The Kent State University Press

A number of travelers chronicled their trips via canal boat along the Ohio & Erie Canal in the nineteenth century. But the trip of Maximilian, Prince of Wied (1782–1867), stands out among them. This German explorer made important early observations along the canal during June 1834, less than two years after the full length of the canal was opened in October 1832. His trip crossed the entire length of the canal, from the warmer biomes of southern Ohio to the cooler forests of northeastern Ohio. Maximilian had two qualities that distinguished his observations: he was a highly knowledgeable, experienced naturalist, and he had no personal stake in the settling of the frontier and concomitant suppression of the native peoples of North America.

Maximilian, Prince of Wied (formerly Wied-Neuwied), ranks among the greatest of the explorer-naturalists of the first half of the nineteenth century. [End Page 5]

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Maximilian, Prince of Wied (center, with pipe), standing next to his younger brother, Prince Carl, and with his huntsman/taxidermist David Dreidoppel (far right). Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska.

A self-taught naturalist, he studied at the University of Göttingen for a brief period in 1811–12 and was influenced by the early anthropologist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach and the renowned explorer-naturalist Alexander von Humboldt.1 Maximilian shared a number of personal qualities with Humboldt, [End Page 6] including a tremendous drive for exploration and documentation of the natural and cultural landscapes of the Americas. Maximilian, however, lacked the resources of his fellow naturalist. The prince could only afford his expeditions by borrowing money from his older brother, Prince August, the reigning prince of Wied. Maximilian made two major expeditions, one to South America (1815–17) and another to North America (1832–34). He documented his findings in weighty, detailed volumes that rank among the classics in New World natural history. His detailed account of his South American expedition, published in German and English, among other languages, established his reputation as a naturalist.2

Maximilian began his trip to North America in Europe in 1832, traveling to Boston and New York and then through New Jersey and Pennsylvania and down the Ohio River. He had a major stopover in New Harmony, Indiana, where he recovered from a cholera-like illness during the winter of 1832–33, before continuing on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and up the Missouri River as far west as Fort McKenzie. His original plans called for a visit to the American Indians who lived in the Rocky Mountain area, but warfare prevented this part of his visit. He returned via the Missouri, Mississippi, and Ohio rivers as far as Mt. Vernon to revisit New Harmony. He then traveled overland to Louisville, Kentucky, and then up the Ohio to Portsmouth, where he headed north on the Ohio & Erie Canal to Cleveland. He took a steamship from Cleveland to Buffalo and then traveled via the Erie Canal and the Hudson River to New York City and then home to Europe and the principality of Wied-Neuwied.

Maximilian followed some of the same pathways as Bernhard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach, a German who had traveled extensively in North America in 1825 and 1826. Bernhard chronicled his observations in a two-volume work, Travels through North America During the Years 1825 and 1826, which was published in Weimar in 1828. An English edition of Bernhard's travels was published in Philadelphia in 1828.3 Like Bernhard, Maximilian visited New Harmony, a cultural and scientific center on the American frontier, and Niagara Falls, and traveled along and observed the canals. Maximilian corresponded with Bernhard and was familiar with his work, mentioning it in his own account. Maximilian visited North America at the [End Page 7] same time that Charles Darwin traveled in South America. Like Darwin, Maximilian had broad interests, but the emphasis and tone of the two explorers' reports differ.

Maximilian documented his trip in a three-volume Tagebuch (usually translated as "diary" but also known as a manuscript journal),4 which was the basis of his report of his North American explorations, Reise in das innere Nord-America in den Jahren 1832 bis 1834 (Trip to the Interior of North America in the Years 1832 through 1834). The report was published in Coblenz in two large volumes (1839 and 1841).5 The work includes detailed descriptions of his trip and is accompanied by lithographs made from original watercolors painted by Karl Bodmer. Maximilian's book was translated into French and published in three volumes in 1840–43.6 An English version, titled Travels in the Interior of North America and translated by Hannibal Evans Lloyd, was published in London in 1843.7 This edition, like subsequent editions, left out portions of Maximilian's text, principally scientific observations, lexicons, and footnotes. Lloyd recounts his reasons for various omissions in a translator's preface.8 This English version is widely available in microform and online versions and so has occasionally been quoted from or excerpted or cited,9 but much less than it deserves to be. [End Page 8]

Another version—essentially a reprint of the London edition but with some parts restored, notably twenty-three Native American vocabularies and bird catalogs for the Missouri and Wabash rivers—was published in the series Early Western Travels 1748–1846, published by the Arthur H. Clark Company in 1906.10

Maximilian's writing style is straightforward and descriptive—"simple, natural, and unforced, rather the expression of the scientific than of the literary type of mind"11—lacking, for the most part, the embellishments so common in nineteenth-century prose. His work is accurate overall, although there are a number of errors here and there. For example, in the introductory paragraphs to the excerpts of Maximilian's trip published in Towpaths, L. W. Richardson notes the prince's imperfect understanding of the canal's configuration.12

Maximilian's views were remarkably modern in many respects. He was among the strongest critics of deforestation as practiced on the frontier at a time when this was bemoaned by only a small minority. His views of Native Americans and their monuments were also enlightened. He lambasted the Zerstörungssucht (destructive urge) of the Euro-Americans in his account of the Indian earthworks at Circleville.13 Still, Maximilian's published views on this topic were restrained compared to those in his Tagebuch.14

The excerpted parts of Maximilian's book are invaluable because of their early and primary documentation of Native American cultural vocabularies and cultural mores and of occurrences of animal and plant species.15 In extensive footnotes in the German edition of his book, Maximilian provided [End Page 9] the first scientific descriptions and scientific names of a frog and a turtle that live in Ohio. He described the spring peeper, now known as Pseudacris crucifer, under the name Hyla crucifer, and the western chorus frog, now known as Pseudacris triseriata, under the name Hyla triseriata.16 He also described the red-eared slider Emys elegans, now known as Trachemys scripta elegans (Wied).17 These animals occur in Ohio, but his descriptions were based on material collected or examined earlier in his journey. The omissions of these original descriptions are well known in the biological community, as the first scientific description and naming is a key aspect of biological nomenclature. Other omitted notations are not generally known, however, since the German original of Maximilian's work is usually cited only by German scholars or students of Maximilian's work.

A number of biological and other observations along the Ohio & Erie Canal are left out of the English editions. For instance, only one of his two notations on the occurrence of mussels in the canal is in the English editions. His comparison of the brown water of the Tuscarawas to the waters of the Brazilian forests and his observations of a grindstone mill south of Cleveland were likewise omitted. All such omissions as well as Maximilian's footnotes (indicated by his name in italics) are restored in this new translation.

This being said, the first person to condense Maximilian's work was Maximilian himself, for he did not publish all of the notes and illustrations that are preserved in his Tagebuch.

Maximilian was a consummate nineteenth-century naturalist; at the same time, he was an astute observer of technological advances along the frontier. The canals were great public works that attracted the notice of Maximilian as well as other European travelers.18 With Bodmer and Dreidoppel, Maximilian observed parts of or traveled along several major and other minor canal systems during the westward and eastward legs of his trip in North America. These included the Lehigh Canal (1832), where they observed coal being shipped in canal barges; the Ohio & Erie Canal (which he, like most people of the time, called the Ohio Canal), along which they traveled in June 1834; and part of the Erie Canal in New York, from Tonawanda to Albany, in early July 1834. Bodmer illustrated views of canals during these trips, including the Lehigh Canal in his view of "Bethlehem on the Lehigh" and Mauch Chunk (today's Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania).19 Additional references [End Page 10] to canals in Maximilian's Reise in das innere Nord-America are listed in Thwaites's Index.20

Maximilian noted the "well-known Ohio Canal" early on in his trip west in 1832, but he was to travel along the canal only on his return,21 traversing its entire length in June 1834. His trip began at 6 P.M. on June 20 at Ports-mouth, the southern end of the canal, and ended in Cleveland, the northern end, at approximately 10 A.M. on June 26. The trip took almost six days.

The original text for the trip along the canal fills about twelve published pages in the German edition of the second volume of Maximilian's book. The English versions of Maximilian's record of his trip along the Ohio & Erie Canal (most of chapter 32) omit a number of his observations, including some key notes on the natural history of the canal. For example, most of his comments on the flora of Summit Lake were excised.

Maximilian's trip along the Ohio & Erie Canal was due in part to his desire to visit Niagara Falls, the outstanding natural tourist attraction of the United States. Such a visit was de rigueur for the nineteenth-century European traveler.22 Maximilian had intended to visit the Falls on his way west, but this plan was derailed by an outbreak of cholera in New York, so he instead headed north on his return trip along the Ohio Canal. There were advantages to traveling by canal. Roads in Ohio at the time were notoriously bad, and travel by canal was gentle and allowed Maximilian to write in his journal. It was also easier to transport larger amounts of material (which in Maximilian's case included natural history books, flora and fauna specimens, and Indian tools, clothing, and weapons). Maximilian also traveled through Ohio with two live bears.23

Certainly Maximilian was not the only one to chronicle his trip along the Ohio & Erie Canal in the 1830s. A young New Hampshire man, Cyrus Bradley, recorded his observations made while traveling along the canal in 1835, but these were published only in 1906 by the Ohio Historical Society.24 Similarly, S. P. Hildreth, a Marietta physician-naturalist and first assistant geologist of the first Ohio Geological Survey, traveled over part of the canal in May 1835 and published his account in the American Journal of Science in [End Page 11] 1837.25 Botanist and physician John L Riddell also traveled along the canal in the summer of 1835 and recorded a number of plant taxa.26 Other accounts followed, the most quoted of all being that of John Quincy Adams, who traveled from Cleveland to Columbus on the canal in 1843.27

While various of these other travelers made observations similar to those of Maximilian, the prince's account stands out because of its very early date; its coverage of the entire length of the canal only one year and eight months after the opening on October 15, 1832 (or, depending on the source, later that year); and its detailed biological, social, and cultural records and insights.

An international scholar with extensive traveling experience in Europe and Brazil, Maximilian came to North America with an excellent grasp of languages, various cultures, and natural history. On his way west in 1832–33, he had an extended stay at New Harmony, the famed communal settlement in southern Indiana, where he recuperated from his cholera-like illness. There he interacted with Thomas Say, a great early American entomologist and malacologist, and the French naturalist Charles-Alexander Lesueur. At New Harmony, Maximilian also had access to an excellent library. By the time he reached Ohio on his trip back east, after another, briefer sojourn at New Harmony, Maximilian had made extensive and very well-informed observations of North American people, plants, and animals. These prepared him for what he would see on his trip through Ohio.

It was the omission of material that prompted this new translation, much like Jeronimus's new translation of Bernhard, and in some cases it was also a desire to restore the flavor of Maximilian's German prose for modern readers.28 This new translation presents all of the text of Maximilian's journey, including original notes that we incorporated into our footnotes in italics. To avoid confusion, we omitted Maximilian's occasional use of both a German and English term, the latter of which he typically enclosed in parentheses. We added contemporary spellings (most from Webster's Third New International Dictionary [1993]) or very short annotations in square brackets as well as longer annotations and comments as footnotes.

There are occasional references to Thwaites's footnotes in the U.S. edition, [End Page 12] but, while important in their own right, the notes are not reprinted here, since that edition is widely available. We also refer to Maximilian's three-volume Tagebuch (by volume and page number), which provides information and insights that Maximilian left out of his published work. We retained the English and Latin terms used in the original German version as well as the original spelling and italicization, including only original italicization of scientific names. Emendations to current spelling are in square brackets.

Excerpt from Maximilian's Trip in the Interior of North America chapter XXXII.

Journey along the Ohio Canal, Lake Erie, and the Falls of the Niagara, from June 21 to June 30, 183429

Journey along the Ohio Canal —Chillicothe —Licking Summit, highest point of the canal —Descent of the Canal near Akron —Cleveland —Lake Erie —Its Navigation —Buffaloe . . .

Portsmouth is a fairly unsightly place, with low houses and a few broad unpaved roads, built in a corner at the confluence of the Scioto and the Ohio rivers.30 The Ohio Canal begins here, connecting the river with Lake Erie. Many boats navigating this beautiful canal are built like Missouri keel boats, yet they are comfortably fitted out with several small rooms. The length of the boats varies between 77 and 80 feet, their width 14, and they are pulled by two horses on which the driver or the tower of the boat rides. These boats traveling the Ohio Canal aren't as well-furnished as the ones of the Erie Canal, where there are two different types of boats for passengers and freight, respectively, which is not the case here;31 in addition they travel more slowly [End Page 13] because fewer horses are harnessed to the boat. In the middle of the boat one finds a long room for goods—at the front end are two small cabins, and at the back part is the dining room. Along the sides of the cabins one finds upholstered seats on which, like on the floors of the room, the beds are arranged for the night. The second cabin has a sleeping room for the ladies.

In the afternoon just following our arrival [Friday, June 20] we went on board a canal boat, and in said place I found an agreeable, educated companion and observer of nature in Dr. Pitcher, military physician at Fort Gibson at the Arkansa[s] River, who made this trip along with his family.32 Our journey started at 6 o'clock in the evening and the finest weather favored us. The banks of the canal were covered with forests, particularly with sugar maple. Before nightfall we reached some locks and a stonemill where 70 saws were cutting blocks of the local sandstone (freestone) and shaping it for use as building stone, tombstones, etc.33 On the following day [Saturday, June 21] we proceeded through beautiful forests of sugar maple and beech, where one could see the baltimore [Baltimore oriole] flying about. The land is very fertile here; at one time it used to be forested everywhere, and one catches sight of the individual log cabins of settlers. On many places in the neighboring hills the may apple (Podophyllum) grows profusely; others were covered with the undergrowth of the papaw tree; the kingfisher was commonly seen along the canal. We encountered several canal boats, completely occupied by European emigrants. At three associated locks along the canal so-called feeders were installed that connect it with the Scioto River which is nearby and whose valley one constantly follows.34 A weir is [End Page 14] built in the river—in whose depths many softshell turtles (Trionyx) allegedly live. About 1½ hours from Chillicothe, after passing Indian Creek, the canal crosses a stream [on an aqueduct], the so-called Paint Creek. This aqueduct is broad and has three arches and two stone piers, over which the canal water flows, and on each side of that aqueduct there is a plank roadbed, with a railing, for draft horses and pedestrians. In the evening we reached Chillicothe, a small town of 2–3000 inhabitants living in a broad, fertile valley, and evidently growing substantially. About 150 Germans live here; they are usually looked at favorably.35 Raising cattle is the main business in this area; cattle and pigs have been exported, as is now some wheat.

When the first settlers arrived, they found two Indian tribes, the Shawnies [Shawnees] of the Americans or Chavanons of the French, as well as the Wyandots expelled from the north.36 Several old Indian mounds used to be located where the city lays now; bones, shards, and beads have been found in one of them, the latter made from hardwood. Another mound was composed of rocks in its upper part, it contained bones and two copper bracelets that have been wrought or hammered but not cast. A third mound, grown over with trees, is still in existence and lies on a nearby wooded ridge; it contains a mixture of sand and rocks on top, then clay, and underneath ashes with bones that disintegrated rapidly in the air when exposed.37

An extraordinarily violent thunderstorm, with cloudbursts, assaulted us as we left Chillicothe at 9 o'clock in the evening, where a helpful German named Baumann had very kindly accommodated us. On the boat we were annoyed by frontiersmen and their pathetic music whose dissonance badly tried our patience.38 We continued the journey during the night, and we [End Page 15] passed several locks on the morning of [Sunday] June 22nd which warmed up early, and then shipped through a low, forested area along the Scioto that was full of small, green, tree-covered islands. Beautiful high forest trees filled the land, elder bushes bloomed everywhere, and the red-headed wood-pecker as well as the king fisher were plentiful everywhere. We now arrived at the quite handsome town of Circleville, with many brick buildings, whose population must have significantly increased since the visit of Duke Bernhard of Saxony Weimar.39 The duke gives a lengthy account of the curious old embankments within which this place was built, but which have already substantially diminished since that time. The courthouse stands in the middle of the circular Indian embankment, and the largest portion of the town lies within it. The circular embankment enclosed a space of 17¾ acres; now most of it is no longer visible.40 At its western end, outside, lies a hill from which one can gaze over the whole site. The destructive urge of the Americans has left another sad memorial to itself; because instead of protecting these interesting old relics with the greatest care, they have erected buildings at exactly the same place and leveled the old embankments of whose prior state and opening nothing now is left, but some sketchy superficial accounts by Attwater [Atwater] and some other American writers.41 [End Page 16]

After we left Circleville a great number of floating mussel shells (Unio), greenish with dark stripes and common to this area, became visible on the canal. They were floating mostly without the animal, but some were found dead in the shells.42 The canal cuts through a countryside pleasantly alternating between woods and meadows, and that previously was covered with an uninterrupted primeval forest. Frequently, along the banks, iris used to grow—not in bloom now—and Sagittaria; one could see a low marshland with rushes and reed, with the beautiful red-shouldered trupial [troupial] (Psaroc. phoeniceus) in his most beautiful splendor among the reeds. This beautiful bird prefers to live in marshes and along the water and there it builds its nest among reeds and water plants. Tringas and totanus bring to life the swampy meadows; in the shrubs one noted the rice bird (Emb. oryzivora Linn.).43 Verbascum, introduced from Europe, bloomed everywhere along the borders of the canal, and Papilio Aiax [Papilio ajax] searches for wet spots, something one also notices the butterflies in Brazil do during the hot season, or one saw it flutter among the papaw trees.44

After we had traversed a forested area with particularly beautiful sugar maples and walnut trees, we reached Walnut Creek which flows through tall and shady woods. Near the small town of Lockbourn, founded three years ago, 8 locks follow one another where the Columbia [Columbus] Feeder leaves the canal. It climbs about 100 feet here and then continues on at that elevation. Up there the trees are not as tall and the forest has more scraggly wood. It contains many beech; gray squirrels appear frequently as do turtles [End Page 17] in the canal, and small herons (Ardea virescens) are in swampy places. It is by water how we cut through the beautiful forests of the state of Ohio and watched the population in their finery since it was Sunday; an entertaining journey while we comfortably and sociably sat on deck. We had left the Scioto in the area of Lockbourn, now reached Waterloo, Winchester, Havensport, New Baltimore, and Millersport, and around morning of the following day [Monday, June 23] we were located at the highest point that the canal has to climb. This point has the name of Licking Summit because it is located in Licking Township (Muskingum County) which includes the cities of Irville and Nashport. From Portsmouth to the highest point of the canal one has to pass 51 locks.45

At sunup we reached Hebron, a town founded in November 1825 in Union Township, along the great so-called National Road between Zanesville and Columbus that starts at Hegerstown [Hagerstown], coming from Cumberland on the Potomack [Potomac] and passing on through the states of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. At that time people were working hard on this road and brought a large number of stones in large, flat, rectangular boats via the canal.46 Around 9 o'clock in the evening we passed through the first three locks downstream; because the canal now gradually drops in elevation from the so-called Licking Summit to Lake Erie. Here I again noticed the previously mentioned mussels (Unio). We reached the Licking River and shortly after that the small town of Newark in Newark Township, through which the Canal passes. In 1830 Newark had 999 souls but that number has since increased very substantially.47 This town has broad streets, a large plaza, and several neat churches. Fences, on which one often sees the red-headed woodpecker, surround all crops and fields in the area. Seven miles from Newark the canal enters the Licking River, a very pretty little river, that flows through a beautiful, rocky, wooded valley, wildly and picturesquely overgrown with coniferous and deciduous trees.48 The rocks [End Page 18] appear to consist of graywacke and in parts have original bedding, and overhangs or caves where the cattle searched for shade.49

The journey of one to one-and-a-half miles through this beautiful wooded chain of hills is romantic. Open areas with settlements then follow as the canal diverges from the Licking, just to come near to the river again soon afterwards. Many high trees grow in the flats between the two waters [the canal and the river], especially plane trees and poplars, partially laden with beautiful vines. From Newark it is 16 miles to Nashport, a small place where supposedly a few old Indian mounds remain. The bluffs of the canal are grown over with Verbascum. Ironstone and coal are found in the vicinity. There banks have always been covered with trees, but they have not grown as tall and dense as along and near the Ohio. At times one finds scenic places, locks, and numerous bridges beneath which the boats pass; often the canal continues in a straight line through tall woodlands with beech. About 23 miles from Newark the canal passes fairly high above Tomaka Creek; then one reaches the little village of Frazeysburg in Jackson Township, Muskingum County, with scattered houses, most made of wood. Along the canal, many witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) bushes grow on the sides of the canal. The twigs of witch hazel were used for making dowsing rods, like those of the hazel bush used in Europe; for this superstition crossed the Atlantic Ocean with the emigrants.50

During the night we passed the small villages of Webbsport and Roscoe. One mile from the latter the Whitewoman and the Tuscarava [Tusarawas] rivers join to form the Muskingum.51 One follows the Tuscarava which pleasantly flows alongside the canal. During the night we reached the village [End Page 19] of Newport and at dawn [Tuesday, June 24] Evansburg, and later Newcomerstown, a very dispersed little village in Tuscaravas County, Oxford Township, which did not have more than seven to eight houses. The region is pleasant and diverse. From the canal one can see meadows, green heights, cliffs, plentiful forests and beautiful views of the water as the Tuscarava or Tuscaravas flows on the left. Iris and Nymphaea grow in the marshes. In the canal a yellow-striped snake swam by very fast; we spotted the black snake and the water snake yesterday.52 The bank of the canal appeared to be covered with Rhus, apparently typhinum [Rhus typhina, staghorn sumac]; and the red-headed woodpecker, the Baltimore and the blue bird [? bluebird] flew there. Near the village of Port Washington the valley was broad and wooded; then we reached Gnadenhütten, a small village of about seven houses, originally laid out by the Herrnhuters [Moravians] who have since left, however. Even now the inhabitants are mostly of German origin; the inscriptions at the houses are partly in German and German was still spoken. In addition newly arrived German emigrants are present. In this region, near Trenton and Newcastle, there are important coal mines.53 Immediately at the locks of the canal the beautiful shrubbery of Rubus odoratus [purple-flowering raspberry] grows scenically among the rocks.

At Lockport, a small village in Tuscaravas County, beautiful views are seen along the river; woodlands cover its banks; the abandoned channels are completely overgrown with Nymphaea and other water plants; on the floodplain there are colossal plane trees and there are dead trunks at places.54 Near Dover [now Canal Dover], a nice little town in a pleasant location where the canal is close to the river, a very large covered bridge was built over the river wasting a lot of wood. Here we found the announcement of a large traveling menagerie that was supposed to include many rare animals.55 It customarily [End Page 20] spends the winter in Philadelphia and travels during summer. In the valley of the Tuscarava nighthawks, without doubt Caprimulgus virginianus [a correct identification to species], were seen flying during bright daylight.

Not far from Dover lies Zoar, a very nice settlement of the Württemberg Separatists, which we reached during pleasant evening temperatures. A certain Bäumler is the head of this colony.56 He is now advanced in years but, as they say, he is a very capable man. The town is in Tuscaravas County, Lawrence Township, at the eastern bank of the Tuscarava. In 1833 this colony had 60 very neat buildings, each one roofed with new red tile, which are rare in America and that look very pleasant in the beautiful green valley. From a distance we noticed some handsome buildings and the inn which is shaped like a church. The Ohio Gazetteer says (page 510) that this place had originally been built on a plot of land of 4,000 acres, which had been purchased by that company in 1810, most of which is now under the best cultivation. In addition, the Separatists own 1,500 to 2,000 acres in the region as well as vineyards that supposedly produce very good wine. The location of the village on the broad flat valley floor, at some distance to the river, with rich fields and high trees, is very agreeable. The inhabitants allegedly are very industrious and own various manufactories; unfortunately I couldn't get better acquainted with this interesting place. A long wooden bridge has been built over the canal and river; in whose vicinity an inn is located, built by the community and called the Zoar Canal Hotel. A shepherd drove his large flock over the bridge at this moment, and answered my queries in genuine Swabian German.57 His whole outfit and equipment were fashioned entirely in the German style, with a shepherd's crook, broad leather bandolier studded with brass figures, a round, flat hat with a broad rim, and a gray overcoat of thick cloth—an unusual costume in America; in addition his shepherd dogs obediently herded the sheep.

During the night we passed by the villages of Bolivar and Bethlehem, and at dawn [Wednesday, June 25] found ourselves at Massillon, a pretty town in Stark County that was laid out in 1826. Massillon has about 100 houses and 500 inhabitants. Near here, we crossed the Tuscarava [on an aqueduct], which is now flowing to the left of the canal [the river had been [End Page 21] on the right before Bolivar]; both have dark brown water, almost as dark as many Brazilian forest creeks.58 At 8 o'clock we reached Fulton, a village with several pretty houses in Lawrence Township, Stark County. Like everywhere else, there is evidence that this entire area was once covered with uninterrupted primeval forest. Everywhere along the canal the catbird was frequently seen; we noticed turtles, bullfrogs, tree frogs, and frequently saw snakes swimming quickly across the canal. There were highly inviting forest views along the Tuscarava where a small dwarf rose bloomed along the canal; yet the rose didn't appear to be any different from those that occur in the neighboring woodlands.59 With its large flowers it was a most delightful ornamental shrub. Around noon we reached the town of New Portage60 where the traders used to portage certain goods meant for trade with the Indians, from one river to the other.61 A swampy area came next, overgrown with a forest of larches (Larix americana Michx.) that shed their leaves in winter. Here this type of tree is called tamarak or hackmatack. The trees surround a small lake crossed by the canal. It is covered with grasses, reeds, the yellow flowers of the Nuphar, and the beautiful blossoms of the Pontederia. The soil around here is black peat land, in which the beautiful larches grow ubiquitously. A bridge, which horses walk on when they tow the canal boats, has been built across the length of the lake.62 [End Page 22]

Further along, on the other side of a pondlike extension of the canal, the town of Akron appears. It is an important little town in a remarkable location.63 It was founded in 1825 in Portage County, and already has significant trade, and many nice wooden houses, stores, factories, an iron foundry, and a lathe work where, with the help of a wheel, beds as well as similar furniture, equipment etc., are being fabricated. Already in town, the valley starts to descend steeply; the canal goes through the middle of the town, and about 10 to 12 locks have been constructed in a row [a "staircase" of locks] to get the boats down from the substantial, steep and rocky heights.64 The surroundings are complete with scattered buildings, industrious people, plentiful water, shrubs and beautiful woodlands—a place along the canal really worth seeing! Down at the foot of the heights, one glides on the beautiful dark brown mirror through vigorous greenery where forest and meadows alternate, and where the tall trunks of the tulip, walnut and sassafras trees cast their scenic reflections in the beautifully glistening water. The numerous locks, 21 of which could be counted over a range of 2½ miles, became further apart from each other as we reached the Cayahoga [Cuyahoga] River, which the canal follows down to Lake Erie. The little village of Old Portage is the first one reaches on this journey.65 It is located in a green area cleared in the woodlands, surrounded entirely by beautifully wooded hills. Broad-leafed Asclepias [milkweed] and Phytolacca [pokeweed] now grow strongly skywards but their blossoms have not yet developed. Several miles farther was a stone saw mill where grindstones were manufactured from freestone. Here we find the same rock type as one can observe on the other side of Chillicothe but that displays a coarser grain near the town of Akron.66 [End Page 23]

In the morning of the following day [Thursday, June 26] we were only 5 miles from Lake Erie, a distance that we covered by 10 in the morning, and we approached the little town of Cleveland. The sealike mirrored surface of the great Lake Erie is very surprising as one emerges from the forested valleys, and the view reminded me of the upcoming ocean journey to my homeland. The lake stretches, a dark blue, just like the ocean, towards the horizon. White sails and the smoke of steamships were pleasing to the eye under clear skies in beautiful weather.

Cleveland (Cliveland) is a town of increasing significance, with several thousand citizens, full of life, trade, and commerce. It lies in Cayahoga or Cuyahoga County, is partially situated on top of an elevated ridge, partially built down low, along the river, and its outer part is scattered, yet the main part is laid out in an organized network of streets.67 Cleveland contains a number of considerable buildings, several churches, a school or academy, a prison, handsome inns, et cetera. Businesses and stores are everywhere, and commerce is very important because of the connection [via the Ohio & Erie Canal] here between the Great Lakes and the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Here numerous canal boats, as well as the two-mast schooners are gathered. Several large well-furnished steamships, usually filled with passengers, come into and out of the harbor every day. The Cayahóga flows through the lower part of the town. The river's mouth is embraced by woods on both sides; a long pier with a lighthouse at its end is on the right bank; a second lighthouse is built slightly to the right of the pier.68 To the right, far out, one sees the coast disappear in the hazy distance, and to the left, closer by, it merges into dark forests. In Cleveland, broad-leafed Asclepias [milkweed] grows along the banks of the lake in the sand; in the swampy places along the river a yellow water lily and some other plants grow. Many blackbirds dwelled in the reeds, and blackish swallows flew over the lake.

We found numerous Germans in Cleveland, in particular very many newly arrived emigrants, and also a young obliging countryman whom I had already seen in Pittsburg, who had found a good position in a business here. Several steamships arrived and departed, headed for Detroit, but finally the Oliver Newberry appeared, destined for Buffaloe [Buffalo], and I immediately [End Page 24] used the opportunity for us to board for that town.69 Around 12 noon we left Cleveland.

Upon leaving the mouth of the Cayahóga, one can easily see the open endless mirror of Lake Erie, with its marvelous blue green waters, which—like all of these large Canadian lakes—share the exact color of Swiss water bodies. Where the river enters the lake, dark brown waters of the Cayahóga are distinctly and beautifully differentiated from those of the lake. Steering close to the southern shore, the view back towards the town of Cleveland is beautiful. The most splendid weather favored our journey and the large lake looked incredibly beautiful, yet it is known to produce very violent waves during storms, meaning much trouble to the shippers, and is even said to be frequently dangerous. The southern, or American, shoreline is not elevated; the northern shoreline is known to form the border to the English territories in North America, that is Canada.70 The former has no significant heights or hilltops and is covered with deciduous woods in its entirety. The steamship came into Fairport,71 Achtabula [Ashtabula] and Salem72 where a large amount of bats flew around the harbor entry.73 Continuing our journey the engine broke down during the night, and we reached Dunkerke [Dunkirk] only on the following morning (June 27), a small place of Dutch design that is not yet mentioned in the Ohio Gazetteer of 1833.74 A lighthouse is built at the land's end nearby. At 11 o'clock, Buffaloe was already in view at the end of the lake, and we witnessed a race between two large steamships. We approached Buffaloe where many steamships produced a very lively and attractive view when they filed past us, ornamented with multicolored flags. At 12 we berthed at the landing in Buffaloe.75 [End Page 25]

Joseph T. Hannibal

Joseph T. Hannibal is a geologist at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. He is the author of Geology Along the Towpath: Stones of the Ohio & Erie and Miami & Erie Canals (Ohio Division of Geological Survey, 1998).

Sabina F. Thomas

Sabina F. Thomas received her Ph.D. from the Technical University in Berlin, Germany. Her expertise is in petrology of metamorphic rocks, but her latest research is focused on earth science education and the application of GPS and GIS.

Michael G. Noll

Michael G. Noll, by trade a cultural geographer, received his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas and now teaches at Valdosta State University in Georgia. He has published several articles on Prince Maximilian's North American travel accounts.

Acknowledgment

Sabina Thomas was the primary translator of Maximilian's published account, and the introduction and footnotes were written primarily by Joseph Hannibal and Michael G. Noll. Bonnie Bowers helped format the manuscript. Timothy Matson, Andrew Jones, Robert Bartolotta, and N'omi Greber of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History provided information on organisms and archaeological sites, respectively. Kathleen Farago, Cleveland Heights–University Heights Public Library, proofed and critiqued the manuscript. Marsha Gallagher and Stephen Witte of the Joslyn Museum in Omaha, Nebraska, facilitated access to Maximilian's Tagebuch and other materials, allowed us to paraphrase and quote selected parts of the planned third volume of The North American Journals of Prince Maximilian of Wied, ed. Steven S. Witte and Marsha V. Gallagher; trans. William J. Orr, Paul Schach, and Dieter Karch (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, forthcoming), and granted permission to publish the illustration. Also, a version of the material presented in this article appears as a chapter in Canal Fever, edited by Peg Bobel and Lynn Metzger (Kent, Ohio: Kent State Univ. Press, 2009).

Footnotes

1. Paul Schach, "Maximilian, Prince of Wied (1782–1867) Reconsidered," Great Plains Quarterly 14 (Winter 1994): 5–20.

2. Maximilian Prinz zu Wied, Reise nach Brasilien in den Jahren 1815 bis 1817, vols. 1 and 2 (Frankfurt, Germany: Brönner, 1839, 1841), translated into English as Travels in Brazil in the Years 1815, 1816, 1817 (London: Henry Colburn & Co., 1820–21).

3. Bernhard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Reise Sr. Hoheit des Herzogs Bernhard zu Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach durch Nord-Amerika in den Jahren 1825 und 1826 (Weimar, Germany: Heinrich Luden, 1828). This was translated as Travels through North America During the Years 1825 and 1826 by his Highness Bernhard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Carey, 1828). A more recent translation is Travels by his Highness Duke Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach through North America in the Years 1825 and 1826, trans. William Jeronimus, ed. C. J. Jeronimus (Lanham, Md.: Univ. Press of America, 2001).

4. The Tagebuch resembles a set of field notes, and one of the drawings made by Maximilian's illustrator Karl Bodmer en route to America shows what is probably Maximilian writing in a large notebook roughly similar in size to the Tagebuch volumes. See also Karl Bodmer's America (Lincoln: Joslyn Art Museum and Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1984). According to Marsha V. Gallagher (personal conversations, 1999 and April 2007), it is possible that Maximilian might have transferred his actual field notes and drawings from smaller field journals to the larger journals we now know, collectively, as the Tagebuch. See also Marsha V. Gallagher, "A Brief Description and History of the Maximilian-Bodmer Collection and the Maximilian Journals Project," in The North American Journals, 1:xxvii-xxxiii. The Tagebuch includes information and illustrations not found in his final book, including three illustrations made during his trip along the canal: a map of the Triple Locks (Locks 41–43) along the Scioto between Chillicothe and Waverly, a miners' loading device at New Castle, and a map of the harbor of the Cuyahoga River.

5. Maximilian Prinz zu Wied, Reise in das innere Nord-America in den Jahren 1832 bis 1834, vols. 1 and 2 (Coblenz, Germany: Hoelscher, 1839, 1841). This German-language work is subsequently referred to by the short title of Reise.

6. Le Prince Maximilien de Wied-Neuwied, Voyage dans l'intérieur de l'Amérique du Nord éxecuté pendant les années 1832, 1833, 1834 (Paris: Bertrand, 1840).

7. Maximilian, Prince of Wied, Travels in the Interior of North America, trans. Hannibal Evans Lloyd (London: Ackermann & Co., 1843).

8. Hannibal Evans Lloyd, "Translator's Preface," in Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels, vol. 22 (Cleveland: A. H. Clark Co., 1906), 31–36.

9. Examples of publications excerpting or citing this work include Howard N. Eavenson, The First Century and a Quarter of American Coal Industry (Pittsburgh, Pa.: Privately printed, 1942), 184; Charles Coleman Sellers, Mr. Peale's Museum: Charles Willson Peale and the First Popular Museum of Natural Science and Art (New York: Norton, 1980), 260–62; L. W. Richardson, "Travel on the Canal, Towpaths 12, no. 1 (1974): 3–8; Elbert J. Benton, Cultural Story of an American City: Cleveland, Part II (Cleveland: Western Reserve Historical Society, 1944), 16–17; Joseph T. Hannibal, Geology Along the Towpath: Stones of the Ohio & Erie and Miami & Erie Canals, Ohio Division of Geological Survey Guidebook 14 (Columbus: Ohio Division of Geological Survey, 1998); and Michael J. S. Tevesz, Louie Rundo, and Robert A. Krebs, "Freshwater Mussels (Bivalvia: Unionidae) of the Ohio & Erie Canal, Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Ohio," Kirtlandia 53 (July 2002): 35–36.

10. Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels, vols. 22–24. Early Western Travels was a well-known and influential collection of historic works edited by Wisconsin historian-editor-librarian Reuben Gold Thwaites. Thwaites included Maximilian's two-volume work in the thirty-two-volume series, adding his own preface as well as a series of footnotes, many of which refer to other volumes in the Early Western Travels series, and lithographs made from Bodmer's original watercolors.

11. Thwaites, "Preface to volumes XXII–XXIV," ibid., 22:20. Analysis of the prince's travel accounts, however, shows that his educational and societal background influenced his published work and the fashion in which he presented it. See Michael G. Noll, "Prince Maximilian's Other Worlds," The Pennsylvania Geographer 43 (Spring/Summer 2005): 65-83.

12. Richardson, "Travel on the Canal," 3.

13. Maximilian, Reise, 2:386.

14. In his Tagebuch Maximilian writes, "The Americans . . . have already wiped out, destroyed, and driven out the native population of the wide strip of land between the ocean and the Mississippi. And now they are at work destroying even the last record of historical memory" (3:210). (See footnote 41 for more on this.)

15. Schach, "Maximilian," 6.

16. Maximilian, Reise, 1:249, 275.

17. Ibid., 213.

18. See, for example, Michael Chevalier, Society, Manners and Politics in the United States (1839; rpt., New York: A. G. Kelley, 1966).

19. Marsha V. Gallagher and John F. Sears, Karl Bodmer's Eastern Views (Omaha, Neb.: Joslyn Art Museum, 1996).

20. Thwaites, "Analytical Index to the Series, A.K," Early Western Travels, 31:1907.

21. Maximilian, Reise, 1:151.

22. See, for example, W. Bullock, Sketch of a Journey Through the Western States of North America (London: J. Miller, 1827).

23. Commonly the avid naturalist and hunter brought preserved animals with him, which were carefully packed and shipped in dozens of boxes. However, since bears were almost extinct in Germany at the time, the prince apparently could not resist the opportunity to return with two live specimens. The bears are not noted in chapter 32 but are in the Tagebuch (3:207).

24. Cyrus P. Bradley, "Journal of Cyrus P. Bradley," Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications 15 (1906): 207–70.

25. S. P. Hildreth, "Miscellaneous Observations Made During a Tour in May, 1835, to the Falls of the Cuyahoga, Near Lake Erie: Extracted from the Diary of a Naturalist," American Journal of Science 31, no. 1 (1837): 1–84.

26. M. L. Roberts and R. L. Stuckey, "Distribution Patterns of Selected Aquatic and Wetland Vascular Plants in Relation to the Ohio Canal system," Bartonia 57 (1992): 55; this article lists additional botanists who traversed the canal.

27. John Quincy Adams, Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Comprising Portions of His Diary from 1795–1848, ed. Charles Francis Adams (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1976), 11:418–21.

28. William Jeronimus, "Preface," in Bernhard, Travels by his Highness Duke Bernhard (2001), vii–x.

29. According to the previous chapter in his book, Maximilian arrived at Portsmouth around noon on Friday, June, 20, not 21; the first few paragraphs of this chapter confirm this date. This translation covers Maximilian's chapter 32 up to his arrival at Buffalo.

30. Bradley, "Journal," 226. Bradley, who visited Portsmouth in June 1835, seconded this view. However, John Kilbourn, in his Ohio Gazetteer, or Topographical Dictionary, being a continuation of the work originally compiled by John Kilbourn, 11th ed. (Columbus, Ohio, 1833), calls Portsmouth a "flourishing post town" (380.81). In his Tagebuch Maximilian notes that he had to cross the Scioto here and "drive a few hundred paces over sandy soil to a bar at the canal in front of which" canal boats were moored (3:207). The mouth of the canal was unfinished at that time.

31. Maximilian traveled along the Ohio & Erie Canal on a combination passenger boat/ freighter. Later in his Reise he favorably compares Erie Canal packets with the combined passenger boat/freighter. Separate passenger boats, like the packets used along the Erie Canal, would be used in Ohio only at a later date. Maximilian rode in a lighter, quicker passenger boat along the Erie Canal on the next leg of his trip, as did Bernhard nine years earlier. Here and elsewhere Maximilian provides early indications of women and families traveling as passengers on canal boats in Ohio. Jack Gieck, A Photo Album of Ohio's Canal Era, 1825–1913, rev. ed. (Kent, Ohio: Kent State Univ. Press, 1992), 36; Bradley, "Journal," 227; Maximilian, Reise, 2:409; Bernhard, Reise, 62.

32. Zina Pitcher, a frontier physician, shared a number of interests with Maximilian. Like Maximilian, Pitcher was a keen student of natural history, especially botany. Both men also had an interest in the native people of North America. See James Phalen, "Pitcher, Zina," Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Scribners, 1934), 636–37; Thwaites, Early Western Travels, 147n51.

33. This observation documents the early use of waterpower along the canal for sawing stone. The stone at Portsmouth was the rock known as the Buena Vista freestone or sandstone, an important Ohio dimension stone. Maximilian also notes that this is a "whitish-gray rock" (Tagebuch, 3:208), an apt description of this stone. This sandstone was known as a freestone because of its massive bedding (a lack of distinct stratification) that allowed it to be cut into various configurations. The Buena Vista was used for canal locks and buildings at Portsmouth, structures in Cincinnati, and tombstones. Bradley ("Journal," 228) also noted freestone being quarried and cut in this area for use as cutstone, tombstones, and canal locks. See also Hannibal, Geology Along the Towpath, 34–36.

34. Feeders are the names used for diversion canals that connect the river with the canal in order to draw or release water from the latter if it is too full.—Maximilian. Maximilian's terminology is not quite correct. The main purpose of feeders was to supply water to the canal. Most feeders were streams or bodies of water that originated at lakes, and canal boats could travel on some feeders. Later, however, excess water was allowed to flow away not through feeders but by waste weirs, which were connections between the river and canal running alongside it. See Terry K. Woods, Ohio & Erie Canal: A Glossary of Terms (Kent, Ohio: Kent State Univ. Press, 1995), 12. Maximilian sketched a map of the locks (Locks 41–43, Tomlinson's three locks) and the associated dam and feeder with the Scioto (Tagebuch, 3:208).

35. Ohio was a favored destination of German immigrants in the New World. The usage of German in Ohio was so widespread as to support a number of German-language newspapers and bilingual schools and to prompt the state to publish laws in German.

36. Shawnees and Wyandots. About the history of the Shawnies or Chavanons, see Mckenney hist. of the Indian Tribes of N. America, vol. 5, biography of the Catahecassa, and other writings.—Maximilian. Thomas Loraine M'Kenney [McKenney] was superintendent of the Indian Trade Bureau and then head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. His three-volume History of the Indian Tribes (1837–44), written with James Hall, is a largely sympathetic account of the Native American peoples whom he had dealings with. The biography of the Shawnee chief Catahecassa and discussion of the wanderings of the Shawnees and history of the Wyandots can be found in M'Kenney and Hall, History, 1:115–21, 3:19–20, 23–24. For more recent work on the complex history of the Shawnee, see Charles Callender, "Shawnee," in W. C. Sturtevant, ed., Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 15 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1977), 622–35; on the Wyandots, see Carl G. Klopfenstein, "The Removal of the Wyandots from Ohio," Ohio Historical Quarterly 66, no. 2 (1957): 119–36.

37. The Chillicothe area is noted for the great number of mounds and other earthworks erected by Native Americans. Maximilian, however, does not make note of these or other earthworks that the canal cut through. Some earthworks would have been too high above the canal or in wooded areas and so could not be seen from the level of the canal; others may have been too low to discern.

38. These frontiersmen seem to be a band made up of German immigrants (Tagebuch, 3:209).

39. Refer to his Reise durch Nord-America 2:187, and other works.—Maximilian. Carl Bernhard's Travels through North America During the Years 1825 and 1826 notes a number of instances of destruction of Indian mounds and walls in Ohio. The Duke gave a detailed description of the Indian "fort" at Circleville (Travels, 2:147–48), including a figure of the earthworks. Bernhard's map of the ancient monuments of Circleville is very similar to that of Atwater's earlier diagram (1820, plate 140–41), even bearing the same letter designations of particular features.

40. A sketch of Circleville in 1836, showing the circular streets in the middle of town as well as remnants of the circular ditch and the Ohio & Erie Canal, was reproduced by Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio (Cincinnati: Bradley & Anthony, 1908). Maximilian shows his disdain for the lack of respect for archaeological remains and their destruction by Euro-Americans, and the construction of the canals was part of this destruction. Ancient monuments were not the only things that the canal cut through; Fort Laurens, a revolutionary war outpost, was also bisected by the Ohio & Erie Canal. And he also implies the existence of other destructive activities by the Euro-Americans, possibly referring to deforestation, which he later decried along the Erie Canal in New York (Reise, 2:413). However, the lack of specific description of wanton deforestation along the Ohio & Erie Canal may indicate that the deforestation had yet to occur.

41. Maximilian is more stringent in his Tagebuch, stating that "the Americans with irresponsible selfishness and callousness have already wiped out, destroyed, and driven out the native population of the wide strip of land between the ocean and the Mississippi. And now they are at work destroying even the last records of historical memory. With the population getting out of hand like ants they will manage to carry this out in a short time" (3:210). He notes specific places where this destruction had happened, including Marietta, Cincinnati, and St. Louis. Despite Maximilian's disparaging remarks on his work, Caleb Atwater was generally respected by Americans. He was a longtime resident of Circleville, a staunch advocate of public education and Ohio canals, and a very important amateur archaeologist. Clement L. Martzoiff, "Caleb Atwater," Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications 14 (1905): 247–71.

42. The mussel he notes is Pyganodon grandis, known as "the giant floater." On this identification, see Tevesz et al., "Freshwater mussels." This species was described by Thomas Say in 1829 under the name Anodonta grandis. Maximilian's notes in other parts of his account (e.g., Reise, 1:139) show that he was aware of the genus Anodonta. His misidentification of this taxon could be attributed to hurried canal boat based observations.

43. The birds noted here are known by different common names today. The troupial (Psaroc. phoeniceus) is the red-winged blackbird now known as Agelaius phoeniceus. Tringas (Tringa) is the solitary sandpiper; Totanus is one of the two species of yellowlegs. The term "rice-bird" has been used for a number of birds, but in the nineteenth century the name, along with "reedbird," was used for the bobolink. Maximilian's inclusion of a scientific name (Emberiza oryzivora) confirms his identification of the bird that we now know as the bobolink. Supposedly, bobolinks moved into Ohio with the expansion of open lands in the 1800s, which means that Maximilian made one of the earliest reports of this bird as it began its expansion. J. M. Wheaton, "Report on the Birds of Ohio," in Report of the Geological Survey of Ohio, vol. 4: Zoology (Columbus, Ohio, 1882), 1:351; B. G. Peterjohn, Birds of Ohio (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1989), 209.

44. Maximilian notes that the banks of the canal here and later at Nashport are covered with introduced Verbascum, common mullein (Verbascum thapsus Linneaus). He was keenly aware of the rapid spread of introduced species (aliens preadapted to live in disturbed zones) along the canal here as well as along the canals of Europe. The butterfly Papilio ajax he mentions is the eastern tiger swallowtail now known as Papilio glaucus. Visiting puddles to obtain moisture and especially minerals concentrated in ephemeral ponds is known as "puddling," a behavior typically associated with some species of butterflies.

45. Maximilian is correct: Lock 51 is in Portsmouth, and Lock 1 of that series is on the south side of the Licking Summit. However, he did not realize that the Licking Summit was only one of two "summits" along the Ohio & Erie Canal; the other, and highest, summit was in Akron.

46. Maximilian noted the use of square flatboats rather than the more usual canal freighters to transport stone for the National Road, which crossed the Ohio & Erie at Hebron. The section of the road that crossed the canal was already opened in 1833, but the shipment of stone via canal might be ascribed to continuation or completion of work on the section of the National Road between West Virginia and Columbus. H. G. H. Wilhelm and A. Keiffer, "From Wheeling to Columbus, Ohio," in Karl Raitz, ed., A Guide to the National Road (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1996), 123–58.

47. For information about all these places, see the Ohio-Gazetteer and other works.—Maximilian. Both travelers and potential emigrants purchased copies of John Kilbourn's [Kilbourne] important book, The Ohio Gazetteer, a periodically revised compendium of geographic information.

48. The Ohio & Erie Canal entered the Licking River here. The section of the river that the canal ran along was a slackwater, the height of which was regulated by a dam through the Black Hand Gorge. Part of the towpath here was cut into a cliff and built up in part by means of stone blocks.

49. Today "graywacke" is a dark-gray sandstone containing a fair amount of clay. The term was apparently first used by German miners. The rock at Newark is no longer considered to be a graywacke but is referred to as "sandstone." The rock unit exposed along the Black Hand Gorge is the Black Hand Sandstone Member of the Cuyahoga Formation (Hannibal, Geology Along the Towpath, 25–27). Maximilian also notes here that rock was blasted off at this point (Tagebuch, 3:212). This was a famous event in the construction of the canal because blasting here caused the destruction of the pictograph of a black hand for which the gorge was named. The railing he refers to was placed along the canal because of the narrowness of the towpath here and the absence of a berm between the towpath and canal.

50. Witch hazel was probably so-named because it shared certain qualities with the Old World hazel, Corylus avellana. Maximilian must have known about the skeptical views of George Bauer (Agricola), a fellow German who was one of the foremost critics of the use of an enchanted hazel twig for dowsing ("water witching"). Georgius Agricola, De re metallica, trans. Herbert Clark Hoover and Lou Henry Hoover (New York: Dover, 1950), 38-41; Steven Abbott, "An Old Refutation of Divining," Skeptical Inquirer 27, no. 5 (2003): 60–61.

51. Roscoe is now part of Coshocton and, as Roscoe Village, is a restored canal town. County Road 495 in Coshocton bears the name Whitewoman Street, as that street was the trail to the town of Whitewoman.

52. This yellow-striped snake is either the eastern ribbon snake (Thamnophis sauritus) or a garter snake (Thamnophis spp.), both of which can swim and have distinctive longitudinal yellow stripes. Coluber constrictor was called the black snake at this time but today is preferentially called the black racer. However, the black snake Maximilian saw could have been an adult water snake (Nerodia sipedon) or even another kind of snake (Timothy Matson, personal conversation, September 2003).

53. Maximilian sketched a miner's skiff running on a scaffold at a lock near the coal mines at New Castle. Bodmer painted a similar device in a scene of Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, which was published in the plates that accompanied Maximilian's account of his North American trip.

54. Lockport was, as indicated by its name, a canal town. It was originally opposite New Philadelphia (Kilbourn, Ohio Gazetteer, 280), and is now part of New Philadelphia.

55. An ad in the Cleveland Whig on June 3, 1835, describes such a traveling menagerie (and aviary) from the Zoological Institute in Philadelphia. The ad indicates that lions, leopards, an elephant, and a "unicorn" (that is, a one-horned rhinoceros) would be included in a June 11–12 appearance in Cleveland. It is likely that this is the same menagerie whose brochure Maximilian had seen earlier at Dover.

56. See Dr. Julius 1. cit. I page. 198.—Maximilian. Maximilian here is referring to one of his footnotes in his chapter 33, discussing the views of Dr. Nicholas Heinrich Julius. He refers to Julius's views here and elsewhere, as published in his Nordamerikas sittliche Zustände (1839). The footnote referred to here deals with the propensity of Americans to name towns after places in Europe while ignoring more harmonious names of the Native Americans. Zoar was a German community, and is now an Ohio Historical Society site. The Zoar community constructed a 2.2-mile stretch of canal in the area as well as associated structures.

57. "Swabian" is a term for certain dialects of German spoken in what is now southern Germany, roughly in the area once known as Swabia. Bernhard also referred to farmers from Swabia in Ohio (Travels, 446).

58. Maximilian compares the dark-brown water of the Tuscarawas with that of the forest brooks he had observed during his trip to Brazil in 1815–17 (Maximilian, Reise nach Brasilien). The coloration of the water was due to the suspended load of sediment.

59. The dwarf-rose found along the Tuscarawas was certainly a member of the genus Rosa, possibly Rosa palustris, the swamp rose, a native plant. Nees von Essenbeck (appendix to Maximilian, Travels, 513) named Rosa maximiliani, a rose that Maximilian had collected on his trip on the Missouri, in his honor, but that name is no longer used.

60. New Portage was a small town of the early canal days located at the southern end of the Portage Path. Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels, 22:24. Part 3 of Maximilian's Travels notes that it was "expected to be the future metropolis of the region, but declined with the growth of Akron" (157n170). New Portage is now part of Barberton.

61. Currently there aren't any Indians in the state of Ohio; only at the northeastern edge are some rare relic settlements of this unfortunate human tribe. Regarding the injustice that was committed in the United States against the Indians, see also Dr. Julius l. cit. I page 333; and in Georgia where a helpless government (President Jackson) had not been able to protect them, I, page 81.—Maximilian. Maximilian refers to Julius's Nordamerikas sittliche Zustände. The remaining Native American groups at this time were in the northwestern, not northeastern, part of Ohio. The Treaty of Fort McIntosh in 1785 and the Greenville Treaty of 1795 had "extinguished" Indian claims from all of Ohio except that northwest corner. These last remaining Indian Lands in Ohio, areas reserved for the Delawares, Senecas, Shawnees, Ottawas, and Wyandots, were ceded by a series of treaties between 1829 and 1842. In 1842 the Wyandots ceded the last of their reserved lands, and they left the state in 1843, making them the last major group to be forcibly removed from Ohio. C. E. Sherman, "Original Ohio Land Subdivisions," Ohio Cooperative Topographic Survey 3 (1925): 138–46.

62. Summit Lake was one of the best known natural features along the canal. Its water level was lowered during construction of the canal in order to save money by eliminating the need for a pair of locks. A larch (Larix america Michx.) forest once existed here. Maximilian notes alternative common names for the larch, including tamarack and hackmatack, the latter an Algonquin name. In his Tagebuch he observed degradation of the forest here, noting that "whole lines of these trees now stand along the canal, withered and dry" (3:216). He also notes various types of aquatic plants: Nuphar is spatterdock, a water lily, or an aquatic "weed"; Pontederia (P. cordata) is known as pickerelweed or pickerel rush and has distinctive lance-shaped leaves. The bridge he notes was partly a floating wooden towpath.

63. Named because of its high position, Akron was a town that grew up along the canal. It benefited greatly from both the canal and the waterpower supplied by the drop from the summit. The delay caused by the large number of adjacent locks allowed visitors to stop for a time.

64. This well-known "staircase" section of locks is now preserved in Cascade Locks Park in central Akron, located along the steepest section of the Ohio & Erie Canal. The time delay necessitated for passing through all the locks allowed Maximilian time to investigate the various features he lists.

65. Old Portage was a well-known village located between Locks 21 and 22 in what is now Akron. It was located at an important crossroads even before the canal was constructed. Old Portage was on the northern side of the Continental Divide. Gieck, Photo Album, 292.

66. The stone is probably Berea sandstone, which was the number-one choice for grindstones in the area during the nineteenth century. When Maximilian compares it with stone found south of Chillicothe, he may have been referring to the Berea sandstone found there (as it is, indeed, finer grained); but, more likely, he was referring to the Buena Vista sandstone, which he refers to earlier. This mill was likely powered by canal water.

67. The main part of Cleveland was located on the "upland" part of the Erie Lake Plain, but the city stretched down the valley slope onto the floodplain of the Cuyahoga River.

68. There is a drawing of a scene at the Cleveland Harbor along Lake Erie in Maximilian's Reise; the Tagebuch contains a plan view of the harbor. At the time of Maximilian's trip the harbor and lighthouse would have been 1.2 km (0.7 mi) from the end of the canal along the Cuyahoga River in what is now Cleveland's Flats, immediately west of downtown. Ahaz Merchant's Map of Cleveland and Its Environs (1835) shows the harbor structure in 1835 and a "beacon light" on the east pier of the harbor. Charles Whittlesey's map found in the frontispiece to W. W. Mather, First Annual Report of the Geological Survey of Ohio (Columbus, Ohio, 1838), shows the Ohio & Erie Canal, Cleveland, and the harbor structure (including piers), just a few years after Maximilian's visit.

69. The Oliver Newberry was a side-wheeled steamer presumably named after the pioneering steamship entrepreneur sometimes called "Admiral of the Lakes." Jay J. Sherman, "Newberry, Oliver," Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Scribner's, 1934), 446–47. The ship, built in 1832, was 121 feet long and weighed 170 tons. Newspaper reports show that it traveled on various routes along the south shore of Lake Erie. It is listed as arriving and departing in Cleveland in the mid-1830s (e.g., Cleveland Daily Herald, Apr. 28 and May 2, 1836). The ship foundered in 1839.

70. Lake Erie measures 290 miles across its length from the southwest to the northeast; its width is 68 miles at the greatest range; its depth supposedly is nowhere more than 100 to 120 feet.—Maximilian. Lake Erie is now known to be about 388 km (242 miles) in maximum length with a maximum depth of 64 m (about 212 feet).

71. Maximilian notes in his Tagebuch that the water flowing from the Grand River is only dark brown (3:218). The mouth of the Grand is at Fairport Harbor.

72. Salem was the old name (Kilbourn, Ohio Gazetteer, 16) for Conneaut in Ashtabula County. There was a landing here at the mouth of the Conneaut River (Conneaut Creek).

73. The bats were probably seen around or just after sunset, as the bats of this area tend to be crepuscular, or nocturnal.

74. Dunkirk is not in the main listing of Kilbourn's Ohio Gazetteer, but it is noted in Kilbourn's entry on Lake Erie. Dunkirk is in New York, not Ohio.

75. In the remaining part of the chapter, Maximilian goes on to visit the Seneca and other American Indians in New York as well as the Niagara River and Niagara Falls area.

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