1800s canal discovery delays bridge construction

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. – Crews plan to remove and preserve dozens of hand-cut timbers that once supported a stone culvert as part of the 19th century Wabash and Erie Canal.\nConstruction workers found the timbers – up to 40 feet long and most 14 inches square – while trying to sink support pilings for a bridge that will be part of a bypass being built southeast of Terre Haute.\nThe timbers will be numbered, then reassembled and placed on display by the Whitewater Canal Trail Inc. near Metamora in southeastern Indiana.\nA canal culvert, often consisting of stone arches, was designed to carry the canal bed over creeks or rivers. Also on top of the culvert was the canal towpath, where mules pulled boats through the canal, and an earthen berm.\nTo support the culvert, a wooden platform was built of heavy timbers. Crews have uncovered 56 timbers along Little Honey Creek, most in a stretch of about 70 feet.\n“The timber is incredibly intact and were under about two feet of silt,” said Alice Roberts, an investigator for Gray & Pape, which has a statewide contract with the Indiana Department of Transportation to document historical finds.\nThe Wabash and Erie Canal was open to Terre Haute by 1847, with the Little Honey Creek culvert built around 1850, Burden said.\nConstruction of the canal stretching from Lake Erie at Toledo, Ohio, to Evansville began in 1832 at Fort Wayne.\nBurden said the canal south of Terre Haute proved problematic and was largely the cause of the state government going into bankruptcy over canals. Navigation south of Terre Haute ended in 1861, while the section north of the city survived until 1874.\nDiscovery of the timbers has delayed construction of the new bridge, but should not hinder the overall completion of the bypass between Interstate 70 and U.S. 41, said Don Thornton, a state Department of Transportation engineer.