BJ Price
It was probably around fourth grade, give or take, when I learned to sing “The Erie Canal Song,” better known as “Fifteen Miles on the Erie Canal,” and I can still recite most of the words. However, I could probably come up with ten train songs for every one canal song I know. “The Erie Canal Song” was written in the early 1900s as something of a lament to a bygone era on the Erie Canal.
Fast forward to the early 1970s when full-time physician and part-time bluegrass guitar player and vocalist John Starling had an idea for another canal documentary in song form. He penned the words to “C&O Canal Line.” C&O in this instance stands for Chesapeake and Ohio.
Long before our country was even a country, George Washington had a notion of an inland waterway to open up lands to the west for trade. In the 1700s, those far lands to the west meant somewhere towards Ohio. Though George Washington passed away several years before the actual C&O Canal was begun, he was a part of its predecessor, the Potomac Company. This company constructed several short channels to bypass several falls and rapids in the Potomac River, and its work was completed around 1802. This made for a good start, but the log rafts in use, known as gondolas, were only about 10 feet wide and 60 feet long. These rafts made one-way trips downstream from west to east hauling furs, grain, lumber, and flour. The log rafts were usually sawn into lumber after unloading their cargo in Georgetown, which is located at the Potomac River in Washington, D.C.
The original concept for the Chesapeake and Ohio called for a canal connecting the Potomac River (which leads to the Chesapeake Bay) with the Ohio River. George Washington’s dream materialized years later when the groundbreaking for the C&O canal took place on Friday, July 4, 1828. It’s been said, “Don’t start a job on Friday, or you will never get finished.” This might have been partly true for the C&O. It took them until 1850 to complete the canal construction as far as Cumberland, Maryland. At that point they encountered an obstacle known as the Allegheny Mountains, and canal construction never continued past Cumberland.
Ironically, the B&O (Baltimore & Ohio) Railroad also had its groundbreaking on July 4, 1828 and was a competitor to, and a thorn in the side of, the C&O Canal from the very start. Through the years, the canal predominantly hauled coal, but also carried lumber and flour. The C&O Canal was in operation until a major flood on the Potomac River in 1924 caused such extensive damage that it was not feasible to repair the canal at that point. It had been in decline for decades and had already outlived many other major canals. Transportation by rail had taken away much of the canal business years before.
The C&O Canal lives on in the form of the C&O Canal National Historical Park, complete with historic structures, a tunnel, 184.5-mile-long towpath, and watered sections of the canal. As we have just celebrated the July 4 holiday, it’s interesting to remember what groundbreaking events were taking place in our nation 196 years ago.
Reach BJ Price at 937-456-5159 for more information.
