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Charles B. Fisk, Engineer In the Fall of 1828 as it prepared to begin construction, the C&O Canal Company hired as its senior engineers Benjamin Wright, John Martineau, and Nathan Roberts. For its resident and assistant engineers it choose men with widely varying experience, among whom was Charles B. Fisk, listed in Canal Company documents as coming from Connecticut (Sanderlin, p. 62). We know nothing more of Fisk’s background, but are probably safe in assuming that he was typical of those hired at such entry level positions in those days, and was therefore both young and lacking in significant engineering experience or training. Civil engineering was still a profession learned on the job from the more experienced engineers above one. Fisk’s first assignment was on the fourth residency that stretched from Seneca Creek to the Monocacy. During the next five years he must have learned much, given that the C&O Canal was one of the most ambitious and challenging engineering projects of the time. However, in the Fall of 1833, as financial troubles slowed construction and both the need and resources for engineers dwindled, he moved into a maintenance position as Superintendent of Repairs between Dams 2 and 3. (Unrau, Historic Resource Study, Chapter Five, p. 169) In April 1835, Fisk was returned to the engineering roster as Resident Engineer of the Third Residency encompassing the canal line from Dam 4 to Dam 5 where construction was focused at the time. On the Fourth Residency, above Fisk’s, was Resident Engineer Thomas F. Purcell who, like Fisk, had been hired in the Fall of 1828, but as a resident rather than mere assistant engineer. (Unrau p. 169) One can only wonder at the personnel dynamics within the company reflected in Fisk’s promotion, after a year and a half in maintenance, to a rank equivalent to Purcell’s. It is at this time that Fisk emerges as an outspoken champion of the position that—however difficult the Company’s financial situation—the quality of the design and construction of the canal must not be compromised. Taking a contrary position, Purcell emphasized the need to reach Cumberland quickly, proposing the temporary use of slackwater navigation for some distance above the upper dams to do so. As the company prepared to begin construction up to Dam 6, and to lay out the route above it, Purcell, supported by Superintendent of Masonry A. B. McFarland, warned of the lack of building stone in those regions and proposed the use of wood for some of the locks. Fisk insisted that quarries with appropriate stone existed within an acceptable distance. It would be September of 1839 before he would be forced to admit the severity of the problem and propose composite locks where cutstone locks were impossible. (Sanderlin, p. 124; Unrau, Locks, pp. 51–58) In addition, a bitter battle broke out between Purcell and Fisk on the design of the foundations for the locks. Fisk had recommended changes that he felt would remedy the tendency of the upper lock walls to lean inward as they settled. Purcell wrote to the board describing his investigation of the problem and discovery that this happened even when the foundation was solid rock. The problem, Purcell insisted, was not in the way the foundation was built. (Unrau, Locks, pp. 53–62) The board appears to have consistently sided with Fisk, and in March 1836 Purcell resigned. (Unrau, Historic Resource Study, Chapter Five, p. 191) On April 12, 1837, Fisk was appointed Chief Engineer and he would hold this position—except for half a year over the winter of 1840–41—until his resignation in late September 1852. (Unrau, Historic Resource Study, Chapter Five, p. 172) The October 1840 severance of Fisk and numerous other long-term company employees appears to have resulted from their opposition to the unrestricted use of script to pay for construction, and of the rampant spoils system that allowed politicians to use positions the state controlled (which in the case of the canal company ranged from that of company president to mere locktenders) to reward supporters. When political control changed in the spring of 1841, Fisk was among the experienced canal employees rehired by a new board that was charged with a mandate to clean up the company’s reliance on script and many inexperienced, often laggardly, employees hired under the spoils system. (Unrau, Historic Resource Study, Chapter Five, p. 173) The story of Fisk’s work on the canal from 1837 to 1852 must wait for telling at another time, but it is safe to say that no other Canal Company employee would be more involved in or more important to the struggle to reach Cumberland during the terrible years of operational, construction, labor, and financial difficulties. Again and again Fisk appears in the records, dealing with each crisis as it arises, surviving the years in the 1840s when construction ground to a halt, seeing the canal through the aftermath of devastating floods and crippling droughts, and seemingly never losing his commitment to the canal’s importance. It’s a grim reality then, when, after nearly a quarter century of hard and dedicated service on the line of the C&O Canal, Fisk leaves for good amid the resurgence of the spoils system and the creation of a new board filled with political appointees of questionable competence and little interest in the canal. The next record we have of Fisk is as an engineer for the James River and Kanawha Company where, in October 1854, he submited a report to the company’s directors recommending sluice navigation on the Kanawha River. (Unrau, Historic Resource Study, Chapter Five, p. 174–75) For more information on Fisk’s final years I’ve found only the memoirs of civil engineer James Worrall. As a young man learning his profession in the early 1830s, Worrall had worked on the C&O canal and would go on to become an outstanding engineer associated with a number of major nineteenth century engineering achievements. Shortly before his death in 1885 he would write his Memoirs and in this document, published post mortem, we find dramatic reminiscences of his C&O experiences and the men under whom he worked such as Wright and Purcell. Of Fisk he wrote: Fisk came after Mr. Purcell on the C&O. He was a Connecticut man and a good engineer. He had a splendid corps—Elwood Morris, Gore, John A. Byers and others—but the canal was never finished and they had no great career. . . . Fisk struggled along with the company, got poor with them, always respected but never adequately paid. The work was grand and his talents were worthy of it, but money was lacking. At length came up the Virginia railroad, from Richmond to Ohio, afterwards called the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. Fisk was made a Chief Engineer. He planned the mountain crossings via White Sulphur Springs—masterly work, great location, and all that; but in the midst came 1861, and all was thrown into pi. It broke Fisk’s heart; a fine intellect went down in disappointment. Had he remained at home amongst the Yankees where he was born he would have been a distinguished man and to some purpose. But he starved down there in an abnormal environment. The great storm was brewing, it had to come, and Fisk sunk before it. (Worrall, pp. 57–58) -- Karen Gray Sanderlin, Walter S., The Great National Project: A History of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1946 The source of this article is the C & O Canal Association’s newsletter, Along the Towpath, Vol. 34, No. 4, December 2002. |
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