John de Cew - Involvement in The Welland Canal

Involvement in The Welland Canal

DeCew's mill was on Beaverdams Creek, a tributary of Twelve Mile Creek. Another person with a mill further downstream on Twelve Mile Creek was William Hamilton Merritt. Both mill operators were troubled by low water levels, especially in late summer. Merritt proposed a canal to divert water from the Welland River to Twelve Mile Creek. This scheme would later evolve into the first Welland Canal. Initial plans were to construct this canal by way of Beaverdams Creek, which would have provided additional water to DeCew's mills as well. DeCew was a founding member and stockholder in the Welland Canal Company and partner to Merritt. However, the route of the canal was changed to descend the Niagara Escarpment via Dicks Creek to the east of DeCew's mills. Not only would this fail to provide the additional water he wanted, it would also cut off the headwaters of Beaverdams Creek, thereby reducing the water flow and effectively destroying his milling business. DeCew divested in the canal company and turned into a bitter opponent Merritt and of the canal. It was only after more than six years of lobbying that he received any compensation for the losses to his mills.

Read more about this topic:  John De Cew

Famous quotes containing the words involvement in the, involvement in, involvement, welland and/or canal:

    Not only do our wives need support, but our children need our deep involvement in their lives. If this period [the early years] of primitive needs and primitive caretaking passes without us, it is lost forever. We can be involved in other ways, but never again on this profoundly intimate level.
    Augustus Y. Napier (20th century)

    Juggling produces both practical and psychological benefits.... A woman’s involvement in one role can enhance her functioning in another. Being a wife can make it easier to work outside the home. Being a mother can facilitate the activities and foster the skills of the efficient wife or of the effective worker. And employment outside the home can contribute in substantial, practical ways to how one works within the home, as a spouse and as a parent.
    Faye J. Crosby (20th century)

    Juggling produces both practical and psychological benefits.... A woman’s involvement in one role can enhance her functioning in another. Being a wife can make it easier to work outside the home. Being a mother can facilitate the activities and foster the skills of the efficient wife or of the effective worker. And employment outside the home can contribute in substantial, practical ways to how one works within the home, as a spouse and as a parent.
    Faye J. Crosby (20th century)

    Master of Trinity: Is he an Italian?
    Harold Abrahams: Of Italian extraction, yes.
    Master of Trinity: I see.
    Harold Abrahams: But not all Italian.
    Master of Trinity: I’m relieved to hear it.
    Harold Abrahams: He’s half-Arab.
    —Colin Welland (b. 1934)

    My impression about the Panama Canal is that the great revolution it is going to introduce in the trade of the world is in the trade between the east and the west coast of the United States.
    William Howard Taft (1857–1930)