Parallel Challenges Building the New York and Rideau Canals

Abstract

The New York Canal (now the Erie Canal) was first proposed in the New York Legislature in 1808 and eventually constructed from 1817 to 1825 through New York State to join Lake Erie and New York City. The Rideau Canal was proposed in 1816 and built from 1826 to 1832 to join the Ottawa River and Lake Ontario to facilitate transportation in Upper Canada (now the Province of Ontario, Canada). The compiled reports of the New York Canal Commissioners are compared with Upper Canada and British Parliamentary Papers to identify common challenges faced by engineers responsible for building the two canals. These challenges were natural, technical, social and managerial. The official reports for the canals reflect how these challenges were met — often in very similar ways — by the engineers engaged to survey, design and build the canals. Comparing these two canals provides insight into the challenges faced by all North American canal builders.

Keywords:

• New York Canal
• Rideau Canal
• Erie Canal
• construction
• challenges

Acknowledgements

I thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa, and the University of Ottawa for financial support. I acknowledge the excellent research assistance provided by Patti Harper. Rosalie Murton and the staff at Carleton University Library’s Maps, Data and Government Information Centre provided invaluable assistance in preparing Figure 1. This paper benefited from comments received at the Accounting History Review Conference held in Cardiff, Wales, in September 2011. Suggestions by the Editor and reviewer strengthened the paper.

Abbreviations

NYCC:	=	Report of the New York Canal Commissioners, New York Canal Commissioners 1825, Laws of the State of New York, in relation to the Erie and Champlain Canals, together with the Annual Reports of the Canal Commissioners, and other Documents, Requisite for a Complete Official History of those Works, Vols i and ii (Published by authority of New York State, E. and N. Hosford, Printers, Albany, New York).
CCC:	=	Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers, 1970, Copies of the Correspondence between the Treasury, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and the Ordnance, on the Canal Communication in Canada, 1830–1831 (135), IX, 15 (Shannon: Irish University Press).
Macfarlane, Reports of the Commissioners of 1826:	=	Internal Navigation in Pursuance of An Act of the Provincial Parliament of Upper Canada entitled ‘An Act to make provision for the inprovement [sic] of the internal navigation of this province’ (Kingston: Printed by J. Macfarlane, at the Office of the Kingston Chronicle, 1826).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Merridee L. Bujaki

Dr Merridee Bujaki is an Associate Professor of Accounting at the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada where her office overlooks the Rideau Canal. After attaining her Chartered Accountancy designation, she completed a PhD in Management at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. She has lived most of her life at one end or the other of the Rideau Canal and is engaged in an ongoing study of the early accounting and management practices for the Rideau Canal. Her other research addresses voluntary disclosures in corporate annual reports.