A pedesterian does a double take when he notices lever harp music drifting from between restored buildings in Roscoe Village, Coshocton, OH (above) while Makenna, Sue and Sandy enjoy a mural and artifacts of this canal town restoration in its modern visitor's center.

ROSCOE VILLAGE--

It was easy to walk down Whitewoman St., in Roscoe Village that day and visualize an era from long ago.

Early in the 19th century laborers were digging a canal right over there, with shovels, and earning 30 cents a day for their work. A little whiskey now and then helped stave off illness common to the frontier of that time.

Long before airplanes and vehicles; even long before roads as we know them today, canals and boats were the best opportunity to move merchandise through the wilderness being carved into our new nation.

The canals were man-made rivers connecting the natural watercourses, long used by the Native Americans.

Those men with their picks and shovels dug trenches that averaged four feet deep and 40 feet in width; large enough to float canal boats when the trenches were filled with water. The canal through this village stretched from Portsmouth to Cleveland, a distance of more than 300 miles.

The canals were even more reliable than the rivers. Water level could be maintained with a system of aqueducts and storage basins.

Large chambers were built in the canals with doors on each end so water level in the chamber could be controlled, thus allowing boats to climb and descend the changing elevations of the land. These were called locks.

Towns like Roscoe Village grew along the canal routes and supplied the needs of the laborers as well as the growing, local population.

Candles pushed nighttime darkness back into the woods in those days. Refrigeration was provided only by cool, spring water.

The canal boats hauled merchandise from the area to markets, sometimes as far downstream as New Orleans. After the merchandise was sold, so were the boats. There was no practical way for them to return upriver.

The boat crews? They often walked home; as much as 1,000 miles, we learned from the boat captain giving rides on a restored portion of the canal.

Lady friend Sue’s grand daughter Makenna dipped her own candles in a visitor’s center demonstration that day. I wondered how she equated that with her fairly short, but technologically drenched life.

I paused along Whitewoman St., to be soothed by the lever-harp musical arrangements of Paul and Brenda Neal of Coshocton. Their melodies were, indeed, hypnotic and dynamic and bold and soothing; just like the program said.

Our civilization lost more than canals when that era of slower motion passed.
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The entire village and some of its shops can be visited free.  Most others are part of a walking tour; tickets for which cost $9.95 each.  All proceeds go for maintenance and continued restoration.

http://www.roscoevillage.com/