Butler County Hydraulic Canals
Compiled by Jim Blount
Three hydraulic canals once provided power for industries in Butler County. The most successful were the water systems in Hamilton and Middletown. Hydraulic canals provided power for Hamilton’s industrial growth.
The Hamilton Hydraulic -- officially the Hamilton & Rossville Hydraulic Company -- spurred Hamilton's greatest period of industrial and population growth, the 1840-1860 era. The locally-financed system -- built to supply power to shops and mills -- was a risky project because there were no shops along its course when the company was formed in 1842. The gamble paid off and Hamilton quickly developed into a prosperous industrial community.
For at least 30 years after its 1845 opening, the hydraulic was a reliable and relatively cheap source of power. It powered many Hamilton industries through the 1870s when the coal-fired stationary steam engine became affordable.
The system relied on a steady downhill flow of water that rotated millstones in the hydraulic channel. The revolving axles in the stones connected to a network of wheels, pulleys and gears that powered machinery inside each shop.
The hydraulic began on the Great Miami River about four miles north of Hamilton. A dam was built to divert river water into the system. Two reservoirs stored water for the hydraulic, whose main canal continued south along North Fifth Street to Market Street (then Stable Street). There it took a sharp right turn west to the river at the intersection of Market Street and North Monument Avenue. Today that point is between the old Hamilton Municipal Building and the Hamiltonian Hotel.
Later, other branches were established. The hydraulic network -- coupled with the Miami-Erie Canal and its Hamilton Basin -- gave Hamilton the appearance of a miniature Venice, Italy, from the 1840s through the 1870s.
Henry S. Earhart, a merchant and civil engineer, is credited with recognizing that water could be brought from the river north of Hamilton into the town as a source of power for future industries. Much of the preliminary work was by John W. Erwin, an engineer who also had collaborated with Earhart and John C. Skinner in building turnpikes, railroads, other waterway projects and civic improvements.
Joining Earhart, Erwin and Skinner in directing the company were William Bebb (later governor), Lewis D. Campbell, John Woods, Laomi Rigdon, Dr. Jacob Hitell, Andrew McCleary, Jacob Matthias and other community leaders.
The first water passed through the system in January 1845. Several small industries were built along the hydraulic in the 1840s. One was the Miami Paper Mill, later known as the Beckett Paper Company and more recently as International Paper and Mohawk Paper.
Hamilton had 1,409 inhabitants in the 1840 census. By 1850, the total had jumped 127.8 percent to 3,210 -- much of the increase attributed to people attracted to new jobs created by the 1845 opening of the hydraulic. Growth continued in the 1850s, the 1860 census of 7,223 representing a 125 percent population increase in 10 years.
When planned, the hydraulic canal was to be solely a power source, not a transportation system. But city fathers saw a secondary purpose, and Mayor Jonathan Pierson signed an ordinance Nov. 14, 1842, assuring the city of another valuable benefit.
That agreement between Hamilton and hydraulic owners guaranteed that the city "shall at all times be permitted, quietly and peaceably, to use water from" the hydraulic "by pipes or otherwise for the purpose of extinguishing fires" in the community. That made property along the hydraulic more attractive to entrepreneurs seeking sites for new or expanded industries. It promised improved fire protection in addition to a reliable source of power.
Decades later, most of the hydraulic canal within the city would be covered or filled. Northern sections remain visible west of Joe Nuxhall Blvd. and Campbell Drive in Hamilton and Canal Road in Fairfield Twp. The presence of the hydraulic attracted Henry Ford to Hamilton in 1919 when he sought a site for a tractor factory. Ford built a plant -- quickly converted to producing auto parts -- at the north end of North Fifth Street so it could take advantage of power provided by a branch of the hydraulic.
The Ford plant closed in 1950, but the hydraulic branch remains, now owned by the City of Hamilton. The waterway -- just north of the municipal electric generating plant -- supplies a small portion of the city's electric needs.
Local engineer visualized Hydraulic power system
The water power system that transformed Hamilton into an industrial city was a product of local genius and labor. The Hamilton & Rossville Hydraulic Company was a private corporation -- not an arm of any government. Local investors funded the waterway that opened in 1845 and sparked Hamilton's greatest period of economic development.
Henry S. Earhart, a Hamilton resident since 1822, is credited with visualizing the hydraulic in the 1830s. The idea came to the merchant and civil engineer, who resided on North Third Street, while he was looking for a stray cow north of town. His trained eye noticed the pronounced slope of the Great Miami River and reasoned that its strong current could be diverted to provide water power for shops in Hamilton.
Earhart shared his observation with John W. Erwin, a friend and fellow civil engineer. The men -- who had worked together on a number of canal and turnpike projects -- completed a survey of possible hydraulic routes in 1840.
Their report paved the way for legislative action. An enabling act won the support of the Ohio General Assembly March 25, 1841. It authorized the company to build dams, aqueducts, culverts, basins, embankments and other physical features necessary "to conduct the water of the Miami River" into and through the towns of Hamilton and Rossville "for the purpose of creating water power, to be used for manufacturing and other purposes."
Not specified in the legislation was the exact route of the waterway. That important detail depended on several factors to be decided by directors of the company, including buying land and settling numerous legal matters involving the canal right-of-way. Also unsettled was if one or two systems would be built and, if two, which would be built first. The dispute rekindled the rivalry between the two towns, Hamilton on the east side of the river and Rossville on the west bank. (Merger was still 14 years away.)
Fortunately, the enabling act contained a logical resolution. It appointed Samuel Forrer, a neutral party, to be "a special commissioner, whose duty it shall be to survey and estimate the route on both side of said river, and to establish . . . the best and most practical route, and where the greatest amount of water power can be obtained at the least expense."
Forrer -- associated with Ohio canals from 1820 until 1873 -- had worked on canals in New York and Indiana as well as the Miami-Erie Canal between Dayton and Cincinnati and the Warren County Canal from Middletown to Lebanon.
His Oct. 26, 1841, report favored building a Hamilton route surveyed by Earhart and Erwin, who had measured the run of the river at 26.132 feet per minute and estimated the fall of the water from the proposed headgates into Hamilton at 29 feet. At a stockholder's meeting in January 1842, Erwin and John C. Skinner were hired as engineers with the latter paid $400 a year to direct construction of the hydraulic system that began about four miles north of the city.
A dam was built on the Great Miami to divert water into a series of canals and reservoirs designed to supply power for shops and mills that would be built along the route. This included a Big Reservoir (24 acres ranging in depth from 15 to 24 feet) and a Little Reservoir (more than six acres, 18 to 20 feet in depth) that stored water.
The Little Reservoir fed the hydraulic canal that extended south along North Fifth Street to Stable Street (later renamed Market Street). There it turned west, ending at a spillway near the intersection of Market and North Monument Avenue (at the southwest corner of the Hamiltonian parking lot). The canal was five feet deep, 45 feet wide at the water line and 35 feet wide at the bottom.
Water passed into the system Jan. 27, 1845, and it was declared operational four days later -- but it didn't produce immediate returns. The hydraulic had been built on a gamble -- on the premise that Hamilton had cheap transportation in the form of the Miami-Erie Canal (completed in the area in the late 1820s), and that creating a cheap power system would attract new factories and create employment in the city.
Hamilton in 1840s planned to be 'Lowell of West'
Promoters of the Hamilton & Rossville Hydraulic Company in the 1840s believed the project would make "Hamilton the Lowell of the West." Both communities were on a river and a canal, and business leaders in both towns planned to capitalize on those assets. As the hydraulic was being built, one optimistic forecast said "Hamilton is destined ere long to become to Cincinnati what Lowell is to Boston."
In the 1820s, the Massachusetts town developed as an industrial model by tapping the Merrimac River for water power and using the Middlesex Canal to transport raw materials and finished goods the 20 miles between Lowell and Boston's ports. Lowell textile mills relied on a system of dams and canals to convert river water to energize spindles and machinery.
Supporters of the Hamilton hydraulic emphasized that it would have an advantage over Lowell. It was closer to southern cotton markets. The raw material could reach here by way of steamboats on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers and canal boats on the Miami-Erie canal. That was more direct and quicker than the circuitous sea route between New Orleans and Boston.
Since 1827, Hamilton business had reaped the advantage of being on the Miami-Erie Canal, a waterway that eventually linked the Ohio River and Lake Erie. That meant local products could reach eastern markets via lakes steamers at Toledo and trans-shipment over the Erie Canal and Hudson River in New York. Southern and western customers were accessible by way of steamboat connections at Cincinnati.
The Hamilton hydraulic -- taking water from the Great Miami River four miles north of town -- promised the cheap power needed to attract new shops and new jobs to Hamilton. During its 29-foot fall, the water would turn millstones that would propel wheels, pulleys and gears in factories along the canal. Industrialists could lease a pair of millstones for $150 a year.
According to plans, the Hamilton system could power as many as 166 pairs of millstones -- enough to build 49 cotton mills. One estimate said the hydraulic, if fully utilized, could create up to 99,000 jobs in a town that had 1,409 inhabitants in the 1840 census.
"Falling water was the chief source of stationary power at all levels, in most branches of industry, and throughout the greater part of the United States before the 1860s," said Louis C. Hunter in his 1979 book, A History of Industrial Power in the United States.
"The traditional view of the revolutionary role of steam power," Hunter wrote, "has been accepted by historians almost without challenge and with little qualification until recent years." He said "the role of stationary steam power before 1850 has been exaggerated and that of water power underrated, although more by inference and implication than by direct statement."
Steam power in this region depended on the availability of coal at a reasonable, competitive price. The railroad came to Hamilton in 1851, but until 1888 the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton Railroad monopolized service. High freight rates for coal -- a result of the CH&D's local dominance -- contributed to the popularity of the hydraulic system.
But the hydraulic faced several financial and technical obstacles from its 1845 opening. Maintaining an adequate flow of water was a constant problem. Millstones failed to turn in periods of drought and deep freeze, and embankments washed out after heavy rain.
The private company had to borrow money in its formative years, when there were few factories along the waterway. The hydraulic survived because of the political and financial skills, experience and contacts of three officers, William Bebb, John Woods and Lewis D. Campbell.
Three hydraulic canals operated in Butler County
The community was ready for a big celebration 160 years ago. It was the planned Dec. 14, 1844, opening of the Hamilton hydraulic. Officers of the Hamilton & Rossville Hydraulic Company were present. So were members of a local militia unit and a German band. Water was expected to rush from the Great Miami River four miles north of town, flow into two reservoirs, and continue through a channel five feet deep along North Fifth Street and Market Street before returning to the river at Monument Avenue. But it didn't work that way -- not that day.
The band played, dignitaries marched in a parade and speeches were heard, but the hydraulic didn't fill with water and demonstrate its power that day. Adjustments were made and water flowed from the river into the hydraulic canal Jan. 27, 1845.
Four days later, Friday, Jan. 31, a steady current turned the millstones that transferred power to machinery in the Tobias Brothers Machine Shop at the northeast corner of Market Street and Monument Avenue. The factory -- the nucleus for what later became the Long & Allstsatter Co. -- had been built in anticipation of the opening of the hydraulic. It was one of several businesses erected in Hamilton in the 1840s because of the availability of cheap power.
Opposite Tobias was the Hamilton Hydraulic Flour Mills built by William Hunter and John W. Erwin, the latter one of the hydraulic planners. Cotton Row, a cotton factory, was erected on the east side of North Fourth Street between Dayton and Heaton streets by William Bebb and Lewis D. Campbell, both officers of the hydraulic company. The People's Mill, also a cotton mill, was built in 1845 on the northeast corner of Fifth and Dayton streets by Ezra Potter.
Owens, Ebert & Dyer Co., a machine shop, opened in 1845 west of the hydraulic near Fifth Street. Hittel's Mill, on Fourth Street between High and Market streets, started in 1845 by Dr. Jacob Hittel, a director of the hydraulic company.
The Miami Paper Mill at North Fifth and Buckeye streets arrived in 1849, built by William Beckett and F. D. Rigdon. It was the basis for what later became the Beckett Paper Co. and continues in operation as a division of Mohawk Paper.
Hamilton ballooned from 1,409 people in 1840 to 3,210 in 1850. That growth was the result of an industrial boom fueled by a combination of factors, highlighted by low-cost energy supplied by the Hamilton hydraulic and cheap transportation provided by the Miami-Erie Canal.
A Rossville hydraulic was built, but it never achieved the success of the Hamilton system. Work started in 1849 with a dam across the river near the present intersection of North B Street and West Elkton Road. The canal continued south along the west bank of the river to present Wayne Avenue, where the borrowed water was returned to the Great Miami River.
Three years later, a third hydraulic canal started operation in Butler County. John W. Erwin -- who had helped plan the Hamilton Hydraulic -- was a key figure in developing the Middletown Hydraulic. Middletown leaders authorized construction in April 1852. Heading the project were John W. Erwin, Thomas Sherlock, J. B. Oglesby, Richard H. Hendrickson and Joseph Cooper. Erwin, an engineer, had also designed the Hamilton Hydraulic.
The two-mile system drew water from the Great Miami River north of the town, starting near the site of the present Miami River Preserve along Ohio 73. The waterway paralleled the Miami-Erie Canal (now Verity Parkway) before turning west and returning to the river at the west end of Fourth Street.
In a few years, there were several paper mills along the channel, in addition to other industries. "The building of the hydraulic laid the foundation for the prosperity of Middletown," said the 1882 county history. John W. Erwin built two paper mills in Middletown, including one on the hydraulic while the waterway was under construction. That mill later became the Sorg Paper Company that operated until May 2000.
Erwin also built hydraulic systems in Franklin and Troy in Ohio; Goshen, Elkhart and Bristol in Indiana; and in Constantine, Mich. The native of New Castle, Delaware, was a resident engineer on the Miami-Erie Canal from 1837 until 1879.