News

More On the Middlesex Canal

Ed- After we posted the Middlesex Canal article, Bill Gerber, who is Mr. Middlesex, sent along the following.

The Middlesex Canal was authorized in the Summer of 1793. In the spring of 1794, Loammi Baldwin was sent by the Middlesex Canal Company Proprietors on an expedition to survey ‘southern canals’. (See “Instructions to Colonel Baldwin” <http://middlesexcanal.org/towpath/towpathtopicsSept2010.htm> and “L Baldwin’s Report …” <http://middlesexcanal.org/towpath/towpathtopicsApr2011.htm>.)

He visited the Schuylkill and Union Canal sites, met William Weston there and persuaded him to come to Boston to lead a survey for the Middlesex (he came because his wife wanted to mingle in Boston society!! Also, I suspect, because the Penna. Canals ran out of money about this time and weren’t completed for a couple more decades). Baldwin “borrowed” a ‘Y-level’ and station rod from Weston (first known introduction into New England of means to accurately measure elevations and the progression thereof – didn’t return it until 3-years later – probably led to the school of civil engineering at MIT). Baldwin bypassed Brindley’s work along the Susquehanna in PA because he was afraid he’d not be able to get a seat on a later ‘stagecoach’; he visited the site of the Pawtomack Canal in VA, and on the return met with Robert Morris in Philadelphia.

Soon after on an expedition led by William Weston, in the summer of 1794, two routes were surveyed for the Middlesex Canal; actual construction began on the western-most option in September 1794.

Some have asserted that William Weston was the ‘real engineer’ for the Middlesex Canal; IMHO, definitely not so!  Weston did come to Boston, he did lead the expedition that surveyed two potential routes for the canal, and he did produce the first estimates of what it would cost to build the canal. He then departed and never returned to the Middlesex; though it is clear that he carried on a correspondence with Baldwin, in which they discussed many technical matters, for a considerable time thereafter.

But Baldwin was his own man. E.g., Weston suggested a european source for ’trass’ (volcanic rock for use in making hydraulic cement), Baldwin got his from St. Eustacius in the Caribbean and did his own experiments to derive a practical formula; Weston suggested building locks of brick, Baldwin used granite; Baldwin took Weston’s advice and built bypass channels on both sides of his locks at the Merrimack flight; when building the bottom lock of that three-lock flight, Baldwin designed, built and employed a ‘horse-powered’ ‘bucket machine’ to extract much water from the pit. Weston was impressed, requested and received a copy of Baldwin’s design. [We know this from an unpublished manuscript, “Minutes of the History of the Middlesex Canal” by James Fowle Baldwin  (From the Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera, Col. 204. Owned by the Winterthur Library)

Baldwin was called on to survey for the Pawtucket Canal when they got into trouble. James Sullivan, father of J.L., conceived a dump cart for use on the Middlesex, but Baldwin built to his own design, which apparently was used there and in many subsequent construction jobs. (It should be very interesting to learn how Christian Senf surveyed for and constructed the Cooper & Santee. Is any of that known?)

Considering canals of comparable length, the Santee did predate the Middlesex by a few years. Technically speaking, the 1-1/2+/- mile Pawtucket Canal predated them both, opening in 1797 after a flawed attempt to open the preceding year. (Probably a few other short canals opened earlier as well.)
By 1815, a year before the NY canal commissioners came to visit, the Pawtucket had become a key part of the more than 100-miles of canals and navigable waterways in use north of Boston. The complex had been built by more than a dozen private, independent companies at an overall cost of over $1M (e.g., $600+K for the M’sex; $400+K for the Merrimack above M’sex Village; and $60K for the Pawtucket. These included: the M’sex Canal, 27.5 miles; the canalized Merrimack River north to and beyond Concord NH, 52 miles (see Locks and Canals of the Merrimack River <http://middlesexcanal.org/towpath/towpathtopicsJan2009.htm>); the Concord River south of where the M’sex crossed the Concord, to and beyond Concord MA, 10+ miles; the Pawtucket Canal (noted) and M’mack River east to tidewater, 25 miles, about 5 miles of the Charles River (to Watertown); and the Mill Creek Canal that crossed through Boston to reach Boston Harbor.
(Though I’ve not seen his diary, it is my understanding that notes describing L Baldwin’s experiments and conclusions are contained in his diary, available at the Harvard University’s Baker Business School Library. It would be interesting to compare his notes with whatever the Erie folks did, early on.

I did not realize that Sullivan was in Albany at DeWitt Clinton’s request although that certainly makes sense; thank you for that. I am suspicious that Sullivan was also ‘politicking’ to be allowed to set up a steam towboat concession on the Hudson River – which he received approval for from the NY legislature, but could never overcome the Livingston/Fulton monopoly for the use of ‘fire and steam’ on that river.

I was aware that Sullivan favored construction of the Erie well before there was ‘visible’ action to define, authorize, fund and construct it. Following their inspection of the Middlesex, the NY canal commissioners wrote and submitted an extensive report of what they had witnessed. This report was republished early on in TT, see “In This Issue”<http://middlesexcanal.org/towpath/canalnewsApr1964.htm> and it is about the same as what you included at the end of your paper.

Apparently the NY commissioners did not go up the Merrimack to examine what had been completed there the preceding year and so, subsequent to their return to NY, John .L. Sullivan wrote a letter to DeWitt Clinton which described the work done to canalize 52 miles of the Merrimack River (i.e., a dozen bypass canal, three dozen locks), and all the costs associated with that enterprise. This letter was republished in Towpath Topics, see “Letter from J. L. Sullivan to New York Canal Commissioners advising concerning the cost of proposed Erie Canal”, http://middlesexcanal.org/towpath/towpathtopicsSept1965.htm>. The information content of Sullivan’s letter should have been very useful in initial efforts to estimate the costs to build the Erie. Both the report and Sullivan’s letter were bound into a book, a copy of which resides in the NY State archives in Albany.

For a fairly detailed description of what was done to canalize the Merrimack, see “Locks and Canals of the Merrimack River”  <http://middlesexcanal.org/towpath/towpathtopicsJan2009.htm>. 
Because it was impractical to build towpaths along the Merrimack, which exhibited radical changes in level, Sullivan ‘invented’ the towboat. That story is told in “… Sullivan … his Steam Towboats”, <http://middlesexcanal.org/towpath/towpathtopicsFeb2010.htm>. Likely Sullivan’s 1816 towboat, his fourth-generation boat, would have been available for inspection by the commissioners.

Re: Erie Waters West – it is my opinion –  that it was not so much that competent people could not be found to accomplish major engineering projects, as it was that none of the men who could do that kind of work were widely known and none had built an acceptably broad level of confidence in their abilities. E.g. – prior to the American Revolution, Loammi Baldwin and his younger cousin Benjamin Thompson would travel to Harvard College to attend lectures in Practical Philosophy, then work the suggested experiments together at home. Thus, both men had comparable technical educational roots. Thompson (who became a British spy! Settled in Europe after the war and never came back) went on to become the world recognized scientist and inventor known as ‘Count Rumford’, and Loammi Baldwin (who became a Colonel in Washington’s army) became the “Supervisor of Construction”(i.e., construction manager and chief engineer) for the Middlesex Canal. —  Similarly, along the Connecticut River at South Hadley Mass., Benjamin Prescott fulfilled a very similar “Supervisor of … “ role for construction of the Inclined Plane , probably the most ambitious technical endeavor of the young nation at that time. (And one that just ‘cries out’ to be properly written up and appropriately recognized.)

Baldwin was also the father of an engineering dynasty that included several of his sons (See “It was a Family Thing”, <http://middlesexcanal.org/towpath/towpathtopicsMar2012.htm> – his sons: Benjamin Franklin, Loammi (Jr.), James Fowle., George Rumford) became respected engineers in their own right. Cyrus Baldwin became the “Lock Keeper” at the head of the canal at Middlesex Village, which I think means the business manager overseeing operation of both the northern terminus and the Landing there, where goods were accepted for shipment, warehoused, loaded, unloaded, and delivered.

Re: Bond of Union – Technically speaking, the Middlesex opened for use in 1804. — What happened in 1803 to cause the confusion? Well, the MA legislature authorized the M’sex in the summer (June, I think) of 1793 and gave the Proprietors 10 years to complete the action. That time would have been up in the summer of 1803, but it appears that the legislature extended permission to the end of the year. And so, on December 31st, 1803, water was let into the entire length of the canal for the first time ever. (Oral history suggests that clocks in some of the towns along the route were set back to claim accomplishment!! One wonders – what the hell were they doing watering the canal in the middle of a New England winter, and in the midst of a mini ice age??? Fulfilling the terms of the legislation? Perhaps!! Why else would they pull off such a hair-brained stunt?)

Reference to cost overruns: I’d like to know where the author found this. It may be, but in 40+ years of research, including a fair number of primary (corporate) documents, I’ve never seen a budget for either the construction or operation of the Middlesex Canal. So how does he know? Was he referring to the ‘as built’ costs vs the original cost estimates? That would be an absurd comparison, utterly meaningless.

I concur that J.L. Sullivan made the Middlesex successful. And to counter the skeptics, yes, the company did pay a dividend for a few years, though that’s a subject for another discussion, as well as some targeted research. Reports that the investors lost money are not well based; i.e., a number of related factors were not considered when that estimate was made [by Christopher Roberts in his 1930s PhD thesis “The Middlesex Canal”. E.g., the sale of the M’mack River canals in the 1830s, the ‘Canal Bridge’ (toll bridge between Boston and Cambridge at Lechmere Point) and the tolls it produced, and several other factors were never considered.

And that’s about all that comes to mind at the moment!! Hope it helps.

The Middlesex Canal and It’s Roll in the Development of the Erie Canal

Construction began on the 27-mile-long Middlesex Canal in 1793 and it opened for business in 1803. Only the 22-mile-long Santee Canal in South Carolina is older, that canal being opened in 1800. These two canals predate the construction of the Erie Canal by 14 and 17 years, and certainly it is reasonable that engineers from New York would have traveled to the working canals to see what, and not to do, when it came to canal construction. (Yes, there were navigations such as the Western Inland Lock Navigation, and the Schuylkill, but no real canals during that period.) However, if you were to take a narrated cruise or hike along the old Erie, you would rarely, if ever hear about the influence of these canals on New York’s Erie Canal.

Bill Gerber, who serves as a member of our ACS board and is a past president of the Middlesex Canal Association, sent along this note. “It has long bugged me that the Middlesex Canal rarely, if ever, gets credit for its contribution to the success of the Erie Canal. For instance, in 1816, a group of New York Canal Commissioners visited the Middlesex to examine what had been built and how it operated.” In 2011, Bill wrote an article for Towpath Topics, the newsletter of the Middlesex Canal Association where he highlighted a couple examples of when the new canal commissioners of the Erie Canal visited the Middlesex in 1816, and when John Sullivan, the CEO of the Middlesex, visited Albany in 1817. (1)

Bill added, “Among other things, the Erie historians credit European sources with guidance to produce hydraulic cement. Perhaps so, but were the NY Commissioners not also given access to supervisor of construction Loammi Baldwin’s notes, the research he did into hydraulic cement, the successful conclusions he came to, and the implementation thereof? I find it hard to believe that they were not. How too did that knowledge factor into their engineering and construction decisions?”

“While the instances were certainly a modest contribution, they did provide very practical and useful information, and very likely assistance, from actual domestic canal engineering, construction and operation at a key point in the effort to obtain authorization and funding for the Erie. If true, I’d like to see the Middlesex appropriately credited.” -Bill Gerber

Bill’s comments are certainly true. In those old days when I studied only the Erie Canal and it’s laterals, I rarely ran across mentions of the Middlesex. One would read about the work of the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company, or William Weston, the English canal engineer who helped to guide our canal engineering. It was only after I became involved in the ACS that I realized that my “Erie-centric” view of the canal world was somewhat misguided.

But was the fault all mine, or could I cast blame onto the authors of the many Erie Canal history books I have read over the years? I decided to head into the American Canal Society library and pull out some of the more popular Erie Canal histories. I also conducted a quick search on some digital newspaper platforms to see if the people of the period were aware of the Middlesex Canal. Here is a sampling of what I found.

The Weekly Messenger, Friday, May 21, 1813. (2)

John Sullivan wrote an long article titled; “Inland Navigation, Remarks of the Importance of Inland Navigation” In this he details the route of the Erie Canal and the benefits to the state and union.

May-21-1813Download

Buffalo [NY] Gazette, Feb 6, 1816

The Middlesex Canal in Massachusetts runs over twenty-eight miles of ground, presenting obstacles much greater than can be expected on the route we purpose. The article goes onto explain the costs and lockages along the Middlesex canal.

Buffalo_Gazette_Tue__Feb_6__1816_Download

Laws of the State of New York, Feb 8, 1825, page 197 (3)

1817- The best artificial navigation in the United States being the Middlesex canal, in Massachusetts, two of the commissioners accompanied by two of the engineers, proceeded to examine it, in order to obtain practical information on the subject.

John Sullivan letter to Albany [NY] Argus and City Gazette, March 21, 1826

I am compelled to speak of myself, and to ask; Was I “a visionary” when Judge Wright and other gentlemen visited me for information respecting the Middlesex Canal before the Erie was begun?

sullivan-letter-1826Download

Erie Water West (1966), page 18 (4)

The canal builders of this period (1790s) must be judged to have left a record more of failure than success. When no competent American engineer could be found, the companies sent vainly to England for aid and finally secured the part-time services of William Weston, an Englishman who was then employed in Pennsylvania on the Schuylkill and Susquehanna Canal. But Weston could not visit the works until 1795. I include this as the services of William Weston are often confused when it comes to Erie Canal history. He was employed/engaged on a number of early canals, including the Western Inland Lock Navigation in central New York. His age prevented him from returning to assist with the construction of the Erie.

Erie Water West, page 69

As the only real precedent in the Untied States was the Middlesex Canal, twenty-seven miles long, between Boston and the Merrimac River, the commissioners had examined it and made it their model; but in actuality they had very few standards by which to judge their plans.

Wedding of the Waters (2005), page 131 (5)

There was also the record of the Middlesex Canal, at that time the longest canal in North America, a twenty-seven-mile waterway built in the late 1790s to connect Boston to the Merrimack River in the northern reaches of Massachusetts. The Middlesex did a good job of moving heavy material like granite and lumber but was never able to generate enough revenue to stay current on its debts. If Schuyler and Weston could be so wide of the mark on a relatively simple undertaking, and if the Middlesex was such a financial failure, what confidence could people place in anyone who recommended a project as large, as complex, and as novel as the Erie Canal?

Bond of Union, (2009), page 140 (6)

[Myron] Holley and [Samuel] Young traveled to Massachusetts and examined the Middlesex Canal. At twenty-seven miles, the country’s longest and only significant canal had finally started operations in 1803 after a decade of expensive surveys (including one by William Weston), construction difficulties, and cost overruns.

The particulars of the canal, which joined Boston and the Merrimac River, were of great interest to New York’s canal commissioners: its twenty locks, eight major aqueducts, $20,000-per-mile construction cost, and especially its dimensions – thirty feet wide at the surface, narrowing to twenty at the three-foot-depth. The commissioners also solicited construction and cost details from the proprietors of several private canals in New York.

Bond of Union, Page 169

Clinton and the other commissioners at Albany were indignant at the rejection from Washington, but immediately set about to control the damage. They countered first with what passed for a celebrity in the limited world of American canalling. By the end of the veto week, they had brought to Albany John Langdon Sullivan, superintendent of Massachusetts’s Middlesex Canal. In ten years on the job, John Sullivan had turned the country’s most substantial canal from a notorious failure into a singular success. (Sullivan’s father James had been the main developer of the project that sought to link the Merrimack and Charles rivers.)

Bond of Union, Page 170

In its early years Middlesex had been widely perceived as the Massachusetts twin of New York’s hapless Western Inland Company: paragons of unvirtuous private enterprise. By 1817 John Sullivan was transforming the Middlesex into an exemplary model for the proponents of the Erie Canal. Though only a fraction of the length of New York’s proposed canal, the Middlesex was proving that canal transportation could be practical and economical. And its basic dimensions- a width of thirty-feet on the surface narrowing to twenty at a three-foot depth- made it a nearly perfect three-quarter scale model for the Erie.

A Watershed Moment: The Middlesex Canal. T.R. Witcher, 2017 (7)

While American transportation before the Erie Canal may seem like something out of ancient history, the achievements reflected in the lesser-known Middlesex Canal, in Massachusetts, were certainly not lost on those who lived to see the Erie Canal built. In his 1808 report to Congress, Albert Galleatin, then secretary of the Treasury, called the 27 mile Middlesex Canal, which had been completed in 1803 and linked Boston with Lowell, Massachusetts, the “greatest work of the kind which has been completed in the United States.” (The full article is available as a download at the ASCE library)

Conclusions

It is clear from this limited survey that the Middlesex was researched and perhaps served as the model for the construction of the Erie Canal. Although the Santee Canal predated the Middlesex, it was in South Carolina, not next door in Massachusetts. The Santee was also located in a much warmer environment.

It is also clear that historians have been changing the way they look at the Middlesex Canal as it relates to the Erie. In 1966, Shaw in Erie Water West gives the Middlesex a passing mention, and Bernstein in Wedding of the Waters dismisses it as a failure. It is Koeppel in Bond of Union who gives much credit to the Middlesex as an model for the Erie and also explains why John Sullivan was in Albany during the winter of 1816/17. Witcher in A Watershed Moment goes in depth as to the engineering lessons that were taken from the Middlesex.

It is likely that the digitization of records and the continued scholarship has led to this transformation in how we view the early canals. Certainly the ability to perform Boolean searches into thousands of digital newspaper pages has helped the historian get a better sense of what was being done and said in those early days.

It is now up to the staff and volunteers who happen to give talks along the Erie to adjust the historical narrative they share with their visitors and give proper credit to these early canals. And if you happen to be in the Boston or Lowell region, be sure to stop and visit the Middlesex Canal Association’s museum.

In 1967, the Middlesex Canal Association put out this map of the entire canal.

(1) Towpath Topics, Volume 49 No. 2, January 2011, available on the web at http://middlesexcanal.org/towpath/towpathtopicsJan2011.htm

(2) The newspapers quoted here were found on newspapers.com and Old Fulton.com

(3) Laws of the State of New York in Relation to the Erie and Champlain Canals Together with the Annual Reports of the Canal Commissioners, and Other Documents, Vol.1, February 8, 1825

(4) Erie Water West, Ronald E Shaw, University of Kentucky Press, 1966

(5) Wedding of the Waters; The Erie Canal and the Making of a Great Nation, Peter L. Bernstein, W.W. Norton and Company, 2005

(6) Bond of Union; Building the Erie Canal and the American Empire, Gerard Koeppel, DaCapo Press, 2009

(7) A Watershed Moment; The Middlesex Canal. T.R. Witcher, Civil Engineering, July/August 2017

Appendix

Canal Laws, page 301 (pdf 338), Miscellaneous particulars of information, respecting the Middlesex Canal, near Boston, in the state of Massachusetts.

The following information, respecting the Middlesex canal, was obtained in May last, by two of the Commissioners, who visited and carefully examined that canal, throughout its whole extent, and committed to writing, on the spot, the results of their own observations, as well as the answers to all their inquiries, which were obligingly given, by the very intelligent agent (Mr. Sullivan) of the canal company.

The canal is 27 miles long, and connects the tidewater, in Boston harbour at Charlestown, with the Merrimack river. The water in the canal is 30 feet wide at its surface, 20 feet at its bottom, and 3 feet deep. The Concord or Sudbury river crosses the line of the canal on the summit-level, 22 miles from Charlestown, and 5 miles from the junction of the canal with the Merrimack, and wholly supplies it with water for locking, down each way from the summit-level. From tide-water to the summit-level is an ascent of 104 feet, and from thence to the Merrimack a descent of 32 feet. There are, in all, 20 locks of different lifts, of which the highest is 12 feet. These locks are 75 feet long in the clear, 10 feet wide at the bottom, and 11 feet at the top.

Boats for the transportation of merchandise and produce carry 14 tons, and are drawn by one horse 3 miles an hour. Packet-boats pass the whole length in 5 hours coming down, and 7 hours going up. To each boat there are three men; two, however, are sufficient to manage the boat on the canal, the other being wanted only on the Merrimack river. From the summit-level, down the canal, there is, a current which exceeds in no place half a mile per hour there being a fall or descent in the canal of one inch per mile. The expense of transporting a ton the whole length of the canal is $3 50, of which sum $1 70 is toll, and $1 80 is freight.

Across the canal, there are 50 bridges, made by the canal company; they consist of 2 stone abutments (one on each side of the canal) 20 feet apart: from one of these abutments to the other, are laid sills or stringpieces, of wood, covered with plank, and of sufficient height for the towing horses to pass under. The towing-path under the bridges occupies 6 or 7 feet.

Two miles from the lower end of the canal, Mystick river, a turnpike road, and the canal run a little distance parallel with each other, the road being between the canal and river. Here is afforded a good opportunity of comparing the relative advantages of these three modes of conveyance.

Heavier boats than those above-mentioned, are used on the canal for transporting fire-wood, lumber, &c.; they are shaped like a scow, are 75 feet long, 9½ feet wide, and carry 25 tons of wood.

The towing-path is generally 8 feet wide, so that horses and oxen may easily pass each other. On the opposite side of the canal, where a towing-path is not wanted, the upper surface of the bank or embankment is five feet wide, and this is found to be sufficient. A branch-canal, or side-cut is made to connect the main canal with Mystick river, near Medford; this is owned by a separate company, and is principally used for transporting timber to Medford for ship-building.

The canal company was incorporated in 1789, and the next year commenced the work of making the canal. When the canal was begun, the price of labour by the month was $8. The canal was opened for use, in 1804, though not completed in 1808, when Mr. Sullivan took charge of it. Some repairs and new constructions have been made every year since. In assesments upon the proprietors, there has been laid out on the canal $528,000, and about $50,000 more, derived from tolls, has been expended in buildings, wharves, &c. At Medford is a swivel bridge, which is found to be very inconvenient. The principal articles transported on the canal are wood, timber, lumber of all kinds, pot and pearl ashes, rye, oats, provisions, and building stone from the Merrimack to Boston. Last year 12,000 cords of wood were transported down the canal, and there are more tons of timber in rafts, brought down, than of wood.

More than one half of the whole length of the canal is more or less embanked or raised above the natural surface of the ground. Above Medford is an aqueduct across the Mystick river, of which the abutments are 100 feet apart, and between them are three stone piers, each 8 feet thick, for supporting the aqueduct. The tide flows up the Mystick river above this place. The surface of the water in the aqueduct, is 10 feet above the surface of the water in the river below, at high water. This aqueduct consists of a kind of trough made of timber and plank, which has stood 16 years, but is beginning to decay. The timber is framed together in the usual way of carpenter’s work, by tenants and mortises, and strengthened by braces. As tenants soon rot, and give way, it might have been made on a better and more durable construction, with knees and bolts, in the manner of ship-building. At the upper end of the aqueduct, is a lock of 12 feet lift.

Mr. Weston, an English engineer, took the levels of the whole length of the line of this canal, part of the way on two routes. He estimated the expense of making it at 100,000l. sterling. The company went on to make the canal, without any further aid from any European engineer, and found Mr. Weston’s levels to be correct.

Over Syms’ river is an aqueduct, of which the abutments are 120 feet apart, with three intervening piers. The water in the aqueduct is 30 feet higher than the water in the stream below. These aqueducts all afford convenient waste-weirs. When the water is not drawn off from the canal at the commencement of winter, the expansion of its freezing, spreads and injures the timbers of the aqueducts; wherefore, it is the practice, just before the winter sets in, to draw off about one third of the water.

Half a mile above the last mentioned aqueduct, is deep cutting, 40 rods in length, through loose sand and gravel. In the deepest part of the excavation, is 20 feet below the natural surface of the earth; and the part excavated, is here, from 90 to 100 feet in width at the top. The earth was chiefly carried away in wheelbarrows, some in carts, to an embankment just above, on the right side. Half a mile higher up, the earth is very porous, and on the right side, the water leaks out through or under an embankment: this might have been prevented, by putting 2 or 3 feet of water-tight stuff in the bottom of the canal.

Near this place are two water-gates, by which the water of the canal is drawn off in the spring for the purpose of clearing out the earth, stones, &c. which fall into it, and injure the navigation. The expense of this, is perhaps $500 a year.

Mr. Sullivan states, that he has had a steam-boat on the Merrimack river for the purpose of towing boats; he found, that a man by a rope could easily hold a boat in tow, immediately astern of the steam-boat, which it would require a horse, on the bank of the river, to tow with the same velocity: such, in his opinion, is the great diminution of the resistance of the water, to the head of a boat, which is drawn in the wake of another boat.

For some weeks in the spring, the canal leaks much more than it does the remainder of the season; this is because the banks had been recently swelled and loosened by the action of the frost. Three men with a horse and boat, are, in the summer, constantly employed, to keep the banks, and particularly the towing-path in order.

The lands within six miles of the canal on each side, have increased one-third in price; while land in the country, generally retains its former value. In the state of New-Hampshire, through which the Merrimack flows, timber is now worth from 1 to 3 dollars per ton standing; before the canal was made, it was worth nothing; so that in the article of timber alone, that state is supposed to have been benefited to the amount of at least 5,000,000 of dollars. The wood-land there, has risen in price, since the opening of the canal, from $2 per acre, to $6, 8, and $10 per acre.

In Woburn, a pretty high embankment, which was made in the winter, across a marsh, sunk down in the spring, at the breaking up of the frost, so that its top was just level with the natural earth: another embankment was then raised upon it. Near this place, the canal, by a deep cutting of 25 feet, passes through a hill. An embankment at Maple meadow, in the town of Wilmington, is near 80 rods long, and 25 feet high, to the top of the towing-path. At a place called the sinking meadow, in the above-named town, an embankment is made across a marsh of about 30 rods in extent. When this embankment was commenced, it was found that the dirt and stuff carried on, to form the embankment, kept gradually sinking into the marsh; when measures were taken to ascertain how much it would sink: the labourers continued to carry on stuff which gradually went down, until the whole embankment sunk to the depth of 60 feet!

The great expense of making this embankment across the marsh, might have been foreseen, and prevented. The depth and softness of the marsh, might have been ascertained by sounding it with an iron rod, and by conducting the canal circuitously around its margin, a solid foundation might have been secured.

By the act of incorporation, the Legislature authorized the company to occupy, 5 rods of land in width on one side of the centre of the canal, and 3 rods on the other. If the owners of the land did not apply for pay within a year, it was deemed a donation. In the statement of monies expended, before made, are included, the costs of several law-suits, the building of boats, of offices, the purchase of 70 acres of land, and the erection of mills at Billerica. The land and mills cost $10,000. There is no income derived from hiring out water privileges, for hydraulic operations. The canal receives its whole supply of water, from the Concord river; and if any were let out for hydraulic purposes, a current would be created, the inconveniences of which, would probably more than counterbalance all the advantages of income.

Either through design or accident, logs, stumps and sticks were in some places left in the banks, when the canal was made; and these, having now become rotten, leave unsound places, through which the water escapes. A great part of the canal was made by contractors, in small parts or jobs, and where two jobs of embankment met each other, the workmen did not, in some cases, take the precaution to prevent the stones, as they threw on the stuff, from rolling down together, from each end of the separate job, and thereby forming a loose porous and leaky place in the embankment.

The aqueduct over the Shawsheen river is, between the abutments, 140 feet. The water in it is, 35 feet higher, than the surface of the river below. This aqueduct has been made 20 years; it is, like the other aqueducts on this canal, made of wood, and is so much decayed, as to require temporary props, to support it. There are three piers between the abutments, and, between the outside pier and the abutment on each side, there is a kind of wooden pier. On the inside, or river side of both the abutments, and on both sides of the piers at suitable distances, large horizontal timbers are embedded, which serve to support the lower ends of the aqueduct braces: when these timbers become rotten, the stone work will probably fall down. From each end of this aqueduct, to the distance of 500 feet, is an embankment nearly 35 feet high.

During the war, the timber used to repair the Constitution frigate, was brought, down the canal to Boston, and that used to build the Independence, seventy-four., except the live oak, was procured through the same channel, as also were many of the masts and spars, &c. which were furnished at Boston, to our vessels of war. Without the canal, this part of the country could not have supplied these necessary articles.

In approaching the Concord river, the canal passes through half a mile of deep-cutting, 800 feet of which is excavated by blasting through a hard granite rock. In some places, this blasting was carried 7 feet into the rock, and from 14 to 20 feet wide. The deep-cutting for this half mile, is from 12 to 20 feet.

Across the Concord river, a few rods below the line of the canal, a dam of 150 feet long, and 8 feet high is made. This creates a pond, out of which, through the deep-cutting last mentioned, the water flows and supplies the canal, 22 miles to Charlestown at the tide-water. From the other side of the pond, the water flows through the canal 5 miles to the Merrimack river. The water which supplies the 22 miles of the canal, passes through a horizontal apeture of 6 feet by 1, with a head of 2 feet water, above the upper side of the apeture. The towing-path, is carried across the pond, by means of a floating bridge, a part of which is occasionally drawn up, to let the logs, timber and drift-wood, which collect above pass through. There are two waste gates in the dam, by which the height of the water in the pond can, in some measure, be regulated.

In Chelmsford, within 60 rods of the Merrimack, is an aqueduct, of which the abutments are 110 feet apart, and there are ten wooden piers to support it. The water in the aqueduct, is, 16 feet higher than the stream below. Between this aqueduct and the Merrimack, is a fall of 32 feet, and 3 locks of durable stone masonry, in tarres mortar. Where the canal joins the Merrimack, a basin is excavated, 10 or 12 feet below the natural surface of the earth, and 5 feet below the surface of the river, at low water. The extent of the basin is about 200 feet on the shore of the river, and half that distance on a line at right angles with the shore, being nearly semi-circular. There are in all 7 aqueducts on the canal, but those not mentioned above are very inconsiderable: there are also several culverts. Grass grows in the bottom of the canal, and obstructs the passage of the water in autumn to such a degree, that at the lower end of the canal, 22 miles from its source, the water is sometimes 9 inches lower than it otherwise would be. To remedy this inconvenience a man is employed who wades along the canal and mows off the grass under water with a scythe. During the winter season, while the canal was not used, the muskrats would sometimes burrow into and endanger the breaking of the banks; in consequence of which the company had offered a bounty of 50 cents for every one that should be destroyed within a certain distance of the canal. This county had caused their destruction to such an extent that very little apprehension was entertained of their doing injury.

It was the original design of the company to employ three officers on the canal, viz. a superintendent, a treasurer and clerk; but that project has been abandoned, and those three officers are now united in Mr. Sullivan. His compensation is a salary of $1,500 a year, besides 5 per cent. on all the tolls or receipts, which are warranted not to fall short of $20,000 per annum.

The receipts of the company from the canal are rapidly increasing. The income in 1808, was $7000, in 1809, $9000, in 1810, $14,000, in 1811, $17,000, last year $25,000, and this year (1816) it will, undoubtedly, exceed $30,000.

Laws, page 320 (pdf 357) Vol 1.

Copy of a letter, to the President of the Board of Commissioners, from John L. Sullivan, Esquire, who has personally examined the most celebated canal and England, France, and Holland, has had the charge of constructing several short canals, with locks, dams, and etc, around falls in the Merrimack river, and has, for eight years, been superintendent of the Middlesex canal, in Massachusetts.

Albany, March 7, 1817

The Hon. DeWitt Clinton
President of the Board of Canal Commissioners

Sir:

In compliance with your request, in behalf of the board f commissioners, I have given all the attention in my power, at this time, to the report on the proposed canal, and shall with pleasure proceed to state my impression of the estimates in general, premising, however, that without see the ground, it would be presumption to offer a decisive opinion on the expense. It is, therefore, with the utmost deference to the engineers, and other gentlemen who have assisted in making them, that I shall express mine, from a comparison of the description of the route with works of this nature, with which I am intimately acquainted.

In comparison with the Middlesex canal, the description given of the country is peculiarly favorable; In the proportion, I should think, of three to one. That is, for the whole distance, the Middlesex canal, per mile, is three times as difficult or expensive, as to the work to be done by excavation and embankment, as the New-York state canal will be. And none of the heavy jobs will compare with what has often been done in Europe. In making the comparison, it will be recollected, that the dimensions of the canal are, as 4 to 7; the mean width and depth of Middlesex being 25 by 4, your canal 35 by 5.

The estimate have been made from the best sources of information in the country, and from experiments: I conclude, therefore, that the easy work can be done accordingly, but it would cost much more in our part of the country, if executed without the aid of labor-saving machinery, as wages now are.

The embankment will, I believe, generally, cost three times as much as excavation; and it is obvious to remark, that where they are extensive, the earth, to form them, must be carried the whole distance; and the quantity of earth will very much exceed, in square yard, at the place whence it is taken, the measurement of the bank. No doubt the board have attended to these and other local circumstances; but, in the estimate, the difference does not appear to be sufficient.

The waste-wiers, safety gates, and other constructions to control the streams, feeders, and etc., not expressly contained in the estimates, ought not, I think, to have been assigned to the 5 per cent added for contingencies; because that allowance is to be made as well on them as on other objects of expenditure.

The allowance of 10,000 dollars per lock appears to me to be ample. The cost of the aqueducts depends on so many local circumstances, that I can only say, it seems to me very probable, that the estimate for them is high enough; constructed of stone piers and trunks of wood; but much will depend on the previous preparation, and the season of the year in which the work is done.

In some instances the digging of the eastern route is represented as partly light and partly difficult. Where the pick ax is to be used, the digging will cost double what it will where it may be done by shovel alone; or, if the light loam or sand may be excavated for 12 to 20 cents, hard gravel and clay should be estimated, in my opinion, fro 30 to 50 cents per yard.

The middle and western sections, appear to be on the whole high enough. The eastern to Schoharie crosses so many streams, and there being some difficult digging, and considerable wall required to sustain the banks of the canal and adjacent high grounds, that I doubt if the estimate has been sufficiently considered in all these circumstances; but it does not appear to be, on the whole, a more difficult route than that of the Middlesex in proportion to its distance; I say this, however, with deference to the gentleman of the board who have seen both.

But on the whole, as the country is so generally favorable, as labour-saving machines can be used, and as there will probably be no land or damages to pay for, the estimate appears to be high enough.

In making a comparison with the Middlesex canal, having no minutes with me, I can only do it from recollection. The accounts, while this canal was in the process of construction, were not kept so as to admit of our knowing what ant particular piece of work cost. My analysis of it, therefore, will be wholly from judgment, formed from my knowledge of the ground, and some experience in other places.

The Middlesex canal is 27 miles in length, its depth is intended to carry at least three feet of water. The banks where formed, are meant to be one foot above the water. The width generally 30 feet on the surface, and on the bottom 20 feet. In carrying the work on, it was found necessarily to purchase some estates, the whole of which was not essential to the canal. The lands were generally paid for where most valuable. There was some considerable expense attending litigations, and perhaps some mistakes, which are not likely to happen in the proposed work. The whole expense in assessments has been 520,000 dollars; not including the application of income for several years past, in renovating and completing it; and the buildings, wharves, and etc., necessary to the business. As neither of these objects of expenditure apply to the present question, I shall leave them out, and also deduct 50,000 dollars as having been applied to the other works leading to the principal canal.

If this communication, which is very hasty and imperfect, can be of any use to the board, I shall have much pleasure in the reflection of having contributed, in any degree, to the great object of their attention.

With the highest respect,
I am, Sir, your most obed’t. serv’t,
JNO. L. SULLIVAN.

Holding Back the River

Holding Back the River; The Struggle Against Nature on America’s Waterways, by Tyler J. Kelly, $27.00 list, $21.54 (Amazon), 224 pages

A revelatory work of reporting on the men and women wrestling to harness and preserve America’s most vital natural resource: our rivers.

The Mississippi. The Missouri. The Ohio. America’s great rivers are the very lifeblood of our country. We need them for nourishing crops, for cheap bulk transportation, for hydroelectric power, for fresh drinking water. Rivers are also part of our mythology, our collective soul; they are Mark Twain, Led Zeppelin, and the Delta Blues. But as infrastructure across the nation fails and climate change pushes rivers and seas to new heights, we’ve arrived at a critical moment in our battle to tame these often-destructive forces of nature.

Tyler J. Kelley spent two years traveling the heartland, getting to know the men and women whose lives and livelihoods rely on these tenuously tamed streams. The result, Holding Back the River, is a deeply human exploration of how our centuries-long dream of conquering and shaping this vast network of waterways squares with the reality of an indomitable natural world.

On the Illinois-Kentucky border, we encounter Luther Helland, master of the most important—and most decrepit—lock and dam in America. This old dam, at the tail end of the Ohio River, was scheduled to be replaced in 1998, but twenty years and $3 billion later, its replacement still isn’t finished. As the old dam crumbles and commerce grinds to a halt, Helland and his team must risk their lives, using steam-powered equipment and sheer brawn, to raise and lower the dam as often as ten times a year.

In Southeast Missouri, we meet Twan Robinson, who lives in the historically Black village of Pinhook. As a super-flood rises on the Mississippi, she learns from her sister that the US Army Corps of Engineers is going to blow up the levee that stands between her home and the river. With barely enough notice to evacuate her elderly mother and pack up a few of her own belongings, Robinson escapes to safety only to begin a nightmarish years-long battle to rebuild her lost community.

Atop a floodgate in central Louisiana, we’re beside Major General Richard Kaiser, the man responsible for keeping North America’s greatest river under control. Kaiser stands above the spot where the Mississippi River wants to change course, abandoning Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and following the Atchafalaya River to the sea. The daily flow of water from one river to the other is carefully regulated, but something else is happening that may be out of Kaiser and the Corps’ control.

America’s infrastructure is old and underfunded. While our economy, society, and climate have changed, our levees, locks, and dams have not. Yet to fix what’s wrong will require more than money. It will require an act of imagination. Meticulously researched and as lively as it is informative, Holding Back the River brings us into the lives of the Americans who grapple with our mighty rivers and, through their stories, suggests solutions to some of the century’s greatest challenges.

Review

The above review was provided by the publishing company and it nicely outlines this very enjoyable read. The book is divided into three parts; The Lock, Alluvial Empire, and Rivers of Earth. There is a forth short section titled, Retreat and Fortify. As the synopsis outlines, each part looks at the river through the eyes of a local person or community who has lived, worked, and had their lives impacted by, the rivers. I was very interested in part one; The Lock, where the challenges of using and maintaining Lock 52, the last lock on the Ohio River. Lock 52 and 53 were the last two of the 51 Chanoine wicket-style movable dams that once created the navigation pools from the Mississippi to Pittsburgh. The US Army Corps of Engineers has been replacing the old locks and dams with 19 larger structures. Locks 52 and 53, which has been replaced by the Olmsted Lock and dam, are located near the confluence with the Mississippi, and is the busiest on the river. The operation of these locks is critical to all navigation along the river.

The author presents these challenges by way of Captain David Stansbury who operates the William Hank, and Locktender Luther Helland and his crew at lock 52. Kelly deftly explains the need for the movable dams, their construction, and workings, of the old wicket-style gates. Unlike the movable bridge dams along the Mohawk River in New York, wicket dams are designed to lie flat on the river bottom when the natural depth of water was suitable for navigation. The Ohio can vary from almost dry to 50-feet-deep. When the river runs high, the tows can float right over the flattened dams. When the river depth falls below 9-feet, the wickets were raised one at a time, and slowly the navigation pool is created. Lock 52 had over 400 such wickets, and most of them had to function in order for traffic to continue. Kelley explains how Helland had to manage and almost trick the old wickets to stay in the raised position. As the book was chronicling events in 2016-2018 period, Kelly was capturing operations at the end of this dams life. A YouTube video showing the operations of this dam was made in 2011.

The wickets at dam 6 on the Ohio as seen in 1898. This is the backside of the dam.

The reason that the author was able to write this part at all was the length of time it had taken to get the new Olmsted Dam built. Construction had begun in 1995 and it still is not complete today, and Kelley touches on the issues of building a new structure over a 23-year period as those in Washington managed to both provide and remove funding. In the summer of 2018, the new Olmsted Lock and Dam was put into service even though it wasn’t ready for service, but there was little choice as the last two wicket dams at Lock 52 and 53 had completely worn out and were unusable. If you don’t read any further than Part One, the book is certainly worth the purchase.

The second and third parts get into the life of the rivers and how man has tried to control them by way of dredging, levies, flood gates and diversion channels. It often places the local population against the federal government when decades old easements are suddenly activated in times of high water, or when dams stop the flow of sediments and fill up lakes or fail to resupply old deltas. Seeing the confusion and conflict through the eyes of the local population and even through the eyes of the employees of the US Army Corps of Engineers, all aided my understanding of the issues. Although climate change is addressed throughout the book, there is no political agenda presented. The entire book made for a easy and enjoyable read. The book is 224 pages.

Book Review: Triumph and Tragedy: The Welland Ship Canal

By: Craig Williams, President, Board of Directors, Canal Society of New York State

Canada’s southern neighbor can learn much from the just-published Triumph and Tragedy – The Welland Ship Canal. For those New Yorkers passionate about canal history, the book is an outstanding reference with one significant caveat as explained below. The many facets of the Welland’s two hundred year history, the technology and the people who made it possible, are all thoroughly documented. For those who benefit from the built environment created by countless workers, the book offers a model of recognition and appreciation of those sacrifices. It honors a promise made in 1932 to commemorate those who were killed during the three decades of construction of the fourth generation of the Welland Canal. Yet, the inspiration for the book clearly predates that promise, found in the labor and dedication of the workers themselves. It is a lasting, accessible and comprehensive memorial to those 138 lost workers.

(source: The Welland Ship Canal 1913-1932 by Major P.J. Cowan, page 6, Fig. 4)

Triumph and Tragedy follows a Canadian tradition that especially values the rights and contributions of workers. Yes, the United States also has its Labor Day as does Canada. Canada went further with its marking of April 28th as the National Day of Mourning dedicated to remembering those who have lost their lives, or suffered injury or illness on the job or due to a work-related tragedy. Sadly, a cursory recognition often gets overwhelmed by the magnitude of industrial accidents. About the same time that work began on the fourth Welland, the Hillcrest, Alberta coal mining disaster of 1914 took the lives of 189 workers on that single day. The deaths and injuries that stretched over decades likewise get clouded by other events of the day. Triumph and Tragedy succeeds in putting a face and family with each of loss.

The book accomplishes this recognition by providing layered context to the lives lost. A general history of the still-continuing evolution of the Welland Canal sets the stage for a more detailed look at the technology, equipment, structures and services that built the fourth Welland Canal. More than half the book is then dedicated to the stories and portraits of the 138 people killed, arranged chronologically. Few reading the book will actually know any one of those 138 individuals. Yet, each of us actually knows everyone of them. They are the people we see everyday who make society work. Lately, we have started grouping them under the rubric of “essential workers” as they truly are. In the past, their lives at home and at work were often deemed mundane and rarely recorded by those who left the written records. Only at tragic times do we gain entry into their personal lives. In doing so, we learn much about what it took to built these massive infrastructure projects and what the true cost was. By far the majority were recent immigrants, barely having had the chance to become a part of their new greater community. Addressed by this published memorial, they are rightly now part of our collective community and memory. Not only do we see the faces and the names on each page, those same faces look back upon our own perceptions of what it takes to make a society.

Partly overlapping with the construction of the Fourth Welland was the very similar work to build New York State’s Barge Canal system (1903-1918). New York has never formally recognized the lives lost in its building in the honorable way presented by Triumph and Tragedy. And, many lives were lost. We could and should follow our Canadian neighbors to define such a list. As with the Welland, the research will not be easy. Over ten times longer than the Welland, the Barge Canal crosses many communities, each with their own recollections and repositories. The construction of the Barge Canal did not have many of the geographically unified services provided during the Welland’s construction whose records would assist with such an accounting.

We know of some deaths due to the prominence of the individual such as when James Casey, one of the primary contractors for Erie Barge Canal Lock 17, was fatally injured on September 14, 1910 when a skip of stone fell on him. Occasionally, the manuscript records of the State’s Engineer and Surveyor have the attached blue-colored forms required at the time to report a construction death or injury to the State’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. So on January 7, 1912 Remiga Casolanguida, twenty-five years old and likely a recent immigrant, was killed near Rochester when a frozen dump car unexpectedly bounced back on him, crushing him. Whether a master set of such forms is extant in some forgotten State file cabinet is unknown. Summaries of these reports were published annually by the State’s Labor Department. Though they itemize the several dozen canal-related deaths for each year and document the cause, they fail to provide a name or specific place. The litany of these recorded deaths leaves a much darker hue on the engineering marvel of the Barge Canal. Then there are instances where we suspect fatalities happened but confirming evidence remains even more elusive. With remarkably little commentary, the Lockport newspaper carried the announcement in December 1910 that the contractor for the famous Lockport Locks was “importing” 25 African-Americans to do the extremely dangerous tunnel excavation for the new hydraulic raceway. One hopes they came due to skilled experience in such work and not that their lives mattered less.

Grading Earth at Port Weller pier using a Jordan Spreader, 1915, (source: St. Catharines Museum, Madelein Muntz Collection, 2006.73.624)

Has it all been worth this human cost? At my first glance at Triumph and Tragedy, I looked for an accounting in dollars and cents of the success of today’s Welland Canal, how many tons of Saskatchewan wheat transited or how many cargoes of iron ore? The caveat mentioned at the start of this review is that the book does not have such a financial look-back, the Welland’s cost/benefit ratio in cold hard numbers. Indeed, such an accounting has no place in such a memorial as it would imply an impossible scale to weigh the cost of the human lives lost during construction. That cost can never be adequately repaid. It must always be outstanding as a reminder of the sacrifices borne to make society work.

How to get this book:

TRIUMPH & TRAGEDY: The Welland Ship Canal is published by the St. Catharines Museum and Welland Canals Centre. It retails for $39.95, plus tax and Shipping (where applicable). The limited-edition publication is available at the Museum’s Gift Shop located at 1932 Welland Canals Parkway, St. Catharines, ON or by calling 905 984-8880; or via email at museum@stcatharines.ca.

William Frick’s Patent of Double Headers (1877) and the Erie Canal Lock Lengthening

Written by Thomas X. Grasso, Director Emeritus, Canal Society of New York State

Editor’s Introduction- I was looking at the route of the Schuylkill Navigation and I noticed the area called Frick’s Lock just south of Pottstown, Pennsylvania. This area was considered to be a small settlement and is now considered to be a “ghost town” of sorts. A number of articles have been written about it.

A crop of the Phoenixville Topo map from 1906 showing the area of Frick’s Lock

After finding Frick’s Lock, I recalled that back in 2012 when I was the editor, I had used a article written by Professor Thomas X Grasso for the Winter issue of the Bottoming Out, the Journal of the Canal Society of New York State. This article detailed the section boat coupling invention of William Frick of Pennsylvania. (1) I wondered if the two Frick’s were of the same family, perhaps even the same man? So I went to digging a bit.

I called Thomas and asked if I might use his article for this blog and he kindly agreed, so I will let Tom tell you about William Frick’s invention. A future post will look at the Frick family.

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Of all the improvements inaugurated in the period before the 1895 Second Enlargement (otherwise known as the Nine Foot Deepening), Mr. William Frick’s Patent of Double Headers was paramount as this in turn, once the plan was adopted, led to the lock lengthening, These improvements were the first major steps that eventually culminated in the Barge Canal System we have today.

A 1869 newspaper article about Frick’s invention to couple boats.

Double headers are boats that are coupled together in tandem much like the double length tractor trailers we see today on the interstate highways. “A large economy results from coupling boats on the plan adopted on the Pennsylvania canal” wrote State Engineer and Surveyor John D. Van Buren Jr. in his annual report of 1877. “The boats being fastened in pairs close together, one ahead of the other, the total resistance is much less than for two single or separated boats; and, besides, the number of the crew can be very much reduced below what is required for two such boats.” He urged those engaged in canal transportation to give careful attention to this mode of transportation. (2)

This postcard shows two of the Enlarged Erie Canal boats coupled together. The steering wheel can be seen on the leading boat.

“The introduction of boats running in pairs coupled together has been of great importance. This applies to boats propelled by animal power as well as those propelled by steam”, concluded State Engineer and Surveyor John Bogart on page 20 of his Annual Report for 1891.(3) The method was introduced on New York Canals in 1877 but he went on to describe that the original patent by Mr. Frick of Chester, PA were two boats coupled in such a way that the ropes ran from the steering wheel to the rudder of the rear boat and therefore the rudder of the second boat maneuvered the consort as the wheel of the first boat was turned. But the double headers on the Enlarged Erie used a slightly different arrangement.

The plan on the Erie Canal was a modification of the Frick plan. “The two boats are connected by ropes running from the stern of the forward boat, through blocks on each side of the rear boat and returning to the wheel on the forward boat. These ropes are not connected to the rudder of the rear boat, which is left free.” Therefore this “short circuit” results in a very much larger rudder-like device because the entire second boat becomes the rudder navigating the consort. “Most of the better class of newly constructed boats, propelled by animal power, adopted this system thereby securing much greater economy than single boats.” [editors note– A search of patents shows that William Frick applied for a number of patents based on his “Steering Apparatus for Sectional Boats” beginning in 1868. Interestingly, his first patent steered the boats in much the same manner as was adopted on the Erie. His later patents used the rudder. Many of the patents by Frick and other inventors referred to double headers as “train boats, or boats in a train”.(4)] The number of double headers increased dramatically and very quickly indeed because the single boat requires a crew of four men and four horses or mules (two in service and two in reserve resting in the bow stable). The double header requires no more crew than a single boat but only two more animals– three to a team. The boats in use by 1891 that carried the greatest portion of the freight were double headers with a capacity of 250 tons each. These vessels require about nine to ten days to run from Buffalo to West Troy (Watervliet) or Albany. At Albany the boats were made into fleets and towed to New York taking an additional three days. Therefore a round trip consumed about twenty-five days. Allowing five days in the ports of New York and Buffalo and if there weren’t any delays from canal breaks, sunken vessels, loss of time in receiving and discharging cargo, and other mishaps– seven round trips could be made in one season. Usually the average was six.

For steam propelled fleets the same method of coupling was utilized except that the coupling was more rigid and the consort was pushed by the steamer. There we think that these steamer couplings were the first “pushtows” on the Erie Canal and the forerunner of the tug and barge of the new canal yet to come. Two connecting arms of wood on each side to the bow of the steamer were attached to the stern of the forward vessel. The wheel house was located above the boiler room and the living quarters for the captain and family was forward, with an apartment for use by the crew. The steamer could simultaneously push the consort and in addition, by use of one and a half inch think hawsers that were from 300 to 500 feet long, tow two to four more non-powered barges. Steam propelled fleets could make six round trips between Buffalo and New York City in addition to other ports such as Philadelphia and Bridgeport in a single season. They also were far more profitable than the animal powered doubleheaders whose days were certainly numbered, although the State did all they could to stem the tide and keep the “mom and pop” canal boat operators in business. Animal powered double headers who completed six round trips were marginally profitable. The State conducted a study and figured that with six trips, the owner would break even or loose $81.00, while seven trips would bring $356.00. A steam powered boat with six trips would earn $3,081.00. (5) [Ed’s note– A steamer powered doubleheader would need to have the powered unit in the rear, as so the prop wash could flow unimpeded. When the steamer is in the lead, it needs to have the separation provided by the long hawser so the prop wash did not hit the trailing boat. If it did, it would be in a sense acting against the powered boat. This is one of the reasons “push-tows” were used in the narrow confines of the canal.]

Another double header. Note that the steering wheel is mounted on the front of the rear cabin.

But double headers were not very profitable if they had to be uncoupled and rejoined at each of the seventy-two locks from Albany to Buffalo. Therefore the modified Frick plan of double headers to the canal was the inspiration for lengthening one chamber of a twinned Enlarged Erie lock to permit the passage of double headers without having to break the tow. Usually, but not always, the lock was lengthened by adding a second chamber to the foot or downstream end of the berme chamber thereby making it a “double-long” chamber. This chamber could be used by both ordinary and coupled boats depending on traffic. Lengthening at the head of the lock was much more expensive as workers had to excavate into the upstream canal bed and remove a considerable amount of earth. But at certain points, conditions such as a sharp bend very close to the lock could not permit the double header from making the curve and then have sufficient length of canal to line up the tow for easy entry into the chamber. Therefore four locks were lengthened at the head, tow of which were also lengthened on the towpath side. From east to west they were; St. Johnsville (33), Utica (40 towpath Chamber ), Syracuse (49), Lyons (55 towpath chamber).

The first lock to be lengthened was Gere’s Lock (50) which is the first lock west of Syracuse. This was done in 1885. [ed’s note– Lock 50 is a bit unusual in that the center culvert was covered by rock and earth, not by the wooden walkway we typically see.] That was quickly followed by five locks in 1887 (47, 48, 49, 51, 52); fifteen in 1888 (31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 44, 45, 53, 54, 55, 56, 60, 61, 62, 72); six in 1889 (27, 28, 29, 30, 63, 64); six in 1890 (23, 24, 25, 26, 65, 66); five in 1891 (40, 41, 42, 43, 46); one in 1894 (19); two in 1895 (21,22). Lock 20 is not listed in Whitford’s chronology, although it does appear that it was lengthened somewhere between 1892 and 1895. In the end, forty-two of the seventy-two main line locks were lengthened in ten years, leaving thirty that were not lengthened.(6)

In this postcard view we see the typical arrangement for the lengthened locks.

Those that weren’t lengthened were the eighteen locks ascending from the Hudson River to the top lock at the west end of the flight in Cohoes (1-18); the four locks at Little Falls (36-39); the three locks at Newark, aka Lockville (57-59); and the Flight of Five at Lockport (67-71). These were bottlenecks that consumed much time in passing double headers or steam fleets because the boats had to be separated and passed through singly. At Cohoes, full time teams of animals and crews were on hand (for a reasonable fee) to assist with the passing of boats.

There were several reasons given for not lengthening the remaining thirty locks, such as sharp bends between the locks and / or they were located too close together to permit lengthening. What this really meant is that the engineers could not lengthen them one at a time or a few at a time over a number of years as they did with the forty-two that were already lengthened. To be most effective at each of the four locations, they had to be done in one go and that was a costly proposition, for those that scrutinized annual budgets. [Ed’s note– A lengthened lock used twice as much water as a single. The pools or reaches between locks located close together may have not had the capacity to fill the lock and maintain the navigation depth.]

But the problem of lengthening the locks in these four stretches was not ignored by the canal engineers. They continued their battle almost year after year throughout the 1890’s coming up with ideas to pass boats through these bottlenecks in an efficient and time saving manner. Some of these were ideas that were robustly cutting edge and very innovative indeed, such as constructing hydraulic or pneumatic boat elevators, similar to those that were in operation, or in the process of construction in England, France, Germany and Belgium.

The problem of the three locks at Newark (57, 58, 59), totaling twenty-four feet of lift, inspired a novel approach. In 1890, the State Engineer and Surveyor renewed a call made in earlier reports, that the three lock flight should be passed entirely by constructing a new channel for approximately three-quarters of a mile around the old locks and placing a two lock combine (two lengthened locks back to back like a staircase) of twelve foot lift each. This was easily doable plus the work could be accomplished while the old alignment was still in operation so that it did not have to be built in winter. (see map on next page)

The problem was that it was expensive and sadly was never undertaken. But it would have been singularly significant had it been accomplished– the only combined locks with lengthened chambers and the only locks without a single chamber.

However an updated version of this plan was resurrected during construction of the Erie Barge Canal through Newark. The present alignment of the canal at Newark closely follows if not exactly follows the alignment shown in the map. The difference today is that one lock (Erie 30 at Newark) with a lift of sixteen feet, was constructed approximately where the proposed channel above joins the main lock just west of the combined lock. The difference in lift today between Lock 30 of sixteen feet compared to the twenty-four feet of lift on the enlarged canal is due to design changes in elevation between the old and new canals. The lower Lockville Lock (57) was completely obliterated during the construction of the Barge Canal, leaving not a trace of its former existence.

References

1– The Professor’s article about Frick’s invention first appeared in; Three Erie Canals in Western Wayne County Study Guide, CSNYS, October 14, 15, 16, 2011. The article was then used in the Winter 2012 Issue of the Bottoming Out. Used with permission of the author.

2– Annual Report of the State Engineer and Surveyor 1878 (Jerome B. Parmenter) Albany, NY. 52, 53. (report for 1877)

3– Annual Report of the State Engineer and Surveyor, pgs 20, 21. FTY 1891 Published 1892.

4– See Letters Patent;

William Frick 82,614 -1868

William Frick 5000-1872

Isaac Wistar 134,341– 1872

William Frick 152,099– 1873

William Frick 7934– 1877

William Frick 238,671– 1881

Charles McCabe 320,670– 1885

5– Annual Report 1892, pgs 33-48. The State Engineer noted that animal powered boats continued to be used because their owners don’t set aside funds for replacement and repairs. However the estimate of profit and loss by the State used all the variables of running a boat, resulting in the $81.00 loss.

6-Whitford 1906 Chronicle. Resume of Important Laws and Events pgs 955-979.

Canal Comments – Lock 54 on the Sandy and Beaver Canal

By Terry K Woods, with guest author Denver L. Waltoni

I’ve resurrected the tale of a hike our old friend Denver Walton and his oldest son Terry, took in 1975 in some very rugged country along the eastern division of the Sandy & Beaver Canal in western Pennsylvania.

My oldest son Bob and I did some similar hiking along a different part of that canal in 1979. It certainly beats the rather tame hiking I’ve been doing lately along the bike trails here id Stark County, but that is fun, too.

TW

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Both the best and worst hiking in the upper Ohio country can be found in the valley of Little Beaver creek, shared by Beaver County, Pennsylvania and Columbiana County, Ohio. The trails are unmatched for scenic beauty, a variety of plants and wildlife, and unique historical discoveries.

With the recent renewal of interest in the Beaver Division Canal, it seems appropriate to take a look at one of the other canals of Beaver County. While the Sandy & Beaver Canal is usually considered an Ohio canal, its eastern terminus, three locks, and one dam were located in Pennsylvania.

The canal was built by private financing and was intended to provide a connecting route between Pennsylvania’s and Ohio’s canal systems. The route would pass through New Lisbon, Ohio, an influential early Ohio community that had been by-passed by the State’s canal system.

The idea and route were feasible, but a country-wide financial panic and problems in drilling what became the canal’s memorable features – two tunnels – delayed the opening of the entire canal until the season of 1850. Competition from the P & O canal and local railroads, plus the loss of a reservoir on the summit, spelled bankruptcy for the fledgling waterway in 1853. Portions of the eastern and western divisions carried limited traffic for up to several more decades, though most historians now agree that the through canal only operated for two or three years. One popular legend states that only one boat ever traveled the entire length of the canal and that had to be virtually carried over dry spots in order to maintain the company’s charter!

Legends about the Sandy & Beaver Canal are many, but one fact is true. Over 180 years ago, a massive effort was undertaken to build and complete this waterway and evidence of that effort exists today.

It is most fortunate that “progress” has bypassed the Beaver Creek gorge, for we now have a delightful historic and scenic area to explore. The remains of many old canal locks are scattered through the valley, some remarkably intact, many in ruins. Each, though, is a treasure to hikers and amateur archeologists.

Below Fredericktown, Ohio, where the North Fork of the Little Beaver joins the combined waters of the Middle and West Forks, the gorge deepens. Hiking becomes more difficult and the Locksites less accessible. Before the Little Beaver empties its waters into the Ohio River it crosses the Ohio/Pennsylvania Line several times. As a result, three of the 57 locks on the canal’s Eastern Division were in Pennsylvania. It is these three locks that we are concerned with at present.

Lock 54 is located in the most inaccessible part of the gorge and thus had not tempted me in twenty years of canal-chasing. This spring (1975), however, I was determined to find it. After studying the topographic maps of the area, my son, Terry, and I decided to strike out overland instead of following the creek from the nearest bridge up-stream or down-stream from the lock. We felt that hiking through open fields over the ridge would be easier than along the creek through the gorge.

We secured permission from the local landowner, Frank Fisher, to park near his barn and walk over his fields. When we discussed our plans with Mr. Fisher, however, he suggested we detour down a near-by hollow to the Creek rather than try to hike over “Fisher’s Point”.

Once we reached the valley floor, we followed the creek downstream on an old trail that teased more than it helped. High water prevented us from following the Creek too closely. Eventually, and not unexpectedly, we came upon Lock 53., a massive stone structure shining in the waning sunlight.

Below Lock 53, the canal left the creek and followed a separate channel which, in flood times, frames a large island. This area of the Creek is known as Island Run, site of Ohio’s early oil producing area. The State Line crosses the island’s mid-section, thus the creek and canal pass into Pennsylvania at this point.

The Creek rounded its far bend and wound closer back toward the canal channel. Then, suddenly, the walls of Lock 54 appeared in the shadows ahead. We studied the lock structure and surroundings. We then realized how good Mr. Fisher’s advice to follow the creek had been, for the gorge wall above the lock proved to be a vertical cliff!

We took a half-dozen pictures, rested a bit, then moved on downstream, hoping to find an easier route back to the highway. Our hopes were rewarded. We ran across an old railroad grade and followed it for a mile or so to a point of easy egress from the gorge.

We later learned from a Sandy & Beaver Canal Buff in east Liverpool, that the railroad had been built to haul coal from Island Run coal mines to the plant that generated electricity for a local traction line.

Just below Lock 54 the creek had curved back into Ohio. On an earlier weekend, my wife Genie and I had hiked in along the old public road to see Lock 56, a complex structure several hundred feet long, with an entry gate at the upper end and the actual lock below, adjacent to the stone pier of the first covered bridge in Ohio and the first crossing of the lower part of Little Beaver Creek.

Further down-stream, the creek crosses the State Line for the last time, placing the two remaining locks of the canal in Beaver County. Another covered bridge had crossed the creek, precisely at the State Line, and residents still refer to it as the “Beaver County Bridge”. Both piers remain. The west pier in a trio of previous bridges here can be seen from the present Highway 68 Highway Bridge. Lock 56 (now gone) was located just above the east pier where the coal tipple is located at the end of the railroad line from Negley.

Lock 57 was located at the west end of Liberty Street in Glasgow. A depression marks the location of the canal channel, but no trace of the lock remains. Below the lock, the canal entered the Ohio River through stone walls. These are no longer visible, but there’s a big pile of cut, dressed stone lying on the river bank.

This is the eastern-most point of the Sandy & Beaver Canal.

i This article, in a somewhat longer form, appeared in the Spring 1975 issue of the Beaver County (Pennsylvania) Newsletter.

Cascade Falls: A Scrapbook of Cascade Mills on the Keuka Outlet Trail, written by Leona Jensen

[webmasters note- this review was sent in by Ms. Remer, who asked us to feature it even though the book was published some years ago. The Keuka Outlet Trail is a spectacular trail built along the right of way of the old Crooked Lake Canal and the railroad that replaced it. If you have never visited it, you should make every effort to get there. We are happy to support the Friends of the Outlet Trail.]

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Recently, Leona sent a copy of her book, Cascade Falls, to this writer. The book, put together as a fund raiser for the Keuka Outlet Trail in 2007, covers the history of the very many mills located on this short stretch of river in the western Finger Lakes Region of New York. Containing numerous photographs, news articles, and maps, the content is set out as a timeline of the area’s mill development from the earliest grinding by the Romans, through the migration into upstate New York, ending with the development of the Trail. Various milling and other scientific developments are noted as appropriate. The change from sawmills, through grist/flour mills, flax mills, paper mills, distilleries, and eventually into chemical mills producing rayon are interesting to follow. With the changes in mill types there also occurs the building of the Crooked Lake Canal from Keuka to Seneca Lakes and development of a railroad. There is also mention of a potential canal connecting south from Lake Seneca to the Cohocton River to get logs to Baltimore, while the canal to north Lake Seneca allowed logs to get to Albany and New York City via the Erie Canal.

While of particular interest to those in or with knowledge of the Finger Lakes Region, the change in mills over time is also valuable to the general public. The impact of canals to the economy of this area also highlights the importance of canal building during the 1820s. Should you wish a copy, a few still exist, contact Leona Jensen at 248 E. Leach Rd. Penn Yan, NY 14527. A check for $37 (which includes increased postage, payable to Friends of the Outlet Trail) should accompany your request. Write “donation” and book title on the memo line.

Deborah Remer

Canal Comments – Canal Characters I Have Known; R. Max Gard

by Terry K. Woods

This time I have gone back to describing one of the canal “characters” I have known. When I was getting into the canal history area, I found that quite a few of great people had been there before me. And fortunately, most of them were more than gracious in their help and guidance of a brash new-comer.

Here is the story of R. Max Gard. A really great and interesting fellow.

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Ronald Max Gard was an established figure in Columbiana County long before I moved into the county in August of 1966. Max (he didn’t like the name Ronald) was a County Commissioner, author of the weekly newspaper column “The Roamin Gard” , co-author of the 1952 book, The Sandy and Beaver Canal, and the proprietor of the Sandy & Beaver Antique Shop located along the northern berm of the Lincoln Highway (Route 30) five miles west Of Lisbon. The fact that he “wore” all those hats simultaneously just goes to demonstrate his flexibility.

I undoubtedly had read his book early on. Even in the 1960s Max’s ’Bible’ on the Sandy & Beaver was sold out and copies were hard to find. Fortunately the Salem Library was just a few blocks from our apartment (one half of the ground floor of a stately two-story brick house painted a bilious green). And that is where I got Max’s book. It was probably the first canal history book that I read cover to cover.

I was surprised to realize a few years back, that the formatting of my first (and probably subsequent) canal history books follows Max’s The Sandy and Beaver Canal rather closely. My adherence to depicting canal and river features as on the right or left bank follows Max’s lead as well.

I don’t remember exactly when or where Max and I first met. It was probably in his shop. I may have just walked in one summer day and introduced myself. Max was always expansively cordial as only a man well-established as an expert in a subject can be to a brash, rank amateur.

I made several visits to Max’s Antique Shop. On one occasion, again being a bit brash, I asked him why he had concentrated on the Sandy & Beaver Canal when there were no existing maps of the route or even an accurate accounting of the number or location of the structures. Max’s eyes twinkled a bit when he answered, “Because of the mystery. You have to be a bit of a detective, a bit of an archaeologist, Damn bull-headed and fairly lucky to discover a story that doesn’t yet exist.” “You’d better be careful,” he added “that you don’t get ‘hooked’ too, trying to discover the complete story of the Sandy & Beaver.” Well. Max probably had the last laugh. I have researched most of the existing canals of north-eastern Ohio and north-western Pennsylvania, but I can truly say that the Sandy & Beaver has “hooked” me.

Max did his research and wrote his book before some of the current research tools were discovered. There is now a “listing” of the canal structures that was found in an 1854 copy of the Lisbon paper describing the parcels of the canal as they were auctioned off in March of that year. That listing varies considerably with Max’s listing, particularly of the western end of the eastern division and the western division.

Several canal-historians of some note spent the last few years of their lives trying to prove Max wrong in his numbering of the existing locks. I remember once one of these historians addressed a group of college students we were guiding along the route of the canal for a Kent State Geography Class. When he stated he would soon be able to prove certain locks mentioned in Max’s book had the wrong number, one of the student asked, “if you know that a lock exists and you know where it is located, who cares what number it is”. Well, of course the student was correct, though a compete numbering system can tell us what locks are still extant and which are gone.

To Max’s credit there were at least three numbering systems to this canal; the one Engineer Gill used up until the 1837 shut-down, the one Engineer Roberts used for his altered route after the start-up in 1845, and the one prepared by lawyers and real-estate auctioneers in 1854 for the sell-off. Max tried to adhere to Robert’s numbering system.

Max wasn’t far off in his numbering of eastern division locks, though the western division shows the route was greatly altered even after Robert’s initial listing. It is somewhat apparent that the Guide to the western division in Max’s book was written some 20 to 30 years before the book was. Max admitted to me many years after we first met that much of the fieldwork on the western division had been done by an unnamed party.

Max always had the conviction that a man who waits until all the “T’s” are crossed and all the “I’s” dotted never published anything. “I try to be as historically accurate as possible,” Max often said, “and if someone proves me wrong later, more power to him.” More historians should have that credo. You have to have a place to start. With the Sandy & Beaver, there is no better place to start than Max’s sixty-plus year old book.

Like all the great old-timer canal buffs, Max was a bit of a character. His closeness with a dollar was legend, though he was very generous in his personal dealings with people. He often shared his knowledge with others. When I wanted to explore the Big Tunnel Hill in the 1980s, and Max no longer did much hiking, he convinced two knowledgeable men from Hanoverton, the Kibbler Brothers, to lead a stranger over that hill and show him things he would never had found on his own.

Once when I had my father with me on a visit to Max’s shop, Dad kept looking at the enormous prices on various objects and remarking, “we threw something like this out as junk 50 years ago”. I don’t think Dad heard Max mumble each time, “thank you sir”. Max used to pay local kids pennies to gather pretty stones. Max would then polish them in a home-built tumbler and sell them at his typically elevated prices.

Another example of Max’s generosity was his annual hike that was held in May. Bill Vodrey may have inaugurated them, but Max continued the hikes up until his death in the late 1990s. Max would invite everybody to come to Fredericktown, “with your lunch in you”, then ferry busloads of hikers to Sprucevale, some three miles to the west. Each bus-load would then be directed to hike the well-marked trail along the canal route back to Fredericktowni. Once there the parched hikers would find wash-tubs of cold soda and water waiting. All of this was, of course, free-of-charge.

And Max had his idiosyncrasies, Once, on a pre-air-conditioning hot, sultry July afternoon, I found Max inside his shop with a roaring fire going in the fireplace just behind him in his easy chair. When I questioned the situation, Max explained the scientific fact that the hot air rising rapidly up the flue of his chimney would draw a cooling breeze across the room. He may have been right.

Whatever all who knew him miss Max Gard. I certainly do.

i The hike only was adjacent to the canal for a bit over a mile before the canal entered slackwater through Lock No 44 above Dam No. 14, crossed the Creek and followed along it’s right bank past Fredericktown to Lock No 50 (LOST LOCK). The hikers continued down the left bank of the Creek into Fredericktown.

Canal Comments- Muskingum River Trip of October 2007

By Terry Woods

Introduction- The Muskingum River system of dams, locks, and short canals has been in the news lately as the state looks at how or if, to rebuild the old dams and locks that make the river navigable. The system is claimed to be the oldest intact canal in the United States with it’s hand operated locks. Terry Woods had sent along an article about the river and then added this in his next email. By the way, the Valley Gem is still in operation.

Hi,

Glad you liked the article on the Muskingum. I think it was the “Case for the Muskingum”, the forerunner of which I presented in Rochester in 1992.

Here, I hope, is a different one, an account of a trip Rosanne and I took down the Muskingum in October of 2007.

Because of the long-range plan to rebuild a great deal of the structures along the Parkway, it may be a while before such a trip can again be taken.

I wonder if the improvement of the waterway might entice more commercial use of it.

MUSKINGUM RIVER TRIP 10/04/07

I had been anticipating this trip on a river boat replica on the Muskingum River for well over a year and a half. One of our local hospitals sponsors a Senior Citizen’s group called Prime Time and one of their activities is some very nice trips around the area. A year ago last February I received a flyer from them that, among other things, publicized a seven hour boat trip on the Muskingum River aboard the Valley Gem. We had a trip planned for Medgorija for that June, but as soon as we returned I called to reserve our spots on the Muskingum Trip. We also wanted to take a trip offered in November to Pittsburgh to do some Christmas Shopping. Both trips were full, but we were told there might be cancellations and that we would certainly be placed on next year’s mailing list.

There was one cancellation, but we both wanted to go so we decided to wait. This year’s flyer arrived in February. The Pittsburgh trip wasn’t being offered, but the Muskingum trip was. On Wednesday, October 3, the boat would travel from Marietta to Stockport and on Thursday, October 4 it would travel back to Marietta. So we had a choice of two days for the trip in two different directions – up or down river.

I thought going down river might be just a bit more interesting than going up river, so I promptly signed us both up for the Thursday trip. I believe I even paid our money, $96.00 each, right away, though it wasn’t due until August some time.

So, the day finally came. I had been talking about it for quite some time, but all of the kids were shocked to discover that we weren’t going to be home that day. The buses were to leave from the St. Michael’s Church Parking lot at 6:30am. That is the church that Rosanne and I go to, so we wouldn’t have any trouble finding it.

Rosanne can’t really start her day without coffee so we stopped at a Sheetz on the way in and she picked one up. While she was in the station, a woman came in asking for directions to St. Michael’s. Even though we were within three blocks of the church, the clerk had no idea where it was. Rosanne overheard the conversation and offered to lead the way so we had a two car caravan going from Sheetz, over a half block of Hills & Dales, a left turn onto Whipple, and a right turn onto Fulton and the church.

We got there about as planned, 6:15, but we were just about the last to arrive. We found we had been assigned to bus number 1 and found two seats together on the right side of the bus about four seats from the front. Coffee was available as well as water, Orange Juice and chocolate chip cookies. Rosanne already had her coffee and I got an Orange Juice and the cookies.

Bus no 2 left almost exactly at 6:30. Bus no 1 was missing a couple and we waited a standard ten minutes, but they never showed. We actually left about 6:45, but were soon on I-77, south. It was a rather uneventful bus trip. People chattered away. We heard the two ladies behind us discussing among themselves the route we were taking. They seemed confused about something. Finally, one of them asked our hostess when we would leave I-77 for Pennsylvania. When informed we were not going to Pennsylvania, they seemed surprised. Rosanne got out her puzzle book as soon as it got light and started in on it. I fell back on an old army custom and just leaned back, closed my eyes, and relaxed.

We stopped at the first rest stop past the I-70 exit. Bus no 2 had been there about ten minutes so the rest rooms were relatively clear. Both buses left the rest stop together with bus no 1 in the lead. Soon after we left the rest stop, we were given a general itinerary of meals on the boat for the rest of the day and assigned tables for dining. We were given table 15.

We took route 78 at Caldwell to the south-west to McConnellsville, then route 376 down the right bank of the Muskingum River to just across the river from Stockport.

Actually, our bus, in the lead, went across the river bridge on route 266 west into Stockport and bus no 2 followed. Then we both had to turn around and take a road a bit south of the bridge to where the Valley Gem waited for us just below the bridge and lock no 6 on the left bank of the river

We unloaded both buses quickly and went onto the Valley Gem then right to our assigned tables on the lower deck. There we had a light breakfast, a pastry of some kind, fruit (bananas and apples) and coffee and iced tea.

There were only four at our six person table as it seemed that the couple that didn’t show had been assigned to our table. The other couple that was at our table were the two ladies from the seat in the bus behind us who had thought they were going to Pennsylvania. I asked them about that. It seems friends of one of them couldn’t make it at the last minute so these two ladies took over the tickets, but didn’t know where they were going. Somehow, they got the Muskingum River confused with the Monongahela River and were fully expecting to end up somewhere around Pittsburgh.

We backed away from the shore, out into the river, before we were finished with breakfast. I had the video camera with me and I shot some of the old mill at Stockport, the dam and Lock No 6. I ended up with about a 50 minute (slightly edited) tape, but some of my extemporaneous comments were inaccurate.

Initially, I thought we were going to go through Lock no 6, then I realized we were heading away from the lock (which was to be expected since we were to go south to Marietta). I went to the upper deck to take video and made some comment on tape about the paddle wheel being fake. I had noticed when we came back over the bridge, that the wheel was revolving while the boat was nosed into the river bank along the dock, so I thought it was just for cosmetics. Actually, the wheel was revolving to keep the boat against the dock. It was what made the boat go.

The Captain (J.J. Sands) made an audio announcement while I was topside. He welcomed us all to the Valley Gem (our group of 106 had the boat all to ourselves) and gave us a bit of a history of the Valley Gem. There was a real Valley Gem that operated on the Muskingum, Ohio and Monongahela Rivers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This Valley Gem, though not a replica of the original, is sort of set up to look like an old time river boat. It was built in 1988-89 and had a new German Diesel engine and transmission put in about a year ago. It is 30 feet wide 120 feet long, has 2 ½ feet of draft and can carry up to 296 passengers. It has radar, depth finder, and all other kinds of electronic gadgets. It is pulled up out of the water every five years for a Coast Guard Inspection and this winter it will be inspected and the bottom painted. The boat is family owned and operated. The lower deck was enclosed and air-conditioned with two complete ‘heads’ (bathrooms). The upper deck was open, had a number of round tables and chairs strewn about and had an awning covering a bit more than half of the deck.

By the time all the talk was done, we were ready to enter Luke’s Chute Lock. I got a great, long, shot of the boat entering the lock. I also got an ‘extra’ when the boat struck the side of the lock. There is the great sound of us hitting, a shudder of the camera, and my three times exclamation of OOPS!

I videoed most of the locking-down operation and it provides a good idea of the length of time the operation takes. It also shows the physical effort required to open and close the gates and open and close the sluices to empty and fill the locks. We had the same two men operating each of the four locks during our trip down river. They were apparently volunteers and ‘ran’ ahead of us for each lock in a car.i

The locks apparently are all set for down-stream boats as we saw the lower lock gates closed as we left the lock. So we just entered each lock as we came to it and came to a controlled stop with our gang-plank out in front of the boat, just a few inches from the closed lower gates. The upper sluices were then closed (apparently they were left open to insure a full lock) by cranking a windless on the river side of the lock. Then the gates were closed by a man using a long lever to turn a gear on each side of the lock that rotated a pinion (spur gear) that moved a rack (gear) that was attached to each gate half. The man had to walk around the pinion in a circle with his lever, stepping over the rack on each rotation. The two men then moved to the lower end of the lock where the lower sluices were opened. Regulations call for a boat to be tied off when locking up and down and a line was looped over one of the ladder rungs in the lock’s side wall, but the Captain kept the boat sort of centered between the gates with the paddle wheel rotation.

Once the boat was lowered to the lower level of the river, the gates were opened. The captain had to move the gang plank from side to side by moving his gang plank windless from side to side to give each gate room to swing. Once the gates were closed into the gate recesses, we started out into the river again – always advancing steadily upon Marietta.

Shortly after leaving Luke’s Chute Lock, our entertainment came on deck. They were a husband and wife team, Chuck and Judith Craig, of Folk Singers – the Valley Singers. They were very good and often humorous. They sang for much of the seven hour trip down river.

About an hour after we left Stockport, a vegetable and dip snack was served in the snack bar on the lower deck. Most of the passengers chose to bring their snack to the upper deck to eat under the awning. It was sunny and warm (later getting into the 90s), but it had been cool in the morning, with a nice breeze on the bow, so most of us stayed top-side much of the time.

We soon passed a large power plant on the right side of the river. The “BIG MUSKIE” (a huge drag line) used to strip coal on the opposite side of the river and the coal was carried to the power plant on a high conveyor. The conveyor bridge is still in place, but the giant drag line has been dismantled with only the bucket on display. The Captain told us that the power plant pumps a lot of heat into the river and it very seldom freezes over during the winter any more. That day, the temperature of the river water above the power plant was 70 degrees F, and 81 degrees F, below.

We soon came to the Beverly Canal. There was a flood gate at the entrance – just a structure with a single wooden gate that would be closed in times of high water to keep that high water out of the canal channel.

The right side of this channel (our left side going down) was found to be very shallow on the previous day’s trip. The Valley Gem had become stuck and it took awhile to get her off the bottom. We slowed down to just a ‘crawl’ and the water in the hull usually kept for ‘ballast’ was pumped out a bit to lighten our load. A stern wheeler can lower its stern toward the bottom if the wheel isn’t handled correctly, so we slowed down to about the speed of an old time Ohio Canal freight boat (1 ½ to 2 miles per hour). It was great to get a feeling for the movement of an actual canal boat. We actually touched bottom on occasion and I got some great video of the mud being churned up and carried toward our stern.

This canal was a little less than a mile long and it took us quite a time to get to the Beverly Lock, but we finally did and found our ‘Volunteer Lock Tenders’ waiting for us. I had wanted to get some shots of them closing the upper gates, but I missed it, as the bright sun sometimes made it difficult for me to read the ‘record’ light in the screen. Our ‘Volunteers’ did as good a job here as they had at Luke’s Chute and we were soon on our way, south.

I wandered about the boat taking video and had just come out of the ‘head’ when the captain announced that soup was being served in the snack bar, so I was second in line and took two bowels to the upper deck. Rosanne was ‘gone for soup’ I was informed by one of the other people who were sitting with us up there. So I ate my soup – chock full of vegetables, and then used my bowl to cover Rosanne’s and went to take more videos.

I found her on the lower deck eating soup with our table mates. I told her I had a bowl on the upper deck for her. Apparently she and our table mates had gotten in the wrong line and their soup was good, but all broth.

We spent a lot of the next hour on deck listening to the music and just enjoying the perfect weather, the slight drum of the engine, the strong rhythm of the paddle wheel, and the sight of the countryside slowly slipping past us.

During one of their breaks, I talked with the female half of the Valley Singers and asked her if she were familiar with the folk singer, Pearl Nye. Surprisingly, she wasn’t, though she had heard of Pearl’s Mentor back in the 30’s, Allen Lomax. She also said she would try to find some of Pearl’s Canal Songs.

Our afternoon meal was announced and we all went to our assigned tables on the lower deck. The meal was great – rolls and butter, green beans, chicken, pasta, scalloped potatoes, and a terrific Prime Rib. There was also pumpkin pie and two kinds of cheese cake for desert. The meal was catered by a butcher shop in Marietta. Rosanne got the name and address of the firm for the next time we go to Marietta.

Shortly after the meal was over, we came down onto the Lowell Canal. Again we slowed away down, but this canal wasn’t quite as shallow as the one at Beverly. We did pump ballast, but never seemed to scoop up much mud. There was a structure on the river bank at the head of this canal, but it seemed to be the abutment for an old road rather than for a flood gate. This canal was a bit longer than the Beverly Canal and it seemed to take a very long time to get to the lock. When we finally did, though, it was negotiated with the usual dexterity and grace. Then we were once again into the river and on our way toward Marietta.

We had been told on the bus coming down that there would be a ‘surprise’ for us in the afternoon. The ‘surprise’ turned out to be a good one – wine and cheese! There was also beer for those who didn’t care for wine and some fruit juices for those whose medications couldn’t be mixed with alcohol (hey, this was an ‘Old Folks’ Tour).

Later, when I was sitting with Rosanne at a table on the upper deck, the singers mentioned that I was interested in the canals of Ohio and they were going to sing one they had written several years before for the Roscoe Old Canal Days Celebration when they were singing there. They then sang a very nice song, about the canal, in general. I didn’t think to turn on the video camera until the song had already begun, but I got the last portion of it. It was a very good song.

We then came to Lock no 2, Devola Lock, the last one we would negotiate until we docked at Marietta. The lock was similar to Luke’s Chute in that there was no canal involved, just the lock in the dam. We had the same two locktenders for this lock also. They both worked the upper gates then walked down to the lower gates. One man was wearing a blue shirt and one a green one. The fellow in the blue shirt opened the sluice gate to drain the water in the lock, then they both had a bit of a discussion and the fellow wearing the green shirt walked off and the other man had to open both lower lock gates. That meant that the boat sat there with one lower gate open while the single locktender now, after opening the river side gate, walked back to the upper end of the lock, across the two closed upper gates, then back down the shore side of the lock to that gate and open it. Finally with both gates opened, we entered the river again.

Now we began seeing other craft – a few small, gas powered craft and three or four ‘sculls’ from a local high school. Then we got very close to our final docking spot and saw a multitude of smaller craft docked on both sides of the river and, just at the highway bridge before we reached the dock area an historic craft was anchored, the towboat W.P. Snyder Jr., built in 1918, which had worked the river until 1955. The W.P. Snyder Jr. is scheduled to go into dry dock soon which may signal its refurbishment and return to active service on the river.

On the other shore, just a bit south of the bridge, was the Claire E, a ‘Make Up” boat, sort of a tug that pushed other boats into proper position for loading. She was built in 1926. In 1966 she was purchased by Gene and Clare Fitch of Hebron Ohio and renamed after Clare. The craft was rebuilt in 1967 and Gene, with his wife, lived on the boat, traveling all over the country for more than 30 years. A local business man, Harley Noland, purchased the Cassie and converted her into a “Bed & Breakfast” about ten years ago. In 2003 the boat was sold to Dr. Roger Anderson who will keep her in Marietta as a Bed and Breakfast and cruise the Ohio River.

The Valley Gem powered under the bridge, went into a swooping “U” turn and slid up to her dock just south of the W.P. Snyder. Our buses were waiting for us higher up on shore next to the Ohio River Museum. We disembarked from the water craft and quickly boarded the two buses. I would liked to have spent a half hour or so at the River Museum, but I think everybody else was happy to be heading home, and I didn’t really object. In fact, when they handed out critique sheets on the trip I didn’t even mention that I thought we should have toured the museum.

As it was just 5:00, the traffic was heavy in Marietta and it took us some 15 to 20 minutes to go the five or six blocks through town (a couple of blocks past the Ohio River I might add), to get onto I-77. Then it was a straight shot north.

We handed in our name tags as we boarded the bus and our hostess picked out two of them for “door prizes”. It turned out that the two older gentlemen in the double seats across from Rosanne and I got the two door prizes. Of course, there was a lot of good natured “razzing” about two men sitting next to each other winning the prizes.

We stopped at a Rest Stop just across I-77 from the one we had stopped at on the way down. As we boarded the buses, we were offered our choice of soft drinks or water. Then, when we were on our way again, little packets of salted peanuts were handed out. Our hostess made an announcement about “the little happy face on your peanut bags”. I looked at my bag and asked her what about the little happy face on it? It seems that meant I had won the third door prize. Of course the three door prizes being won by three men sitting next to each other drew a lot of “talk”, especially, when it turned out that the door prizes had apparently been put together for women – holiday napkins, table candles, etc. Still, I had won!

About two and a half hours after leaving Marietta, we arrived at the St. Michael’s parking lot. So, our outing was over. It was a very, very good trip and one that, with the help of these notes and the 55 minute video tape I made, will stay in my memory for a very, very long time.

i I found out later that they were not “volunteers”, but employees of the State whose job was to “fit” each lock the VALLEY GEM came to on its journey from Stockport to Marietta. They drove ahead of us on our journey.

Canal Comments- Zoar’s Canal Boat Fleet

By Terry Woods

(I have included Terry’s introductory comments as they add to the story.)

In my AMERICAN CANALS article I made a mistake that a number of historians have made and assumed that all the canal within their vast holdings had been built by them. I failed to realize that in 1826, when the canal contract was let the Zoarites owned much less lands and “all the canal through their lands” consisted of one lock (No 10), one road bridge, about a mile and a half of channel and one feeder gate.

In my attached paper you can skip over “before the canal” and read the second section. It tells of the digging of the canal. I think the column on Zoar’s canal boat fleet is interesting. Their fleet had four boat names, but only three boats.

I was leafing through the old ACS Index of canals. It was neat seeing my name and some of the other old CSO guys such as Frank Trevorrow. I noticed, though, that the Zoar Iron Foundry Canal and the Zoar Sidecut were listed, but no Index on either was filed.

They were each less than a mile long. The Iron Foundry Canal allowed iron and supplies to enter and leave the Ohio Canal just below Lock 8 (Bolivar Locks) in Tuscarawas County. It was privately constructed by the Zoarites, probably around 1830. The foundries (the Zoarites eventually had two) closed around 1854 when superior quality ore was brought in from the Great Lakes shipping. The side cut was constructed about the same time and left the main canal a bit below Lock 10 (Zoar lock) at the feeder gate the Zoarites had constructed for the State in 1826. It was to allow boats to leave the Ohio Canal, cross the river above the feeder dam and service the Zoar Mill. I’m not sure that was ever used. There is a beautiful stone Guard Lock on the east side of the river (opposite the side of the Ohio Canal) with 1830 chiseled into it one wall end. But, also in 1830, the Zoarites constructed a multi-story mill that straddled the canal and it wasn’t necessary to send boats across the river. Also, boatmen didn’t like that river crossing, even below a dam.

More to the story, the new mill was too big and the machinery “froze” in Ohio’s cold winters so the Zoarites converted it into a warehouse for canal shipments and a new mill was built along the aborted Sidecut. The Sidecut was converted into a mill race, the Guard Lock into a feeder gate and all went well for many years.

I had written a paper on Zoar and the canal for AMERICAN CANALS years ago. in 2013, the people from the Zoar village asked me to present a paper on Zoar and the canal and I did a bit of research and came up with a very long paper that I presented in 2013. I used the early part (of the relation to the canal) as two of my CC columns.

Main Article

During the halcyon days of shipping on the Ohio Canal, say between the mid-1830s to the mid 1850s, nearly every business establishment along or near the canal’s route could be counted upon to possess one or more canal boats. The Communal Settlement of Zoar, situated in the Valley of the Tuscarawas River between Bolivar and Canal Dover, was no exception.i Local lore states that four Ohio Canal boats were registered in the name of Joseph P. Bimeler who was the Cashier and Agent General representing the Society’s members, which at that time numbered up to 500 souls. We have the names of four Zoar canal boats, but we are not positive of the actual total number.

The ECONOMY, a scow-built craft, was probably the Zoarite’s first canal boat. It, reportedly, was used mainly to shunt iron ore, castings, and finished iron products between the community’s two iron furnaces and it’s warehouse on the canal. The Zoar community constructed their first iron furnace, along a quarter mile branch canal west of the Ohio Canal and Lock No. 8 north of the village, in 1834. Their second furnace, near the junction of One Leg (Connoton) Creek and the Tuscarawas River, was purchased from several Canton Entrepreneurs in 1835, so the advent of the ECONOMY no doubt dates from around this time. It is conceivable that the ECONOMY was home built. Several craftsmen in the village were capable of turning out such a scow-built, flat-bottomed craft.

The second canal boat operated by the Zoar community was the INDUSTRY.ii It is said to have been built to specification at a boat yard to the north and was in operation by 1837iii. Its first Captain was a Zoarite, Johannes Petermann, who was barely 18 years old at the time. An “outsider” from Pennsylvania, James Rutter, became Captain of the INDUSTRY the next year. The INDUSTRY was a large craft for its day, designed to hold up to 60 tons of cargo or a combination of cargo and passengers. The boat’s crew consisted of two steersmen, two drivers, a bowsman and a cook. Rutter’s salary for the 1838 boating season was $243, though he was expected to pay his own expenses.iv

Beginning with the boating season of 1841, Captain Rutter, still with his residence listed as Pennsylvania, signed a new agreement with Joseph Bimeler, this time as Captain of the Zoar canal boat, FRIENDSHIP. It isn’t clear if this was a new boat or merely the INDUSTRY with a new name. There is no record of a new craft being constructed at this time or of the original INDUSTRY being sold.

By the beginning of the 1844 boating season, Rutter was still Captain of the FRIENDSHIP. By now, though, his place of residence was noted in the contract as “Tuscarawas County”. That year’s contract contained a bit more detail and specified that he “go from this place north and obtain freight from Cleveland and interim points”. A curious addition was made to the contract to the effect that Rutter agreed to “take care of and not mistreat or overwork the horses”. Canal boat Captains of this era were notorious for “burning out” canal horses. Perhaps Bimiler just wanted to ensure that Captain Rutter was not one of them.

A new canal boat was built in 1849 for the Zoarites at Jacob Barnhardt’s boat yard in Peninsula, Ohio for the sum of $1,100. The old FRIENDSHIP was sold to S. Burns and John Hill of Bolivar on April 15 1849 who promptly changed the boat’s name to the BOLIVAR. The transaction was registered at the Cleveland Toll Collector’s Office. Joseph Bimeler had registered the new boat at the Akron Office on April 5, 1849 as the FRIENDSHIP.

The boat INDUSTRY never appears in any canal boat registry so it may be that the Zoar community only owned and operated three canal boats, and probably only two at any one time. One boat was probably the INDUSTRY/FRIENDSHIP or the 1849 FRIENDSHIP. The second craft was no doubt the venerable ECONOMY that seems to have been a “Jack of All Trades” for a long time.There is an 1847 note to Bimiler in Zoar from the Captain of the FRIENDSHIP stating that he was “iced in” at Bolivar and would have to remain there until a thaw unless the “Scow Boat” could be sent up to break ice for him.v

Johannes Petermann was Captain of the FRIENDSHIP during the late 1840s. Apparently he was now considered mature enough for the duty. Petermann and his wife made the 85 mile trip to Cleveland quite often. It seems odd that Petermann was named Captain of the FRIENDSHIP when he was also the town’s Doctor. Of course, he did have some experience and he was a member of the Zoar community. The Zoar Trustees picked the tasks each member of the community was to perform. The trips to Cleveland, the big city, were enjoyed by the Petermann’s. However, their two little girls were sometimes not allowed to go along, but were, instead, placed in the girl’s dormitory until their parent’s returned.vi Few names of Zoarites who were connected actively with canal boating are available. John Sturm, at the age of 74 in 1911, remembered that he and Mathias Disinger drove the horses that pulled the canal boats for one summer. Though many boatmen used mules at that time, the Zoarites always used horses.vii

Iron Ore was among the first commodities shipped from Zoar on the canal. Of course a great deal of Pig Iron was shipped from the two furnaces, and the foundry at Zoar found a ready market for iron implements. These were all shipped by canal, though not necessarily on a Zoar canal boatviii. Zoar iron stoves were known far and wide for their efficiency and craftsmanship. Tanned hides, and farm produce were big export items for many years, and the various warehouses and mills in and around Zoar provided grain and flour for export. A pottery was tried, but short-lived, as was silk manufacturing. Aside from grain, flour and produce, the most famous Zoar export was beer, known universally for its quality, taste and potency.ix

In 1830, in preparation for canal boat traffic, the Zoarites petitioned the State to allow them to make the Tuscarawas Feeder they had constructed in 1827-29 navigable. Then they had enlarged their 1818 Mill Race and built a Guard Lock at its head to allow commercial boats to leave the Ohio Canal, cross the Tuscarawas River and enter the race to the mill and other Zoar Industries. To date, though there was obvious intent to accept canal boats into the village of Zoar proper, there is no evidence that any boat actually made the trip. Canal Boat Captains didn’t care to brave the “raging Tuscarawas” and the construction of a new, six story mill across the canal below Zoar Lock on the main canal in 1837 made crossing the River unnecessary.x

It isn’t entirely clear just how long the Zoarites operated their canal boat “fleet”. The Pittsburgh & Western RR pierced the eastern portions of Zoar lands in 1854, thus negating the village’s dependence upon the canal. Operations at the two Iron Furnaces were discontinued about this time. Iron Ore was shipped regularly to furnaces in Massillon into the 1880s, but, by now, via railroad. The ECONOMY was no doubt allowed to rot away at one of the iron furnaces’ docks.

The Zoarite’s distrust of government officials and regulations apparently extended to the registration of its canal boats. Only the ECONOMY and the two FRIENDSHIPS were recoded in the official registers. The ECONOMY was recorded late in it’s life and the first FRIENDSHIP only when it was sold.

A note written from the Zoar community to a business concern in Cleveland on April 17, 1855 states, “ FRIENDSHIP not running to Cleveland this spring. No produce to ship. Aqueduct four miles north under repair till 27th. of this month”. The last canal boat entry pertaining to Zoar’s canal boat “fleet” was at the Akron office, dated, August 8, 1855. It states, “I, J. Wolf, residing in Rochester, Ohio do certify that I am the owner of the canal boat FALCON of Rochester, late the FRIENDSHIP of Zoar”.

We can say, then, that the community of Zoar actively operated canal boats from the early 1830s into, perhaps, 1855, a span of over twenty years.

i1. ZOAR AND THE OHIO CANAL, a paper presented by Terry Woods at the Zoar Schoolhouse, April 7, 2012.

ii There is some evidence that the Zoarites at one time contracted with a J. Washborn of Dover to use his canal boat CUBA for their use. Zoar was given as the home port for Washborn’s boat on April 13, 1839.

iii CANAL FEVER, Lynn Metzger & Peg Bobel, The Kent State University Press, 2009. Kathy Fernandous in her article, THE HANDS OF THE DILIGENT, states on Pg 113 that the ECONOMY was operating by 1837.

iv Agreement between James Rutter late of Pennsylvania and Joseph M. Bimeler of Zoar, April 22, 1839. Original in the Zoar Archives of the Ohio Historical Society.

v Original in the Zoar Archives of the Ohio Historical Society.

vi THE ZOAR STORY, Hilda Dischinger Morhart – Siebert Publishing Company Dover, Ohio, Second Edition, 1969, Pgs 26 & 27.

vii IBID, Pg. 33.

viii There are numerous references to outside boats being used to carry Zoar products when needed.

ix THE ZOAR STORY. Pg.63-65

x THE ZOAR SOCIETY, Edger B. Nixon. (PhD Dissertation) The Ohio State University, 1933 Pgs. 63-65. The new mill across the canal was not a financial success, but it remained active and acted as a warehouse for canal shipments.