The Transportation
Revolution in Connecticut
By
James P. Walsh
Nineteenth-century
America experienced the process of integrating an entire continent
into a single cultural and economic entity. Although Connecticut
was a small part of the nation, she too shared in the need to
quicken the pace of communication and trade. Most of Connecticut's
chief industries depended upon imported raw materials and its
agriculture depended increasingly upon access to urban markets.
In
the first half of the century, the United States engaged in an
orgy of canal building. The greatest venture of that kind in Connecticut
was the Farmington Canal. The project was initiated by New Haven
merchants who hoped to stimulate the city's export trade by tapping
the hinterland stretching through Farmington into Massachusetts.
The Farmington Canal Company was chartered in 1822, and spent
some $2 million over the next quarter century to construct and
operate its canal.
Digging
began in 1825 at Granby, and by 1828 the canal had been carried
over the Farmington River by an aqueduct in Avon. The main canal
itself opened in
November
1828. By 1835 barges could travel all the way from New Haven to
Northampton. At first, it seemed the canal would be a success.
Income from tolls averaged $75,000 a year, and the farmers and
merchants living along the route experienced an immediate increase
in their sales. Unfortunately, the Farmington Canal Company never
had a year in which income was greater than expenses. For the
last decade of its existence, the company was in virtual bankruptcy,
until finally in 1848 it decided to close the canal.
The
age of canals was shortened by the coming of the railroad. The
first line built in Connecticut was intended to attract some of
the traffic between Boston and New York, which typically went
overland to some point on Narragansett Bay or Long Island Sound,
and then by water. In 1837 the New York and Stonington Company
opened a five-mile stretch of track from Rhode Island to Stonington,
which then connected with a steamer to New York City. From that
small beginning, a web of iron rails soon covered the state. Work
began on connecting Hartford and New Haven in 1838, and by 1844
New Haven had been tied to New York City. Connecticut had 600
miles of track by 1855.
The
railroads had an immense impact on the economy. Construction and
capital costs required large-scale financing. The Hartford and
New Haven line, for example, began with capital of $1.5 million
in 1835. Altogether, it is estimated that Connecticut's railroads
represented an investment of $24 million in 1855. The need to
raise such large amounts of capital stimulated the state's banking
and insurance business. In general, those who built railroads
tried to connect places where business and population were growing
and bypassed the declining rural towns, thus exacerbating the
differences between rural and urban Connecticut. Finally, railroads,
like canals, benefitted those who lived along their routes more
than those who invested. By 1860, the average return on investment
for all Connecticut railroad companies was less than 3%. Although
built by private enterprise for profit, canals and railroads proved
to be more like non-profitable public services.
Improvements
in transportation helped not only the shipment of goods, but
the
mobility of people. The railroads, especially, played a key role
in eroding parochial ways of life and thought by making it
easier for the people of Connecticut to visit one another and
to experience
life beyond one's town border.
For
Further Reading
For
the Farmington Canal, see Eric Sloane, "The Farmington
Canal,"
American Heritage (February 1858). On railroads, see Sidney
Withington, The First Twenty Years of Railroads in Connecticut
(New Haven, 1935).
*
Entry under revision.
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