AND THE
SUSQUEHANNA & TIDEWATER CANAL
To begin the guided tour and hike, we are first taken to the Susquehanna Museum, also known as the Lockhouse.
In 1783, a group of Baltimore merchants petitioned the State of Maryland to build the "Susqehanna Canal." This canal ran from a tidewater cannection, near Rock Run, to Love Island, just below the Mason-Dixon Line. It was officially opened in 1801, but was not financially stable. The canal was taken over and renamed, in 1817, by the Susquehanna & Tidewater Company, who purchased it at a public auction in Cecil County, Maryland.
In the 1820-30's, the Susquehanna & Tidewater Company began operations on the canal.
The Lockhouse is a brick building, built in 1840, by the Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal Company, on several acres of land.
The Lockhouse was a home for the locktender and a canal office for collecting tolls for vessels headed north toward Pennsylvania.
Seen here at Lapidum, in the late 1800's, the Canal was once part of a viable shipping route between Baltimore and Philadelphia
However, due to increaing railway systems, the Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal became unneccesary for use and was abandoned in the early 1900's.
The lock keeper's house at Havre de Grace fell into severe disrepair after the closing of the Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal. After the company had closed the canal, unusual and severe weather brought an ice gorge down river. This ice gorge on the river was in progress at the time this picture was made.
Since then, the Maryland Historical Society
has restored and transformed the Lockhouse into a museum.
