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Locks

Mountain Lock Area, 1920

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A wide variety of boats would be seen along the canal. This was likely a work scow, used for transporting supplies for the canal company’s maintenance and repair crews. The woman may well have been the crew’s cook, one of the few positions that we know were open to women. In July 1864, a woman cook named Mrs. Null, successfully defended her maintenance crew’s houseboat against Confederate forces intent on burning it as they had several other boats.

Canal and river four miles above Harpers Ferry at upper lock.

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The boat from which this picture was taken is approaching lock No. 37, which was called Mountain Lock and is considered one of the most scenic locks on the canal. Note how close the canal is to the river in this area. Where hills come directly down to the river, it was not possible to put the canal back away from it in an effort to make it less vulnerable to flood waters. The engineers would, however, attempt to keep the canal as high above the river as possible.

Lockhouse at Lock 49

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Photograph of the lockhouse at lock 49 where Sam Taylor lived from 1889-1924. Two different types of lock gate keys can be seen in the closed position on the lock gates. One style of the key is the bent handle key that is seen on three of the keys and the one that is to the far right hand side has a straight handle. A lock key is an iron bar that has a square bit that fits on the end of the bar that operates the paddle gates attached to the bottom of the lock gate. In order to control the level of water in the lock the paddle gates nearest the bottom of the lock would be opened.

Lock 47 and Drydock

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Lock 47 is the first of the flight of locks, Nos. 47–50, that are in close proximity and around which a community grew known as Four Locks. Here the river makes a large bend around Prather’s Neck, which the canal cuts across. However, as the river falls considerably above this point, the canal needed to gain altitude before it cut across the neck to come out by the river upstream of the bend. A flight of locks allowed it to do.

Lockhouse, Guard Lock 5

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This lock provides access to the pool behind Dam 5 which was used by canal boats for a distance of about half a mile until the canal resumed beyond a rocky cliff that had blocked it. These locks behind dams were often called “inlet locks” as well as “guard locks.” The term “inlet lock” emphasizes that they let water into the canal from the river and the term “guard lock” emphasized that they were built into a guard, allowing the canal to pass through it. Such guard walls extend from the dam abutment to the adjacent hillside.

Mule Bridge

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This photograph shows a host of people who either lived or worked around the Two Locks area. They are standing on the mule crossover bridge that was used by the boatmen when the towpath switched from the berm side of the canal back over to the river side. The Newkirk & Steel store is visible on the left hand side. Tunis Newkirk also sold and rented mules to boatmen.