Thursday, October 31, 2024

Charles T Harvey and the Soo Locks

 


My husband and I recently took a vacation to Upper Michigan. We traveled all over the upper peninsula of Michigan. One of the sites we went to see was the Soo Locks. The history behind it was so interesting because the project was so enormous and they didn't have the machinery we have today.

The Soo Locks Today
Lake Superior has only one waterway to the lower Great Lakes and that is the St. Marys River. When you are standing there watching the locks work, it's hard to imagine what this was like before. The St. Marys River had rapids caused by a twenty-one foot drop over three-quarters of a mile. This made it impossible for ships to get their cargo where they needed it to go. They would have to unload all their cargo and carry around the rapids to be reloaded on another vessel if they wanted to continue by ship.

The need was great in the booming lumber area to allow ships to travel from Lake Superior to the lower Great Lakes, so the State of Michigan decided to contract the building of locks. The project would have a two-year deadline and was financed by a congressional land grant of 750,000 acres.

Charles T Harvey was a twenty-two-year-old salesman, recovering from typhoid fever at the time. But Charles saw an opportunity and used his skill as a salesman to convince his employer, E&T Fairbanks of Vermont and other investors to commit to the building of the locks. They won the contract and Harvey became the general superintendent. He moved to Sault Ste. Marie and oversaw hundreds of workers, tradesman, and even engineers.

Charles Harvey
Harvey had an eye for the future and he knew what they were asking for wasn't going to be enough. He requested they accommodate the largest steamships on the lakes, 70 feet wide and 350 feet long. His wish was granted. It was quite a challenge to meet the two-year deadline of their contract. One of his obstacles was lack of a workforce. There were not enough men to do the job that needed to be done. So, they shipped men from Detroit and New York up to the Sault. When the work was in its full swing on the lock between two and three thousand men were employed. And with that came more problems, housing all these bodies that arrived, medical needs, cholera, and working in extreme conditions.  

With a workforce in hand, Harvey started removing several feet of bedrock from the St. Marys River. But after the 1854 shipping season had closed the men discovered a 30,000 square foot rock ledge they were unprepared for. Winter was fast upon them, and they lacked the tools to be able to remove this massive rock. Unfortunately, there was no place to purchase the equipment they needed and if they waited for spring and the tools to get there it would be impossible to meet that 2-year deadline in their contract. Not meeting it would mean they would not only lose the contract but would lose all of the money the investors had put up.

The 'Hammer'



Harvey wouldn't be deterred. Instead, he and his workers put their heads together and came up with a solution. They would build a punch with what materials they had access to. "A bar of tempered steel formed the tip and rings made from a ship's propeller reinforced it. Attached to an oak beam, the whole punch weighed three tons. To shatter the ledge, a barge secured to the piers used a steam engine to lift and drop the 'hammer' in a grid over the entire ledge leaving pieces no larger than a man's hand."




Barge and Hammer



With the hammer Harvey and his men built, they were able to meet their deadline and fulfil their contract. The lock was called "The State Lock". The opening of Lake Superior to the lower Great Lakes allowed products and raw materials to flow freely to the UP. That encouraged the industrial growth of the area. 





The Early Lock
Charles Harvey founded a town named after him, Harvey, Michigan. But even that didn't keep him there. The bright lights of New York called to Mr. Harvey as it did many entrepreneurs. He left for New York City and helped to solve the gridlock of streetcars, horse-drawn omnibuses, carriages and wagons by building an elevated railway.


He couldn’t very well hear God if he wasn’t listening. He needed to lay his life before God and let him direct it instead of trying to manipulate things to his liking.

Kirsten Macleod is in a bind. Her father’s last will and testament stipulates that she must either marry, lead the plantation into a first-year profit, or forfeit it to her uncle. But marriage is proving no easy option. Every suitor seems more enamored with the land than with her. Until her handsome neighbor sweeps into her stable to the rescue… of her beloved horse.

Silas Westbrook’s last year at veterinary school ends abruptly when he is called home to care for his young orphaned sisters. Troubles compound when he finds an insurmountable lien on the only home they’ve ever known, and the unscrupulous banker is calling in the loan. The neighbor’s kind-hearted and beautiful stable girl, Krissy, provides the feminine influence the girls desperately need. If only he had a future to offer her. But to save his sisters from poverty, he should set his sights on Krissy’s wealthy relative Kirsten Macleod, the elusive new heiress. Surely this hard-working and unassuming young lady and the landowner could not be one and the same?


Debbie Lynne Costello is the author of Sword of Forgiveness, Amazon's #1 seller for Historical Christian Romance. She has enjoyed writing stories since she was eight years old. She raised her family and then embarked on her own career of writing the stories that had been begging to be told. She writes in the medieval/renaissance period as well as 19th century. She and her husband have four children and live in upstate South Carolina with their 4 dogs, 4 horses, miniature donkey, and 12 ducks. Life is good!





*quote from the Soo Lock Museum.

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for posting today. I love hearing how these great projects were done in the past.

    ReplyDelete