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



built so as to connect with this line.* It should be mentioned, how- 

 ever, that not long after the main line of Pennsylvania's public 

 works Avas completed it Avas connected with the Ohio and Erie 

 canal.f Thus two routes to the tide-waters of the East were available 

 for the shippers along the Ohio and Erie canal and its branches. 

 Although the route to Philadelphia \aa Pittsburg and Pennsyl- 

 vania's public Avorks was from 200 to 300 miles shorter than to K^cav 

 York via Lake Erie and the Erie canal, yet most of the traffic 

 going East took the latter route, Avhich was much easier and cheaper 

 than the former. J The advantage in distance gained by going 

 through Pennsylvania was more than offset by the broken character 

 of the transportation line.§ For through freight had to be trans- 

 shipped to overtop the Allegheny mountain, again at Hollidaysburg, 



* In 1832 the State of Ohio opened through her own territory two lines of 

 canals, — one from Portsmouth on the Ohio river to Cleveland, the other 

 from Cincinnati to Toledo. Of the products of the country adjacent to these 

 canals it may be said, in geiiieral, that breadstufTs sought their outlet through 

 the Erie canal, while provisions of all kinds went to market through New 

 Orleans. — See Poor, Manual of the Railroads of the United States, 1881, p. 

 xvii ; and Andrews, Report on Colonial and Lake Trade, p. 234. 



•j-The Sandy and Beaver canal connected the Ohio and Erie canal with the 

 Ohio river and the state works of Pennsylvania at Pittsburg. The Mahoning 

 canal also united the Pennsyh'ania and Ohio canals. It extended from 

 Akron to the confluence of the Mahoning and Beaver rivers, where it met 

 the Beaver division of the Pennsylvania canal. 



ij: See Andrews, Report on Colonial and Lake Trade, pp. 240 and 262 ; 

 Report of Canal Commissioners, Jan. 15t.h, 1842, in J. H. Rep., 1842, III, p. 

 42; and Hunt's Mer. Mag., XXIII, November, 1850, pp. 481) and 500. 



Until 1830 or 1840 the tonnage and value of the exports from the north- 

 west were small, the surplus products being largely consumed hy the growing 

 population. After this time the j-esources of the west were rapidly developed. 

 The total number of tons of commodities arriving at tide-water from the 

 western states via the Erie canal iiicrc.ised from 83,233 in 1838 to 1,213,690 

 in 1853. 



§ "The chain which was to bind Philadelphia with the west was not con- 

 tinuous and unbroken, composed of intermingling and welded links, but 

 severed, disjointed, fragmentary. It was an amphibious connection of land 

 and water, consisting of two railways separated by canal, and of two canals 

 separated by railway, — happily elucidating the defects peculiar to both modes 

 of transit, with the advantages of neither. This improvement being useless 

 as a competitor of tbe Erie canal, disappointed private hope in the benefits 

 promised, and pul)lic hope in the unprofitable burden imposed. The com- 

 monwealth, oppressed by her debt, and the citizens impoverished by their 

 losses, the western trade alienated and the foreign trade neglected and dimin- 

 ishing, Pennsylvania presented the reverse side of her early picture — one not 



