Background
Benjamin Wright was born on October 10, 1770, in Wethersfield, Connecticut, the son of Ebenezer Wright, II and Grace Butler, and a descendant of Thomas Wright, an early settler of Wethersfield.
Benjamin Wright was born on October 10, 1770, in Wethersfield, Connecticut, the son of Ebenezer Wright, II and Grace Butler, and a descendant of Thomas Wright, an early settler of Wethersfield.
Having a talent for mathematics, he studied surveying, and knowing that there was opportunity for those "capable of surveying and preparing title deeds" in the new settlements of the Mohawk Valley in New York, he persuaded his father, a small farmer, to move with his family to Fort Stanwix, now Rome, New York, in 1789.
From this new home, then a frontier settlement, he carried out land surveys (1792 - 1796) said to have totaled more than 500, 000 acres in Oneida and Oswego counties. As this area developed into one of the important agricultural sections of the state, Wright became interested in the problem of transporting surplus products to a market. Since roads were then little better than trails and there seemed to be little hope of permanently improving them, he turned his attention to canals. In 1792 the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company had been formed and had completed some pioneer construction, near Little Falls on the Mohawk, under an English engineer, William Weston. After Weston's return to England, Wright became interested in the further projects of this company and made surveys for them in accordance with ambitious plans which for financial reasons could not be carried out. During this same period, Wright acted as agent of the proprietors of the newly opened lands, for whom many of his earlier surveys had been made. He thus became a leading member of the community, was repeatedly elected to the state legislature, and in 1813 was appointed a county judge. In 1811 he made an examination of a canal route from Rome on the Mohawk to Waterford on the Hudson, for the state canal commissioners. In 1816, upon the more effective organization of the Canal Board, the work of construction was entrusted to Wright and to James Geddes, another local surveyor-judge-engineer. Finally, following a law enacted in 1816, the Erie project was actually launched; Geddes was appointed to have charge of the western section, Wright of the middle, and Charles C. Broadhead of the eastern. The first ground was broken July 4, 1817, at Rome. As the construction of the canal progressed, another capable engineer, David Thomas, took over the work on the western section, Geddes turned to the problems of the Champlain Canal, and Wright, having completed the middle section, became responsible for the difficult eastern division.
A part of the canal was opened for service in 1820, and the great work was completed in 1825. In addition to his abilities as a surveyor, and his practical knowledge of construction, Wright appears to have been a most able executive. He gathered around him a remarkable group of young men, all of whom afterwards occupied important positions in the engineering field. Canvass White, who died early, was his chief dependence for the design of locks and also contributed the important discovery that hydraulic cement could be produced from a deposit near the line of the canal. John B. Jervis, another assistant, lived to become the foremost American civil engineer of pre-Civil War days. David Stanhope Bates had charge of the difficult crossing at the Irondequoit Valley and also of the Rochester aqueduct. Nathan S. Roberts was in charge from Lockport to Lake Erie. The Erie Canal was thus the great American engineering school of the early nineteenth century, and Wright, as the presiding genius of the undertaking, has fairly been called the "Father of American Engineering. " The success of the Erie Canal awakened a spirit of internal improvement in all the states of the then small Union. Wright acted as consulting engineer on a number of canal projects during the last years of the Erie work — the Farmington Canal in Connecticut, the Blackstone Canal in Rhode Island, and the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal. In 1825 he became consulting engineer for the Delaware & Hudson Canal, which bold undertaking was completed by his associate Jervis. Resigning as chief engineer of the Erie in 1827, Wright was chief engineer of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal from 1828 to 1831 and of the St. Lawrence Canal in 1833. He was also consulting engineer for the Welland Canal, for surveys for the New York & Erie Railroad, for the Harlem Railroad in New York, and for railroads in Virginia, Illinois, and even Cuba.
Benjamin Wright died on August 24, 1842, in New York City in his seventy-second year.
On September 27, 1798, Benjamin Wright married Philomela Waterman, daughter of Simeon Waterman of Plymouth, Connecticut. They had several children.
Nathan S. Roberts was an American engineer on the Erie Canal.
Charles C. Broadhead was an American engineer.
David Thomas was an American engineer.
John Bloomfield Jervis was an American civil engineer.
David Stanhope Bates was an American civil and military engineer.
Canvass White was an American engineer and inventor.
James Geddes was an American engineer, surveyor, legislator and congressman, who was instrumental in the planning of the Erie Canal and other canals in the United States.
Benjamin Hall Wright was an American civil engineer.
