As I noted in my review of the new book by Nancy Kraus, there has been considerable push-back from the members of the Virginia Canals and Navigations Society who feel Ms. Kraus is mistaken in her findings. They sent along a resolution laying out their concerns along with this list.
Overview on Difficulties with Nancy’s Book
Page 22 Plat of proposed Great Basin mistakenly labeled as “super-imposed on the grid of Manchester” when it was made on the Byrd Lottery lots map of Richmond.
Page 30 “Conjectural Map” of John Ballendine property has no relationship to the two deeds that define his property boundaries.
Page 33 Labels on Latrobe’s sketches are inaccurate – planks & large stones are labeled as Cascade and Eddy, canal is extended in wrong direction and Downstream & Upstream are reversed.
Page 36 Thomas Jefferson’s quotes are augmented by incorrect structures “[Foundry]” and locations “[to the north bank]”.
Page 39 Many added labels to the 1819 Manchester Canal Map are incorrect.
Page 42 Patrick Coutts had not “inherited the land that he sold to Ballendine from Alexander Coats” and it was not “on the east side of Westham Creek”.
Pages 46-51 Elliot Lacy did not survey land along the south bank, many of the added labels to the Manchester Canal map are incorrect, only one of the 5 property owners on the Lacy plat owned land on the south bank at this time.
Page 53 The photo labeled “One of two locks” is actually of a covered-culvert for later railroad tracks.
Page 59 Added label “Head Broad Rock” is incorrect. Broad Rock (now Belle Isle) was upstream from this Byrd mill canal location.
Page 62 Wood Map of Chesterfield County is not “depicting features of the lower canal”. It is depicting areas across the river from the locations that are shown on the Wood Map of Henrico County.
Page 64 Radziminske Map is mislabeled with “Manchester Canal” and “James River Lower Canal” when these waterways were actually the Byrd/Mayo mills headrace and the Town of Manchester mills headrace.
Pages 73-81 The 1819 Manchester Canal Map was for the proposed route of a south-side continuous canal. It is incorrect that “that canal was excavated“. There was another full 1825 survey of the same route that has no mention of any parts of a previous 1819 canal.
Pages 85-89 The structures listed were not “a water-control tower and an underground system of aqueducts and cisterns” “linked to the Manchester Canal”. They were an early mansion basement repurposed as a Civil War magazine and the 1880s water tower for the town of Manchester.
And this was included in a separate email from Dick Helm, who wished to address a couple points.
First is Latrobe’s estimate of “A large island lies opposite to the entrance of the Canal at about 300 Yards distance from it.” Nancy makes much of the difference between this estimate and the current river width on the north side. This estimate was made in his diary entry for 12 April 1796. It could be that this estimate made by an architect was accurate IN 1796. I suggest that comparing it to the distance between Williams Island and the north shore IN 2014 is not an apples-to-apples comparison. This might be due to the changing nature of James River islands in size and shape due to currents and floods. The Williams Island side of the north-side dam was along the downstream sheltered side of the island and could have been added-to by sand, mud and flood debris over the years. The north shore has had extensive alterations during this 200+ year interval. In the early 1820s the James River Company extended the canal upstream from Ballendine’s canal location. This involved blasting part of a bluff, digging the newer larger canal bed and a larger towpath. In the later 1830s the James River & Kanawha Canal Company changed the lock location in this part of the canal, expanded the canal width and declared Ballendine’s dam was no longer needed as a water feeder into the canal. In the 1880s The Richmond & Allegheny Railroad laid their train track on the towpath and probably made sure it was wide enough and supported enough for train traffic. In the early 1900s, the City of Richmond built a concrete dam from Williams Island to the north shore and constructed their water-control intakes and a concrete channel to the settling ponds of the Richmond Waterworks. All of these north shore alterations make a current comparison to a 1796 estimate problematic.
Second is Nancy’s Timeline. The beginning errors in this document are the starting and ending dates. She uses two documents for these dates for the North Bank canals. Her starting date of 1793 was the date of a plan for the Great Basin located in Richmond. However, excavating and connecting the basin in Richmond was a very late step in the total canal construction. Prior to 1793, John Ballendine bought his land on the north shore, excavated his canal and built his locks on the north shore. Prior to 1793, the James River Company acquired Ballendine’s canal and bought other land and excavated the Lower Canal on the north shore. Only when those steps had been accomplished did the James River Company plan, excavate & connect the Lower Canal to the Great Basin. Nancy’s ending date of 1808 was the date of the Gallatin Report. The Great Basin in Richmond was connected to the Lower Canal much earlier than 1808. I have discussed the other errors in this Timeline with Nancy. Her “Canal B” WAS the Upper Canal and her “Canal C” WAS the Lower Canal.
One last point, John Ballendine bought land on the north shore of the James River for the sole purpose of excavating a canal around the Upper Falls of the James River at Williams Island. His canal excavated on his property did bypass the Upper Falls. There are 2 deeds that list the boundaries of the John Ballendine’s property. Those boundaries can be drawn by any independent knowledgeable cartographer (or any independent person familiar with early deed boundary descriptions) and they will show a north shore location. Since the Ballendine Canal and the Westham Foundry were located within this John Ballendine property, they were also on the north shore of the James River.
The History and Patents of C&O Canal Steamboats, by Andrew G. Sparber, 2025. 141 pages.
Fitting a steam engine into a canal boat was not an easy task. It had to be powerful enough to move the boat, and perhaps tow others, but small enough to fit into the small confines of a hull that was made to fit through locks. The steam engines were relatively inefficient and burned a lot of fuel. The weight and space of the engine and tons of fuel that was needed was lost revenue capacity. They required a certain level of engineering skill, and if not treated with respect, they were fond of blowing up. A boat traveling through the narrow confines of a canal creates tractive resistance as the water tries to flow around the boat hull. The faster the boat travels, the more the resistance. It was also felt that the boats and prop wash would create waves that could wash the banks, The study of how inventors sought to deal with these issues is quite fascinating and I was excited to see this new book about the C&O steamboats announced on Facebook and purchased one. A week later, a free copy came from the author.
This new book by Andrew Sparber offers a mix of canal and steamboat history, along with a compilation of patents that were issued to inventions on how to fit steam machinery into canal boats. I had hoped for more then I got. At its best, this book is useful in that Mr. Sparber has gathered these patents under one cover. At its worse, the research and history is incredibly weak. This could be so much better. I am not one to look for faults of authors. Research, writing, editing and publishing on a topic with such a narrow focus is a labor of love and no one is going to get rich or even break-even from their effort. You do it because you want the information to be widely available. But, sadly, in my opinion, this book misses its mark as it could have offered so much more.
Let me begin by saying that any reader who is going to be attracted to a book with the title, “The History and Patents of C&O Steamboats” would be someone reasonably versed in towpath canals and or steamboats. Aside from an introductory chapter, there is no reason not to dive in the deep end of the challenges that inventors faced when trying to put a steam engine into a canal boat. Any chapters with a simplistic canal history overview are a waste of time and paper.
Perhaps I completely missed the intent of this book, but there are numerous instances where I feel that Mr. Sparber could have launched into a subject. One instance was when He quotes one paper from 1867 that said, “…is a five-foot propeller on the Chillicothe plan.” What was the Chillicothe plan? Who was the inventor? Was it used on the Ohio and Erie Canal? Was the technology shared? He never explains.
I found one passage was totally incorrect. He writes that the Enlargement of the Erie Canal began in 1862 when investors knew it had to be bigger to be competitive. The errors in this one sentence alone made me question the rest of the work. The Enlargement of the Erie began in 1836 and was completed in 1862 by the State of New York. There were no investors in the Erie Canal. As Mr. Sparber doesn’t offer any end or foot notes, I don’t know what sources he used.
My understanding of C&O Canal History is about mid-level. My understanding of tractive effort in canals is at a higher level. There are studies made by New York State engineers who were looking to enlarge the Erie Canal and who wrote about how a canal boat behaves in a narrow and shallow body of water. The engineers also wrote about the need to replace mules with steam engines just for the welfare of the animals. It was a monumental issue that was well documented.
Not one of our Nation’s canals operated in a vacuum. Information and innovations were shared by way of annual reports, newspaper accounts, trade journals, and so many more sources. A steam engine experiment may have been conducted one canal, and if it had any modicum of success, it would have been widely shared. So many of these historic materials are widely and freely available to the researcher by way of the internet. While Mr. Sparber goes into some details on a few of the inventions, he could have widened his audience by showing how the innovations were used on other canals. Perhaps, as I noted, the goal of Mr. Sparber with this work was to simply offer a list of patents of steamboat experiments, and if that was his intent, he accomplished it. But he really missed a chance to offer something so much better.
If you are interested in such a subject, read the book, “It Started With A Steamboat” by Steven Harvey (2005), check out my article titled, The Beginnings of the Second Enlargement of the Erie Canal 1858-1895, or Richard Palmer’s series titled, Pioneer Steamboat Experiment on the Erie Canal in the Fall 2023 issue of American Canals.
Mr. Sparber was kind enough to respond.
As I had more time to think about your remarks I thought I would clarify a few things. Even though I used a different date from a different source for the Erie beginning does not mean all of my work should come into question. I try to be a thorough investigator which I learned from my doing research at the NIH. The significant part of my book is the patents. The first section is really for visitors to the C&O. I had asked the different national canal leaders if they had known about the access of the patents and they said no. I took that to mean I found something very significant and hopefully other canal researchers would check out their own patents. When that could be done then a discussion could be had about all of the canal patents. This should not be minimized in your review. The main focus of my book was on the C&O not the Erie though I did briefly talk about it. William Bouman thought my work way very important. I look forward to looking at the other resources you mentioned to see if it adds to my now revising book.
Before I begin, I want to offer a bit of background because it is rare that a book comes along with so much push-back prior to its introduction to the general public. But that is what has happened with this new book by Nancy Kraus. When the American Canal Society receives any inquiry about a canal or navigation, the first thing I try to do is point the person toward the local authorities in the state canal groups. One of the goals that the ACS was founded on back in 1972 was to encourage the sharing of information between canal societies and the public. So when I was contacted by Ms. Kraus about her new book, I asked if she had been in touch with the Virginia Canals and Navigations Society, and then I asked the VC&NS if they had been in touch with Ms. Kraus. Well, my email box was soon full of emails detailing how each side was mistaken in what they believed to be true. With this in mind, I made it a point not to read the detailed responses from the VC&NS until I had read, and then reread, this new book. Ms. Kraus was kind enough to reply to my questions and she did send me a free copy of her book to review.
If you are interested in this subject and you are thinking about the buying this new book, I suggest that you also purchase a copy of the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 132, no. 3, (pages 163–206), in which Ms. Kraus presents an in-depth scholarly article on the subject titled, “John Ballendine and the James River Canal near Richmond, Virginia.” Although the book covers all the important points that are made in the magazine article, there is a difference between the two works, as the article is more akin to a major thesis, while the book covers all the canals and other water-powered infrastructure on the south bank of the James River. Ms. Kraus calls it a pictorial survey.
Richmond was built where the James River passes over the Atlantic Seaboard Fall Line, a 900-mile escarpment that separates the tidewater regions along the Atlantic coast from the interior lands. Many of the large cities that dot the coast (Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, DC., and so many others) were constructed where the fall line formed the “head of navigation” for sea-going ships. Where the James River passes through Richmond, the escarpment created a seven-mile section of rough and fast water. Upstream of Richmond, the James River was suitable for navigation with minor improvements, and downstream, the winding river reached the coast on the tidewater. Thus, any city constructed on the fall line would be both a home to mills and for shipping.
At first glance, you might think that Ms. Kraus is presenting a new interpretation of the James River and Kanawha Canal, the 197-mile-long navigation that followed the two rivers west from Richmond to Buchanan. The ACS Canal Index files on the James River and Kanawha Canal lists the dates of 1785 to 1881 as the life span of the James River and Kanawha that ran along the north side of the river in the Richmond area. A short section remains watered to this day in Richmond as a linear park. However, Ms. Kraus is postulating that the first canals in the Richmond area were located on the south bank of the James River and in her work, she presents her findings after a decade of research.
The central theme of Ms. Kraus’ book is to make the argument that there were navigation canals on the south bank of the James River that allowed navigation between tidewater and the upper James. If these canals were used for navigation, they would predate the James River and Kanawha by some forty years. Her goal is to, “present a revised history of Virginia’s first navigational canal.”
She begins her history in 1732 when William Byrd constructed a short canal at the upper end of the falls to power his mills and foundry on the south side of the river. And here we get a bit into the weeds. There are canals built for mill power, and there are canals built for navigation, and there are canals that did both. Ms. Kraus admits that Byrd’s Canal was constructed to supply water to his mills, but that Byrd wrote that he had hoped to make it suitable for water craft. Clearly, Byrd saw the possibilities, but lacked the means to turn a short mill race into a seven-mile navigation canal.
Ms. Kraus then moves to John Ballendine’s canal, a short canal built between 1775 and 1781. Here is why I suggest that you also order her article, “John Ballendine and the James River Canal near Richmond, Virginia,” As I had never heard of Ballendine, I went looking through the ACS archives and found a paper by David H. McIntosh in Volume 28 of the Canal History and Technology Proceedings. McIntosh writes that John Ballendine may have been the first canal builder in the young nation with his privately constructed (but never completed) canal along the Potomac River built between 1767 and 1772. If he had been successful, this canal would have predated the works at Coteau-du-Lac which were built in 1781, and making it perhaps the first true navigation canal in North America. David McIntosh focused his article on Ballendine’s failed Potomac canal ending with a quick mention of him moving to Richmond and constructing a canal on the James River. He wrote that, “he [Ballendine] went to Richmond and built a canal for them on the James River. It must have been a canal because the State of Virginia passed a bill in 1784 to repay him 20,000 pounds for building a canal.”(1) With her book, Ms. Kraus helps fill in the biography of Ballendine as he worked to construct a waterway around the James River falls.
Not to give away the ending, but while John Ballendine may have been another man of vision, but also failed to turn that vision into reality. Ms. Kraus says that between 1775 and 1781 Ballendine constructed a 400 yard long navigation canal at the top of the falls six miles from tidewater. Maybe Ballendine built here because this was what he owned, but why go through the effort to construct a navigation canal so far from the navigable tidewaters? However, his canal did provide water power to the mills and foundry which appear to have been successful businesses. In 1779 with only a twentieth of the proposed canal completed, the state seized the property and in 1785 the state chartered the James River Company to construct a canal around the falls.
There are many places in her book and article that made me stop and think. The reading of history is akin to sitting on a jury. Twelve people sit and hear all the evidence, then retire to the jury room to argue about what they just heard. It can be astonishing how people can differ in their understanding as simple as, “was that car blue or green?” Ms. Kraus offers a Benjamin Latrobe drawing of a small dam that Ballendine had built in the river to divert water to his canal. Latrobe presents the dam in detail showing it from a top view and also with a cross section. When I first saw it in the magazine article, I made my assumptions of what was upstream and what was downstream. I was surprised to see this drawing in the book next to an annotated copy with notes from Douglas Harnsberger of the AIA (American Institute of Architects), with downstream and upstream being reversed. When I asked her about this, she defended the interpretation saying it was showing a rare “spillover dam.” I then sent the drawing to two engineers I know who, in their opinion, agreed that it has been mislabeled. (Please read her response at the end of this review.)
It does appear that the James River Company constructed improvements to the river so that boats could safely work their way around the rapids. If I understood this correctly, it appears that these were similar to many such river improvements were made across the young nation. The Mohawk River in New York, the Lehigh in Pennsylvania, the Potomac in Maryland, and so many other rivers were improved with wing dams, bear-trap locks, clearing snags and sandbars and other improvements. Whether these James River improvements were on the north or south bank of the river is unclear to me.
It is clear that Ms. Kraus has documented some canals along the south bank of the James River. In addition to Byrd’s and Ballendine’s canals/millraces, she features other canals, water control towers, railroads, and other historical industrial features. The book is presented with color images and many maps to help make her case. From my vantage point 600 miles north and not being familiar with the area, I found myself wanting a master map that showed all the canals and sites in the book so I could put each into context.
Ms. Kraus sent this map after reading my review. It is not in her book.
Ms. Kraus makes a convincing argument and if I had simply read this book without the understanding of navigation canals, I would be inclined to say that she had indeed made some important discoveries. She offered that her work was peer reviewed, so I asked the editor of the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography if their journal articles were peer reviewed as I would have liked to read what the reviewers thought. He replied that they are, but that her article was not reviewed by canal historians. I find it remarkable that that our canal societies, who have been researching and documenting canals and waterways for decades, are not consulted more often then they are. And I hope that the magazine will allow for a follow-up article.
Ms. Kraus states that one of her goals is to bring attention to the remaining industrial remains on the south bank. Nothing in this review, or the reviews of others, should stop this effort to nominate these canals and sites to the National Register of Historic Places and to promote preservation of such. I would greatly enjoy seeing an archaeological study of the two original dry-laid stone structures that are extant in the Park System of the City of Richmond. Are they locks? Or are they parts of a head race?
In one of her emails she wrote, “At stake is the recognition and preservation of the earliest operating canal system with locks and a towpath in the United States.” I would encourage her, and all parties, to keep an open mind and continue with their research and investigations on both sides of the river. The use of AI to transcribe and read old handwritten documents is reshaping how historians can research, opening access to thousands of documents and helping to rewrite history everyday. These records will aid all in their understanding of history and if they keep an open mind, they might find that they were mistaken in what they believed to be certain.
(1) A search on John Ballendine revealed that David McIntosh has published a book title, John Ballendine: Early Developer of Potomac River By-Pass Canals, 2022.
After I sent my review to Ms. Kraus, she was kind enough to respond.
Hello, Thank you for this careful analysis. Your perspective is helpful. I appreciate your objectivity. I wish I had the technical skills necessary to create a map showing the canals and the river from an aerial perspective. Recently, Bill Trout contacted me requesting information about the Southside canals. His stated intention is to update his Atlas to illustrate the archaeological sites and structures on the South bank. I hope he will follow through. Regarding the spillover dam. Determining its geographic location is critical because Benjamin Latrobe’s drawing clearly depicted the original James River Upper Canal relative to the location of the dam. He recorded that the dam extended 300 yards between the river-bank and Saunders Island. That is the distance between the South bank and Saunders (present-day Williams) Island. The distance between the North bank and Saunders Island is around 75 yards; not a match. The 300-yard determination places the dam between the South bank and Saunders island and the canal on the South bank–exactly where a remnant of the canal and two locks are today. An internet search suggests that spillover dams, in the style of Ballendine’s fish-weir dam, are very old technology, virtually unemployed today. It is also important to note that a remnant of a stone construct is visible on the edge of the South bank, just west of the Pony Pasture parking lot. It coincides with Latrobe’s drawing of “Ballendine’s Bridge.” It is very curious that an arch of stone is sometimes visible (depending on water level), extending from that stone structure, out into the river. An image of the stone remnant and the arch are in my book, page 34. The stone remnant and the arch coincide with Latrobe’s drawing of Ballendine’s Bridge and fish-weir dam. Modern engineers may have different perspectives on dam construction than engineers (from the Virginia Department of Transportation) who are knowledgeable about historic dams. Doug Harnsberger is AIA–American Institute of Architects. He is one of the most respected historical architects on the east coast, having worked on many important buildings and structures, including Monticello and the US Capitol. Doug’s analysis of the fish-weir dam was confirmed by Dr. Robert Kapsch who is considered by many to be the foremost authority on canal history and engineering in the United States. I recommend Kapsch’s book on the Potomac Canal for an in-depth history of John Ballendine’s canal-works on the Potomac. Ballendine started work on the Potomac Canal, but he could not get approval or funding to continue so he moved on to the James River. In his own words, he explains his decision, which I have transcribed in the VHMC article. The dry-laid stone locks, the first of that technology in America, are extant on the South bank. Harsh criticisms rejecting the assessment that the locks are indeed locks merit reconsideration. First, Robert Kapsch confirmed that the two locks are indeed locks, constructed in recognized form and size of 18th-century technology; Second, the locks are situated in an elongated position in-line with the surviving remnant of the Upper Canal; Third, the height of the one accessible lock is consistent with the eye-witness accounts of Benjamin Latrobe, that is, the lock had a lift of 8 feet; Fourth, Benjamin Latrobe recorded that “The two locks at the first falls are very ill contrived and constructed. They are Granite, hewn, and laid together without Cement,” a statement consistent with the extant locks; Fifth, the clay lining (puddling) at the base of the accessible lock was still in place in 2014, evaluated and confirmed by an authority with the National Park Service; Sixth, in the 1850s, the Richmond & Danville Railroad built a spur to support the transport of granite, which was mined at the Westham Quarry near the canal. It is likely that the railroad company was responsible for placing stone toppers over the locks to facilitate movement and to avert danger. The suggestion that those locks were built by the railroad company as bridges is preposterous. Railroad bridges were built on piers. The railroad would have absolutely no reason to build structures that look like those locks. Legal plats depict the exact location of the railroad spur. It does not align in any way with the location of the locks. Further, the canal was and is still extant. The locks survive. The railroad would not have built a spur over a canal. Benjamin Latrobe was a British-trained architect and engineer. He was considered an authority on canals and roads in his day. He visited the canals on both the South bank and the North bank (before 1835, when the James River & Kanawha Canal began) and prepared detailed drawings and written descriptions. Because of his attention to detail, he is the best eye-witness of the period. He personally gathered the data and wrote the report on the canals in Virginia for the famous Gallatin Report of 1808. Prompted by the harsh criticism of Lyle Browning, I recently began examining primary sources for information about canals on the North bank that preceded the James River & Kanawha Canal (1835-1850). The attached timelines report makes it very clear that a pair of bypass canals and a basin were indeed constructed on the North bank sometime between 1793 (plan) and 1808, documented in the Gallatin Report, a newspaper account, and Benjamin Latrobe’s drawing of canals B and C. It is not possible to have both Canals B & C and the original James River Company Upper and Lower canals on the north bank. The extant sites and structures and a multitude of primary sources make clear that pairs of bypass canals existed on both banks. By all accounts, the oldest canals and locks were on the South bank. The chart below is a summary. The attached “Timelines” provides eye-witness and primary source documentation to support the chart. I would appreciate your posting this email and the Timelines Report to the American Canals website and Facebook.
Sincerely,Nancy
Timelines: North Bank (1793-1808) and South Bank (1775-1796) Canals
