Benjamin Wright (October 10, 1770 – August 24, 1842) was an American civil engineer who was chief engineer of the

Erie Canal The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east-west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, vastly reducing t ...

and the

Chesapeake and Ohio Canal The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, abbreviated as the C&O Canal and occasionally called the "Grand Old Ditch," operated from 1831 until 1924 along the Potomac River between Washington, D.C. and Cumberland, Maryland. It replaced the Potomac Canal, ...

. In 1969, the

American Society of Civil Engineers American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

declared him the "Father of American Civil Engineering".

Life and career

Wright was born in

Wethersfield, Connecticut Wethersfield is a town located in Hartford County, Connecticut. It is located immediately south of Hartford along the Connecticut River. Its population was 27,298 at the time of the 2020 census. Many records from colonial times spell the name ...

, to Ebenezer Wright and Grace Butler. In 1789, at age 19, he moved with his family to Fort Stanwix (now

Rome, New York Rome is a city in Oneida County, New York, United States, located in the central part of the state. The population was 32,127 at the 2020 census. Rome is one of two principal cities in the Utica–Rome Metropolitan Statistical Area, which li ...

), where he became a land surveyor. In the next decade, he worked as a land surveyor and engineer, especially on the construction of the

and later on the

. In addition to his engineering work, Wright was also elected to the New York State Legislature in 1794 and was appointed a New York county judge. Wright returned to New York in about 1833. He continued to work primarily as a consultant on a number of canal projects, but also began doing surveys for railroads, which were in the early stages of development at the time. Wright married Philomela Waterman on September 27, 1798; they had nine children (five of whom became civil engineers). One of them, Benjamin Hall Wright (1801-1881) went to West Point and graduated as part of the Class of 1822. As a civil engineer, the younger Wright promoted the establishment of Railroads in the Island of Cuba, with the survey the Havana-Guines railroad in 1834. He was also involved with the engineering of the Cardenas and Bemba Railroad, Cuba in 1836 and of Nuevitas and Puerto Principe Railroad (1837‑42)."Register of Officers and Graduates of the United States Military Academy, Class of 1819"
Cullum's Register, created by W. Thayer. The elder Benjamin Wright is buried in the New York Marble Cemetery in Manhattan.

Projects

Oneida and Oswego counties

Wright began his career surveying the frontier areas of Oneida and Oswego counties.Benjamin Wright, 1770-1842
- American Society of Civil Engineers, 1996-2014. Accessed 10.2014 In 1794 Wright was hired as a surveyor and planner by the noted English canal designer William Weston. Working for Weston, he helped lay out canals and locks on the

Mohawk River The Mohawk River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed October 3, 2011 river in the U.S. state of New York. It is the largest tributary of the Hudson River. The Mohawk f ...

. After Weston returned to England in 1801, Wright was commissioned to survey the Mohawk River between

Schenectady Schenectady () is a city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the 2020 census, the city's population of 67,047 made it the state's ninth-largest city by population. The city is in eastern New Y ...

and Rome, and then to the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

. Wright initially surveyed of the Mohawk River from Rome to the Hudson River on behalf of the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company, but that company didn't have the resources to build the canal. 1832 Erie Canal

Erie Canal

Wright surveyed the same route of the Mohawk River from Rome to the Hudson River again for the New York State Canal Commission in 1811, and by 1816 funding for the

was in place. Its construction began in 1817. The ASCE (1996) explained: :''What crested challenges for the canal construction were the multiple elevation changes along the route. Hence, the supply of water to the canal and the drainage of excess water were far trickier than single sloped canals. To keep water flowing, an elaborate system of feeders and waste weirs was created. Furthermore, the east-west canal had to transverse multiple north-south running rivers, which called for numerous aqueducts, the largest employing 11 Roman-style arches to span 802 feet across the Genesee River Valley.'' The following year Wright was appointed senior engineer in charge of construction of the middle section of the

, and later, he was placed in charge of the eastern section as well. He led thousands of unskilled laborers as they built the canal with wheelbarrows, hand tools, horses, and mules. In Wright's honor, the first boat to traverse the canal system was named the ''Chief Engineer''.

Other canal work

In 1822 Wright was engaged by the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal Company to be the canal's chief engineer. While holding that position, he caused John Randel Jr. – who had surveyed the route taken by the canal, and who had been hired as an engineer to build its difficult eastern section – to be fired by the company. Randel sued the company for breach of contract, and tried to sue Wright as well, but that case was thrown out. In 1834 a jury returned an award to Randel of $226,885.84 (), a tremendous amount for the time. The canal company's appeals went as high as the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

, which affirmed the award. The company attempted to avoid paying the judgment, but the state legislatures of both Maryland and Delaware passed bills requiring the canal company to pay off its debts within five years. The huge award almost bankrupted the company. Wright was approached in 1825 by the Wurts brothers of

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

to survey a possible route from the coalfields of

Northeastern Pennsylvania Northeastern Pennsylvania (NEPA) is a geographic region of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania that includes the Pocono Mountains, the Endless Mountains, and the industrial cities of Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Pittston, Hazleton, Nanticoke, and Car ...

to the Hudson, where anthracite could be shipped by boat downriver to New York City. Wright consented, and served as chief engineer on the Delaware and Hudson Canal for about a year. At that point, he stepped down and became a consulting engineer; the job of chief was taken by John B. Jervis, who had worked under Wright on the Erie Canal. In 1828, Wright was made Chief Engineer of the newly organized

, which operated on a route along the Potomac River between Washington, D.C. and Cumberland, Maryland. Within a year, Wright had let contracts for a massive construction effort that encompassed about 6,000 men and 700 horses.

Publications

* Moncure Robinson,

Jonathan Knight Jonathan Rashleigh Knight-Rodriguez (born November 29, 1968) is an American singer. He is best known for being a member of the boy band New Kids on the Block. It also includes Donnie Wahlberg, Joey McIntyre, Danny Wood and his younger brother ...

, Benjamin Hall Wright (1835)
Report of M. Robinson ... Jonathan Knight ... and Benjamin Wright ... Civil Engineers, upon the plan of the New-York and Erie Rail Road
'' Scott & Company, 1835 * Benjamin Hall Wright (1843)
Report of the Survey of the Route of the New-York and Erie Railroad ... Together with the Report of a Special Committee of the Common Council of the City of New-York, in relation thereto.
' Office of the Railroad Journal. * Benjamin Hall Wright (1870)
Origin of the Erie Canal: Services of Benjamin Wright
'' Sandford & Carr * Pennington, Steven M. ''Benjamin Wright: Father of American Civil Engineering''. Reston, VA: ASCE Press, 2020.

References

External links

Benjamin Wright, 1770-1842
- American Society of Civil Engineers {{DEFAULTSORT:Wright, Benjamin 1770 births 1842 deaths American civil engineers American canal engineers People from Wethersfield, Connecticut People from Rome, New York People of colonial Connecticut Engineers from Connecticut Engineers from New York (state) Burials at New York Marble Cemetery