Garrett County’s biggest tourist attraction could have looked very different if the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal had continued past Cumberland. Deep Creek Lake was created from building a dam and allowing a dozen creeks and streams, including the creek that gives Deep Creek Lake its name, to fill the valley.
In 1824, as the holdings of George Washington’s Patowmack Company were ceded to the new Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, which had yet to break ground. The canal’s route was still in question. The goal was to reach the Ohio River, which would allow canal boats to travel to the Mississippi River.
The largest challenge to this goal were the Allegheny Mountains. To reach Cumberland required raising a canal boat about 800 feet over 185 miles from Georgetown. To reach McHenry from Cumberland would require raising a boat about 1,900 feet over 45 miles, a greater challenge.
In 1824, four years before the C&O Canal broke ground, U.S. Secretary of War John Calhoun and Col. Isaac Roberdeau, who had assisted Charles L’Enfant in laying out Washington D.C., set out to map a route for the canal.
In 1824, four years before the C&O Canal broke ground, U.S. Secretary of War John Calhoun and Col. Isaac Roberdeau, who had assisted Charles L’Enfant in laying out Washington D.C., set out to map a route for the canal.
They left Cumberland on August 26, 1824, traveling the National Road and staying in taverns along the way. They wrote of seeing well-timbered land and beautiful farms along the route, but they eventually left the road and headed south, stopping at the farm of the John McHenry at Buffalo Marsh.
“This party is now engaged in surveying the head waters of Deep Creek and other branches of the Youghiogheny, and will proceed down that river to Monongahela, and thence to Pittsburg, which they expect to reach by the first of December,” the Maryland Republican reported on Sept. 9, 1824.
The McHenry family welcomed the surveying part with “that sort of Highland welcome which does a heart good,” according to the Maryland Republican.
Not far from the farm was the summit level of the canal. According to The Glades Star, it was marked on a pier of the old wooden Deep Creek bridge where present-day Route 219 crosses Deep Creek. The summit level indicated “the high water mark of the storage dam to provide water for lifting and lowering the canal boats thru the locks.”
It was proposed that a 21-foot dam on the Little Youghiogheny and a 35-foot dam on the Big Youghiogheny would be needed to provide enough water for a canal to operate through present-day Garrett County.
“And Deep Creek that now moves along unseen and but little known shall become famous as the stream of Washington, for its waters will mingle with those of the Potomac and pass the shades of Mt. Vernon where he who first formed the grand design of uniting the waters of the West and the East… now rests in peace. From this summit level the waters of Deep Creek shall find a sea on either side. Flowing westward it will pass the spot (by way of the Ohio and Mississippi) where Jackson saved his country and gained immortal fame. About two miles from the summit level, the surveying group found,” the Maryland Advocate opined.
The newspaper also noted that it believed Calhoun had been sold on the idea and that it should commence.
Although the C&O Canal did break ground on July 4, 1828, it never reached present-day Deep Creek Lake, stopping at Cumberland.
for original story Looking Back: Deep Creek Lake could have been part of C&O Canal | News | times-news.com
