Brant Canal

The Story of the Old Canal

There is a legend from days of old, telling of a grand scheme by the State of Michigan to connect the state coast to coast from the mouth of the Saginaw Bay to Grand Haven on the West coast. It only took a year after construction began for an economic catastrophe to make it impossible to pay the hundreds of Irish workers that were brought from New York to work on the canal. They were promised that wages were coming soon but refused to work without pay.

When the workmen halted their task in July of 1839 they buried their tools and a barrel of whiskey near the canal, planning to dig them up when work was resumed. The tools and whiskey have never been found. History tells us that the failure of the Morris Canal and Banking Company was due to the wild cat banking system.

The legend has been passed down through the generations. There have been poems written about it, stories told, and articles written. The legend has changed over the years but the facts remain.

“The settlers of Saginaw Valley anticipated great results from this improvement, by its opening up a waterway west into a portion of the interior of the State that was known to contain some of its richest lands for agricultural purposes, and would also furnish a shorter route across the peninsula” (Mills, 1918, p. 130).

The Gold Standard was created in 1836 and everyone felt safe, that money was secure and would not be tampered with so the State of Michigan created legislation for Internal Improvement which was approved in 1837. “In section 7 of the act it stated that the sum of fifteen thousand dollars was to be applied to the construction of a canal to unite the waters of the Saginaw with the navigable waters of the Grand or Maple Rivers. The survey was done by Tracy McCracken, Esq., chief engineer of the Saginaw and Maple Rivers Canal, and resulted in the location and adoption of a route” (Richardson, 1975).

Also known as the Northern Canal and Bad River Canal the project was to combine river and slackwater navigation from Saginaw Bay, up the Saginaw, Shiawassee and Bad Rivers, to the forks 15 miles above Saginaw, near St. Charles. From here, about 14 miles of canal, over a low flat divide to the “Big Bend” of the Maple, near Bannister, 32 miles above the Grand.

The canal was to be 20 miles long, 90 feet wide and 9 feet deep. Being 15 miles from any white settlement, great expense and hardship attended the work. Hand shovels and wheel barrows were the only equipment. About one hundred Irishmen were employed for the job.

Surveys determined that the level of the Bad was 6’ above the Maple, so one lock was planned for the summit level. No data is available on size of prism of locks but it was to accommodate steamers and was at least 50’ wide at the bottom. As to be expected in Michigan at that time, all structures were to be of wood. Piles of cut timber remained along the right-of-way into the 1880’s. Sections of the old ditch were still visible from county roads between St Charles and Brant in 1975.

Construction of the Canal began in 1838. In 1839 the Morris Canal and Banking Company which had agreed to a $5,000,000 loan to the state for improvement programs failed before the whole amount had been paid. The men could not be paid their wages and the timber which had been cut for locks was left to rot on the ground when they abandoned working on the canal. The last time a serious attempt to resume the project was made occurred in 1908, when the Grand Saginaw Valley Deep Waterway Association was organized with B.G. Coryell, Chesaning banker, as President.

Historical Summary: On March 25, 1837, seven men were appointed as a Board of Commissioners for Internal Improvements in Michigan. They were to locate and begin building, two canals and three railroads across the state. January 23, 1838, J. Burdick, Pres. Of the Board, reported that the S. & G. R. (Saginaw & Grand Rapids) had been located and surveyed and 4 miles of river work was under contract. Another account says the entire project was under contract to Smock & Little, Saginaw, in 1838, at an estimated cost of $179, 659. In that year, at least 100 Irish Laborers were imported from N. Y. and large amounts of timber were cut on the site. Engineers mentioned included J. Almy, Tracy McCracken, Charles F. Smith and E. L. Wentz. The latter two were from the N. Y. & Erie Railroad. In 1839, state funds were exhausted and the works stopped so suddenly that some contractors and workers were never paid.

“When the payment of wages and materials stopped, and the Irishmen were dismissed from the job without their last wages being paid, they came to town and for two or three days paraded the streets threatening all those who had had anything to do with the canal. Timid persons feared mob violence, but when the matter was fully explained so that the laborers understood the cause of the non-payment of their wages, they left without doing any damage to anyone” (Mills, 1918, p. 131).

The sums expended on the Saginaw and Maple River Canal was as follows: in 1838, $6271.12; in the year 1839, $15, 985.69; totals $22,256.81.

Ten years later the State Legislature tried to renew the project. The Saginaw and Grand River Canal Company was Incorporated. The people involved with the company were Gardner D. Williams, James Frazier, and D.J. Johnson of Saginaw City; Adam L. Roof of Ionia County; Rix Robinson, of Kent County; D.H. Fitzhugh, John F. Mackie, and Charles Yates of New York City. The capital stock of the company was placed at $200,000 and its charter was to continue for a total of sixty years. No work on the canal was ever done and the project was abandoned completely. (Ellis, 1880, p. 29-31).

References

Ellis, F. (1880). History of Shiawassee and Clinton counties, Michigan. Retrieved from http://goo.gl/yJOVs5

Mills, J. C. (1918). History of Saginaw County, Michigan: Historical, commercial, biographical. Saginaw, Mich: Seemann & Peters.

Richardson, L. (1975). Canal: Saginaw and Grand River. Retrieved from http://www.americancanals.org/Data_Sheets/Michigan/Saginaw%20Grand%20River.pdf