Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 24, 1995 TAG: 9504240076
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Trout, a Richmonder who is president of the American Canal Society, looked up at a group of Virginia Military Institute cadets standing and squatting on one of the lock's limestone walls and told how, in the 1850s, cadets had taken the river for much of the journey to Richmond to lobby state legislators for better funding for the military school.
In those days, rivers - and systems of canals, locks and dams - were the most efficient way to travel.
"Nobody knew then that railroads would amount to anything," Trout said. "Railroad cars were so little the guys with the canals were laughing. They thought canals would be around forever."
Instead, railroads began to overtake river transportation after the Civil War, and the locks and canals along the Maury were all shut down by the 1880s.
The cadets got a history lesson this weekend from Trout and others who want to preserve these structures. But the cadets did more than listen and learn: About 200 of them climbed in and on top of the old locks and canals, slicing away stubborn vines and brush and chain-sawing trees jutting up between the massive limestone blocks.
The work was part of VMI's spring field training exercises. The cleanup along the Maury River - from Lexington south to Glasgow - was a massive public-service project for the institute. And a major logistical challenge.
David B. Tillar and other civil-engineering students who coordinated the operation split the cadets up into five teams, which hit 10 sites along the river on Sunday.
"My main concern is trees falling on people, axes flying," Tillar said. By Sunday afternoon, Tillar was pleased. "I've seen guys really take it seriously. Guys I thought would be screw-ups have been getting it organized and getting the job done."
Local governments, the U.S. Forest Service and other organizations also pitched in by donating tools or muscle power. Work started Saturday and will continue through Tuesday.
The most-ambitious part of the project is being undertaken at the point where the Maury and James rivers meet. Cleanup organizers want to turn it in Frank Padget Memorial Park, to honor a slave who died in 1854 while rescuing 40 people in a boating accident just downstream on the James.
Trout and other canal history buffs who came to the cleanup Sunday were excited about what the cadets and other volunteers had accomplished.
"You couldn't find better kids than these VMI boys," said George Rawls, who drove up from Richmond with Trout. "A lot of people don't realize we ever had a canal system. ... You pass to each generation where we came from - at the same time you enjoy doing it."
Trout was especially happy with what he saw at Lock 13 near Glasgow. The day before it had been buried under vines, brush and trees; by mid-afternoon Sunday, the weeds and vines were gone and cadets were using a chainsaw to cut down the last tree.
"You couldn't tell this was here before they started work," Trout said. "Nobody's cleared off these things for a hundred years."
A few minutes later, he spotted something on one of the limestome blocks near the bottom of the lock wall. He scrambled down into the lock: Someone had carved "R.L." into the side. It's unlikely it was a stone mason's mark, he said. Perhaps, he said, somebody waiting for the lock to fill with water reached out of the boat and carved the initials.
by CNB