History of the Canal

America's first summit canal, the Santee Canal, began operating in 1800. It was considered one of the crowning engineering achievements and economic development projects of its day. Before the canal opened, crops from the fertile uplands were shipped overland by wagon or floated down the Santee River into the Atlantic and along the coast to the busy port of Charleston.

Neither mode of transportation was very cost-effective and the unpredictability of the Atlantic Ocean made the sea journey dangerous at best. The business and political leaders of Charleston realized that a better route needed to be established in order to compete against rival seaports.

The Commons House of Assembly proposed a survey in 1770 to determine the most favorable routes for a canal to connect the Santee River with the Cooper River which would provide a direct outlet to Charleston Harbor. To this end, Henry Mouzon Jr. was commissioned in 1773 to survey routes for such an inland waterway.

The onset of the Revolutionary War silenced talk of the canal until 1785 when the newly formed General Assembly granted a charter to the Santee Canal Company.

Prominent among the shareholders was Gen. William Moultrie, who held the unique distinction of serving both as governor of South Carolina and president of the Santee Canal Company, Moultrie wrote to his longtime friend, Gen. George Washington, about the canal.

Washington replied at length calling the canal project "a laudable and important design-it gives me great pleasure to find a spirit of inland navigation prevailing so generously. No country is more capable of improvements in this way than our own."

The Canal Becomes a Reality

Construction began in 1793 under the supervision of Col. Christian Senf, a Swedish-born engineer who had served with Hessian troops during the Revolution. Over 700 laborers worked for seven years with picks and shovels to complete the project.


The finished canal was 22 miles long, 35 ft. wide, and 5 1/2 ft. deep. It was completed at a cost of $650,667.14.
The canal was designed to handle a 34-ft. rise through three locks and a 69 ft. fall through seven more for a net difference of 35 ft. between the two rivers.

Boats and barges laden with cotton and other goods were initially pulled down the canal by mules and horses using 10-ft.-wide towpaths.

Later, the use of horses and mules was discontinued and the boats and barges were pushed through the canal with poles by their crewmen.

Operation of the canal went smoothly for the first 16 years. Goods moved freely to Charleston and the Santee Canal began to show a profit. Between 1817 and 1819, however, severe droughts dried up the canal, halting all traffic. Corn was planted in the canal bed to take advantage of the fertile soil there.
The busiest year for the canal was 1830, when a total of 700 barges and boats, laden primarily with cotton, traveled through the waterway.

The completion of a railway between Columbia and Charleston in 1840 left the canal dependent on what little traffic trickled down the Wateree River.

In 1846, the railroad tracks were extended to Camden, thus hastening the ultimate demise of the canal. In 1850, the General Assembly revoked its charter at the request of the shareholders.

The Canal Today

Most of the canal now lies beneath the waters of Lake Moultrie. On private property, some of the upper portions of the waterway are still visible, where boats entered from the Santee and the southernmost sections, which joined the headway of the Cooper River at Biggin Creek.

Old Santee Canal Park is centered where the southernmost section of the canal enters the quiet waters of Biggin Creek and the surrounding swamps.

The high bluff here at the headwaters of the Cooper River has, for generations, been known as Stony Landing. Because of the natural advantages of its setting, it became a crossroads of early commerce.

Boat traffic from the port of Charleston took on the goods of the upcountry and unloaded finished products for overland transportation to the growing frontier and the Indian nations. The construction of the canal further solidified the importance of this area.

While earlier buildings had certainly occupied this site, the plantation house presently at Stony Landing bluff was built circa 1843 by Charleston merchant John Dawson. It faced the road to the Congaree, but visitors now have sweeping views of the Tailrace Canal which flows from the Lake Moultrie.

The house has been restored and is open to the public for tours.