Forging a Frontier | 5. From Pirogues to Packet Boats: The Impact of the Miami & Erie Canal on Auglaize County

This article is the fifth in a series exploring the rich historical information contained within H.S. Knapp’s 1873 work, “History of the Maumee Valley.” It is important for the modern reader to recognize that this text, like most historical documents of its time, is written from a white, Euro-American perspective. The voices, motivations, and sufferings of the Native American tribes are often interpreted through the lens of their conquerors. In this series, we will adhere strictly to the details provided in Knapp’s collection, presenting the events as they were recorded, while acknowledging that this is only one side of a complex and often tragic story. By focusing on specific themes and locations, we aim to illuminate the pivotal events and figures that shaped the settlement and development of the region, with a special emphasis on Mercer and Auglaize counties.

5. From Pirogues to Packet Boats: The Impact of the Miami & Erie Canal on Auglaize County

Before the coming of the canal, the economic lifeblood of the present-day Auglaize County region flowed sluggishly along its natural rivers. The St. Mary’s and the Auglaize were the only highways to the outside world, and commerce was a slow, laborious, and seasonal affair. The text describes how, in the early days, “large quantities of flat boats were constructed at St. Mary’s,” which served as the head of navigation. During the winter months, hundreds of barrels of salt, flour, whiskey, and meat, along with boxes of goods, would accumulate at this frontier depot, waiting for the spring thaw to be “transported down the river at the opening of navigation.”

This river trade, carried on in pirogues and flatboats, was essential but limited. A pirogue capable of carrying forty bales of furs and peltries, each weighing about one hundred pounds, required the labor of four skilled boatmen and, in favorable stages of the Wabash, could be propelled only “fifteen or twenty miles a day, against the current.” This was the state of commerce that the Miami & Erie Canal was destined to revolutionize.

The construction of the canal itself was a monumental undertaking that brought a new kind of life and economy to the wilderness. The text records that in the fall of 1837, William Finke and his brother John took contracts for sections 45, 46, and 47 of the Miami Extension Canal, between New Bremen and St. Mary’s. Their work took place in a country that was “then all swamp,” and required them to grub the timber for a width of one hundred feet. They completed their contract in the summer of 1841, a testament to the grueling labor that transformed the landscape.

When the canal was finally opened for navigation in 1845, it immediately changed the fortunes of the towns along its banks. St. Mary’s, New Bremen, and Minster, which had been isolated settlements, were suddenly connected to the great markets of Cincinnati and Lake Erie. The text highlights the rapid development that followed. New Bremen, a town of German settlers, is described as having “good water power,” and soon boasted “two flouring mills, a large and fine woollen factory, an oil mill, and other minor establishments—the machinery of all of which is propelled by water.” Minster, just three miles south, also saw a surge in industry, with a large flouring mill, a woolen manufactory, and two saw mills, all propelled by steam, rising alongside “one of the largest and best appointed lager beer breweries in the State.”

The canal brought not just industry, but a new social and commercial energy. The arrival of a packet boat became a major event. The text vividly recalls the scene at Fort Wayne, which was mirrored in the smaller towns of Auglaize County: “with what pleasure did we frequently repair to the dock on her arrival, (an event of no small interest to us isolated beings) which was always heralded by the clarionet and violin of Ed. Parker and Bill Patchin, employees, as the boat emerged from the aqueduct… Sweeter music I think I never heard than these two men made.”

The packet boats, with names like the “Erie,” “Banner,” and “Ohio,” offered a level of comfort and reliability previously unknown. While slow by modern standards, traveling “from seventy-five to a hundred miles in twenty-four hours,” they were a vast improvement over the perilous journey through the Black Swamp. They connected the farmers of Auglaize County to distant markets, allowing them to sell their surplus grain and pork for cash instead of letting it “waste on the fields that produce them, or be distilled to poison and brutalize society,” as one early report lamented.

The canal transformed the economic geography of the region. It turned isolated villages into thriving commercial centers, replaced the slow-moving pirogue with the bustling packet boat, and connected the farmers of the Auglaize wilderness to the commerce of the nation, laying the economic foundation upon which the county’s future prosperity was built.

Works Cited

History of the Maumee Valley, by H.S. Knapp (1873)

1. Mercer County—Pioneers, &c., for the description of St. Mary’s as a depot for river trade and the construction of flatboats. (p. 448)
2. Fort Wayne—1796-1810-11, for the description of pirogue navigation and the labor required. (p. 368)
3. Auglaize County—New Bremen, for the account of William Finke’s canal contract and the description of the swampy terrain. (p. 680)
4. Auglaize County—St. Mary’s in 1872, for the description of the industries that grew in New Bremen and Minster after the canal’s opening. (p. 474)
5. The Old Packet Lines and their Captains, for the names of the packet boats and the description of travel speeds. (p. 345-346)
6. Opening of Canal Navigation at Ft. Wayne, for the description of the arrival of the packet boat with music. (p. 347)
7. The Canal Systems of Ohio and Indiana, for the quote describing the economic stagnation before the canal. (p. 330)