WHM- The Blackstone Canal - Story of the Canal

Highway of Commerce: The Blackstone Canal
Industrial Worcester

Quotes related to the Story of the Canal

"It is calculated that the expense of transporting on a Canal, exclusive of tolls, amounts to ONE CENT a ton, per mile, or one dollar a ton for one hundred miles, while the usual cost of conveyance by land is one dollar and twenty-five cents per hundred weight, or twenty-five dollars a ton for the same distance. . . . A loaded boat can be towed by one or two horses at the rate of twenty-five or thirty miles a day. . . . Canals enable the Farmer, the Mechanic, and the Merchant to convey their commodities to market, and to receive a return at least twenty-four times cheaper than by roads.

Canals are advantageous to towns and villages, and to the whole country, by increasing population, augmenting individual and aggregate wealth, and extending foreign commerce.

Those who have most carefully and deliberately examined the subject would almost consider it heresy to doubt it, so manifest are the advantages and so obvious the importance to a large and fertile section of the country, whose prosperity probably experiences a severer check from the high charges for transportation on tonnage than from any other single cause."

-Excerpted from Benjamin Wright,
An Account of the Proposed Canal from Worcester to Providence (1822)

Worcester's response to the General Court's Canal Circular, c. 1822, intended to measure the impact of a proposed canal on inland trade.

"Have ship lumber, an inexhaustable quantity of building stone and anthracite to exchange for large additional supplies of cotton goods, lime, plaister, etc."

-Worcester County Papers,
Folder 3,
"Imports and Exports," Manuscript Collection,
American Antiquarian Society

"We are much pleased with your account of the opening of the Canal. It must be a source of congratulation to your citizens to have so useful a medium of intercourse with Providence. A sail down there would be a pleasant thing in the way of variety."

-Sophia Tukerman to Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury,
Boston,
October 13, 1828,
Salisbury Family Papers,
manuscript collection,
American Antiquarian Society

THE LADY CARRINGTON

"What mean those guns, and that tremendous shout?
The town it would seem by demons is assailed;
What can this fuss and fluster be about?
Has Adams or the Jacksonites prevailed?

"The boat's arrived!" the children in the street
Exclaim, partaking of the general fright;
"The boat's arrived," from every quarter greet
Our ears while pressing forward to the sight.

Where are thy wheels, or hast though none to show?
Thy runners then, or what is thy machine?
The water in our little "ditch" we know
Can boast great things, but never have we seen

So large a car by tandem drawn along
On wheels or sled with such apparent ease;
And then the multitude thy quarters throng!
How canst thou them contain, tell if thou please.

She comes! The "Lady Carrington" appears
In letters on her stern; tis then the boat,
The long expected visitant; for years
The promised guest in our canal to float.

We bid thee welcome, welcome to "the heart,"
The bone and sinew of this Commonwealth;
In cups of sparkling wine, before we part,
We'll drink to thee and thy successors' health."

-Massachusetts Spy,
October 8, 1828

"At length this work, so interesting to the people of Worcester and the vicinity, and so important to the prosperity of the valley of the Blackstone is accomplished. Some portions of the Canal may yet need perfecting; but the enterprise is achieved. On Tuesday [7 October] the first Boat from Providence, the "Lady Carrington," reached the head of the Canal near Thomas Street, and was welcomed by load and animated manifestations of joy - by the cheers of assembled people, the peal of cannon, and the ringing of bells."

-Massachusetts Yeoman,
October 11, 1828

Nine years to the month after the Irish first arrived; many still lived in the shantytown, though others had moved into tenement houses. By the time this young diarist made her observation, the men were at work on the railroads.

"On Saturday morning last at six o'clock I stepped into Aunt Perkins' barouche and bade adieu to the dear friends I have loved so much and so well. We passed by the shantys of the Irishmen at work on the railroad and more miserable hovels I never saw. No opening or window, save the door, a barrel answering the purpose of a chimney. The sides of the house had sods upon them, yet it is said that they are better off than in Ireland, because here they can get food."

- Jenny Trumbull,
June 10, 1835 diary entry,
Trumbull Family Papers,
manuscript collection,
American Antiquarian Society

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