Encyclopedia Dubuque
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Affiliated with the Local History Network of the State Historical Society of Iowa, and the Iowa Museum Association.
SHIP CANAL
SHIP CANAL. During the winter of 1863 a shipping canal convention was called at Des Moines, Iowa. The idea met with great interest in the states along the Upper MISSISSIPPI RIVER. The McGregor News stated that "a ship canal is absolutely necessary to develop the resources of Iowa and Minnesota." (1)
The legislatures of Iowa and Wisconsin endorsed the project of a canal around the upper and lower rapids on the Mississippi. (2) It was suggested that the development of the land west of the Mississippi would occur more quickly if transportation of materials and products could be improved. The canal was characterized as "pushing Lake Michigan up to the front of Iowa by which transportation to the lakes would be reduced one-third." The canal would, it was argued, break down monopolies for conveying products, have the potential to double the price of all agricultural land west of the Mississippi, add ten-fold to the value of all city property on the Mississippi, double the value of all east and west lines of railroad west of the Mississippi, and make Iowa and Minnesota first class manufacturing and commercial and well as agricultural centers. (3)
In a later editorial, the Herald suggested that farmland in Illinois and Wisconsin was 100% higher than in Iowa because these states bordered on the Great Lakes. This, the editorial continued, left them free from freight blockages and railroad monopolies. The paper suggested that if land values in Minnesota and Iowa only increased $2.50 per acre it would mean $200,000,000 to the two states. A report of a Mr. June, engineer of the Fox and Wisconsin River Improvement, provided an estimate that improvement of those rivers with canals and locks would cost $1,250,000. Improvements on the Upper Mississippi River would "lead to cities rivaling Cincinnati and Louisville on the Upper Mississippi." (4)
The PEOSTA HALL was tentatively scheduled for the meetings and the railroads were convinced to transport delegates to the canal convention for half price or free. The NORTHWESTERN PACKET COMPANY agreed to carry delegates for two-thirds rate if there were twenty people from the same town. A mass meeting of local citizens was scheduled for the DUBUQUE COUNTY COURTHOUSE to elect seventeen delegates to the Ship Canal Convention to be held in Dubuque on May 4, 1864. Benjamin Billings RICHARDS was the chairman. (5)
The Courthouse meeting began with three men---Platt SMITH, George Wallace JONES and Franklin HINDS---being asked to record recommendations for delegates. Their list included Julius K. GRAVES, Frederick Ezekiel BISSELL, John H. THEDINGA, Jesse P. FARLEY, Henry L. STOUT, George L. Mathews, Patrick QUIGLEY, John T. HANCOCK, E. A. Babbage, F. Hinds, William G. STEWART, H. Hoelscher, W. F. Sheffield, John Jackson, W. W. Hamilton, L. A. Thomas, and J. Hannibal EMERSON. Those on the list were approved. (6)
The convention was actually held in the Julien Theatre since the anticipated Peosta Hall was not finished. (7) An audience for the convention activities was encouraged as a means of showing those attending that Dubuque appreciated the importance of the meeting. (8)
The delegates met on May 4, 1864 and elected as officers: C. C. Cole (Des Moines), President; W. J. Abrams (Green Bay, Wisconsin), Vice-President; W. J. Gilchrist (McGregor), Vice-President; D. Leffingwell (McGregor) and Charles Aldrich (Dubuque), secretaries. In his remarks to the delegates, President Cole assured the group that it was not being asked to build the canal between the Mississippi and the Great Lakes--only to show it could be done and with what benefits. (9)
L. A. Thomas proposed that a committee of nine be appointed to prepare work for the resolutions committee and to "draw up a memorial" to Congress. The motion was carried and B. B. Richards and L. A. Thomas were appointed. (10)
W. J. Abrams of Green Bay spoke to the delegates on the improvements that had been made to the Fox and Wisconsin rivers. He claimed to have it on the best authority that boats could be moved all the way from Green Bay, Wisconsin to the Mississippi if they drew no more than 3.5 feet of water (compare to the nine-foot navigation in the modern Mississippi River--ed. note). (11)
Resolutions written on the first day were presented on May 5th. These included: (12)
Resolved, That while we would rejoice to see the
construction of a Ship Canal from LaSalle to the
Mississippi River, if cheap and practicable, if
not a canal terminating at the mouth of the
Illinois River,--our duty to the great bread
providing State of the Northwest will demand that
we permanently urge on Congress an appropriation
for the enlargement of the Fox and Wisconsin River
Improvements as being eminently cheap and practicable,
necessary for military purposes, and to afford
facilities for the cheap transportation of the
Northwest to an Atlantic and European market
Resolved, That the improvement of the upper and
lower rapids of the Mississippi by canal, is a
proper counterpart and complement of a canal to
the Lakes, is necessary to give full value to the
latter work, and is imperatively demanded by the
highest considerations of public policy and for
the food of the whole nation.
Resolved, That this convention would most
respectfully by earnestly recommend to the people
of the whole country, and more especially of the
Upper Mississippi Valley, that the adopt the fore-
going system of improvements as a national policy,
and insist on all occasions that their members of
Congress shall receive and adopt it as their
programme (sic) upon which to base all their actions
on the subject of internal improvements of a national
character.
Resolved, That while the present crisis in our national
history we would approve and urge the most rigid
economy in the administration of public affairs, both as
a natter of wisdom in the State and of justice to the
over-burdened tax payers, we would nevertheless recommend
the measure above named a liberal appropriation from the
public treasury, believing that liberality in this
direction is true economy, that the food producers of the
nation are its most efficient and essential army, and that
strength and encouragement of them, increase in the area
of cultivation, invitation to foreign emigration and
settlement to take the place of the noble men who, from a
sense of public duty, have gone at the call of the State,
are the surest means to strengthen the national arm and
procure national success.
Resolved, That this convention would further recommend
that hereafter in all elections canvasses, candidates
for office and other addressing the people on national
questions, should also discuss these measures as of
paramount importance to the whole country.
Resolved, This convention would respectfully but
earnestly urge upon the people of the whole Mississippi
Valley that they should exact from their Senators and
Representatives in Congress an unconditional pledge
that whilst they will adopt a wise and liberal policy
towards all works of international improvements of a
national character and importance, they should at the
same time make it an indispensable condition of their
of such measures, that the construction of the proposed
canal to the lakes and the canal around the upper and
lower rapids of the Mississippi River, shall be a part
and parval (sic) of such public works.
Resolved, That a copy of this report, preamble and
resolutions signed by the President and Secretary of
this convention, to be sent to each member of Congress,
with an urgent request that he give to these great
national measures his cordial and earnest support.
Resolved, That there be appointed an executive committee
of nine, three of whom shall reside in Dubuque, whose
duty it shall be to take measures to have the
proceedings of this convention laid before Congress at
the earliest practical period, and that said committee
shall adopt all such measures as may be necessary to
carry out the objects and purposes of this conventions.
Some discussion followed about the relative merit of the northern (Fox and Wisconsin) or the southern (Illinois River) routes. B. B. Richards stated that what remained was to write a memorial to the next session of Congress laying out the merits of both routes. Congress could then choose between them--or elect to construct both. (13) F. E. Bissell, however, questioned whether any chance existed for two routes and that it was better to focus on the best solution. The following resolution was proposed for the committee writing the memorial: (14)
That the committee be instructed to request the Senators
and the House of Representatives of the states of Iowa,
Minnesota, and Wisconsin at Washington to act in concert
with each other to obtain an appropriation from Congress
for the survey of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers with the
view of making it a ship canal, and said survey to be made
under instruction of the Secretary of War and the
Secretary of the Navy.
Before the convention adjourned a finance committee and executive committee were named. (15)
The Dubuque convention's work was hardly the only activities involving work on Mississippi River. Even before the May meeting in Dubuque, another idea involving Iowa was presented to the House of Representatives. (16)
Mr. GRIMES, of Iowa, (Union,) presented the
memorial of Alanson Penfield, Clerk in the
Treasury Department, praying for the construction
of reservoirs for supplying the Upper Mississippi
with a medium stage of water for navigation through-
out the dry summer months, and a canal from the head
of Lake Superior to the Red River of the North, via
Sandy Lake, a distance of forty miles; thence via
Crow Wing, Leaf River and Ottartal (Otter Tail?) Lake
to Breckinridge, a total distance of 240 miles; thus
opening navigation by the Red River and Saskatchawan
for 2,000 miles, to the base of the Rocky Mountains,
and furnishing an outlet to the Hudson Bay region.
This would require an improvement 43 miles less than
the Fox and Wisconsin River canal route, and 80 miles
shorter than the Illinois and Mississippi Canal.
Conflicting interests quickly clouded the prospects of the Dubuque convention realizing a canal. From June 2-4, 1863 the National Ship Canal Convention met in Chicago with five thousand delegates in a huge tent structure in Lake Park on the shore of Lake Michigan. Resolutions called for the immediate improvement of canals in Illinois and New York to facilitate ship traffic around the Great Lakes and the Mississippi for both commercial and military purposes. Opposition in Congress and from interests in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and parts of the Midwest meant much discussion over the next months, but little accomplishment. (17)
It was almost immediately after the May convention that a September meeting of members of Congress from Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Illinois, and Wisconsin was suggested for Portage City, Wisconsin. The goal of the meeting was to demonstrate the navigability of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers. (18)
The discussion of canals v. river traffic was part of The Navigation of the Lakes written in 1866 by Edwin F. Johnson, civil engineer.
The construction of canals becomes an object only
in cases where they are large extents or lines of
natural navigation to be united...Having the Great
Lakes on one side and the Mississippi with its
tributaries on the other, their construction is
indispensable. (19)
Johnson's explanation of the topic, however, raised more questions. Johnson, the engineer, noted among many issues that river boats while requiring less than four feet of water were built broad and long. This made them incompatible with present canals. (20) He anticipated the need to make the Illinois River flow in reverse. (21) This, however, was not accomplished until the construction of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal between 1887-1922. He also found sections of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers were impassable as they existed. Johnson recognized that the problems he was presenting made railroad development superior. (22)
Improving transportation came later with the development of roads, railroads, and the system of LOCKS along the Mississippi that flooded obstacles such as the rapids at Keokuk.
---
Source:
1. "The Ship Canal Convention," Dubuque Democratic Herald, April 22, 1864, p. 4, Online: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=A36e8EsbUSoC&dat=18640422&printsec=frontpage&hl=en
2. "The Ship Canal," Dubuque Democratic Herald, April 24, 1864, p. 4, Online: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=A36e8EsbUSoC&dat=18640424&printsec=frontpage&hl=en
3. Ibid.
4. "The Ship Canal--Its Need and Advantages," Dubuque Democratic Herald, April 26, 1864, p. 4. Online: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=A36e8EsbUSoC&dat=18640426&printsec=frontpage&hl=en
5. "The Canal Convention," Dubuque Democratic Herald, April 27, 1864, p. 4. Online: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=A36e8EsbUSoC&dat=18640427&printsec=frontpage&hl=en
6. "The Ship Canal Convention," Dubuque Democratic Herald, April 29, 1864, p. 4. Online: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=A36e8EsbUSoC&dat=18640429&printsec=frontpage&hl=en
7. "The Canal Convention," Dubuque Democratic Herald, April 30, 1864, p. 4. Online: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=A36e8EsbUSoC&dat=18640430&printsec=frontpage&hl=en
8. "The Convention," Dubuque Democratic Herald, May 4, 1864, p. 4. Online: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=A36e8EsbUSoC&dat=18640428&printsec=frontpage&hl=en
9. "The Canal Convention-Its Permanent Organization," Dubuque Democratic Herald, May 5, 1864, p. 1, Online: p. https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=A36e8EsbUSoC&dat=18640505&printsec=frontpage&hl=en
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. "The Canal Convention--Proceedings of the Second Day," Dubuque Democratic Herald, May 6, 1864, p. 1. Online: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=A36e8EsbUSoC&dat=18640506&printsec=frontpage&hl=en
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. "Proceedings of Congress,; Senate. Navigation of the Mississippi. House of Representatives." New York Times, April 29, 1864. Online: http://www.nytimes.com/1864/04/30/news/proceedings-congress-senate-navigation-mississippi-house-representatives.html
17. "The National Ship Canal Convention Assembles in Chicago with Vice-President Hamlin in the Chair," House Divided, Online: http://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/39764
18. "Another Convention." Dubuque Democratic Herald, May 7, 1864, p. 4. Online: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=A36e8EsbUSoC&dat=18640507&printsec=frontpage&hl=en
19. Johnson, Edwin F. The Navigation of the Lakes, Hartford: Press of Case, Lockwood and Company, 1866, p. 36
20. Ibid., p. 35
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid., p. 36