Canal Engineers
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Canal Stories, a series brought to you by the Canal Corridor Association celebrating the Illinois and Michigan Canal and the communities that were shaped by its legacy. The Illinois and Michigan Canal Commissioners did one favorable thing above all others for the canal, and that was to hire very competent engineers to oversee the actual construction. Brought to you by Wayne Duerkes, PhD.
For a project encumbered with a myriad of challenges, including political appointees, some lackluster surveys, and increasing costs on paper, the Illinois and Michigan Canal had one incomparable benefit; William Gooding and his team of engineers. The quality of any internal improvement was dependent on the skill set of the people assign to see to the day-to-day operations and finalized plans of the project. It is doubly surprising that the engineering staff pulled off the project while dealing with individuals continually attempting to harass progress for political reasons.
William Gooding was born in 1803 in New York and grew up receiving his basic education from private tutors. His vast engineering skills were developed on the job under Chief Engineer Alfred Barrett when he took the young protégé under his wing. He began from 1826 to 1829 building the First Welland Canal in Ontario, Canada. Next, in 1831, he was hired as Junior Assistant Engineer for the Wabash and Erie Canal that ran from the western tip of Lake Erie to the Wabash River in Indiana. In 1834, he was hired to be the surveyor for the Indiana Canal Commissioners. By now he had acquired 12 years of experience on the building of canals. Later, when he moved with his father and family to acreage just outside Lockport, Canal Commissioner William B. Archer hired him to be the Chief Engineer on the I&M Canal. This proved to be a most important decision. To put this decision in perspective, after Gooding had finalized the plan for the canal, the commissioners asked Benjamin Wright, the builder of the Erie Canal to review Gooding’s plan. In a report to the commissioners on October 23, 1837, Wright was extremely pleased with the plan and recommended no changes. Extremely high praise from the man considered the father of American Civil Engineering.
Gooding was sharp enough to realize that he could not constantly shift up and down a 96-mile canal watching every detail. As such, he hired three Resident Engineers. They would each be given one of the three division (this is a forthcoming article). He had Edward D. Talcott at the Summit Division in the east, Ward B. Burnett in the aptly named Western Division, and snuggled in between at the Middle Division was William Jerome. These resident engineers kept watch over their assigned divisions and other duties as assigned. For example, Jerome was assigned to survey the Fox River Feeder which is in the Western Division. The teamwork, skill sets, and professional camaraderie between these individuals helped Gooding significantly, and he would need this help.
The Canal Commissioners set the chief engineer’s salary at $3,500 annually, making Gooding the highest paid civil servant in the state. This attracted others that felt they could do the job better. Additionally, Gooding was on the wrong side of the political spectrum from most of the Commissioners. He followed the normal transition of the time going from Whig to Free Soiler to Republican. In turn, his political ideologies were in direct conflict with those he felt were merely in the game to advance their own careers, regardless of the cost to the state. Finally, Gooding’s plan was not just based on canal traffic, but also the significant gains from waterpower. Though the continually decrease in the canal’s elevation, which was key to waterpower, his opponents used this argument when complaining about the slowness of the project’s progress. Of course, land sales and investors were not in Gooding purview.
His main antagonist was William Oakley. Oakley was a popular, up-and-coming Democrat who coveted the power he perceived that Gooding had. Governors Thomas Carlin and Thomas Ford, both Democrats, were in favor of keeping Gooding in his appointed role. But with the election of Augustus C French to the Governor’s post, Oakley found an ally against Gooding. Both French and Oakley wanted the investor’s selection to the commission removed, but as they could not do that, they intensified their false claims against Gooding. In April 1848, with the opening of the canal, French finally dismissed Gooding and replaced him with Edward Talcott under the new title Canal Superintendent. But this was not to be the end. In October 1848, the commissioner’s secretary, Robert Stuart passed away and the commissioners quickly hires Gooding to the post. Captain William H. Swift, the commissioner with the strongest support for Gooding, and Gooding stayed on the canal board until 1871 when the canal had finally paid all its encumbrances.
With Gooding at the helm of the entirety of the canal’s construction, contractors could go to him for final remediation of any conflicts with the resident engineers, but his faith in his subordinates was rewarded with prompt, precise, and professional reporting to their boss. With the engineering team in place and the plan approved, how do you contract out a 96-mile canal through the terrain? That is next time’s story.
That concludes today’s Canal Story. Thank you so much for joining us as we continue our journey through the history of the Illinois & Michigan Canal. If you have enjoyed this episode, pass it along to your family and friends, be sure to leave us a like or drop us a comment, and we will see you again very soon.