The Ohio & Erie Canal extended 309 miles from Cleveland to Portsmouth and, beginning in 1825, carried goods across the state. Lockville took its name from a staircase of nine locks that raised and lowered boats as the local terrain changed in elevation. Passengers, boatmen, and others waiting to pass through the locks supported local businesses, including a saloon and a general store that the Mithoff brothers purchased before later adding a distillery that became one of the largest in Ohio, producing more than 1,200 gallons of whiskey a day. Canal boats, pulled by mules and horses walking the towpath beside the canal, could carry up to 80 tons of crops, salt, coal, iron, bricks, and other goods. Flooding and cold weather caused extensive damage to the canal, and by the 1850s canals were being replaced by railroads. The Dick Gorham, a State boat stationed in Carroll for repair work between Buckeye Lake and Lockbourne, became the last boat to pass through Lockville in 1898. Locktenders hired by the State operated the locks and made minor repairs; in 1866 brothers David and George Benadum tended Lockville’s nine locks, each receiving $20 a month and a small 18-by-24-foot house, and David and his wife Mary raised seven children in one of those tiny homes while wives and children shared the work day and night in all weather.