Work on the Santee Canal began in 1793. The locks were constructed of brick made from the local clay. Though overgrown by trees and vines, the brickwork on Lock No. 1 remains.
The work began on America’s first successful canal, the Santee Canal, in 1793. For the people of Pineville, it seemed like a great economic opportunity. Their little community on the pine ridge between the Santee and Cooper Rivers was soon to be the site of South Carolina’s first major transportation project.
Maj. Samuel Porcher convinced Col. Senf, the engineer, that his plantation at White Oak Bluff on the Santee should become the canal’s northern headquarters. After the canal was completed, Porcher began construction of his heralded embankment, a four-mile-long, nine-foot-high bank to protect his fields from freshets of the river. His slaves worked on it from 1817 to 1841. The dike in the river was said to be wide enough for ten horsemen to pass each other. After the Civil War, however, his embankment deteriorated considerably.
Porcher’s embankment is still a major landmark for boaters and fishermen on the Santee River. As John Cely says in a Columbia Star article, “Porcher’s Embankment was especially impressive on our map, measuring five-and-a-half miles long. This may have been the single largest reclamation project of its kind in South Carolina until the Santee dam, nearly eight miles long, was built 100 years later.”
Three miles inland from the Santee Swamp at the junction of the proposed canal and the River Road from St. Stephens to Eutawville (now S.C. Hwy 45), Ralph Izard planned a toll bridge and a town to be named Izardtown. Similar thoughts were, no doubt, in the minds of the men at the southern end of the canal at Monck’s Corner. A successful canal would not only benefit the farmers in the Upcountry and the merchants in Charlestown, but also those along the canal.
Col. John Christian Senf’s plan called for the 22-mile-long canal to begin at White Oak Bluff on the Santee, just east of Thomas Walter’s home and garden. The first lock would be constructed 150 feet in from the river.
As in consultant engineer James Brindley’s canals in England, the locks of Santee Canal were to be masonry boxes capable of raising and lowering barges by passing water in and out from reservoirs. Gates at either end would be opened and closed to contain water and to allow the passage of barges. There would be no need for mechanical pumps. The difference between the water levels of the two rivers was 35 feet. The locks would raise barges 34 feet from the Santee to the summit and lower them 69 feet to the Cooper. The general width of the canal was 35 feet with a depth of four feet.
Lock Number 1 (Guard Lock). The Guard Lock had an extra large entrance/exit chamber—17 by 60 feet—whereby boats and rafts could load and unload from the canal barges. Here they were protected from river flow and floods. The gates were made of cypress that fit into metal hinges attached to cornerstones built into the brick and masonry walls and floors. Wooden bridges spanned the locks with adequate clearance for the canal boats. The lift was five feet.
The Guard Lock survives today on the edge of the remains of Porcher’s Embankment, empty of its cypress gates, but standing proud with its 1793 brickwork… and ready for National Historic Site status.
Thank you for this informative and interesting article. I have been a resident of Pineville for 8 years now and find it very interesting to learn some of the history here.