Life on the Canal

In summer on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, live boats and the people around them—barge men, tow boys, cooks, and lockkeepers—made up the canal’s daily life. Coal was dumped ten tons at a time, with a dozen carloads providing the one hundred and twenty tons a boat carried. Boats moved slowly through a tunnel toward the distant point of light at the far end, while captains sounded several loud blasts on a tin horn as they approached a lock, a tool described as almost as much a part of the outfit as the mule. Some three or four hundred boats were on the canal in every stage of repair, and Captain Coss owned his own boat, the Caroline of Williamsport, named in honor of his hometown. Tow boys warned of the mules’ kicking, and at the end of the trip a traveler passed the last lock, sailed over the last level, packed up, said goodbye to the boat and crew, and returned to friends.

Williamsport, Maryland · United States