Ohio Canals Archives - The American Canal Society

The Canal Society Guide Book/Study Guide and Other Local Guides

Note- This article is about guide books authored by canal society volunteers which have been printed and distributed in fairly low numbers, which can make them difficult to find if you are not aware of them. “Formal” guides that have been authored, printed and even sold with professional help have not been included.

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One day when I was visiting the Canal Society of NYS Samuel Center in Port Byron, Park Director Dan Wiles was showing me their stacks of society guide books that have been published over the last five decades. He mentioned that as people have passed away, or began to clean and de-clutter, many old guide books were being returned. So it might be an excellent time to reintroduce the guide book to a newer generation as these guides can contain some wonderful information not found in other sources.

If you never have attended a society study tour, you might not be aware of the guides, as they were printed with a limited run and handed out during trip registration. Extra copies were often given away to the tour stop hosts as a thank you, and if there were more, they were sold locally at society events. In this way, these guides often had a publication run of less then 200 or even 100.

As my beginnings were with the CSNYS, I had naturally thought that the guide book was a staple of the society weekend tours. And it was, as at each registration, the participant would receive their name tag, registration materials and the tour guide book It was only when I began to attend tours hosted by other groups that I realized that guide book was not always a given.

So what is a society trip guide book and how does it differ from the typical guide book?

For decades, the biannual canal society field trip, or as Thomas Grasso liked to call them, the “study tour,” was a staple of what most of the state societies did. Each spring and fall, a weekend trip would be planned to make an “on the ground” study of a selected canal section. The trip would cover a selected section of canal with any where from five to nine stops, or whatever was reasonable for an eight hour day. The stops focused on what was present, what was safe, and what could accommodate a bus or a number of cars. Sometimes, the bus would quickly drop people off at a trail and then pick them up a mile or so down the line. As the bus rolled along, the trip host or chairperson would give an quick history and overview of the next stop knowing that most folks would scatter for photos when they unloaded at the stop.

If the hosting organization used them, the guide book could be used to give background and context to the trip. It might have have maps and photos that each person could closely look at instead of having the guide hold up or pass around images. Depending on the author, might might include basic facts such as; maps, canal profile, lock lift, construction and use dates, who was the engineer, and so on. The guides were focused on the sites that would be visited during the tour, and were not always a comprehensive history of the canal. In short, the guide could serve as a recap of the weekend tour.

As with most society publications put out by volunteers, the guides can be divided into two periods which might be titled; “before desktop publishing” and “after desktop publishing.” In short, the power of home computer and publishing software has greatly revolutionized the guide book. In the “before” times, the guide book was often a bunch of single-sided typed pages, and hand-drawn maps and diagrams, some poorly copied photos. These were mostly taken from the hosts knowledge, personal collection, and perhaps what could be found at local libraries and historical societies. They were copied at the nearest photocopier and then stapled together. Over the years these were somewhat improved and expanded by using a local print shop who could offer a bit better quality and bind the books with glue or use plastic spirals.

Once computers became a part of the household, the authors had a bit more flexibility, and a lot more power, to put out a more complete and professional quality guide book. Images became clearer with higher quality paper, two-sided pages became standard, and later the use of color was introduced. With the internet and resources such as digital newspapers and so on, the author could conduct a lot of research from their home and thus enrich the amount of information included. Given all this, all guide books tend to reflect their authors and their enthusiasm and knowledge of the study area. It can take many hours of study, writing, editing, checking and rechecking, to craft a decent guidebook, and many trip hosts didn’t have the time, or desire, to do the work. All the guides are in the 8.5 x 11 inch format. As most of these societies have hosted trips for more then 50 years, many sites have been visited and revisited. It can be helpful to review all the tour guides to see how sites have changed over the years and what new research has been conducted.

It might be helpful to note that many trips were co-sponsored with neighboring societies, so if you can’t find a guide in the state you are researching, check the state next door to see if they printed a guide.

With all this in mind, I pulled out the many guide books that I have in the ACS archives. Here is a summary of what I found.

Canal Society of New York State – The first guide was printed in 1961 for the tour of the Cayuga and Seneca Canal. The early guides are mostly a road log of stops and hand drawn maps that can be very detailed. Beginning in 1980 the guides featured a geology overview by Thomas Grasso, and the amount of content about doubles with 25 to 30 pages. In 1987 the society printed the first 50 page guide, and in 1990 the guide topped the 100 page mark. The first guide to feature color was with the 2009 Erie Canal Aqueducts tour.

The society also published guides for their out of state trips to the Morris Canal in 2002, the Rideau Canal in 2003, the Portage Railroad in 2006 and the C&O in 2014. All the guidebooks have been scanned but none are available as digital downloads. The society has a fairly complete collection of paper copies available for purchase. A listing of their trips can be found here.

Canal Society of Indiana – The society has been hosting study tours since 1982, however, the first published guide was in 1998 with the tour of the Wabash and Erie. Even then, not every trip has a guide. The guides have benefited greatly by having Carolyn Schmidt as the sole editor, and the results are a very uniform style and appearance from trip to trip. These guides are simply fantastic resources and should not be overlooked as they are very comprehensive in what information they contain.

The society has also hosted or co-hosted trips into Ohio eleven times and each of these has a guide. The guides are available online as digital downloads on the website with quite a nice organization by year, county, and canal.

Canal Society of Ohio – I could only find a few copies of guidebooks from the CSO in the American Canal Society archives. So I reached out to Michael Morthorst, CSO president, to see how often the society printed guidebooks for the study tours. He reports that the CSO did print guidebooks for their trips and his own collection dates back to 1988.

In the guides that I have I see the typical variation of quality and content. For example, the 2019 Spring Tour (Circleville to Chillicothe) is quite detailed with 108 pages that include history, maps, and photos. The guide was printed in cooperation with the Chillicothe Restoration Foundation and the quality of the guide certainly reflects that partnership. The other guides in the ACS collection follow the typical format of; introduction, tour stops, maps and references. These have plastic covers, wire or plastic spiral bindings, and average 15 to 30 pages.

Michael notes that there is no central repository for the back issues, however, the CSO website states that reprints of some guides are available by request.

Pennsylvania Canal Society – The PCS and the CSNYS share founding members and thus share some guide book history. Early examples of the guides include a list of stops and some helpful “explainer” drawings/maps. All the examples I have are in the typical 8.5 x 11 inch format. I have not found a comprehensive listing of trips or guides available, although I would expect that the National Canal Museum in Easton has most copies.

Other canal groups and societies have tackled the question of a guide book in the more traditional manner by publishing a comprehensive guide of the entire canal. These guides are usually printed in greater numbers and can be sold at book stores and museums, thus they receive a bit more attention, although you are unlikely to find then on Amazon. But they can still reflect the local knowledge of the author and in that way be very useful to the researcher.

The Virginia Canals and Navigations Society has published 21 “atlases.” These are in a 8.5 x 14 inch format that allow for a very nice presentation of the maps, which are the main feature of the guide. Most of the information is presented as by using topographical maps, overlaid with text blocks and arrows pointing to numerous sites.

The information found between the map pages contains articles on history, people, boats, geology, suggested highway markers, historic articles and recollections and a lot more. These guides were written mostly by Dr. William Trout and include wisdom from his lifetime of study.

The Middlesex Canal Association has a very good canal guide authored by Burt VerPlank. The guide uses a 8.5 x 5 inch format and takes the reader along a tour of the 30 miles of canal from south to north. Large fold out maps make this guide very easy to read and understand as you seek sites hidden in the urban environment of the Middlesex.

In conclusion, these small production study tour guide books can be a rich source of information that might not be found elsewhere, and most come with a decent list of references that could also be useful in directing further research. However, finding them, or simply finding a listing of them, can be a challenge. Be sure to seek them out by contacting the state canal society, local historical societies, libraries and archives.

Also note that the authors of the guide books typically would publish more in depth articles in the society’s newsletter. Be sure to check those as well.

Canal Comments-The Saga at Sandyville, Part 1 – by Terry K. Woods

Terry’s introduction.

The ‘doings’ of the Lessees, those 21 or 23 men who “administered” to the canals from June of 1861 into December of 1878 has always been a bit nebulous. And just where was the demarcation line between the duties of the State Board of Public Works and the Lessees? They both had Board Members and they both had Resident Engineers. These next two columns on the Saga at Sandyville will do nothing to clear things up. You will see, perhaps, that even those ‘on the scene’ were absolutely confused.

In the meantime, now that Spring is here, it is time to get out along the canal routes and find those artifacts and structures that you always felt, “the next time I get out in the field I’ll find it”. Lock 29 on the western division of the S. & B., is featured in the next two columns. That site I’ve found, and lost and found, and, . . .but you get the idea.

SAGA AT SANDYVILLE

James Kelly of Cuyahoga County, had been a prolific contractor on the Sandy & Beaver Canal on all three of its divisions. Then, after the collapse of the Cold Run Reservoir embankment in early 1852, he was hired by the canal company for the unenviable job of “trouble-shooter,” to pay off the ever increasing number of creditors with the ever decreasing amount of incoming funds.

By mid-1853, it had become obvious that no miracle concerning the Sandy & Beaver Canal Company was forthcoming. All the surplus real-estate with any value had already been sold. All that remained was the canal right-away itself and a few unencumbered water rights. Kelly had done what he could by spreading the smaller and smaller amounts of cash that canal tolls brought in from time to time to squelch the screams of the more voracious creditors.

Kelly had probably taken on, and completed, more contracts in building the canal than anyone else. More than half of his payments had been in “company bonds.” Kelly, in his current position was well aware that the canal company was going under and decided that if he wanted anything from the collapse he had better get it quickly.

Therefore, in early 1853, James Kelly initiated a law suit against the Sandy & Beaver Canal Company for his back wages. An avalanche of claims followed and the Sandy & Beaver Canal Company declared bankruptcy on June 28, 1853. On March 6, 1854, at a master commissioner’s sale in New Lisbon, that portion of the Sandy & Beaver Canal within the State of Ohio was divided into 82 Parcels and auctioned off.

As payment for his suit against the company, Kelly asked for, and was awarded, parcels 80, 81 and 82 of the Sandy & Beaver Canal. This line ran from two rods above lock 29 in Sandyville to the junction with the Ohio & Erie Canal in Bolivar, which was approximately six miles in lenght. The deed for this land and water-rights was transferred to Kelly on March 7, 1856.

Sandyville had prospered during its brief encounter with the active Sandy & Beaver Canal. The grist mill at the southern edge of town powered by the canal was a receiver and shipper on the canal, as were several coal mines that had sprung up in the area. A group of local citizens set about to get their link to the outside world reattached. A man by the name of William Nelson appears to have been the spokesman for the group. Shortly after Kelly had received his deed, or perhaps even before, Nelson had contacted the State’s Board of Public Works to ascertain if they had any interest in obtaining that six miles of the S & B as a “feeder” to the Ohio Canal. Their only stipulation was that the State maintain the waterway so it could carry traffic into and out of Sandyville. Kelly sold his S. & B. canal lands and water-rights to the group from Sandyville for $5,000 on August 2, 1856.

The 1912 Topo map. The Ohio and Erie can be seen running through Bolivar.

The Board of Public Works had the waterway examined and surveyed. They reported that the wooden aqueduct across the Tuscarawas River leading to the junction with the Ohio Canal at Bolivar, and the lock at the head of the long slackwater pool below Sandyville, were both in poor condition. In addition, the canal banks had been cut in several places by local residents wishing to regain access to their lands cut off by the canal. After some deliberation, the Board agreed to take over the canal if the banks were first repaired. On December 29, 1856, for the sum of $1.00, the western-most six miles of the Sandy & Beaver Canal became a feeder to and part of the Ohio & Erie Canal.

The final description of the portion of the S & B that became part of the State’s canal system, however, only included that portion from below Lock 29 in Sandyville to Bolivar. That was a small shortening of a bit over 2 rods, but it placed the Sandyville terminus approximately a quarter of a mile below the warehouses in the village. Either that discrepancy went unnoticed or the actual foreshortening didn’t seem that important at the time.

There was some business on that portion of the canal after the turnover. The Public Works report for 1859 stated that up until August of that year the Sandy & Beaver feeder had carried 33,000 bushels of wheat, 41,000 feet of lumber, and 3,213 tons of coal out of the village and 278 barrels of salt, lime and fish and 91,400 feet of lumber into it. The shortened boating season was the result of a collapse of a portion of the wooden aqueduct at Bolivar. A statement from a boatman’s diary in 1863 indicates that at least one trip was made into Sandyville that year.

So Sandyville was connected to the outside world via the Sandy & Beaver Feeder. BUT, in 1868 the following resolution was offered in the Ohio State Congress, . . . . .

“H.R. No. 111: Whereas the citizens of Sandyville and vicinity petitioned the Ohio Legislature authorizing the State of Ohio to adopt, as part of the public works, that portion of the Sandy & Beaver Canal which lies between Bolivar and Sandyville as a navigable feeder to the Ohio Canal; and whereas an Act was passed the 9th. Of April, 1856, adopting it on condition that the owners of said canal should put that part of the canal in good repair, and whereas, in pursuance of the inducement held out by such Legislative Act, and the construction put on it by the people of Sandyville and vicinity, they, for the purpose of having communication with the Ohio Canal, expended $7,000 in buying the right of way, paying (wages?) and putting said feeder in good repair; and whereas, afterwards the Board of Public Works, in their resolution of acceptance, only accepted that portion of the canal between Bolivar and the lock at the head of the slackwater pool, and so construed the law so as not to include the said lock and, whereas, by reason of such constriction the work is entirely valueless to the people of Sandyville and vicinity, as they have no connection with the Ohio Canal and derive no benefit from the expenditure of said money, therefore, “Resolved” – That the committee on Public Works be and is hereby Instructed to inquire into the justice and validity of said claim, and report to the House by Bill or otherwise”.

Such a Bill was rendered by the House during the 1869/70 Session to repair Sandyville Lock just above the Sandy & Beaver feeder and make it passable for canal boats. The Bill also authorized an amount of ‘up to’ $3,000 for the repair of the lock.

The group of Sandyville citizens that had bought that canal section from Kelly and handed it over to the State 14 years before, legally, still owned that section containing the lock that the State had not accepted. The canal above the lock belonged to owners of the Sandyille grist mill. They should have been a part of the current group agitating to repair the lock. Subsequent events, however, proved that wasn’t true. So what came next is an extremely convoluted, though interesting, story – and the subject of a future column.

i Maretta College, Special Collection, transcribed by George S. Hackett, December 05, 2003.

Book Review – The Reservoir War

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.

Terry K. Woods’ Canal Comments – A 2010 Return to the Sugar Creek Crossing Site

I am going to detail a hike I took in January of 2010 to the Sugar Creek Crossing below Dover. I believe this is sort of timely. Members of the Canal Society of Ohio (CSO) and Stark Parks are sitting down to discuss the identity, location and status of the canal artifacts in Stark County that need to be preserved, restored or signed.

One artifact that I believe needs to be preserved (before it falls down) is the Big Sluice to the north of the Stark Parks Craig-Pittman Trailhead just south of Navarre. There are only three of those big sluices that I am aware of on the northern division of the Ohio Canal. Today’s column mentions the second one and it’s fate. I’d like to see something done with the one in Navarre to see that it doesn’t suffer the same.

THE SUGAR CREEK CROSSING (in 2010)^ⁱ

The Ohio and Erie Canal crossed Sugar Creek in slack-water above a dam just south of (now) Dover Ohio. It was a fascinating place and sported a long wooden crib dam, stone dam abutments and a large basin. A guard lock was constructed about a half mile below the crossing and a short sidecut, outlet lock and a refurbished mill dam allowed boats to exit the Ohio Canal, cross the Tuscarawas River and enter the New Philadelphia Lateral Canal through a guard lock.

This is a slide of a postcard showing the crossing at Sugar Creek.

I was shown all this in the early 1970s by my long-time class mate and canal buddy, Richard Williams. He is the same fellow who took me canal hunting in his Piper Apache in the early ‘70s.

The early 1900s attempted rebuild of this division of the Ohio Canal, reduced the size of the basin a bit, replaced the upper stone dam abutment with a concrete big sluice, removed the guard lock, and rebuilt the dam.

This is another slide copy of a postcard.

And by the time I first saw this area, the dam was gone, but any number of very interesting artifacts remained. I went into this area many times and the CSO toured the area in the mid-’80s. Then, the plastics company that owned the area sold to a larger concern and access to this fascinating area was denied.

I had sent a letter to Arizona Chemical in mid December of 2009 asking for permission to get onto their water treatment facility property and check out the remains of the crossing. I received a phone call from a Paul XXXXXXX, the head of Human Resources, and he had me get in contact with a Randy XXXXXXX, who would escort me around the property. I called Randy after the holidays and we agreed to wait until there was a lull in the snowfall. I called him back on January 20th. We set an appointment up for the next day, the 21st. for 10:00am.

I got to the water treatment plant off of State Route 39 about 9:30 and Randy rolled up in his truck about 10:10. He invited me into the truck, so I got my 35mm camera and two throw-away cameras and got in. We drove down an old roadway that was in the canal bed. After about 250 yards, the “roadway” stopped and we got out to continue on foot. There was no longer a real trail, but I knew the artifacts were on the track of a power line so we kept going in a general direction toward Sugar Creek. Finally, after turning to my right a bit, I walked across a slight ridge of maybe 10” to 12” with small stone strewn along it and knew that we had crossed the line of the dam. Old photos of the dam show it to have been some 4 to 5 feet high, stepped, and maybe 200 yards long. ^ⁱⁱ It had evidently been a wooden crib dam. The wood had apparently long ago rotted away and most of the stone in the cribbing had been washed away. Now there is only this slight ridge going in sort of a straight line.

The concrete sluice as seen in 2010. Terry Woods collection.

I figured we had passed the lower dam abutment, so turned to my right and soon came upon it. From this side it is a rather unimpressive stone structure. It is only a dam abutment, however, so doesn’t have a great deal of substance. I was much more impressed with stumbling across it back in the ‘70s from the other direction. I took a couple of photos and slides then we turned to go in the other direction for a look at the other abutment.

I saw sort of a shallow channel with some stone lining along each edge, not too wide, maybe six feet, that may have been the main run-off channel over the dam. Randy spied the other abutment. This abutment was a large concrete sluice that had been part of the early 1900s rebuild. When I was last in here in the early to mid-’80s I had noticed that one corner of this sluice was in a flood channel that had exposed maybe 18” of the wooden pilings. I thought then that this entire structure was in danger of falling over. One section has. It has fallen in toward the main structure. The rest of the rather nice large sluice is still intact, however. The flood channel was running deep and swift making it impossible to get onto the towpath or examine the canal at the creek’s edge. There were the remains of an old wasteway teetering on the edge of the creek when I was last in here and some sort of concrete-filled pipe sticking out of the creek bed. We couldn’t get into that area this trip to check it out.

Although a poor copy, you can see the concrete sluice at the end of the bridge.

I took a number of photos and slides from various angles then turned and took a couple of the dam ridge with the stone structure in the background. There had been a culvert on either side of the slack-water basin to carry runoff back to the river. I looked around a bit for the one on the lower side of the basin, but couldn’t find anything. Back in the ‘80s it was crushed in with the hulk of a 55 Plymouth on top. I didn’t see any Plymouth this time.

Another angle of the sluice as it was in 2010. Terry Woods collection.

We walked a bit toward the river and returned to the truck along a waste-treatment line that had been cleared. It made the trip back to the truck fairly easy. I asked Randy if we could get permission to bring 20 to 25 people in on the April 26 hike. I thought it might make a fun outing for serious folk, but probably isn’t enough to see for the current crowd of CSO tour people. Randy said he would check, but he didn’t sound that confident.^ⁱⁱⁱ

I thanked Randy and gave him a signed copy of my latest book. He had been very friendly and cooperative and asked many intelligent questions about the operation of the artifacts here at the crossing.

I got back in the car and continued on route 39 until it crossed the river, then turned into the old Delphia Motor Inn/Days Inn/Hartford Inn. I drove to its rear and parked along the fence-lined river. The fence began just a short distance to my left so I went around it and walked up along the left bank of the river. I had one throwaway camera and the 35mm camera. I spied the old dam abutment on the right bank of the river about 50 to 75 yards above where the fence started. The abutment was originally to the Baker’s Mill and later for the New Philadelphia Lateral Canal. The dam abutment is easy to see as it is just at the point where the river has broken into the Route 77 “borrow pits”. This would be an easy walk some evening of the tour to let people see an artifact that is readily visible, but one not many people know about. I took a couple of photos and slides, then got back into the car. When I was last in here (1997) there was some stonework also on the left bank. I didn’t scramble down to the river to look (getting way too old for that) and the river was so high, that much of it was probably under water. What was visible on the right bank was a right angle stone support to the old dam.

I then headed for home. I got off at the Strasburg exit and stopped at the Magic Hobby Shop, but didn’t see anything I wanted. I then turned right on 212 and stopped at the Stark Parks Trail Head. Their mailings state they are working on the trail near here. There is a quantity of gravel and fines at the trail head and a parked Green-Frog Dump Truck, but I didn’t see any evidence of a new trail branching off from this trail head.^{^iv}

I got back home shortly before Noon. A pretty worthwhile hike from a personal standpoint, but no public access was obtained. I hope we can do something in the future to make sure that the fate of the Big Sluice below Navarre does not follow that of the one down below Dover.

i From notes made of a hike taken on January 21, 2010.

ii That’s what my notes say, but I think it was closer to 75 or 100 yards long.

iii We didn’t receive permission.

iv The new trail branches off some distance to the north and follows the berm bank of the canal to the

aqueduct site.

Terry K. Woods’ Canal Comments – The Sugar Creek Crossing

Terry begins with;

Hi Guys:

One of the perks of wring this column, with no editors and no publishers, is that I get to write what I want the way I want it. That is also one of the downsides. I have no one to make sure I write a good one.

This column was supposed to be a straight historical description of the Sugar Creek Crossing just below Canal Dover. Instead, it reads more like, “How a spent several summer vacations”. Anyway, here it is. Hope you like it.

THE SUGAR CREEK CROSSING

In the 306+ miles of canal between Lake Erie to the Ohio River, the Ohio Canal crossed over various streams fourteen times using an aqueduct, and eight times in a slack-water pool built up behind a dam^ⁱ. While an aqueduct is an imposing structure and slack-water pools are probably not considered such, the slack-water crossing of Sugar Creek below Canal Dover on the Ohio Canal has always held a particular fascination for many an avid canal buff.

The dam, itself, is described rather tersely in the Canal Commissioner’s Report for the year 1832.

“Ninety-Three miles south of Cleveland the Ohio Canal crosses Sugar Creek, a major tributary of the Tuscarawas River in the pool of a dam, this dam is constructed of a double row of closely spaced pilings, filled between the rows with stone, and brush, and gravel, and covered with plank, laid upon plates resting upon and secured to the heads of each row of piles with an extensive apron of hewn timber and abutments of cut stone founded upon bearing piles, the waters of the stream may consequently be commanded for the use of the canal, but the supply of water furnished by the feeder at Zoar is so abundant that it has been found unnecessary to appropriate any part of them to the purpose of navigation.”

1875 map of Canal Dover from the Everts Combination Atlas Map of Tuscarawas County.

I was first shown the remains of the Sugar Creek Crossing in 1967 by an avid canal buff named Richard Williams. Richard had a plane and several times we went “canal looking” from the air. I’ve had at least one column on these trips. This time though, we scrambled through barriers of high, thick brush to find the actual site. I was into that site several times again during the 1980s and ‘70s.

The crossing had been updated during the 1908-09 rebuild and the northern stone dam abutment replaced with a large concrete sluice (similar to the one in the canal towpath in the Craig-Pittman Trailhead just south of Navarre). In its most recent iteration, the dam was paced off to be some 50 to 60 yards long. That new Sugar Creek Dam and Sluice was constructed in 1909 (contract let on Oct 13, 1908) by Clark and Meldy for $5,761.71.

Apparently, the dam remained as a ‘refurbished’ wood-crib structure as little more than a raised line of fine stone marked it’s former location when I searched for it. The first time I was in that area alone and rediscovered the one remaining stone dam abutment, I approached it from the creek side and was quite impressed with the find.

A guard lock was located some 2,300 feet below the dam. It raised northbound boats to the momentary level of the slack-water crossing and protected the lower canal from high water, but it was, apparently, removed during the 1900s rebuild of the dam and crossing.

It took me quite a while to determine why the guard lock was so far below the slack-water crossing. Then, while perusing some Board of Public Works Reports, I ran across an item mentioning the need to repair the outlet lock for the New Philadelphia Lateral Canal. That sidecut exited the Ohio Canal just above the guard lock above a rebuild of the old Baker Mill Dam. The guard lock was required to be so far away from the crossing so that the Lateral could exit the main canal in the Sugar Creek slack-water level

In 1976, Don Baker, a reporter from the New Philadelphia Times-Reporter asked me to guide him to each of the remaining canal structures in Tuscarawas County for a Sunday Supplement segment he was preparing. We did this run in the month of July, and foliage was very high, almost too high, to get into the sites, let alone take coherent color photos, but the resulting Sunday piece was a good one.

1977 visit to the site. Terry Woods collection.

The Sugar Creek Crossing was one of those sites. The Union Camp Chemical Company was then occupying the entire area containing the crossing artifacts and had constructed some sort of processing plant and a cooling-water pond near the southern property line. The plant was vacant except for one security personnel the hot Sunday afternoon we made our journey and he was more than happy to relieve the tedium by showing us around. I gained a ‘perk’ by picking his brain concerning the New Philadelphia Lateral Canal which this security guard had swam in during his boyhood.

In 1982, Ted Kasper and I led a Canal Society of Ohio tour of Tuscarawas County. Ted gained the friendship of a gentleman from New Philadelphia whose name I no longer remember, but happened to be the Public Relations Director for the Union Camp Chemical Company. This man gave us complete freedom to visit the canal artifacts adjacent to the chemical company. Naturally, it was a high point of the tour.

I spent a great deal of time scouring that area in preparation for the tour. I came in through the chemical plant access road many times and once I even came in along the railroad tracks from the north, but couldn’t get onto the actual dam site from that direction as Sugar Creek was flowing strong and wide across my path. After the 1913 flood had destroyed the dam, the creek cut a new channel just to the north of the “new” concrete sluice.

During those last few visits onto the site I discovered that, during flood times, the creek was undercutting one wall of the sluice. At least 18” of the supporting wooden pilings were exposed. I was fearful that half of that concrete structure might soon collapse.

The rebuild had included concrete waste-ways about 30 yards before and after the dam, plus culverts to carry any surplus rain water away from the structure into the near-by Tuscarawas River. During one of my trips there in the ‘80s I discovered a wrecked 1955 Plymouth lying in the south culvert access ditch.

That whole area has been closed to the general public since the late ‘80s. Unfortunately, I may have been the cause of that censure. Shortly after the tour, I wrote to the head of the chemical plant suggesting that the company and the Canal Society of Ohio work together to get that area north of their plant declared a National Historic Landmark. Apparently, the company officials felt any such designation might jeopardize their work area and the Sugar Creek Slack-water Crossing was closed off. For that I am truly sorry.

I did get into that area one more time. In December of 2009 I wrote to the chemical company asking for permission to explore the area. The CSO was again planning a tour of Tuscarawas County and I wanted to include that area. On January 10, 2010, I was escorted around the area by a company official. He was quite gracious and let me see whatever I wanted to see, but access for the tour was denied. I took notes of that last excursion and may use it as a column in the near future.

i A GLOSSARY OF TERMS of the Ohio & Erie Canal, Terry K. Woods, KENT STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2008.

The Society Newsletter – An Often Overlooked Resource

A few years ago, I was given a collection of canal research materials, and in all those boxes were neatly organized and bound newsletters of many canal societies. It is a remarkable collection. So this is a reminder that if you are conducting research on the history of any canal in North America, don’t overlook this invaluable wealth of information that has been presented in the journals, bulletins and newsletters of the state and regional canal societies and organizations.

To call these publications newsletters is often a disservice. The articles feature exploration and research conducted by dedicated volunteers who were engineers, academics and people who had spent a good deal of their lives researching the topics. And the subject matter is fairly wide ranging, from trip recaps to in-depth study into the workings of a lock or reservoir, or the biography of people who worked on the canals. The pages capture the loss of canal sites, the rise of the rail-to-trail movements and the preservation of canal remains. Many of these feature photos and maps drawn by the author. In short, they are as wide ranging as the membership tended to be. Most also carry some news and organizational business.

Most of the societies published on a two to four issues a year schedule. Beginning in the 2000s, some groups reduced their issues, and opted to use their website and blog space for content. Others, like the Canal Society of Indiana, went to the fully digital model, offering everything online and making their latest issue available to all, members and nonmembers alike. There continues to be a debate about the print verses digital model, but most of these groups continue to print and mail a newsletter at least once per year.

These publications were mailed to the membership and often to libraries and archives that might find them useful. Here is a listing of what is available and how to find them.

American Canal Society (ACS)

Name of publication – American Canals

Format / size – 8.5 by 11

Date of first issue- Spring 1972

Issues per year (currently) – 4

Publication History – American Canals was begun by Thomas Hahn with the purpose of providing and sharing information between the many state and regional canal groups. The issues carried reprints from other newsletters, and new research on canals and navigations in states that did not have canal societies.

Index available – Digital index on website

Digital copies available – All issues, except most recent, available as downloadable pdfs.

Repository / Archives – Currently at a private home.

Other Information- Over the years, eight Best From American Canals have been published as separate publications. These reprint many of the more in-depth articles that had appeared in the quarterly newsletter.

C&O Canal Association

Name of publication – Along the Towpath

Format / size – 8.5 by 11

Date of first issue – March 1970

Issues per year – Quarterly

Publication History – The first issue was published in March 1970 as Volume 1, Number 1. The Association had printed and mailed a few newsletters in the 1960 labeled as The Level Walker. These were printed “as needed,” and five issues were mailed. Since 1970, the Association has published on a quarterly schedule. The website notes that the newsletter contains information on upcoming events and current issues concerning the C&O Canal National Historical Park, as well as photographs and historical articles.

Index available – No, however, there is a index to the articles written by Dr. Karen Gray on the C&O Canal Association website.

Digital copies available – Yes, as pdf downloads

Repository / Archives –

Other Information – It should be noted that as a National Historical Park, there is an abundance of information available online. This listing is for the newsletter of the C&O Canal Association only.

Canal Society of Indiana (CSI)

Name of publication – The Tumble

Format / size – Digital

Date of first issue – October 1981

Issues per year – monthly

Publication History – From the 40^th Anniversary Newsletter, we get this history. The first issue was published as Indiana Waterways, which was called Volume 1, Issue 1, October 1981. The name was changed in October, 1989, to Indiana Canals, which was then called Volume 1, Number 1. In 2002, Indiana Canals was combined with a monthly newsletter and rebranded as The Hoosier Packet, which was offered as a monthly publication. Then in 2017, the society elected to go to an all online format under the name The Tumble.

Index available – There is an online listing by subject, and the society has a index that is not online.

Digital copies available – All issues of The Tumble and the Hoosier Packet are available as pdf downloads. The 1986-2002 Newsletter and the 1981- 1988 Indiana Waterways will be online soon.

Repository / Archives – Contact the society by way of the website.

Canal Society of New Jersey (CSNJ)

Name of publication – On The Level

Format / size – 8.5 by 11

Date of first issue – September 1969

Issues per year – 2/3

Publication History – The Towpath Post was the first newsletter from the Canal Society. Volume 1, #1 is dated September 1969. The last issue of The Towpath Post was the Spring/Summer 1977. The first issue of On the Level was Spring/Summer 1978.

Index available – No

Digital copies available – Some digital copies are available. These date from 2007 to the present.

Repository / Archives – By appointment only. Use the contact form on the website.

Canal Society of New York State (CSNYS)

Name of publication – Bottoming Out

Format / size – 8.5 by 11

Date of first issue – October 1956

Issues per year – 1/2

Publication History – In 2011, a history of the publication noted that the first issue of the Bottoming Out was dated October, 1956. At that time, the format was 5 by 7, and the first issue ran 8 pages. The name at that time was; Bottoming Out, An informal record of study and exploration by members of the Canal Society of New York State. In Issue #3, which adopted the title used today Bottoming Out, Useful and Interesting Notes Collected For the Members of The Canal Society of New York State. Unfortunately, the publication of the newsletter has taken place with little regularity. From 1956 to 1960, Bottoming Out was published on a fairly regular schedule. Some of the issues were treated as double issues, July 1957 was numbered 3 – 4, and July 1958 was 7 – 8, as were others up to 1965. Some years were entirely missed, as was 1961, 1963 and 1964. After issue 23 – 24 in 1965, the BO was not published until 1986. One issue was put out in 1986 and 1987, when the BO went back into hibernation. In 1993, the newsletter was brought back with issue #27 and it was published on a regular schedule up through issue #42 in 2001. No issues were published from 2002 until the Spring of 2004. At that time, the format was changed to a 8.5 by 11 size, and the familiar yellow cover was gone. Instead a glossy white paper was used to highlight newer advances in the printing and publishing field. Issues were printed during 2004 and 2005. No issues were published in 2006. Issue #46 came out in 2007 and the publication has maintained a fairly regular schedule since then.

Index available – No

Digital copies available – No, but the society plans to begin this service in the future.

Repository / Archives – The Samuel Center, 38 Rochester St., Port Byron, NY

Canal Society of Ohio (CSO)

Name of publications- Towpaths, Society Newsletter

Format / size- Towpaths is a 5 by 8 booklet, while the newsletter is 8.5 x 11.

Date of first issue- 1972

Issues per year- 2

Publication History- The Society prints both a newsletter and a journal. The newsletter carries recent news, society and trip information, board news and such, while the journal is more of a scholarly publication with in-depth research. Both are mailed to the membership at the same time. At what point they began this practice is not known as the Newsletters are not assigned a issue or volume number. The first issue in the ACS archives is from October 1985.

Towpaths first appeared as a mimeographed newsletter in August 1961. A total of eight mimeographed newsletters were issued up to November of 1962. Few of the issues were numbered or dated. The first offset printed eight-page bulletin appeared in January 1963. Publication has continued uninterrupted since. The issues of 1963, 1964, 1965 and Number One of 1966 are without volume number, identified only by issue number and year date. With issue Two, 1966, volume numbering was adopted and page numbering was carried through the year’s issues. The 1966 issues were designated Volume IV, recognizing the previous three years issuance of the bulletin. Towpaths has been expanded to twelve and occasionally to sixteen pages, as material available warranted.

The Society Newsletter, which is simply called the “Newsletter,” also includes information that shouldn’t be overlooked by the researcher.

Index available- Yes, 1963-2015 is available as a pdf file.

Digital copies available- No, although the newsletter, 2012-2015, can be found on the old CSO website by using the Wayback Machine.

Repository / Archives- The CSO website notes that they use the University of Akron as their repository. An online finding guide to all the CSO materials in the collection is available on the University’s website, The Towpaths issues that are available are between 1961 and 2011. This collection also lists a Table of Contents 1961-2003.

Other Information- An 50^th anniversary edition of Towpaths was printed in 2011 as a separate publication in a large 8.5 by 11 format.

Middlesex Canal Association (MCA)

Name of publication- Towpath Topics

Format / size- 5 by 8 booklet

Date of first issue- October 1963

Issues per year- 2

Publication History- The website notes that first issue of the Middlesex Canal Association newsletter was published in October 1963. Originally named Canal News, the first issue featured a contest to name the newsletter. A year later, the newsletter was renamed Towpath Topics. The number of issues per year has varied. In the years 1963 – 1982, typically 3 times per year; 1983 –2008, typically 2 times per year; 2009 — present, 3 times per year. The intent of publication timing has usually been to have the publication in readers hands two weeks prior to the beginning of the Winter, Spring and Fall meetings, canal section walks and full canal-length bike rides.

Index available- A Table of Contents is available online at the website, which lists the subject matter by issue. The page is searchable by using the “ctrl-F” feature and entering a search term.

Digital copies available- All issues are available as pdf downloads. Since 2019, the pdf’s graphics are offered in color or in black and white.

Repository / Archives- Middlesex Canal Association museum, North Billerica, Massachusetts. Contact robert@middlesexcanal.org

Pennsylvania Canal Society (PCS)

Name of publication – Canal Currents

Format / size – 8.5 by 11

Date of first issue – Winter 1968

Issues per year – 4

Publication History – The first issue of Canal Currents is labeled as Issue 3. Issues 1 and 2 were simple organizational newsletters titled Newsletter of the Pennsylvania Canal Society. The new name was introduced in Issue 3 and has remained so since. The issues were printed on glossy paper stock which gives great clarity to the images.

Index available – The Fall 1987, Issue 80, of Canal Currents has a subject, author and title index for all the issues 1- 79. The society is reportedly working to update this.

Digital copies available – No

Repository / Archives – The PCS uses the National Canal Museum in Easton as their archives. Wendi Blewett, museum collections manager 484-215-6235, Martha Capwell Fox, historian 610-923-3548. email: archives@delawareandlehigh.org

Canadian Canal Society

Name of publication- Canals Canada

Format / size- 8.5 by 11

Date of first issue- January 1983

Date of last issue- Spring 2017

Issues per year- 2

Publication History-The Canadian Canal Society was active between 1982 and 2017. Canals Canada was published twice a year, mostly in the spring and fall. Some years, only a single issue was published and the years of 2010 and 2011 were skipped entirely.

Index available- none available

Digital copies available- No, although digital copies will be on file at Brock University.

Repository / Archives- Brock University Library –archives@brocku.ca

Other Information- The Canadian Canal Society dissolved effective October 29, 2020.

Virginia Canals and Navigation Society (VC&NS)

Name of publication- The Tiller

Format / size- 8.5 by 11

Date of first issue- Spring 1980

Issues per year- 1

Publication History- The Tiller has been published on a varied schedule. From 1980 to 1989, there were 3 issues per year. Beginning in 1990, the journal was published quarterly until 2011. During this time period, some issues were printed as “double issues.” Beginning in 2013, the schedule was reduced to one issue per year.

Index available- Indexes available for 1980 – 1995

Digital copies available- No

Repository / Archives- 3806 S. Amherst Hwy, Madison Heights, VA 24572

In Conclusion

This is a listing of the larger statewide canal groups. There are also local and regional groups that should not be overlooked if you happen to be conducting a “deep dive” into a specific canal. The editor would be happy to add the information about any group that has published newsletters that might be of assistance to the canal researcher.

The Changing Landscape of Lock 2 in Akron, Ohio

The history of a canal doesn’t stop when the canal is abandoned. As long as the canal, or parts of it are present, what happens after maintenance stops becomes part of the story.

Canal historians have been aware of this and have been keeping track of the changing landscapes. By finding a vantage point and returning year after year to document the site, the changes to the landscape can be recorded. And if the canal or lock or aqueduct is gone one year, well then, at least it was documented for the future generations.

Terry Woods worked in Akron and was able to document the changes to Lock 2, mostly from West State Street, between 1964 and 1986. He also wandered down to the locks and took a couple shots of what was to the north.

1980- Terry labeled this one as “destroying the lock.” Maybe he thought that they were.

1982- This was from the south side. You can see the West State bridge and another building that is no longer present.

1967- looking north from lock. The building appears to have been built over the canal route.

This last one is from Google Maps. I “drove” over West State and looked south. The changes are remarkable.

If I run across any more in the Woods collection I will be sure to add them to this post.

Terry K Woods Canal Comments- Driving Along The Tuscarawas in 1907

Terry’s introduction- Last Saturday the Canal Society of Ohio held its annual spring tour of a portion of Ohio Canal Land. This tour ran from Newcomerstown on the Ohio & Erie to Coshocton then up the Walhonding Canal to the Muskingum Conservancy’s 1935 “answer” to the 1913 flood – The Mohawk Dam.

The first portion of the tour went from Coshocton along the River Route (there is a shorter Hill Route) through Canal Lewisville to Newcomerstown. As luck would have it, I recently ran across something I’ve had in my files for many years, an account of a motor tour from Coshocton to Newcomerstown in 1907! Apparently I had never read it thoroughly before as, buried in its contents, was reference to a mill at Wild Turkey Lock (No. 25) and another one, probably at Lock 24.

Anyway, I thought you might like to have a look at the Ohio Canal, the roads, and the Tuscarawas River in the wild (then and still little bit now) section of Coshocton County.

UP THE TUSCARAWAS – 1907.^ⁱ

John promised to meet us at the corner Main and Forth Streets at 7am sharp, but we knew that was to avoid contention. Seven is not on his day trick. His folks have no knowledge of his ever having seen the sun as early as seven. If he had his way he’d have it rise at 9 instead of 5.

By an extraordinary struggle with the bed covers, he managed to turn the corner at 8:15, but not with that dash and exuberance of spirits characteristic of him when a party of the other sex awaits him. His look seemed to say that this thing is going to be mighty monotonous with nothing but men. And he began to recite his fears as to one of the tires, a leak in the water tank, the weather, the obstinacy of the sparker and other vicissitudes of autoing; but to no avail, for we insisted on going at all hazards.

We started up the River Road for West Lafayette. The Hill Road is the shorter; but the camera whispered something about the river, the canal and the old locks – the picturesque things.

John held the throttle. Ed puffed clouds of smoke from his two-fors, with nothing on his mind but a derby, while C. M. and the writer kept a sharp lookout for the pretty spots.

We dashed across the Tuscarawas river bridge into that uncertain triangular piece of land between Coshocton and Roscoe and the Tuscarawas and Walhonding rivers, known as “The Forks.” Circling around the mill, we started up the river bottoms along the fields of corn, but not without a look back over our shoulders at picturesque Roscoe, holding on to the steep hillside.

Roscoe is the quaint old canal metropolis of Coshocton county, now more of a residential adjunct to Coshocton.

The water power from the Walhonding canal rolls the wheels of two flouring mills and a planning mill only, but is being harnessed by the State for greater things. The Coshocton Electric Light Company will build a mammoth power plant where the water spills over into the river below.^ⁱⁱ

Roscoe always appeals to the artist, with its quaint, old early-canal-day buildings backed up against the canal. Much oil and water-color has been spread over its scenes; and being stuck up on a hillside, it affords some remarkable birdseye views of three rivers, two canals, three basins, an aqueduct and a railway trestle, to say nothing of the hills and valleys leading out in various directions, and the busy city of Coshocton across the two rivers.

The Forks is rich in Indian history. The two races met here in the early days, but did not always harmonize and go off together as peacefully as the Walhonding and the Tuscarawas into the Muskingum below. Much blood was shed in the primeval forests of this neighborhood.

The Forks is near the site of the capital of the Delawares. Here it was the objective point of the Bouquet treaty in 1764 and the scene of the famous Bouquet expedition of the War of the Revolution, sometimes known as the Coshocton Campaign. While up along the valleys of the Walhonding, Tuscarawas and Muskingum are many other points of interest in Indian history, as well as several evidences of the Mound Builders time.

A few explosions of gasoline and we were in Canal Lewisville, a little canal hamlet with enough of the ramshackle to make a good picture. We stopped the automobile just right for a flock of geese on the towing path to pose beautifully and kept their eyes on Ed as they were requested.

The run from Canal Lewisville to the West Lafayette bridge is a delightful one. First the road is on one side of the canal, and then the other while the river whips up close one minute and the next shies off around that big bend then disappears among the Sycamores. Among the refreshing local places that marked our progress up the canal are McGuire’s Grove, Wild Turkey lock, Rush Island Pond and Shaw’s Bottoms.

Wild Turkey Lock was once the seat of a flouring mill. The writer remembers in his boyhood some delightful trips to the mill with the “hired hand.” The turtles slipped into the water so interestingly, and the canal boats in those days pointed their prows around the bend more majestically than a big ship breaks over the horizon into New York harbor now, from the standpoint of the same observer.

Leaving the canal bank and turning south at the river bridge, near the mouth of White Eyes creek, we made a bee line for West Lafayette, passing Plain Hill – an eminence set out on the plain like a long mound, from which peculiarity it gets its name.

West Lafayette is a thriving town of a thousand people, and has two enamel and two wooden novelty factories. Besides, it is a college town, the seat of West Lafayette College, a well known, but youthful institution of higher learning. West Lafayette has a splendid location – a high gravelly plain, surrounded by a beautiful framework of gentle hills about a mile away, both north and south, and without a “wash” or other harsh lines on them to mar the land-scape. To the writer, it has another charm. It is his home – the effulgence which does not depend upon rural beauty or commercial progress.

Going directly east from West Lafayette we went through that part of the Tuscarawas valley known as White Eyes Plains, a valley from a mile to nearly two miles wide, fine farm land and thickly settled.

But for the picturesque we turned off at Waggoner’s Corner for the river and the canal, and more particularly to the old canal town of Orange, which now has but eight families. In fact it never had a metropolitan population. As a post office, the town of Orange was first known as White Eyes Plain, and later Evansburgh. But now a rural route has invaded the place and made it unnecessary to dignify some citizen with the title of postmaster. Here we saw signs of the revival of the old canal, in the building of a new swing bridge. Up the canal farther the improvements are more frequent. The little canal towns expect to see more of the mules again.

The West Lafayette to Orange trip could be made by another route, passing the famous Blue Hole, The Falls, the lock where once stood the Emerson mill and other picturesque delights of the eye along a popular stretch of river for fishermen and campers.

A little east of Orange is the site of a much older town, Evansburg, long since obliterated by old age and a cyclone – once quite a busy place, whither farmers brought their wheat to be shipped out on the canal.

From Orange we turned back on The Plains, passing the old “Rock Fort,” a small stone building with rifle portholes through its walls, now very old and crumbling. It has received a good deal of attention in recent years from the photographers and historically inclined. It is said by some to have been built by the Evanses, the first settlers; yet the scions of that family seem to know nothing about it. Its mystery is its charm, and we have no disposition to investigate too far for fear that no Indians were ever shot from its portholes and that its purpose was more mill than blood.

Passing Isleta, a neat one-store hamlet on the Pennsylvania railroad, we flew up the Plains through clouds of dust towards Newcomerstown.

West of Newcomerstown we struck the Antietem of river destruction known as the Miskimen Bottoms. Here the river has changed its course every time it looked like rain, and keeps the Coshocton county commissioners perplexed almost as much as their second terms. The first mark of it is the long double-barreled Miskimen wooden bridge, spanning a pasture field. It is a Puckingham Truss and was built by the Hagertys of Nashport, in the fifties.

From this bridge we follow a big “fill” where some adjoining farms have been hauled in to put the road above high water. Next we strike the iron bridge, the second built on this spot, the first going down in the flood of 1903. Here the river makes angry swipes at both ends of the bridge and has drained all Central Ohio of piling and sandstone, and is still whipping her tail in her violent demands for more appropriations. At this point there are in operation several teams. Making a short cut in the river and at the same time making a road above high water for nearly a half mile at the other end of the bridge. And an abutment for another span of the bridge is now being built.

A little further east we cross a fill through a pool of deep blue water. This marks the spot of another old wooden bridge, which spanned the Tuscarawas in one of its fickle moods in the Miskimen Bottoms.

Newcomerstown is a growing town of nearly four thousand people. It has one immense factory, the Clew & Company pipe works, which employ several hundred men and a file factory, some brick factories and other smaller concerns. It has two newspapers, two banks, a new park donated by George Mulvane and many other city airs.

This town gets its name from a tradition. The old chief of the Indian village at the upper end of the present site of the town brought home from one of his expeditions a white wife, number two who was called the “newcomer.” Wife number one was not pleased with the situation and effectively used a tomahawk on the newcomer, thus establishing a good healthy tradition.

Three or four miles east of Newcomerstown is the site of a depopulated mining town called Glasgow, a little off the Port Washington Road. It was a settlement in connection with an iron mine which was opened there by a Scotch company along in the seventies. The mine proved a failure. It is said the iron cost $2.50 per ton more than it brought. The young men in charge were sons of the rich Scotch owners and spent money lavishly. One of them was a Coates, of the Coates thread manufacturing people of Glasgow. A well known Newcomerstown man tells of them paying him five dollars for holding their horses while they called on some friends. In time the rich fathers grew tired of the way things were going and stopped the flow of gold, which, it is said, had reached nearly three millions of dollars. At one time this little village of Glasgow had one thousand people.

Just this side of Port Washington, a mile or so, we passed the site of the little Norman settlement of Salem, where some authorities claim was born the first white child in Ohio. There is nothing left to mark the place.

Port Washington is another little Tuscarawas valley town of about five hundred people. It has a nicely shaded one-hundred-feet main street and an open square. It did have two woodwork factories. Both are now in ashes. It is a canal “port,” but the Pennsylvania railroad is nowadays getting the most travel.

Leaving Port Washington, we continued up the valley, the road keeping north of the canal, on the opposite side from the river. There is no special mark of industry before reaching Lock 17, except the Buchler Bro’s tile works, which is as isolated from any town as a sheep barn. The drive is just rural scenery – corn, wheat, canal, river, hills, wild flox, elderberries, cat tails, cattle and pond lilies.

Lock 17 is a hamlet with a mill, a store and a railroad station, and barely enough people to keep the village storekeeper from getting lonesome rainy days and Saturday nights. Here the general farming is varied somewhat by tomatoes and the like, and there is a big glass covered house on the hillside for the early growth of tomato plants and lettuce.

One mile farther, we reach our destination, Ganadenhutten, and dinner, which latter function was delayed because of so much photography en route and an hour and a half’s perplexity near Newcomerstown over the loss of a bolt. When one loses a bolt of an automobile he has a much greater respect for horses and other beasts of burden.

Leaving the village hotel we stopped at the local cemetery and the monuments to the over 90 ‘converted’ Christian Indians who were massacred by Pittsburgh militiamen.

Our return trip was almost as refreshing as the first. Up the Tuscarawas and down the Tuscarawas are two different panoramas. Either is charming in its variety. You pass the vestibule train and the weary canal boat. You pass the palatial home and the log cabin, covered with the wild trumpet vine. You ride along broad sweeps of waving corn and you hug some hillside under the shade of the oaks and the projecting coal chutes and berry bushes.

Variety – charming variety, everywhere. No moment do you know the full charm of the scene that will greet you around the turn as you fly along the Tuscarawas Valley.

As we ran down the Plains it was nearing sunset. The rabbits were bolder, and the lovers, too. The latter sat closer as the sun was going down. Some of the worsted had a continuous effect over the buggy seat, which situation had to be readjusted when the horse began to recognize the automobile, but the love of one young swain near Port Washington was sufficient to hold his horse with only one hand.

As the evening shades were growing deep, we reached “the Experimental Farm,” the home of the writer, and John, Ed, and C. M. went on their last eight miles by the Hill Road to our starting point, Coshocton.

i Up The Tuscarawas, by Harry Ferguson. OHIO MAGAZINE, March, 1907 Pgs 422-427.

ii The water from the Walhonding Canal emptied into Roscoe Basin.

Canal Comments- The Last Ohio Canal Boatman on the Miami and Erie Canal, by Terry K. Woods

Editor’s note- The late Dr. Karen Grey coined a phrase called “Zombie History,” where incorrect history is handed down through the generations, and it is accepted and repeated as truth. Terry does a bit of Zombie History killing in this Canal Comments about the “last” boatman on the Miami and Erie Canal. Here is his article with his own introduction.

————————————————————-

A week or so ago I ran across an item on the Internet titled, the Last Ohio Canal Boat. I copied it in the hope of using it as a column. BUT, the history was so inaccurate that I thought it might have been written as a “joke”. In this account the number of locks mentioned between Akron and Cleveland were wrong. And it stated the first boat on the Ohio Canal left Akron on July 1st, when it is well documented that it left Akron the day before the opening ceremonies of that first stretch of the Ohio Canal on July 4th.

AND, the author of that “joke piece” stated that “the clarinet became the instrument of the canal.” I, personally can’t imagine a canal boatman giving up his Banjo or Violin for a clarinet, or even recognizing one.

But. subsequent browsing through the Internet produced a couple of articles that contained a bit on “The last Boatman on the Miami & Erie Canal”. So. I’ve written today’s column using that topic and the information from those two articles, plus a bit of general knowledge about the Miami & Erie Canal.

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THE LAST OHIO CANAL BOATMAN ON THE MIAMI & ERIE CANAL^ⁱ

There was no ceremony and little notice when the last canal boat pulled out of Hamilton over 100 years ago. In fact, the man who claimed to have been the captain on that final run, later, wasn’t entirely sure of the exact date when he, Bertus Havens, tried to recall that unheralded experience on the Miami & Erie Canal.

“She was the LADY HAMILTON, built at a boat yard in Hamilton” (now considered a suburb of Cincinnati) as was stated in a letter Bertus wrote in 1974, recalling what he believed to be that last trip from Hamilton.

In a later interview Haven’s stated that, “I pulled her from what is now the intersection of High Street and Erie Highway here in Hamilton, . . . down to Lockland’s Collector’s Locks. There, another crew took her down to Cincinnati, just below 12th. Street.” After her cargo was unloaded, wheels were placed under the LADY HAMILTON and she was towed the short distance to the Ohio River. From there she was transported to Chicago for service on the Illinois & Michigan Canal.

Havens, who rather enjoyed his self-proclaimed title of the “last boatman on the Miami & Erie Canal” was born on January 27, 1882 in Hamilton, when the canal was already in decline. It had been opened from Middletown south to Hamilton by August of 1827, and later extended to Cincinnati. Eventually, through a series of extensions, the canal connected the Ohio River at Cincinnati to Lake Erie at Toledo.

The Miami Canal was begun with a ground-breaking on July 21, 1825 on Daniel Doty’s farm, then south of Middletown. By August 1827, trips between Hamilton and Middletown were possible. The canal reached Cincinnati later that year. Eventually, through two expansion projects, the canal connected the Ohio River at Cincinnati with Lake Erie at Toledo. In January, 1849, the Ohio State Legislature renamed the Miam Canal and the various extensions, as the Miami & Erie Canal.

The Miami & Erie Canal experienced a great “run of traffic” both freight and passengers for a number of years. But in 1851, the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton Railroad was completed and the bulk of passengers and freight in the area soon were being transferred from the canal to the railroad, and traffic on 249 mile long Miami & Erie Canal fell off drastically.

There was an attempted rebuild of the Miami & Erie and the northern section of the Ohio & Erie from 1905 through 1909. But the appropriations, and public support ran out at the end of the 1909 construction season and the rebuild was not continued. Then the devastating March 1913 flood ended all hopes of resuming long distance traffic on Ohio’s towpath canals.

Havens, at age 21, was in Troop H, 8th U.S. Cavalry, at Jefferson Barracks, south of St. Louis, about to begin an 18 month tour in the Philippines. Later, he was a mounted policeman in Cheyenne, Wyoming, before returning to Hamilton to work on the Miami & Erie Canal in its final years.

That portion of the canal Havens worked on was near the end of its lifetime when he worked on it. “The traffic was light and about to end”, he said. “Drivers were being paid $18.00 a month, plus board, while I was employed on the canal.

“I worked for awhile with what they called the ‘Electric Mule’, which was a failure,” he recalled. “They tried to pull two and three boats at a time, which was O.K. if they went slow, each boat behind the other.”

“But when they would try to go fast, it would push all the water ahead of the boats, and then the rear boats slid on the muddy bottom and the tow line would break. Then the boats would stop, the water would rush back, and the boats would just bob around.”

The Electric Mules were small electric-powered railway locomotives used in an attempt to replace horses and mules to pull canal boats. This new system also required the installation of rails and overhead trolley wires along the towpath. The rails also interfered with the easy passing of standard horses and mules.

Havens apparently left the canal after his “Last Canal Boatman“ trip and was later employed by the U.S. Navy as an instrument maker for 30 years, working at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii from 1940 to 1952.

Bertus Garfield Havens died on November 12, 1981 in Campbell California, less than three months before his 100th birthday. He is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Hamilton under a tombstone that proudly proclaims the he was the “Last of the Canal Boatmen” on the Miami & Erie Canal!

BUT! I can’t wonder about the men that “took over” the LADY HAMILTON” on those final few miles into Cincinnati back in 1907 or 08.

AND! Additional research has uncovered a small paragraph in a piece put on the Internet by the Butler County Lane Library that states, in part, “Freight boats disappeared from the canal by the early 1900s, and long-distance passenger service vanished before that. And then the 1913 flood demolished a number of upstream locks and destroyed miles of the canal’s channel. It is believed that a final excursion boat on the Cincinnati section of the canal was made hosting a party for a gathering of the “Free Settlers,” a society made up exclusively of men, and apparently dedicated to “the proposition” of beer drinking. That voyage began, on July 27, 1917, “fittingly”, at the Gerke Brewery on the canal’s Plumb Street Bend, and ended at Bruckman’s, near the Ludlow Aqueduct”.

But since the names of the boatmen who took the LADY HAMILTON down to Cincinnati, and any captain of the beer drinker’s craft is lost in antiquity, let’s all say that Bertus Garfield Haven was the “Last Boatmen on the Miami & Erie Canal”. After all, it says so on his tombstone!

i Much of the information for this column came from, “Last Miami-Erie Canal Boatman”, By Jim Blount, and “MIAMI-ERIE CANAL” – The Lane Library, Butler County, both copied from the internet on February 1, 2022.

Sandy and Beaver Notes from Vodrey and Gard

Elsewhere on this site you will find a post about selling some recently discovered books; The Sandy and Beaver Canal, written by William H. Vodrey and Max Gard. Along with the books came a small folder with some notes the men had gathered as they researched the canal. It is a mix of hotel reservation notes, some lock locations and a listing of canal boats and their masters. For those researching the canal, this might have clues to potential research locations.

These are all in pdf files, so you will need to click on the link. Each file has anywhere from 2 to 5 pages.

001- Miscellaneous notes

002- Paper mill history

003- Mills and Locks

004 – Location of locks

005- An 1806 article from Browne’s Western Calendar about Columbiana County

006- An article about Sprucevale

007- The Sunlit Road by Tom T. Jones

008- A 1948 letter from M. Rubiena Ikirt with a listing of boats and the masters, circa 1847- 1848

009- A listing of boats and masters, circa 1849-1852

010- A 1948 hotel reservation, notes for a talk about the Rebecca Furnace, and a 1946 announcement for the Salem Hobby Show.