Tag: Terry Woods

The Welker Feed Mill – Canal Comments

By Terry K Woods

Today’s column is of a mill once operated by water from a section of the Sandy & Beaver Canal in Tuscarawas County. It was written from a taped interview in 1975 with the one time owner of the mill in Sandyville. (1)

Now Sandyville, in itself, is a very interesting place. When the Bolivar Dam was erected in the mid 1930s this town was literally moved to higher ground. As a result, it is very difficult (spelled IMPOSSIBLE) to locate much of the canal or any artifacts in this area.

The foundation to the mill can be found and a a bit of that part of the canal that was used as the mill race until 1935 but very little else. There was a lock (No 29) in or near the town. It was rebuilt by the Lessees in 1872, but I have not been able to confidently determine its location.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the past 40 years scouring the area for that lock location. Last March I spent a portion of three days down there. As I say, I’m not sure I know the exact location, though I thought I found it once in 1985.

THE WELKER FEED MILL ON THE SANDY & BEAVER CANAL

Our mill was located near the bend in the Big Sandy Creek just to the southeast of the old center of the village of Sandyville. One cornerstone of the mill bore the date 1836. That was also the year in which the Sandy & Beaver Canal was being built across the northern portion of Tuscarawas County.

The canal crossed Nimishillen Creek in a slack-water pool a half-mile east of the mill. Even after boats stopped using the canal, the dam across the Nimishillen provided a steady water supply to run the mill and the guard lock on the west bank of the creek acted as head gates to the mill race. The mill race consisted of a half-mile of the Sandy & Beaver Canal bed and a channel of a 100 yards or so that had been dug at right angles to the canal. The mill sat between the canal and the Big Sandy and our tail race flowed right into that creek.

I don’t know who built the mill originally. I think a man named Rolland or Voelum owned it at one time. There was also a McKinney mixed up in it somewhere. The way we got it was that my grandfather had gone in on a fellow’s note and had to make it good when that fellow defaulted. The only way my grandad could get anything out of that deal was to take over the mill. That was in 1893. My dad, Theodore “Dory” Welker, moved into the mill in 1894. It wasn’t running then and he had an awful time making it go.

He hired professional millers because he wasn’t one himself. Finally, around 1900, there was an old guy by the name of Charlie Seibert. He came to our place looking for a job and my dad took him in. He was a miller personified and knew all about the milling business. He just kind of made his home with us for the next 25 years. Occasionally some big company would have trouble with their mill and Old Charlie would leave us for a while until it straightened out, but he always came back to our place. He kept that old mill running “like an Ingersoll”.

Dad originally called the mill the “Sandy Valley Roller Mill,” but it was known mostly as the Welker Feed Mill. I spent all of my boyhood along the canal and must have skated a million miles between our mill and the dam and back. The Canton cut-off (otherwise known as the Nimishillen &Sandy Canal) joined the Sandy & Beaver Canal along our section. They joined at right angles to each other. You could plainly see the towpath and that the channel was intended to be a canal, though I don’t know if it ever held water. I did a lot of trapping for skunk and the like in that cut-off when I was a boy.

I joined Dad in running the mill in 1918. Sometime between 1920 and 1925 we rebuilt the dam and guard lock. We replaced the original wood and rubble dam with one of concrete 154-feet-long. The eastern end of the new dam rested on the original stone abutments of canal days, but the western end rested on the earthen embankment of the creek. The western stone abutment from canal days lies 50 yards or so west of the concrete dam. At the time we installed a concrete head gate at the lock. The original wooden gates were still fairly intact. The lock chamber had been lined with wood and most of the planking was still in pretty good shape.

During the Depression, we ran the mill from 6:00 in the morning until midnight and never took in a dollar! Everything was done by barter and the only way we could tell our profit was to see how big a pile of wheat we had.

I was never too interested in the history of the canal when I was a boy, but I do remember the “Old Timers” telling about the old canal warehouses. I believe there were two that stood along each bank of the canal near the center of the old town near where our mill race left the main canal. They both burned down in 1898 and some say the fires were deliberately set to get rid of them.

When I was a young man, the B. & O. had a spur running from the Sandyville Station into Magnolia. A train went to Magnolia maybe two or three times a week to take groceries, pick up milk, and distribute the few passengers who wanted to go from one town to another. That train consisted of an engine and one car that carried passengers in one end and luggage and freight in the other. You could see a lot of the old canal from that train, maybe you still could, because those bottoms up there are really in no man’s land.

The State built the Bolivar Dam on the Big Sandy in 1936 and the old village and mill were moved to higher ground. That part of the mill that had been built out over the water was torn down and the rest moved to its present location in the northwest corner formed by the B. & O. Railroad and Route #183. The B. & O. tracks were also moved to higher ground and now cross the plain on a high earthen fill. That embankment now covers the junction of the Sandy & Beaver Canal and the Canton cut-off but you can still see faint traces of the cut-off as it comes out from under the railroad embankment and heads north.

Shortly after the mill was closed someone, probably disgruntled farmers, dynamited the dam – blew the whole center out of it. You can still find the ends of the dam as well as both original stone abutments and what remains of the guard lock. The foundation of the mill is still there at the end of the race. In 1933 we had built a new penstock and, in the winter, when there is not much foliage, it should be easy to find.

The mill had two turbine wheels; one rated at 43 h.p. and the other at 36 h.p. Both ratings were with nine feet of water. When we closed the mill we pulled both wheels out and sold one to Mr. Wilson whose mill is still up along the Ohio Canal in Cuyahoga County. He wanted the other wheel but when we went down there one day we found someone had broken the wheel up with sledges and hauled the chunks of cast iron over the mill race and away. The Depression was still going pretty strong and they probably wanted what money that wheel would bring for scrap.

My son Bob, came into the business in 1947 after serving in the Army. Dad died in1950 and Bob and I continued in the feed business until the Fall of 1972 when the warehouse was sold to the Morrison Brothers.

(1) As told to Terry Woods (on tape) during a hike in the area in the early spring of 1975.

Canal Comments – Lock 54 on the Sandy and Beaver Canal

By Terry K Woods, with guest author Denver L. Waltoni

I’ve resurrected the tale of a hike our old friend Denver Walton and his oldest son Terry, took in 1975 in some very rugged country along the eastern division of the Sandy & Beaver Canal in western Pennsylvania.

My oldest son Bob and I did some similar hiking along a different part of that canal in 1979. It certainly beats the rather tame hiking I’ve been doing lately along the bike trails here id Stark County, but that is fun, too.

TW

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Both the best and worst hiking in the upper Ohio country can be found in the valley of Little Beaver creek, shared by Beaver County, Pennsylvania and Columbiana County, Ohio. The trails are unmatched for scenic beauty, a variety of plants and wildlife, and unique historical discoveries.

With the recent renewal of interest in the Beaver Division Canal, it seems appropriate to take a look at one of the other canals of Beaver County. While the Sandy & Beaver Canal is usually considered an Ohio canal, its eastern terminus, three locks, and one dam were located in Pennsylvania.

The canal was built by private financing and was intended to provide a connecting route between Pennsylvania’s and Ohio’s canal systems. The route would pass through New Lisbon, Ohio, an influential early Ohio community that had been by-passed by the State’s canal system.

The idea and route were feasible, but a country-wide financial panic and problems in drilling what became the canal’s memorable features – two tunnels – delayed the opening of the entire canal until the season of 1850. Competition from the P & O canal and local railroads, plus the loss of a reservoir on the summit, spelled bankruptcy for the fledgling waterway in 1853. Portions of the eastern and western divisions carried limited traffic for up to several more decades, though most historians now agree that the through canal only operated for two or three years. One popular legend states that only one boat ever traveled the entire length of the canal and that had to be virtually carried over dry spots in order to maintain the company’s charter!

Legends about the Sandy & Beaver Canal are many, but one fact is true. Over 180 years ago, a massive effort was undertaken to build and complete this waterway and evidence of that effort exists today.

It is most fortunate that “progress” has bypassed the Beaver Creek gorge, for we now have a delightful historic and scenic area to explore. The remains of many old canal locks are scattered through the valley, some remarkably intact, many in ruins. Each, though, is a treasure to hikers and amateur archeologists.

Below Fredericktown, Ohio, where the North Fork of the Little Beaver joins the combined waters of the Middle and West Forks, the gorge deepens. Hiking becomes more difficult and the Locksites less accessible. Before the Little Beaver empties its waters into the Ohio River it crosses the Ohio/Pennsylvania Line several times. As a result, three of the 57 locks on the canal’s Eastern Division were in Pennsylvania. It is these three locks that we are concerned with at present.

Lock 54 is located in the most inaccessible part of the gorge and thus had not tempted me in twenty years of canal-chasing. This spring (1975), however, I was determined to find it. After studying the topographic maps of the area, my son, Terry, and I decided to strike out overland instead of following the creek from the nearest bridge up-stream or down-stream from the lock. We felt that hiking through open fields over the ridge would be easier than along the creek through the gorge.

We secured permission from the local landowner, Frank Fisher, to park near his barn and walk over his fields. When we discussed our plans with Mr. Fisher, however, he suggested we detour down a near-by hollow to the Creek rather than try to hike over “Fisher’s Point”.

Once we reached the valley floor, we followed the creek downstream on an old trail that teased more than it helped. High water prevented us from following the Creek too closely. Eventually, and not unexpectedly, we came upon Lock 53., a massive stone structure shining in the waning sunlight.

Below Lock 53, the canal left the creek and followed a separate channel which, in flood times, frames a large island. This area of the Creek is known as Island Run, site of Ohio’s early oil producing area. The State Line crosses the island’s mid-section, thus the creek and canal pass into Pennsylvania at this point.

The Creek rounded its far bend and wound closer back toward the canal channel. Then, suddenly, the walls of Lock 54 appeared in the shadows ahead. We studied the lock structure and surroundings. We then realized how good Mr. Fisher’s advice to follow the creek had been, for the gorge wall above the lock proved to be a vertical cliff!

We took a half-dozen pictures, rested a bit, then moved on downstream, hoping to find an easier route back to the highway. Our hopes were rewarded. We ran across an old railroad grade and followed it for a mile or so to a point of easy egress from the gorge.

We later learned from a Sandy & Beaver Canal Buff in east Liverpool, that the railroad had been built to haul coal from Island Run coal mines to the plant that generated electricity for a local traction line.

Just below Lock 54 the creek had curved back into Ohio. On an earlier weekend, my wife Genie and I had hiked in along the old public road to see Lock 56, a complex structure several hundred feet long, with an entry gate at the upper end and the actual lock below, adjacent to the stone pier of the first covered bridge in Ohio and the first crossing of the lower part of Little Beaver Creek.

Further down-stream, the creek crosses the State Line for the last time, placing the two remaining locks of the canal in Beaver County. Another covered bridge had crossed the creek, precisely at the State Line, and residents still refer to it as the “Beaver County Bridge”. Both piers remain. The west pier in a trio of previous bridges here can be seen from the present Highway 68 Highway Bridge. Lock 56 (now gone) was located just above the east pier where the coal tipple is located at the end of the railroad line from Negley.

Lock 57 was located at the west end of Liberty Street in Glasgow. A depression marks the location of the canal channel, but no trace of the lock remains. Below the lock, the canal entered the Ohio River through stone walls. These are no longer visible, but there’s a big pile of cut, dressed stone lying on the river bank.

This is the eastern-most point of the Sandy & Beaver Canal.

i This article, in a somewhat longer form, appeared in the Spring 1975 issue of the Beaver County (Pennsylvania) Newsletter.

Canal Comments – Canal Characters I Have Known; R. Max Gard

by Terry K. Woods

This time I have gone back to describing one of the canal “characters” I have known. When I was getting into the canal history area, I found that quite a few of great people had been there before me. And fortunately, most of them were more than gracious in their help and guidance of a brash new-comer.

Here is the story of R. Max Gard. A really great and interesting fellow.

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Ronald Max Gard was an established figure in Columbiana County long before I moved into the county in August of 1966. Max (he didn’t like the name Ronald) was a County Commissioner, author of the weekly newspaper column “The Roamin Gard” , co-author of the 1952 book, The Sandy and Beaver Canal, and the proprietor of the Sandy & Beaver Antique Shop located along the northern berm of the Lincoln Highway (Route 30) five miles west Of Lisbon. The fact that he “wore” all those hats simultaneously just goes to demonstrate his flexibility.

I undoubtedly had read his book early on. Even in the 1960s Max’s ’Bible’ on the Sandy & Beaver was sold out and copies were hard to find. Fortunately the Salem Library was just a few blocks from our apartment (one half of the ground floor of a stately two-story brick house painted a bilious green). And that is where I got Max’s book. It was probably the first canal history book that I read cover to cover.

I was surprised to realize a few years back, that the formatting of my first (and probably subsequent) canal history books follows Max’s The Sandy and Beaver Canal rather closely. My adherence to depicting canal and river features as on the right or left bank follows Max’s lead as well.

I don’t remember exactly when or where Max and I first met. It was probably in his shop. I may have just walked in one summer day and introduced myself. Max was always expansively cordial as only a man well-established as an expert in a subject can be to a brash, rank amateur.

I made several visits to Max’s Antique Shop. On one occasion, again being a bit brash, I asked him why he had concentrated on the Sandy & Beaver Canal when there were no existing maps of the route or even an accurate accounting of the number or location of the structures. Max’s eyes twinkled a bit when he answered, “Because of the mystery. You have to be a bit of a detective, a bit of an archaeologist, Damn bull-headed and fairly lucky to discover a story that doesn’t yet exist.” “You’d better be careful,” he added “that you don’t get ‘hooked’ too, trying to discover the complete story of the Sandy & Beaver.” Well. Max probably had the last laugh. I have researched most of the existing canals of north-eastern Ohio and north-western Pennsylvania, but I can truly say that the Sandy & Beaver has “hooked” me.

Max did his research and wrote his book before some of the current research tools were discovered. There is now a “listing” of the canal structures that was found in an 1854 copy of the Lisbon paper describing the parcels of the canal as they were auctioned off in March of that year. That listing varies considerably with Max’s listing, particularly of the western end of the eastern division and the western division.

Several canal-historians of some note spent the last few years of their lives trying to prove Max wrong in his numbering of the existing locks. I remember once one of these historians addressed a group of college students we were guiding along the route of the canal for a Kent State Geography Class. When he stated he would soon be able to prove certain locks mentioned in Max’s book had the wrong number, one of the student asked, “if you know that a lock exists and you know where it is located, who cares what number it is”. Well, of course the student was correct, though a compete numbering system can tell us what locks are still extant and which are gone.

To Max’s credit there were at least three numbering systems to this canal; the one Engineer Gill used up until the 1837 shut-down, the one Engineer Roberts used for his altered route after the start-up in 1845, and the one prepared by lawyers and real-estate auctioneers in 1854 for the sell-off. Max tried to adhere to Robert’s numbering system.

Max wasn’t far off in his numbering of eastern division locks, though the western division shows the route was greatly altered even after Robert’s initial listing. It is somewhat apparent that the Guide to the western division in Max’s book was written some 20 to 30 years before the book was. Max admitted to me many years after we first met that much of the fieldwork on the western division had been done by an unnamed party.

Max always had the conviction that a man who waits until all the “T’s” are crossed and all the “I’s” dotted never published anything. “I try to be as historically accurate as possible,” Max often said, “and if someone proves me wrong later, more power to him.” More historians should have that credo. You have to have a place to start. With the Sandy & Beaver, there is no better place to start than Max’s sixty-plus year old book.

Like all the great old-timer canal buffs, Max was a bit of a character. His closeness with a dollar was legend, though he was very generous in his personal dealings with people. He often shared his knowledge with others. When I wanted to explore the Big Tunnel Hill in the 1980s, and Max no longer did much hiking, he convinced two knowledgeable men from Hanoverton, the Kibbler Brothers, to lead a stranger over that hill and show him things he would never had found on his own.

Once when I had my father with me on a visit to Max’s shop, Dad kept looking at the enormous prices on various objects and remarking, “we threw something like this out as junk 50 years ago”. I don’t think Dad heard Max mumble each time, “thank you sir”. Max used to pay local kids pennies to gather pretty stones. Max would then polish them in a home-built tumbler and sell them at his typically elevated prices.

Another example of Max’s generosity was his annual hike that was held in May. Bill Vodrey may have inaugurated them, but Max continued the hikes up until his death in the late 1990s. Max would invite everybody to come to Fredericktown, “with your lunch in you”, then ferry busloads of hikers to Sprucevale, some three miles to the west. Each bus-load would then be directed to hike the well-marked trail along the canal route back to Fredericktowni. Once there the parched hikers would find wash-tubs of cold soda and water waiting. All of this was, of course, free-of-charge.

And Max had his idiosyncrasies, Once, on a pre-air-conditioning hot, sultry July afternoon, I found Max inside his shop with a roaring fire going in the fireplace just behind him in his easy chair. When I questioned the situation, Max explained the scientific fact that the hot air rising rapidly up the flue of his chimney would draw a cooling breeze across the room. He may have been right.

Whatever all who knew him miss Max Gard. I certainly do.

i The hike only was adjacent to the canal for a bit over a mile before the canal entered slackwater through Lock No 44 above Dam No. 14, crossed the Creek and followed along it’s right bank past Fredericktown to Lock No 50 (LOST LOCK). The hikers continued down the left bank of the Creek into Fredericktown.

Canal Comments- Muskingum River Trip of October 2007

By Terry Woods

Introduction- The Muskingum River system of dams, locks, and short canals has been in the news lately as the state looks at how or if, to rebuild the old dams and locks that make the river navigable. The system is claimed to be the oldest intact canal in the United States with it’s hand operated locks. Terry Woods had sent along an article about the river and then added this in his next email. By the way, the Valley Gem is still in operation.

Hi,

Glad you liked the article on the Muskingum. I think it was the “Case for the Muskingum”, the forerunner of which I presented in Rochester in 1992.

Here, I hope, is a different one, an account of a trip Rosanne and I took down the Muskingum in October of 2007.

Because of the long-range plan to rebuild a great deal of the structures along the Parkway, it may be a while before such a trip can again be taken.

I wonder if the improvement of the waterway might entice more commercial use of it.

MUSKINGUM RIVER TRIP 10/04/07

I had been anticipating this trip on a river boat replica on the Muskingum River for well over a year and a half. One of our local hospitals sponsors a Senior Citizen’s group called Prime Time and one of their activities is some very nice trips around the area. A year ago last February I received a flyer from them that, among other things, publicized a seven hour boat trip on the Muskingum River aboard the Valley Gem. We had a trip planned for Medgorija for that June, but as soon as we returned I called to reserve our spots on the Muskingum Trip. We also wanted to take a trip offered in November to Pittsburgh to do some Christmas Shopping. Both trips were full, but we were told there might be cancellations and that we would certainly be placed on next year’s mailing list.

There was one cancellation, but we both wanted to go so we decided to wait. This year’s flyer arrived in February. The Pittsburgh trip wasn’t being offered, but the Muskingum trip was. On Wednesday, October 3, the boat would travel from Marietta to Stockport and on Thursday, October 4 it would travel back to Marietta. So we had a choice of two days for the trip in two different directions – up or down river.

I thought going down river might be just a bit more interesting than going up river, so I promptly signed us both up for the Thursday trip. I believe I even paid our money, $96.00 each, right away, though it wasn’t due until August some time.

So, the day finally came. I had been talking about it for quite some time, but all of the kids were shocked to discover that we weren’t going to be home that day. The buses were to leave from the St. Michael’s Church Parking lot at 6:30am. That is the church that Rosanne and I go to, so we wouldn’t have any trouble finding it.

Rosanne can’t really start her day without coffee so we stopped at a Sheetz on the way in and she picked one up. While she was in the station, a woman came in asking for directions to St. Michael’s. Even though we were within three blocks of the church, the clerk had no idea where it was. Rosanne overheard the conversation and offered to lead the way so we had a two car caravan going from Sheetz, over a half block of Hills & Dales, a left turn onto Whipple, and a right turn onto Fulton and the church.

We got there about as planned, 6:15, but we were just about the last to arrive. We found we had been assigned to bus number 1 and found two seats together on the right side of the bus about four seats from the front. Coffee was available as well as water, Orange Juice and chocolate chip cookies. Rosanne already had her coffee and I got an Orange Juice and the cookies.

Bus no 2 left almost exactly at 6:30. Bus no 1 was missing a couple and we waited a standard ten minutes, but they never showed. We actually left about 6:45, but were soon on I-77, south. It was a rather uneventful bus trip. People chattered away. We heard the two ladies behind us discussing among themselves the route we were taking. They seemed confused about something. Finally, one of them asked our hostess when we would leave I-77 for Pennsylvania. When informed we were not going to Pennsylvania, they seemed surprised. Rosanne got out her puzzle book as soon as it got light and started in on it. I fell back on an old army custom and just leaned back, closed my eyes, and relaxed.

We stopped at the first rest stop past the I-70 exit. Bus no 2 had been there about ten minutes so the rest rooms were relatively clear. Both buses left the rest stop together with bus no 1 in the lead. Soon after we left the rest stop, we were given a general itinerary of meals on the boat for the rest of the day and assigned tables for dining. We were given table 15.

We took route 78 at Caldwell to the south-west to McConnellsville, then route 376 down the right bank of the Muskingum River to just across the river from Stockport.

Actually, our bus, in the lead, went across the river bridge on route 266 west into Stockport and bus no 2 followed. Then we both had to turn around and take a road a bit south of the bridge to where the Valley Gem waited for us just below the bridge and lock no 6 on the left bank of the river

We unloaded both buses quickly and went onto the Valley Gem then right to our assigned tables on the lower deck. There we had a light breakfast, a pastry of some kind, fruit (bananas and apples) and coffee and iced tea.

There were only four at our six person table as it seemed that the couple that didn’t show had been assigned to our table. The other couple that was at our table were the two ladies from the seat in the bus behind us who had thought they were going to Pennsylvania. I asked them about that. It seems friends of one of them couldn’t make it at the last minute so these two ladies took over the tickets, but didn’t know where they were going. Somehow, they got the Muskingum River confused with the Monongahela River and were fully expecting to end up somewhere around Pittsburgh.

We backed away from the shore, out into the river, before we were finished with breakfast. I had the video camera with me and I shot some of the old mill at Stockport, the dam and Lock No 6. I ended up with about a 50 minute (slightly edited) tape, but some of my extemporaneous comments were inaccurate.

Initially, I thought we were going to go through Lock no 6, then I realized we were heading away from the lock (which was to be expected since we were to go south to Marietta). I went to the upper deck to take video and made some comment on tape about the paddle wheel being fake. I had noticed when we came back over the bridge, that the wheel was revolving while the boat was nosed into the river bank along the dock, so I thought it was just for cosmetics. Actually, the wheel was revolving to keep the boat against the dock. It was what made the boat go.

The Captain (J.J. Sands) made an audio announcement while I was topside. He welcomed us all to the Valley Gem (our group of 106 had the boat all to ourselves) and gave us a bit of a history of the Valley Gem. There was a real Valley Gem that operated on the Muskingum, Ohio and Monongahela Rivers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This Valley Gem, though not a replica of the original, is sort of set up to look like an old time river boat. It was built in 1988-89 and had a new German Diesel engine and transmission put in about a year ago. It is 30 feet wide 120 feet long, has 2 ½ feet of draft and can carry up to 296 passengers. It has radar, depth finder, and all other kinds of electronic gadgets. It is pulled up out of the water every five years for a Coast Guard Inspection and this winter it will be inspected and the bottom painted. The boat is family owned and operated. The lower deck was enclosed and air-conditioned with two complete ‘heads’ (bathrooms). The upper deck was open, had a number of round tables and chairs strewn about and had an awning covering a bit more than half of the deck.

By the time all the talk was done, we were ready to enter Luke’s Chute Lock. I got a great, long, shot of the boat entering the lock. I also got an ‘extra’ when the boat struck the side of the lock. There is the great sound of us hitting, a shudder of the camera, and my three times exclamation of OOPS!

I videoed most of the locking-down operation and it provides a good idea of the length of time the operation takes. It also shows the physical effort required to open and close the gates and open and close the sluices to empty and fill the locks. We had the same two men operating each of the four locks during our trip down river. They were apparently volunteers and ‘ran’ ahead of us for each lock in a car.i

The locks apparently are all set for down-stream boats as we saw the lower lock gates closed as we left the lock. So we just entered each lock as we came to it and came to a controlled stop with our gang-plank out in front of the boat, just a few inches from the closed lower gates. The upper sluices were then closed (apparently they were left open to insure a full lock) by cranking a windless on the river side of the lock. Then the gates were closed by a man using a long lever to turn a gear on each side of the lock that rotated a pinion (spur gear) that moved a rack (gear) that was attached to each gate half. The man had to walk around the pinion in a circle with his lever, stepping over the rack on each rotation. The two men then moved to the lower end of the lock where the lower sluices were opened. Regulations call for a boat to be tied off when locking up and down and a line was looped over one of the ladder rungs in the lock’s side wall, but the Captain kept the boat sort of centered between the gates with the paddle wheel rotation.

Once the boat was lowered to the lower level of the river, the gates were opened. The captain had to move the gang plank from side to side by moving his gang plank windless from side to side to give each gate room to swing. Once the gates were closed into the gate recesses, we started out into the river again – always advancing steadily upon Marietta.

Shortly after leaving Luke’s Chute Lock, our entertainment came on deck. They were a husband and wife team, Chuck and Judith Craig, of Folk Singers – the Valley Singers. They were very good and often humorous. They sang for much of the seven hour trip down river.

About an hour after we left Stockport, a vegetable and dip snack was served in the snack bar on the lower deck. Most of the passengers chose to bring their snack to the upper deck to eat under the awning. It was sunny and warm (later getting into the 90s), but it had been cool in the morning, with a nice breeze on the bow, so most of us stayed top-side much of the time.

We soon passed a large power plant on the right side of the river. The “BIG MUSKIE” (a huge drag line) used to strip coal on the opposite side of the river and the coal was carried to the power plant on a high conveyor. The conveyor bridge is still in place, but the giant drag line has been dismantled with only the bucket on display. The Captain told us that the power plant pumps a lot of heat into the river and it very seldom freezes over during the winter any more. That day, the temperature of the river water above the power plant was 70 degrees F, and 81 degrees F, below.

We soon came to the Beverly Canal. There was a flood gate at the entrance – just a structure with a single wooden gate that would be closed in times of high water to keep that high water out of the canal channel.

The right side of this channel (our left side going down) was found to be very shallow on the previous day’s trip. The Valley Gem had become stuck and it took awhile to get her off the bottom. We slowed down to just a ‘crawl’ and the water in the hull usually kept for ‘ballast’ was pumped out a bit to lighten our load. A stern wheeler can lower its stern toward the bottom if the wheel isn’t handled correctly, so we slowed down to about the speed of an old time Ohio Canal freight boat (1 ½ to 2 miles per hour). It was great to get a feeling for the movement of an actual canal boat. We actually touched bottom on occasion and I got some great video of the mud being churned up and carried toward our stern.

This canal was a little less than a mile long and it took us quite a time to get to the Beverly Lock, but we finally did and found our ‘Volunteer Lock Tenders’ waiting for us. I had wanted to get some shots of them closing the upper gates, but I missed it, as the bright sun sometimes made it difficult for me to read the ‘record’ light in the screen. Our ‘Volunteers’ did as good a job here as they had at Luke’s Chute and we were soon on our way, south.

I wandered about the boat taking video and had just come out of the ‘head’ when the captain announced that soup was being served in the snack bar, so I was second in line and took two bowels to the upper deck. Rosanne was ‘gone for soup’ I was informed by one of the other people who were sitting with us up there. So I ate my soup – chock full of vegetables, and then used my bowl to cover Rosanne’s and went to take more videos.

I found her on the lower deck eating soup with our table mates. I told her I had a bowl on the upper deck for her. Apparently she and our table mates had gotten in the wrong line and their soup was good, but all broth.

We spent a lot of the next hour on deck listening to the music and just enjoying the perfect weather, the slight drum of the engine, the strong rhythm of the paddle wheel, and the sight of the countryside slowly slipping past us.

During one of their breaks, I talked with the female half of the Valley Singers and asked her if she were familiar with the folk singer, Pearl Nye. Surprisingly, she wasn’t, though she had heard of Pearl’s Mentor back in the 30’s, Allen Lomax. She also said she would try to find some of Pearl’s Canal Songs.

Our afternoon meal was announced and we all went to our assigned tables on the lower deck. The meal was great – rolls and butter, green beans, chicken, pasta, scalloped potatoes, and a terrific Prime Rib. There was also pumpkin pie and two kinds of cheese cake for desert. The meal was catered by a butcher shop in Marietta. Rosanne got the name and address of the firm for the next time we go to Marietta.

Shortly after the meal was over, we came down onto the Lowell Canal. Again we slowed away down, but this canal wasn’t quite as shallow as the one at Beverly. We did pump ballast, but never seemed to scoop up much mud. There was a structure on the river bank at the head of this canal, but it seemed to be the abutment for an old road rather than for a flood gate. This canal was a bit longer than the Beverly Canal and it seemed to take a very long time to get to the lock. When we finally did, though, it was negotiated with the usual dexterity and grace. Then we were once again into the river and on our way toward Marietta.

We had been told on the bus coming down that there would be a ‘surprise’ for us in the afternoon. The ‘surprise’ turned out to be a good one – wine and cheese! There was also beer for those who didn’t care for wine and some fruit juices for those whose medications couldn’t be mixed with alcohol (hey, this was an ‘Old Folks’ Tour).

Later, when I was sitting with Rosanne at a table on the upper deck, the singers mentioned that I was interested in the canals of Ohio and they were going to sing one they had written several years before for the Roscoe Old Canal Days Celebration when they were singing there. They then sang a very nice song, about the canal, in general. I didn’t think to turn on the video camera until the song had already begun, but I got the last portion of it. It was a very good song.

We then came to Lock no 2, Devola Lock, the last one we would negotiate until we docked at Marietta. The lock was similar to Luke’s Chute in that there was no canal involved, just the lock in the dam. We had the same two locktenders for this lock also. They both worked the upper gates then walked down to the lower gates. One man was wearing a blue shirt and one a green one. The fellow in the blue shirt opened the sluice gate to drain the water in the lock, then they both had a bit of a discussion and the fellow wearing the green shirt walked off and the other man had to open both lower lock gates. That meant that the boat sat there with one lower gate open while the single locktender now, after opening the river side gate, walked back to the upper end of the lock, across the two closed upper gates, then back down the shore side of the lock to that gate and open it. Finally with both gates opened, we entered the river again.

Now we began seeing other craft – a few small, gas powered craft and three or four ‘sculls’ from a local high school. Then we got very close to our final docking spot and saw a multitude of smaller craft docked on both sides of the river and, just at the highway bridge before we reached the dock area an historic craft was anchored, the towboat W.P. Snyder Jr., built in 1918, which had worked the river until 1955. The W.P. Snyder Jr. is scheduled to go into dry dock soon which may signal its refurbishment and return to active service on the river.

On the other shore, just a bit south of the bridge, was the Claire E, a ‘Make Up” boat, sort of a tug that pushed other boats into proper position for loading. She was built in 1926. In 1966 she was purchased by Gene and Clare Fitch of Hebron Ohio and renamed after Clare. The craft was rebuilt in 1967 and Gene, with his wife, lived on the boat, traveling all over the country for more than 30 years. A local business man, Harley Noland, purchased the Cassie and converted her into a “Bed & Breakfast” about ten years ago. In 2003 the boat was sold to Dr. Roger Anderson who will keep her in Marietta as a Bed and Breakfast and cruise the Ohio River.

The Valley Gem powered under the bridge, went into a swooping “U” turn and slid up to her dock just south of the W.P. Snyder. Our buses were waiting for us higher up on shore next to the Ohio River Museum. We disembarked from the water craft and quickly boarded the two buses. I would liked to have spent a half hour or so at the River Museum, but I think everybody else was happy to be heading home, and I didn’t really object. In fact, when they handed out critique sheets on the trip I didn’t even mention that I thought we should have toured the museum.

As it was just 5:00, the traffic was heavy in Marietta and it took us some 15 to 20 minutes to go the five or six blocks through town (a couple of blocks past the Ohio River I might add), to get onto I-77. Then it was a straight shot north.

We handed in our name tags as we boarded the bus and our hostess picked out two of them for “door prizes”. It turned out that the two older gentlemen in the double seats across from Rosanne and I got the two door prizes. Of course, there was a lot of good natured “razzing” about two men sitting next to each other winning the prizes.

We stopped at a Rest Stop just across I-77 from the one we had stopped at on the way down. As we boarded the buses, we were offered our choice of soft drinks or water. Then, when we were on our way again, little packets of salted peanuts were handed out. Our hostess made an announcement about “the little happy face on your peanut bags”. I looked at my bag and asked her what about the little happy face on it? It seems that meant I had won the third door prize. Of course the three door prizes being won by three men sitting next to each other drew a lot of “talk”, especially, when it turned out that the door prizes had apparently been put together for women – holiday napkins, table candles, etc. Still, I had won!

About two and a half hours after leaving Marietta, we arrived at the St. Michael’s parking lot. So, our outing was over. It was a very, very good trip and one that, with the help of these notes and the 55 minute video tape I made, will stay in my memory for a very, very long time.

i I found out later that they were not “volunteers”, but employees of the State whose job was to “fit” each lock the VALLEY GEM came to on its journey from Stockport to Marietta. They drove ahead of us on our journey.

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.

The Gard and Vodrey Sandy and Beaver Canal maps

I found these two maps in the back pocket of the wonderfully researched and written, “The Sandy and Beaver Canal” by Ronald Max Gard and William H. Vodrey, Jr. The book was published by the East Liverpool Historical Society, East Liverpool, Ohio, in 1952. There was a reprint in 1972, and as far as I can see, no one has new copies for sale. The book can be found in some libraries and on the various book sellers, although finding a copy with the maps will cost you a good bit. I also found an old link to a CD copy of the book, but it was dead.

If you have an interest in the canal, chapter 20 is titled; Guide to the Canal, and it is a structure by structure guide for the 90 locks and 30 dams along the 73 mile-long canal. However, the authors caution that their map is a reconstruction based on a couple period maps and that they were not able to “reconcile” a few locks.

Terry Woods, who was a friend of both men, and served as the president of the Canal Society of Ohio and of this organization, sent along this note;

In the intervening years (since the publication of the book) a great deal of additional information has surfaced. So, while the book is terrific and I encourage everyone interested in the nation’s canal era to read it if available, the guide is not that accurate. The middle division is great. I always thought the Eastern division was accurate, though I’ve just been engaged in a series of e-mail sessions with a couple of historians who, through intense efforts in field work and electronic map looking, are attempting to correct some errors in Max’s Eastern Division guide. Max had some serious errors in the guide of the Western Division. I did some intense field work in the early 90s and published a typewritten guide to the western division around the turn of the century. However, more work needs to be done on it.

After reading through Terry’s guide, I must say it is a remarkable bit of field investigation. However, he welcomes any corrections or other comments. I have been using it to update the canal sites map.

Click here to open image window.
Maps of the Sandy and Beaver canal.
Click here to open image window.

Canal Comments # 107

Terry K. Woods

June 14, 2016

LOCKING THROUGH:

I believe you can tell from the length and content of my columns that my time of writing long, extensively researched pieces is over. In the famous words of Jim Baluchi in the movie “CONTINENTAL DIVIDE”, I prefer writing a column over a book because the column is short. Still, I have a file of data that, if I live long enough, and get a tremendous surge of AMBITION may result in a book on Canal Operation. In the meantime, lets delve into the contents of that file and come up with some information on the operation of “Locking Through” on the Ohio Canal.

I’ve been able to collect very few accounts of actual boatmen performing the Locking Through task and their descriptions vary somewhat, but let’s take a read and see if we can come up with any conclusions. First, an excerpt from a letter written by James Dillow Robinson to Terry K. Woods, July 16, 1971.

Dear Terry:

., and now I’ll try to explain and answer your questions of the command “Headway”.

Q. Who gave the command, “HEADWAY?”

A. The steersman.

Q. Were the mules unhitched while ‘locking through’?

A. From the boat. Towline released from the boat.

Q. Was boat snubbed to posts while in lock?

A. Lines were released from post after boat came to a stop. No lines attached to a boat while locking up or down.

“Headway” meant that the boat had momentum enough to make the lock and the teamster could ease up on towing so as to give slack to the towline so it could be released from the deadeye on the boat. After releasing line, mules resumed their speed to the lock.

“The command “Headway” meant to quit towing and was given at each lock whether going up or down stream. The command “Headway” was given when a boat came within about 400’ of a lock.

“To give the word “headway”, the steersman had to consider how fast the boat was being towed, how much draught. And also the current of the raceway if close to a lock. Too much headway could mean a broken snubbing line or a post pulled from the ground. I’ve never heard of either happening, but, if it did, it would mean the boat would crash against the apron or miter sill or the upper gates would be damaged, assuming the headway was right and the boat responded to the rudder.”

Another snippet of how boatmen locked through comes from Page 162 of Pearl Robert Nye’s unpublished manuscript about a fictional trip he and his family took from Cleveland to Portsmouth in 1888. Pearl’s father died in 1885 and an older Pearl, living in a rooming house in Akron in 1939, began writing this tale of what such a trip might have been like had his father lived. The story is fictional, but the details and technical facts of the canal appear to be accurate. In this excerpt, Pearl describes their passage through Lock 19 in Summit County on the Ohio Canal at Black Dog Crossing. This is the point where, now, Memorial Parkway crosses the site of the canal’s buried channel.

Locking through Lock 19 – Black Dog Crossing NYE 162

“The towline was unhooked from the (wippletree) team and cleared under the bridge, around gate (towpath side) and lower snubbing post, hooked to team, “straightened up” – and on. Soon it was over upper snubbing post and paddle stems thus making “all clear”.

“Soon the word “HO!” was given (or signal – as the water roar often made it hard to hear) and the team was stopped. The forward way “snubbed” (stopped), gates shut (closed). (I am using canal language or tongue), the boat was pulled back (by the “swell” of water) to “rest on the lower gates and (touch) keep close against them until the boat rises above the “breast of the lock” – so as not to gather too much water into the rear cabin from the flow through the “paddles”.”

Yet another description of Locking Through comes from a taped interview I conducted in March of 1970 with Mrs. Silvia Klingler in Akron Ohio. Mrs. Klingler was 76 when I interviewed her and she estimated she was 10 or 11 when this particular story happened, the last year the canal boat KATHRINE, named after her Mother, actually worked carrying coal north from the mines in Tuscarawas County.

She related to me that, early in March of 1904 or 1905, Her Step-Dad and her Mother’s Brother started their two boats early, Her Step-Dad then had gotten into a fight with the Uncle’s “Roust-About” under the Barges Street Bridge in Akron before that first trip had really gotten started. Her Step-Dad was a big man and a great fighter. That may be why his opponent “cheated” by biting a thumb. Silvia never told me who won the fight, but her Step Dad got “Blood Poisoning from the bite and, after getting both boat loads of coal at Schilling’s Coal Bank in Elizabethtown, he took to his bed and left the running of the two boats to Silvia, her mother and one helper, a Mr.’ Burns. They ran the two boats back to Akron’s paper mill. Apparently the aftermath of the big fight greatly depleted both crews. Silvia then described the difficulty of Locking Through two boats with a three-person crew, “When we come tg a lock ya had ta lock up or down. Goin ta Akron ya had ta lock up. Ya had ta fill the lock with water. An it, it’s a pretty good half hour, ta take a boat through, because ya have ta, cross the lock gates, back and forth, shut the gates on one side and go back on the other. Ya have ta start up the team. Then ya have ta stop the team. Then ya have ta go back and see if the boat’s all right ————– start up again, n’ by that time the team was getten restless. They didn’t wanna start up. Then, they’d start up, Then they’d wanna run. So ya had ta hold back or they’d break the towline. – So it was a job ta get a boat through a lock.

“And comen back with just the three of us and two boats, one of us would have ta tie up one boat while we worked the other so the boat we weren’t worken on wouldn’t drift backwards – just the way the canal run.” So there we have three instances of Locking Through, though I’ll admit that Silvia’s example was probably unique.

You’ll notice that none of the examples describe beyond getting the boat into the lock. Which might mean that leaving a lock was pretty routine. Also you’ll also notice that each example was for going up stream. That may have been more difficult, because of the slight, but existent backward current in the canal. Since Pearl’s account was of a trip from Cleveland to Portsmouth, I wonder why he described an upward course through Lock 19. I think I want to assume that during normal operation, the team stopped towing when entering a lock at a command, but I’m not sure the team was unhitched while the boat was passing through the lock. Dillow’s State Boat was practically the only craft on the canal when he boated. Pearl had a unique situation in passing the towline around bridge supports. Pearl unhitched the mules at the team. Dillow unhitched the line from the boat. I don’t believe a working boatman with a minimal crew would have wanted to take the time to get the towline back up on the boat at each lock.

What are your thoughts on this? And have any of you heard of other descriptions of Locking Through?