THE HISTORY AND ECONOMIC VALUE OF CANALS. 41 



government surveys were those of Major Perrault of the Army, and of 

 Blake and Davis of the Navy. 



From Colonel Foster's survey of 1870 there followed the charter to 

 Russell Sturgis and C. H. Allen, and that of 1880 to the Cape Cod Canal 

 Company of which Mr. H. M. Whitney was President. The government 

 report of Colonel Warren made at this time contains the perfected survey 

 upon which the present plans are based. 



The Whitney Company having decided not to continue the work, the 

 charter fell into the hands of Messrs Lockwood, Quincy A. Shaw and others 

 who excavated over one million cubic yards near Sandwich, but were forced 

 in the early part of 1890 to make an assignment to Col. Thomas L. 

 Livermore. 



The Lockwood charter of 1883 was supplemented by a new one on 

 June I, 1899, and under it the present company is working, it having been 

 kept alive through the energies of DeWitt C. Flanagan, who had certain 

 amendments made in 1900, and from 1904 to 1909, together with Charles 

 M. Thompson of Sandwich, and others, endeavored to enlist financial 

 interest in the undertaking. 



IV. 



The results of heredity are nowhere more apparent than at Cape Cod. 

 They have forced the inhabitant to water pursuits and drawn the western 

 sons of New England back to the sea, both in body and in spirit. Many 

 instances could be given to prove this, and why the whole nation is again 

 looking seaward. Let us at least for a moment hark back to the story of 

 two men, one the pioneer of commerce in New England, the other the 

 ancestor of worthy descendants. 



The time is the year 1627, and that of the rigorous winter when the 

 Old Colony was threatened with starvation. The militant Miles Standish, 

 now on a pacific mission, was sailing his "shallops" toward the country 

 of the Shawmes; thence with his boats pulling up the Scusset River, a 

 distance of three miles, he took his crew to an elevation of only 29 feet 

 above the sea, and in the distance saw before him, anchored in the Manomet 

 River, a small flotilla. This was commanded by a man named Isaac de 

 Resieres from New Amsterdam. The Dutchmen had relieved the Pilgrims 

 from starvation and, "trading there in sugar, linen and other commodities," 

 the first commerce between New York and Boston began. From that day 

 to this it has been maintained and increased through the joint endeavor 

 of Massachusetts and her sons in the west and south. 



