CHAPTER IV.

INTERNAL TRADE AND THE TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM.

In the absence of a non-agricultural population centered in manufacturing towns and cities, the internal trade of a country must perforce be limited to the exchange of goods between the agricultural regions in the back-country and the commercial towns, if there be any, on the seacoast or on navigable rivers. The inland farmers will endeavor to secure in this way as great a quantity as possible of the commodities which they either could not produce at all, or only at too great an expense. The amount of this trade will depend chiefly on the demand for the farmers' products from the outside, upon the amount which will be taken at a price high enough to pay the costs of production and of transportation. A second determining condition is the state of the transportation system. This, however, is of only secondary importance; for with the most perfect and the cheapest means of transportation, there will be no trade unless there is somewhere a population desirous and capable of making purchases. On the other hand, if there is a steady demand for goods, strenuous efforts will soon be made to improve and cheapen the carrying system. Such improvements, of course, come tardily; it may be from lack of capital available for investment or from a failure to realize the benefits of such improvements; and there is always the limitation imposed by the state of mechanical and technical progress, as, for instance, in the centuries before the invention of the locomotive. Once established, it is true, a cheaper method of transportation promotes an extension of the geographical division of labor, and so stimulates and increases trade. But nevertheless, it is the market which is of primary importance as regards internal trade; for unless there is a purchasing population, either actual or potential, at one end of a route, expensive improvements of that route will never be attempted. One of the best indications of the volume of internal trade of this sort is the size of the commercial towns. In the sea and river ports there will be a non-agricultural population of merchants and shipowners roughly proportional to the amount of trade carried on by them between the back-country and foreign parts. Boston was the

only port of New England of any considerable size at the end of the eighteenth century. Concerning this port an observing traveler had remarked that its growth was much slower than that of other eastern seaports, and had attributed this circumstance to the fact that its trade with the "back settlements" was less than that of such cities as Baltimore, New York and Philadelphia.1 A considerable portion of the inhabitants of Boston as well as of other ports, such as Salem, Providence, New Haven and New London, were engaged in occupations quite independent of commerce with the back-country. They caught fish and exported them, and were engaged in carrying the products of the Southern states to foreign countries.

The Waterways.

We naturally look first for indications of internal trade to the waterways, which have always furnished the cheapest method of transportation. There were three large rivers running in roughly parallel courses from north to south, which furnished a means of communication between the inland towns of New England and its seaports. Near the western boundaries of Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut, flowed the Hudson. The few towns nearest this river in the two latter states sent small quantities of beef, cheese and grain to New York, to be consumed there or trans-shipped to the West Indies. From southern Vermont, potash and other timber products, maple sugar, furs, bar-iron and nails, live cattle and horses, and some dairy produce and provisions came overland to Troy in New York state and thence were carried down the river.2 The towns of Albany and Hudson also served as collectors of these products and distrib

1 See Weld, Travels, I. 55. The following table shows the growth of population in these four cities 1790-1810:

Boston had, it is true, increased somewhat faster than Philadelphia in the period 1800-1810. This was probably due to the larger share which the former port had in the carrying trade in the years preceding the Embargo and the NonIntercourse Acts.

2 Lambert enumerates oak and pine staves, lumber, maple sugar, wheat, flour, butter and cheese, salt beef and pork, pot- and pearl ashes, horses and oxen as the commodities shipped from this region. Travels, II. 502-503; Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., II. 9: 138.

utors of the West India commodities and European manufactures received in return.1

The principal inland waterway in eastern New England was the Merrimac River. Originally it had been navigable only as far as Haverhill, about twenty miles. Above this point its rocky bed and frequent falls had rendered it of little use in transportation of any commodities except lumber. In 1803, however, a canal was opened from Boston harbor across Middlesex County to the junction of the Concord and Merrimac rivers where the city of Lowell is now situated. Although this work represented a considerable investment of capital, its usefulness was limited by its many locks and shallow bed. The principal commodities transported to Boston by this means seem to have been timber and logs. By land Boston received cattle driven in from the surrounding country and from southern New Hampshire to be slaughtered and packed for exportation, and in the winter some grain and dairy products came overland on the snow.3

The Connecticut River furnished the only means of cheap transportation through the central region of New England. Although originally navigable only as far as the falls at Enfield, Connecticut, some sixty-five miles above its mouth, a series of canals con

1 See Weld, Travels, I. 57. A considerable portion of this trade was diverted in the opposite direction by the restrictions of 1807-1808. It was evidently comparatively easy to smuggle goods across the frontier into Canada, and there was almost continuous water transportation via Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence River to Montreal and Quebec, whence the goods were trans-shipped to the West Indies, their original destination. For a description of this traffic see Lambert, Travels, I. 100-104, 139–140, 225-226, 245, 250-253, 260-262; and Kendall, Travels, III. 277, 283, 294; also Williams, Samuel. The Natural and Civil History of Vermont. 2 ed. 2 vols. Burlington (Vermont). 1809. II. 365– 367. This writer remarks: "The trade itself has been of great advantage, in promoting the settlement of the country; but the carriage of the articles, being chiefly by land, and through long and bad roads, has been attended with great expense; and has much prevented the raising of wheat, and other kinds of grain. Ibid. p. 366.

2 The work when completed in 1808 cost about $500,000. It was 28 miles long and contained 22 locks. Its depth, 34 feet, permitted navigation by boats of 24 tons. See Gallatin, A. Report of the Secretary of the Treasury on the Subject of Public Roads and Canals. Washington. 1808. p. 51. The traffic through this canal in 1806 amounted to 9,400 tons. Morse, Gazetteer, 1810. art. Middlesex Canal.

See Belknap. History of New Hampshire, III. 80-81. RochefoucauldLiancourt, Travels, II. 160.

structed in the years 1790-18101 had made possible the passage of small boats to the village of Barnet in northern Vermont, about 180 miles farther.2 The only vessels which could be used above Hartford were flat-bottomed craft of 10 or 20 tons burden. These floated downstream easily enough, but when going in the reverse direction had to be slowly and arduously propelled by poling, with only occasional aid from small square sails when the wind was favorable. According to Dwight there was at about this time a fleet of fourteen of these boats which made regular trips between Hartford and the head of navigation in Vermont. Each round trip required twenty-five days and only nine could be made in a season. Potash and pearlash, staves, shingles, grain, beef, flaxseed and linseed oil were brought down to Hartford, and rum, salt, molasses and some drygoods, iron and tea were carried back. Heavy timber was floated down in rafts. The total amount of this traffic in a

'These canals were built around falls or rapids at South Hadley and Miller's Falls in Massachusetts; at Water Quechee, now called Sumner's Falls, in Vermont; and at falls in the town of Lebanon, New Hampshire, about three miles above White River Junction.

The canal at South Hadley was begun in 1790 and finished in 1795. It was two miles long, twenty feet wide, but only three feet deep. Originally the difference in level between the ends of the canal was overcome by means of an inclined plane. The boats were drawn on a cradle up this plane by means of a windlass operated by water power. Later, in 1805, a system of seven locks was substituted and the bed of the canal was deepened. The best description of these works is to be found in Holland, J. G. History of Western Massachusetts. 2 vols. Springfield. 1855. I. 305–307. See also Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Travels, II. 210, and Dickinson, Geographical and Statistical View, p. 30.

The Miller's Falls canal in the town of Montague was completed in 1800. It was almost three miles long, twenty feet wide, and contained ten locks. The water from the river was diverted by means of a dam 17 feet high and 325 yards long. See Hayward, John. Gazetteer of Massachusetts. Revised ed. Boston. 1849. pp. 421-422; Dwight, Travels, II. 335.

At Bellows Falls a canal about one mile long was cut through solid rock at a cost of $90,000. See Biglow, Timothy. Journal of a Tour to Niagara. Boston. 1876. p. 118. Biglow visited the place in 1805. See also Dwight, Travels, II. 83-85.

The two other canals were smaller works and were hardly in operation before 1810. They, as well as the others, are described in Bacon, Edwin M. The Connecticut River. New York. 1906. pp. 310–324.

2 Dickinson, Geographical and Statistical View, p. 26.

3 Travels, IV. 142-143.

This list is from Kendall, Travels, III. 218. These are the commodities most frequently mentioned in the advertisements of traders in the newspapers published in such river towns as Springfield, Northampton, Greenfield, Walpole and Hanover.

season was probably smaller than a fair-sized river steamer would now carry in a few days.1

At Hartford the goods received from the upper river were transshipped into small schooners and sloops and, together with more provisions and small quantities of vegetables, were sent down the river to New York and to the West Indies. These additional commodities seem to have been produced almost entirely by the farmers in a few towns in the immediate vicinity of Hartford and Middletown, such as Farmington2 and Wethersfield. The towns lower down the river had practically no share in this trade3 except in furnishing cargoes of wood for fuel. In 1789 the traffic on the lower river had employed a fleet of about 100 vessels, of which 60 made voyages to the West Indies and the remainder engaged merely in the coasting trade. The foreign branch of this trade was considerably damaged by the restrictions of 1807-1808 and later by the War of 1812. In 1815 the whole value of the exports from the Middletown customs district, which included all river ports, amounted to less than $100,000.5

The commodities brought up the river to Hartford were the same as those carried on farther up the river, with the addition of a variety of European dress goods and some other imported manufactures, such as crockery, glassware, etc.

1 Some indication of the amount of this traffic may be gained from the figures given by Dwight, Travels, I. 287, for the tonnage locked through the canal at South Hadley, which amounted on an average to about 7,000 tons per season. At the canal at Bellows Falls 4,300 tons paid tolls in 1803 and 5,460 tons in 1807. Kendall, Travels, III. 217.

2 See Porter, Historical Discourse, p. 46.

3 Field says of the towns in Middlesex County that whereas they send "immense quantities" of wood to New York and other towns, they export very little beef, pork, grain and provisions, "the supply hardly sufficing for the consumption of the inhabitants." Statistical Account of Middlesex, pp. 12, 14, 17. 4 Field, Statistical Account, p. 8.

5 Ibid. p. 127.

6.The general store in this region shows a far greater assortment of goods than those in inland towns, but the staple commodities on which greatest emphasis was laid were in all cases the same: Salt, sugar, molasses, rum and iron. A typical advertisement is that of Bolles, Savage and Co., appearing in the Middletown Gazette, Nov. 3, 1803. This firm has to sell 40 hogsheads of Muscavado sugar, also a quantity of molasses and of Windward Islands rum. They have "constantly on hand" iron, salt and other groceries for which they will receive all kinds of country produce in payment. Some of the commodities which they offer to buy are flaxseed, oats, corn, potatoes, rye-flour, and horses. There were in this issue advertisements of 16 such general stores besides specialized dealers