Canal extension linked area to new markets

By Hal Johnson
Herald Writer

Isolated communities grew up around grist mills. Farms produced wheat and mines yielded coal, but the products didn’t go much farther than the borders of Mercer County.

That was before the Erie Extension Canal linked the Shenango Valley, Lake Erie and the Ohio River. After the canal, new markets opened for coal, iron ore, and wheat and the growth led to the introduction of blast furnaces in the Shenango Valley.

Information found at the Mercer County Historical Society says Shenango Valley businessmen heavily lobbied the state Legislature to put the canal link between the Ohio River and Lake Erie through Mercer County.

They won. In 1831-32, the Legislature resolved to join the Ohio River with Lake Erie and the governor appropriated a total of $1.3 million. Construction got under way before a rival route through the Mahoning Valley had a chance to get started.

Work began on the canal in two parts — the southern Beaver Division and the northern Shenango Division. The construction peaked in 1842, but costs exceeded estimates. A huge debt and political bickering over squandering brought the project to a halt.

The Erie Extension Canal was privatized when the Erie Canal Co., headed by Rufus S. Reed, bought the project from the state in 1842. The project was completed the next year.

In 1845, a ton of goods could be shipped from Pittsburgh to New York City for $3.70. The Erie Canal Co. did all right for itself, averaging $80,000 a year in tolls.

So did Mercer County. The Canal boom towns of Big Bend, Clarksville, and New Hamburg grew up along the canal’s route along the Shenango River. Canal transportation opened markets for coal mines around Sharon and Greenville.

During the 1840s and 1850s, prices local mines got for their coal rose from $2 per ton to $3 per ton.

The expanded markets beyond Mercer County’s borders and the availability of iron ore resulted in a growing number of blast furnaces near Greenville, in Jefferson Township, in Clarksville and in Leesburg.

The canal also opened up tourism. A passenger could travel at a speed of two miles an hour from New Castle to Erie for $4.50, including meals.

Even as the canal was in its heyday, the railroad was making inroads. Erie and Pittsburgh Rail Co. was beginning to lay down tracks in the 1850s and in the Shenango Valley in the 1860s.

Faced with competition from the more efficient railroad, Erie Canal Co. began revitalizing the canal to make it able to carry bigger boats. Erie and Pittsburgh Rail Co. thwarted the effort by buying the majority of stock from Charles Reed, the son of the Erie Canal Co.’s first president. By 1871, the canal was abandoned.

Sitting on the board of directors of the Erie and Pittsburgh Rail Co. was Charles Reed.

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