Lock played ‘huge role’ in Welland development
Former water source for main canal celebrated on weekend with heritage designation
About 45 metres long and eight metres wide, today it is overgrown with marsh and weeds.
At Ontario Road and Prince Charles Drive adjacent to Welland’s dog park, the Feeder Canal Junction Lock was completed in 1845 during construction of the second Welland Canal. It supplied the main canal with water until construction on the third canal finished in 1887, said Terry Hughes, a local historian who took part in a ceremony Saturday to celebrate the remnant receiving a designation under the Ontario Heritage Act.
The lock permitted boats to travel from the Feeder Canal into what’s now the recreational canal. The Feeder Canal stretches from the Grand River at Port Maitland east to Welland through Wainfleet.
The stone-cut lock is only partially exposed.
The area was once known as Helmsport and played a “huge role” in Welland’s early development, said Hughes.
Unlike locks at the entrance of the second canal in Port Colborne, Port Maitland, and Port Dalhousie, which were about 60 metres long, the one celebrated on the weekend was slightly smaller, said Hughes.
Welland Mayor Frank Campion praised the city’s heritage advisory committee for its hard work on getting approval for the heritage designation.
“We have to maintain and celebrate our heritage,” he said.
Construction of the canal many generations and decades ago is an important factor in the city’s identity, and the people who call Welland home.
Campion used his wife’s family as an example, saying if they had never came to Canada from Italy to build the canal, he never would have met his bride.
“There are so many things connected to the canal,” he said.
Connie McCutcheon, chair of the heritage advisory committee, said Canada’s first-trained engineers supervised the construction of the lock.
This isn’t the only piece of local history related to water the heritage advisory committee is working on recognizing.
Built nearly 200 years ago, the second Welland Canal aqueduct is soon to be designated as having cultural heritage value or interest under the Ontario Heritage Act.
Behind Welland Civic Square, it was built between 1831 and 1833 as a wooden aqueduct and then converted to a stone structure beginning in the 1840s. It consists of a series of four stone arches that are 13.7 metres wide, capped with rows of stone voussoirs and stabilized with projecting buttresses that support a large trough, which is now infilled with soil.
McCutcheon said Saturday details on a ceremony to officially mark it as a heritage site will be known in the coming weeks.