Produced by Bryan Ness, Irma Spehar and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) HISTORY OF STEAM ON THE ERIE CANAL. Appeal for the Extension of the Act of April, 1871, "to Foster and Develop the Inland Commerce of the State," FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE CANALS AND THE COMMERCIAL COMMUNITY. _NEW YORK, JANUARY, 1873._ NEW YORK: EVENING POST STEAM PRESSES, 41 NASSAU STREET, COR. LIBERTY. 1873. With Respects of the Author, 155 Broadway, N. Y. HISTORY OF STEAM ON THE ERIE CANAL. SCREW PROPELLERS FROM 1858 TO 1862. During the maple sugar season of the spring of 1858, a well-to-do farmer, of western New York, whittled out a spiral or augur-like screw-propeller, in miniature, which he thought admirably adapted to the canal. He soon after went to Buffalo, and contracted for a boat to be built, with two of his Archimedean screws for propulsion by steam. Although advised by his builders to substitute the common four-bladed propellers, he adhered to his original design, and with one propeller at either side of the rudder--called "twin-propellers"--she was soon ready for duty. She is the vessel known to history as the _Charles Wack_. She carried three-fourths cargo and towed another boat with full cargo, and made the trip from Buffalo to West Troy in seven days, total time, averaging two miles per hour. But she returned from Troy to Buffalo, with half freight, in four days and sixteen hours, net time; averaging three and one-twelfth miles per hour, without tow. This initiated the series of steamers from 1858 to 1862, and, with others that soon followed, created a general enthusiasm in behalf of steam transportation, which led to a trip through the canal that fall, on a chartered steam-tug, by the Governor of the State, the Canal Board, and other notables, and with public receptions, speeches, &c., at different cities along the route. That boat was soon followed by the _S. B. Ruggles_, a first-class steam canal-boat, built by the Hon. E. S. Prosser, of Buffalo, with a first-class modern propeller, and with double the engine capacity of the former. The _P. L. Sternburg_ soon followed, and was a first-class boat, with modern twin-propellers, but with less engine capacity than the _Wack_. The same season there were some local steamers built to run regularly between different cities on the line of the canal. The following season of 1859 was the most active year the Erie Canal has ever known in regard to steam. The _C. Wack_ was sold to Mr. Prosser, who took out her Archimedean propellers, and substituted a modern propeller, and doubled her engine capacity, and reproduced her as the _City of Buffalo_.