Chesapeake and Ohio Canal
A historic site in Potomac, Maryland, an NPS Network to Freedom, Chesapeake and Ohio Canal is filed here for what the record attaches to it. The canal—where the Potomac towpath ran. The archive files it under Underground Railroad history, the Underground Railroad and African American history. The dossier holds 3 documented facts — a documented spine with no haunting reports attached. The site is open to visitors.
· in your passport — stamped · open it
Is Chesapeake and Ohio Canal haunted?
No claims are filed here — the record keeps this place for its documented history, not for a haunting on file.
The record — long form
The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal was finished in 1850 — the 184-mile waterway from Georgetown to Cumberland, the canal that carried coal and goods beside the Potomac, its towpath and locks surviving as the park's preserved corridor.
The file's documented spine is the canal's double role: a working waterway that was also a route north — the Network to Freedom listing marking the canal's place in the freedom struggle, the towpath a documented path for the escaping.
The towpath's register
The file's legend layer is empty — the canal's claim is its documented use: a waterway whose towpath the escaping followed, the locks and lockhouses of the working canal doubling as the freedom road's stations.
The canal's 184 miles are the file's register — a corridor that moved coal north and people to freedom, the preserved waterway holding both industries' traces.
Why this file matters
The C&O is the archive's canal-corridor file — an 1850 waterway whose towpath served the freedom road, a Network to Freedom site needing no ghosts. The documented canal is the record.
A canal that carried commerce and escapees keeps both traces — the file's suggestion being that the towpath's history runs in both directions.
The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, abbreviated as the C&O Canal and occasionally called the Grand Old Ditch, operated from 1831 until 1924 along the Potomac River between Washington, D.C., and Cumberland, Maryland. It replaced the Patowmack Canal, which shut down completely in 1828, and could operate during months in which the water level was too low for the former canal. The canal's principal cargo was coal from the Allegheny Mountains. Construction began in 1828 on the 184.5-mile (296.9 km) canal and ended in 1850 with the completion of a 50-mile (80 km) stretch to Cumberland, although the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad had already reached Cumberland in 1842. The canal had an elevation change of
Chesapeake and Ohio CanalDocumented history
NPS includes this site in the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. A documented site gives the file real substance; this entry is part of that record. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. The detail is preserved in 'Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01'. The record keeps it — history, not lore.
Verified historyNational Park ServiceChesapeake and Ohio Canal is documented on the National Park Service Network to Freedom for its role in the Underground Railroad. A documented site gives the file real substance; this entry is part of that record. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. The record appears in 'NPS Network to Freedom listing'. It is the kind of fact the rest of the dossier leans on.
Verified historyNational Park ServiceThe 1850 canal is documented. A documented site gives the file real substance; this entry is part of that record. The fact is historically verified — the part of the file that doesn't need hedging. Sources including 'NPS Network to Freedom listing' carry the record. The entry's timeline holds it; the lore holds the rest.
Verified historyNational Park Service
Sources on file
- 01Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01National Park Service · government · A1
- 02NPS Network to Freedom listingNational Park Service · government · A1
- 03Underground RailroadWikipedia · encyclopedia · A4
Field notes & open questions
UGRR enrichment wave 1; VERIFY task auto-queued.