Receipt, 1893. Zimmerman, Lock 37

From Doug Bast, Boonsborough Museum of History

This receipt is likely for toll, tolls being the way the canal company made money. If so, this is evidence that lockkeepers collected tolls for boats traversing short sections of the canal, such as we see in this case where the scow was traveling downstream from Shepherdstown to a dam—almost certainly Dam 3 located two miles above the confluence of the Shenandoah and the point at Harpers Ferry. On the canal this was a distance of about ten miles. It is unclear why the toll was not collected at the Shepherdstown lock (38), but perhaps the boat entered the canal through the river lock about a tenth of a mile downstream from lock 38. This would have meant that it was likely brought across the river from the Shepherdstown riverfront and could have been carrying cargo bound for Harpers Ferry. At Dam 3 the scow likely would have been taken up the inlet channel and through the inlet lock into the slackwater pool behind the dam, and then down the Armory Canal to Harpers Ferry. At both Shepherdstown and Dam 3, the river crossing would have been greatly facilitated by cables so boats could be pulled across. In their absence, the boats would have to find areas shallow enough for those on board to use poles to propel the boat across.