This 1835 letter is from Eli Baldwin (1777-1841), a prominent citizen and Ohio governor-hopeful, to the current Governor Robert Lucas and Senator Leicester King.
Eli Baldwin had extensive experience as a Justice of Peace, a farmer, and surveyor for the Connecticut Land Company. He was an early inhabitant of Boardman, Ohio, and was involved in its administration and interests, including nearby construction of a canal. It is on this topic that he writes this letter.
During the 1800s, canals became key to connecting inland waterways. The Pennsylvania and Ohio Canal (the P and O) connected the Erie Canal in Ohio to the Beaver and Erie Canal in Pennsylvania. It opened a significant shipping route to the western Great Lakes, creating a shortcut that was more controlled and efficient for transportation. The natural waterways, particularly the Ohio River, could become unnavigable seasonally. Previously, boats had longer routes available, including down the East Coast and around New Orleans and up the Mississippi to avoid the difficult, circuitous travel on smaller waterways or land travel. Having a shortcut made market connections to the Midwest interior more profitable and efficient.
In this letter, while Eli Baldwin states his support for the O and P Canal, he also shares his misgivings with the project. In 1833, delegates decided to privately fund the canal due to issues securing funding from either state government in part due to divisive rhetoric and thinking. Even so, Baldwin saw the ownership of the canal by a private stock company risky to Ohio’s interests.
The following are excerpts from Baldwin’s letter:
[Note: spelling, capitalization, replacement of the letter ſ, and punctuation have been changed for clarity.]
“Sir, were not the subject on which I am about to communicate to you my views in my
opinion of vital importance to the State of Ohio, I would not trouble you on the subject…. Now the question is will the State so far forget its duty and forgo its true interests and abandon but of the most profitable sources of revenue that it can ever again lay its hands on as to give this route into the hands of any stock company whatever….[It] maybe be inferred that [the route] will open to the choice of the inhabitants along the whole valleys of the Miami, Maumee & Wabash Rivers by the northern route a choice of the foremost important market in America to wit Montreal, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore instead of the one they now resort to by the Ohio River viz New Orleans…. These are interesting questions of the first magnitude to be answered, questions in which the interest of men of all parties and pursuits are involved and in which the interest of the millions yet unborn are considered as well as the people of the present time.”
The expansion of railroads and more direct canals eventually made the P and O obsolete. It closed officially in 1869 in disrepair. The route was covered by railroad tracks and filled with dirt to be buried under roads and buildings. While the canal was short-lived, it provided a vital link between markets and helped grow the economies of small towns including Cleveland as a major port.
For those interested in learning more about Eli Baldwin and Western Reserve, please see the Western Reserve Historical Society of the Cleveland History Center, Cleveland, Ohio.
