The Alexandria Canal was a canal in the United States that connected the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal at Georgetown in the District of Columbia to the Potomac River at the city of Alexandria both when it was a part of the District of Columbia and when it was part of Virginia.
It was often treated as an extension of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and called by that name. It was also sometimes called the Washington and Alexandria Canal.
History Planning The idea of connecting Alexandria, VA to the Ohio River predated the American Revolution. The first real effort to do that started in 1785 when George Washington formed the Potomac Company to improve the movement of boats on the Potomac River. This company created some small canals to improve the navigability of the Potomac River, but it was not an easy journey.
Talk of a canal between Alexandria and Georgetown started in 1805 after the construction of the causeway to Mason's Island obstructed the safest passage for boats, making water trips between the two cities hazardous when the weather was anything other than favorable; and thus harming business interests in Alexandria. In 1812, Congress passed a law authorizing construction of a canal between the two if work began within two years; but plans were scuttled by the War of 1812.
In 1825, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company (C&O Canal) was established to connect Washington, DC to the Ohio River. Its first section opened in 1830.
Construction and opening
In 1830 merchants from Alexandria (which at the time was within the jurisdiction of the federal District of Columbia) proposed linking their city to Georgetown to capitalize on the new canal. Unlike Georgetown, Alexandria had a deep water port and merchants there saw an opportunity. Congress granted a charter to the Alexandria Canal Company on May 26, 1830, to build a canal as a spur to the C&O Canal. A groundbreaking featuring George Washington Parke Custis was held in Alexandria on July 3, 1831, and construction began the next day. The C&O Canal built the Georgetown abutment and the Alexandria Canal Company built the rest. Work relied heavily upon the forced labor of enslaved people. In 1835, the canal built a causeway across Four Mile Run and a viaduct to carry the turnpike over the stream and under the canal. Despite delays caused by the Panic of 1837, the aqueduct opened on July 4, 1843, and the canal opened, as far as the turning basin at Washington and Montgomery Streets on December 2, 1843. The locks down to the river weren't completed until 1845.
The Aqueduct Bridge (begun in 1833 and completed in 1843) enabled canal boats from the C&O Canal to cross the Potomac River without descending to the river level. The boats would then continue their trips downstream on a canal on the southwest side of the Potomac until they reached Alexandria's seaport.
Early Years
The canal proved to be more expensive, and less profitable, than expected. In early 1846, three years after the Canal opened, Alexandria Common Council member Lewis McKenzie, motivated by the large corporation taxes that had to be paid to fund the canal, restarted the Alexandria retrocession movement that had been on and off again since the District was formed. He introduced a motion that the mayor resend the results of the 1840 pro-retrocession vote to Congress and the Virginia legislature and promised that Congress would assume the Canal debt. On February 2, 1846, the Virginia General Assembly voted to accept the retrocession of Alexandria County if Congress approved. The debate over retrocession then moved to the U.S. Congress, where the Town Committee met with the District Committee of the House to ask for both retrocession and relief from their Canal debt, with the Committee expressing support of relief if retrocession were carried out. Town leaders then expected a bill that would provide for both, causing many to believe that the issues were tied together and that to vote for retrocession would be to vote for Congress to take on Alexandria's debt. Later the House decided to decouple the issues and to abandon relief altogether. Despite this, retrocession passed later in 1846, in large part because Virginia promised to take on Alexandria's canal debt, which it did in 1848.
In 1850, the C&O Canal was completed to Cumberland, extending the reach of the Alexandria Canal and the first ship made it from the mines to Alexandria on October 17, 1850. From then on coal became the major commodity and source of revenue for the canal, but it was also used to ship wheat, corn, whiskey, corn meal, flour, fish, salt, plaster, and lumber. The canal also made money supplying water to mills and businesses along the canal and in the winter it sold ice to local butchers. Despite this, traffic on the canal continued to decline in the face of competition from railroads, which had many advantages including the ability to run all winter. In addition, the canal needed constant repair due to freshets and silt build up.
In the late 1850s the Alexandria, Loudoun and Hampshire railroad built a trestle over the canal at what was then Water Street (then Lee Street, and now the Washington and Old Dominion Trail) and another near the current day intersection of Potomac Greens Drive and Norfolk Lane; and in the same time period the Alexandria and Washington Railroad built their railroad through an existing arch under the canal near Four Mile Run. The railroad, which was double-tracked elsewhere, had to be single-tracked under the canal, which resulted in a fatal crash in 1885. In 1858-59 several new bridges were built over the canal. One was at Poor House Lane (now Monroe Avenue) and replaced one that had collapsed earlier, another at Hunter's, and a third at the locks in Alexandria.
Civil War Closure
In 1861, the Alexandria Canal was shut down due to the Civil War and on May 23 U.S. troops used it to cross the river and take control of Alexandria. The bridge was drained and turned into a road to enable troop movement and the canal was used as an earthwork. General George McClellan had the canal itself drained and turned into a military road and Fort Haggerty was built on one side of it. The use as a road caused substantial damage to the banks of the canal and it took years after the war to repair it.
Alexandria Canal and Bridge Company
In 1866 the state ordered Alexandria to dispose of its canal stock and they did so while arranging for the Alexandria Canal Company to lease for 99 years the bridge to local businessmen - including General H.H. Wells - who formed the Alexandria Canal and Bridge Company (sometimes the Alexandria Canal, Railroad and Bridge Company). A few months later, in September, the military turned the aqueduct over to the lessees who began repairs on the canal while also obtaining permission to build a railroad, the Alexandria and Georgetown Railroad, alongside it. The canal reopened on April 2, 1867, but due to the continued need for repairs, was closed again in June. Over the ensuing months, a new aqueduct was constructed on the old piers. The new canal bridge opened on May 30, 1868, and soon after it did they began to design and have authorized the construction of a bridge over the canal, on the same piers, that could hold a wagonway and a railroad line."Appendix B B B - Bridges at Washington, D.C.", p. 3641. Accessed 2012-12-29. They received permission for the addition in late September and started work by mid-November 1868. In December 1868, they were granted permission to lay out a small village on the Virginia side of the bridge that they wanted to call Rosslyn after the Ross farm located there. The toll bridge over the canal opened on January 12, 1869.
Later in 1868, the canal lessees turned their focus to the railroad they wished to build from Georgetown to Four Mile Run. In late 1869 they hired an engineer, bought ties and iron rails and made arrangements to connect to the existing Loudoun and Hampshire Railroad at Four Mile Run. They held a formal groundbreaking at the Virginia side of the Aqueduct Bridge on October 28, 1869, but no work was done. In 1870-1871 they contracted with the National Junction Railroad, a railroad chartered in 1870, to build a railroad from the south end of the bridge to Alexandria and from the north end to the B&O's depot in Washington. Again, work was never started and instead the two parties wound up in a lengthy lawsuit.
The people of Georgetown had wanted a toll-free bridge across the Potomac for years and had grown accustomed to being able to use the Aqueduct Bridge for free during the Civil War. Furthermore, boating interests wanted the bridge removed or replaced with a draw-bridge so that taller ships could travel farther up-river and they wanted the leakage repaired to keep boats from being drenched when they passed underneath. In 1881 Congress authorized the government to purchase the Aqueduct Bridge to create a toll-free bridge across the river and in 1882 they appropriated money to that end. At first the canal company refused to sell, then agreed to sell only on the condition that the aqueduct portion remain; but in 1884 it relented and agreed to receive $85,000 for the piers and $50,000 for the deck.
For the next two years the Canal, the C&O Canal, the city of Alexandria and the U.S. government fought over who owned the Georgetown abutment, debts owed, and the location of $300,000 of canal stock that the U.S. Government purchased in 1866–67, but that they claimed Alexandria never transferred to them.
Purchase of the Aqueduct Bridge and Final Closure
Things came to a head in 1886. In July Congress passed an act obligating the Secretary of War to purchase the Aqueduct Bridge for $125,000 and to repair and reconstruct it; or if not able to buy it, to build a new bridge at Three Sisters. A few days earlier the lessees had requested that the owners agree to sell. On September 20, 1886, a section of the aqueduct trunk fell, releasing the water into the river. An analysis of the bridge's safety led the District government to close it on October 6, 1886, and with it the Alexandria Canal. Two weeks later the lessees and owners agreed to terms for the sale of the bridge. At a stockholder's meeting on November 22, it was agreed that the Canal company would transfer the Bridge to the Canal and Bridge company who would then sell it to the U.S. Government for $125,000. It would use the revenue to pay all outstanding judgments against the Canal and the Canal Company would retain the nine miles of canal land in Virginia. The deal was then finalized on December 21, 1886 - only one day before the deadline set by the 1886 law.
Disposition
A series of lawsuits followed the closing. The Canal and Bridge Company sued the District for closing the canal while allowing people to use the wagonway for free. The District sued them back for not maintaining the bridge for 20 years and for not paying taxes. Another lawsuit against the Canal Company resulted in the officers being ousted in May 1887 and the company's assets being turned over to a receiver. At the time, the stock was owned almost entirely by the United States, Virginia and the Wheeler family (which had inherited the Charles Bennett fortune in 1850). In July 1887, Virginia gave some of its stock to the United States to clear Alexandria's debt and sold the rest, making the US government the controlling interest in the company.
The end of the canal also spelled the end of several businesses. The Arlington Brick Machine Company near the outlet of the canal closed, as it relied on the canal for its business and it shut down that same year - though it was replaced by the Excelsior Brick Company. The coal companies cancelled their leases to the wharfs at the canal outlet as well.
Despite the lawsuits and delays, the Bridge and Canal Company began removing the wooden trunk of the Aqueduct in February 1887.