Editors Note- We haven’t heard from Terry in a bit, so here is one where he introduces us to the failed navigation on the Licking Summit Reservoir.
Hi Guys:
Several columns ago we told the tale of the wreck of the Black Diamond. The fact that that vessel was following a “channel” through the Licking Summit Reservoir (Buckeye Lake) led us to look up that channel on the Internet. With an old county history unearthed from that source and some information from the southern Ohio Canal Historian, Dave Meyer, we pieced together the fact of a (for me) previously unknown canal. I hope this one will pique your interest.
THORNPORT and NAVIGATION ON THE LICKING SUMMIT RESERVOIR
As soon as the Ohio Canal was completed through the state from Cleveland to West Portsmouth, residents of those towns, “just off the line” began searching for ways to get “into the action”. When the Licking Summit Reservoir was enlarged in 1839-40, the higher waters came to just over a mile from the small Perry County town of Thornville.
Efforts were immediately initiated to form a new town along the Reservoir’s edge and to devise a way to get canal boats from the Ohio Canal’s towpath that passed through the center of the enlarged reservoir to it’s southeastern edge, close to Thornville
When the initial reservoir had been constructed in the late 1820s, its waters had been impounded without clearing the walnut forests and brush before the water was let in. Walnut trees are slow to decay, so their carcasses and stumps were still a danger to any navigation of the reservoir itself. Over the years a number of Legislative Acts had been passed to clear the reservoir and make it passable for craft. Also, at some date prior to March of 1839 the Ohio State Legislature had authorized a sum of $6,000 to complete these various tasks. And, again, prior to March 1839, the Perry Improvement Company had been organized and given the task of improving navigation within the Licking Summit Reservoir.
Then, on March 16, 1839, an Act by the Ohio State Legislature changed the name of the Perry Improvement Company to that of the Licking Summit Reservoir Navigation Company and authorized them to receive the already authorized $6,000 to ‘improve’ navigation on the Licking Summit Reservoir, just as soon as officers and directors of the company had been appointed and at least $3,000 of stock was sold.
Probably in the same time frame, a town was initiated near the water’s edge of the reservoir a mile or so north-west of Thornville and was given the appellation of Thornport.i A large hotel and warehouse were speedily constructed and quite a little town sprang up, ‘as if by magic’.
The Licking Summit Navigation Company cut a channel (boatway) through the eastern port of the reservoir from the feeder (“Hole in the Wall”) some three miles north-east of Millersport on the Ohio Canal to Thornport on the south-east extremity of the reservoir. A two-horse, tread-wheel boat was to tow canal boats to and from Thornport along this cleared channel through the stumps, logs and snags of the reservoir.
According to Colburn’s History of Perry County, “Things went on swimmingly for a season or so and the strange craft plied regularly between Thornport and the Feeder on the Ohio Canal. carrying out the surplus grain products of the township and returning with salt, groceries, hardware, dry goods, and other commodes.”
We know from the wreck of the BLACK DIAMOND (CC No. 100) that, by the boating season of 1850, though the Thornport Channel may have been passable if the steersman stayed in it, there was certainly no towboat in evidence. So, just what happened to the grand plan of the promoters of the Licking Summit Reservoir Navigation Company?
First, there appears to have been a considerable amount of dissension between the president and two directors of the navigation company and many of the stockholders. As early as January 24, 1843, a number of the latter, asked the State Legislature to examine the books and financial transactions of the company. The State appointed a three-man committee to do so, but stated that, first, the complainants must post a financial bond to pay for the examination. Nothing was apparently done about that complaint. So, apparently, by 1843, some stockholders of the navigation company at least, were not receiving the dividends they had expected.
Going back to Colburn may give us a reason why they were not, “One day a short flotilla of canal boats was being towed slowly across the delightful, placid waters and all the earth and sky apparently as lovely and serene as the blue waters of the reservoir itself. A storm suddenly loomed up in the northwestern sky; and almost in a twinkling rain decended in torrents, forked lightenings flashed, and the thunder rolled and jarred until even the large catfish at the bottom of the lake were stunned. Worse than all for the hardy seafarers, the winds blew a fearful hurricane. The waves of the agitated lake tossed and rolled around as fearful as the waters of the Atlantic in mid-ocean. There could be but one result. The frail fleet was not prepared to weather such a gale, and the whole concern was wrecked, the boatmen thankful that they escaped a watery grave.
“It is probable that the boatmen who encountered this “storm at sea” carried exaggerated reports of it to the men of the Ohio Canal. It is certain that no Captain of men would venture out into that shallow reservoir again. Thus, ingloriously, ended the inland navigation of Thorn Township”
The men who wrote county histories in the 1880s invariably did their research in the memories of the resident “old-timers”. Often these tales, told by an oldster to a young, gullible reporter, were more fanciful than factual.
Going back to dry, State records we find that on January 15, 1851, probably less than six months after the wreck of the BLACK DIAMOND, a petition signed by 225 stockholders of the Licking Summit Reservoir Navigation Company were again asking the State Legislature to look into the dealings of the company. The petition complained that the president and two directors were running the company with no input from the stockholders. They also stated that, “. . .near nineteen years has passed since the completion of this Improvement during which time an immense amount of freight was carried to and from the Ohio Canal. It has now become so filled up and overgrown with vegetation that it is with the greatest difficulty that boats can pass, with 1/4 freight through the channel. Your petitioners are well aware that there are twice the amount of funds in the hands of the president and directors to put the channel in the best navigable order, and to keep a towboat in readiness.”
Obviously someone’s arithmetic is off. Nineteen years before 1851 would have been 1832. The enlargement of the reservoir wasn’t even begun until 1837. We’re guessing the channel improvement was completed in 1842 or ‘43. We are also guessing that the tread-mill tow-boat was never more than a gleam in a navigation company director’s eye at one time.
It seems probable that, when the channel was dug, the spoil was thrown up onto the north embankment of the reservoir to form a crude towpath. That the channel was still known and being used in 1850 can be proven by the one successful voyage and the second disastrous one of the BLACK DIAMOND in 1850. That the stockholders were not getting many, if any, dividends is obvious. But that is probably more to it not being a very profitable operation rather than deceitful management.
So, how much longer than 1850 was that channel available? I don’t know. Perhaps some industrious historian from that area knows, or can find out and will tell us.
In the meantime, we can learn from Colburn that a railroad was begun through Thornport in 1853, but never completed. There wasn’t a successful railroad through that village until 1871, but other railroads in the vicinity probably took most of the grain shipments away from the reservoir navigation before the 1860s took a good hold.
i History of Fairfield and Perry Counties, E. S. Colburn, 1883.