Clarks Ferry Dam Former Area

 historical layer / disappeared object  Add category

 Upload a photo

When the Eastern Division Canal reached the junction of the Susquehanna and the Juniata 15 miles above Harrisburg, the engineers ran up against their first major problem, in to get the canal across co the west bank of the Susquehanna to pick up the entrance to the Juniata Division Canal and also to make connection with the newly authorized branch running up the west bank of the river, known as the Susquehanna Division, It was decided to build a dam between the lower end of Duncan's Island and the east bank of the Susquehanna, at Peter's Mountain, to form a deep and more or less placid pool across which canal boats could be drawn from a towing path bridge. Hence a dam 1998
feet long and 8K feet high with a base 30 feet thick was built of strong timbers with an embankment of broken stone and gravel. A short distance above the dam the canal commissioners then built the first Clark's Ferry bridge, a covered wooden structure with a double-deck tow path down-stream. The pool farmed by the dam also provided water for the entire Eastern Division of the canal Two additional liftlocks on Duncan's Island (first two locks on the Susquehanna Division) raised the boats from Clark's Ferry pool to ajunction with the Juniata Division on Duncan's Island at a canal basin