,510 bushels, and in 1900 a population of 67,610,155, with a cereal product of 3,403,847,265. "The grain trade of Buffalo for a series of years, given in this report, has already reached upwards of 72,000,000 bushels for the year 1862. If a crop of 680,000,000 of bushels of cereal products, gives Buffalo 72,000,000 of bushels of that crop; in the year 1900, with a crop of 3,403,847,265 bushels of cereal products, the grain trade of Buffalo will be upward of 360,000,000 of bushels. The calculations of the forty years of the future are based on the actual results of the last thirty years. The year 1870 will give to Buffalo a grain trade of upwards of 107,000,000 of bushels, and if there shall be a proportionate increase in the grain trade of Oswego, the present capacity of the New York canals will be entirely inadequate to pass through them this large amount of grain in addition to the large increase in the tonnage of other commodities, saying nothing of the capacity that will be required for the augmented business in 1880, 1890, and 1900." The First Steamboat on Lake Erie. The Detroit Tribune furnishes some interesting extracts on this subject, taken from the files of the Detroit Gazette, of 1818. We select the following description of the reception of this monster of the great deep by the “Wolverines” of that day. "AUGUST 26, 1818:-Yesterday, between the hours of 10 and 11 A. M., the elegant steamboat Walk-in-the- Water, Capt. J. Fish, arrived.-As she passed the public wharf, and that owned by Mr. J. S. Roby, she was cheered by hundreds of the inhabitants, who had collected to witness this (in these waters) truly novel and grand spectacle. She came to at Wing's wharf. She left Buffalo at half-past 1 o'clock on the 23d, and arrived off Dunkirk at 35 minutes past 6 on the same day. On the next morning she arrived at Erie, Capt. Fish having reduced her steam during the night, in order not to pass that place, where she took in a supply of wood. At half-past 7 P. M. she left Erie, and came to at Cleveland at 11 o'clock. On Friday, at 20 minutes past 6 o'clock, P. M., sailed and arrived off Sandusky Bay at 1 o'clock on Wednesday; lay at anchor during the night, and then proceeded to Venice to wood; left Venice at 3 P. M., and arrived at the mouth of the Detroit River, where she anchored during the night-the whole time employed in sailing, in this first voyage from Buffalo to this, being about 44 hours and 10 minutes; the wind ahead during nearly the whole passage. Not the slightest accident happened during the voyage, and all our machinery worked admirably. "Nothing could exceed the surprise of the sons of the forest on seeing the Walkin-the-Water moving majestically and rapidly against a strong current, without the assistance of sails or oars. They lined the banks near Malden, and expressed |
