Tag: Ohio and Erie Canal

Cleveland Center – Canal Comments

By Terry K Woods

As the Ohio Canal neared completion from Lake Erie to the Ohio River, many in the small village of Cleveland, Ohio began to believe that their village was strategically placed on the shore of the Great Lake between the junction of the Erie and Ohio Canals that it was destined to become an important world trade center. One man who had that belief, and attempted to make it a reality, was James S. Clarke, a former Sheriff of Cuyahoga County and, in the decade of the 1830s, one of the biggest real estate speculators in the area. In 1831, James Clarke, Richard Hilliard (a wealthy dry goods merchant), and Edmond Clark (a prominent banker) formed a partnership and purchased 50 acres of land just south of Cleveland’s village limits.

The acreage constituted the southern portion of a peninsula bordered on three sides by the Cuyahoga River and located just south of the river’s first great bend. This land was then known as Case’s Point, but is currently that part of the Cleveland Flats known as Ox Bow Bend. The three-man-partnership platted a development on their acreage and called it CLEVELAND CENTRE.i This paper village featured streets named after foreign countries – Britain, France, Germany, China, and Russia, all radiating from a hub called Gravity Place. This, the promoters decided, was an appropriate name for a future center of world trade and business. Cleveland Centre was ideally located just south of the new Ohio Canal basin (Merwin’s) where canal boats and lake vessels interchanged cargo.

Land lots in the new development initially sold well, and soon a small village had sprouted there. Commission houses, warehouses, and docks were built along the western side of the village primarily on Merwin Street. A residential neighborhood formed on the eastern side of the village along Columbus Street (now Columbus Avenue), the main thoroughfare running north and south through the Centre. Clark gave the area a boost in 1835 when he financed the construction of the first bridge across the Cuyahoga River in the Cleveland area – the Columbus Street Bridge

In 1836 the area received another boost. Clarke and others sponsored an additional new development named Wileyville. This new village was on land directly across the river from Cleveland Centre. The two villages were connected by the new Columbus Street bridge. The initial prosperity of the area was so great that it attracted Cleveland’s attention and that city annexed Cleveland Centre in 1835.

Then the nationwide Financial Panic of 1837 struck and all early chances of the Cleveland Centre district becoming a center of world trade collapsed along with the nation’s economy.

During the nation’s economic doldrums that lasted for more than seven years, many working class immigrants moved from building the canals to being out of work from Cleveland’s industry. Also during this period (1838) the first Roman Catholic Church in the Cleveland area, St. Marys, was constructed in the Centre to cater to the many them Irish-Catholic local residents. Incidentally, it was also during this period that James S. Clarke found himself financially ruined.

The nation’s economy finally righted itself in the mid-to-late 1840s and the canal trade began booming again, however, severe flooding of the Cuyahoga in 1847 slowed the Centre’s rebirth. Then with the beginning of the 1850s another specter loomed over the horizon of Cleveland Centre.

Attracted to this area of Cleveland by the industry and commercial district built near the canal/lake interconnection, railroads began entering the area in a big way during the mid-1850s.

The Cleveland, Columbus & Cincinnati Railroad entered the Centre first. In 1851 the railroad purchased 12 acres on the south side of the Centre – taking up almost one quarter of the original development. The C. C. & C. RR constructed an engine roundhouse and other service and yard facilities on that land.

In the immediate years that followed, many of the area’s new industries and manufacturing facilities were constructed to be near the railroad. Often the construction of these industrial complexes necessitated that portions of the streets that radiated from Gravity Place be vacated. Over the years much of the beauty and symmetry of the Centre was lost. The residential neighborhood on the east side of the development also suffered disruption from the invasion of the railroads and industry.

The canal’s terminus, including the commodious Merwin’s Basin was transferred from state to city control and leased to the Connoton Valley Railroad during the mid 1870s. A new canal terminus, weigh lock, and outlet lock into the Cuyahoga River were built some three miles south. Those facilities were operational by the beginning of the 1878 boating season and the original terminus closed.

The old Cleveland Centre drifted toward no longer being a desirable place for a residential area and many moved away. With the loss of the majority of its parishioners, the Catholic Church, now known locally as St. Mary’s of the Flats, closed its doors in 1880. Even the name of Cleveland Centre faded from the memory of Clevelanders and by the late nineteenth Century, the area was known, city wide, only as The Flats.

When Cleveland and the entire area of northeastern Ohio experienced a devastating loss of industry in the mid-Twentieth Century, that Cleveland area known as The Flats and the remains of Cleveland Centre languished, too. That entire area became known nationally only for its closed factories, and businesses and empty warehouses.

That area of Cleveland experienced a brief rebirth as an entertainment and recreational center during the late 1970s and through the ‘80s, but most of the portion that once contained the Centre was too far south to reap much of the economic benefit. And even that small upbeat in the local economy soon faded.

Recently however, with the dawning of the twenty-first century, a number of acres in the southern part of The Flats, that area that contained the Centre, and was formerly owned by the C., C. & C . RR and its successors, was obtained by the City and re-purposed for recreational purposes. Parts of the old Cleveland Centre development are now home to facilities as the Commodore’s Club Marina, and the Cleveland Rowing Foundation. Then Cleveland Metro-Parks initiated their Rivergate Park which featured a riverside restaurant called Merwin’s.

With the Cleveland Centre area becoming a trendy destination once again, proposals (we hesitate to call them plans) have been made to have historical markers placed in the area commemorating the historical existence of Cleveland Centre, and that the original radial streets and hub at Gravity Place be marked and lighted so that people, both on the ground and in the air could see, remember, and commemorate this early attempt to build an international trade center on Ohio’s north shore. Along with James C. Clarke’s spirit, we can do little more than hope.

(Note that this article was first written a few years back and as the links show, much development has taken place in this area.)

iA portion of the information for this column came from Cleveland Historical.

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.