Description
Wolfe, George Hooper (1970). I drove Mules on the C ans O Canal. Dover Graphic Associates Woodwind Studio of Dover, Delaware. 192 Seiten.
Beautifully illustrated and photographed signed and inscribed first edition on life along the C&O Canal during the first half of the 20th century. Spectacularly illustrated by Jack Lewis. The author has signed the volume twice, the first being an inscription to his friend C.S. Baker and the second on a laid in supplement to the first edition.
Begun in 1828 – completed in 1850, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal parallels the Potomac River from Washington, D. C., to Cumberland, Maryland, a distance of about 185 miles. Along the route between tidewater and river level at Cumberland, seventy five locks of about an eight-foot lift each were needed.
However, it seems that nowhere can there be found a book of reference as to how life was on the Canal for those important people who actually kept the boats moving–the locktenders, the captains and their families, and the boat
crews. The following pages are written to tell some of the interesting stories about the Canal and about the lives of people who lived and worked along it. I feel sure that, as you read along, you will find each story interesting enough for you to want to read another. As a very young mule driver on the Canal, I was privileged to take part in some of the weird escapades mentioned here, but I must confess that I am not exactly elated over some of the capers that I perpetrated. However, my memories of those days are priceless. Some stories which mention names of people now deceased were told to me years ago by them, and after checking with other Canal personnel, I found them to be authentic.
Now, forty-three years after the last boat has plied the old C & 0 Canal, few of the original boatmen are left, so I have decided that it is time to put what little I know of „The Great National Project“ in print for posterity.
