The I & M Canal, the men who built it
By Sandy Vasko
1836 was a banner year in many ways. The massacre at the Alamo stunned the nation, but more locally, the County of Will was born, the towns of Lockport, Joliet and Wilmington among others were platted out, and the great State of Illinois project, the Illinois and Michigan Canal, was begun.
It was thought that the fastest way to finish this great project was to work on all of the sections at one time. The I & M Canal Commission itself did not hire the workers, but bid out the sections to private contractors. In addition, contracts were put out for work on the Feeder Canals from the Des Plaines, Calumet, Du Page, Kankakee and Fox rivers.
A great highway was constructed to bring machinery to site of the first lock on the canal at Lockport. It, too, was bid out. The original contract can be seen at the Will County Historical Society Museum, also in Lockport. It was originally named Archer’s Road, later to become Illinois Route 171.
Contractors sprang up overnight, some of them reputable, some of them not. Unskilled labor, mainly recent immigrants from Ireland, flocked to Illinois where there truly were jobs for everyone. But most of these jobs paid very little, one dollar per day, which is about $28 today.
A day was 12 hours long. Many days were too cold/wet/snowy to work. On those days, the workers were not paid at all, while some days, only a half day’s work was offered, and only a half day’s pay received.
Skilled workers, such as stone cutters, were paid a bit more. In an ad from the Juliet Courier in July of 1840, we read: “Stone Cutters – Wanted – the undersigned contractors at Juliet and Lockport, on the Illinois and Michigan Canal will employ from 40 to 50 stone cutters (if application be made immediately) at the following prices, to sit; straight ashlars (make straight sided stones), header and stretcher 37 ½ ($10.50) cents per foot, and other work in proportion or two dollars per day ($36) in current bank paper. Board will be furnished at from eight to ten dollars per month.”
The laborers were housed in camps up and down the length of the canal. In Dr. John Lamb’s book, “Historical Essays on the Illinois & Michigan Canal,” an entry from a visiting Scotsman tells of the living conditions along the Canal:
“We had scarcely got beyond the edge of town (Chicago) before we came to a colony of Irish laborers employed on the Illinois Canal, and a more repulsive scene we had not for a long time beheld.
“The number congregated here were about 200, including men, women and children, and these were crowded together in 14 or 15 log huts, temporarily erected for their shelter. I never saw anything approaching the scene before us in dirtiness and disorder.
“Poverty could be no excuse, as the men were all paid at the rate of a dollar a day for their labor, had houses rent free, and provisions of every kind abundantly cheap. But whiskey and tobacco seemed the chief delights of the men. Of the women and children, no language would give an adequate idea of their filthy condition, in garments and person.”
Although this description may be accurate for the most part, the writer ignored a few basic facts. It was not the workers’ fault that not enough log huts were built to house them. Secondly if these workers were working for one of the unscrupulous contractors, they may not have been paid at all.
In a letter from the Will County Historical Society archives dated Nov 11th, 1846, sent to the Director of the Canal General Jacob Fry we read:
“The laborers employed on section 130,131 & 132 of the Illinois & Michigan Canal have not been settled with or paid any money in the last three months. There is about thirty men employed on the work and the average pay due off the work is about from $25 ($863) to $50 ($1,726) per man and no prospect of any money.
“McDonald and Duffin (the contractors in charge of those sections) has not come home yet and we understand that McDonald’s orders are to give no due bills. The men have stopped the work this morning. Sec. 131 is about to be completed in a couple of days and General if you do not look to us and not let the money into McDonald’s hands, we shall be done out of our wages which is our all.”
It is signed, “By many Poor Laborers.”
By 1847, another sort of job was opening up, that of lock tender. This job was a highly prized one because it came with a rent-free house. The job was simple: Any time of the day or night, when a boat came down into the canal, the lock tender manually opened and closed the gates that kept our or let in the water of the canal into the lock.
In another letter from the archives to Peter Stewart, engineer on the Canal and resident of Wilmington, a man named Louis Leyman wrote:
“Joliet nov 23 1847,
“Mr. Stuart,
“You remember you told me your wold allwise look to my enteseret. I understand that it is as the canal officers say, ‘Now shall be lock tender;’ you wold oblige me if you can geve me such it, if you think that ther is any prospect of it will you be so kind as to let me know, you will excuse my poor woriting for it is my furst inglshes letter”
We do not know if Leyman got the job, but we do know that in 1848 the Illinois and Michigan Canal was opened, and folks celebrated up and down its length, but that is a tale for another day.
Sandy Vasko is Director of the Will County Historical Museum & Research Center and President of the Will County Historical Society.