The History and Patents of C&O Canal Steamboats, by Andrew G. Sparber, 2025. 141 pages.
Fitting a steam engine into a canal boat was not an easy task. It had to be powerful enough to move the boat, and perhaps tow others, but small enough to fit into the small confines of a hull that was made to fit through locks. The steam engines were relatively inefficient and burned a lot of fuel. The weight and space of the engine and tons of fuel that was needed was lost revenue capacity. They required a certain level of engineering skill, and if not treated with respect, they were fond of blowing up. A boat traveling through the narrow confines of a canal creates tractive resistance as the water tries to flow around the boat hull. The faster the boat travels, the more the resistance. It was also felt that the boats and prop wash would create waves that could wash the banks, The study of how inventors sought to deal with these issues is quite fascinating and I was excited to see this new book about the C&O steamboats announced on Facebook and purchased one. A week later, a free copy came from the author.
This new book by Andrew Sparber offers a mix of canal and steamboat history, along with a compilation of patents that were issued to inventions on how to fit steam machinery into canal boats. I had hoped for more then I got. At its best, this book is useful in that Mr. Sparber has gathered these patents under one cover. At its worse, the research and history is incredibly weak. This could be so much better. I am not one to look for faults of authors. Research, writing, editing and publishing on a topic with such a narrow focus is a labor of love and no one is going to get rich or even break-even from their effort. You do it because you want the information to be widely available. But, sadly, in my opinion, this book misses its mark as it could have offered so much more.
Let me begin by saying that any reader who is going to be attracted to a book with the title, “The History and Patents of C&O Steamboats” would be someone reasonably versed in towpath canals and or steamboats. Aside from an introductory chapter, there is no reason not to dive in the deep end of the challenges that inventors faced when trying to put a steam engine into a canal boat. Any chapters with a simplistic canal history overview are a waste of time and paper.
Perhaps I completely missed the intent of this book, but there are numerous instances where I feel that Mr. Sparber could have launched into a subject. One instance was when He quotes one paper from 1867 that said, “…is a five-foot propeller on the Chillicothe plan.” What was the Chillicothe plan? Who was the inventor? Was it used on the Ohio and Erie Canal? Was the technology shared? He never explains.
I found one passage was totally incorrect. He writes that the Enlargement of the Erie Canal began in 1862 when investors knew it had to be bigger to be competitive. The errors in this one sentence alone made me question the rest of the work. The Enlargement of the Erie began in 1836 and was completed in 1862 by the State of New York. There were no investors in the Erie Canal. As Mr. Sparber doesn’t offer any end or foot notes, I don’t know what sources he used.
My understanding of C&O Canal History is about mid-level. My understanding of tractive effort in canals is at a higher level. There are studies made by New York State engineers who were looking to enlarge the Erie Canal and who wrote about how a canal boat behaves in a narrow and shallow body of water. The engineers also wrote about the need to replace mules with steam engines just for the welfare of the animals. It was a monumental issue that was well documented.
Not one of our Nation’s canals operated in a vacuum. Information and innovations were shared by way of annual reports, newspaper accounts, trade journals, and so many more sources. A steam engine experiment may have been conducted one canal, and if it had any modicum of success, it would have been widely shared. So many of these historic materials are widely and freely available to the researcher by way of the internet. While Mr. Sparber goes into some details on a few of the inventions, he could have widened his audience by showing how the innovations were used on other canals. Perhaps, as I noted, the goal of Mr. Sparber with this work was to simply offer a list of patents of steamboat experiments, and if that was his intent, he accomplished it. But he really missed a chance to offer something so much better.
If you are interested in such a subject, read the book, “It Started With A Steamboat” by Steven Harvey (2005), check out my article titled, The Beginnings of the Second Enlargement of the Erie Canal 1858-1895, or Richard Palmer’s series titled, Pioneer Steamboat Experiment on the Erie Canal in the Fall 2023 issue of American Canals.
Mr. Sparber was kind enough to respond.
As I had more time to think about your remarks I thought I would clarify a few things. Even though I used a different date from a different source for the Erie beginning does not mean all of my work should come into question. I try to be a thorough investigator which I learned from my doing research at the NIH. The significant part of my book is the patents. The first section is really for visitors to the C&O. I had asked the different national canal leaders if they had known about the access of the patents and they said no. I took that to mean I found something very significant and hopefully other canal researchers would check out their own patents. When that could be done then a discussion could be had about all of the canal patents. This should not be minimized in your review. The main focus of my book was on the C&O not the Erie though I did briefly talk about it. William Bouman thought my work way very important. I look forward to looking at the other resources you mentioned to see if it adds to my now revising book.
Before I begin, I want to offer a bit of background because it is rare that a book comes along with so much push-back prior to its introduction to the general public. But that is what has happened with this new book by Nancy Kraus. When the American Canal Society receives any inquiry about a canal or navigation, the first thing I try to do is point the person toward the local authorities in the state canal groups. One of the goals that the ACS was founded on back in 1972 was to encourage the sharing of information between canal societies and the public. So when I was contacted by Ms. Kraus about her new book, I asked if she had been in touch with the Virginia Canals and Navigations Society, and then I asked the VC&NS if they had been in touch with Ms. Kraus. Well, my email box was soon full of emails detailing how each side was mistaken in what they believed to be true. With this in mind, I made it a point not to read the detailed responses from the VC&NS until I had read, and then reread, this new book. Ms. Kraus was kind enough to reply to my questions and she did send me a free copy of her book to review.
If you are interested in this subject and you are thinking about the buying this new book, I suggest that you also purchase a copy of the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 132, no. 3, (pages 163–206), in which Ms. Kraus presents an in-depth scholarly article on the subject titled, “John Ballendine and the James River Canal near Richmond, Virginia.” Although the book covers all the important points that are made in the magazine article, there is a difference between the two works, as the article is more akin to a major thesis, while the book covers all the canals and other water-powered infrastructure on the south bank of the James River. Ms. Kraus calls it a pictorial survey.
Richmond was built where the James River passes over the Atlantic Seaboard Fall Line, a 900-mile escarpment that separates the tidewater regions along the Atlantic coast from the interior lands. Many of the large cities that dot the coast (Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, DC., and so many others) were constructed where the fall line formed the “head of navigation” for sea-going ships. Where the James River passes through Richmond, the escarpment created a seven-mile section of rough and fast water. Upstream of Richmond, the James River was suitable for navigation with minor improvements, and downstream, the winding river reached the coast on the tidewater. Thus, any city constructed on the fall line would be both a home to mills and for shipping.
At first glance, you might think that Ms. Kraus is presenting a new interpretation of the James River and Kanawha Canal, the 197-mile-long navigation that followed the two rivers west from Richmond to Buchanan. The ACS Canal Index files on the James River and Kanawha Canal lists the dates of 1785 to 1881 as the life span of the James River and Kanawha that ran along the north side of the river in the Richmond area. A short section remains watered to this day in Richmond as a linear park. However, Ms. Kraus is postulating that the first canals in the Richmond area were located on the south bank of the James River and in her work, she presents her findings after a decade of research.
The central theme of Ms. Kraus’ book is to make the argument that there were navigation canals on the south bank of the James River that allowed navigation between tidewater and the upper James. If these canals were used for navigation, they would predate the James River and Kanawha by some forty years. Her goal is to, “present a revised history of Virginia’s first navigational canal.”
She begins her history in 1732 when William Byrd constructed a short canal at the upper end of the falls to power his mills and foundry on the south side of the river. And here we get a bit into the weeds. There are canals built for mill power, and there are canals built for navigation, and there are canals that did both. Ms. Kraus admits that Byrd’s Canal was constructed to supply water to his mills, but that Byrd wrote that he had hoped to make it suitable for water craft. Clearly, Byrd saw the possibilities, but lacked the means to turn a short mill race into a seven-mile navigation canal.
Ms. Kraus then moves to John Ballendine’s canal, a short canal built between 1775 and 1781. Here is why I suggest that you also order her article, “John Ballendine and the James River Canal near Richmond, Virginia,” As I had never heard of Ballendine, I went looking through the ACS archives and found a paper by David H. McIntosh in Volume 28 of the Canal History and Technology Proceedings. McIntosh writes that John Ballendine may have been the first canal builder in the young nation with his privately constructed (but never completed) canal along the Potomac River built between 1767 and 1772. If he had been successful, this canal would have predated the works at Coteau-du-Lac which were built in 1781, and making it perhaps the first true navigation canal in North America. David McIntosh focused his article on Ballendine’s failed Potomac canal ending with a quick mention of him moving to Richmond and constructing a canal on the James River. He wrote that, “he [Ballendine] went to Richmond and built a canal for them on the James River. It must have been a canal because the State of Virginia passed a bill in 1784 to repay him 20,000 pounds for building a canal.”(1) With her book, Ms. Kraus helps fill in the biography of Ballendine as he worked to construct a waterway around the James River falls.
Not to give away the ending, but while John Ballendine may have been another man of vision, but also failed to turn that vision into reality. Ms. Kraus says that between 1775 and 1781 Ballendine constructed a 400 yard long navigation canal at the top of the falls six miles from tidewater. Maybe Ballendine built here because this was what he owned, but why go through the effort to construct a navigation canal so far from the navigable tidewaters? However, his canal did provide water power to the mills and foundry which appear to have been successful businesses. In 1779 with only a twentieth of the proposed canal completed, the state seized the property and in 1785 the state chartered the James River Company to construct a canal around the falls.
There are many places in her book and article that made me stop and think. The reading of history is akin to sitting on a jury. Twelve people sit and hear all the evidence, then retire to the jury room to argue about what they just heard. It can be astonishing how people can differ in their understanding as simple as, “was that car blue or green?” Ms. Kraus offers a Benjamin Latrobe drawing of a small dam that Ballendine had built in the river to divert water to his canal. Latrobe presents the dam in detail showing it from a top view and also with a cross section. When I first saw it in the magazine article, I made my assumptions of what was upstream and what was downstream. I was surprised to see this drawing in the book next to an annotated copy with notes from Douglas Harnsberger of the AIA (American Institute of Architects), with downstream and upstream being reversed. When I asked her about this, she defended the interpretation saying it was showing a rare “spillover dam.” I then sent the drawing to two engineers I know who, in their opinion, agreed that it has been mislabeled. (Please read her response at the end of this review.)
It does appear that the James River Company constructed improvements to the river so that boats could safely work their way around the rapids. If I understood this correctly, it appears that these were similar to many such river improvements were made across the young nation. The Mohawk River in New York, the Lehigh in Pennsylvania, the Potomac in Maryland, and so many other rivers were improved with wing dams, bear-trap locks, clearing snags and sandbars and other improvements. Whether these James River improvements were on the north or south bank of the river is unclear to me.
It is clear that Ms. Kraus has documented some canals along the south bank of the James River. In addition to Byrd’s and Ballendine’s canals/millraces, she features other canals, water control towers, railroads, and other historical industrial features. The book is presented with color images and many maps to help make her case. From my vantage point 600 miles north and not being familiar with the area, I found myself wanting a master map that showed all the canals and sites in the book so I could put each into context.
Ms. Kraus sent this map after reading my review. It is not in her book.
Ms. Kraus makes a convincing argument and if I had simply read this book without the understanding of navigation canals, I would be inclined to say that she had indeed made some important discoveries. She offered that her work was peer reviewed, so I asked the editor of the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography if their journal articles were peer reviewed as I would have liked to read what the reviewers thought. He replied that they are, but that her article was not reviewed by canal historians. I find it remarkable that that our canal societies, who have been researching and documenting canals and waterways for decades, are not consulted more often then they are. And I hope that the magazine will allow for a follow-up article.
Ms. Kraus states that one of her goals is to bring attention to the remaining industrial remains on the south bank. Nothing in this review, or the reviews of others, should stop this effort to nominate these canals and sites to the National Register of Historic Places and to promote preservation of such. I would greatly enjoy seeing an archaeological study of the two original dry-laid stone structures that are extant in the Park System of the City of Richmond. Are they locks? Or are they parts of a head race?
In one of her emails she wrote, “At stake is the recognition and preservation of the earliest operating canal system with locks and a towpath in the United States.” I would encourage her, and all parties, to keep an open mind and continue with their research and investigations on both sides of the river. The use of AI to transcribe and read old handwritten documents is reshaping how historians can research, opening access to thousands of documents and helping to rewrite history everyday. These records will aid all in their understanding of history and if they keep an open mind, they might find that they were mistaken in what they believed to be certain.
(1) A search on John Ballendine revealed that David McIntosh has published a book title, John Ballendine: Early Developer of Potomac River By-Pass Canals, 2022.
After I sent my review to Ms. Kraus, she was kind enough to respond.
Hello, Thank you for this careful analysis. Your perspective is helpful. I appreciate your objectivity. I wish I had the technical skills necessary to create a map showing the canals and the river from an aerial perspective. Recently, Bill Trout contacted me requesting information about the Southside canals. His stated intention is to update his Atlas to illustrate the archaeological sites and structures on the South bank. I hope he will follow through. Regarding the spillover dam. Determining its geographic location is critical because Benjamin Latrobe’s drawing clearly depicted the original James River Upper Canal relative to the location of the dam. He recorded that the dam extended 300 yards between the river-bank and Saunders Island. That is the distance between the South bank and Saunders (present-day Williams) Island. The distance between the North bank and Saunders Island is around 75 yards; not a match. The 300-yard determination places the dam between the South bank and Saunders island and the canal on the South bank–exactly where a remnant of the canal and two locks are today. An internet search suggests that spillover dams, in the style of Ballendine’s fish-weir dam, are very old technology, virtually unemployed today. It is also important to note that a remnant of a stone construct is visible on the edge of the South bank, just west of the Pony Pasture parking lot. It coincides with Latrobe’s drawing of “Ballendine’s Bridge.” It is very curious that an arch of stone is sometimes visible (depending on water level), extending from that stone structure, out into the river. An image of the stone remnant and the arch are in my book, page 34. The stone remnant and the arch coincide with Latrobe’s drawing of Ballendine’s Bridge and fish-weir dam. Modern engineers may have different perspectives on dam construction than engineers (from the Virginia Department of Transportation) who are knowledgeable about historic dams. Doug Harnsberger is AIA–American Institute of Architects. He is one of the most respected historical architects on the east coast, having worked on many important buildings and structures, including Monticello and the US Capitol. Doug’s analysis of the fish-weir dam was confirmed by Dr. Robert Kapsch who is considered by many to be the foremost authority on canal history and engineering in the United States. I recommend Kapsch’s book on the Potomac Canal for an in-depth history of John Ballendine’s canal-works on the Potomac. Ballendine started work on the Potomac Canal, but he could not get approval or funding to continue so he moved on to the James River. In his own words, he explains his decision, which I have transcribed in the VHMC article. The dry-laid stone locks, the first of that technology in America, are extant on the South bank. Harsh criticisms rejecting the assessment that the locks are indeed locks merit reconsideration. First, Robert Kapsch confirmed that the two locks are indeed locks, constructed in recognized form and size of 18th-century technology; Second, the locks are situated in an elongated position in-line with the surviving remnant of the Upper Canal; Third, the height of the one accessible lock is consistent with the eye-witness accounts of Benjamin Latrobe, that is, the lock had a lift of 8 feet; Fourth, Benjamin Latrobe recorded that “The two locks at the first falls are very ill contrived and constructed. They are Granite, hewn, and laid together without Cement,” a statement consistent with the extant locks; Fifth, the clay lining (puddling) at the base of the accessible lock was still in place in 2014, evaluated and confirmed by an authority with the National Park Service; Sixth, in the 1850s, the Richmond & Danville Railroad built a spur to support the transport of granite, which was mined at the Westham Quarry near the canal. It is likely that the railroad company was responsible for placing stone toppers over the locks to facilitate movement and to avert danger. The suggestion that those locks were built by the railroad company as bridges is preposterous. Railroad bridges were built on piers. The railroad would have absolutely no reason to build structures that look like those locks. Legal plats depict the exact location of the railroad spur. It does not align in any way with the location of the locks. Further, the canal was and is still extant. The locks survive. The railroad would not have built a spur over a canal. Benjamin Latrobe was a British-trained architect and engineer. He was considered an authority on canals and roads in his day. He visited the canals on both the South bank and the North bank (before 1835, when the James River & Kanawha Canal began) and prepared detailed drawings and written descriptions. Because of his attention to detail, he is the best eye-witness of the period. He personally gathered the data and wrote the report on the canals in Virginia for the famous Gallatin Report of 1808. Prompted by the harsh criticism of Lyle Browning, I recently began examining primary sources for information about canals on the North bank that preceded the James River & Kanawha Canal (1835-1850). The attached timelines report makes it very clear that a pair of bypass canals and a basin were indeed constructed on the North bank sometime between 1793 (plan) and 1808, documented in the Gallatin Report, a newspaper account, and Benjamin Latrobe’s drawing of canals B and C. It is not possible to have both Canals B & C and the original James River Company Upper and Lower canals on the north bank. The extant sites and structures and a multitude of primary sources make clear that pairs of bypass canals existed on both banks. By all accounts, the oldest canals and locks were on the South bank. The chart below is a summary. The attached “Timelines” provides eye-witness and primary source documentation to support the chart. I would appreciate your posting this email and the Timelines Report to the American Canals website and Facebook.
Sincerely,Nancy
Timelines: North Bank (1793-1808) and South Bank (1775-1796) Canals
The Raging Erie: Life and Labor Along the Erie Canal, by Mark S. Ferrara, 259 pages.
I think it would be safe to say that well read canal researcher or enthusiast will not learn anything new from The Raging Erie as most of the material used has been taken from other books on the canal. In fact, the extensive footnotes clearly show that the entire book has been built upon the works of others who researched, and authored books and papers before him. However, if your interest was not on the societal impacts of the canal and the era upon certain classes of people, you could have been easily skipped over much of the material that Mr. Ferrara presents in his book. The Raging Erie is divided into seven topic chapters along with an introduction and conclusion. Each chapter closely looks at the lives of a different class of people or the resulting societal movements that took place during the 1800s. He notes that he proposes “instead a journey through canal life from the perspective of the ordinary folks who experienced firsthand the dislocating and alienating social consequences, the extreme class and income inequality, that this waterway wrought.”
I greatly enjoyed the the first chapter, Decline and Fall of the Iroquoia, as it lays bare the struggles of the Native Americans as they tried to deal and live with the newly immigrated white Europeans. Most canal historians skip over the displacement of these Peoples and begin their narrative with the 1810 journey of DeWitt Clinton or the first shovel of turned earth at Rome in 1817. I had recently read Memory Wars by A. Lynn Smith and found myself wanting to learn more of the Native Peoples. A trip to the local library resulted in a pile of suggested readings that mostly were geared to the elementary school student. It is safe to say that I learned more from this book then I learned from my library raid.
After the first very useful chapter, the author details the lives of the poorer folks who helped to build and maintain the work-a-day world of the 1800s. Here, at least for me, the book falters. This is not a book about the canals. Instead, Ferrara uses the canal as a backdrop to loosely pull in various social movements. Many of the events had nothing to do with the canal aside from taking place about the same time. For instance, in chapter four he tells about Anne Royall, a woman who is considered to be the last person to be tried as a witch. Anne’s only interaction with the canal was to travel along it in a packet. She lived and was active in Washington DC., and, if you do an internet search for her, much of the same material presented by Ferrara is readily accessible. (I found out that she coined the term “redneck.”)
I have grown fond of Dr. Karen Grey’s term “zombie history” and I use it often. And here is another case of potential zombie history run amok. For instance, Ferrara quotes George Condon’s Stars In The Water often, and although it was the first book that I ever read about the canals, it is generally not considered to be the work of a great scholar. I pulled out my copy of “Stars” and see the Condon never used footnotes and most of his work is built upon the authorship of others within the limited scope of a two page bibliography. So much for deep research.
Anyone who has researched their family knows that it can be very difficult to find information and life details about their poorer ancestors. The poor working class were illiterate and didn’t have time to write diaries. That is why a book such as A Midwife’s Tale is so important in developing an understanding of what life was like in the late 1700s, or Life on a Canalboat, The Journals of Theodore D. Bartley, 1861-1889, which provides details into the life of an actual person on the canal. Another great study is Anthony Wallace’s Rockdale which gives insight to the life of mill workers in a small town in Pennsylvania. Although I mention Midwife due to its rarity, the other two works certainly fall within the scope of Ferrara’s study period and he never mentions either. What really surprised me is that I didn’t see any use of newspapers to tell the story of the poor. On the rare occasion where your ancestor might be mentioned in history is either for their birth, death, marriage or when they were arrested. These stories may not have fit into the larger scope of this book, but if you are seeking details about the life of the poor working class, the digital files of thousands of newspapers should be consulted.
As a quick overview of, or a introduction to, the social movements of the 1800s, The Raging Erie can fill that space. A reader who has never picked up a canal history will be well served by this book. And for others, it might better serve as a sort of annotated bibliography to help you find other books that deal with the subject. Each chapter stands on its own and doesn’t require you to read the entire book. So with a scan of the sources you will have a starter list of books and readings that you can pursue to hopefully find some original material.
The last chapter of the book, neatly titled “Conclusion, Transforming Life and Labor in America” nicely ties the book together and might cause you to reconsider some notions about life along the canals. We do tend to glorify the canal era, and I would guess that all of us have dreamed about having a time machine that would whisk us back to a towpath of the canal where we could see and hear the canal and the people in action. We seek sanitized versions of this when we visit parks that feature mule pulled canal boats. But I doubt many of us would like to live in those times and be a real canal driver walking 12 hours a day, find shelter in a 12 by 12 cabin, or have to unload thousands of pounds of cargo by hand. The canals, mills, factories, railroads, and so forth, were all miserable places to eke out a life. Years ago, PBS had a documentary series about a group of re-enactors living in Montana, and one man was losing weight so fast that his wife had the doctors come in to check him over. They said basically, “ma’am, this is what people looked like when they had simple diets and worked 16 hours a day!” Life was tough and few of us could hack it. And to help people cope with their existence, they sought meaning and understanding by way of religion and other social movements. And Ferrara neatly wraps that up with his conclusion.
So, for my conclusion, if you happen to volunteer at a canal park, or oversee docents, and want to help inform visitors about life in the 1800s, The Raging Erie can fill that void. But, if you are thinking about buying the book because you see the words “Erie Canal” in the title and you want to fill out your canal library, you will likely be disappointed.
Chain of Title: An Adventure To Uncover the 350-Year Legacy Of The Old Grist Mill, by Christopher Scott, 2024. 335 pages.
While a review of this book might seem to be a bit of a stretch for a canal newsletter, Chain Of Title is worthy of your time if you have ever looked at a house or building and wondered, “What is the history of that place?”
Christopher Scott purchased a decaying four-story grist mill that was built along the Pequea Creek in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. After renovations that converted the mill into his home, he began the journey to uncover the history of the property and building. This began like many investigations do with folklore and “established” history. He notes that during construction, strangers would often walk into his home and share their knowledge and websites shared conflicting histories about the mill. Plus, the reconstruction itself gave some clues about the building, and a date stone over the main door gave its own history. How could a date stone be wrong?
Scott notes, “Luckily, I am an open-minded person who is willing to adjust my view in light of new facts. I was expecting to dispel some of the fodder provided by the online grist mill enthusiasts: after all, with contradicting stories there could only be one right answer, and the others would thus be disproven. I was, however, surprised by the extent to which everything I thought I knew would need to be reevaluated, and I needed to allow myself to let go of ideas that I had taken to be solid truth – even irrefutable facts.”
Dr. Karen Gray, the noted historian of the C&O, coined the term “zombie history.” She described these as historical “facts” that would not die, no matter how many times they were disproven and killed off. Typically, someone years, decades or centuries ago wrote what they thought or heard, and from there, that information is shared over and over as fact. People cite these sources since they are old and thus must be true, without doing their own investigation.
In Chain Of Title, Scott throws out all those facts, folklore, and opinions, and begins at the beginning with the Native Americans use of the land and who was living along the Pequea when the first European settlers showed up. He then moves onto how William Penn was given the land that would become Pennsylvania, and then works forward through history to the present. In each chapter he narrows down his focus as the land changes hands, parts are given or sold off, and in the end, he ends up looking at his current lot and building. Along the way he is able to confirm or disprove all those bits of zombie history.
It is difficult to make such a journey into a great page turner, but Scott is skilled enough to keep the reader interested. I always say that those who do family genealogy have an audience of one, themselves, as no one wants to hear about your ancestors family history. And, this is basically a genealogical look at an old mill that is now a home. However, the book can serve as a good text on how to conduct such an in-depth research for anyone who is wishing to go on such a mission for themselves.
You can find the book on Amazon.
PS. Combine this book with Mills on the Tsatsawassa by Philip Lord Jr., (1983) and you will be well set to begin your research.
The Reservoir War; A History of Ohio’s Forgotten Riot in America’s Gilded Age, 1874-1888
By Jerett W. Godeke, 2023, 426 pages.
During the canal era in North America, hundreds of large and small reservoirs were constructed in order to supply the thousands of miles of the nation’s canals with a steady supply of water. As the canals were abandoned after the glow of the canal era dulled a bit, many were repurposed as water supplies for nearby communities, for recreation, and/or for flood control. In some cases, the land that the reservoir sat on was deemed more valuable then the water and they were drained and the land sold off. The process of abandonment could be contentious as the pro-canal forces battled to save the canal infrastructure while the anti-canal forces fought to hasten the process. The Reservoir War details one such battle along the Wabash and Erie Canal in western Ohio.
Let me congratulate Mr. Godeke on the well-researched book that details this “war” over a small, and sometimes lacking water, reservoir. In his introduction, he outlines how he was able to do much research on this topic from his home. In this new world of digital newspapers, Google Books, Hatfi-Trust, and so on, new avenues of research are opening up that allow the present-day historian access to resources that would have been locked away just a decade ago. A simple Boolean query can help to discoverer facts tucked away in far away and often, hidden collections. This book is a testament to what can be done from one’s den.
Although the Wabash and Erie was largely an Indiana canal, a short section was located in western Ohio between the settlement of Junction and the Ohio/Indiana border. Once the W&E was abandoned by the state of Indiana in 1874, the residents and businesses along the short section of canal that remained in Ohio had to decide what to do with their dead-end spur. That section of canal, along with the reservoir, make up the battlefield for the war. As the author notes in his introduction, to call this a war is a stretch at best, but as heavy explosives were used and the military called in the restore order, the term does fit.
At the core of the story is a small canal reservoir that was built just east of Antwerp, Ohio, along the Wabash and Erie Canal. If I understand the layout, the reservoir was built to collect excess water flowing down the canal from Indiana, holding it for dryer periods, basically like a water conservation side pond on a lock. When Indiana abandoned the canal, the water flow was cut off, leaving the reservoir resupply to local streams and runoff. In the wet times of the year, the reservoir might fill and in the dry periods, it would be more a swamp or wetland. The canal itself was a dead-end spur, used only by local folks to transport logs to mills further downstream. The stagnant water and “swamp gas” in the reservoir and canal were often blamed for illness, and the local population was convinced that the reservoir was worth more as farm land then for any water supply. In the end, local “dynamiters” took matters into their own hands and sought to breach the reservoir banks, and dry the land.
Godeke takes you through the entire life of the reservoir and the legal and physical struggles that would decide it’s future. You will not be left wanting for information as this is a deep dive on a rather bland subject. Let’s be honest here, it is a small reservoir that even when breached did not result in any heavy flooding of the surrounding landscape. What is surprising is the sheer amount of information that was written about the subject as the local pro and con newspapers fought their own war of words. And, not surprising, there are parallels to modern day events that the author leaves to the reader to contemplate and connect. But, there were a couple of times where I found myself going “wow!”
My main criticism of the book is the complete lack of any maps, diagrams, profiles, or any illustrations at all. In my experience, canal folks are map lovers and we all enjoy a historic canal map to help us “see” what is going on as we read along. It is not that the author didn’t consult these sources as he often mentions them and even gives the locations in regards to the present day. However, I would have greatly enjoyed the addition of maps to help me understand where the reservoir was built, why it was put there in relation to the canals, where the locks were located, and so on. Even a simple profile of the two canals, and how the reservoir was, or wasn’t, a benefit, would have helped. In short, any visual aid would have been much appreciated. If space was an issue, the citations could have been tightened up a bit to allow room.
From the 1914 topo map. The reservoir was located on lot 36 (just below North Creek), east of Antwerp. The canal is shown as the dashed blue line (note the elevation benchmarks 728, 730, 732 that were on the line of the canal).
I also found the authors constant use of money conversions from 1880s to the present day valuations a tad annoying. Each time a dollar amount was given, he added the present day value, which after the first two, three or ten times, was a bit too much information. But those are minor annoyances when compared to the book as a total. And, with over 79 pages of citations and seven appendixes that total 50 pages, the reader will not be left wanting for facts.
Hennepin Canal Parkway: History Through the Miles, by Barton Jennings, 2020, 404 pages.
One day I was searching though the American Canal Society archives looking for book or two about the history of the Illinois and Mississippi Canal, otherwise known as the Hennepin, and, to my surprise, I found very little. So I went looking for a book that would fill that need.
The 75-mile-long Hennepin was an extension of the older Illinois and Michigan, offering a route between the western end of the I&M and the Mississippi River at Rock Island. Although the canal had been proposed for decades, construction didn’t begin until 1892 and it wasn’t completed until 1907. By the time the route was ready, the larger Illinois Waterway and Chicago Sanitary Canals had been built, making the smaller Hennepin redundant. However, it remained in operation until 1951. With this late closing date, the canal remains very intact and it is now part of the Hennepin Parkway State Park.
The Hennepin was a canal of firsts. It was the first canal in America to be built completely with Portland Cement instead of cut stone locks. It was a test bed for heavy machinery that was just coming into its own such as the steam shovel and cable way. However, the locks were hand operated, and a towing path was built and maintained, but never used to tow a boat. This made the canal a unique mix of the old and new. And we can see how the materials, tools, techniques and machines first used in the construction of the Hennepin would be used on larger projects in the near future. Although Mr. Jennings doesn’t mention it, the Chicago Sanitary, the New York State Barge Canal, and the Soulanges Canal in Quebec, all have tie ins with the work done on this canal. Mr. Jennings does mention the Panama Canal, which greatly benefited from all these projects.
Barton Jennings offers a very readable history and field guide to the canal and the parkway, which includes the main canal and the 29-mile-long feeder. His book offers a mile-by-mile description of what you will see and encounter along the trail, but in a very enjoyable format. The author bios states that Mr. Jennings is a professor of supply chain management and also taught transportation operations. His experience as a teacher certainly shows in his style of writing where he covers the basics for the casual park user, but he also gives those of us who want them the added details that historians love to see.
The book begins with a 50-page history of the canal, beginning in 1834 and working up through the construction in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Then he begins his tour narrative at mile 0.00 at the eastern end. It is nice to see that the history lesson continues through each mile, and this makes for very informative reading. In each mile he explains in some detail what you are seeing, what was once there (if a structure has been replaced or modified), and why it is there. For instance, a bridge is described as a “Warren pony truss span with two 21-foot I-beam approach spans,” instead of simply saying a bridge, which makes the bridge geek in me very happy. To be sure, for those who don’t give a hoot about the history or infrastructure, this additional information will be passed over, while those who want to know are not left with unanswered questions.
I became interested in the Hennepin as I was researching the NYS Barge Canal construction machinery series, as the Hennepin and the Chicago Sanitary were both test beds of innovation for a lot of the machinery that was used on the New York Barge Canal. So I was delighted to see Mr. Jennings include sections such as, “The Battle of Cecil’s Slough,” where the canal had to be cut through the soft ground at mile 19. In order to deal with the muck, Lidgerwood cableways were constructed with two towers, one on each bank and a cable suspended between them. From this cable, a bucket would be used to remove the mucky soil, going where other machines could not. Mr. Jennings gives these machines their due to the point of including a short history of the company and showing a drawing of the rig. The book is full of little historical tidbits like this which makes it fun to read, even from a thousand miles away.
The book contains many photographs, drawings and maps. There is no index of the illustrations, but as almost every page has one, I would say that there are well over 200, if not many more. The format is 8.5 by 5.5 inches, and all the illustrations are in black and white. In addition, each photo, map and drawing includes a full citation, and Mr. Jennings offers additional reading sources for those who really want to dig deep into the history of the Hennepin Canal.
Mr. Jennings is to be congratulated for his engaging and very informative book.
Inland. The Abandoned Canals of the Schuylkill Navigation, Sandy Sorlien, with a foreward by John R. Stilgoe and essays by Mike Szilagyl and Karen Young. 2022. Hardcover, 192 pages.
The late Tom Grasso liked to call the ruins of the towpath canals our version of the Mayan ruins. You can find the remains of towpath canals throughout the landscape of the northeast and midwest in various conditions, from the lock that looks like it could be put to use today (with a bit of work), to piles of stones that where, maybe, an old lock that might have been. However, unlike the Mayan ruins, we have records, reports, maps, drawings, and even photographs of the canals in use. In many cases we can say how much stone and lumber went into a structure and what it cost. If we feel we need it, we can find out a lot about the old canals.
And yet, there is always a sense of mystery in those canal ruins. Most of the people who looks upon an old lock or aqueduct will not be a canal historian, and yet they will be fascinated by the stonework. Some will see art and beauty in the stones. It doesn’t matter what it was, the fact that it is here is enough. Some will see how nature is reclaiming the stones, with plants growing out from between the stonework and animals using it as their home. Others will see the ruins and wonder how our forefathers cut, shaped, moved and stacked the heavy stones. No matter how you look at them, the ruins of the past will always cause a sense of wonder.
The Schuylkill Navigation was one of many canals built in the 1800s, and it became one of the more successful canals that you have never heard about. Built along the Schuylkill River between Philadelphia and Port Carbon, the 108-mile-long system was a mix of river pools and 27 man-made canals. Construction began in the early 1800s and the canal remained in use through the early 1900s. Like many of the Pennsylvanian canals, it was built to haul coal and lumber to the cities along the Atlantic coast. However, unless you are from the Schuylkill area, or a canal historian, it is unlikely that you have learned about this navigation.
In Inland, Sandy Sorlien presents a history and photographic journey along of the Schuylkill Navigation in a grand style. Unlike the majority of history books that are presented in the typical smaller formats designed to fit on the book shelf, Sandy seemingly throws caution to the wind, using a large format that allows the photos and prints to be viewed with vibrancy, color and clarity. Sure, it costs more, but the book itself becomes a piece of art, as Sandy is a professional photographer and it shows in her images. The larger format encourages you to linger on the photos and prints to take them all in, and it is so nice that you can read the maps without the need to pull out the magnifying glass. The large format allows a map of the 108-mile-long navigation to flow, in color, across the inside front covers to the inside back covers. It might be the best map of the system I have seen.
The journey begins at the northern end in Schuylkill County and runs south to Philadelphia County. Sandy visited every lock and aqueduct site, and hiked all the 27 canals where they exist. Each photograph is presented with a brief caption. If you wish to know more, a separate chapter offers more detail on each photograph, such as notes about the structures and personal observations from her explorations. I especially enjoyed the drawings and maps in color. The people who drew these were often artists in their own right and presenting these in color is a nod to their talents.
Tom Grasso was fond of saying that the canal was the one creation of man most in harmony with nature. While the active canal offers an environment where animals and plants can live and thrive, the abandoned canal is gradually reclaimed to a point where it is difficult to distinguish between the man-made and the natural. The freeze-thaw cycle causes stones to shift and crack. Plants grow in the these cracks further hastening their decay. Trees grow and die. Seasonal floods wash away walls and berms leveling the landscape. The modern day canal historian realizes the need to capture this moment in time, as it, in itself becomes part of their history. Even though the canal is not in use, it is still there, and at some point, photographs taken today will become just as important as those taken 100 years ago.
As a plus, Inland also serves as a guide to the Schuylkill River Trail, the 120-mile-long greenway that follows the route of the old navigation and the railroads that replaced the canal boats. By using this book, you should be able to locate and understand the how and why of the system. It is a wonderful book.
(This was not a sponsored review. I purchased the book.)
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.
