WHITE HORSE REGENT: Gov. Bouck and the Erie Canal (Part I)
WHITE HORSE REGENT: Gov. Bouck and the Erie Canal
Part One
By: D. Brooks
William Christian Bouck was born on the cusp of a new year, January 7th, 1786, but also at the cusp of a new republic emerging on the world stage. Until his death in April of 1859, Bouck was the quintessential “salt of the earth” farmer turned politician turned bureaucrat turned politician.
beyond. This limited his education to that of only the local common school, but it’d be noted later in his career that his education was that of experience and observation. His second labor was to family, closely tied to his first labor and then only followed by his service to the people of New York State.
Bouck would come up in the Democratic-Republican Party. Elected as town clerk of Fulton in 1807, then town supervisor in 1808, and by 1812 he was elected Sheriff of Schoharie County at the age of 26. ... During this time, he also served in the militia, becoming Colonel of New York State’s 18th Regiment by 1819. At the age of 27, in 1813, Bouck was elected to serve on the New York State Assembly and again elected to that role in 1815, 1816, and 1818. It was in 1820 that the people of Schoharie County would promote him to the position of New York State Senator. During all of this, William was productive on the home-front, having married Catherine Lawyer in 1807. She bore him 13 children, nine of which lived through adulthood.
In 1817 when the legislation passed authorizing construction of the Erie Canal across New York State, connecting Lake Erie at Black Rock (Buffalo) to the waters of the Hudson River at Albany, a Canal Board was established to oversee the work, as well as the money. It was obvious that the Governor elect, DeWitt Clinton would sit on that board, but also appointed was Stephen Van Rensselaer, Joseph Ellicott, Myron Holley, and Samuel Young. Holley and Young were designated as Canal Commissioners, a full-time position devoted to conducting the work of oversight on construction of the grand canal. Ellicott would resign within a year, citing responsibilities to and perhaps conflicts due to his role with the Holland Land Company. Ephraim Hart replaced him on the board for a short time until Henry Seymour was elected by the legislature to fill the vacancy in March of 1818, acting as the Middle Section Commissioner. William C. Bouck would be added to the board in 1821 as an Acting Commissioner on the heels of political change in the state. Bouck was a Bucktail Democrat, and as that party faction was on a rise in power, along with the calls from Otsego, Delaware, and Schoharie County constituents for representation on the board, Bouck was a promising fit for the role. The legislature added the position to the board and immediately instructed the whole to engage $2 million in contracts so that if the tide turned, the work would still progress to their plan.
Bouck would be a Canal Commissioner for the next eighteen years; regularly nominated for the role and nearly always unanimously elected, at times with only all but one senator voting for him. During that time as commissioner, he would disperse between $8-$9 million dollars of public funds to contractors and labor in the building, the enlargement of the Erie Canal as well as the construction of the Cayuga-Seneca Canal, the Crooked Lake Canal, Chemung Canal, and Chenango Canal. During that nearly two decades, William would ride across the state on his “dutch wagon” with a white horse. Noted repeatedly by supporters for his honesty and earnest devotion to canal projects, he made contracts and payments in the “wilderness,” amongst the trees, the swamps, and in all corners of the canal. Bouck was recognized as an ardent supporter of labor. If a contractor defaulted, Bouck would pay the laborers before the contractors (Republican Watchman, Oct. 1842). The Schenectady Reflector newspaper ran a letter addressed to the voters of New York State on the Character of Col. Bouck, stating he always paid labor, especially sons of Erin, and entreated them like brothers. Often, he refused to pay contractors unless the money went to the workers first. As a Commissioner he had great power of those contracts and could easily declare a contractor in violation of the terms.
As work progressed on the lateral canals, the Erie Canal was in full swing of operation. By 1834 the former Chief Engineer of the Erie, Benjamin Wright wrote to Bouck, admitting “we see in the size of our Canal that we have made great errors, very great indeed.” Wright knew that Bouck was as much a proponent of the need for enlargement as he was. And in this admission, he must have been giving his endorsement that Bouck should work with diligence to ensure the project would carry through on the board. Bouck had been a part of the process for long enough, nearly from the beginning, to recognize what was being offered in that letter. From that beginning, reaching back even before that June of 1825 when he was there in Black Rock to announce the letting of water into that most western section from the Tonawanda Creek to what would become the City of Buffalo, William C. Bouck was a part of the celebration as the first canal boats passed along the waters of the most ambitious canal project. He too realized the project was a living entity in need of care, judicious oversight and its cause was the common good for all New Yorker’s.
(Check out Part Two next week)
* This article series was first published in the Friends Newsletter, Autumn 2023 through Fall of 2024
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