Oswego Palladium (Oswego, NY), May, 4, 1878

Since the opening of the New York State canals, an entirely new feature of trade and commerce has appeared here. New York shippers have been sending large amounts of dry goods, groceries, and various fine freights to this port via the Erie and Oswego canals, to be forwarded to western ports by the N. T. Propellers. There are now in the N.T. warehouses in this city 1,100 tons of this kind of freight and there are 300 tons more in canal boats awaiting transfer. There are 60 tons of dry goods for one ton in Cleveland. This is an entirely new and rather astonishing feature of business here this spring and it makes the region of the N.T. Docks and warehouses resembled old times.

The reason of this new departure is that this class of freight is returning to the water routes on account of cheaper rates and because the time between New York and all western ports via the Oswego water route is now nearly as short as by rail. The rate for first class freight by this route from New York to Chicago is $5.00 a ton, and for common freight " $3 making an average of about one-third of the railroad charges. The N. T. propellers run daily from Oswego to all points west on fast time, making a perfectly sure and reliable so route. The difference is freight thus amount making up the difference in time.

A large amount of similar New York freight as also arriving here for Canadian port and this is splendidly accommodated by steamers running to all prominent ports on the other side. According to present appearances we are about to recover immediately a good percentage of this sort of Commercial business.