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Chenango Canal Extension. East End of Section 26. G. D. Lord Contractor. Q. C. Newcombe Engr. in charge. Henry Phillips Supt.
[New York, ca. 1869]. Drawing in graphite and watercolor, 21” x 34.875 (sheet size). CONDITION: Good, moderate dampstaining affecting the image in a few places (mostly edges), a series of small losses along right edge (not affecting image), some rippling to left third of image. A delightful original work of documentary folk art depicting the construction of the ill-fated Chenango Canal Extension, intended to connect the New York canal system with the vast coal fields of Pennsylvania and built in part by a notoriously corrupt contractor later dubbed the “canal boss” for his prominent role in the “Canal Ring” of the 1860s and ’70s. A dense mixed forest dominates the upper half of this drawing, which shows some twenty-three laborers at work on the “East End of Section 26” of the Chenango Canal Extension. A team mid-way up the cutaway hillside use shovels, picks, and bars to loosen stones, which are being carted a short distance by laborers on the tow-path below and placed into the jagged mosaic securing the bank. Two horse-drawn carts carry additional loads along the towpath to the right, away from the scene of work, while a team of surveyors can be seen setting up on the left, with several buildings and a small moored boat some way behind them. A canal boat in the foreground is operated by two men wielding long oars—one of whom, in a pointed hat, sports exuberant side-burns. All the figures, including horses and a dog, are minutely represented in their diverse postures of strain, attention, and weariness, their variety of hats, and their array of brightly colored sleeves and trousers. Careful inscriptions below the decoratively-lettered title identify Q. C. Newcombe as the engineer in charge, Henry Phillips as the superintendent, and G. D. Lord as the contractor. George D. Lord, son of New York politician Jarvis Lord, gained notoriety during the 1870s as a leading member of the Canal Ring, a group of politicians and contractors who wrangled millions in state funds for fraudulent repairs, most infamously to the Erie Canal and Black Rock harbor, but also to the Chenango Canal (“Libelling Lord”) and any other contracts that, as one newspaper article scathingly put it, “promise[d] most plunder” (“War on the Canal Ring”). Newspaper accounts unfurled Lord’s trial in relishing detail, outlining his past attempts at bribery, his bad-faith contracts and the hefty appropriations made to finance them, his arrest, failure to appear in court and subsequent subpoena, testimony against him from at least one engineer, and so on. The Chenango Canal Extension was a long-planned but never completed attempt by New York State to extend the Chenango Canal south from Binghamton along the Susquehanna River to the Pennsylvania state line, linking the canal systems of the two states and creating a continuous water route to Pennsylvania’s coal fields. First authorized for survey in 1838, detailed engineering studies evaluated multiple routes, lock designs, aqueduct crossings, and costs, but despite strong legislative and commercial support—especially for the promise of cheap coal and expanded trade—the project languished for decades due to financial constraints, shifting transportation priorities, and later competition from railroads. Renewed surveys in the late 1850s and early 1860s led to formal authorization in 1863, and actual construction finally began in 1865. However, repeated funding shortfalls caused work to be suspended, resumed, and scaled back several times, and by 1872, with much of the canal partially completed but the final connection to Pennsylvania unfinished, the project was abandoned. Section 26, depicted here, was opened to contractor bids in the summer of 1869, with an intended completion deadline of November of 1870. REFERENCES: “Libelling Lord,” New-York Daily Tribune, March 30, 1875, p. 6; “Fraudulent Canal Contracts Ten Days Old,” New-York Daily Tribune, March 29, 1875, p. 2; “New York State Canals. Notice to Contractors!” The Buffalo Daily Republic, August 31, 1869, p. 3.
Item #9917
Price: $5,500.00
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