Canal boats wait to be unloaded in Georgetown on the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal. Courtesy photo

SHEPHERDSTOWN — Across the Potomac River from Shepherdstown is the tranquil Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, once a commerce-carrying, water-filled slice of land that extended all the way (184.5 miles) from Washington, D.C. to Cumberland, Md.

The canal carried barges filled with coal, lumber, agricultural products and goods and even people and animals.

It opened in Georgetown on the edge of Washington, D.C. in 1828, and was expanded westward past Shepherdstown (just across the Potomac River) and on to Cumberland by 1850.

The barge-carrying C&O Canal operated for nearly 100 years, before grudgingly giving way to more modern modes of moving goods.

The depth of water in the canal was six feet wherever possible.

Douglas

Employees of the canal usually lived in lockhouses alongside the ribbon of water. Manmade aqueducts at times carried the cargo-loaded barges overhead of smaller creeks or waterways that moved along underneath them.

“Canaliers” lived in the company-provided lockhouses.

Engineering feats and man-built structures such as feeder dams, guard locks, culverts, lift locks, waste weirs and guard gates provided safeguards for the lengthy system.

The well-imagined system engendered factual (and fictional) stories of western expansion, transportation, engineering, the Civil War, immigration and commerce concerning the long tenure of the C&O.

One-time Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas could be properly labeled the “Saviour of the C&O” because of his words and work to help protect the waterway in the early 1970s.

To protect the canal and bring attention to its beauty and historical significance, Douglas would hike 15 to 20 miles along its banks on Sundays.

His eloquence and important position on the high court made people listen when he said, “One of the most fascinating and picturesque places in the nation. It is a refuge, a place of retreat, a long stretch of quiet and peace … a wilderness area where we can commune with God and nature, a place not yet marred by the roar of wheels and the sound of horns.”

Largely because of the tireless work of Justice Douglas, the C&O Canal became a National Historical Park in 1971.

Its upkeep even today makes it a near-perfect place to hike, see the river from up close and do a little quiet communing with nature. It is accessible just across from Ferry Hill on Route 34 and on a descending hill to a public parking area close to the river’s edge on the Maryland side.

History courses out of the pores of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Park just minutes away from Shepherdstown.