Editors note – It has been a tad since I have posted one of Terry’s columns. In this one, he writes about his explorations looking for Lock 5. Six-Mile dam, originally built around 1840 for the Walhonding Canal and rebuilt in 1908 for a hydroelectric plant, was removed due to its deteriorating condition and safety concerns in 2020. Its removal has restored the natural flow of the river, benefiting the aquatic habitat and native fish and mussel populations.
Terry starts – Today’s column was one I wrote many years go for the American Canal Society (updated a bit) about my efforts to locate lock No 5 on the Walhonding Canal. The CSO will be touring a bit of that canal in April and the State is “considering” the idea of using their land around lock 5 as a park area after the Six Mile Dam is removed and the island that contains Lock 5 and a bit of the canal can be more easily accessed.
CANAL COMMENTS: 142:
By Terry K. Woods.
THE SEARCH FOR LOCK FIVE:i
I spent many hours during the Spring and Fall of 1976 and 77 hiking along the 25-mile route of the Walhonding Canal in northeastern Ohio. There were 13 locks on that canal and I was able to locate actual remains of 12 of them.ii The 13th., Lock No 5 north-west of Coshocton, had been the victim of an early 20th. Century hydro-electric project as the lock site was under water – or so I thought.
Lock No. 5 was an Outlet Lock into the Walhonding River about 80 yards above the present Six Mile Dam. In 1907-1909 that dam was rebuilt as part of a project to supply water power to an electricity generating plant in Coshocton. I had located a great deal of information indicating that the dam had been relocated to insure its stability during high water. I even acquired a map with a penciled-in location of the structure with the notation, “new dam.” This spot was some 60 yards above the old dam. Therefore, Lock No. 5 should be just above the present dam, if construction work had not destroyed it.
But, there was an additional channel (one that didn’t appear on the old plats) cutting across low ground and entering the older channel scant feet above the dam and flowing parallel to it. At the time, I attributed this ‘new’ channel to the unruly nature of the Walhonding. Subsequent research for a 1992 book on the Walhonding Canal turned up data to indicate that, in 1916, to increase the “flood cross-section” of the river, this new channel had been deliberately excavated.
Whatever its history, that new channel was there and, according to my data, it was flowing in the bed of the old canal! And that meant that the site of Lock no. 5 was underwater!
My research on the Walhonding canal resulted in a small 1978 book titled TWENTY FIVE MILES TO NOWHERE. In that book I described how the dam had been rebuilt in a new location and that Lock No. 5 was gone. The ink had barely dried on that small book when an older gentleman contacted me with the information that, “that isn’t the way it was. I was a kid here when that dam was rebuilt and it was rebuilt smack, dab on top of the old one.”
I rechecked my research data and even had a man at the Ohio Historical Society check the minutes of the Board of Canal Commissioners for the pertinent years. He found a wealth of data to support the theory that that the dam had been relocated.iii Thus, we maintained the status-quo – still, it was hard to discount that fellow’s first-hand account.
Then, one day back in May of 1987, I was invited to talk on the Walhonding canal to the Loudinville Historical Society. The Walhonding Canal was to have been extended up the Killbuck to Loundenville. It hadn’t been, thus the appellation “TWENTY FIVE MILES TO NOWHERE. I hadn’t been asked to speak on that canal in years, and I had done a lot of work on it. I accepted.
I’m not sure how much general interest that talk generated. The gentleman who had invited me seemed to like it. He even brought along his scrapbook of colored postcards of the area. One immediately caught my eye. It was a tinted version of a black and white photo of the Six Mile Dam soon after being rebuilt. I had studied a similar black & white version, under magnification trying, somehow, to locate the missing lock.
Now, in this photo, high up along the river, 100 yards above the dam, was a sliver of blue that certainly could have been the canal. One hundred yards above the dam, AFTER, it was rebuilt. And at the lower corner of the bend in the river, where the “canal” would have approached it – was something. There was definitely something there, on that piece of land that was now an island in the middle of the Walhonding River.
I had hiked every inch of the Walhonding Canal three times while researching for the booklet, every inch except those on that island. I had to get onto the island. That was easier said than accomplished. Late May was too late in the year for canal looking in the wild. I did set about trying to develop a possible method of getting there. I contacted various people in the area who might know what was out there and, more importantly, had a boat on the upper river.
Several times I was in the area at the right time of year, but the river was too high, (the island was scant yards above the dam) or the person who promised to lend me the boat was on vacation or, oh, a lot of things.
April 1990 rolled around. Joel Hampton the Director of the Roscoe Village Foundation, learned of my quest and was interested. We set up a date to borrow a canoe and go to the island. April 7 was our day. But, it rained that entire week. Cooler heads strongly suggested that “Nobody in their right mind oud go out onto the Walhonding with the water so high and swift.”
By April 6, 1990, the height of the river and of the island foliage were at a stand-off. It was now, or next year. We chose now. Joel rented a canoe, we tied it onto his van and headed out to the Six Mile Dam and the Whispering Falls Camp Ground that is located at the base of the falls on the river’s right bank. Mentioning the name of a permanent resident’s name got us onto the private grounds and we looked him up. He thought we were crazy for attempting to go out onto river so close to the dam at this stage of water. The canoe-livery man had thought so too. He had insisted we take and wear life-jackets. Several of the old-timers fishing at the base of the dam cheerfully offered to wave as we went over.
Joel and I drove as close to the dam as we could get then climbed up onto the dike and looked at the river and our objective. The “new” channel here was 45’ to 60;’ wide and the stream was flowing swiftly to our left toward the dam. It certainly could not be called slackwater. We decided to carry the canoe some 75 yards along the river away from the dam and let the current carry us down while we paddled like hell to reach the dam before we were swept over.
Joel paddled bow and I paddled stern. We were both wearing our life -jackets. We both knelt to keep our C.G. low. I had fallen out of a canoe once in a swift current, sitting with my body high. The current swung us around and we touched the far bank backwards, but we managed to grab hold of some tree roots and drag ourselves and the canoe up onto the island. We had made it!
Once my heart rate returned to normal, we headed toward the east end of the island. Sure enough, a 5’ to 6’ high dike extended the entire side of this part of the island. If the dam had been relocated up river during the rebuild, there would have been no earthworks above it. Joel walked over to the dike and I followed its base to my right, toward that spot that had caught my eye on the photograph. I walked directly to lock No. 5! Its there. Kits not intact, but a lot of the stonework is still visible.
Lock No. 5 let boats into the river’s edge about 75 yards, or so, above the dam. When the canal was operation, I believe a towpath on the opposite river bank ran to a point just opposite this lock, though there now has been some build-up between the river and the lock. The towpath over there now begins at the hydraulic inlet gates set into the south end of the dam.
I don’t know exactly how canal boats got across the river. There is one account where the towing animals were put on board and the crew poled the craft across the river. There may also have been and endless rope and pulley arrangement strung from one shore to the other.
We took a few slides of the lock then walked the towpath to the west, up the line of canal. There was no berme bank. There was just the canal towpath then the dike we’d walked the canoe along. Levees were constructed in this area after the flood of 1913, to keep the river out of the lowlands to the north. Land containing Lock No. 5 was repurchased in 1916 from the people the State had originally sold it to in 1898. I’m assuming (pending further research) that the berme bank was removed then and used to construct that dike on the north side of the “new” channel.
Walking the towpath was interesting Even though we had risked llife and limb” to reach the island, a worn footpath existed along the towpath, indicating quite a few “someones” had gotten there first. The island is 200 to 250 yards long and about 50 yards wide. The towpath runs right up to the island’s edge. When the canal was operational, it made a sharp bend here to the north, then another to the west and ran on a line to Warsaw. Both river channels around the island are 45 to 60 feet wide and neither shows any sign of giving in to the other.
When we decided to leave , we again carried the canoe further upstream from the dam. This time we decided to paddle upstream, away from the dam. That worked fairly well, except we once more reached a bank backwards. I had an anxious moment or two when we seemed suspended in the current about a half foot from shore. Joel paddled furiously to keep us from sliding backwards, while I side-paddled to gain that six inches. At last we did.. I grabbed a root. Pushed us forward a bit so Joel could grab one, he did…..and we got out of the river.
The whole expedition was a bit tiring, but we accomplished what we had set out to do, confirm the relative location of the new dam and locate the remains of Lock No. 5. Joel plans to run a Canal Society of Ohio tour of the Walhonding Canal in the near future. He is already trying to figure out how to get participants to Lock No. 5. I have suggested tying a rope to a tree on the south shore of the old river channel, the other end to a tree on the island and issuing everyone bathing suits. I don’t know if that is the method he is going to use or not.iv
i AMERICAN CANALS, May, 1990 Pgs. 8 & 9. I’ve included a bit of additional data acquired after the original article had been published.
ii In reality, I thought I had located the site of Warsaw Lock (No 7), but did not until 2002. A previous column detailed that expedition.
iii Since that time, I have found data to support the building of the new dam, “slack-Dab” on top of the old one. Why I couldn’t find that data before? I have no idea.
iv The method used was that Larry Turner, a CSO Trustee, cajoled a friend of his to trailer his pontoon boat down from the Portage Lakes and use that. It worked great!!!