The result to the farmers was a harder blow to bear. Real estate value shrank to less than was paid for land forty years before. Central New York was the great wheat-growing region of the state, but by the rapidly moving freight of the railways they were unable to compete with the western wheat. This lost crop was so nearly total that they ceased to grow enough for their own mills. It appears as though they ought to have had business foresight to realize the value of the lateral canals as coal carriers. It was for this purpose that these canals were built.
They awoke from their dream of small economy to find themselves in the grasp of the great octopus of the coal roads, which for thirty-five years has been growing more exacting and oppressive. Throughout this region these roads are not only drawing the coal, but by their own agents they are delivering it at the door of the consumer.
We have been laying this upon the farmer and the people directly interested in maintaining these canals, and justly. There never was a moment when the mass of voters in this republican stronghold could not have dominated the situation. It was the old time-worn adage of a fool and his folly. He has not the negative merit of holding his tongue after he has committed the error. Utica, which could have saved the Shenango Canal, petitioned the state engineer's office and the canal board for the rebuilding of the canal as a coal carrier only a year ago. It was a childish effort and they awoke from the calm repose to find that their fair city was simply reduced to a state of mind and the real Utica was the Lackawanna road.
Before the Erie Canal was a practical waterway the people were keenly alive to the value of the lakes as commercial waterways. The earliest steamboat navigation as a well-developed enterprise upon inland waters was opened in the New York lake region. Upon three of the lakes—Cayuga, Seneca and Keuka—steam navigation appeared in 1820. The people were roused to enthusiasm. The first boats made their landings amid the shouts of the multitude, volleys of musketry and salvos of cannon. Gradually the steamboat service was extended until in 1827 steamboats were a general thing upon the lakes. Many years previous to this sloop navigation was resorted to for both freight and passengers. The first began regular trading trips in 1795 and gradually this form of navigation was extended over all the lakes.
The Erie Canal found abundant supplies of freight and passengers waiting when it passed through this region of the lateral canals. As a method of commercial interchange they never paid; whatever we may think about the ethics of the state making money off the people's enterprise, there was no question about its rights as late as 1873. Neither was any money lost until the people followed like a flock
