On the Canal

68°f, 20°C. Clear, with a light breeze. High of 93 expected today. 

We finally did it.

I have been wanting to take a ride on a horse-drawn canal boat ever since I heard about them last year. Finally this week I said, "We're going, I don't care what work needs to be done." Sometimes, you know, you just have to put your foot down with yourself!

Canals played an important role in the growth of Ohio's economy. Prior to the development of the canal system, goods had to be moved over land, and farmers got very low prices for their produce because of the cost of transport. Between around 1830-1850, over 1000 miles of canals were built, mostly by hand labor. Can you imagine?

The canal we rode on was part of the Erie Canal of song history. The canal's actual name is the Ohio-Erie Canal. It travels the length of Ohio, from Lake Erie in the north to the Ohio River at Port smooth, Ohio. (The Ohio River actually belongs to West Virginia, but that's another story.)

It was a perfect day for the ride, clear, not yet too hot. Big Belgian workhorses Tim and Diesel provided the horsepower for The Monticello III. The boat is actually a replica, built in 1990. The Monticello I was the first canal boat to reach Coshocton, Ohio, but over the years the bottom rotted out, I think the guide said. Monticello II was built by a local called Mad Marshall Jacob's. Apparently the name was apt, as he got married atop a 176-foot flagpole.

Photo from Time Magazine, where you can read more about this crazy event. The photo was taken from a helicopter by a photographer for Life magazine.

A few photos of the ride:

Tim and Diesel, waiting to get started.

Our guide was excellent, providing the history of the canals and the boat, with lots of interesting tidbits.

This young man, a junior high school student, steered the boat from above, using a long wooden rudder.

The rudder, churning up the water behind.

The water looks very green, doesn't it? Part of that is reflection from the trees, but yes, the water was pretty green, and covered in many places by a tiny floating growth--not algae, i think, but something different?

Canals were only 40 feet wide, and with boats traveling in both directions, one might wonder how they passed each other without tangling up the towlines. It was simple, really: one boatvwould lower its line, and the other would pass right over it. Sometimes both boats would refuse to lower their rope and a fight would break out, often involving all the crew, passengers, and wives of the boat captains too!

Speaking of the wives, they traveled on the boats to cook meals on wood or coal-fired stoves. Meals and a place to sleep were included in the ticket price on the passenger boats. Cargo-hauling boats were called freighters.

Ohio's canal system. This map does not include many of the smaller canals, though.

Here the boat is turning around, courtesy of ropes and horses.

We were allowed to go up the stairs where the helmsman was, so this is what it looked like from there, looking out over the roof.

Tim and Diesel turned us around in what was called "the mud basin", for the trip back to the landing.

And looking back the way we came.

Many canals were built in places where the soil was basically sand and gravel--which would not hold water very well. So clay mud was dug in areas with clay soil and transported to the canal sites. The clay would be in big clumps and it was a problem to smooth it out, until some genius figured out a way: run herds of sheep up and down over the clumps to break them up and pack them down. Today you might see this vehicle at road construction sites. It's called a sheepsfoot roller. Now you know where that name came from. 

By 1855, railroads began to be built across Ohio, and gradually use of the canals diminished, although they found steady use again during the Civil War. The canal era in Ohio finally came to an end in 1913, with a devastating flood.

Captain Pearl Nye wrote many songs about the Ohio and Erie canal. Here is what the Library of Congress says about Nye: "Captain Pearl R. Nye (1872-1950)

Captain Pearl R. Nye

Captain Pearl R. Nye. American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Captain Pearl R. Nye was born on the Ohio and Erie Canal on a family canal boat, the "Reform," on February 5, 1872, the fifteenth of twenty-one children. Originally built to transport goods from Ohio to eastern markets, the Ohio-Erie Canal was in decline by the time Nye was born. As railroads came to serve transportation needs after the Civil War, the ownership of boats passed from larger businesses to private owners, like Nye's parents, who continued to work the canal until the melting of a record snowfall flooded Ohio's canal system and destroyed most of the locks in 1913. In Nye's family, like that of other canalers, the mobility of the family business meant that the children received little formal schooling. Children were entertained with songs, and Nye memorized a great many of these, including old songs with roots in English tradition and newer songs composed by family members or other canalers and set to traditional tunes. These songs were passed along among the canalers at gatherings, so that songs sung on one boat soon became known all up and down the length of the canal. Nye continued in the family profession, and was sometimes called "The Last of the Canal Boat Captains."

Folklorist John A. Lomax heard of the retired canal boat captain who had a large repertoire of folk songs, and recorded thirty-three of his songs in June of 1937. Alan Lomax recorded him later the same year. The Lomaxes also helped arrange for Nye to perform his songs for the public. He performed at the National Folklife Festival in Washington, D. C. in 1938, and again in 1942 when the festival was in New York. Nye contributed a manuscript of about four hundred song lyrics to the Library of Congress during his life and left a manuscript of additional songs to the Ohio State Historical Society after his death."

Here is Nye, singing, not one of his songs, but a Child ballad.

And here is one of Nye's songs:

Linking to Tom's "E" challenge today.