Volunteering to help the park: A work crew installs a bench near Great Falls in 2016.
Supporting park projects: Catoctin Aqueduct after collapse in 1973
Supporting park projects: Catoctin Aqueduct after restoration effort in 2011
Exploring history and nature: Sideling Hill Creek Aqueduct as viewed from the Western Maryland Rail Trail.
Protecting the canal since 1954: The association opposes Georgetown University’s plan to build a large boathouse in the park
Protecting the canal since 1954: The association opposes Georgetown University’s plan to build a large boathouse in the park
Exploring history and nature: Hikers gather at Fifteen Mile Creek Aqueduct in 2018.
Protecting the canal since 1954: Justice Douglas and eight others pause during their famous hike, which publicized the canal in 1954
Exploring history and nature: Ranger provides interpretation for hikers at Seneca Stone Cutting Mill in 2020.
Exploring history and nature: Hikers marvel at a large specimen during a tree identification walk in 2012
Volunteering to help the park: Association volunteer attaches plaque to newly installed bench in 2018.
Exploring history and nature: Association members participate in the last day of the 2009 Thru Hike at Great Falls
Volunteering to help the park: Association member helps install an identification sign at Landers in 2011
Exploring history and nature: Hikers gather at Dam 5 in 2019.
Protecting the canal since 1954: Justice Douglas and others rally against replacing the canal with a highway.
Volunteering to help the park: Association members repaint picnic tables at Swains Lock
Volunteering to help the park: Association volunteers assemble picnic table in 2018.
Vote for your favorite mule!Make your voice HERD!
2024 is an election year - for the C&O Canal Mule of the Month! Beginning on May 3rd, visitors will be invited to vote for their favorite mule to determine which of our four long-eared friends will take home the title!
Visitors can vote in-person and on the park's Facebook and Instagram pages for their favorite mule. At the end of the month, the votes will be tallied, and a new Mule of the Month will be announced! Voting will take place until the last day of each month, with a winner for the months of June, July, August, and September. To vote in-person, just visit the Great Falls Tavern Visitor Center and submit your ballot. If you can't make it to the park, keep a look out on our social media accounts for monthly virtual ballots!
Who will the fan favorite be? Are you an Eva Beli-EVA? Are you digging Dolly? Will the votes go all the way with Julie J? Or will you go with your friend, Jen?
#FindYourPark #EncuentraTuParque #mules
Image credit: National Park Service
Last day to register for the World Canals Conference.
I’m going…can’t wait!
Have a wonderful time!!!!
Me too!
Poland is kind of far away, lol.
Good way to Channel one's enthusiasm...
Late in 1861, Major Wilder Dwight's 2nd Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry found itself with other US Army units stationed near the Potomac River in Montgomery County, Maryland, just north of Washington.
Sanitary conditions in the makeshift encampments were poor and the list of sick soldiers grew to the point that medical authorities sought to send the most severely ill patients on to medical facilities elsewhere. In this part of Maryland, it was believed the most efficient way to transport the patients would be via the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal to Washington. The plan did not go well.
Major Dwight sounded off about the whole sordid incident in a letter home:
“To-day a part of our sick have been sent off to the General Hospital at Baltimore. Preparations were made yesterday by the Medical Director to send the worst cases from the whole division.
"The order came to move the sick down to the canal…came early this morning. At 10 o’clock they were moving; and at 5 o’clock this afternoon the boat was ready for them. The whole day they waited – 200 sick men, in wagons and discomfort – on the banks of the canal. The sight was most irritating this afternoon when I rode down there.
"Just at nightfall they were huddled in, 150 men to one canal boat, the rest sent back for want of room, and the boat moved off. Wretched mismanagement, and I fear great suffering as its fruit…”
Source:
"Life and Letters of Wilder Dwight
Lieut.-Col. Second Mass. Inf. Vols," 1891. Page 162.
Image credit:
"Union troops being towed along the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal...in late 1861" - New York Illustrated News, November 11, 1861; Princeton University Library - accessed through Crossroads of War,
The Army keeps good records. Where were the men loaded on the boat and, then, taken off?