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.