Savannah-Ogeechee Canal, Roughly along I-95, between the Savannah and Ogeechee Rivers, Savannah

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS GA-5. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

The Savannah-Ogeechee Canal offers a significant greenbelt space connecting the Savannah River tourist districts and the Chatham County based Savannah- Ogeechee Canal museum via multiple points of access. The canal serves as an ecological habitat for a variety of flora, and fauna including the Ogeechee Lime, and several rare bird species such as Swainson s Warblers and Mississippi Kites. Georgia DNR has recognized that 4% of the canal ecology to be imperiled and 7% to be endangered. The military sites, including the active Ft Stewart, are located nearby on the Ogeechee River, and the waterways are frequented by fishermen, kayakers and nature enthusiasts.

The canal itself followed an existing water way, shown on historic maps as a small creek breaking from the Ogeechee River, leading through rice fields and agricultural plantations. The canal has several unique archaeological sites and could possibly contain several more pre-historic and colonial era sites, though damage to the sites through the construction and post-Industrial phase may render these sites unsalvageable. The Savannah Ogeechee Canal Museum has uncovered a dugout canoe dating to pre-contact native history in the area from the mouth at the Ogeechee River. This alludes to native sites present in the area and further survey may assist in locating.

Distinctive construction features include Lock 3, known as Courvoisier s Lock, named after prominent Savannah citizen John Francis William Courvoisier (alt. spelling Courvoisie), a leading Free Mason and French Consul, who supplied rice and storage to Georgia Militia and the Continental Army during the American Revolution. While several sections of the canal are filled in or damaged, the greenspace as well as the towpath which exists or has been repaired in places, offers an internal park setting for the growing urban Savannah population. The area along the eastern Savannah River entrance is adjacent to the Savannah College of Art and Design campus, as well as the visitor s center and Savannah Museum complex.

The location at Lock 3 at the Tom Triplett Community Park shows landscape features reflecting one-time heavy use of the lock. Further investigation of the site could yield important information of early colonial and post-colonial trade, as well as social structure among the various immigrants, workers and planters interacting at the mill and port areas. SAVANNAH OGEECHEE CANAL HALS NO. GA-5 PAGE 2 The canal continues as it cuts through several historic districts, and culturally significant areas of the city until it moves through a historic industrial area and into residential areas, past the I-16 overpass. Many of these districts and neighborhoods owe their existence to the canal and have unique interdependent histories to life ways along the canal.

Several barge and locksmen s houses existed, in addition to the large mills. In particular, the city of Pooler, near the site of Locks 3 and 4, is the location of several Civil War breastworks and encampment sites, as well as a prewar workman s structures. As the canal passes through Garden City, several other historic canals, such as Horse Shoe canal, and South Louisville canal, connect to main canal. The city of Savannah has recently designated this area as the Canal District with the goal of improvements, such as trails and landscaping, to utilize the greenspace offered by the intersecting canals near the Port of Savannah.

The community of Yamacraw, along the canal at the edge of the Savannah Historic Waterfront District and the Savannah Port was a community that grew inexorably linked to the canal and by extension the social landscape of the City of Savannah. The canal leaves the urban congestion out toward the Ogeechee River passing new residential and commercial structures that once were the great rice plantations of the region. The canal was pivotal in the survival of Savannah as the most influential southern city south of Charleston SC. The wealth and influence that became confirmed through the building of the canal altered the landscape of the entire region by allowing a series of inland waterways to open up expanded cotton and rice plantations and its associated industry and settlements.

Ultimately, the expansion of agriculture due to increased capacity to transport goods, led to an increase in the demand for slavery. Communities, such as Yamacraw, began to reflect the African culture that had been bought against its will to this country, through food, music and customs. African culture, in turn, became influenced by the other immigrants along the canal, dominantly the Irish and Jewish. This melding along the canal, altered the social landscape of Savannah and the influence continues to be felt to this day. Description: The Savannah -Ogeechee Canal runs miles, perpendicular to the Savannah and Ogeechee Rivers in Chatham County, Savannah District, Georgia.

The western portion of the canal begins south of the historic site of Ft Argyle, and approximately 5 miles northwest of Kings Ferry Park on the Ogeechee River on GA 17. There is a historical marker on the bridge at GA 17, opposite to Love s restaurant. The most western lock, counted as the 6th lock, was a tidal lock controlling the water height from the tidal river fluctuations, is located about feet inland from the Ogeechee River entrance. The location of the 5th Lock, approximately a half mile inland, is on the Savannah Ogeechee River Society SAVANNAH OGEECHEE CANAL HALS NO. GA-5 PAGE 3 and Museum property, which is located on 204 681 Ft Argyle d, GA The canal curves slightly southward beyond the Ft Argyle road, and begins heading straight eastward.

The areas adjacent to the canal from Ft Argyle rd. to Quacco Rd. are mostly wooded with floodplain forests. Locks 3 and 4 are located in this area, with lock connection to the Half Moon Lake reservoir. The canal again angles after Quacco Rd, leading under the intersection of I-16 and I-95, heading to the Savannah port near Garden City just past the Talmadge Bridge and Bay St, ending at the waterfront docks in Savannah. Lock 2 is located just at Louisville rd. near the intersection of the Old Louisville Canal in an area once known as Stiles Rice Fields, on the old Vale Royal Plantation.1,2 The eastern entrance to the canal and Lock 1, is located in the Savannah, Georgia waterfront historic district at River St.

Lock 3 is located in the Tom Triplett Community park, following a marked trail near where the frisbee golf course is located. A path follows alongside the canal s earthen beams to the bricked canal walls and gate remnants of the lock. The Savannah-Ogeechee canal is a heavily canopied corridor space, with variants in water depth and access. The canal has been measured to be approximately miles, with an average depth of 5 ft. at its completion. The HAER report states at its top width it was and at its base. The Locks averaged 18 x It is bordered on the western Chatham County side by the remains of a tow path, which now serves as a link to further trail systems and birdwatching sites.

There are six remaining structures of the original lock systems, consisting of bricked channels and causeways. The canal follows a straight line from the Ogeechee River, heading east, with one sharp angle nearing the Savannah River docks. The canal can be clearly seen and the levies and earthen beams are still pronounced in areas between the bricked channels and access points. Elements of the gates, and other historic features can still be seen at several lock sites. Past features near the mill and factory sites included docks to load barges. Nearly all locks are recognizable with the bricked systems in place, including remnants of metal ware and construction dates, however the canal itself has been filled or left to dry in some areas near the industrial sections.

The surrounding landscape impacted by the building of the canal near the western end, has become overgrown with forest, covering the rice fields from the plantation era. The historical features of the once heavily used canal are slowly being recovered through archaeological surveys. The Central of Georgia Railway viaduct bridge and the Turner footbridge over the canal at Boundary St in Savannah near the Yamacraw community and the Savannah College of Art and Design campus are prominent historic engineering features that have influenced the surrounding area by linking areas on either side of the canal. History: The Savannah-Ogeechee Canal served as one of the most important modes of 1 The Plantation at Royal Vale, The Georgia Historical Quarterly Vol. 27, No.

1 March, 2 Georgia Voices: A Documentary History to Spencer Bidwell King, Jr. University of Georgia Press, 3 HAER GA-139 Historical Report, SAVANNAH OGEECHEE CANAL HALS NO. GA-5 PAGE 4 waterway transportation in Georgia during the height of canal and river transport during the early to mid-19th century. According to images of historic maps in the area, the canal was built utilizing an existing creek system that was a tributary to the Ogeechee River. The area along the Ogeechee River near Ft McAllister witnessed conflict during the American Revolution, though pinpointing spots that relate specifically to the canal location are too difficult without extensive survey.

Indigo, tea and most importantly, rice, plantations dominated the landscape between the Ogeechee and Savannah Rivers to the coast, following the trend of a growing agricultural sector along the Altamaha River that lead to the city of Brunswick. By the early planters and tradesmen recognized the growing need for water transport systems to reach into the countryside in order to expedite shipments of the large quantity of produce being exported from the Savannah ports to cities in the north and in Europe.

With the success of the Erie Canal in the north and the growing competition from Brunswick in the south, plans to build the canal between the Ogeechee and Savannah Rivers, with the intent to eventually connect to the larger Altamaha River, began in earnest in Earnest Jenckes was given the charter money to begin proceeding in and traveled to New York in to meet with the Governor Dewitt Clinton, the force behind the Erie Canal construction. Clinton recommended his own son, Dewitt Clinton, Jr. to act as engineer for the construction and was hired by Jenckes. Clinton Jr arrived in December to begin work on the canal, however left shortly due to a disagreement over planning.

Jenckes eventually returned as chief engineer, completing the project in just under five years and a budget of over 1 million dollars. The canal was plagued with difficulties, yet was one of the most highly used waterways to bring produce to port. One of the greatest difficulties it faced, one which ultimately led to its decline, was the Yellow Fever outbreaks among the Irish immigrant workers who worked building the canal and at the docks. The growing number of rice plantations and the related industry prompted the growth of mills, and workers housing, made up of poorly constructed row houses along its border. Outbreaks of Yellow Fever along the canal and dock areas served in relegating the areas adjacent to the canal as poor, dangerous and uninhabitable.

The canal passes through the 1st and 2nd Locks in an area that has evolved in numerous ways with the building of the canal. While the exact location has only recently been found, the area was known as Yamacraw Village, an area ceded to the local native population during colonization. The native Yamacraw-Creeks had a diplomatic and trade relation with the new colonists, giving rise to well- known characters in Savannah and Georgia history, such as Mary Musgrove and Lachlan McGillivray, who established a large successful plantation. The Royal Vale plantation which covered several acres soon became acknowledged as an ideal settlement, as noted by Gen. George Washington in his travels.

After McGillivray returned to Scotland the land changed hands until it belonged to a Joseph Stiles, and his heir William Stiles, who in turn sold a large tract to the Savannah Ogeechee Canal Company. With the building of the canal and the SAVANNAH OGEECHEE CANAL HALS NO. GA-5 PAGE 5 increased trade at the port, immigrants from Ireland became the main residents of the swiftly growing row homes near the mills and waterways. The first wave of immigrants bought over 70 Irish canal workers hired to clear the canal. However, not long after arrival, they were abandoned by the contractors and left with no money, food or shelter. The Hibernian Society of Savannah along with the new Catholic Diocese stepped in to offer assistance.

These aid organizations were critical as the newcomers disease, Yellow Fever, swept through the camps. The Irish made up over half the deaths from Yellow Fever in the area around the canal. The threat of Yellow Fever did not dissuade the black population, many of whom were first generations from those taken forcibly from the African continent, to claim the canal as part of their identity. After the canal was built, many of the first black pastors in the community offered baptism in its waters.4 The neighborhoods which saw suffering and eventual abandonment by the Irish soon filled with newly freed slaves after the Civil War. Yamacraw soon became synonymous with low country black culture, infused with the cultural practices of the Gullah and their previous Irish and Jewish neighbors.

As the canal heads west to the Ogeechee River, its passes through what is now an industrial area, having grown from the cotton mills, rice presses, timber mills and ship builders, which received their resources from the constant flow of filled barges moving down the canal from inland. As the canal moves to the 4th and 5th Lock, it takes imagination to see a cleared forest where once rice fields stretched out for miles. The impact of these fields is still noticed in the environment, from the every rising sediment from collapsing rice rows, filling the river, to the way communities that once built up around plantations, only now just recovering from the scars of Reconstruction. Franklin D.

Roosevelt saw these scars, and built Richmond Hill not far from the bank of the canal, where it met the Ogeechee River, to combat the poverty from the failed turpentine and agricultural industry after the Civil War. The canal, forgotten and disused, slid into memory as the landscape around it struggled to regain its foothold. At the 6th Lock, the canal halts, though it was once intended to continue all the way to the Altamaha River. Here the canal played an important part to the collapse of the industry it once supported. The Civil War entered on its banks, crossed it at several points and was the dividing line for both Union and Confederate troops during the final days of Sherman s March to the Sea.

Historical markers point to where skirmishes occurred, and military historians lay out map after map finding exact locations along the canal to study the assault. Ultimately, it was less than a decade after the ending of that terrible war, the canal had its final death blow with a major outbreak of Yellow Fever. It cost nearly lives and, altered the landscape with the migration of workers, and anyone else who could afford to 4 Lines in the Sand: Race and Class in Lowcountry Georgia, Timothy Lockley. University of Georgia Press, SAVANNAH OGEECHEE CANAL HALS NO. GA-5 PAGE 6 leave.

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS GA-5. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

King Spencer Bidwell. Georgia Voices: A Documentary History to University of Georgia Press, Lockley, Timothy. Lines in the Sand: Race and Class in Lowcountry Georgia, University of Georgia Press, Savannah - Ogeechee Barge Canal HAER Historical Report, HAER GA-139, Savannah and Ogeechee Canal National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, NRIS prepared by Richard Cloues, Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer, State Historic Preservation Office, Historic Preservation Division, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, June 20, The Plantation at Royal Vale. The Georgia Historical Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 1 March,

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS GA-5. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Hilary Wehrle c.a.s.e. Consulting via Ogeechee Riverkeepers Liberty Street Savannah, Georgia July HALS Challenge Entry: Documenting National Register Listed Landscapes SAVANNAH OGEECHEE CANAL HALS NO. GA-5 PAGE 7 Lock #5 ( Wehrle June Lock #5 ( Wehrle June SAVANNAH OGEECHEE CANAL HALS NO. GA-5 PAGE 8 Lock 5 and 6 ( Savannah Ogeechee Canl Museum Wehrle June *Photo of Ogeechee Lime Lock #6 at mouth of Ogeechee River ( Wehrle June SAVANNAH OGEECHEE CANAL HALS NO. GA-5 PAGE 9 Savannah Ogeechee Canal Museum; Canal tow path reconstructed with boardwalk (Wehrle June