Canal Boat - A steerable craft, usually of frame construction, generally towed by animals. Ohio & Erie Canal boats developed from the Erie's bull-head design and were about 80 feet long, 14 to 14 1/2 feet wide, and had a loaded draft of 3 to 3 1/2 feet. The Ohio & Erie Canal – A Glossary of Terms, compiled by Terry K. Woods, © 1995 The Kent State University Press. Used by permission.
Canal Grass - An underwater growth of weeds. One of the big maintenance headaches of the state boat crews was the need to continually cut this aquatic growth. If left unchecked, it would obstruct navigation and even restrict the flow of water for hydraulic purposes. The grass often had to be cut four or five times per season.
The Ohio & Erie Canal – A Glossary of Terms, compiled by Terry K. Woods, © 1995 The Kent State University Press. Used by permission.
Captain - The boss of a canal boat. In the early days of boating on the Ohio & Erie, to be a captain of a line boat was an honor, indeed, and a position of some standing in the community. During the later operating days, however, the term had degenerated to be primarily an honorary title that usually referred to the owner of a canal boat.
The Ohio & Erie Canal – A Glossary of Terms, compiled by Terry K. Woods, © 1995 The Kent State University Press. Used by permission.
Catwalk - A narrow walkway connecting the tops of all three cabins of a three-cabin freighter. A boatman could walk from one end of the boat to the other using the catwalk and decks when the midships were filled with cargo. The Ohio & Erie Canal – A Glossary of Terms, compiled by Terry K. Woods, © 1995 The Kent State University Press. Used by permission.
Crew - The people regularly employed on a canal boat. During the early operating days on the Ohio & Erie Canal, a stand crew consisted of five people: the captain, steersman, bowsman, driver, and cook. Boats running day and night often carried double crews. Express packets generally carried additional crew members. A minimum crew was two people: one man to steer and a boy or girl to drive. The Ohio & Erie Canal – A Glossary of Terms, compiled by Terry K. Woods, © 1995 The Kent State University Press. Used by permission.
Driver - A young boy or girl, often the son or daughter of the boat's owner/captain, who would drive the animals along the towpath. Driving was usually done by walking behind the team, though the driver would occasionally ride the swing animal. The Ohio & Erie Canal – A Glossary of Terms, compiled by Terry K. Woods, © 1995 The Kent State University Press. Used by permission.
Freighter - A canal boat used exclusively to carry freight. The totally enclosed line boat or two-decker was a freighter. The most common freighter on the Ohio & Erie Canal, however, was the three-cabin freighter. After it was proven uneconomical to maintain way stations along the Canal's route for the exchange of towing animals, most boatmen began carrying their spare animals on board. As the formal freight line disappeared after the early 1870s, most bulk cargo was carried by independent haulers, thus creating the need for three cabins. The stern cabin house the captain and his family, the center stable the animals, and the bow cabin the non-family crew members. Cargo was carried in the twin midships cargo holds located between the three cabins.
The Ohio & Erie Canal – A Glossary of Terms, compiled by Terry K. Woods, © 1995 The Kent State University Press. Used by permission.
Headway - A command shouted by the captain of a canal boat when he decided that the boat had sufficient forward momentum to enter a lock chamber on its own. At the command of "headway," the bowsman would detach the towline from the deadeye. The driver would then get the team out of the way, and the boat would be allowed to glide into the lock chamber. As it did, the crew would leap to shore and snub the boat's forward motion, then steady it with lines on the snubbing posts during its rise or fall to the next level. The Ohio & Erie Canal - A Glossary of Terms, compiled by Terry K. Woods, © 1995 The Kent State University Press. Used by permission.
Lock Chamber - The volume of space between the closed gates of a lock in which a canal boat was raised and lowered between levels by the inflow and discharge of water. On the Ohio & Erie Canal, standard lock chamber dimensions were 15-feet wide by 90-feet long. The Ohio & Erie Canal – A Glossary of Terms, compiled by Terry K. Woods, © 1995 The Kent State University Press. Used by permission.
Locking Through - The action of getting a boat through a lock. In going up the canal to gain a higher elevation, with water in the lock chamber at the lower level and the lower miter gates open, a boat would glide into the lock chamber and be snubbed to a stop by the crew. The miter gates behind the boat would then be closed and the paddles in the upper gates opened. Crew members then worked with lines on the snubbing posts or fended off the lock walls with pike poles to keep the boat from striking the lock walls or gates as water rushed into the chamber and the boat rose. When the head of water in the local chamber and the upper canal level were equal, the paddles in the upper gates were closed and the gates themselves opened. The team was then reattached to the boat's deadeye and pulled out of the lock and up the canal. Other combinations of boat directions and water levels were handled in a similar manner. The Ohio & Erie Canal – A Glossary of Terms, compiled by Terry K. Woods, © 1995 The Kent State University Press. Used by permission.
Ohio & Erie Canal - The official name of the canal for which we’re defining terms. Within the last 40 years or so, a number of written accounts of this canal have changed the name to Ohio-Erie or Ohio Erie. Many people now believe that this is the Ohio branch of New York’s Erie Canal or one of the other Eries, rather than a distinct system of its own. Five canals in the country had Erie in their names – one in New York, one in Pennsylvania, two in Ohio, and one in Indiana. Most canals were named for the two bodies of water they connected. The Ohio & Erie Canal connected Lake Erie and the Ohio River. The Ohio & Erie Canal – A Glossary of Terms, compiled by Terry K. Woods, © 1995 The Kent State University Press. Used by permission.
Packet - A canal boat that carried passengers. A relatively small portion of the packets running on the Ohio & Erie Canal were of the sleek, narrow, fast design that dominated the Erie and Main Line Canal. Early Ohio & Erie packets carried freight in a center area and had bow and stern cabins for passengers. In 1837, a through line from Cleveland to Portsmouth of express packets was inaugurated that exclusively carried passengers and mail and adhered (sort of) to an ambitious schedule. The design of the craft used in this line still followed that of a line boat rather than the sleeker design of the eastern canal packets. The main distinction between early packets and line boats on the Ohio & Erie Canal appears to be whether passengers or freight was the primary cargo. Through lines apparently were discontinued on the Ohio & Erie after 1842, though packets ran from Cleveland to Akron and Massillon until 1852, and from Columbus to Portsmouth as late as 1874. The Ohio & Erie Canal – A Glossary of Terms, compiled by Terry K. Woods, © 1995 The Kent State University Press. Used by permission.
Pilot - The guide of a canal boat through a tricky stretch of canal. In Akron, at the head of the staircase of locks, certain individuals would hire out (at 50 cents per trip) to steer a boat through the difficult channels that connected the 15 locks through town. The Ohio & Erie Canal – A Glossary of Terms, compiled by Terry K. Woods, © 1995 The Kent State University Press. Used by permission.
Register - A toll keeper’s log book. A register was kept at each tollhouse on the Ohio & Erie Canal and contained the name, captain, home port, and weight of every boat operating on the canal. The Ohio & Erie Canal – A Glossary of Terms, compiled by Terry K. Woods, © 1995 The Kent State University Press. Used by permission.
Right-of-Way - The right of a captain to pass or get ahead of other boats. In general, an upstream boat had a right-of-way over a downstream boat. A faster bo had a right-of-way over a slower boat going in the same direction. A packet had right-of-way over a freighter. The boat without the right-of-way would be steered over to the heel path, its team would move to the outside of the towpath, and the towline would be allowed to gain slack and sink to the bottom of the canal. The crew with right-of-way would then run its team and boat between the other team and boat and over their towline. The first boat to a lock had a right-of-way even if the lock was not fit properly for that boat. Of course, all of these rules were subject to interpretation and how much one crew could intimidate the other. The Ohio & Erie Canal – A Glossary of Terms, compiled by Terry K. Woods, © 1995 The Kent State University Press. Used by permission.
Staircase of Locks - A euphemism for many individual locks in a relatively short stretch of canal. Akron’s staircase of locks consisted of 15 in a one-mile stretch. There was also a staircase of eight at Lockville and five at Lockbourne. The Ohio & Erie Canal – A Glossary of Terms, compiled by Terry K. Woods, © 1995 The Kent State University Press. Used by permission.
Team - The set of animals used to tow canal boats. Generally two or three animals hitched in a tandem were required to pull a standard freighter and approximately eighty tons of cargo. One horse or mule could pull a light boat. Express packets would use three or four horses. The Ohio & Erie Canal – A Glossary of Terms, compiled by Terry K. Woods, © 1995 The Kent State University Press. Used by permission.
Tollhouse - The place where boatman paid their tolls. There were 11 tollhouses along the Ohio & Erie Canal. These were located at Cleveland, Akron, Massillon, Canal Dover, Roscoe, Newark, Carrol, Circleville, Chillicothe, Waverly, and Portsmouth. The Ohio & Erie Canal – A Glossary of Terms, compiled by Terry K. Woods, © 1995 The Kent State University Press. Used by permission.
Towpath - The path parallel to the canal, generally along the river side, along which the drivers and animals trod, pulling the canal boat on a towline. The towpath on the Ohio & Erie Canal was a minimum of two feet above the water line, a minimum of ten feet wide, and sloped slightly away from the channel. A towpath was constructed along only one side of the Ohio & Erie Canal. The Ohio & Erie Canal – A Glossary of Terms, compiled by Terry K. Woods, © 1995 The Kent State University Press. Used by permission.
Wiffle Tree - The mechanism by which towing animals were hitched together and to the towline. Some boatmen called this a “whipple tree.” The Ohio & Erie Canal – A Glossary of Terms, compiled by Terry K. Woods, © 1995 The Kent State University Press. Used by permission.