Editing Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (section)

===Business after 1891===
[[file:Cumberland_MD_C%26O_Canal-coal_loading.jpg|right|thumb|300px|Loading coal on canal boats in Cumberland.]]
After 1891, the canal principally transported coal, and sometimes West Virginia limestone, wood, lumber, sand, and flour. (Statistics were only kept for coal.)<ref name="Unrau P. 498">[[#Unrau|Unrau]] p. 498</ref> Coal was loaded in the Cumberland basin, which consisted of dumping four carloads of coal into the boat. Some of the coal had to be shoveled by hand into the spaces beneath the cabins. During the loading process, nobody would be on the boat due to the dust, and mules were kept off, in case the boat sank from being loaded. Despite closing windows, dust usually entered the cabins. After loading, the ridge poles would be put, then the hatches over the ridge poles and openings. The crew would scrub down the boat (using water from the canal) to remove the dust, and the boat would be poled to the other side of the basin, where it would be hitched to the mules.<ref>[[#hahn-boatmen|Hahn, Boatmen]], p. 15-17</ref>

Boatmen came down to lock 5, called "Willard's lock" or "Waybill Lock", whereupon the lock tender would sign the waybill, and report it to the office. If they did not get orders at that lock, they waited near the aqueduct bridge in Georgetown, until orders came through. A tugboat on the river would pull the boats to other points, e.g. Navy Yard, [[Indian Head Naval Surface Warfare Center|Indian Head]] and Alexandria.<ref>[[#Kytle|Kytle]], p. 154-155</ref> Some coal loads were unloaded directly in the Georgetown coal yards, using buckets. Coal was also unloaded onto ocean sailing vessels bound for Massachusetts (which brought ice, and returned with coal), a 4 masted vessel holding about 20 boatloads of coal.<ref>[[#hahn-boatmen|Hahn, Boatmen]] p. 42</ref>

In the last few years, the tonnage and tolls for coal were as follows<ref name="Unrau P. 498"/>

{| class="wikitable"
|-
!Year||Coal Tonnage (tons)||Tolls collected (US$)
|-
|1914
|align="right"|171,062
|align="right"|42,236.97
|-
|1915
|align="right"|173,997
|align="right"|41,271.46
|-
|1916
|align="right"|158,036
|align="right"|38,956.77
|-
|1917
|align="right"|151,667
|align="right"|40,545.74
|-
|1918
|align="right"|138,087
|align="right"|71,404.43
|-
|1919
|align="right"|133,529
|align="right"|47,346.95
|-
|1920
|align="right"|127,871
|align="right"|62,102.38
|-
|1921
|align="right"|66,477
|align="right"|42,017.33
|-
|1922
|align="right"|Unavailable
|align="right"|3,435.18
|-
|1923
|align="right"|56,404
|align="right"|31,899.32
|-
|1924
|align="right"|Unavailable
|align="right"|1,215.60
|}

One of the more unusual loads was a [[circus]] with about 9 people with their equipment, which included a [[American black bear|black bear]]. They were transported from [[Oldtown, Maryland]] to Harpers Ferry. The black bear got loose on the journey, and the boatman told them, "You tie that thing good or you're never going to get to Harpers Ferry, for I'm going to leave the boat."<ref name="boatmen49">[[#hahn-boatmen|Hahn, Boatmen]] p. 49</ref>

Other loads included furniture (often second hand), pianos, a parlor suites, watermelons, fish (such as shad and herring), as well as transporting items such as flour or molasses to sell to lockkeepers,<ref name="boatmen49" /> as some of the lockkeepers in remote areas needed the boats to bring their supplies.<ref>[[#hahn-boatmen|Hahn, Boatmen]] p. 48</ref> Cement from the Round Top Mill above Hancock was also shipped to Georgetown. Some would pole across the river at Dam No. 2 to get wood, cross-ties, bark (used in tanning), and sometimes grain. Other loads, often carried upstream, included 600 empty barrels in a boat, taken to Shepherdstown to load cement, lumber, fertilizer, and general merchandise for stores along the canal, as well as oysters in barrels, complete materials to build a house, ear corn, and even extra mules.<ref>[[#hahn-boatmen|Hahn, Boatmen]] p. 47</ref>