Tag: canal boats

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.

Canal Boats Found in Seneca Lake

The Finger Lakes of Central New York are well known for their natural beauty and award winning wines. They are not so well known for the role they played in the state’s canal and boating history. Three of the Finger Lakes were connected to the Erie Canal by way of the Cayuga Seneca Canal, which joined with the Erie at Montezuma. From this junction, boats could travel south to Cayuga Lake and then west to Seneca Lake. Both Cayuga and Seneca Lakes are about forty-miles-long and allowed boats to reach Ithaca and Watkins Glen. In addition, the Chemung Canal allowed boats to reach the southern regions of the state and for a few brief years, provided a connection to the Pennsylvania canals and coalfields. The short Crooked Lake Canal allowed boat to travel between Keuka and Seneca Lakes. Once on Keuka Lake, boats could travel south about twenty miles to Hammondsport. Over the decades of canal transport, many boats were lost and now rest relatively intact on the lake bottom. These sunken boats could provide invaluable information about canal boat construction. Over the years, some boat have been found and investigated. The book, A Canalboat Primer (1981, Erie Canal Museum), notes that the Underwater Archaeology Association of Elmira found twenty-eight canal boats in Seneca and Keuka Lakes. Line drawings of one of these boats was included in the book.

In 2018, Art Cohn, the Director Emeritus of the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, led a team of researchers from that museum on a hunt for the wreak of the Frank Bowley, a coal boat that had sunk in November of 1869. The loss of the Frank Bowley had been well documented in the papers and the approximate location was fairly well known. This allowed Art and his team to quickly find the canal boat. With some extra time to spare, the team conducted additional surveys which located an additional seven boats. It was clear that more boats could be found with more time and resources, and this encouraged the team to plan a return to the lake so a more in-depth survey could be conducted.

In the summer of 2019, Art Cohn, and Dr. Tom Manley, Assistant Professor of Geoolgy at Middlebury College, led a team of investigators on a Archaeological and Bathymetric Survey of Seneca Lake. This time they had the support of the New York State Museum; the Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation; the Canal Corporation; the Department of Corrections; as well as the Canal Society of NYS; Middlebury, and Hobart and William Smith colleges; and others. The primary vessel was Middlebury College’s research vessel R/V David Folger, with support from the Underwater Research Vessel Voyager. Together they were able to locate ship-wrecks and to map the lake features with a bathymetric survey.

Over the two years sixteen targets were found. These include one log raft, one lifting frame, seven original sized canal boats (one of which might be a packet boat), six Enlarged era boats, and one ship. What is notable is that if the team did find a packet boat, they might have found the only existing boat of this type. The report notes that in the cold fresh waters of the lake, these remains should be safe for years to come. However, the introduction of Quagga Mussels has changed the timeline for researchers. Research in Lake Champlain has shown that the mussels will consume any iron nails, bolts, or straps, which then destabilizes the boat. It is predicted that every boat will be covered and damaged no matter of the depth. As a result there isn’t a lot of time left before these sunken treasurers are lost forever.

Plans were made to return to the lake in 2020, but the pandemic delayed these until 2021. When the team is able to return, the goal is to complete the survey of Seneca Lake. It is hoped that the resources will be found to conduct a similar survey of Cayuga Lake.

The team released a very detailed report of the surveys and findings. This 106-page book, The Seneca Lake Archaeological and Bathymetric Survey 2019 Final Report, outlines the goals, gives a very good history of boating on the canals and lakes, and provides an overview of the sixteen targets and what the team believes these to be. I asked Art Cohn if the report would be made available as a pdf, and he has kindly allowed the ACS to post a copy on our website.