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Chesapeake and Ohio Canal

Maryland Historical Society

The Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Canal, part of the canal building boom of  early nineteenth century America, meanders over 184 miles westward from Georgetown in the District of Columbia, through the Potomac River valley to Cumberland, Maryland.

In competition with the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad from the beginning (both projects began on July 4, 1828), construction on the C&O Canal ended in October 1850 when the canal reached Cumberland, having already lost the race west to the railroad and costing over $14 million to build. In operation from 1850 to 1924, the Canal’s primary commodity was coal shipped eastward from the mines of Western Maryland on canal boats pulled by mules that walked 2-3 mph on the 12-foot towpath located between the canal and the river.

Built in a prism shape, the canal was roughly 60-80’ wide at the surface and 48’ wide along the bottom with a depth of 6’.  The C&O Canal was the widest of the larger canals of the early nineteenth century, which allowed boats to pass side by side relatively easily. Canal boats were 90-93’ long and 12-13’ wide and could carry up to 125 tons of cargo.  The canal boat crew (often a family) lived in a 12 by 12 foot cabin located at the stern of the boat.  The mules (usually two teams and two to three mules per team) were kept in a stable located at the bow of the boat.

The mule team pulled in “tricks” or shifts of six hours.  With one trick completed, a fresh team of mules would be hitched to the 100-foot tow ropes, while the other mules were returned to the stable.  Averaging 18-hour work days, a trip from Cumberland to Georgetown took about a week.

Eleven aqueducts and over 150 culverts were needed to allow an unbroken waterway over the numerous creeks and rivers that empty on the Maryland side of the Potomac River.  The aqueducts, especially the seven-arch Monocacy Aqueduct, are wonderful examples of nineteenth-century craftsmanship and engineering skill.

In order to move the canal boats from sea level to the over 600-foot in elevation at Cumberland, 74 lift-locks were built.  Boats would be eased into the locks with only several inches of clearance on each side and wooden sluice gates (based on a design by Leonardo da Vinci) at each end were operated to raise or lower the boat typically 8’ per lock in about ten minutes.

The 3,118-foot Paw Paw Tunnel, located on the Maryland-West Virginia border, was considered a marvel of engineering skill and consists of 7 to 11 layers of brick, some 5,800,000 bricks in all. Construction began in 1836, with the idea that a tunnel would shorten the length of the canal by five or six miles and would take perhaps two years to build.   Actual construction took 12 years and it would not be until 1850 that the tunnel was finally opened for use. 
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The peak year for the canal was 1871 when more than 800 boats carried over 850,000 tons of coal; a devastating flood in 1924 ceased operations on the increasingly unprofitable and obsolete operation.

The U.S. government acquired the property in 1938.  In 1954, when there was word that a parkway for automobiles would be built over the canal, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas convinced newspapermen and others to accompany him on a well-publicized hike of the canal that eventually helped save the C&O.  In 1971, the National Park Service created the C&O Canal National Historic Park.

—Thomas Robertson

Community College of Baltimore County--Essexn