THE CANAL BOAT MONTICELLO III

The team of horses crunched its way along the 10 foot wide tow-path unbothered by the burden of the canal boat they were propelling at the lazy pace of a warm summer day.

I was engaged, as a passenger might have been back then, in combat with pesky mosquitoes as my imagination drifted to the middle 1800’s when the canal-based economy was at its height in our young state.

Leaders of the period believed, correctly as it turned out, the construction of a series of canals around Ohio would give a big boost to the new state’s economy. Remember, our state wasn’t formed until 1803.

In 1822 a canal commission was established by the state legislature and it hired a surveyor to identify the best canal routes to connect Lake Erie with the Ohio River.

The first route identified ran along the Maumee and Miami Rivers in western Ohio. The second dropped south through the middle of the state and used the Sandusky and Scioto Rivers. The eastern-most route included the Cuyahoga and Muskingum Rivers.

The commission finally settled on the route that originated on the shore of Lake Erie in present day Cleveland, and followed the Cuyahoga, Muskingum, Licking and Scioto River Valleys to present day Portsmouth on the Ohio River.

The first shovel of dirt was turned on the massive project July 4, 1825 at Licking Summit south of Newark. Swamps in the area were drained to form what is now known as Buckeye Lake to create a reservoir to supply water to that section of the canal.

All work was done by manual labor with picks, shovels, wheelbarrows and carts.  Laborers were paid 30 cents per day and worked daylight to dark.

The first canal boat navigated past that site in 1831 on a 300-plus mile waterway that cost $12,000 per mile to finish. That was the Ohio and Erie Canal.

Many of Ohio’s towns, including Akron, began as communities for the canal workers. Summit County, surrounding present day Akron, got its name from being the highest elevation on that canal.

Shipping costs declined dramatically when the canals were completed—from $125 per ton to $25 per ton of goods. The cost for a passenger to ride the canal from Cleveland to Portsmouth was $1.70 and took 80 hours.

Ohio’s canal system went on to include a second canal from Toledo to Cincinnati and many other segments. There is a short stretch of canal in the Muskingum Valley near Zanesville still in operation today.

The canals overall remained in operation until the late 1800s slowly losing out to the new railroads. Ultimately, the canals were abandoned after a huge flood in 1913 caused more damage to the system than was feasible to repair.

This canal boat (top and bottom) operates along a section of the old Ohio Erie Canal in Coshocton, OH and treats visitors to a 45 minute ride.  The tiller operator (right above) steers the vessel midway between the banks while the captain entertains passengers with the history of Ohio's canals from the 1800s.