ON THE BACKS OF THE MULE TRAIN

A 20 mule team in Death Valley.

CREDIT: By NPS image from [1], Public Domain, https://commons. wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=124025.

ON THE BACKS oe

MULE TRAIN

Used to pull pioneer wagons, in farming operations and to haul boats through water, mules have helped to shape civilization in many different ways.

By DEBBIE MACRAE

With a history as old as the Egyptian pyramids, and likely developed during ancient times in what would have been known as Constantinople or the Ottoman Empire, (now northwestern Turkey), the mule is the world’s oldest and most commonly known “man-made hybrid” animal.

Even in the most powerful horse empires, the mule was considered more intelligent and more valuable than the greatest of chariot horses. Mules were often three times as much as a good horse, and seven times the value of a donkey, immortalized in monuments and depicted in Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Turquoise mining expeditions sent by the Pharaohs into the Sinai, marked their routes with stone carvings depicting the use of mules, as opposed to camels, sometime between 2100 BC and 1500 BC.

Hardier than its parents, with stronger hooves, higher intelligence, more endurance, and a lower sleep requirement, mules were revered by Royalty as symbols of social status, and preferred for farming, mining, military transportation, and gifts.

The mules of the Americas were introduced into the New World by Christopher Columbus. Four jacks and four jennys would provide the lineage for exploration by the Conquistadores, and these were fairly small in stature.

America, however, would become a leading mule producer with a gift from King Charles of Spain to George Washington in 1785

– two Andalusian jenny donkeys and a four-year old Spanish jack, named “Royal Gift.” Until that time, the Spanish government had refused to export the Andalusian donkey. However, with a written request from George Washington to enhance the quality of his breeding stock, that gift would provide the cornerstone to the expansion and development of the North American continent as we know it today.

BREEDING

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Breeding a male donkey (jackass) with a female horse (mare) produces the most common hybrid, often called the “Molly mule” – most popular for riding purposes. The less common “hinny” is produced by breeding a female donkey with a male horse. Mules are easier to obtain than hinnys, due primarily to the varied number of chromosomes between horses and donkeys in the two first-generation hybrids of the species. Horses have 64 chromosomes, and donkeys 62. Mules are the average at 63. While pregnancy in female mules is rare, it does occur naturally on occasion.

However, since the early 1500’s, just over 60 mule foals have been birthed with two of those actually reproducing their own foals.

After the American Revolution, Washington’s breeding program had multiplied to an estimated 855,000 mules by 1808. Northern farmers favoured the horse, but southern farmers preferred the mule. They not only tilled the fields, they harvested and carried the crops to market. By the end of the century, the cotton boom in Texas, and the tobacco crops in the south increased the mule demand to over four million animals. Fort Worth, Texas became the world centre for the mule trade.

But the west still had not expanded. The area known as the Northwest Territory, had valuable resources in timber, agricultural land, mining potential and furs. The Appalachian Mountains were the barrier to development in the areas which would ultimately become Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana. Transportation to these resources took weeks – and finances – and transportation of goods was limited by what could be pulled in a wagon.

The Louisiana purchase signed on April 30, 1803, doubled the size of

Erie Canal mules.

the United States at that time, and included land from 15 present states, and small portions of southern Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Napoleon needed financing for his war against the United Kingdom, and could not effectively take possession of Louisiana because of his commitments to the war. The Americans were prepared to pay $10 million for New Orleans alone, and were astounded at the opportunity to purchase all of “Louisiana” for $15 million.

The expansion proved to be the largest territorial gain in the history of the United States, with one of the largest fertile land tracts on earth. The need to develop good farm animals with reduced feeding costs, durability, and greater endurance, pushed the mule market to the forefront.

However, during the first decade of the 1800’s, it was cost prohibitive to move agricultural products even from the western region of New York State to the Atlantic coastal markets.

In 1807, a flour merchant by the name of Jesse Hawley went to prison for being unable to pay his bills. From there, he published a series of essays advocating for the building of a canal system which would advance the economic development of New York. His idea caught the attention of the New York City mayor – DeWitt Clinton – and he lobbied for its development after becoming governor of the state. The project would become known as “Clinton’s Folly,” ridiculed by those who predicted it could never come to fruition.

The problem was, that in order to do so, a navigable water route had to be built, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes from the Hudson river, in Albany, a distance of 363 miles. The terrain included forests, cliffs, fields, swamps, rivers and mountains, excavating mostly by hand and animal power, most of which were mules.

The work included uprooting trees and stumps, draining swampland, developing cement that hardened under water, and blasting through the Niagara escarpment. Dynamite hadn’t been invented yet, so the rock was blasted with gunpowder.

The elevation changed 571 feet from Albany to Buffalo, which meant the water had to travel “uphill.”

The project started in 1817 and by the time it was completed in 1825, it was considered to be an engineering marvel. The project was new to North America and engineers had little experience with canals or lock systems. Locks are compartments on the canal into which a boat enters – similar to a bathtub. The doors are “locked” and the compartment (or bathtub) is filled (or emptied) with water to raise it (or lower it) to the level of the next segment of the canal. When those doors are “unlocked,” the boat floats onto the next segment at the higher (or lower) level.

This project led to the first civil engineering school in New York in 1824. It also led to the transformation of New York City as the commercial gateway to the US.

The Erie Canal opened October 25, 1825 – only four feet deep and 40 feet wide – with 83 locks, traversing nearly 400 miles. Flat-bottomed boats or barges, became the preferred mode of transportation, but “poling” heavy cargoes with awkward one-way barges was not practical or efficient. After having utilized work animals for building the canal, mules emerged as a new power source on the Erie Canal.

Until they were phased out by towboats with internal combustion engines on a deeper and wider canal in the 1920’s, mules remained the primary tow-power on the canal. Walking on a tow-path adjacent to the canal wall, boats would be guided by a single mule, a mule/donkey/horse or combination team, walking in tandem, one behind the other – and sometimes side by side.

Capable of hauling 30 tons of cargo, a single mule could work up to 18 hours a day on low-grade feed, without the requirement for high energy grains like its equine counterpart, the horse. Unlike horses, they would not get into the canal if they were thirsty or hot.

They paced themselves, avoiding heat exhaustion and fatigue, and they avoided eating poisonous plants. They were capable of working long hours, six or seven days a week with a longevity of 15 to 18 years. They didn’t overeat, or drink excessively, and wouldn’t drink contaminated water. They didn’t get sick and were less stubborn than donkeys. When they had enough, they quit. They could not be pushed beyond their endurance.

The Louisiana Purchase was the purchase of the territory of Louisiana by the United States from Napoleonic France in 1803. It included land from 15 states and small portions of southern Alberta

and Saskatchewan. CREDIT: Natural Earth and Portland State University Borax, a compound made from the mineral Boron, is a common house cleaning agent and offers a variety of other uses including glazing for construction and fiberglass. When it was discovered in Death Valley (along the California-Nevada border) during the 1880s, Borax magnate F.M. “Borax” Smith was quick to seize on the opportunity. Soon, he had 20-Mule wagon teams hauling tons of Borax out of the desert to be used in thousands of products.

The mule drivers, or “hoggees”, were young boys aged 8 to 12. Many were orphans hired by the captain, and more often, young boys of the family who owned the boat. With one hand on the reins and one hand on the tow-line, they walked step-by-step, hour by hour, with their mules.

Captains usually lived on board with their families, and children were schooled on-board. They shopped, attended church, and purchased supplies in towns along the canal. Packet boats carried passengers or tourists, and were usually pulled by horses. Line boats carried freight pulled by mules, and hauled immigrants, guns, tools, supplies, manufactured goods and furniture and on their return trips usually carried dried goods, fruit and vegetables, lumber and furs. Scows (flat-bottomed boats) hauled lumber, and Hurry-Up scows repaired the canal.

Animals were housed in a make-shift barn or stable on the bow or forward part of the boat. They accessed the boat by means of a horse bridge which they kept on the roof, steering their mules on with their tails. Mules could walk 10 miles per hour – but if they did, their speed would wash out the banks of the canal – so the legal speed limit on the canal was four miles an hour with the Hurry boats travelling up to 11 miles an hour for repairs. Sometimes barge owners would swap out the mules and travel through the night going as many as 20 miles a day. The older sons usually got the night shift – a lonely and monotonous task.

The towlines were up to 150 feet long. If a boat wanted to pass, they would move the boat to the side, and let the towline sink to the bottom of the canal so they didn’t tangle. More than one team of mules got dragged into the canal by a passing boat – and that did not make for amiable relations – although it provided entertainment for the children and observers!

Before the canal was built, cargo costs were about $125 per ton, taking upwards of 45 days to travel the distance from Albany to Buffalo. Seven Weighlock stations collected the tolls. The canal reduced the cost to $6 a ton and the time to 9 days. Tolls were abolished by 1882, reaping an unprecedented profit of $42 million after expenses for original construction costs, enlargement with a deeper and wider canal, maintenance and operation. Today, the only remaining Weighlock station is the site of the Erie Canal Museum in Syracuse, New York.

Canada was a significant beneficiary of the Erie Canal. With a reduction in costs from New York to the Great Lakes, Canada benefitted from reduced freight costs, reduced delivery times, and more manufactured goods.

Settlers moved west, finding a more viable solution to previous costprohibited market transportation. Agriculture opened up. The Canal was a leg of the Underground Railway, freeing slaves from the south and assisting them into Canada. It was a platform for social reform, religious freedoms, and women’s rights. It was a conduit for understanding and the balance of social justice.

With the development of the west came the California gold rush in 1848, the Klondike gold rush in 1896, the Borax mines in Nevada, and the stage coach. Mules were the pillars of progress. Western towns were laid out with wide streets to allow their fire-fighters to turn the muleteams around. Mules were called to active duty in both WWI and WWII, and again in the 1980’s when thousands of mules were purchased to help maintain supply lines in Afghanistan.

On a higher note, teams of mules were used to pull the first jet engine to the top of Pikes Peak in Colorado, for testing purposes in one of the first experiments. That successful test would assist in the development of today’s U.S. space program.

Our country, our continent, and our progress have been influenced for centuries by the development of this little understood “hybrid.” It’s time to recognize and appreciate the contribution that’s been made on the backs of the Mule Train. WHR