182 A. L. Bishop — The State Works of Pennsylvania. 



character. The Miners' Journal* of Pottsville, Schuylkill county, 

 was perhaps the most pronounced and hitter in its criticisms. It 

 ■was urged that a portion of the state would he injured by the 

 improvements that were in contemplation, and that superabundant 

 advantages would accrue to Philadelphia at the expense of the 

 country districts. These and other objections were due largely 

 to sectional jealousies and local interests prevailing to a greater 

 or less degree in various parts of the state. Among the criticisms 

 offered at this time, however, were some that proved to be nothing 

 short of sound judgment. Moreover they showed, at least to 

 unprejudiced minds, that there were really two sides to the canal 

 project. The following article from the Erie Gazette, written 

 when the popular movement was nearly at its height, is typical of 

 a feeling shared by a conservative element in various parts of the 

 state : — 



"The advocates of a grand canal in this state have, in taking the 

 N'ew York canal as the basis of their calculations, entirely over- 

 looked its peculiar advantages. The Clinton canal (it may with 

 propriety be so named) traverses a country so level that the amount 

 of its lockage does not much exceed the height of Lake Erie above 

 tide water — passes at right angles to the course of numerous rivers 

 that flow from the south, is consequently easily and abundantly 

 supplied with water — possesses along its whole extent a fine wheat 

 country — terminates in Lake Erie, and thus connects an immense 

 inland navigation with the ocean at the city of N'ew York, the 

 commercial depot of America. A canal through Pennsylvania 

 would have nothing in common with this, excepting its termina- 

 tion in Lake Erie. How far it might compete with others for the 



* "If the proposed improvement be m.ade at the expense of the state, each 

 and every county must and will bear their equal proportion of the expense, 

 the benefit of which will be received entirely by the city and county of Phila- 

 delphia, and those counties through which the improvement will pass. Hence 

 the counties removed from the line of communication ^^^ll be paying for an 

 -improvement from which they will not only receive no benefit whatever, but 

 by which they will be very materially injured, unless measures are taken to 

 prevent it." 



"All that the city cares for, is to get the proposed improvements made, 

 and that at the expense of the State; when these are accomplished the 

 counties may get Avhat they can . . . The country has nothing to expect 

 from the liberality of the city; the latter will get all they can and then be 

 the first to oppose every measure calculated to promote the interests of the 

 former." — See letter signed "T'rindley" in the United States Gazette of Jime 

 3d, 1825, which contains quotations from the Miners' Journal. See also same 

 paper for June 7th, 1825. 



