Life on the Canal

The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal ran from Georgetown in Washington, D.C. to Cumberland, Maryland, paralleling the Potomac River, with most heavy shipping originating at Cumberland and boatmen carrying coal, lumber, grain, and cement through Hancock, Williamsport, Sharpsburg, the Harpers Ferry area, and Brunswick to Washington, D.C., where cargoes were unloaded. A one-way trip usually took five to seven days. The canal depended on the people who built it and kept it operating, including canal builders, boatmen, locktenders, mule drivers, and families who lived and worked along it, enduring long days and hard lives. Mules pulled the heavy cargo boats along the towpath, while packet or passenger boats also operated and were often pulled by horses. The canal included lift locks, a tunnel, aqueduct bridges, and culverts to help boats pass through or over obstacles. Competition from the railroads and recurring floods from the Potomac River threatened the canal, and a flood in the spring of 1924 closed it permanently for commercial shipping. In its later years, Cumberland artist John Louis Wellington traveled the canal aboard the excursion packet The Cumberland and captured its boats, people, and scenery in photographs, sketches, and watercolors.

Cumberland, Maryland · United States