THE QUEEN CITY CELEBRATES: If you had stood in Cumberland 164 years ago today, you would have heard the cheers of an ecstatic crowd echo between the nearby ridges tinged with autumn colors. As the band played on, you would have watched citizens and government officials strut beneath the colorful spires of the Queen City and toward the terminus of the C&O Canal. It was on that day, October 10, 1850, that the final 50-mile portion of the canal between Cumberland and Hancock opened to commercial traffic. It had been a difficult 22 years since that stifling July afternoon when President John Quincy Adams had shoveled the first spade of earth at Little Falls. Many Irish and German immigrant workers had suffered under grueling conditions as they dug the canal. Some succumbed to Asiatic cholera and other illnesses.[1] Others were maimed or killed by the blasts unleashed by the black powder needed to tunnel through rocks.[2] As the C&O Canal Company found itself in debt, and the canal reached only halfway to the proposed terminus in Pittsburgh, executives decided that they did not wish to extend the canal past Cumberland. On that autumn day in 1850, citizens of the Queen City recognized the significance of the occasion. Cumberland’s spokesman remarked, “Many of us were young when this great work was commenced. The opening of yonder gates to let through the first boat carrying freight…is the turning point in the history of the canal.”[3] (ds) [1] Walter S. Sanderlin, The Great National Project: A History of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1946), 93-97. [2] National Park Service Division of Publications, Chesapeake and Ohio Canal: A Guide to the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park, Maryland, District of Columbia, and W. Virginia. (Washington: US Department of the Interior, 1991), 20-24. [3] “The Canal Arrives in Cumberland,” nps.gov/choh/historyculture/thecanalarrivesincumberland.htm
Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 11:30:01 +0000
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