You might know that the Ohio & Erie Canal put Akron on the map.
But the legacy of the individuals who built the canal is less well-known, said Charlotte Gintert, cultural resources specialist for Summit MetroParks.
“The credit for the canal always goes to the politicians and the businessmen, the engineers who came up with the idea where to put it,” Gintert said. "But half the credit needs to go to the laborers who actually made that happen.”
Standing at Cascade Locks Park in Akron, where several locks along the canal were built, Gintert explained that many of the laborers were Irish immigrants. Others were German, Welsh or French.
The laborers dug the canal by hand, she said.
“I think sometimes people forget that this is really difficult work and there were a lot of people that suffered from that labor. One historian says that there's one death per every three miles on the canal,” Gintert said. “Sickness was really prevalent, epidemics were really common, and a lot people died from that. And I think it's just kind of overlooked that it was a really, really difficult project for that time period.”
The canal quickly led to Akron's founding.
“If the canal hadn't come through this area, the Akron that we are familiar with today wouldn't have existed,” Gintert said. “The first portion of it opened from Akron to Cleveland on Lake Erie in 1827, and once that happened, Akron just started to flourish almost immediately.”
Early settlers opened up stores and businesses to attract people working on the boats, she said.
Many of the Irish laborers stayed in Akron after the canal was built and put down roots.
“Here in this location was one of our earliest neighborhoods in Akron. A lot of people don't realize that,” Gintert said. “It was originally called Dublin or Little Dublin, because it was mostly populated by these Irish laborers.”
They formed the city’s first Catholic church, St. Vincent de Paul. The original stone church still exists today.
The church later worked with St. Mary Church to create St. Vincent-St. Mary High School — just up the hill from where the canal was built.
“Now it's the Cascade Valley neighborhood, but it all started with that little canal suburb of Dublin,” Gintert said.
