page_title: Chesapeake and Ohio Canal
section_title: Slackwater navigation
hierarchical_section_title: Chesapeake and Ohio Canal / Locks and engineering / Slackwater navigation
caption_attribution_description: English: Historical photo of Canal boat #6 of Augustus Ashbury Hebb in the Big Slackwater of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.
context_page_description: The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, abbreviated as the C&O Canal and occasionally called the "Grand Old Ditch," operated from 1831 until 1924 along the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., to Cumberland, Maryland. The canal's principal cargo was coal from the Allegheny Mountains.
  Construction on the 184.5-mile canal began in 1828 and ended in 1850 with the completion of a 50-mile stretch to Cumberland. Rising and falling over an elevation change of 605 feet, it required the construction of 74 canal locks, 11 aqueducts to cross major streams, more than 240 culverts to cross smaller streams, and the 3,118 ft Paw Paw Tunnel. A planned section to the Ohio River at Pittsburgh was never built.
  The canal way is now maintained as the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park, with a trail that follows the old towpath.
context_section_description: Despite Charles F. Mercer, two slackwaters were used for navigation: Big Slackwater at Dam No. 4, and Little Slackwater at Dam No. 5. Big Slackwater is about 3 miles long, Little Slackwater is about ½ mile long. The boats had to navigate despite winds, currents, and debris in the channel. In February 1837, the board of directors discussed using steam power in the slackwater for the boats, but instead decided on a permanent towpath. The towpath for Big Slackwater was completed in 1838 for $31,416.36, and the towpath for Little Slackwater was completed in 1839 for $8,204.40.
  Little Slackwater was a tricky place to navigate. Not only did it have a lot of hairpin turns, but also just before Guard Lock No. 5, there was a strip of land in the water called "the pier" (that exists even today): loaded boats going downstream would have to go outside the pier, and unloaded boats on the inside, thus making steering difficult for the loaded boats to get into the lock. If the current was fast in the river it could go as fast as the boat, rendering the tiller useless, and thus, a boat could be almost impossible to steer. One man reported that at the slackwater, they had him sit at the front of the boat with a hatchet in case they had to cut the towline [since it would pull the mules into the river], and had a couple of [wooden] hatches turned upside down, so that they could escape to shore on the hatches. On 1 May 1903, the towline to Boat No. 6 broke, with Captain Keim, Mrs. Keim, their two daughters, and Harry Newkirk aboard. One daughter drowned, another suffered a broken leg, and the captain died later of injuries. The rest (including the mules aboard) survived.
  Boatmen reported that it was easier to navigate in the slackwaters than the aqueducts, since there was room for the water to move around the boat. Places like aqueducts, where there was little room for the water to move, were difficult for the mules to pull the boat through.
caption: Boat at Big Slackwater
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