Page 74 - NyghtVision Magazine Volume 5 #2

or put it on larger vessels.
The Dismal Swamp Canal, completed in 1826, some 30 years after it was started,
supplied the last link in the “trade route” to Norfolk. Steamboats carried the
cargo from that canal to Norfolk.
Despite its promise, the Roanoke Canal was never very successful. It became
apparent that such endeavors, even though started as stock companies, would
depend on government aid. By the mid-1830s, the railroads began to compete
with the canal. Once railroads began to operate regularly after the Civil War,
the canal ceased operation. However, the canal’s main “competitor” had always
been the Roanoke River, which flooded fiercely and frequently, damaging the ca-
nal. Perhaps this is why the Indian name for the river was Moratuc. Translated,
this meant “river of death.”
In 1885, the Roanoke Navigation and Water Power Company purchased the canal,
deepening and widening it to use as a source of water power. By the early 1900s,
brick generator houses produced the first electricity for the area.
Although the canal did not live up to expectations, it is testimony to the imagi-
nation, hard work, ingenuity, and daring of the people involved. They built the
canal well before there were the construction techniques and machines that we
have today. We also see, again, how one technology supplants another. Finally,
we are reminded of the often-neglected role that African-American slaves played

llin building our country.

Information for this article comes from three sources:
1 Peggy Jo Cobb Braswell, “The Roanoke Canal: A History of the Old Naviga-
tion and Water Power Canal of Halifax County,” Roanoke Canal Commission, 1987.
North Carolina Collection, Wilson Library, UNC.
2 “Roanoke Canal Trail,” brochure published by Northeastern Historic Places Of-
fice, Division of Archives and History, NC Department of Cultural Resources, and
the Halifax County Tourism Development Authority.
3 “The Roanoke Canal Museum and Trail,” brochure available at the Museum.

A view from one of the cannon ports.
74 | Paicstsuiorning History