Did Lehi Really Sail up a River to Reach the Land of Promise? – Part I

There are two hotly contested theories as to where Lehi Landed, each couched within a different theory postulation or premise. These two theories are: 1) North America or 2) Mesoamerica; and the North America advocates have two of their own theories, 1) Great Lakes and 2) Heartland. Each of the latter, of course, requires inner rivers to traverse in order to reach their area for landing in a place they claim is Lehi’s Land of Promise. The problem is, what exists today that provides easy access to the interior did not exist in the time of Lehi, nor did it for some 2400 years after Lehi.

Mormon tells us that Lehi landed along the shore of the West Sea and that this area was called “The Land of First Inheritance,”—“and on the west in the land of Nephi, in the place of their fathers' first inheritance, and thus bordering along by the seashore” (Alma 22:28, emphasis added)—usually referred to within the Land of Nephi, but more accurate was probably called the Land of Lehi. When Nephi left and traveled for many days before settling with those who would go with him, they called the area the Land of Nephi, no doubt to separate it from the Land of Lehi. In any event, each theory requires that Lehi land along the shores of the West Sea.

Lehi’s route to reach the Great Lakes via the St. Lawrence River to the Great Lakes

 

However, in order to do so in the Great Lakes theory, Lehi would have had to land along the eastern shore of Lake Erie to satisfy Mormon’s information with their theory location. This means that Lehi would have landed somewhere between Westfield and Dunkirk along the eastern shore of Lake Erie or the Western shore of upper New York state, south of Buffalo.

It might also be of note that of the waterways which fall into Lake Erie is the Cayahoga the most important, though it is only 80 miles long—but in its natural state (then as now) it was not navigable. Its waters were used to feed the Erie Canal (1825) and the Ohio Canal (1827) in the 19^th century, and were built to connect the Ohio River to the Erie Canal at Cleveland. Thus the Cayahoga and other feeder rivers into Lake Erie were not navigable—even today, except for small boats in the early part of the year, these feeder rivers are not navigable according to the

When the canal opened officially between Cleveland and Akron in 1827, it was 308 miles long and required 146 lift locks. Wooden canal boats were limited by the size of its locks—90' long in the chamber and 15' wide, with a pair of wooden gates at either end. Large-capacity freight boats were towed by mules in tandem and passenger packets, designed for faster travel, were towed by horses at a speed of 4 miles per hour or less (the river flow was in the opposite direction at 2 miles per hour—thus the speed when towed at 4mph was limited to 2mph progress).

8 Locks are needed to lift ships from Lake Ontario up 244 feet to Lake Erie; the Sault Ste. Marie Canal from Lake Huron to Lake Superior enable bypassing the St. Marys River Rapids— The Sault Ste. Marie Locks (“Sault” is pronounced “soo” in Old French), in the waterway that connects the Great Lakes Superior and Huron, servse as an international border between the cities of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan and Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada

 

In addition, while the Great Lakes Waterway was and is an internal system of natural channels and canals which enable navigation between lakes because they are naturally connected as a chain—the waterway flows from west to east with Lake Superior draining into Lake Huron via the St. Mary’s River; Lake Huron drains into Lake Erie via the St. Clair and Detroit Rivers; Lake Erie drains into Lake Ontario via the Niagara River, and the entire system flows to the Atlantic Ocean via the St. Lawrence River. As it flows from its westernmost point in Duluth, Minnesota to the Atlantic Ocean, the waterway drops in elevation approximately 600 feet. To compensate for this extreme difference, river deepening and widening with dams and scores of locks were built to lift ships from one level to the next.

Native Americans, French fur traders, missionaries and explorers had to portage their canoes around the rapids, and large vessels were forced to unload and cart their goods to a second ship on the other side of the rushing waters—as they did to bypass the Lachine Rapids on the St. Lawrence River around Memphis. To aid in this navigation and compensate for the 21-foot difference between the two Great Lakes, in 1797 the Northwest Trading Company constructed a lock on the Canadian side of the river. The Straits of Mackinac are 3½ miles long and connects Lake Michigan to Lake Huron (12 ships have gone down in the Straits).

There are a total of 18 locks (see above map) on the Great Lakes Seaway system built to lift incoming or lower outgoing vessels between Montreal on the St. Lawrence River and Lake Superior, the furthest point of the Great Lakes—8 of these locks are required to lift ships 326.5 feet up from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie, each Lock Chamber is 766 feet long, 80 feet wide, and 30 feet deep. In addition, there are several canals built to reach the lakes from various directions, such as the 240-mile long Trent Canal between Buffalo and Rochester that requires 46 locks; the Severn Waterway with 44 locks, etc.

Moreover, any water travel between the lakes was impeded for centuries by natural obstacles such as Niagara Falls, and the rapids of the St. Marys River and the St. Lawrence River—St. Marys rapids were important only if one was to sail from Lake Erie to Lake Huron and then on to Lake Michigan or northward to Lake Superior, along whose  southern shore was all the copper deposits in the Great Lakes area. The other would be important from anyone trying to sail in Lehi’s day from the Atlantic to Lake Erie, as these Great Lakes theorists claim was achieved.

Consider the first, St. Marys River, which was navigable from St. Mary's Fort downward to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and the Ohio River during half the year for large boats carrying from 100 to 200 barrels of flour; during the rest of the year, in the dry season, there was scarcely water enough to float a canoe and the course was much impeded by driftwood. Even today the St. Marys River has a non-navigable status.

The Maumee River in Grand Rapids, Ohio, across the river from Providence at the bend past Howard Island

 

The Maumee River, which empties into Maumee Bay along the harbor of Toledo, Ohio, is 137-miles long, but is only navigable (even today) for the 12 miles from Lake Erie through Toledo. Its deepest point at Antwerp, Ohio (about 25 miles northeast of Fort Wayne is only 10 feet—the rest of the river on both sides of this point is quite shallow—today that depth is 19-feet due to dredging and deepening of the river from Defiance to Fort Wayne during the 1800s).(G. Long, ed., The Penny Cyclopædia, The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, vol. 16, London, 1840,p413)

Such engineering works included the Welland Canal, finished in 1833, that provided a water way between lakes Ontario and Erie; also the  and huge Soo Locks to overcome the elevation change. Two parallel locks operating at the Soo, the MacArthur Lock is 800 feet long, 80 feet wide, and 29.5 feet deep, and the Poe Lock is 1200 feet long, 110 feet wide, and 32 feet deep. These two locks are between Huron and Superior, with dredged channels crossing the Detroit River, Lake St. Clair and the St. Clair River between Huron and Erie. Usually, one or more U.S. Coast Guard Icebreakers keep the water passage open for part of the fall and early winter, although shipping usually ceases for two to three months thereafter.

It seems perfectly clear that Lehi could  not have sailed up the St. Lawrence River in 600 BC to Lake Erie and land along the west shore of western New York as these Great Lakes theorists claim.

(See the next post for a continuation of the Great Lakes theory of bringing Lehi up the St. Lawrence River to Lake Erie to land in their West Sea adjacent to their Lane of Nephi and Land of Zarahemla—and also of the Heartland theory of bringing Lehi into the Florida panhandle)