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Main Line of Public Works
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Main Line of Public Works
The Main Line of Public Works was a package of legislation passed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1826 to establish a means of transporting freight between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. It funded the construction of various long-proposed canal and road projects, mostly in southern Pennsylvania, that became a canal system and later added railroads. Built between 1826 and 1834, it established the Pennsylvania Canal System and the Allegheny Portage Railroad.
Later amendments substituted a new technology, railroads, in place of the planned but costly 82-mile (132 km) canal connecting the Delaware River in Philadelphia to the Susquehanna River. The route from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh remained a patchwork of canals and railroads until the Pennsylvania Railroad was built in the 1850s.
Trans-Appalachian settlement had begun in earnest during the latter years of the French and Indian War (1754-1763). Following the war, the British government made several agreements, primarily with the Iroquois, which resulted in official policies to curb the expansion of settlement in the colonial West (today's Midwest). This was one of many British policies that created support for the American Revolution along the American frontier for those hoping to emigrate into the Ohio Country, and also for East Coast seaboard populations that were blooming in the pre-industrialization period.
After the 1779 Sullivan Expedition broke the power of the Five Civilized Nations of the Iroquois towards the end of the American Revolutionary War, settlement became viable from the lower Susquehanna Valley to Upstate New York as far as Lake Erie. The U.S. was able to claim trans-Appalachian territories from the Ohio River to the lower Great Lakes, and west to Minnesota and Wisconsin.
As the Revolutionary War wound down in the 1780s, many family groups moved west, establishing scattered settlements from below the Wyoming Valley across the near west into the retreating western frontiers and the lands of the old Ohio Country. In the early 1800s, the new farms established along the moving frontier west of the Appalachian mountains were being connected back to Atlantic seaboard cities by turnpikes, canals, and other transportation infrastructure works funded mostly by private funds or local governments. By the 1810s the population west of the mountains was exploding. Regional transport hubs were established in Brownsville, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Buffalo, Detroit, and New Orleans (and later in the 1840s St. Louis, Chicago, and St. Joseph, Missouri would develop similarly). The markets of this burgeoning population were targeted by the business class of Philadelphia and New Jersey.
The War of 1812 exacerbated a difficult energy crisis. Bituminous coal imports from Liverpool, England ground to a halt under an 1812 embargo, cutting off a major industrial fuel source for most American factories at that time. Simultaneously, residential heating fuel in the Philadelphia region was already becoming scarce and more expensive due to over-logging of the local forests on the eastern seaboard. These mounting fuel shortages would motivate Pennsylvanian lawmakers, industrialists, and residents to better exploit local coal resources in the decades during and following the war.
On March 31, 1790 the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed a resolution that authorized several river surveys, following petitions from the Society for Promoting the Improvement of Roads and Inland Navigation. These surveys confirmed that several rivers within Pennsylvania were suitable for improvement into navigations. In 1791 following the results of the surveys, an appropriation was made by the state of Pennsylvania to improve the Lehigh River. With the expectation of a soon-to-be-navigable Lehigh River, the Lehigh Coal Mine Company was founded in 1793 and subsequently purchased 10 thousand acres (4,000 ha) of land in the Mauch Chunk region of the Pennsylvania Coal Region. They created a 9 miles (14 km) road from their Mauch Chunk mining operation to the bank of the Lehigh River. However, the state of Pennsylvania did not use public funds to improve Lehigh River, and the Lehigh Coal Mine Company was not successful in shipping its coal down the rough and unimproved Lehigh.
At the outbreak of the War of 1812 the foundries of Philadelphia suddenly lacked the inexpensive bituminous coal previously imported from England. Philadelphia industrialists were pressed for some solution to their foundries' fuel needs. During the war, an employee of Pennsylvania industrialist Josiah White had devised a method of burning "Rock Coal" properly in an effort to better exploit the relatively untapped coal resources within the local Pennsylvanian interior. White began buying shipments of local anthracite where he could, including two shipments from the Lehigh Coal Mine Company which had survived the trip down the Lehigh River. Pressure by various groups would encourage the Philadelphia Legislation to incorporate the Schuylkill Navigation Company on March 8, 1815. The Schuylkill Navigation Company was chartered to improve the Schuylkill River into the Schuylkill Navigationin 1815. The aim was to reliably connect the Coal Region (especially the Panther Creek Valley) in the Pennsylvanian interior to major cities on the coast, the industrial works near them, and their ports (for interstate coal export). White was one of the incorporators of the Schuylkill Navigation Company, however he would distance himself from the project when the project's backers took to quarreling over the best way to proceed. Ultimately the Schuylkill Navigation project was underfunded and work progressed slowly. Other major coal-carrying canals were completed first, including the Lehigh Canal in late 1820 and the Erie Canal in 1821 in New York. By mid-decade canal projects and some railroads were being proposed, organized, chartered, and built in Pennsylvania and other northeast seaboard states.
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Main Line of Public Works
The Main Line of Public Works was a package of legislation passed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1826 to establish a means of transporting freight between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. It funded the construction of various long-proposed canal and road projects, mostly in southern Pennsylvania, that became a canal system and later added railroads. Built between 1826 and 1834, it established the Pennsylvania Canal System and the Allegheny Portage Railroad.
Later amendments substituted a new technology, railroads, in place of the planned but costly 82-mile (132 km) canal connecting the Delaware River in Philadelphia to the Susquehanna River. The route from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh remained a patchwork of canals and railroads until the Pennsylvania Railroad was built in the 1850s.
Trans-Appalachian settlement had begun in earnest during the latter years of the French and Indian War (1754-1763). Following the war, the British government made several agreements, primarily with the Iroquois, which resulted in official policies to curb the expansion of settlement in the colonial West (today's Midwest). This was one of many British policies that created support for the American Revolution along the American frontier for those hoping to emigrate into the Ohio Country, and also for East Coast seaboard populations that were blooming in the pre-industrialization period.
After the 1779 Sullivan Expedition broke the power of the Five Civilized Nations of the Iroquois towards the end of the American Revolutionary War, settlement became viable from the lower Susquehanna Valley to Upstate New York as far as Lake Erie. The U.S. was able to claim trans-Appalachian territories from the Ohio River to the lower Great Lakes, and west to Minnesota and Wisconsin.
As the Revolutionary War wound down in the 1780s, many family groups moved west, establishing scattered settlements from below the Wyoming Valley across the near west into the retreating western frontiers and the lands of the old Ohio Country. In the early 1800s, the new farms established along the moving frontier west of the Appalachian mountains were being connected back to Atlantic seaboard cities by turnpikes, canals, and other transportation infrastructure works funded mostly by private funds or local governments. By the 1810s the population west of the mountains was exploding. Regional transport hubs were established in Brownsville, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Buffalo, Detroit, and New Orleans (and later in the 1840s St. Louis, Chicago, and St. Joseph, Missouri would develop similarly). The markets of this burgeoning population were targeted by the business class of Philadelphia and New Jersey.
The War of 1812 exacerbated a difficult energy crisis. Bituminous coal imports from Liverpool, England ground to a halt under an 1812 embargo, cutting off a major industrial fuel source for most American factories at that time. Simultaneously, residential heating fuel in the Philadelphia region was already becoming scarce and more expensive due to over-logging of the local forests on the eastern seaboard. These mounting fuel shortages would motivate Pennsylvanian lawmakers, industrialists, and residents to better exploit local coal resources in the decades during and following the war.
On March 31, 1790 the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed a resolution that authorized several river surveys, following petitions from the Society for Promoting the Improvement of Roads and Inland Navigation. These surveys confirmed that several rivers within Pennsylvania were suitable for improvement into navigations. In 1791 following the results of the surveys, an appropriation was made by the state of Pennsylvania to improve the Lehigh River. With the expectation of a soon-to-be-navigable Lehigh River, the Lehigh Coal Mine Company was founded in 1793 and subsequently purchased 10 thousand acres (4,000 ha) of land in the Mauch Chunk region of the Pennsylvania Coal Region. They created a 9 miles (14 km) road from their Mauch Chunk mining operation to the bank of the Lehigh River. However, the state of Pennsylvania did not use public funds to improve Lehigh River, and the Lehigh Coal Mine Company was not successful in shipping its coal down the rough and unimproved Lehigh.
At the outbreak of the War of 1812 the foundries of Philadelphia suddenly lacked the inexpensive bituminous coal previously imported from England. Philadelphia industrialists were pressed for some solution to their foundries' fuel needs. During the war, an employee of Pennsylvania industrialist Josiah White had devised a method of burning "Rock Coal" properly in an effort to better exploit the relatively untapped coal resources within the local Pennsylvanian interior. White began buying shipments of local anthracite where he could, including two shipments from the Lehigh Coal Mine Company which had survived the trip down the Lehigh River. Pressure by various groups would encourage the Philadelphia Legislation to incorporate the Schuylkill Navigation Company on March 8, 1815. The Schuylkill Navigation Company was chartered to improve the Schuylkill River into the Schuylkill Navigationin 1815. The aim was to reliably connect the Coal Region (especially the Panther Creek Valley) in the Pennsylvanian interior to major cities on the coast, the industrial works near them, and their ports (for interstate coal export). White was one of the incorporators of the Schuylkill Navigation Company, however he would distance himself from the project when the project's backers took to quarreling over the best way to proceed. Ultimately the Schuylkill Navigation project was underfunded and work progressed slowly. Other major coal-carrying canals were completed first, including the Lehigh Canal in late 1820 and the Erie Canal in 1821 in New York. By mid-decade canal projects and some railroads were being proposed, organized, chartered, and built in Pennsylvania and other northeast seaboard states.
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