Walk 21: Seneca Aqueduct, Washington Slept Here, and Stuart's Great Blunder

Whew! When you hit the Seneca Aqueduct at Riley's Lock on the C&O Canal, get ready for an avalanche of history.

What's left of the Seneca Aqueduct after the September 1971 blew out one of its arches.

To start with, this is the site of the Seneca Quarry which produced much of the sandstone used in the construction of the lower reaches of the C&O Canal. But even before this, quarry work went back to the Revolutionary War period and the cut stone was floated down the Potomac to Great Falls before being shunted onto the Seneca Canal, a forerunner of the C&O, as a bypass to the rapids. George Washington was a frequent overnight visitor to the quarry so you can say "Washington Slept Here."

What the Aqueduct looked like before the 1971 flood.

The stone aqueduct carried the C&O canal over Seneca creek where the now broad and deep creek flows into the Potomac and was maintained by the Riley family for long enough the lock here is named after them.

But more importantly, this is a spot where the Potomac is both broad and shallow, a great place if you wanted to ford it with a wagon.

Which is exactly what Confederate cavalry general J.E.B. Stuart did on June 24th, 1863. Two days earlier, Stuart had been staging a review of his troops at Brandy Station, Virginia, for the local ladies when a Union cavalry force joined the festivities. Stuart's men drove the Union forces back across the river in the largest cavalry battle of the war, but Stuart didn't take kindly to the audacity of the Union gatecrashers.

He requested permission from Confederate commander Robert E. Lee for a retaliatory road into Maryland just as Lee started moving his army across the Potomac. Admonished that the cavalry's main job was to act his "eyes and ears," Lee turned Stuart loose. It was the last time Lee would hear from Stuart before Lee ran head on into the Union Army at a small Pennsylvania town called Gettysburg. No one thing determines the course of a battle, especially not a three day slaughter like Gettysburg, but Lee did go into the battle with little knowledge or where his enemy was. The Union army won the battle and Lee lost his one last big chance to end the war.

Where the heck was Stuart during this time? Well a lot of places because he rode completely around the Union army before rejoining Lee's retreat into Virginia, but after crossing the Potomac at Rowser's Ford, he wasted time wrecking the canal and then marched on Rockville, the county seat of Montgomery County.

J.E.B. Stuart left Lee blind when it counted. The rest, as they say, is history.

Once in Rockville, Stuart captured 125 Union supply wagons and then tried to drive the booty back to Lee. Slowed down by the wagons, he never caught up.

You could probably pick a lot of places where the South lost the Civil War. Rowser's Ford at Riley's lock won't be at the top of the list but it's certainly on the list.

Once you cross the Aqueuct, Loki and I took the first right off the towpath, a dirt road. This leads to the ruins of the Seneca Stonecutting Mill. Powered by water from the canal which was then diverted into Seneca Creek, this mill cut the stone quarried at Seneca Quarry.

What's left of the Seneca Stonecutting Mill.

Stone from this mill wound up building a number of buildings in Washington DC but the most famous is the original Smithsonian Museum, what's colloquially known as the Castle of the Mall.

The Castle

I couldn't find any historic photos of the stonecutting mill but the Library of Congress has these elevation drawings.

Under water power, the mill featured to eight foot band saws that could cut the rock at a rate on one inch per hour. Later, the mill upgraded to a turbine for electricity.

From the ruins of the mill, follow the road up to River Road, a 1 mile walk, that follows Seneca Creek. This is mile one of the Seneca Greenway Trail and if walking on a road sounds a bit unexciting, it is a gravel road and scenic which makes up for it.

 The mile walk to River Road.

When you reach River Road, you will see right across fromn you Poole's General Store. Opened in the mid-1800s, this General Store is the oldest, continuing operating General Store in the County.

Poole's General Store was operated by the AllNutt family for over a hundred years before Poole took it over. 

I wouldn't let this photo fool you too much. The county, with it's million residents, shops pretty much at Target and what not.

 Riley's Lock also serves a base for the Calleva outdoor education camp and here a small campers are being paddled out under the Aqueduct to the broad reaches of the Potomac. The campers were singing so it sounded like they were having a good time.






Other more recent history comes in the form a request by the National Park that fishermen do them a favor by killing any Northern Snakes heads they catch in the canal.

These voracious fish, which are native of China,  were released into a Maryland lake a few years ago. Not only are they eating virtually every other fish in our waterways, but they are spreading because of their ability to walk short distances on land. Maryland, which abolished the death penalty, makes an exception for these fish.










Maybe all the Snakeheads being killed in the area is what is keeping this Black Vulture hanging around.