INSTRUMENTO DE RECOLECCIÓN DE INFORMACIÓN

Water Transportation to Charleston: The Santee Canal

Opened in 1800, the Santee Canal was an important advance in the transportation system of South Carolina, especially important for the merchants and farmers of Granby. Transporting agricultural products from the backcountry to the major market in

Charleston had always been a challenge. Boats that were small enough to navigate from the Congaree River to the Santee River and its tributaries had trouble crossing the ocean waters between the mouth of the Santee and Charleston Harbor resulting in loss of cargo and lives. Construction of a canal had been discussed since 1773. In 1775, a survey was conducted by Henry Mouzon, Jr. who mapped out five suggested routes. The American Revolution put these ideas on hold until 1786, when the General Assembly granted a charter to the Santee Canal Company, or the “Company for the Inland Navigation from Santee to Cooper River.”98

A coalition of leaders from the backcountry and the lowcountry invested in the canal enterprise. Wade Hampton, Thomas Sumter, and John Chesnut from the Midlands joined Aedanus Burke, Ralph Izard, John Rutledge, and William Moultrie from the lowcountry on the board of directors of the Santee Canal Company. Many other leading citizens were major stockholders. Since the canal would make water transportation more

98

“Santee Canal National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form,” National Park Service, May 5, 1982, 3.

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affordable for backcountry residents who wished to move their produce to market, Ralph Izard saw this as a way to increase prosperity for backcountry residents, thereby creating a “united and happy people.”99

The Santee Canal was constructed in 1793-1800 in Berkeley County under the supervision of Colonel John Christian Senf, the South Carolina State Engineer. Senf chose not to use any of the five suggested routes from Mouzon’s 1775 survey, but opted to cut through higher ground, unfortunately resulting in much higher costs and slower construction. Over seven years, slaves from plantations along the canal’s route built the canal by hand out of stone, brick, and wood. The Santee Canal was twenty-two miles long, thirty-five feet wide, and five-and-a-half feet deep allowing for a four-foot depth of water. There were ten locks to raise the boats over a thirty-four-foot rise and then a sixty- nine-foot drop between the Santee River, the canal, and the Cooper River.100

Shortly after the opening of the Santee Canal, Charleston’s City Gazette reported that Colonel Wade Hampton had built two boats on his plantation near Granby, loaded them with 180 bales of cotton and floated them to Charleston via the Santee Canal. Since there had been a drought, they had to unload twenty bales along the way to lighten the load. According to the article, transporting 180 bales by land would have required twenty wagons and would have cost six hundred dollars, but the cost of water transport was less than one hundred twenty dollars. The reporter concluded the article with this

endorsement of the canal, “If anything was necessary to convince the country of the

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Edgar, South Carolina, 282.

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immense saving this Canal will be productive of, this patriotic attempt of Col. Hampton’s would alone be sufficient.”101

Inconsistency of the water level in the canal due to droughts proved to be a deterrent to farmers who needed to get their goods to Charleston in a timely manner. In July 1802, a report in the Carolina Gazette stated that recent rains had raised the rivers higher than they had been in the previous eighteen months, allowing boats that had been detained at Granby and Camden for a few months to leave those places for Charleston.102 In spite of these problems, the canal lived up to expectations as a useful and cost-saving mode of transportation. Eventually, most of the larger merchants built their own boats or “flats” manned by crews of five or six pole men and a captain or patroon.103

In 1803, a Mr. Lawrence used the canal to deliver the largest load yet from Granby to Charleston: ninety-two bales of cotton, nine hogsheads of tobacco, five tons of hemp, and quantities of tallow, lard, butter, and wax.104 Mr. Lawrence also owned a mill at Granby which produced “prime flour,” fifty barrels of which were advertised for sale along with “prime upland cotton” in 1802 at Blake’s Wharf in Charleston.105

Keeping the canal clear of obstructions and keeping the water flowing proved to be unsustainable. The canal was dry in the drought of 1816-1817. By 1840, it was no longer in use due to completion of the South Carolina Railroad.106 The Santee Canal was an engineering feat achieved by slave manual labor and one of the earliest major canals in

101

City Gazette, December 1, 1801, 3.

102

Carolina Gazette, July 15, 1802, 3.

103

Scott, Random Recollections of a Long Life, 1806 to 1876, 78.

104

City Gazette, April 22, 1803, 3.

105

“Advertisement,” City Gazette, April 29, 1802, 1.

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the United States. The canal’s construction was a financial failure for the stockholders, but it had been a bold move to launch one of the earliest major works projects in the state of South Carolina.

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