Lock and Lockhouse 44 - C and O Canal
by Susan Rissi Tregoning
Title
Lock and Lockhouse 44 - C and O Canal
Artist
Susan Rissi Tregoning
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
Lockhouse 44 is located at milepost 99.1 on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal in Williamsport, Maryland. The house is on the canal's towpath side, downstream from the Cushwa Basin and the Conococheague Aqueduct at Conococheague Creek. While Lock 44 is no longer a working lock, it is unique because it still has all its gate hardware, not very common upstream past Lock 23.
It is also rare to find a sluice. The channel on the inland side of the canal is the sluice. All locks had them, but most have been filled with dirt or grown-up. A sluice is a ditch that runs beside the lock. It gives the excess water a place to go after the lock through-process, so it doesn't flood over the canal banks or put pressure on the lift gates.
The war was hard on Williamsport. In 1862, lock 44's lock gates, a lockkeeper's shanty, several structures around the lock, and eleven canal boats were burned. The following year the lock gates were burned again, and a section of the lock wall was torn down.
There is confusion about when lockhouse 44 was built. All that is certain is that it was constructed sometime after the Civil War. While a contract was let for the house's construction when the canal first opened, it was never built. Many assume a lockhouse was here by the early 1850s, but there is no evidence that a lockhouse was destroyed in either two Civil War fires. In 1867, C&O once again directed a house to be built at lock 44. It may very well be this house, but still, no one is certain. When the canal went into receivership, a house existed at Lock 44.
Harvey Brant, the last Lockkeeper of Lock 44, moved into the house in 1815 with his wife and two small daughters. He operated the lock until the canal closed in 1924 and continued to live here until 1961. It sat empty after the Brant family moved out.
Copyright 2021 Susan Rissi Tregoning
Uploaded
January 28th, 2021
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