Looking back to move ahead: Governance, infrastructure and societal transformation in the Canandaigua area

Observations from Canandaigua's town historian Leif HerrGesell

The story of government is not new to most of us. If you read the paper, there is a very high chance that you are over 40 and so the history of our government was taught to you decades ago. We all are aware of the influence of the Greeks and Romans on our form of government.

The Iroquois were cited by Benjamin Franklin as an example of a functioning representational democracy. Clearly he was indicating that if the six nations could pull together and manage their affairs for the good of the individual and the good of all, then there was a fair chance that the 13 colonies could likewise cobble together a functional government.

Everyone is acutely aware that American history is the subject of some debate these days. I’d like to enter that fray again to share some information about governance — the process by which our “cobbled” together, bi-cameral, three-branch system affected life 200 years ago. I might add the word “governance” is slippery and its definition is as easy to pin down as a greased pig. I am using it to refer to the actions taken by government.

Government is influenced by: politics, opinions, random actions and events, personalities, plots, cabals and technology.  The majority of us have choice words for some office or office holder at some time in our adult lives.

Let's not get wound up in the history of political parties or opinions and all of the other factors.

Governance is meant to be where the rubber meets the road — where our government directly impacts our lives or our neighbors life, or where the lack of governance has a similar impact.

Taxes are always the subject we all understand. My taxes pay for what I get or don’t get or what someone else gets based upon the taxes we both, and some or all of us, pay. No one would argue with that. Taxes therefore are the means by which we accomplish much of our governance.

What has changed over 246 years is our appetite for governance and the level of government we expect to produce governance for the- “greater good.” The greater good in 1790 might have been a revenue cutter, a small sailing ship, used to run down smugglers. In 2022 its the distribution of free COVID test kits and about ten thousand other programs meant to redistribute the resources obtained with our shared money or taxes or by incurring national debt — running a tab as it were.

Our perceptions of what we need changes over time also, which in turn drives public policy. A recent example of what I refer to can be seen in how much public largesse we direct toward policing. Too much? Too little?

A newspaper article is hardly adequate to discuss a history of governance in Canandaigua or any of the other 16,519 townships in the United States of America. Google says that's the right number of American towns the day I wrote this.

Let's look at some of the structure that our governance created over time. Structure is can be summed up as everything from asphalt to zoning regulation.

History is the right tool to measure what has been and how it has changed. What is in the “now” and what needs to be changed, and vaguely speaking where we might want to be in, say, 10 years — all of which is constantly adjusted.

Our towns mostly do a superb job of long-range planning via strategic plans, planning boards and other guiding documents and groups that inject what at the moment appears “wise.” Today’s wisdom does sometimes dim under the future’s scrutiny. That ever pesky hindsight dogs us every day as we scrutinize the past. Sometimes our decisions to do nothing also come back to haunt us. This has always been true.

As we squint into the past lets keep in mind the resources that were available to any point in history and which are always different than in the future, such resources as: transportation technology, demographics, mass communications capability and ascendant social philosophy of the day.

The future could hold greater or lesser resources and that future is literally tomorrow. We don’t even all agree on what are important resources. Some would hail cheap energy and another perhaps human labor.

Let me share a few thoughts on governance past.

Religion played a much greater role in our post-colonial past, For instance, morality was significantly different and too, population levels heavily impacted government participation. Temperance Leagues, blue laws, and paternity leave are all examples of our past or current social emphasis  that reflect values and participation.

When there are fewer than 1,000 residents of all ages as was the case in Ontario County in the first year, all adults played more significant roles.

Today our town has more than 100 times as many residents as it did in 1790 and is pushing ever upwards and so fewer folks by percentage are involved in government at the local, state and federal level and of those, the majority are hired rather than elected or appointed. It just stands to reason that most of us consider our vote our primary and only civic duty. By anyone's reckoning that separates us from those who govern us and who exercise much more control over our destinies than in the past. Americans still get a crick in their neck, however, if they are asked to look up for very long. We are used to a level playing field, not a vertical one, though that also sadly appears to be changing.

If you are new to Canandaigua and Ontario County, your view of governance by local authority will be much different than someone who has raised grapes or cows in these hills for 60 years. Your "Greater Good" concept might be much more elaborate than Canandaigua currently offers.

The “greater good” usually follows in the wake of intense growth. Historically speaking, our revenues in small Finger Lakes towns have funded roads, schools and municipal water. In recent decades we’ve added recycling and refuse collection hubs, parks and a host of programs supported by your taxes.

When, in the past, we were a remote outpost of American humanity, the elected official spending your taxes was your brother-in-law or neighbor. There was much more accountability and transparency, when a politician knew the constituent — or, as was often the case, was related to them! Asking them a hard question about when they were going to expand the poor house, build a school house or grant articles of incorporation was simple — walk next door or holler across the field. I exaggerate slightly, but you get the idea.

Monied interests such as we contend with today in the form of big tech, transportation, energy, insurance and banking, etc., were in the hands of ordinary people. Monied interest was the neighbor who owned a tavern, the fellows who built the bridge and of course the land office of Phelps and Gorham. But big money was coming on fast.

With all of our wineries and breweries the subject of taverns might help you envision some differences between past and present. Some tavern operations were temporary and others lasted for years.  It is not as easy today to open a public house dispensing bibulous potions!

Ontario County in the early 19th century sported over 50 taverns. Most of the clientele was local, but a massive traffic paraded up and down the length of the only significant highway — the Old Turnpike or, as it is known today, Routes 5 and 20. Five and Twenty was an American Silk Route complete with wanderers, drovers and traders.

Taverns were not issued licenses in those far-off days and anyone with a spare spot on the floor, a ham joint, a wheel of cheese and a barrel of hard cider could open a tavern in 1790. This is not an exaggeration. In our early years in the 18nth and early 19th century there was a tavern of some type about every five miles. Tupper’s Tavern near Wegmans was one, the Wilder Tavern on the North Bloomfield road and another known as the Owl’s Nest that was on the east side of town are just a few. Licenses were coming, but the initial lack of government did not slow business.

Frequency was not due to community planning but the exigency of a friendly fire when you were traveling by ox cart, foot or on a horse and a storm came on. The blistering ox pace of three miles an hour could guarantee a good chill and/or drenching. Somebody was always glad to charge you for a jack of hard cider and a seat by a warm fire.

Supply and demand without stifling or burdensome regulation, special taxation or user fees was what drove the economy. Business was a shingle hung on your porch post that said “Tavern” or “Blacksmith.”  It was a wise way to grow an economy quickly; fertilize a dominant, landed, agrarian middle class; spur invention; and unleash the coiled wits and strength of pioneering entrepreneurs.

Roads are a good analogy to explain the change in our expectations and needs for governance. In 1795 we used the roads for commerce and stopped at the tavern to refuel. Today folks from all over take the road to specifically get to the brewery — an interesting change in use. Hence a Wine Trail.

For over a hundred years, those  roads were maintained by the residents whose land the road "fronted" or bisected. Everyone donated “right of way” from their parcel. Often, early roads were toll roads called turnpikes and had toll bridges. Our first true road was surveyed on the north side of town in 1793 by Seth Dean. Our current road system did not come into being for another century, in 1898 with the “Good Roads” Act.

Here in Canandaigua in the early years our principal road (5 and 20) was kept up and improved by a variety of corporations investing in transportation — no different than airlines or Amtrak.

Our side roads were really just improved dirt lanes that lead to neighboring farms or over the hill to Bristol, Manchester Landing or other towns — and those byways had no “official” name or standardized signs. The majority were named after someone who lived on the road.

The Canandaigua/Palmyra Plank Road (Route 21) is one such example of private investment in infrastructure. The land was owned by the state, but management and profit were private. If you went bust in your road venture the land reverted to the state to manage. The entire highway system at all levels of government was haphazard.

From the view of government in 1800, if you built a bridge and/or a road on land you owned and which you cleared, you had a right to make a buck on it. If you started a corporation to maintain the turnpike, then the corporation had a right to profit its investors. This also lifted the burden of roads and road maintenance off of the government. So, government in the colonial and post- colonial periods had a reduced role in infrastructure. Investors in infrastructure were local citizens. You might think of that as an early version of "outsourcing."

It became necessary to issue “licenses” for such ventures, but in the earliest days those were easy to get as everyone wanted the improvements and it kept taxes down. Why should Ebenezar and Agatha, living 5 miles away from a bridge, pay taxes for its construction and maintenance when they never used it? It was infinitely more practical for the user to pay than to hike everyone else's taxes. Other projects were simply accomplished by common consent and the work performed like a barn raising.  Government hadn’t gotten deeply into the business of regulating transportation and trade and competing with entrepreneurial endeavors.

Government did all it could to encourage invention, entrepreneurial spirit and risk taking. In the earliest days sweat equity and creativity drove community development. Transportation improvements represented the dawn of the industrial revolution.

We, today, cannot fathom the volume of freight wagon traffic on Routes 5 and 20 in the early 1800s. In 1804, freighters hauled huge, tarped “Pennsylvania” wagons full of grain, drawn by teams of six to eight horses or oxen 230 miles from here to Albany. It took up to 20 days. Prior to the canal a load of Canandaigua’s grain hauled from our region to Albany nearly quadrupled in price by the time it reached the Hudson River! Farming existed in a business realm between subsistence and commercial. At its peak, freight ran at $120 per ton from Albany to Buffalo by road. That would be the equivalent of charging over $2,000 today! Farming could not be lucrative at that rate. Thus abundant harvests were often distilled into whiskey. It kept longer, stored more easily and you could charge more and have a heck of a good time when you were done!

The Erie Canal changed the economic landscape in the 1820’s. Fortunes were about to be made. The freight price dropped to $5 a ton. You can imagine how thrilled everyone was to be able to travel over smooth water in a straight line as opposed to an up and down muddy, jostling route. Funded by the state, the cost was recouped through toll fees at the locks — precisely the same as the New York State Thruway! Big government and business were shouldering aside the smaller regional interests.

Farmers could sell all the wheat they could grow! It took taxes and investment to build such grand infrastructure, and now monied interests got into the game of governance in a big way. The free-wheeling entrepreneurship of the pioneer decades was rapidly receding. Investment and crony politics was coming of age — in other words, modern America.

The canal was a combination of government and private interests coming together to create one of the earliest and most important infrastructure improvements in American history. We can say that it was more transformative than the Oregon Trail, the Hoover Dam, or the National Park system. It was as important an agent of change as the internet and the moon shot. The canal changed transportation and communication and altered the entire nation. Prosperity abounded.

Jesse Hawley of Geneva, and briefly Canandaigua, was a prominent and early designer and investor in the canal concept. His articles on the subject, authored in 1807 while serving time in our jail for unpaid debt, helped disseminate his vision via the Genesee Messenger newspaper of Canandaigua! Ironically, he become a member of the New York assembly for Genesee County.

Governor Clinton, Jesse and a host of other leaders had the vision, spleen and organizational skills to accomplish an infrastructure project that even President Thomas Jefferson thought would take another 100 years to come to fruition when he was petitioned for federal funds in 1804. Perhaps he was busy with the Louisiana Purchase.

As Governor Clinton’s canal boat, the Seneca Chief, passed through Rochester bound for New York City in 1825 there was a hailing ceremony at the Genesee Aqueduct, and it went like this:

Challenger: Who Comes There?

Captain of The Seneca Chief: Your Brothers from the West on the waters of the Great Lakes!

Challenger: By what means have they been diverted from their natural course?

Captain: Through the channel of the great Erie Canal!

Challenger: By whose authority and by whom was a work of such great magnitude accomplished? 

Captain: By the authority and by the enterprise of the people of the State of New York! 

The Erie Canal opened up the west, allowing migrants from the eastern seaboard to travel westward all the way to Buffalo, New York, where they could transfer to overland travel or take ship deep into the western Great Lakes via Lake Erie. It opened a continent and transported goods and commodities from the Ohio country, Illinois and of course New York to the biggest cities in the east. Canandaigua stopped being an isolated local link in the state's economy and became part of a national economy. Prior to this our nation’s great international exports were lumber, furs and tobacco. Canandaigua produced none of these in great quantity. It simply was too difficult to transport vast grain harvests to the coast. The canal changed all. Corn, wheat, wool and other products from Canandaigua were loaded aboard waiting canal boats at Palmyra, formerly known as Swift’s Landing.

Was that good governance? Yes, it unquestionably was one of the wisest and most successful undertakings of post-colonial America. The coming of the railroads in another 20 years would forever change our entire planet. The speed of travel exceeded that of a running horse and the ability to sell goods, and commodities over great distances was at least as disruptive to American culture as what we are experiencing today and perhaps more. Railroad investment was as highly charged as cryptocurrency and only slightly more regulated. Every current transportation and communications advancement owes its origins to the the canal, the telegraph and the railroad.

The biggest difference between our technical revolution and theirs is that they had a shared vision 200 years ago. In 500 years our descendants may see the Industrial Revolution, the space age and the digital age not as separate events, but instead as one period of continuous, methodical growth.

Canandaigua was perched on the edge of all of this! We just missed the canal as they were laying it out. A strong but failed effort by a private corporation called the Ontario Canal Company attempted to build a lateral canal from Canandaigua to the “grand” canal in Macedon but never broke ground. Private answers for public projects.

The Erie Canal's proximity in Palmyra was just as great a benefit to Canandaigua. By 1822 freight wagons hauled grain on the short trip to Palmyra to be loaded aboard canal boats; in another decade the grains were already milled into flour before shipping. Markets and harvests spurred the idea of the aforementioned Canandaigua/Palmyra Plank Road. As industrial pirates morphed into elected leadership by buying influence, regulation expanded to favor an elite class of industrialists. Problems never change, just the length of the hem and the shirt collar design.

Canandaigua would become a railroad town in the middle of the 19th century, shipping out beer, livestock, flour, grains, fruits and hops and importing fresh seafood, finished goods and literally tens of thousands of items from garden seeds to pump organs. The canal had prepared us politically for a “shared” infrastructure that was commercially funded. By the end of the Civil War, we too were a source of manufactured goods.

All of this local and regional infrastructure was the key to agricultural wealth. Rochester wasn’t the “flower” city; it was originally the “flour” city. The entire region produced abundant grain harvests and was not eclipsed in this until the 1840s when the Midwest made America the breadbasket of the world.

Those “Pennsylvania” freight wagons and canal boats were the semi-trucks of their day and were a staple of our region until the coming of the Iron Horse. The wagons would re-surge in the westward movement of the 1840s, and our turnpikes and state roads would also be crucial in the vast migration to the west. Railroads and canal boats were the best way to move freight, but the roads and turnpikes served well and cheaply for foot and horse traffic and local freighting. This was a nascent national transportation system, largely managed at the state and local level with regional investment. Musk-level investing was mostly reserved for trans-oceanic shipping and railroads.

The ascendancy of the canal was brief but glorious and paramount to our town's success. The railroads would deeply impact the canal's role, but both showed how good governance can elevate the prosperity of a nation. They also showed the impact of "monied interests," a slippery subject rife with villains and heroes and hoards of gold.

Government should always be evolving to meet the needs of society. Infrastructure is ours, our public structures … the fabric we create and share. It elevates us, to take care of our neighbors, to provide for the education of our children, to mete out judgement on the lawbreakers — but what else is on the public wish list? Where do we draw the lines? Who draws up the list and what is your role in that process? Voting might not be enough anymore.

This is the important struggle of every generation. How much leeway do the “monied interests” have? What level of government is best suited to determining our needs and finding the resources? Is 250 years of economic expansion a failure, and if so how do we then define success? A stagnant economy will not produce enough resource for a growing population. What is your role in history? Are we a bedroom community or a tourist destination? A farm community or a medical hub? There are many opinions. What infrastructure is needed to meet those goals?

Fast money will always outpace slow thought.

Canandaigua and Ontario County have a long history of working hard to create a community fabric. Do we design our fabric or does another higher authority dictate our standards and norms? History tells us our town has always signed its own “writ.” Will it still?

History is not just a record of what we have done or failed to do. It is not a dusty collection of artifacts or factoids. It is a record of who we are and, like a compass, points the way to your future governance. Every law or regulation you and I make is the present asserting itself on the future by establishing a new precedent. This is how history guides us. Your present exists because of the past, plain and simple. Additionally, when we in the "present" make a mistake, the future will correct it — if they are guaranteed the freedom.

We have many more resources at our disposal than we did 233 years ago when Canandaigua was founded as a community of the new State of New York. We have those resources because those in our past created something for us through governance.

The knowledge, shared values and efforts of the citizens are the best resource of any free republic or community. That is something all Americans and especially all Canandaiguans can agree upon.

Leif HerrGesell is Canandaigua Town Historian.

This article originally appeared on MPNnow: Looking back to move ahead: Observations by Canandaigua historian