The Key to The Seven Locks

Written by Judy Welles

Copyright Ed Tenney, all rights reserved

Potomac Conservancy restored the lockhouse to its early 1900s appearance as a river learning center, opening to the public in 2005.

Many of you have probably driven across Seven Locks Road in Maryland. Did you ever wonder how it got its name? It’s not, as you might suspect, because it’s perpendicular to lock 7. There’s more to the story...

Photo courtesy of National Park Service

The lockhouse at lock 8, built in 1830, was a simple stone structure.
Front and back porches were added in the 1900s.

In the summer of 1830 the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Company erected houses for lockkeepers at a cost of $725 each. No. 6 is the stone house at Lock 8 on the C&O Canal, near the community of what is today Cabin John, Md.

Lock 8 is the first of the series of locks known as “Seven Locks,” which raise the C&O Canal 56 feet over the distance of one and a quarter mile. The name of the familiar thoroughfare derives from the seven locks. Just above lock 8, the Canal is 100 feet wide, once providing a turning basin for the canal boats coming downstream from Cumberland and meeting other boats coming upstream from Georgetown. Today it is a place frequented by Great Blue and green heron, woodpeckers, ducks, and many other birds. The Potomac River beckons beyond a narrow buffer of trees.

Solomon Drew, the first Keeper at Lock 8, was given “use of the Lockhouse” for his family, land around it to garden, and a salary of $100 per year. The lockhouse is an 18 X 30 foot stone structure, with two rooms on the first floor separated by a large central stone fireplace and two more rooms on the second floor. The stone walls were once plastered on the interior, directly on masonry, and ceilings were lath and plaster which deteriorated over the years.

Photo by Heather Richards

A Great Blue Heron stands near a wide and peaceful section of the
Potomac River. Since 1993, the Potomac Conservancy has been protecting
the health, beauty, and enjoyment of the river and its tributaries.

The C&O Canal Company closed operations in 1928. People continued to inhabit lockhouse 8 without benefit of running water or indoor plumbing until about 1960. Lockhouse 8, once home to a lockkeeper and his family, became a dilapidated reminder of a by-gone era.

Today, Lockhouse 8 is being restored to its historic 1900-era appearance as a cooperative project between the Potomac Conservancy and the National Park Service. It has taken four years, hundreds of volunteers, thousands of hours, and many donors, services and supplies to turn the historic lockhouse into the River Center at Lockhouse 8.

Green building principles have guided the restoration. Water-resistant “greenboard” drywall now protects the deteriorating stone walls. Benjamin Moore donated environmentally-friendly Eco Spec® paint, and high efficiency, low-emittance windows, installed by BOWA Builders volunteers, replaced plywood shutters.

When the 184.5 mile C&O Canal was completed in 1850, there were 57 lockhouses. Today, evidence of 52 remains and only 26 of those are standing. In addition to Lockhouse 8, only four other lockhouses are open to the public. A few others are occupied by private residents through the National Park Service’s historic leasing program.

Visiting C&O Canal Lockhouses

Five restored lockhouses are open to the public at C&O Canal National Historical Park. Admission is free. River Center at Lockhouse 8 is open weekends from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., May through October. For information, visit potomac.org.