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The Farmington Canal
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Business New Haven
12/4/1995
By:
BNH
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The Farmington Canal lasted only 19 years, but had an enormous impact - positive and negative - on many businesses and investors in southern New England.
Named after the river that would supply its watery road bed, the canal's birth came about in part because people were seeking improved transportation systems to link the country with roads and waterways. Another motivating factor in the building of the canal was the longstanding jealousy of Hartford among New Haveners. Supporters of the new project hoped to divert business from that city and the Connecticut River that fed its growth.
The original proposal was to build an independent canal route from New Haven Harbor to central Massachusetts, and possibly Vermont and Canada beyond. In 1822, Connecticut granted a charter to the Farmington Canal Co. One year later Massachusetts granted a charter to the Hampshire & Hampden Canal Co. for an extension of the canal to Northampton, Mass.
It would be July 4, 1825 before Gov. Oliver Wolcott participated in the ground-breaking ceremony. The intervening years had been spent promoting the project, selling stock in both companies and dealing with disputes that arose even before construction commenced. James Hillhouse, a dedicated supporter of the canal, was elected president and superintendent of the project.
The original estimate to construct the canal was $420,698.88, excluding land damages. Some civic-minded landowners gave outright gifts of land to the canal; others tried to fight the project. There was never enough money, and contractors periodically stopped working on the canal while they waited for payments.
Meanwhile, lawsuits were piling up. While the canal was in operation, thousands of dollars in land damages were paid to compensate farmers for water damage to crops when the canal sprung a leak or to pay for oxen that ended up in the canal when bridges gave out.
The canal was in need of constant repair. Breaks in the canal could cost as much as $7,000 to remedy, exclusive of the lost revenue in tolls while the repairs were being made. Investors lost more and more money. New Haveners, who had purchased more stock in both canal companies than residents of any other town along the canal route, continued to try to keep the Farmington Canal Co. alive. Mechanics Bank was founded to help finance the canal by New Haven investors, who contributed $200,000. The City of New Haven lent the canal company $100,000 and James Hillhouse attempted, unsuccessfully, to secure a Federal grant of $155,000. In 1831 a second bank, City Bank of New Haven, was formed to help raise funds to resume construction of the last stretch of the waterway.
Contractors and sub-contractors were hired and iron, stone and lumber purchased. The canal was dug completely by hand using shovels and picks, with wheelbarrows and carts used to haul away the dirt. Laborers were often issued promissory notes rather than dollars by the cash-poor company, to be redeemed for cash when the company could afford to pay the men.
When the 86-mile canal was completed it measured 36 feet across on the water's surface, 20 feet across at the bottom and, because even fully laden the shallow-draft canal boats needed only a few feet of water to float, was only four feet deep. Twenty-eight locks were constructed to navigate the 292-foot rise in elevation between New Haven and Granby.
Although the canal opened for business in many towns in 1828, it wasn't completed to Northampton until 1835. Investors continued to worry that the project would be a financial bust. The Farmington and Hampshire & Hampden canal companies merged, to be known as the New Haven & Northampton Canal Co. Investors were right to worry about the ever-increasing expenses. In 1840 the City of New Haven agreed to pay $3,000 a year for use of canal water and relinquished its old mortgage, issuing a new loan of $20,000. Many of those hired for construction lost a great deal of money on the venture. For example, William Lanson, who built the canal basin wharf, lost approximately $2,600 on the endeavor.
For others, however, the advent of the canal had a positive impact. New businesses were spawned. Stores, mills and hotels sprang up long the canal route. The Tontine Hotel on Church Street became a favorite stopping-off place for canal travelers. Products transported by canal, such as lumber, dropped in price. It turned out that the canal's main beneficiaries were not its investors, but the businesses that utilized the canal.
During the 1840s, an infusion of loans permitted the company to operate more productively, but the pressure has already begun to convert the canal to a railroad right-of-way. After the close of the 1847 season, the canal closed for good. By 1848, trains were running from New Haven to Plainville, with the name of the company remaining the same (and with many of the same investors). The company eventually merged with the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad in 1887.
Although the canal has been history for nearly a century and a half, today the Farmington Rail-to-Trail Association is working to convert the route to a public trail for use by hikers and bikers - lending hope that the corridor may once again benefit its users.
- Priscilla Searles
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