Thank you for posting your stories here on my blog. I'm certain we will all enjoy reading each others adventures along the canal.
Jeff Maximovich
The Johnny Apple Seed of the Ohio & Erie Canal
Certain stories are subject to ALL RIGHTS RESERVED which will be acknowledged at the beginning of the story. No part of a specific story may be produced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the author except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal. Any stories which fall under the terms listed, are not to be used for cinematic purposes without permission.
The Johnny Apple Seed of the Ohio & Erie Canal
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2,142 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 1801 – 2000 of 2142 Newer› Newest»1890-Wow! that's really something about the Signal Tree being a farst! I spent all looking up this OXBOW area too. Obviously it's make believe TOO. The Cascade parks cannot give a straight answer about it either, when it was developed or what historic significance it has on Greater Akron.
1891---Hey Mr. Jeff M Maximovich DBA Canalwayman, do you have thee audacity to think an uneducated bum like yourself has more historical knowledge and background than our proclaimed and documented college educated historians. Wake the F--- Up!
1892---Wake up Huh! I'm wide awake. Its not me who's sleeping on the job when it comes to our local history and the Ohio and Erie Canal. The problem with well known book authors and historians is, you guys like to here yourself talk. Worst than that, people just naturally believe what you make our history out to be. Who in the heck is going to check these things out? No One! I or anyone else doesn't have to qualify as a genius to figure out that a certain amount of information is just plane made up, make believe and fictional. Again, who in their everyday life has time to research, that gives them the edge to write freely. who has to be college educated to have logic?
1893- Have you ever looked into the history behind Mary Canpbell's Cave? That information is very inconclusive and has little to no factual input placing Mary Campbell at that site. Some group called the Daughters of the Revolution of something close to it had the plaque placed at the site some 50 years ago. Mary Campbell was re-acquired in Coshocton as the rules laid out by the Treaty of Greeneville. She was reluctant to leave the Indians and hid.
1894- The whole Mary Campbell's Cave saga like the (signal tree)is filled with loop holes. Mary Campbell was a captive of the Delaware Indians. The Delawares by following the Tuscarawas River onto the Big Sandy Creek traversed in and out of Pennsylvania Lands living close to the rivers. Mary Campbell was stolen from her family and brought into Ohio. Mary Campbell was found at Coshocton and was reluctant to leave, she lived at Chief Newcomers village.
Newcomerstown began as a small village east of modern-day Coshocton. In 1750, Christopher Gist reported that a small number of English colonists nearby. Among them was Thomas Burney, a blacksmith. Burney made a living providing local natives, especially the Delaware Indians, and English and French trappers engaged in the fur trade, with products in return for furs. No later than the 1760s, Delaware chief Newcomer constructed a native village. The native name of Newcomerstown was Gekelmukpechunk, although white settlers and traders named it Newcomerstown after the Delaware chieftain. It quickly grew to become the largest Delaware village on the Tuscarawas River. By 1771, more than one hundred dwellings had been built. In 1776, more than seven hundred Delawares and a handful of whites called the town home. Newcomerstown declined in importance during the American Revolution, as the Delaware Indians began to consolidate in villages closer to Coshocton.
Woah! thanks! May I take part of your article to my site?
1895-it’s hard to say whether the Mary Campbell Cave story is a Hoax. Was she actually being held in the Gorge Metro Park at a cave named after her? We’ll never know. All records indicate that she was captured and years later she was delivered back into the hands of the army under General Bouquet. There is so much conflicting information and dates on this subject it’s hard to make heads or tails. There is no actual proof that can place Mary Campbell within that cave. It’s more presumptuous because Indian Chief Netawatwees who held her captive supposedly was camped near the intersection of Bailey Road and Front Street Rt.59 about where the Doodlebug collision happened back in the 1940s. That place has ledges looking over the river and was said to be the Indian encampment. These ledges and the calm water there were more suited for Indians to place their canoes at the waters edge. No these were dumb Indians, they would rather climb a very steep hillside a good ¼ mile to lodge under a ledge formation we call Mary Campbell’s Cave Let’s not forget that below their home there was an unmanageable rushing river with steep rapids, that were impassable. The Mary Campbell Cave story is in direct conflict with the Cuyahoga Fall’s history and their Portage Trail scenario. If the Indians could manage the river by living at the cave, then why would the Portage Trail have been used?
. I read the posting above and I don’t agree with who’s behind its information. Mary Campbell according to what’s known wasn’t handed back over at the Treaty of Greenville as posting 1894 above had suggested. If she was turned over then, she’d been an adult. Netawatwees her capturer, in our language means (Newcomer). Supposedly Netawatwees moved from Cuyahoga Falls and made his next camp where we know Newcomerstown to be at today. I don’t believe he was ever to far from the Tuscarawas River while in Ohio, let alone in Cuyahoga Falls. In or about the mid 1760s at Fort Pitt-(Pittsburgh) Bouquet, met with the Indian leaders and through persuasion convinced the Indians it would be beneficial to their survival to comply with the treaties and give up all the captive whites. The Indians tried to convince the army leaders that they were big in numbers and ready to fight till the end. Bouquet wasn’t buying their story. The Indians decided to comply and agreed to take the captives to Tuscarawas (Bolivar) and deliver them, handing them over to the army. To show strength, Bouquet and 1500 fully dressed out and armed soldiers left Fort Pitt and proceeded onto Tuscarawas. Mary Campbell was handed over to the army there. Note. There are many different versions of this story; I believe this one hits the mark.
December 9, 2010 3:08 PM
1896-There stands no proof whatsoever putting Mary Campbell at the Gorge or even in this region. I spent the evening researching every known document to reach this conclusion. I would move forward to say the entire Mary Campbell Cave saga is a Hoax. I challenge anyone to show otherwise!
1897- This whole Mary Campbell Cave naming was done to commemorate her for such fortitude and strength she put forth as a young white captive. Does it actually really matter where a monument was set up in her honor? I would think the Indians weren't hostile and the captives had good tratment.
1898- Could you produce anything conclusive where the Tuscarawas River being transposed as the Muskingum River by name.
1899-Zeisberger spent a period of 62 years, excepting a few short intervals, as a missionary among the Indians. He died on the 17th of November, 1808 at Goshen on the river Muskingum, State of Ohio at the age of 87 years. Zeisberger is buried in Goshen.
1900-1897--Earth to Idiot, Wake UP! How in the hell do you think the Indians acquired these white girls? The Indians, killed the men, boys and elder women. The girls were used for breeding and sexual conquest. When Mary Campbell was turned over to Colonel Bouquet he held a list which she was part of along with 63 other names of girls were being sought after. There was no males on the list. The Indians were cruel and ruthless murderers and to extinguish them, we resorted to their same methods. Colonel William Crawford was burnt alive in direct retaliation for the Gnadenhutten massacre which was again was an act of retaliation by killing militia men. The men were killed in retaliation for killing Chief Cornstalks two sons. David Ziesberger was imprisoned and held at Fort Detroit at the time of the Gnadenhutten Killings. His presence may had prevented it from taking place. Gnadenhutten, its name carries death. In the year 1755 in Pennsylvania at Gnadenhutten, a massacre played out there too.
1901-which transportation company operated on the Ohio and Erie Canal and never dropped lower than its summits? This company worked outside the confines of the canal commission and paid no toll.
1802-I hadn't any idea that we here at home in Ohio could run into Rattler snakes until after reading your book. I have 35 years in the medical profession and haven't yet ever treated snake bite. Are there any reported death's resulting from being bitten? rattler snakes just don't sound to common for this region.Sorry!!
1903-1901— after many years of great service to the people and towns along the Ohio and Erie Canal going into 1910, with 80 some years in its wake, the canal again in part was revived on the Portage Summit. The Crescent Launch Line began servicing the weekend sightseers in a round trip from the Upper Basin at Lock 1, at Exchange Street to down the canal just below Long Lake at Portage Landing. Other connections were available which took the passengers further south through the Iron Channel into the Turkeyfoot Lake area. The ride cost only 25 cents to go round trip. I can’t say whether the launch Company paid for the right of usage or not to the state of Ohio in the form of a toll.
1904 to 1902--You don't have to take my word for it about the Rattle Snakes just look them up and see for yourself they're here in Ohio. I have spent thousands of hours in the heat of summer making my way through the back woods researching or canals. These places rarely see to much traffic and are home for wild life. Thus stemming from that, you just might run into a snake from time to time.
We have a park near Gnadenhutten called Southern Gateway, and there sits many disclaimer notices all around. (You are entering the Southern Gateway nature Park area.) "This area is intended to be a natural wildlife preserve; there for, you may be exposed to hazards or dangerous areas while using this park. The Tuscarawas County Port authority shall not be responsible for loss, injury or death resulting from you use of this area. Proceed at your own risk. Swimming is absolutely prohibited. Hours are, sunrise to sunset. All persons present outside those hours are trespassing and subject to legal penalties." I would presume they are talking about wild animals as well as the terrain.
I have a documented case, one of many where snake bite has taken a life. This story goes way back, as follows:
The primarily Pennsylvania Dutch settlers found an abundance of rich soil and water power. The Tuscarawas River afforded travel with the southern portion of the State, while Turkeyfoot Lake, named for a noted Indian Chief, was thought to be the largest body of water in the county, and attracted many hunters, trappers and fishermen. Today, this lake is part of the Portage Lakes State Park, which draws hundreds of thousands of visitors annually.
Almost every settler set out a peach orchard, raising enormous quantities, which were made into peach brandy at the local distilleries. Peaches were also dried and shipped east. Peach orchards, of a substantial size, existed in the Township until the 1930s.
Many Township “firsts” took place in 1815. The first recorded birth is that of John Johnson. Other firsts were the marriage of John Hicks and Catherine Flickinger in that same year. The first burial in the Township occurred when the wife of Jacob Balmer succumbed to a” rattlesnake bite.”
1905-Were black men ever used as crewmen?
1906 to 1905-Some Negroes worked on canal boats as crew I would have to presume. Even so, they weren’t safe from the ever watchful eyes of the southern slave tracker. The trackers would have to be convinced by the boat captains that their blacks were free, or be apprehended when the boat ties up. A slave was safe while the boat was out in the channel and it was un-lawful to be boarded and taken away. It was a different scenario if the boat was tied and the gang plank was touching solid ground, the boat could be boarded. The Philadelphia Supreme Court pass a law that any canal boat has the same boarding rights as any sea going vessel and is governed by the same laws of the seas. Stemming from that, a captain didn’t have to give up slaves if he made a decision to keep them. Contrary to what we learned at school about slavery, it just wasn’t confined to the southern states. Ohio didn’t actively promote slavery to such a degree as for instance, Alabama or Mississippi, but Ohio never protected the slaves either. It would be hard to abolish slavery when we had a countless Presidents who had many, even George Washington, Jefferson, James K Polk, etc. Blacks were often employed as deck hands. They did the washing and cleaning and the demeaning jobs. I was told today through an email that all the way up to the Civil War; blacks weren’t allowed to own a canal boat. The Post Civil War days they were able too. The blacks who managed to get a boat, come in a little late in the game. By then the canal was declining and its place in the transportation realm was collapsing. By the 1870s many canal boats went up for sale,” Cheap” as low as $50.00, any could by one, and they’re abundant and left abandoned all over. If a Negro had purchased a canal boat, it surely wasn’t a new one, and they didn’t pay much for it. Now free, they exercised their rights as a citizen and tried to fit in everywhere where the whites were making a living, even operating canal boats. It met with disappointments and racial tensions, and it was apparent there was no equality. With the Civil war barely behind, this state, its people and businesses along the canal weren’t willing just to let a canal boat owned by a Black man and all black crew get established where other well known boats operated by whites had been doing business for decades. One of our eastern canal counter parts namely the Morris Canal of New Jersey had 4, black captains listed. On the Ohio and Erie Canal we had one!
1907- Were there places along the canal where , lets say the boat just wanted to pull over and take a break without blocking everything? You Know, Rest areas.
1908-1907--There were plenty of places to pull aside the entire length of the Ohio and Erie and other canals. There was usually a towpath built only on one side of the canal, finding a towpath on either side wasn’t too common. If a boat had to stop, it would pull to the opposite bank keeping the boat from being in the way of other tow ropes. There were plenty of basins and wide water areas throughout. A wide water area could in various places seconded as a directional change area, or a turn around. A good example of a wide water area would be just north of Lock 4 in Stark County near Canal Fulton. Another was north of Wolfs Creek Lock 1, at Barberton. It was just plain courtesy when a boat decided to stop tugging and lay aside to keep clear of others. During the busy day’s, when evening fell boats were dotted all along the canal for a good nights rest. During the earliest years, boats often banned together to show numbers warding off Indian hostilities and piracy.
1909-The towpath's here at home generally stayed to one side of the canal , but certain situations as in commercial usage warranted the towpath to be on both sides.. Out in the country on long levels, more than likely the towpath was confined to only one side. For reasons such as terrain or approaching towns, a crossover bridge, correctly called a (change bridge) would be the conduit to do so. Although connecting roads between towns eventually were combined adjoining with the towpath, which caused confusion and didn’t work too well. The confusion stemmed by the narrow width of the towpath which barely allowed for a wagon and a mule team to pass with ease. Many times out on the towpath, altercations aroused from sheer stubbornness and anger, one of the other toppled into the canal. The canal boats always had the right of way and that pissed of the boat captain when the other parties would argue about right of way. The communities had long forgotten the whole purpose behind the towpath and its existence, which was to pull the canal boats. The towpath was so overcome with the every day traffic and pedestrians, the boats were held up usually running behind schedule. A change had to be made, and made quickly to relieve the bottle neck made by the pulling teams and people alike that didn't fit on such a small surface to walk on. Roads were built opposite the towpath when the terrain could support doing so. The name given to these dirt paths was commonly called Canal Rd. When the canal became operational by 1832, it benefited the stage coach lines that almost immediately altered many of their previous courses and they used the towpath. The use of the towpath for alternate reasons was a problem which lasted the entire canal era.
1910-A canal tunnel with a projected construction date of only two years stretched into twelve. Which tunnel?
1911
To 1910. I'll guess that this is the Paw Paw tunnel on the Chesepeake & Ohio canal.
Name a western Ohio canal culvert that required 6 years to be completed?-W.A.Seed
1912 to 1911--That would more than likely be the Turtle Creek Culvert.
1913- Which canal system held the record for having the worlds largest made made reservoir?
1914-- On the M&E it took about 4 month for the canal to hold its water in which of its towns?
1915-What was the most deciding factor that brought down the canals and bolstered the railways ability to be more efficient and reliable?
1916---Hey Jeff give your version on the hype the people in the cities , towns and villages mast have felt inside during the canal's building era?
1917
1915-Technology was catching up with the newest method of transportation that was digging in deeper all the time, (the railroads). We've discussed here the changing of the guard and the use of the electric mule as an attempt to modernize the ailing canal's putting the mule into history. All this aside, it was the winter time and freezing canals that moved the transportation dollars in another direction. In the times when the canal's were operational in the prior train years, the state reverted back into a stalemate during the winter months and shortages were re-occurring awaiting springtime.
1918 to 1915 & 1917- The cold long winters clutched a grip on our canal towns. As standing and repetitive results, all businesses milling, mining, and mostly all typical life surrounding the waterway closed. The later fall months brought a spike in the cost of goods sold at our markets as did so in the early spring when crowds swarmed the markets when the boats were moving again. Price gouging was becoming more prevalent and spun out of control as the years moved towards the 1850s. A 10 cent pound of salt back bought in the fall was only 2 cents at mid summer. The railroads stabilized the pricing issues and kept them consistent.
1919
To 1912- Turtle Creek culvert is the correct answer.
To-1913 That would be the Mercer County reservoir,now known as Grand Lake St.Marys.
T0 1914- I'll guess Cincinnati. I know that the canal took a long time to fill up from the Middletown feeder south to the Queen City.---W.A.Seed
1920-- was the canal ever shut down for servicing?
1921- Which of the canal terminus moved more freight down the Ohio River, Cincinnati or Portsmouth?
1922 to 1920--The mechanics of the canal enabled any level between locks to be drained for repairs at anytime. The areas which needed more attention were the aqueducts and culverts. These repairs were routinely done in the time frame between late fall and early spring. It's hard to say that draining the canal was a practice which was kept up. There are so many pictures that are available where there are blankets of ice hanging from the aqueducts make one think the water wasn’t closed off, or the sluice gate at the aqueducts supply end was just plain shot. On a level where there's not a sluice gate to drain off that section, then how was the canal drained? That would be done by opening the lock further down, its wicket doors or well chambers and closing off the higher lock chamber up the canal. It's my belief that the canal stayed full as the ice industry picked up, and the areas where repairs were needed was determined long before winter hit and were closed down to make such repairs.
1923 to 1921-Portsmouth was miniature by comparison to Cincinnati. Looking back in time to the census records, Portsmouth wouldn't make up one square block of Cincinnati in 1825. Portsmouth was actually left out as a canal port on the Ohio River by geography being positioned on the eastern side of the Scioto River. Geography played a big part back then as it does now. The term (over the tracks), still applies today where those tracks separate two neighborhoods, and life styles as well. Marietta was a bustling town and Cincinnati was our strongest port. Set dead smack in the middle of the two was Portsmouth. Portsmouth was never developed as a major port of call along the river, and by trying to turn it into one come too late. After doing and researching the facts between the Ohio and Erie Canal and the Miami and Erie Canal, the Miami and Erie was better suited as the link between Lake Erie and the Ohio River. Any river travel on the Ohio River made an overnight stop at Cincinnati for one reason or another. Portsmouth was merely a mile marker on the way to either Marietta or the Queen City. The Ohio and Erie Canal, although was an entire route from Cleveland to Portsmouth wasn’t as it may seem in reality. It was one channel but two separate canals on a commercial standpoint. The upper part or the northern section is where the revenue was being made with so much industry along the canal and the northern end advanced rapidly. The southern end almost stood still in comparison. Generally the canal boats stayed in close proximity to their home ports making designated runs. The coal freighters moved longer distances, mostly north. Harvest time played a huge role on the canals when it was then when the canals were at their busiest. So to close this up about Portsmouth and even with the Ohio and Erie Canals southern terminus close at hand it was hindered by disastrous regional flooding. Its docks were constantly washed away and the town was pushed back off the river for its own protection, hadn’t a chance at becoming a major river or canal port.
1924
As a native Cincinnatian, I thought I'd add a little to the previous entry.
The Miami & Erie only terminated at the Ohio River until about 1864. Like Portsmouth, it experienced flood & silting problems at the lower locks of the 10 lock staircase leading to the river. More importantly, the boaters didn't want to lock down to the river because it took too much time. They loaded & off-loaded at the "Cheapside"basin located at the top of the hill.
The staircase of locks were filled & converted into a wasteweir/sewer & the land leased to railroad companies.--W.A.Seed
1925- I beg to differ with listing 1923, its about the southern end of the Ohio & Erie Canal. I know a little about the rich history of Chillicothe, enough to know it equaled any waterfront, anyplace, except for Cleveland from Lake Erie on down. Hundreds on canal boats passed through there everyday on their way to the Ohio River. Canal boats lined up for miles at Portsmouth according to Judith Ross. Judith Ross who heads up the Canal Society said that the river ships came inland to be loaded as far as Moss Mills. Portsmouth was ahead of its times and today stands as a great historic marker for its achievements during the canal era. She'll be very disappointed at you when she reads how you made Portsmouth lock like curb-service and car-hops.
1926 to 1925--Freedom of speech and the use of this blog allows one too speak what's on their mind. Chillicothe may have been southern Ohio's biggest canal town, but in reality was barely larger than New Portage (Barberton) during the canal era. Chillicothe, Waverly, Circleville and Portsmouth combined hadn't the economic strength of Akron or Massillon by the 1850s.
I don't really don't think that any river boats had the ability to enter the canal at lock 55 or even lock 54 while it was on the Scioto River. Union Mills was far from the reach of any river boats.
Portsmouth wasn't curb-side service and I don't know where I even suggested that it was. Portsmouth wasn't this big canal town that some would like others to believe it was. As a matter of fact, the canal never touched Portsmouth.
Portsmouth’s beginnings were actually to the west of the confluence of the Scioto and the Ohio Rivers at a small place called Alexandria. Rising waters was cause to place this newly started town on the eastern side of the Scioto River away from the lowlands. Portsmouth’s founder was Henry Massie who had great visions for his new town and incorporated it by 1915. This small town accelerated rapidly and by 1916 it is listed as follows in an Ohio topographical report (Portsmouth a flourishing post town and the seat of justice for Scioto County. It’s advantageously situated for internal commerce, on the eastern bank of the Scioto River, just above the junction with the Ohio. It contains a courthouse and goal, a bank, six mercantile stores and two commission warehouses, which do pretty extensive business.)
1927- Although close to the Ohio & Erie Canal, Portsmouth was never in the spotlight as a known canaltown. Portsmouth as a prior posting outlines was far away from the towpath and an unstable bridge was its only link to it. This town can't boast of any grandeur having canal boats passing through its inner city. Alexandria was the terminus and a great road by two names, Canal Road & River Rd. was the only means to rendezvous with locks 54, 55 and this approach was west of the Scioto River miles from Portsmouth. Generally and before lock 55 come in play, the off loading to the Ohio River was done at the Slab Run Basin at West Portsmouth which lied between the Elbow lock and Union Mills lock 52. An express route routinely carried out by wagon moved the cargo from West Portsmouth to the Ohio River at dockage at its banks at a time when lock 54 was the terminus at the Scioto River. River boats moved downstream to take on payload a safe place far from the aggregate bars deposited by the Scioto River. The area of choice later was the final southern terminus when lock 55 was built there. Lock 55 had a significant basin inland lined with wharfs and docks therefore making the job of handling freight with the river boats closer. Now with lock 55 as a new tool a canal freighter had the ability to rest within the Ohio River. Back then, areas around lock 55 resembled a modern day ship yard sporting overhead trolleys and booms, block and tackles hanging everywhere. The river boats had an ability to swing a boom out and over the canal boat tied up at lock 55s river approach. Coal barges waited nearby for the coal boxes to be hoisted from the canal freighter and dumped into their holds. There were river boats staged and waiting to be unloaded and moored upstream at Portsmouth.
Portsmouth had an outstanding water front with great docks and overhead trolleys and huge coal chutes standing 100 feet tall. The main attraction for anything coming up or down the Ohio was the brothels and taverns in staggering numbers that Portsmouth was known for. Coal was Portsmouth’s leading export which supplied Cincinnati, Marietta and Pittsburgh with enough to satisfy their needs. Most of the coal was Kentucky coal and to arrive in Portsmouth, the coal was moved overland from the Kentucky mines onto the Ohio River. Across from Portsmouth anchored barges were filled then winched to the Ohio side. Kentucky had steep cliffs and an unfriendly terrain unable to support the dockage as Portsmouth had the ability to do. Portsmouth was hardly impacted with the Ohio & Erie Canal; bulk of its commerce was carried out moving freight on the Ohio River. An important fact to remember about the Portsmouth, Portsmouth was situated over the Scioto in Wayne Township and the terminus of the Ohio & Erie Canal was situated in Washington Township and Slab Run Basin and Union Mills were in Union Township, far cry from Portsmouth!
1928--Merry Christmas to all. There's a pamphlet distributed in 2009 has several interesting points. Its contents consist of everything from a dredge on its cover page and highlights culverts and aqueducts. I feel the dredge is questionable and more than likely this picture has no bearing nor the machine ever dredged the Ohio and Erie Canal.
1929 to 1928-- its wording isn't definite actually stating that the dredging contractors D.E.Sullivan & Sons used that dredge. That piece of equipment is far too large to pass through a canal lock, too wide, way-way too high and looks far too long. Its smoke stack is a good twenty feet high. I don't believe that picture is at all where they say it was taken, (purely speculation) but further upstream. The canal terminus after 1872 only extended to where the ship turn around on the Cuyahoga River sits today, and if we were looking north, I presume we are, then where is the weigh lock that sat right there and River Lock designates where the canal ended at the river, and there's no mention of. There wasn't a set of tracks between the canal and the river in that area, if so a trestle would be made over it. That is the Cuyahoga River in the background, and that's a river dredge. I would bet that picture was elsewhere, probably at the staging yard at Sherwin Williams, that’s the only place where the tracks are that close to the river. That is not a canal dredge by no means. We know that picture is not of the canal because where have we ever had the towpath on the other side of a railroad track between the canal.
1930-
1929---I believe the picture is the closest to the real deal and the reasoning behind it is to place a picture in the minds of who's ever wondered what a canal dredge appeared to look like.
1931-CANAL FULTON: The nearly 40-year run on the Ohio and Erie Canal of the replica St. Helena canalboats could come to an end in less than a month if a federal grant of nearly $500,000 to pay for dredging doesn't come through.
My concern is where has the revenues gone the boat ride has generated over the years'
Timothy
1932 to 1930-That huge machine could never negotiate a lock chamber just by its sheer size alone. The picture being incomplete doesn't illustrate an additional 20 feet for the swing arm and bucket not shown there. The phrase insinuates clearly that machine was used on the canal to dredge. That monstrosity was home to the Cuyahoga River which keeps a constant minimum depth of 27 feet for the shipping lanes.
1933-The picture is of an actual dredge sitting in the Cuyahoga River. The paragraph is fabricated and placed without thinking it through that it might be to big to fit in a lock.
That group of guys often place the cart at the wrong end of the Donkey!
1933-The picture is of an actual dredge sitting in the Cuyahoga River. The paragraph is fabricated and placed without thinking it through that it might be to big to fit in a lock.
That group of guys often place the cart at the wrong end of the Donkey!
1934-Did canalboats move within the Tuscarawas Feeder channel?
1935-to 1930--That particular dredge didn't have a collapsible A frame and to use it every crossing between Cleveland to Akron would have been removed to allowed its passage.
1936-The Tuscarawas Feeder was actually the inlet where the Tuscarawas River filled the Portage Lakes. It’s responsible for assuring the water supply enters the East Reservoir and from there, the water through a series of lakes and dams finds its way into the canal. The course of one of the many tributaries of the Tuscarawas River was diverted into an area which was rolling hills and dams were place there to hold water. The Portage Lakes are the results of carefully placed dams and using natural surroundings to store water. Canal boats never used the feeder for travel.
1937-Jeff why do you have such a negative outlook on fellow researchers work?
1938 to 1937-I don't know that I am. But, that's sorta "the pot calling the kettle black". If we're talking about that dredge passing through a lock, I would have a hard time believing that gargantuan piece of equipment was intended for the canal. Just because some of you make a statement, "for example the dredge" doesn't qualify it as facts. I'll be the first to say that I made some errors, and they were pointed out. I couldn't care less whether that dredge was used for the canal or not, but I know it wasn't. The problem with some of you guys is you always think you know what you're talking about, and I know better! Let's let the canal era photo album be a good example of all of you guys at your best work and being right on top your game, I'm impressed.
Greetings,
Thanks for sharing the link - but unfortunately it seems to be down? Does anybody here at johnnyappleseedscanalstories.blogspot.com have a mirror or another source?
Thanks,
Harry
1939 -1938 I hold the pamphlet with has the canal dredge and why wouldn't it fit through a lift lock?
1940 to1939-if you’re going by the pictures and the wording on this pamphlet in discussion, I guess you’ll just have to pick and choose and make up your own mind just what fits and where. The cover page is numbered (70) and its picture and phrasing bends in the direction that that particular dredge was use in the dredging process on the Ohio and Erie Canal. I strongly disagree and go on record to say it wasn’t used because; it’s to big to pass through a canal lock. Ted, if you go to page 72, and read the caption about the McMillan’s Dry Dock, and just sit there and ponder its contents, you’ll understand my stand on this matter, or maybe that’s too much for you. Well, if you haven’t figured it out yet, I’ll give you a hand. As Follows: “said dry dock was originally built for the dockage of canal boats which had the width of some 15 feet. A steam dredge is now operational on this portion of the canal and cannot be dry docked until the present dock is repaired. Additional width is needed to admit the same”.
Now, how many of our upper northern Ohio locks have been widened? We still yet have a couple that can be measured to back up the theory that a dredge wider that 15 feet can pass through a lock of 15 feet.
1941
1940-The pontoon section of the standard canal dredge by design fit the standard dimensions of a lock. Its superstructure and crane was entirely to large to pass, and was disassembled and re- assembled at the work site where needed. The upright crane was transported either by wagon or boat to the sight. By not carrying out the dis-assembly process the results would entail an enormous effort by having every bridge and low lying crosswalk and structure removed from their mounts and placed back on after it maneuvered by . That in itself was a little to much work to get involved in to move the equipment up and down the canal.
1942-A dredge barge is tied up at Summit Lake its platform width is 20 feet the length 50.
1943- Years ago I stumbled across a piece about the five chosen routes to run Ohio's canals.Do you have any insight about the other two besides the three we know of?
1944 to 1943-There was another canal proposal set in the minds of the commission by an ambitious politician who made the suggestion of a canal to be dug from the northeastern corner of the state all the way across to Cincinnati. His driven force was to collect votes in an upcoming election and keep his position. The diagonal line crossed many counties and could collect many votes. Naive to the need for an adequate water supply to operate this canal system, he, being unfamiliar with canals, thought you just dig the canal and all is well and it is ready to go. His pitch was, it was the best all-around route possible and because it was passing through Columbus the state capital. The plan was set aside because of geographical hindrances. The man with all these fantastic ideas was none other than Governor Brown. He still pushed and was very instrumental in securing six thousand dollars to cover the cost of a survey to be conducted by James Geddes who mapped the Erie Canal in New York. Geddes, in eight months, surveyed nine hundred miles of Ohio's wilderness and submitted the findings to the canal commission who presented them to the state for approval. Many of those in the political arena fought tooth and nail for the Toledo to Cincinnati route, the Miami and Erie Canal to be the states first and foremost canal as the link from Lake Erie to the Ohio River although it was a better suited route which led directly into Ohio's largest populated area. The political seats were swayed by Alfred Kelly who lived in Cleveland who slyly worked his dealings behind closed doors. Kelly selfishly stood to make a personal fortune and gain doing underhanded land deals in Cleveland and 40 miles south where Akron would soon develop. If the canal is picked for the northeastern route and goes over the proposed Portage Summit, Simon Perkins and Alfred Kelly will become very wealthy.
1845
1944-Canalwayman you make it sound like Alfred Kelley was a killer
1846-Did Cleveland ever have within its limits a guard lock?
1847
1845---------Alfred Kelley, Saint to sinner and back to saint to save the day. Kelley was the man of the hour when he did his part bringing in the canals, a saint to Ohio’s economy. It was all money wealth and glory which kept this man in motion. He followed the money trail and like a Lyon to fresh meat, he smelled the money and went after it. His short stay on the Canal Commission gave him enough opportunity to see where the real fortunes were to be made, it wasn’t his canal. Huge payments were made to him in hopes to push the canal through their towns and villages. New Philadelphia paid $400.000 and funneled it in his direction in hopes of having their very own canal coming right to their front door. That canal placement was denied in the end, New Philadelphia, took care of placing their own Lateral Canal. Kelley wanted more, and New Philadelphia was unable to secure any more funds and lost the money as the story goes. The saint turns sinner. Kelley had vision and the know how to screw Ohio and their banking systems out of millions, and he did it very well. Again Kelley who was an original signer of the Plunder Act, an act designed to have the state finance a large portion of the funding for railroad expansion and roads and turnpikes. He headed up so many railroads that nearly wiped out Ohio’s financial backbone that never transpired into no more than a planned scheme to siphon state money into his hands to become rich and these smaller railroads never materialized. After time Kelley could see the state was faltering and has extended its loaner capabilities beyond control and was spiraling downward into bankruptcy. To go bankrupt wouldn’t look to good on Kelley’s resume and that would definitely be an end of his career and all others related to the (act). Knowing that he was partially responsible by endorsing the Plunder Act, could ultimately and would surely be his unraveling at the state house. To save the day, Kelley and his close ties devised the Kelley Bank Bill of 1845 to straighten out the mess he started. Alfred Kelley was never for the small people, he was looking out for himself. As far as being a killer as the previous posting suggest, well, he nearly killed the State of Ohio. We know he killed the canals by turning away from them.
1848
Could the canal have tied into New Philly?
1849
1848- Political undertones and disagreements kept the Ohio & Erie Canal from being a main stop at New Philadelphia, sort of an act of punishment at the hands of Alfred Kelley. Benedic Arnold, was more welcome there than Kelley.
1850- New Philadelphia was deliberately passed by the canal commission. The powers at hand in Tuscarawas County at Dover, were locked in bitter and long lasting rivalry with New Philadelphia political field. History reveals Dover's leader, Christian Deardorff may had paid Kelley handsomely to steer around New Philadelphia, avoiding its boundaries entirely. New Philadelphia's leaders lobbied extensively securing their town as a major canal port and in doing so, presented monetary enticements that the commission accepted. When the town was awakened to see the canal being dug away from them, New Philadelphia wanted the funds returned in the wake of there huge disappointment. It became apparent that the contract with the commission and their back room arrangements was worthless. Its contents and wording by design from the hands of a young and talented former attorney, outwitted all of them, that left them broke and with no recourse. No town, I mean that no town has ever anticipated the canals arrival more than New Philadelphia had. Alfred Kelley was a scrupulous man.
1851-to 1850-what organization is the SCO?
I teach at Southern College of Optometry, also an Ohio Historian and canal researcher here and abroad!
I drive an 18 wheeler locally and sometimes the lower 48 and dig the canals history / Gee, I'm an expert!
1953
1870s I live in Gnadenhutten now 79 years. I understand you explore the place, did you ever stumble on the canon mounts?
1854- Trivia question----Was lock 42 at Cleveland a terminus or was it a guard lock?
1955-Lock 42, known as river lock was never listed as a guard lock. Being a barrier capable of blocking out the river does not qualify that structure in any shape or form to be other than a lift lock. The Cuyahoga River did not replenish the canal at river lock,, the canal discharged its flow at that confluence.
1956
1955- Words of Sam T, about the guard lock 42.Cleveland, realizing that there was still a profit to be made from the Ohio & Erie Canal, retained its role of being the northern terminus of the system. As part of the purchase, the city relocated the Weigh Lock and Lock 42 near the foot of Dille Street along Independence Road, which was barely within the city limits . In April 1874, work began on a new Weigh Lock and Guard Lock (Lock 42) that would connect to the Cuyahoga River. The Grasselli Chemical Company's factory sat adjacent to the new Weigh Lock and Lock 42, and the area was heavily industrialized. Even in the late-nineteenth century, the O&E Canal still functioned as a mode of transportation, and it is certain that the Grasselli Chemical Company and other industries in the area received shipments via the canal. Cleveland, with its investment in the new Weigh Lock and Guard Lock, demonstrated a belief that the O&E Canal still had an economic usefulness to the city’s local manufacturing.
1957 to 1856-A guard lock is usually where the canal is interrupted by a stream and continues on. Its placement by design, guards the canal in high water conditions from flooding out of its banks. If River Lock 42 is a guard lock, that’s a new revelation. I guess the southern terminus when it was at the Scioto at Lock 54 was one too. Lock 55 at West Portsmouth on the Ohio River must be another. I wasn’t aware that our guard locks on the Ohio and Erie Canal were numbered. If these guard locks are accompanied by a number, then what’s the number of the Clinton and the Higby and other guard locks? They aren’t numbered, they’re named. A guard lock can be found generally at a slack water crossing but not always. I wish to point out a few other places in the previous posting which doesn’t sit too well with me. One of them is where lock 42 River Lock and the weigh lock sat. They did not sit at the foot of Dille St., they sat 3/8 of a mile north of there. I seriously doubt that any manufacturing companies along the Valley Railroad, being the former canal bed, would have even wanted to use the canal when the RR tracks sat between them. I think that his paragraph in part has sort of blown up the canal’s importance for the times by placing it in a higher demand than it was in actuality. I can understand that, but let’s get real, the canal was nearly at a standstill and was at the brink of collapse.
1958- Cleveland steel mills were the first here in Ohio to build coal ports. Coal ports consist of a large dry basin below an elevated track in which loaded coal cars called "Jimmies” off loaded. . Jimmies, a gondola type design bottom dropper coal car could drop 55 tons through by opening its gates through the tracks below onto the ground. This process was completed in seconds. A canal boat took endless hours to unload the same amount. This design was perfected by 1870 and was widely used for the transport of aggregate, limestone, coal and farm products. Today shows that many of the earlier coal cars had a design change and some day the drop bottom car will be non-existent. The newer cars are on a rotational axis and the payloads have doubled. With the invention of the bottom dropper coal car had a devastating affect on canal transporting. In a short time it sealed the fate of coal handling done by the canal boats on a large scale throughout the land. Every town of sizable proportions had a coal port by 1880. The smaller less populated areas still received canal transported payloads for a couple of years in the wake of the railways until it was delivered by wagon and later by truck.
All the guard locks on the Ohio and Erie Canal were left out of the numbering system. Although some other canals here in Ohio do have guard locks with numbers. River Lock hardly qualifies as a guard lock, a lift lock yes, by all means. The canal exits into the Cuyahoga River at lock 42, with it were a significant drop of six to eight feet. Guard locks are the same elevation on its entry and exit approach, more of a barrier.
1959-A Guard lock basically sits where the canal meets a river, creek or stream where there's a continuance. Its location is the far side and on downstream portion of the canal. In that situation the stream has a nearby dam to guarantee a consistent flow of water and seconds as a feeder inlet as well as a device to close off the canal. River Lock number 42 doesn’t go by the name of Guard Lock 42.
Tamburro’s assessment of River Lock is a bit off the mark
1960
The M & E has (2) numbered guard locks (40N Independence and 44N Providence) #43N Bucklins has also been refered to as a Guard lock. All are located on the Maumee River slackwater and are still extant.---W.A.Seed
1961
1960 Are these locations doubled as feeders?
1962 to 1953- I never had the opportunity to see these. Now that I know where they're at, I'll go up in the spring. I have a close Friend that I meet with often; he works for the National Park Service and is a botanist who's from Gnadenhutten. I had the chance to run this by him since the posting and he had a story to tell. He said that high above Gnadenhutten behind the church camp is a very narrow path which leads to a vantage point over the river and the valley below. Many uprisings took place through these lands, the French fought the Indians, and the Indians battled the British and the Revolutionary soldiers alike. The bigger battles were the British and the Delaware’s fighting side by side against the Revolutionary Army. Either the British or the militia placed guns up on the hill embedding them in concrete and some of the straps and hardware are still up there.
1963
To 1961 Locks 40N & 44N doubled as feeders. Bucklins served as an outlet into the Maumee.--W.A.Seed
1964-Nearly an exact replica of Middletown lift bridge, once over Tytus Avenue can be found near James and Canal Streets in Cleveland and further more at Sycamore Street.
1965-1964 I can't believe that a bridge built large and high enough to pass below them "Ocean Vessels" could be found in Middletown Ohio or the Miami and Erie Canal, or inland unless, on some river or inter coastal waterway of larger proportions.
1966-I have a map done by you which greatly is in direct conflict with another profile map that's been circulated for decades. The information of the two are miles apart on the number of locks, guard locks, aqueducts and culverts. Who's work is correct here. I would like to use your work, can you verify your findings?
1967 - 1966-I've been down this road way to many times. If this is the Profile Map put out by the Roscoe Village group, it's a real mess, and highly misleading. I know this web site is large in size and it would take days to retrieve anything because its out of order, but that will soon be fixed to where an index will lead one to they're query. On that alone and to save you a lot of time going through it's vast postings to only find out for yourself that my map is the more accurate of the two. Well there it is.
Profile Map. Oh Jeff, here we go again!! Oh! it is highly misleading to have others thinking overall your( work) is just plain better than anyone’s out there!. These HIGHLY regarded gentlemen were doing research when you was a BABY. The men who are behind the contents of the original-(I do go on record saying that the original Profile Map, not yours, is a masterpiece of ingenuity not some cheap copy), they are upstanding renown individuals, UNLIKE you!
The words of J.G on this matter 1960- “The Ohio and Erie Canal was constructed at the cost of $4.244,540. The construction of the feeder reservoirs brought its total to$7,904,972. For its 308 tortuous miles, containing 146 lift locks, 56 guard locks, 14 aqueducts, and 153 culverts, is averaged less than $15,000 a mile, a remarkable figure for the early nineteenth century; the Erie Canal for example, had cost much more. Locks were built for about $5000 apiece and aqueducts averaged $15,000”.
(So there it is folks)-above is the most highly accurate and regarded information on this matter placed into history some 50 years ago, by a real EXPERT in his field.
1969 to previous posting we'll call 1968-That profile map that whoever you are holds so dear to your heart, is a Joke! I could spend all day destroying its information. I didn’t copy anything, if I so, it would be just as ridiculous as the one that you kneel down to a pay homage too! Do you have this misleading map placed high up, maybe on an alter with vigil candles lit all around it? Did you name your kids after it and take it on your honeymoon? I set mine under my Harley, so oil drops didn’t stain my concrete! It’s also is good starter for wood burning stoves. To stiff, for toilet tissue but makes a great dustpan.
How many culverts? There probably aren’t that many culverts on every canal system in Ohio combined. Re-count those aqueducts, the best of all is the gargantuan numbers of these guard locks, where are they? Does Kendall, or did Kendall, Ohio reach the canal at any point?
The only defense I can make for the author and makers of that other profile map, and I mean the incorrect one, not my own!, is just that they didn’t know the facts then. I know first hand that some of my earlier own work is just as crappy as all theirs is. Time changes your outlook and often enough, inside each of us, we shiver, thinking about the bad stuff we placed out there. I would bet MLN that if you would ask J.G. today his opinion on that phrase he made 51, years ago, if he has re-considered its contents and if he still stands behind it a being factual, he would say its not too accurate.
Who ever you are, wake up!
1970-I own both profile maps and keep the one designed by Jeff Maximovich beautifully framed in my classroom. Since having it, I have reflected on it contents on numerous occasions. Thee other has been removed.
1971-Where the Columbus Feeder meets the Big Walnut Creek did the state place a guard lock on both sides?
1972 -1971 On the Lockbourne Side of the Big Walnut the feeder passed through a guard lock then to a connection point where it met the mainline of the Ohio and Erie Canal. I estimate the channel was about 1/2 mile long. If you go down in there and look for any evidence of this connection, you’ll come up empty. The intersection has been covered up with the adjacent road. I spent a lot of time at that place and tell you this, wear high boots because there’s plenty of greasy mud. Just barely south of the guard locks was the slackwater dam on the Big Walnut.
The other side of Walnut Creek there sits a guard lock that in part mimics its opposing lock. The difference is, this lock could lift or lower a canal boat. The first lock coming from Columbus was about 4 ½ miles down in the direction of Shadeville. The second lock was built as a duel lock; the upper end was the lift lock with a lower guard at Walnut Creek. Each lock dropped the channel seven feet, a combined drop of fourteen feet. Four locks total were on the feeder including its guard lock at the inlet on the Scioto River in Columbus.
The name of the Big Belly does not apply to this section of Walnut Creek at Lockbourne. The Big Belly section of Walnut Creek is where Alum Creek with Blacklick Creek joins the Big Walnut. This wide section is more known as the Three Creeks, its near Gahanna and Whitehall. The name Big Belly was derived because the creek swelled at those junctions and resembled a big old pork belly.
1973
1972-Big Belly Creek, Big Lick Creek, Gahanna River, Hayes Ditch, Whingwy Mahoni Sepung and Menkwi Mhoani Siipunk all form the Big Walnut Creek in northern Morrow County, where several hundred acres of swampland known as Big Belly Swamp was covered in water year round and resembled a fat cow.
Hi there,
Thanks for sharing this link - but unfortunately it seems to be down? Does anybody here at johnnyappleseedscanalstories.blogspot.com have a mirror or another source?
Cheers,
Charlie
1974-Where was the 3-c highway?
1975- Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland are connected by I-71 formerly the 3-C highway.
Canalwayman
Hello,
This is a message for the webmaster/admin here at johnnyappleseedscanalstories.blogspot.com.
Can I use part of the information from your post above if I provide a link back to your site?
Thanks,
Mark
To the previous posting, yes you can. What's your website?
1976-Did the Tuscarawas River tie into the Cuyahoga River? Would a canal boat be able to navigate the canal system during a drought if the canal level was just a foot lower than its standard depth?
1977 to 1976--I suspect that you already have a general knowledge base about the workings and mechanics of the canal system. But every one knows that the the Tuscarawas River and the Cuyahoga doesn't connect. But, by way of the Little Cuyahoga River the waters of the Tuscarawas is carried to the Big Cuyahoga. How's that pulled off is quite simple, the Portage Summit is fueled by the Tuscarawas River and it drops off the northern end at lock 1 and ends up in today's time merging with the Little Cuyahoga at the Mustill Store. During the active era of the canal they didn't merge there but some of the water from the the Tuscarawas spilling down the staircase escaped over weirs and mixed.
Now about the canal working if it was in a drought condition and running a foot lower than usual. First of all, the canal could never be a foot low over a long distance, the lower locks would fill regardless through the system. If this hypothetical situation existed where every lock was on the same level, the boats would scrape bottom on the high side entering the chamber. In a real situation, the canal level that would be the most affected by a drought would be the foremost level that's the closest to the feeders inlets. As I stated before, the lower levels would still fill if the canal wasn't breached anywhere.
1778
1777 If the water was low at the feeder the canal would come to an abrupt stop with the water unable to spill over the tumble spillway. if the water cannot reach the top and flow overtop the lower section will suffer too!
1979-If the water wasn't deep enough to pass over the tumble, the wickets would convey the water down the canal.
1980- If the wickets were used to fill the lower levels, then it would be the right time to accept the fact that your stuck where you're at until the water returns.
1981-Its been known that in order to keep the canal filled, the rivers actually ceased to flow and come to a stop. To conserve water the canal keep its locks sealed tightly and shut down its regional mill races.
Hey does anyone have the story on the Clinton Coal Mine Feeder?
1982-to previous listing. The coal canal was named the Messenger Feeder. I really think calling it a feeder is incorrect. If it’s listed as one, that would be a misrepresentation of a feeder. This channel was hand dug from the canal at Clinton heading west as a loading point for the coal mines up in the Rouges Hollow area which was rich with coal. Clinton is home to three locks, locks 2 and 3 and a guard lock and a slackwater crossing of a different type and a weir. The coal canal joined the Ohio and Erie at a basin below lift lock number 2 where a drydock sat as well. A store was in the area nearer to lock number 3 and a race ran from the weir positioned at the western side of the towpath near lock 2 only feet from the chamber. This raced fueled the coal canal and kept the basin filled and was the water supply for the dry dock and emptied at lock 3. The coal canal wasn’t more than a couple hundreds yard long because it ran into steep hills and there wasn’t any locks lifting the coal canal up into Rouges Hollow. Today we still have the dry dock in Clinton for those who wish to have a look, and it’s still filled with water. To find this, just walk west from lock 2 and there is a square pond and if you look into the water along its banks you can still find its wooden parts below.
1982
1982---- Where in the heck do you find these places? There not any square body of water on the western side of the towpath at Clinton!!
1983 to 1982-There is a body of water on the west side of the steep weir which once ran from the northwesterly side of the lock chamber at lock 2 at Clinton. If it's not there today then its been filled, but I highly doubt it because of its size alone. On the eastern end of this once dry dock, bumpers are still evident submerged and other pieces of wood indicating what it formerly was.
1984 Are you talking about the pond just southeast of lock 2, or the pond just west of lock 2 on the other side of the tracks?
1985 to 1984- the pond is just over the tracks, go have a look and give me some feed back on what you think it was.
For the great info
I'll be back later.
Thanks again!
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1996- This pond in Clinton Ohio is not a natural piece of the landscape but is in direct correlation with the canal affairs of its day. Once upon a time, the coal channel extended off the main canal and with only feet to spare passing this body of water. I have always suspected the pond to be a drydock. The channel now filled it once passed below a block stone trestle which carried the Valley Railroad. The only landmark besides the pond that's left for any evidence to verify the coal channels vary existence is no more than a small bridge crossing the Older Highway 21, this bridge now has a small creek below marks where the coal canal was.. I've scoured the hillsides for trolleys and even roads that lead into the hills of Rouges Hollow and never found a trace which indicated that a connection to this coal canal existed.
1997-The Tuscarawas River in the Clinton Ohio area has been subject to a major direction change all brought about extending from the flood of 1913s fatal blow. Somewhere on this blog I read where the river passed through the canal then through weirs then on to the south. That was the mechanical aspect of that connection. Clinton was prone to flooding more than anywhere because it's the only section of the Ohio & Erie Canal that dropped lower than its adjacent river. Two weirs regulated both the canal and the rivers strength located on the western towpath where a high fill existed much different than the flat walking path we have today. Two wooden bridges crossed the weirs and a third bridge crossed the weir located between locks 2 & 3.
1998
1997-- Clinton's river course remains the same without change since the canal came through, nothing has changed. A long slackwater dam was place down river from the existing walk bridge and the boats were pulled across just like any other slackwater crossing!!
1999 to 1998-Tom, you are incorrect about Clinton having its section of the Tuscarawas backed by a conventional (Slack Water Dam). Clinton was regularly plagued with more than its fair share of flooding and to alleviate its constant irregularity in the river causing damage the rivers course should have been subject for a change. Clinton never had the conventional slack water dam but twin weirs as its info board at the guard lock strongly exhibits.
2000-Were there really canal pirates or these stories make-believe?
2001-Was a canal boat capable of travel to Middlebury by way of the Crosby Mill Race?
2002-Piracy wasn’t exhibited openly as some may lead us to believe during the canal era here in Ohio on our canals. I went into a couple conversations on this subject and what I derived from them is that it’s all pretty much hearsay. I doubt if we had situations out on the open levels of the canal far away from our bigger towns that mimicked the story book figures such as Blue Beard the pirate or someone flying the Jolly Roger banner.
Were there pirate vessels floating up and down our canals? I would say probably its not so. If this scenario existed the perpetrators would soon be caught simply because they really don’t have many places to hide on a canal. Where could they go except to abandon their ship and go on foot or horseback? It’s possible that a canal boat may have been seized and used it to rob other boats, but then again the thieves were probably quick to leave it behind. Any robbery of canal vessels was probably done from bandits waiting in the shadows just off the towpath for a boat to arrive then they disappeared again into the thick brush. I would imagine that the lock tenders could recognized any regular boat that passed through a mile off and were very familiar with them all.
If the crew of a known boat wasn’t present on board, it would raise suspicions and the law would be notified and they would be apprehended soon after. It wouldn’t be too difficult to outrun the canal boat down the canal and get in front of it and arrest the thieves. A good place to rob a canal boat would be if the boat was tied up and its crew was in the saloons drinking. Generally if the crew were to disembark and go into town, one was left to guard the boat. Who knows if his change of guard ever showed up to relieve him, probably not? Sooner or later he got fed up and left the boat un-attended to join his buddies. Another course of action would be, is that the skeleton crew was knocked over the head and the thieves had their way. During the Civil War on the southern end of the Ohio and Erie Canal as folklore will have it, many folks lean towards the story that the infamous Morgan’s Raiders boarded many boats and helped themselves to the goods.
2003 to 2001- I can say some certainty that the Crosby Millrace was partially used to float canal boats. The section of the mill race from where the P & O Canal tied into it then went into Akron was a serviceable canal, but it may have split off and paralleled the race in part. I say that because exactly below the big blue bridge that carries route 8 over the Little Cuyahoga Valley between Perkins Street and Glenwood Ave has a piece of the millrace that run through concrete walls and its only 10 feet in width. The Crosby Millrace was intended to power the mills at a place only mere inches north of Akron call Cascade. It derived its name from the long cascading hydraulic drop from the millrace on now Main Street down to the lock 5 areas to power industry. The section of the millrace that led back into Middlebury from the connection point was too narrow and had many sharp bends and that alone rules out a boat from using it. Not only that, there’s a tunnel above the train station at Arlington and Forge Streets that the millrace passed through. There’s no doubt that the millrace later on was incorporated as the final approach into Akron and then calling it by another name, the Pennsylvania and Ohio Canal completed about 1840.
2003
To 2002 Where exactly can this tunnel be found as part of the Crosby Race? I'm not being sarcastic, but I never have ran across this thing.
go back out and look again
2005 I believe the tunnel is just east of Arlington, just south of the lower railroad tracks. The tunnel carried the race underneath the upper tracks. The dried up ditch is still there, but I believe the tunnel is mostly buried under the fill leading up to the upper tracks.
2006- Hey Jeff I thought that you was full of crap with all your wild exploring and tales. I ask about the graphite you placed on the wall of the tunnels going under Akron, I thought is was in bad taste just to get your name exposed. I found out that you placed it under there without any inclination that it would ever be viewed by anyone. I guess I can appreciate your fortitude and certainly your courage for going through there. What was it like.
2007-It's called graffiti
2008-2006-I never thought the underground tunnel would have ever been opened up like that at Lock 3 Park. What's done is done and it sorta falls inline with my exploration and its intention was to go through every lock or at least stand where it once was. I hope it stays as a reminder of just how hard one worked documenting the former Ohio and Erie Canal. Would I ever do something like that again, well who knows, maybe!
2009-Can the old stagecoach road still be found between Gnadenhutten and Newcomerstown?
2010 to 2009 many of our stagecoach roads from the past were our early highways and turnpikes. They didn't start out as mainly stagecoach roads but originally were Indian or military trails. The early pioneers cut there way across the wilderness and often had to cut through the thick forest, from it roads were built. Most of our earlier roads stayed close to the rivers where our states population mostly settled. The rivers and streams offered water power to operate mills and water was necessary to survive for those without having a well. Every town which has its roots going back deep into the 1800s was traveled by horseback, Conestoga wagon or by stagecoach. There is barely a trail left behind through the years that ran along the Tuscarawas River that was used and it in part can still be found between Gnadenhutten and Port Washington. Most of the stagecoach roads along the rivers were mainly abandoned when the towpaths of the canals become established; they were well manicured roads by comparison to what they've been using. For instance we still have section of the Old Buckeye Trail and the Tuscarawas and the Muskingum Trails all were used as stagecoach roads. Here in Ohio, our first and most popular known road was the National Road. The National Road was going to be the Gateway to the western frontier and was planned to go a distance over 600 miles beginning at Cumberland Maryland and because of funding never made it to St. Louis stopping short at Vandalia Illinois. This project went of about 27 years and in part was named Zane’s Trace here at home in Ohio.
2011-2010 Very educational!
2012-I'm doing a study about the Miami and Erie Canal and its packet boats. Could you or someone give a detailed description of the vessel and life on board one?
2013 to 2012-Part 1 What was used on the Ohio and Erie Canal applies to the Miami and Erie on the subject of canal boats. The toll rates varied throughout the years increasing as the years moved on. Early rates were as low as two tenths of a cent. The pennies used then were either the British Pence. Ben Franklins minted penny version or the first of the Indian pennies produced by the U.S.Mint. The freighters were capable of a pay-load up to 80 tons. A load of that magnitude pressed the boat deep into the water creating an enormous drag. This drag and its heavy load called for more power to tow the boat and often enough another mule or horse was added into the equation. A boat of that tonnage moved slow through the water and barely made 3 miles an hour and the teams were switched and rested more often. By the 1830s the mule changing stations were becoming a thing of the past with more boats having a designated area to board their own teams. The standard canal boat had 4 mules connected to it and having their own team over time saved the cost of renting mules at the changing stations and paid for themselves. Female mules were costly and became lucrative because they produced more animals. Many who started out seeking a living plying the canal found that studding mules paid much better and quit their business moving boats up and down the canal.
The canal boat up to 80 feet in length, anything longer would not fit to well in the lock chamber if you wanted the when doors to close behind you. The width could not exceed 14.5 feet and with that bumpers ran the distance of the boat that protected the boat from scrapping and destroying its sides while in the locking process. A problem which occurred as the years passed by is that the walls of the lock chambers began to fold in. With the sides tilting in wedged the boats when the chambers were full and they eased up as they were lowered down. Most of our northern locks which were more prone to freezing conditions were distorted by the cold weather and the canal boats were often pinched tight as they rose in the lock chamber. The rehabilitation project of the early 20th century removed many of the blocks tones that made up the locks and poured concrete to keep the walls from tilting in .
The packet boats weren’t exactly set up for the comfort of its passenger with a capability of transporting as many as 75 people. It wasn’t too long before the packet boats acquired a reputation for being a long and dreary passage with none of the comforts of home. They had adequate seating arrangements but had little to none berthing compartments. On a long haul the boat would either stop at night at a place like Canal Fulton where there was lodging enough and stay over at their many boarding houses. Many of the towns and villages grew up into something on those grounds alone. Out on the long levels away from anywhere and on warm night’s nature could accommodate them after a tiresome day. The boats captain would find a comfortable place to pull aside and set up a camp fire and most of the passengers would lie out under the sky.
part 2-To sit on a canal boat for the advertised 80 hours is absurd and to think that was even remotely possible is just as bad. I can’t imagine anyone capable of sitting on a hard bench for better than three days straight.
The boat usually had no type of furnace or hot stove in the passenger compartment to warm them during passage during the early spring or later fall trips on the canal.
The earlier packet boats were more rounded on the forecastle. The line-boats generally named had a forecastle at the stern and sported a much smaller cabin at its bow and another making three at it’s amidships. The cargo holds were located to its forward and aft of the center cabin.
A standard crew consisted of a Captain, steersman, bowman, a mule driver and usually a woman was onboard to do the cooking and cleaning, usually the Captains wife and sometimes their children played along the decks.
The meals were cooked onboard and the regular cuisine was what was located down the long barrel of the rifle. Canadian geese were on the regular diet and duck, squirrel and rodent made for a fine dinner. Cornmeal and buckwheat made early morning hotcakes and johnnycakes. Unfortunately there was never enough good clean water and it was usually drawn from the canal as the winter ice was also done to cool the tongue during the hot summer days. The canal boats made regular stops at springs where cleaner water was available for drinking. Dirty water was responsible for many of the illnesses back then.
The early packets had a bit better accommodations for the passenger because they moved less passengers which allowed more sleeping quarters onboard The vessel was made up of three living compartments, the larger one of about the measurements of 12x20 was the lounge and diner area it was the most forward on most boats. Against the walls were shelves of 3x6 feet which were stacked that folded out into a quick bed, maybe 18 beds lined the room. Moving to the aft, the next room slightly smaller was the women’s quarters and the adjacent room to it was the women’s and children’s washroom.
The boats moved at a slow but steady pace up and down our canals. I don’t think that they were in a race to get from here to there and made plenty of unscheduled stops to accommodate the passengers. I’m not the one who discovered that it was ridiculous to think that a canal boat could make an 80 hour voyage from Cleveland to the Ohio River at Portsmouth, that was figured out on the first attempt to do so. I can’t say that the passage was a grandeur adventure, probably not especially with the mules living onboard with you. The smell was probably atrocious and the bugs and biting flies left a life long lasting memory
2014-were there ever any important dignitaries who frequented the canals for passage?
2015-The water from this years flooding has still got the Old Sandyville 5 feet below the water. I can see why they moved the town a quarter mile south.
2016 to 2015- Sandyville is still swallowed up by the swollen Sandy Creek. That small town was moved to higher ground because it faced yearly onslaught of high water. The difference then in comparison to now is then, the water receded almost immediately. Today, it takes forever because the Bolivat Dam. The embankment has a maximum height of 87 feet, a crest length of 6300 feet, and a crest width of 25 feet. Constructed primarily for flood control, the maximum flood control pool level of elevation 962.00 feet would encompass 6500 surface acres. The dam is broken, only one of its two spillways are active slowing the draining process. Sandyville would probably still be where it was originally, getting flooded every year if the water control project didn't force the residents to move.
2017
2016-Both the Dover and the Bolivar Dam work simultaneously together to keep the Tuscarawas River from flooding Dover and Lower New Philadelphia. The idea was stupid with the rising waters it puts Magnolia at risk and Bolivar is blocked off in every direction by severe flooding. The dams both serve a purpose. Because of these dams, mainly the Bolivar, people have to drive as much as 20 miles to get around the barricades places all over the roads leading in and away from the flood pool. My dad remembers the whole area before the levee's and all these dams, you could get through within hours, now we wait for two weeks for the water to go away.
2018-The best known name to work the canal was James A.Garfield who as a young boy was a muleskinner and later worked as a bows-man on the Evening Star owned and operated by Amos Letcher. Our ninth president, William Henry Harrison campaigned in Ohio by way of the Ohio and Erie Canal using a musical packet to draw the attention of those living off the canal. The music attracted folks like bee's to honey. His campaign worked and the state of Ohio leaned in his favor. William Henry Harrison died after only 32 days in office. Harrison complained greatly and wasn't to comfortable on board the canal packet and preferred to go overland. The famous Charles Dickens wasn't at all impressed with his jaunt on the canal either, he complained constantly about the tortuous biting insects and the smelly animals, he had all he could take, on his passage from Cleveland to Portsmouth and got off at Coshocton where he took the stagecoach to Portsmouth and boarded a river boat to St.Louis. King Louis Phillipe of France boarded and proved to be quite a drinker and was removed from taverns along the canal for being obnoxious and overly spoken and was personally thrown through the front doors at the Colonel Charles Williams Tavern in Coshocton County. The King of Prussia was quite impressed with his journey from Cleveland to Akron. There's probably many more that made it a point to travel our Ohio and Erie Canal. In the beginning Governor Dewitt Clinton of New York made passage from Akron to Cleveland with many well known dignitaries at the canals opening ceremonies.This list could keep going, but I think we covered enough, but feel free to add to this list.
2018 Clinton is made famous with James Garfield setting foot from a canal boat.
2019-If this story has any truth to it about James Garfield, then all of our canal towns should boast the same unless he stayed on the boat to savor Clinton only!
2020
Hey canalwayman, I presume that you know your way around the canal pretty well, I have a test for you. on the northern end of the Ohio and Erie Canal where could one find the (Canalands Survey Momument)?
2021 to 2020- I know exactly where that sits. Although without running out to look at it, I think its wording is slightly different. I think it's called the (Canal Lands Survey Monument). What ever is its purpose, I'm at a loss to give a good explanation, or even one at all. This small saucer size so called monument sits just north of Syder Street and Wolf Creek lock 1, just short of the waste wier about two feet off the towpath on the right.
2022-2021-Was Snydertown a real place? Was it the Ohio and Erie Canal which establish Barberton?
2023 to 2022- Snydertown was a small village just barely southeast of Barberton by only inches. Snydertown was a small piece of earth about two city blocks long along the Ohio and Erie Canal in the area between Diamond Avenue, 2nd St.SW, Hudson Run and Canal Ave. Off of 2nd Street was E.Wolf Ave crossed the canal and then turned south combining with Canal Street the former towpath. You can still find wooden bridge supports yet in the canal. The interesting thing about this area is right exactly were the former Wolfs creek lock 1 would have ended, within 20 feet still sits a former mercantile building that I was told by a Barberton Historian seconded for the lock tenders quarters. I can almost see that as being the case, that structure is definitely dated back deep into the canal era. An interesting point to be made, Barberton was established in 1891, up until then it was called New Portage. If one goes down along the canal, you can find old bridge embankments, water intakes and discharge outlets all over the area and there's a really nice weir. Tuscarawas Avenue once crossed the river and canal on the old wooden bridge and its foundations are prominent.
2023-Firestone Tire and Rubber has intakes and discharge channels used into the 1960s. Back in the 1930s a major dredging contract was given to the Firestone Company to clear the canal from silt and weeds. This process worked so well that Firestone dredged the entire Portage Summit with funding in part given by the Babcox and Wilcox Company of Barberton who used large quantities of canal water.
2024-Disease spread rampant during the construction process of our canal systems and long after into the 20th century. I believe that milk from sickened cows contributed to many various illnesses that may have been mistaken to be another ailment.
2025-Does anyone know the dates when the Portsmouth lock 54 was removed and when lock 55 opened.
2026-2025 Lock 55 at Portsmouth had its grand opening ceremony on November the 13th, 1887. The canal superintendent Charles A. Goddard along with the areas most influential names were in attendance with a great multitude of bystanders. With the new lock in operation and finally making a reliable link with the Ohio River the former terminus at lock 54 on the Scioto River was soon removed giving way to the Ohio and Erie Canals new inlet and outlet lock.
2027 to 2024- the cows didn't necessarily have to be sick to pass milk which was tainted. The awful and most dreaded diseases as typhus and dysentery were common along the canal along with cholera. The people up and down the canal and on board the boats alike are all guilty of dumping feces directly into the canal. The same water which was used as a dumping place for anything which needed to be discarded was used for cooking and drinking. The animals also drank their fill from the canal which contaminated their milk. Pasteurization saved lives and if the water would have been boiled before use , it itself would have saved lives too. A cow, mule, horse etc was capable of contracting and dying from the same fateful diseases that killed humans.
2028-Do the words Silver Ribbon have any meaning?
2029-Silver Ribbon was a name that was given to the Ohio and Erie Canal at a state house level. The name never caught on and was used more as a clever name by the politicians who used it wanting the peoples votes. I doubt if the canal boat crews and people alike who plied and worked the canal in the towns and villages referred to the canal as the silver ribbon.
2030- The flood plains behind the Bolivar Dam are still at flood stage. Why?
2031-The flood gates at the Bolivar Dam and the Dover Dam are crippled. The water is backed up 10 miles, hopefully the rain doesn't come.
2032-This site covers so much and so many corners that haven't been reflected upon, that's why it remains always interesting.
I live in Circleville and have always had a draw towards our rich history, but I'm ashamed to say that mostly its been either covered up or filled in.
Circleville was the mecca of the casinos, salloons and prostitution over a span that reached into the early 20th century. Our basin was as thick with canal boats on any given saturday night in comparison to our baptist church parking lot on sunday morning.
Thee old west has stories which memorialize their wild stories to a degree which isolates them only to that region of the country.
I purchased the mapwhich you had drawn and you placed so much emphysis on Circleville and its wild days.
Nice job!
Part 1- 2023 to 2022-Circleville is relatively unknown to the rest of the world as this wild and crazy boom town. The reasoning is quite simple; it was connected to the Ohio and Erie Canal which was its main thoroughfare. The Ohio and Erie Canal today some call it Americas Byway it wasn’t; it was Ohio’s byway if you were wanting to go north to south or visa versa. To cross the state from Virginia to Indiana, the National Road or namely Zane’s Trace was the route to take, but it was miles to north of Circleville. Circleville was laid off in 1810, and in those times the fortress still stood in part giving its name. From its outer boundaries there were seven avenues converging on its center. The old road come down from Columbus and passed through to Chillicothe and on to Portsmouth, now known as Rt23 which moved off to the town’s western edge. Another road led to Zanesville all three mentioned were all the state capitol a time or two. Other rowdy towns were Baltimore, Canal Fulton and Chillicothe to name a few. But Circleville gets my vote for being the most outrageous of them all and for good reasoning. This town was loaded with gun toting gamblers who’d kill you over a card game and was a haven for just about any underhanded activity. The roulette wheels spun for decades and many fortunes were swindled at the hands of the saloon owners who were owned and operated by the local sheriff and his henchmen carried out the dirty work. No one ever beat the house at any of the 10 casinos that operated within Circleville, so I’ve been told. Any opposition would result in a great beating and in many cases the man was shot and killed and was floated down the Scioto River.
Part 2- By all means, Circleville was as crazy as Dodge City Kansas or Tombstone. Gambling carried into the 20th century; it was the gambling that dropped the massive and well built aqueduct which once carried the Ohio and Erie Canal. From about 1910 to when it was burned and fell, the structure seconded for a dance hall, and a casino. Just to its north were Rt22 sits today at the bridge was the Harrison Ferry crossing which operated under many different names over the years where today we have a bridge. Any attempt to construct a bridge then ended up in the river, but the aqueduct stood the entire test being built so high above the river. The local Sherriff’s who were a gangsters and hoodlums again saw an opportunity to expand their financial enterprise and took over the ferry crossing and the aqueduct too. Their idea was to charge a toll to cross the mighty spam for those who were coming and going the fee of 5 cents. Down stream he also set guards on the railroad trestle for those who tried to sneak through. Just to the west and over the river and on the island that sits dead smack in the river the moonshiners were busy making rot gut for the saloons in Circleville. It’s said that the gangsters tried to force a duty on the canal boats that passed through the area between Spunkytown and Circleville but the Canal Commission heard so many complaints it sent out soldiers from Circleville which settled the matter. Spunkytown is less than a half a mile from Circleville and over there is where the whiskey was being mass produced away from the boundaries of Circleville. The saloon owners owned all the stills and made a great amount of money moving their alcohol up and down the canal until the state took charge for the civil war effort and began closing them, if they found them. During the Civil War Spunkytown was the wealthiest real-estate on the canal, they turned out almost all the moonshine for the southern canal towns. When the regulations set in from the state to close these bad stills because so many people dying from poisoned whisky, Spunkytown thrived. To search out these bad distilleries and find them ended up with the local law usually claiming, well we just can’t find them and similar stories to match all over, because usually they were part of it. Many the legal distilleries kept on going and they made good alcohol called "Corn liquor" or "Corn Squeezin’s" or a number of other names. The safe alcohol was regulated and was distributed to the northern troops and was used widely for the injuries and in hospitals. The good alcohol was priced far out of the reach of the local patrons but during the war it was forbidden to distribute it for public consumption. When it come down to who was making the most rot gut whiskey here in Ohio and consumed it, Circleville could very much be the winner of that.
2025-ROTGUT During the 1800's using actual human bodies for training doctors in anatomy classes was illegal and against the current ethical and religious standards.
Medical schools hid that they were actually using human cadavers and the only way they could obtain them was through grave robbers who followed funerals to the cemetery to know where to dig.
However, they really didn't dig up an entire casket. What they did was dig a hole above the tombstone down to the coffin, broke off the end, and pulled the body out.
To transport the body to the medical school, they often placed it in barrels of whisky that would not only preserve the body but look like they were transporting alcohol.
After delivering the body, the grave robbers would then sell the whisky to the medical students, some of whom were actually engaged in grave robbing themselves....
So you can see that though this is really disgusting, it is etymologically possible that is where the term rot gut came from.
Of course another possible way the term came about is what whisky can do to your innards.
that's why i drink gin...
2026 Hey Mr.Jeff did we miss something in Frazeysburgh?
2027 to 2026 -Absolutely not according to the information plaque set up there at Frazeysburg. But I certainly spelled the name of the town correctly as you hadn't. The plaque makes the claim that the lock was set up right there, but I certainly questioned it. I did make notice of the barely distinguishable wall over by a building which had some resemble-lance to a lock. Then it had a lot of thing piled up around the area and I relied on the sign to be correct. I can say that I stood at that place and pondered it. I do give the credit for credit due and applaud who ever pinpointed Lock 17 at Frazeysburg.
2038-I read where you made a phrase which omitted the dates of November.13, 1887 as an opening ceremony for the outlet lock at Portsmouth. Is this a bit contradictory to your book that claims the canal went defunct below Circleville 1n 1880?
2039 to 2038- The Ohio and Erie Canal began falling apart when it and other canals were leased away back in the 1860s. The catalyst which placed the canal up for lease was non other than the arrival of the railroads. For nearly two decades the states responsibility to make repairs fell on deaf ears at the state house in Columbus. The lessee's never kept too much upkeep and fell into financial runes soon after they took over the canals. The state swindled them claiming that there was still plenty of money to be made by picking up the tolls and selling hydraulic power to the mills. The group of entrepreneurs then looking over the financial spread sheets and the overall average profit and loss statements covering 30 years and it looked lucrative enough to sign on. Basically the state wanted someone to keep it up and groomed then drew out a very long drawn out and complicated lease that left the lessor without any responsibilities. The books were probably altered to a degree making it to look very attractive. The lessee's obviously were poor in mental health not to see that this great waterway was being laid off by the railways. The railways come on so strong and fast that it was and remained the fastest growing form of transportation until the automobile come along. To say that the southern end of the Ohio and Erie Canal began shutting down in the 1880s is correct.
2040-While dredging Grand Lake St. Mary's recently they hooked onto to a few canal boats resting on the bottom, have you heard what the plans are for them?
2041-The anthropology department at the University of Toledo is heading up the entire investigation about the sunken canal boats at Grand Lake St. Mary's.
2042-What was the largest canal lock ever built by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1912.
2043-President Roosevelt enacted which act which connect the Atlantic ocean with the Pacific.
2044-Jeff are you aware that the Society of the Separatist had a substantual in size coal mine near the Dover Dam?
2045 I believe that I have the signs figured out that claim the Ohio and Erie Canal to be Americas Byway. They're actually making referrence to Old Route 21 rather than the canal or the adjacent roads running its lenght next to the canal.
2046 responding to 2045. There looms an enormous amount of confusion about the new revelations concerning the Ohio and Erie Canal being an American Byway, or for more words, Americas Byway. Route 21 does not constitute as an American Byway and never actually paralleled the O & E for any distance of more than a mile or two. Route 21, developed into Interstate 77 beginning in Cleveland as its northern part of this corridor ending some 610 miles south in Columbia S.Carolina. The routes 21-I 77 are known secondary as the corridor, now that sounds real familiar to a hundred mile stretch of the O & E Canal in the northern sector.
2047 Why the hell do you people seem to be so concerned about words on a damned sign? You should be happy that the route of the canal is being acknowledged and that it may draw more visitors and possibly more support for its preservation.
2048 - 2047 A big huge waste of dollars that could be used better somewhere else. At least get the information right when it comes right down to it.
2049
2049- Lets face it, the Ohio and Erie Canal has never been listed as any type of byway. It's known as a vital link which established an interior trade route from Lake Erie south to the Ohio River. Americas byway is some pretty strong words for such a small stretch of canal. Zane's Trace constitutes much more than the Ohio and Erie Canal for a true American byway. The signs should be re-scripted in the favor of accuracy not stupidity.
2050-Is there anywhere besides the canal section of the O&E downtown AKRON that's still virgin and unchanged by father time?
2051-Downtown Akron is far from being untouched on the canal spectrum. Canal Fulton would be our best bet to answer posting 2050.
2052- How big in diameter were the water wheels in Zoar?
2053
2052--Anything that I previously had mentioned about the diameter of the twin water wheels at Zoar was given by an on sight visual overview subject to change. The Society of the Separatist made there way to our county after being led out of Württemberg Germany by Joseph Baumeler their leader. His communal religious beliefs dissolved marriages and caused the separation of the standard family unit. Baumeler fashioned his beliefs after the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorra and its religious figure Lott. Lott took his family away from the corrupt cities by instructions from God and was told to not look back or be turned into a pillar of salt. Lots wife did look back and was transformed as God said it would happen. Lot was looking for a safe place to raise his family and looked along the Dead Sea, when found would call this place Zoar as instructed. Lott while hiding his family inside a cave and engaged in getting his daughters pregnant. Baumeler followed what Lott has done and using the scripture to justify his actions and believed in the old scripture and multiple wives. Baumeler was very knowledgeable with the milling process and was looking for this safe place to set up his following along a river and was led into the Western Reserve and found the rapids on the Tuscarawas River. His idea was to dam the river and span a dam with the largest and most powerful twin undershot water wheels in the lands east of the Mississippi. The center support column is still standing tall today that held the massive wheels within the foundations of the lower mill house intact yet. A control lever can be found that regulated the wicket doors which controlled the amount of water aloud to enter the wheel house that regulated the wheels speed. The wheels were tied together on an axle and the power was transported to the upper floors where the milling was performed. I climbed inside the old foundation and driven a steel rod to locate the concrete floor of the where the water wheel ran close too. I hit solid ground at just over five feet below the surface, which makes these wheels to be at least 25 feet in diameter. The Society of the Separatist broke up in 1898 and disbanded and blended into the local communities never to unite again.
2054- Have you ever drafted a layout of the mechanics and workings of the Zoar area, the Tuscarawas, its spillways and drainage?
2055-Hey Canalwayman can you name the name of the post office used by the Society of the Separatist and a water run in their immediate area?
2056
2055---In the Winter 1979 issue of the Ohio Postal History Journal is a list of every post office that ever operated in our county, and I had never heard of several of them.
First instance, I was unfamiliar with Steam Furnace Post Office, which operated from 1833 to 1837. After some research, I learned it was in Fairfield Township, near Zoarville, and was named for an iron furnace run by the Zoar Society. I was also unfamiliar with Haunsburg, until I found reference to it in some old Newcomerstown newspapers. It was located between Newcomerstown and Stone Creek.
2057--I have some interesting points about Zoar which haven't been touched on yet, looked over. Let's begin by touching on lock 10 and the information board put in place by the Tuscarawas Historical Society. Just down the canal to its south is a bridge that was constructed in or about 1893 which the dates placed upon it relate too. The sign contradicts this by saying it was built in 1874.
The feeder from the Tuscarawas which once connected south of lock 10, (no-way-no how) moved boat traffic through its walls that measure under 13 feet at its base.
The huge wall below lock 10 was the eastern abutment to the mill house that spanned the canal. From its upper floor, grain was dropped onto the boat waiting below. To gain access to its second floor would explain the walking trail which swings up and climbs the hill. The western side of the canal has yet a loading road that dates back to this era. This road can be located at the break in the guardrail on Towpath Rd, and Eberhard Rd. A millrace can be identified where the light pillars once sat, one is gone.
2058 to 2057 Zoar, has alot of history left behind concerning the Ohio and Erie Canal. It has as many mysteries as it does answers.I have to agree with the previous listing about the Zoar Feeder and its width. I took a minute out yesterday and drove down to this sight and whoever posted 2057, is correct, a canal boat would have not fitted through the two walls. Sometime after the demise of the canal, a concrete barrier was placed just beyond these walls and I presume the purpose was to stop any water from the feeder from entering the fish hatchery that come along years after the canal was out of use, using the canal bed to breed and raise fish. The sign at lock 10, has some misleading information that could easily be corrected on every thing it touches on. I do believe that a huge mill spanned the canal at the huge wall being its eastern abutment, and the trail make plenty of sense too which leads to the top. Here's my delima, If a canal boat didn't fit through the feeder, did they actually pass through the Tuscarawas River to gain access to the other side? I would say absolutely, but where needs to be rediscovered.
2059-where's the whereabouts of the Zoar dry dock?
2060 The information boards along the Zoar Staircase was worded by the (Bolivar Lions Club) not the Tuscarawas Historical Society!
2061 to 2059 - The Zoar dry dock set between locks 9 and 10 and in its area was the directional turnaround basin. This time of year hides where the basin was because of growth and is hard to make out. You would stand a better chance in the winter time to relocate this.
2062- towpath or canal road as we know it and the fishery swallowed up so much of the turn around basin and the dry dock of zoar.
2063-to 2062 The fish hatchery had little to do with the turnaround basin with it being more to its south further down the canal.Although the road and its fill ended up in the hatching areas, little of the actual canal was to affected by the roadway.
2064- I was asked to give some insight on Barberton’s shanty town. Barberton wasn’t any different than a municipal of size along the canal which was a magnet for the homeless and unfortunate people who lived in despair. Buts lets remember that this shanty town lining the canal was first and formerly called New Portage before Barberton had developed, and its time span was from the 1830s into the 1950s. The placement was nearer to town from about where State St. spanned both the canal and Tuscarawas River stretching a good mile and a half ending at the Wolf Creek Aqueduct. The shanty town was all the real estate that lied between the river and the canal. The crime wave hovering in the Barberton area centered from the shanty town, this included murder. During the depression the shanty towns had swollen beyond control and were a place of choice for the common criminal to bury his face. The police lost control of the growing problem and in the late 1950s torched the entire place and sent the homeless away. The shanty towns here in Ohio got their beginning at the completion of our canal systems. The mainstream of the inhabitants were Irish immigrants who found themselves unemployed and no-where to go or the willingness from the local resident and businesses to offer help. To survive, they had to turn to crime and prostitution and whatever to stay alive. Many tried to leave the confines of the shanty camps only to find out that wherever they went, the story was the same, and they weren’t too welcome in other shanties, thus headed back to the protection of familiar territory. After the completion of New York’s Erie Canal they were plagued with exactly the same situation we just went over in the above caption. DeWitt Clinton, the New York State Governor was under pressure to end the huge crime wave at the end of their canals completion and knew that the only way to possibly stop this pillaging was to find them work. Clinton found the answer by talking Ohio into digging a canal system and spread the word throughout the shanties and towns in New York State, and they swiftly moved west into Ohio.
2065
We were recently following the Ohio and Erie Canal just to the southwest of Circleville using Canal Road. On this road a marker ends the canal era 1907 and there's acouple of miles where suprisingly the canal bed is full. We returned to the Circleville Dam to check and see if the water was from there and its dry. Where is this section being filled from?
2066 to 2065 Canal Rd passes through Spunytown paralleling the Ohio and Erie Canal after the canal made a sharp left turn leaving the Circleville Aqueduct behind. On this road once sat locks 33 and 34 with the Circleville Dam outlet between the two. There is no water these days coming off the Scioto River which was the main supply on the longest level without a single lock all the way to Chillicothe. There is a small stream coming from the northwest that connects into the canal through a culvert about a half mile or so pass where the Circleville Feeder met the canal on your way torwards Rt.104. The canal is filled all the way up to 104 connection, and there is a rock along the way which commemorates the canal's closing dated 1907. That section of the canal really looks prestine and probably is exactly as it was reflecting back into the canal era.
2067-I couldn't help but notice that on State Route 800 down from Quarry Lock 11 that the canal-bed had to cut from a steep cliff, was this practiced often? If so where else?
2068 to 2067 -There aren't too many places where the canal bordered up to a steep rock face as it does on State Route 800 near the Dover Dam in Tuscarawas County. Another place where this can be found is a 100 miles down the canal in the Blackhand Gorge. The canal used the Licking River in part as the canal and it’s clear to see that a good sizable section of rock face was cleared along the Licking River to assure a straight line for the adjoining towpath.
2069 to 2064---Was the shantytowns located between the RR tack and town,or between the canaland the tracks,or between the canal and the rivers edge?
2069
To 2068 & 2067- If a slackwater portion of a canal counts, there are several sections of canal on the Hocking and Sandy & Beaver that pass through adjacent cliffs.
To Canalwayman- Have you checked out the Frazeysburg lock remnants across from the elementary school yet?
Trivia question: What Ohio city had two canal routes ( for a while) through it? One was built by the the state, the other was privately built. They each had a lock. The state eventually bought & continued to utilize the private section & shut down their own.-W.A.Seed
2070 to 2069 Im going to shoot in the dark and say either Akron or Bolivar, although I think the answer lies elsewhere, don't keep me in suspense.
2071
The answer: Dayton
2072-
The Barberton Shanty town yet has remnants which are left behind.The later of the shanty town was located between the Tuscarawas and the towpath basically on the canal's eastern bank. Before the railroads arrived the make shift homes lined both sides of the canal. What i've found are multiples of fire pits lined with old busted tiles from the American pipe and sewer pipe company that sat on the canal these pits served as a heat supply as well as a way to cook. They are nunerous and very close together which leads me to believe that the shanties were in big numbers. the shanties posed a threat to Barberton and the surrounding area because of the trouble that centered from it. In the 50s the area was purposely set ablaze to eradicate this growing problem. Today, there are many places back in there which you can still find charred and burnt timbers that made up these small homes.
October 29, 2011 6:27 PM
2073- we were doing a tour of the canal in the Lockville area and can easily distinguish were the former lock chambers were located by the ever changing drops on the Road. Could we assume that most of our roads now adjacent to the old canal were formerly the towpath?
2074 to 2073
Lockville doesn't have that characteristic, but Lockbourne does have the adjacent road namely Canal Road that does give away where the lock chambers once sat. perhaps you have the two confused.
2075-Have you ever figured out the stone blocks in southern Ohio at McDermott Pond Rd?
2076 to 2075
Those blocks were the foundations to a change bridge. A change bridge was placed on the canal in several places where the towing team for one reason or another had to cross this to continue on the towpath.
Hey Jeff- Seems like this blog has gone dead. Haven't you done any canawling reserch this summer?
2077-I’ve been off for quite some time battling a sickness. I'm coming back full force, stemming from that, I hope to once again re-do and re-nu the entire landscape of the Ohio and Erie Canal on its historic values it holds yet. I soon plan to take off and restart my adventures, and when finished the information will cumulate into a fine book. Jeff Maximovich
2078-
Today, Sunday January 27th, being a bright sunny day placed me back on the canal again. I’ve been over this ground before, but what the heck, it’s close to home. The area of research is the former placement of the towpath at Towpath Road and State Route 800 in Tuscarawas County. After leaving the Zoar area following the towpath, it leads off in an easterly direction directly parallel to Towpath Rd. This is an unfinished piece but the northern side of the towpath can be travelled with ease. Approaching 800, the former canal bends southerly blending with 800. The canalbed at that point cannot be located on either side of the hi-way, because the roadbed was placed directly overtop for better that a half a mile then the canalbed appears on the eastern side of the hi-way and continues on into Canal Dover. Just as you approach Canal Dover, 800 and the canalbed has a separation at the hill, look left because the canalbed still has signs of water .
2079 Why or how did lock 11 in tuscarawas county acquire its name the Quarry Lock?
2080 to 2079. During the construction phase of the Ohio and Erie Canal, the engineers were constantly looking for vital minerals, timbers and rock face walls to quarry the heavy block stones used to make up abutments, canal locks and all other types of structures of necessity. It’s clear to see on State Route 800 between Towpath Road and the SR.416 turn off there was an extensive rockface which was removed, or trimmed back to allow room for the canal. The rockface may once have extended to the edge of the Tuscarawas River and the area was possibly more of a gorge then with a set a rapids where the Dover Dam rest now . The huge amount of rock that was removed was in part was, re-used in making many known structures. The area of lock 11 was a rather large stone yard, a place where the huge blocks were cut and honed into shape then transported by land. After the completion of the canal, many block stones were then moved by water and loaded at that spot. During the construction, horse drawn wagons performed the heavy transportation of everything essential to finish the job.
2082 responding to 2081
This storm sealed the coffin and placed the final nails into the long run of the Ohio and Erie Canal. Just a few years prior, the state took action and poured money into it by pumping new life back into the canal, in part. What I mean by in-part is quite simple, I’ll explain. In 1907-08 and perhaps slightly past those dates, most of the structures of the Ohio and Erie canal from Cleveland to Dresden Junction were either rebuilt or refurbished, discarding the original blockstone construction methods and poured concrete making new locks, weirs, sluice gates etc. When the time had arrived to make these decisions, which were long overdue, the railways in Ohio were dug in deep, they were much faster, slightly more expensive but they ran all year long. The Ohio and Erie Canal was once considered for a widening and deepening overhaul from Cleveland to the Ohio River by means of the Muskingum Improvement. The Muskingum Improvement had locks large enough for riverboats and barges alike. Backing up to about 1880, the southern end of the Ohio and Erie was at a standstill, and around that time, a decision was made to close it down below Circleville and no more funds went in that direction. Sections of the lower end were kept operational by privateers because many mills ran off the water supplied by the canal. In 1908, only a handful of boats moved on the upper section, all the boat yards have folded up and the boat building industry was a lost trade by then. Most of the canal boats had met their demise decades prior from rot. By 1913, the canal was suffering and was barely hanging on to life when the big storm hit, just like a terminal patient lying in a hospital bed with death on the horizon the canals plug was pulled by the storm.
2083- A place of interest here on our canal of yesteryear would lay in Pickaway County the former site of the Circleville Aqueduct. This massive and heavy structure spanned the Scioto River allowing boat traffic to move high above the river. Today for the inquisitive looker, you can still locate some of the mighty timbers that are still resting where they fell below the one time gargantuan span. This aqueduct was destroyed by an angry gambler the story goes by setting it ablaze. This span was engineered so well, it stood up and weathered the destructive storm of 1913. By the time 1913 rolled around a good thirty years had passed since the span was in service, since the 1880s the covered aqueduct was a dance hall, a casino and served as a river crossing. The span outlasted the flood by two years.
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