The Wabash and Erie Canal in Indiana: History and Archaeology
“It's a blind spot, in large part because it's kind of a maligned time in our history. There's a huge amount of tax money that was placed toward building things like the canal. Unfortunately, much of the canal ended up not being profitable,” says Christopher Moore, Professor and Chair of Anthropology at the University of Indianapolis.
That doesn't mean that this wasn't an important time in Indiana history.
“These smaller towns like Delphi, Logansport, Wabash, Huntington, and Peru, were really, really tiny before the canal came through,” describes Moore. “They were trading posts along the river. They ballooned up after the canal came through. The thing that brought most of our pioneering ancestors into this region literally was the canal.”
Preserving the Canal Through the National Register
The project is funded by a $100,000 grant from the Wabash River Heritage Corridor Fund. Sites in Carroll and Cass Counties are being assessed. The goal is to see which locations might be eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.
“Ultimately, what I'd like to see is a linear National Register multisite that contains all of these Wabash and Erie Canal resources that we're finding. That can be expanded in the future to cover the entire length of the resource,” states Moore.
“Our work out there is primarily focused on trying to locate a section of the canal, excavate down to the bottom of the channel to see if there is anything that is left that would help us understand how the canal was constructed,” Moore explains. “This is so we can get a better feel for the way that the Irish dug the canal and what they did to the canal to keep the banks intact.”
What Moore and Straub are looking for isn't profound. In fact, it's often the stuff folks might have tossed out.
“The main way that archaeologists can tell us more about the canal period, and any period in history, is that unlike our histories—which tend to be written from a particular point of view, material culture—the objects that are left behind have a different kind of bias,” Moore says.
“When you talk to someone surveying you about your household consumables, for instance, you may not tell them about all the beer you drink, but the beer cans are still there in the trash,” Moore describes. “Archaeology can tell us about those hidden things that maybe we didn't want to write down.”
Today's big find is a lump of clay, likely leftover construction material.
Moore states, “In areas like this, where the bottom of the canal is very sandy, they had to line it with clay. This is probably some of the raw material that is left behind from that liner.”
Life Along the Wabash and Erie Canal
A few miles away, at a small park next to the Wabash River, Moore hopes to learn about what day-to-day life was like along the canal.
“That site is really interesting because it was a private residence that was converted to a tavern, and it was directly related to the function of the canal. These taverns were located along the stretch to give people the opportunity to get off the boat, to have a good meal, and to sleep in an actual bed that wasn't a canal boat bed,” explains Moore.
Preliminary digs here have been fruitful. They've found items that speak to everyday life, such as ceramics, buttons, and even jewelry.
“In my opinion, the coolest thing we've found so far is this crushed finger ring. It has a red glass stone in it,” Moore describes. “It probably wasn't a super expensive finger ring, but still, it was somebody's ring. You can imagine this on a person's finger, maybe put yourself into the past.”
With each new discovery, Indiana's canal period becomes a little less mysterious.
“These little, tiny fragments of the past really open up—they’re vignettes into these bigger narratives about who our ancestors were and what their stories were. Those stories are incredibly fascinating, and archaeology helps us have a window into those stories. It's never perfect, but it does help fill in some of the gaps in those broader histories that we have,” Moore concludes.
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The above video is a clip from Journey Indiana from WTIU. You can watch more segments and full episodes at pbs.org/show/journey-indiana/
