Snyders Landing, pedestrians

During most of the canal operating years this canal wharf area was known as Sharpsburg Landing, as it was only 1.7 miles from downtown Sharpsburg—closer by nearly one and a half miles than was Lock 38 at the crossing to Shepherdstown. A swinging pedestrian bridge crossed the canal here, built high enough to allow the passage of boats underneath. The wharf on the berm side served as a coal depot along with the Snyder warehouse used to store coal, grain, and other cargos that had arrived or would be shipped by the canal.

This landing was one of the most popular places along the canal for boatmen to leave their boats for the winter closure of the canal that normally occurred between sometime in December to sometime in March. It was also, along with Williamsport and Millstone Point, the location of riots in July and August of 1880 when a nation-wide depression that had begun in 1876, resulted in an enormous deflationary impact on the price of coal to the great detriment of the boatmen who were facing fees for the use of the waterway and wharfs that made it almost impossible for them to earn a living carrying coal.