Collection Name
Collection Name
About
About
Floods and canal repairs
Media Items
Media Items
Media Items
ItemID
wcco096
IDEntry
5839
Rights
Public domain
Date
1889-06-03
Collection Location
C&O National Historic Park
Coverage
Maryland, 1824-1938
Body
6/3/1889
Box cars on the WM siding from Cushwa Warehouse to the Steffey and Findlay Siding toward the lock at Williamsport
Note the boats in the canal and the drive bridge. This ground is all west of the cemetery.
Notes
99.6 Mile
NPS File 1154
Victor Cushwa, Williamsport businessman and shipper on the canal, wrote to the Baltimore Sun, December 26, 1889:
The failure on the part of the management to repair and operate the canal has brought upon our people the most disastrous results. Lose of business, labor and property amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the depreciation still going on, are matter that go down deep into the recesses of the heart, and most seriously affect the prosperity of the people of Western Maryland, for so many of whom the canal was the only market and sole artery of trade. Our own fertile county of Washington, noted for its fine farms and thrifty farmers, is skirted by the canal a distance of 77 miles out of the 185 miles, the canal's entire length. The farmers of our sister counties in Pennsylvania (Franklin and Fulton), notwithstanding that many of them were favored with shipping facilities by nearby railroads, found better markets on the line of the canal, and hauled to it from miles inland the products of the farm, returning with coal, plaster, lumber, etc., benefited by the exchange. (Unrau)
See also The Flood at Home, Hagerstown Mail, June 6, 1889.