Miami and Erie Canal

Miami and Erie Canal. Bike Trail Historical Lock No. 14. It all began with the Great Miami River, as the early pioneers sought ways to get their goods to market in New York. The landscape made this an impossible route to drive cattle so the pioneers built flatboats and rafts to float their wheat, corn, lard, furs and flour south to New Orleans, via the Great Miami, Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. The travelers broke up the raft for firewood for the return trip and walked back along the Natchez Trace, 444 miles of road that commemorates an ancient wilderness trail from Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville, Tennessee. Thomas Jefferson suggested a canal as an inland route and in 1825, the General Assembly passed the canal legislation enabling the start of the canal in Middletown, Ohio and continuing to Dayton and Piqua. Piqua then became a boomtown, since all of the goods from Cincinnati and points beyond arrived there: such as coffee, salt, glass windows and other more expensive imported objects. It was then possible to bring raw materials up the canal. Industry was born and new towns bloomed along the waterway.

In front of you is Lock No. 14, which was used to raise or lower the canal boats to a different level of water. Behind you are the remnants of the “lock tender’s” house. Since the canal boats moved only in daylight hours, it was necessary to offer a place for the passengers to spend the night. The “lock tender” rented rooms and offered the passengers whiskey and a hot meal. It was slow going through the locks, as all boats had to wait their turn and many conflicts occurred over the right-of-way to the lock. A lock afforded a place for the people to get off the canal boats to rest, shop or spend the night. Small communities began popping up wherever a lock was located to serve the shopping needs of the passengers aboard the canal boats. The empty canal lock you see was Lock No. 14, known as Boone Lock. Much of the lock is missing, including the wooden wheeler gates which closed in a “V” to contain the water. One of the gates had a small door called a wicket which was opened to allow the water to fill the lock for boats going upstream or to empty the lock for boats going downstream. The gates were opened for the canal boat after the canal lock had reached the depth of water needed in the canal. There were a variety of canal boats used on the Miami-Erie Canal: Cargo, Passenger, and combination Cargo and Passenger. The last type, the “State Boat”, was rarely used. The “mule skinner” walked the animals on the towpath to provide towing power. The “steersman” on the boat had to compensate for the pull of the mule lines to keep the 50 to 60 tons of goods on a straight path down the canal.