Existing comment:
Lock No 1. Largest in the canal system, this lock is 14 feet wide and 100 feet long, and is faced with Seneca stone. The lock could raise or lower boats 10 feet.
This was the first of 5 locks on the Great Falls portion of the Patowmack Canal. Used from 1802 to 1828, they lifted or lowered riverboats the 75 feet that the river drops in going over the falls.
[There were five locks. This, the first one, dropped 10 feet. The second dropped 16 feet. At the very end, there are three locks back-to-back which drop 14, 18, and 18 feet.] |