Oswego Harbor—Past and Present

Featured Image: Oswego Harbor, c. 1931. Oswego County Historical Society – Building Photos Collection

This essay was originally published in the 1940 OCHS Yearbook. Please note that this essay was published over 80 years ago. While still useful for general education, language may be outdated and at times offensive. The Oswego County Historical Society does not stand by the language used in this essay. All photos were added in 2024 when this article was uploaded to the web. To view the original document, please visit NYHeritage.org.

Paper Presented Before Oswego Historical Society April 11, 1940 By George H. Campbell, President of Oswego Harbor and Dock Commission.

History, tradition and sentiment combine to form the background of Oswego Harbor, for, from the first time a white man visited its site, surrounded by primeval forest—its lake unnamed and unexplored—the river flowing in natural course to its mouth—it has been recognized as a strategic point for the interchange of commodities from the vast region served by the Great Lakes and the North Atlantic coast, accessible through the all-water route to the Hudson River.

Those advantages of Oswego, identical with those possessed by great ports of the world, have remained, down the years from that day when the first Indian canoe brought furs along the lakes route to be exchanged at Oswego for wares floated down the river in a trader’s batteau. They exist in 1940, in just as emphatic prospect as they did more than two centuries ago, and will continue for years to come; responding to the ebb and flow of commerce; reflecting changes in the economic life of the world; meeting demands of business interchange. Those of Oswego who have gone before left a precious heritage to present generations that must be nurtured and safeguarded, aided and encouraged; so, in turn, this heritage may be preserved and in due time passed along to generations yet unborn.

From experiences of the past come lessons to guide present and future courses, and, in this connection, a review of the past of Oswego Harbor not only must ever be an incentive to renewed present-day activity in furthering the maritime interests of the port, but serve constantly to bring reminder that history often repeats itself in the ever changing cycles of commercial development. The first business of Oswego was in a trade that was transient and of little benefit to the community, contributing nothing to it but reputation and an enhancement of its value as a trading center for furs. A French King may have had a medal struck to commemorate its capture by his armies; a British ministry may have fallen because of its loss to British control, but these were but fleeting and inconsequential, if substantial business is the consideration and topic of survey and study. It was not until 1802 that Oswego came to experience the first pulse of business, for prior to that year the shipping was entirely in control of the vessels of the Northwestern Fur Company under the British flag.

The first commerce was in salt, so precious to the pioneers, then feeling their way westward, that salt from Onondaga came down the Oswego River, was transshipped here into schooners, taken to Niagara, and over the peninsula in carts, transshipped again into schooners on Lake Erie, unloaded again in Erie, and went by cart and river to Pittsburgh to sell for $10 and $12 _. barrel. The early commerce was primitive; freights were high; carriers were relatively small; but transportation by water infinitely was easier than a land movement through a forest that knew only Indian or game trails. A season’s shipment of salt was from 800,000 to 100,- 000 lbs.; 40 or 50 tons, which serves to indicate how relatively minor was this early business. The story of the development of the maritime business of Oswego is, after all, a story of small beginnings, but there were men of stout courage and keen minds who pioneered this early business of Oswego in a wilderness setting.

The First Harbor

Oswego was the first harbor on the Great Lakes. Here the first English ships were built in Colonial days, and here the first U. S. man-of-war on the lakes was laid down. To Oswego came Henry Eckford, one of the most celebrated of shipwrights of the years between 1810 and 1830, whose guiding hands directed not only construction of the U. S. brig, Oneida, but the fleet at Sacket Harbor, and later the frigates on the Atlantic Ocean that defied the might of the Royal Navy in the War of 1812, and made sea-power the ambition of Americans to this day.

The Oswego Harbor of the early 1800’s was a natural one, merely the mouth of the Oswego River, protected to some extent by low lake gravel bars or points formed by action of lake waves and river current. It served for a time the small ships of shallow draft that transported the commodities of that day, and there was no customhouse, no rules, only the dictates followed by necessity. Bonfires guided ships to port until 1821, when the first government work to be undertaken in Oswego took the form of a stone lighthouse, erected on the bluff of Fort Ontario, on the river-side; and north of the present post administration building, there still stands the light keeper’s dwelling, changed and enlarged, and now quarters of the post sergeant-major. History, too, sometimes serves to show how small the world may be. The first lighthouse keeper in Oswego was the grandfather of Brig.- Gen. Charles D. Roberts, who within the past five or six years was at Fort Ontario commanding the 2d Infantry Brigade and daily walking soil his grandfather had trod more than a century before. Oswego’s growing commercial importance was noted by Congress in 1826, when the Rivers and Harbors bill of the year provided $200 for the first engineering survey by the government, “For a survey of Oswego Bay and Harbor for ascertaining the expediency and expense of constructing piers to improve the navigation thereof.”

This year, 1940, therefore, marks the 114th year in which Oswego people have been interested in Rivers and Harbors bills, and the 114th year in which there have been continued contacts with the Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army, charged with harbor improvements, and it may be stated in passing, while Oswego Harbor has not always received from the Army engineers improvements as extensive as optimism prompted, the results have been entirely just and doubtless in keeping with the merits of the claims.

The first survey recommended piers, and in 1827 construction was started, and since that year there has been government work in progress in Oswego. The first contractor was Moses Porter Hatch, whose residence for many years stood on the site of the present Hotel Pontiac, and whose garden for years was one of the show places of Oswego. His son, John Porter Hatch, Major General, U. S. A., gave to Oswego in 1848 the chair now used by the Mayor of Oswego in presiding at Common Council sessions, which article of furniture he took from the Palace in Mexico when he entered that city as an officer of the U. S. Army in the Mexican War.

Oswego Canal Opened in 1828

The first incentive of waterborne commerce and forwarding came in 1828, vhen the original Oswego Canal was opened, and while the locks were but 90 feet long and 15 feet wide, and the depth but four feet, this represented an improvement over the passage by the Oswego River, unimproved, and business increased from the start. Further increase came by opening of the Welland Canal in the same year, permitting passage of vessels from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie.

Oswego Harbor had known, however, the first steamboat on the Great Lakes in 1817, the Ontario, constructed at Sacket Harbor through the enterprise of Commodore Melanchton T. Woolsey, U. S. Navy, (whose mother lies now interred in Riverside Cemetery, Oswego,) and General Jacob Brown, who commanded the U. S. forces along the northern frontier in the War of 1812.

First Steamboats Appear

But the first steamboats were side-wheeled, broad of beam, and with so much machinery-space they were of little value as cargo carriers, as the Welland Canal locks were but 22 feet in width and commerce was confined almost entirely in canal passages to schooners. Then in 1841 there was constructed and launched in Oswego the first screw-propelled steamship in the western hemisphere, the Vandalia, her engine plans from the board of Captain John Ericcson, inventor of the screw-propeller. The Vandalia was the first of a line of Oswegobuilt propellers, and shipbuilding, for longer than 50 years to be a considerable industry in Oswego, had its real start with the first propeller, which also marked the start of the first real commerce to the upper lakes, as propellers could negotiate the narrow Welland Canal locks with a pay load, and propellers carried the freight and the settlers to the winning of the west.

Settlers passed west-bound through Oswego, by thousands, through the years, taking with them livestock, farm implements and household goods in the vessels provided with cabins—furnished for those who could afford the luxury; and without cabins, but with stoves for cooking their own meals for those who must economize. From Oswego the distance to Duluth, Minn., was 1142 miles, and to Chicago, 111., 1049 miles, and in a steam vessel 100 ft. in length with a draft of not more than seven miles an hour, that voyage up the lakes had aspects more of hardship than pleasure.

In this period, Oswego increased in commercial importance, as in 1846 the size of the Welland Canal locks were increased to 150 feet in length, the width to 26% feet, and the canal draft to 9 feet, although it was not until 1855 that vessels drawing more than 7% feet of water could at all times enter Oswego Harbor, across the entrance to which there was a gravel bar, in that year removed by dredging so that the harbor depth became 10 feet.

These dimensions are cited as essential in a comprehension of the volume of traffic of old Oswego maritime business the carriers engaged and the comparison with lake and canal carriers of the present day.

Shipbuilding Takes on Importance

Shipbuilding, that it, construction of wooden schooners, canal barges and steamboats, had become of importance to Oswego in this period, and there were two factories manufacturing blocks and fittings for rigging; shipwrights and shipsmiths; two plants at least that manufactured winches and capstans and sold their output in other shipbuilding points; a dozen or more firms that specialized in ship painting; a half dozen sail lofts engaged in making sails; three or four ship chandlers; and divers other concerns all engaged in business connected with ship construction and operation. There were four shipyards, and as late as 1872 Ames Iron Works furnished boiler and engine for a propeller, one of the last of the type to be constructed in Oswego.

With more than 100 vessels owned in Oswego, and hundreds of Oswego men actively engaged in sailing as a profession, hundreds of others engaged in canal business, with hundreds of others finding employment in warehouses and along the waterfront, Oswego was truly a maritime minded and maritime engaged community.

There were other means of stimulation which were all in favor of the growing community. In 1848 the Oswego and Syracuse Railroad was opened and commenced to add to the tonnage of Oswego Harbor, and in 1854 the Reciprocity Treaty with the Dominion of Canada was negotiated and brought additional business, and this was the beginning of the period when it was a common sight to see schooners berthed in the Oswego River so closely that, as was often said, one could pass across the river on their decks and an agile man could, by swinging from bowsprit to stern downstream, pass from the lower bridge to the end of Seneca street.

Free Canal Tolls Hurt Oswego

The first State canals required payment of tolls and, as the levy of tolls was in proportion to the length of canal used, Oswego could compete with the Port of Buffalo on the Lake Erie end of the waterway for a share of the trade from and to the west. There were tolls, too, on Welland Canal traffic, and after 1882, when the State ceased to collect tolls and established free canals, tolls on the Welland Canal were continued and the decline of Oswego’s upper lake business had set in.

There were other factors, however, one of them being the increasing size of upper lake steamships, which could not pass through the Welland Canal, and which established Buffalo as the foot of Upper Lakes commerce. The newspapers of this period, in Oswego, are filled with efforts made valiantly by Oswego shipping interests to bring about construction of a Niagara Ship Canal to overcome this handicap, but the efforts came to naught.

The water-borne business of Oswego always has resolved itself into two classes—commodities which were brought to the port for use in industry and those which were passing through in transit, which is the same with every point of interchange of commerce. At points of interchange, a manufacturing business usually is evolved to utilize the products available, providing there is economic access to markets available. From the start, this has been true of Oswego and, from the time that Alvin Bronson established the first milling business in Oswego in 1820, grain has been a commodity entering the port and passing through it of late years in returning volume.

Milling Takes on Importance

The Bronson mill at first used local grain, but in the 70 years of milling that was to follow, grain came from the west for the flour mills of Oswego, with Penfield, Lyon & Company starting in 1842 and continuing in business for a half century, and with other names equally known in the milling field—Henry Fitzhugh, Samuel B. Johnson, M. J. Cummings, George and Cheney Ames, Frederick T. Carrington, Mollison & Hastings, Irwin & Sloan, O. Fl Gaylord and others entering the scene as the industry developed. In 1848 the Kingsford Starch Factory was started, continuing until the turn of the last century and using 1,000,000 bu. of western corn annually and employing 700 persons. (After transfer of the Kingsford plant to other ownership, it was finally closed in 1922.)

In 1850 or about that year, malting was started in Oswego and eventually was developed into a business that made Oswego one of the principal importing points for Canadian barley and likewise provided considerable employment.

All of these enterprises required economy of water transport and also low-cost power, the latter provided by the hydraulic canals on either side of the Oswego River.

Up to 1850 the salt forwarding business was heavy, a total of 2,- 186,510 bushels passing through Oswego from Syracuse for the west in 1848.

Days Of Lumber Imports

There had always been a lumber and planing mill business in Oswego, for from the time the first sawmill was built by Bradner Burt in 1802, using timber cut from the surrounding forests, the power of river origin was an incentive to further development, and like the grain trade, when local lumber became scarce, imports from Canada followed to provide the raw materials, and water transportation played its part in profits possible.

In 1852 the Kingsford plant entered the field with its box shop and planing mill, requiring 5,000,- 000 ft. of lumber annually, and, as the lumber importation increased in the 60’s and 70’s, larger planing mills, cooperage plants, sash and blind factories followed, using a considerable part of the lumber entering the harbor and providing employment for hundreds of men.

When the planing mills waned, with the center of the U. S. lumber industry going to the Michigan peninsula, and with Canadian lumber requiring payment or a protective tariff, the Standard Oil Company with its plant in the west harbor was established, further to prolong the lumber import business of the harbor, and the Diamond Match Company plant, established in the early 90’s, materially assisted, and lowcost lumber transport was the basic reason for establishing both plants, the Standard Oil Box Shop using as much as 125,000,000 feet in a year.

Lumber was in the class, too, of a commodity for delivery to points beyond, and this business was greater far than the trade in which lumber was locally consumed. Grampus Bay was a lumber yard, with six piers affording easy transfer facilities from schooners to canal boats or railroad cars, and each of those piers paid Gerrit Smith, owner of the property, $10,000 a year, and it was a popular belief some of those rentals contributed to the funds which Gerrit Smith (who gave Oswego its public library) raised to finance John Brown, who met his fate on the scaffold, in the cause of abolition of slavery, after the Harper’s Ferry fiasco.

Simeon Bates had the first large lumber business in Oswego. I’here were others soon to follow —O. M. Bond, J. P. Wetmore, A. S. Jage, John K. Post, Dewitt C. Littlejohn, E. W. Rathbun & Co., Charles M. Bond and many others.

Industry From Shipping

The profits that came from shipping operations more likely than not were invested in manufacturing enterprises, and those who amassed money on shore were to be found partners in maritime development, so closely were early Oswego business enterprises dependent upon maritime activities, and the coalition was responsible for keeping Oswego enterprises owned and operated by Oswego men, which always is a potent factor in community prosperity and development.

There were several transportation companies, almost wholly owned in Oswego, one of the most widely known—the Northwestern Transportation Company, organized in 1833, attracting subscriptions of $200,000 in Oswego capital, to illustrate the interest which could be aroused in Oswego undertakings.

One of these concerns, organized principally to cater to the needs of shipbuilding, was the firm of Daniel and George Talcott, operators of the Phoenix Foundry in East Second street, which in the course of business changes became the present Ames Iron Works.

An accessory to the Starch Factory was the Kingsford Foundry & Machine Company, where fire tube boilers for marine purposes were manufactured and enjoyed a wide sale, as did Fitzgibbons boilers, to be found in many a lake tugboat for a period of fifty years or longer.

These industries had their origin primarily in connection with the maritime business, illustrating graphically how the latter becomes a source for many other kinds and types of business in a community where freight interchange or import is a major enterprise.

The industries of Oswego, however, which came into existence in this period when the marine and canal business was prospering were dependent, too, upon accessibility of raw materials, and when these could be made available elsewhere, at lower costs, these industries were to wane and in most instances entirely to pass from the Oswego industrial scene.

It was inevitable that this was to be. The milling business of America started in Virginia, moved westward as the country was settled, following the center of grain production. Rochester had it for a time; Oswego enjoyed its benefits; Buffalo in turn felt its growth; and then the industry spread out to Kansas City, to Minneapolis and other western points. This change and the entrance of Argentina corn into Atlantic ports was to bring an end to the starch manufacture, so long a leading Oswego industry, and gradually, as the accessible lumber was cut away in Canada and rail costs had to be added to get lumber to lake ports for shipment, the transfer business in Oswego passed, and the greater ease of lumbering and shipping forest products from upper lake points operated in a combination of circumstances to bring this business to a close.

Tariffs also contributed in curtailing barley and Canadian grain imports as well as those of lumber, and there was always the fact that the Welland Canal size restriction was handicapping the passage of larger vessels from the upper lakes to Lake Ontario.

Discovery of salt springs and large deposits accessible from driven wells in Michigan brought about eventual cessation of the salt movement through Oswego and eliminated in time the Onondaga industry in its entirety.

Oswego lost, in about the same stages as it arrived, its grain business, its milling, its lumber, its salt, its package freight business. Of the latter movement there formerly had been a tremendous volume moving via the canal, to be transshipped in Oswego to schooners and steamers for delivery to upper lake ports. Advent of railroads, increased size of carriers, higher and higher costs of handling, lower freight rates, all combined to remove the package freight business from the maritime field in Oswego. There was for some years a prosperous rail and lake interchange, but the Panama Canal Act, which divorced steamship lines from railroad control, brought about eventually the end of this business.

Decline Commences

From high freight rates, with relatively low handling charges, the pendulum was swinging in a direction that worked to Oswego’s disadvantage. Larger lake carriers on the upper lakes could carry freight longer distances at lower rates and make profits, where schooners and small steamships could not exist in competition. Wages increased in longshore operations. Recently an automatic machine manufacturing company published a most effective advertisement. It was the imprint of a man’s hand, nothing more, except that the company tersely stated: “If this print is on the article or commodity you handle, you are losing money. We make a machine for every purpose to eliminate handling by hand.” That, in effect, was what was happening in Oswego. Handling commodities was coming to cost more than freight rates, in reversal of the earlier trend.

But meanwhile, the day of the wooden ship was passing. In that same year, 400-ft. steel steamships were being constructed for upper lake trade, carrying more than 5,000 tons of cargo on 18 ft. draft. Neither in its harbor nor in canals and channels giving access to it, could Oswego compete in this growing maritime business of increasing tonnages.

But, for a number of years Oswego Harbor continued to enjoy a considerable, even though declining, business. There was still coal to be exported, but the transfer business had declined almost to the vanishing point, and year by year canal business was falling off.

Death Blows Strike Milling

Tariffs imposed by the McKinley Act dealt the last blow to the Oswego grain trade and to its milling, which however had been declining for years, due to western competition, and on May 2, 1892, a fire, sweeping elevators on the east side of the Oswego River, seemed to add a final knockout to this trade. The elevators never were rebuilt.

The original Oswego locks had been increased to 110 feet in length, 18 feet wide and 7 feet in depth, which latter depth was increased to nine feet by the Act of 1896, but was never fully completed due to authorization for the Barge Canal in 1903. By the latter year, most of the old canal craft were disappearing, and none was being constructed, as the new canal was to be for 1,000 ton barges as a maximum, too large for mule-power.

The passing of the old Oswego Canal marked the passing of the individual canal boat owners. From an investment of $5,000., at the most, the canal carrier was getting into the class of big business, like transportation on the lakes under changing economic conditions.

Oswego men were alert to a necessity for changed conditions in Oswego, with the Barge Canal nearing completion in 1913, and with Canada making appropriations for the New Welland Ship Canal. A movement was started, tending toward a survey of the harbor, to undertake to have upper lake conditions met in harbor depths, more adequate breakwater protection and other modern harbor details, but the declaration of War in Europe deferred work on the Welland Canal, and while hearings were conducted in Washington on Oswego Harbor, by the Corps of Engineers, soon the United States was to enter the World Conflict, and harbor improvements gave way to national defense.

In 1919 consideration was given to harbor improvements, for there had been accelerated commerce due to war demands, and decision was made to organize a Port Authority to have public direction of any future plans for improvements.

With the Barge Canal completed and open to traffic in 1919, the year 1921 brought just 18,946 tons movement in freight through Oswego, and in 1923 the freight movement was but 15,525 tons. Motorships were being constructed, however, and tonnage was increasing, and the popularity with motorship operators of the Oswego route was commencing to divert traffic which grew year by year until 1930, when the tonnage was 251,179.

In that year the tonnage of Oswego Harbor proper was at lowest ebb, having fallen to 143,539 tons. Sailing vessels had almost entirely disappeared. There were no new carriers entering the trade. Coal shipping trestles were antiquated and docks were rotting and fallen into conditions making use for any purpose impossible.

Canal Locks Limit Ship Size

Lock dimensions and navigable depths in the State Canal System and in the Welland Canal regulated, naturally, the sizes of carriers that could use those waterways, and Oswego Harbor, located between the two canals and the St. Lawrence River canals to the east, could have only traffic in the canal-restricted shipping.

Until 1882 the usable length of Welland Canal locks was 150 feet, the width 26 1-2 feet., the depth 9 or 10 feet, and it was in the period preceding 1887 that most of the vessels engaged in Oswego Harbor trade were constructed. Most of them were schooners and in 1884, as a typical year, 329 steamers carried 48,861 tons of lake commerce into Oswego, and 1,827 sailing vessels carried 317,- 543 tons, or more than six times as much freight transported by sail as by steam. Lake Ontario was truly the last stamping ground of sailing vessels in Great Lakes traffic.

To consider a typical Lake Ontario schooner of the period, which carried a master, a mate and a crew of four or five men, it may be seen that in initial cost, which ranged from §10,000 upward, the investment in such a carrier was relatively small. Such a ship carried 350 to 400 tons of coal, or 17,000 to 20,000 bushels of grain. Their low cost made ownership possible to a wide number of investors, and lake captains more often than not were partowners of the ships they sailed. Freights usually brought a good return on the investment, and while speed was desirable, it was not a demand.

With enlargement of the Welland Canal to locks of 256 feet usable length, and after 1887 navigable depth of 14 feet, there were some larger steamships that entered the Oswego trade, and in 1894 a steamship brought a cargo of 75,000 bushels of grain from the upper lakes, and steamships c equal size took as much as 1,300 tons of coal from Oswego shipping trestles. The Oswego and Erie Canals were becoming antiquated because speed had commenced to be a factor in transportation. Steamships sounded the death knell of sailing vessels. The State Canal System, with towed barges making less than two miles an hour on an average, with stops at sunset and fleets tied up until daylight, was failing to meet demands of the rising tempo of American business. Men were commencing to think and to operate in larger volume. Business in transportation, as in industry, was growing up. These were all to the disadvantage of Oswego, where the pioneers were paying the toll of time, retiring or dying, and with apparently no successors to carry on.

New Start Made in 1923

That was the situation that existed in 1923, when the State Legislature enacted the measure which established the Oswego Harbor and Dock Commission, and the situation was not too promising in the possibilities of restoring what had been lost to Oswego Harbor and to Oswego.

It was apparent from the start, after organization of the Commission under the presidency of the late Frederick B. Shepard, anything undertaken should be on a firm foundation of fact. From the outset it was determined the policy of the Commission always would be to keep the public informed of its activities, its aims and its objectives, when announcement did not conflict with confidences of necessity sometimes imparted by interested business. This policy has been consistently followed, even at times when the announcements were not encouraging, but they were facts, and if any measure of success has come to the work of the Commission in seventeen years, it has been because it has faced facts and dealt only with factual matters.

The Commission consulted with U. S. Army Engineers on the problem of modernizing Oswego Harbor to accommodate traffic it was believed would come when the New Welland Ship Canal was opened for business. There were doubts expressed, in Washington and elsewhere, for the Welland Canal threatened to change, in theory if not in fact, long-established trade routes and practices, and competitors of Oswego were as jealous in preserving their advantages as Oswego since has been in protecting its rights.

Seeking facts, and facts only, the Commission retained the consulting engineering firm of Fay, Spofford & Thorndike, Boston, Mass., to make a commodity survey of the Great Lakes in relation to Oswego Harbor. That work occupied the greater part of three years, involved an expenditure of more than $25,000., by the Commission, and resulted in a monumental report in two volumes, which still, after fourteen years, are the basic reference books on its subject. It may be of interest to state this report not only is in the library of every U. S. college and city, but is in most of those in Europe, and throughout every year there are still requests for copies of the report, many of these coming from European cities.

The Commission did not await the final determination of the engineers, whose instructions were to ascertain whether it was worth while to develop Oswego Harbor from an economic standpoint, and who were directed to report adversely if the facts so indicated. From time to time, the Commission received reports, some of them encouraging, others to the contrary, but the general trend indicated, while there had been many changes in the years, fundamentally the location of Oswego was its greatest commercial asset on water-borne transportation problems, and what had made the port great in the past, properly developed, again would bring similar results.

Grain Rate Readjustment Sought

The Commission undertook then to secure readjustment of the grain rate structure on rail shipments from Oswego, for, while not a bushel of grain was being moved through the port, it was the engineers’ belief grain would move eventually, and a proper recognition of its proximity to tidewater, compared with other lake ports, was necessary if the volume of movement was to be predicated on rates and economies of transport.

For three years, the Commission battled the Oswego Grain Rate Case, before the Interstate Commerce Commission in Washington. Every railroad company in the North Atlantic States, except the New York, Ontario & Western, opposed Oswego, as did many cities including Buffalo, and many corporations. The report of the first examiner was a defeat for Oswego, but believing from its engineers’ reports facts cannot well be controverted, the Commission appealed, and finally the victory was won, and the Oswego Grain Rate Differential of 1.5 cents per 100 lbs., under Buffalo rates, to North Atlantic ports on grain and grain-products shipped from Osv.ego, established. The Commission was again required to defend this rate within two years, and again in 1939, but each time was successful in maintaining the differential, which now seems to be firmly established for all time.

Meanwhile, the Commission engineers had completed their report and, after a series of hearings which brought favorable recommendations by the Army Engineers, Congress authorized the start of construction on the present breakwater system.

There was the authorization, but no funds from Congress, and the Commission, with the approval of the Common Council, borrowed on the city’s credit the sum of $100,000. which was advanced to the War Department so a continuing contract could be awarded for the first breakwater under the authorization. The Commission from its budget paid the interest charges and finally, after three years, secured re-payment of the loan by the government. Incidentally, the loan was secured from F. L. Carlisle, anxious and willing then to help Oswego and not realizing perhaps there would result an ultimate benefit to one of his companies, starting to use Oswego Harbor in 1940, in connection with movement of bituminous coal for the Central New York Power Corporation steam electric station on the west harbor. There was a multiplicity of minor matters to be adjusted in endeavoring to get Oswego Harbor in condition to meet the demands of a greater and modern commerce. The question of harbor lines came up three times in ten years. There were questions of straightening out harbor lines in Oswego River; questions of securing deep water to dock faces in the river section of the harbor; question of an economic design for new docks; and dozens of others, involving continued activity by the Commission.

Harbor Projects

The War Department was induced to declare the portion of Fort Ontario Reservation, lying at the foot of the west slope of the bluff, surplus and not required for military purposes, as indeed it was not. This land was released to the State of New York, as is provided in the original deed by the State to the Government, when the Reservation ceases to be of military use. By Legislative Act the land was granted by the State to the City of Oswego. The City of Oswego deeded the land to the railway company, for the end of the terminal, which the ‘ City in turn deeded to the War Department and the Government of the United States, and the Government removed the end by dredging, thus satisfying all concerned.

Only the records of the Commission show the number of trips to Washington, Albany and New York involved in the rather complicated transfer and the negotiations, of necessity, involved. But it was worth the effort, as results indicate this year, with the Ontario & Western Railway Company to undertake a development of that property for a terminal for interchange of rail, lake and canal freight, which has in its present aspects much of promise in adding to the tonnage of Oswego Harbor and employment of Oswego people.

Plan Expanded Coast Guard Station

The Commission, looking ahead, saw the time to come when the U. S. Coast Guard station, on its site, acquired from the Grampus Bay property-owners years ago, would be an obstacle to construction of a proper railhead to serve the waterfront in that vicinity, if modern development and utilization should follow. Negotiations over two or three years with U. S. Treasury Department executives resulted in a plan which merely awaits the need to be executed, but which will result in construction of a new Coast Guard station and probably, now the Lighthouse Department has been consolidated with the Coast Guard, into a Coast Guard base that will serve the shore establishment, the Cutter on the station and the lighthouse division in one location.

In the original plans for Oswego Harbor development, the west harbor, which as previously noted was developed for protecting the lumber terminals that no longer existed in 1923 when harbor plans were first made, was to be of shallower depth than the other harbor and river basin, and was to be confined principally to shelter for oil tankers. Mooring dolphins were authorized near the shore-return-arm, and pipe lines therefrom laid to the oil tanks in Fifth Avenue.

But location of the steam generating station in the west harbor, on the site of former lumber docks and buildings once using lumber in vast quantities, changed these plans. Deep water is required for the largest size lake carriers to bring bituminous coal to the steam station, where a terminal 800 feet long is to be constructed this year, and where under plans of the power corporation there will be 360,000 tons of coal discharged annually, and perhaps other commodities interchanged in the plans of the corporation executives for utilizing the advantages presented in low-cost water transportation for its other plants.

What eventually will happen in that section of Oswego Harbor is conjectural. It is not difficult to foresee a time when the present breakwaters in front of that property will be moved outward into Lake Ontario, to provide greater space for maneuvering carriers, and further to provide shelter in greater area, for carriers laden with grain, which sooner or later will seek to go into winter quarters in Oswego Harbor. The present harbor cannot accommodate them, in number or security, to make the venture worth-while, but the Lake Carriers’ Association now urges a change in the breakwater layout in Oswego to provide these facilities, and the Commission believes the future will show a further development in that end of the harbor.

Then and Now In Tonnage

Records were not always kept in the exactness now featuring reports of government departments. It was not until 1868 that the net registered tonnage of shipping using the Oswego Harbor was compiled on a comparable basis, and that year the net registered tonnage 1,752,767, and the value of imports was given as in excess of $7,000,000, and domestic business as more than §17,000,000, in value, but there was no record of the tonnage, and in 1869 the records, while showing 1,563,881 registered tonnage, merely state that the value of the commodities handled was “very great.” That does not give much opportunity for comparison, but checking through customs reports of later years and taking the year 1891 when the net registered tonnage was 1,071,504, when the grain and lumber business was prosperous, the total tonnage handled in Oswego Harbor was 1,138,144.

It is interesting from 1868 to check down the list of harbor tonnages, which tell graphically the rise and recession of lake and canal business, until in 1923 when the total 1 bor tonnage had fallen to 393,202 tons.

There is of course more to the story, for the figures also show that in 1868 revenues collected totaled $1,224,088.32, or more than $1.00 per ton. In 1928 the revenues had fallen to $2,195.65, showing something of what abolition of tolls meant, but more, the decline of a grain and lumber trade that paid tariff duties.

Expend $4,500,000 In 58 Years

During the 58 years from 1866 on, the United States Government collected in revenues in Oswego Harbor in excess of $21,000,000, and during that time up to the present has expended a total of $4,537,243.82, of which $1,347,- 148.91 has been for maintenance. Oswego Harbor does not owe the Government much, for at least five times the cost of harbor improvement have been returned in duties collected.

In 1938 there was received by lake into Oswego 1,221,622 tons, valued at $19,558,868, and by barge canal 732,727 tons valued at $16,391,457; or a total of 1,- 954,349 tons valued at $35,950,325. Additional transit cargoes passing through Oswego comprised 627,- 383 tons valued at $43,193,262.00.

Thus it may be noted that tonnage of Oswego Harbor at the present time is greater than at any time in the days of old Oswego Harbor business, and the value of the commodities handled many times greater. The difference is that profits in the ships, in the wages paid to crews, in the transactions of the commodities do not come to Oswego. The only advantages have been in the increasing employment offered. Unlikely for some years will Oswego men be actively interested in shipping or in forwarding in the large volumes of modern business. The financial requirements are too great.

There are some interesting figures available for the 1939 business of Oswego Harbor, which showed a total tonage of 1,450,- 995, including canal transit movement, with a total value of $16,- 670,346, in strictly lake movements, as the values for transit cargoes have not yet been computed.

But in 1939 there were 312 vessels in port loading or discharging, and 8,646 carloads of rail freight were loaded or discharged, and 2,480 trucks loaded grain, beet sugar or other commodities ex lake. Commodities transhipped included anthracite and bituminous coal, coke, wheat, oats, rye, barley, soy beans, copper, zinc, woodpulp, pulpwood, cement, paper-board, beet sugar, etc. Railroads shared in the business, 8,- 646 carloads being handled in and out, with a tonnage of 426,938 of $3,964,655 value, and freight rates collected amounting to $1,056,180.

A New Day Dawns

Drought in the far western grain states for four or five years after Oswego Harbor was improved, not only reduced grain exports to almost nothing, but brought for the first time in history imports of grain to the lakes region. Then in 1938 there came a grain surplus and a foreign demand and Oswego handled in the single State owned elevator 27,000,000,000 bushels. Last year, uncertainties in the foreign market did not permit a repetition of this volume, which may never come again in one elevator, but Oswego handled about 15,000,000 bushels which is more nearly the normal single elevator capacity.

The Commission looks to continuance of the grain business under existing conditions, given a foreign demand, for almost all of the grain handled through Oswego is for export. The 1938 movement represented 36 percent of the harbor’s total tonnage, and it was 17.2 per cent of the entire country’s export grain trade, and represented payment of $1,460,000, in carrying charges, transfers, and wages.

A gradual return of the milling business is expected, but when, in view of uncertainties existing in government and other factors, make fixing a date difficult. But several large milling concerns are investigating and there is a prospect, when conditions become more settled and normal, for at least one other grain elevator.

Oswego has become, through establishment of the Huron Portland Cement Company’s storage and packing plant in this port, a rate making point for cement distribution in New York State. Sooner or later, other bulk plants will follow. Warehousing cement started on a larger scale by competing companies last year.

There are prospects for a dairy feed business, to augment that in operation at present. A soy bean processing plant, recently established, is now in operation. These are adjuncts of the grain trade, a start in a small way of more expected to come on a larger scale, being but history repeating itself as it did many years ago, when from small beginnings large enterprises resulted.

Coal Traffic to Exceed Million Tons

Improved coal terminal shipping and receiving facilities, and steam plant requirements, will bring Oswego’s total coal shipments, in and out, to more than 1,000,000 tons annually. This is a certainty, and requires no prophecy other than ability to add figures.

All indications point to Oswego becoming a large woodpulp distributing center, with imports from abroad, from Canada, and shipments by canal from the south, where the industry is just starting on new woodpulp developments. Shipments received in the past two years are forerunners of more to come.

The petroleum products shipments, increasing annually, shortly are due to be greatly augmented by a new movement from west to east, reversing somewhat the present trend.

Canal tonnage will continue to increase through the better facilities afforded by the Government’s $27,000,000 improvement program, the last part of which is centered in and about Oswego and which was started late last fall in channel deepening, with river channel deepening, increased clearance under the lower bridge and other work to follow.

Planned development of the Ontario & Western terminal where new dock faces are to be built, with warehouse facilities, etc., added, will bring a new type of business to Oswego, in addition to lake and rail interchange of diversified cargoes. The prospects, given facilities provided, are excellent for continued development, once this business receives a fair start.

In reviewing Oswego Harbor history, it is well to recall that the passage of 75 years was required to bring the old harbor to its peak tonnage. In less than a decade, since the opening of the New Welland Canal and improvement of Oswego Harbor, its tonnage and valuations have exceeded all old records, and Oswego Harbor now floats one-quarter of all the tonnage carried on the entire barge canal system. It will carry more.

The “good old days” may never return under the conditions prevailing now, when one grain cargo arriving in Oswego equals that carried in 30 schooners, and one modern canal carrier has capacity for 15 times that of the largest old-time canal boat. The days of a half-dozen harbor tugs racing for tows far into Lake Ontario are gone. Carriers are self-propelled. There are other changes. Something of the picturesque unquestionably has gone forever. The dangers and the hazards have been taken out of Great Lakes sailing, when it is recalled the wrecks, the losses and the tragedies of the old days.

Last year Great Lakes freighters carried 114,229,856 tons without the loss of a life or a ship, and Oswego Harbor definitely was in the scene, and will continue to be for years to come, in increasing tonnage.

It may be unwise to venture any forecasts for the future of Oswego Harbor, but it is nevertheless true that predictions or, more properly termed, estimates of Commission and U. S. Army engineers on present-day traffic, have been almost uncannily correct.

These Facts Are Significant:

Following the prediction of Oswego engineers that when adequate facilities were available, capital would seek the advantages of the Port of Oswego,—early in 1938 came the announcement that Central New York Power Corporation, subsidiary of the great Niagara Hudson Power system, after an intensive survey and study by its engineers, had selected a site on the Harbor of Oswego for the erection of one of the greatest steam electric generating plants in the world. Contracts were let early in September, 1938, for the first unit, and the following year the second unit was started, at a total investment of over $16,000,- 000 The first unit of 80,000 KW. will be in operation in 1940; the second unit in 1941. Provision is made in the company’s plans for the eventual construction, when needed, of three aditional [sic] units.

What this tremendous asset will mean to the Port of Oswego, only time will tell. This we do know— that history is already repeating itself. As in the early days pioneers came and settled—now came and studied the engineers, men of vision, men with the courage of their convictions—builders —men who shape the destiny of the community.—Now again, unless all signs fail, will come to this community industry eager to take advantage of abundant low-cost power, linked with cheap transportation, either by rail or water.

The magic growth of the City of Buffalo was due, in major part, to the fact that until the opening of the New Welland Canal in 1930, that city was the most easterly port on the Great Lakes to which the largest lake vessels afloat could bring their cargoes. Added to this was the fact that in 1896, Buffalo, for the first time in its history, became linked with the great power development at Niagara Falls which paved the way for industry to come and prosper.

Only a short distance away was Niagara Falls, a virgin territory with only 3300 inhabitants in 1890, when for the first time in its history the great power at the Falls was harnessed and made available to those who would use it. The development of this power startled the industrial world in the late 90’s, and Niagara Falls and “the Niagara Frontier” grew almost over-night. Today a world-renowned city of over 80,000 population, it boasts of some of the greatest chemical plants in the country, the location of which there was primarily due to the abundant low-cost power available there at its source and to the available opportunity in cheap transportation.

Today the picture in Oswego has changed—the day of the horse and mule on the tow-path has gone–once again Oswego challenges its nearest port rivals for the commerce of the Great Lakes.

With the completion of this great monument of power, Oswego will be enriched with the very factors that made Buffalo and Niagara Falls the great industrial cities they are today. Here, through this harbor, where “Power, Rails and the Waters meet,” will come industry, —creating new payrolls and opportunity—the very foundation upon which great cities are built. History proves—beyond a shadow of doubt, “Where there is abundant low cost power (the life-blood of industry), industry inevitably follows.”

Yes, the “old days” are gone— a new day dawns. From the history of the past comes inspiration for the future. Today conditions are new and entirely different, yet so full of promise as to justify all the expenditures that have been or will be made by the Federal government. They would have made glad the hearts of the pioneers of old, some of sacred memory, and to those who have lived to see this day, men who year after year have given of their time, their money and their brains,—those who have been an inspiration to all of us—to those men must come a just pride in the success of such an important undertaking—the Development of the new Harbor at Oswego,— “Nature’s Gateway to the East.”