The old Miami and Erie Canal provided many fun, fun times for kids in town or anyone who lived nearby.
Albert (Red) Yochum, formerly of Delphos, wrote “My Boyhood On the Canal” for the Delphos Herald in 1987. He told about how much fun the canal was in the winter when it was frozen over. It was a good place for ice skating and sledding. Most of the kids had clamp-on skates and all envied the boy who had shoe skates. The old clamp-ons required a key to tighten them up.
One of the older boys had a book called “The Boy Carpenter.” They found instructions in it on how to build an ice boat. Everyone pitched in with the necessary parts, including some old skates which were used for runners. The project was going well until Mrs. Talbot discovered one of her bedsheets missing, and being used for their sail. That was the end of the project.
They also had a winter sport called belly plopping with the sled. That sometimes got a little rough and Red ended up cutting his chin on the sled runners and ended up with a three-inch scar on his face.
Another game was called Shinny. It was sort of like hockey, using a Pet Milk can for a puck. Their sticks were made from one half of an automobile top support that were manufactured by the Delphos Bending Company.
Skating would end in late February because it was ice-cutting time. Roth Brothers, the local butcher shop, cut large blocks of ice for their walk-in cooler. Electric refrigerators were unheard of at that time. Red said the first step of the process was when a man with a horse drawn plow would mark the blocks by partially cutting through the ice. Then workmen with large saws would come and complete the job. The blocks of ice were floated down the open water to a wooden chute, leading to a barn. The ice was packed between layers of straw in the barn.
In the summer, the boys went camping along the canal. They had to build a fireplace with bricks cemented together with clay mud. They would bake potatoes and the fish they caught. Their method was to coat the potatoes and fish with clay mud and place them on the hot embers. In about an hour they could chip away the clay and have a feast fit for a king.
Their parents never allowed them to swim in the canal but they knew of a place about a mile south of town, near an old lock, which the Marbletown kids called their own private swimmin’ hole. They considered the Marbletown kids tough because they chewed tobacco and smoked Bull Durham right out in the open, instead of sneaking down the alleys like Yochum and his friends had to. Whenever Red and his friends used the private swimming hole, they found their clothes tied up in knots.
Red said his father and uncles used to catch some good pan fish in the canal. On one occasion, a swordfish was seen below the Second Street Bridge. Ray Zenz had a welding shop nearby and had a swordfish mounted on the wall. Pranksters took it down and carefully placed it in the canal. Crowds gathered at the bridge to observe this strange fish. There was even an article in the newspaper about this strange fish sighted in the canal.
My friend, Rita Turnwald, wrote a most interesting book, the “History of Ottoville and Vicinity, 1845-2001”. In her writings she includes many stories of life along the canal.
Ottoville was known as Sixteen (Section 16) in the early days. Rita included Mayme Harmon’s story of how, as a young girl, she and her friends would skate on the canal from Ottoville to Delphos on Saturday afternoons. After spending time with friends they would return home, skating on the canal in the moonlight.
Our home place north of Delphos in Putnam County, had 15 acres of Van Wert County running along the west side of the farm. This is where the Miami & Erie went through. On the back northwest corner of the farm we had the remains of an aqueduct, where the canal crossed a little creek that came from west of Rt. 66 and ran into the Jennings Creek, that ran through our farm. This spot provided an area for much adventure and activities. There was a big hole or pond, which was dug to supply dirt and possibly stone to build up the foundation of the aqueduct. This was a great place for us to ice skate. However, the first winter, when I got my new shoe skates for Christmas, it never got cold enough for the ice to freeze hard enough for skating.
My brothers went fishing in the old aqueduct pond. Paul told how a friend of Dad’s would set traps to catch the fish. It probably wasn’t exactly legal but nobody worried about a game warden coming around on private property.
Nub told a tale of a couple guys who came walking along the canal from Delphos. This was in 1945 or right after the war. These two young men had a couple sticks of dynamite and threw them into the water in the hole, causing an explosion, creating what looked like a big geyser. This also caused the banks of the pond to cave in and killed hundreds or thousands of fish. Paul said he can testify that that wasn’t just a fish story.
Paul said he, along with our brothers, Jim and Hubert, and the neighbor kids, would go to the “Old Fun Hole” to fish and trap muskrats. Sometimes they would sight deer in the brush or thicket before deer became so prominent in this area. Paul remembers the boards of beams of the old aqueduct still going across the creek. Naturally they enjoyed walking on these beams. The Delphos kids who lived over on 66 would sometimes come to the canal.
Paul and Bob Calvelage also took the Boy Scouts out there on fishing expeditions. They would build a bonfire and  go  fishing.  Mike  and Beth also spent many happy hours walking in what remained of the canal and playing at the old hole or pond. They would pretend they were Indians and sit by the water and fish.
Our son, Bill, caught his first fish in the old pond one Sunday afternoon when his Dad and Grandpa took him fishing. It was just a big carp, but he was sure proud of that first catch. Naturally I had my camera along.
Our other children and their cousins  all  got  to  hike  to this unique spot once in a while. Ray and his friends often camped out there until one night when a severe thunderstorm moved in and they had to hurry up to the house and move in with Grandpa and Grandma. Ray said the surveyors for the highway were already pounding stakes at that time. Then the U.S. 30 Bypass came through and rooted up this old campground.  That  was  the  end  of an era … they call it progress.
One  of  our  family  treasures was shipped up on the canal in the 1860’s. It was a beautiful old bedroom suit with much filigree carving on the high headboard and tall wardrobe. The name Mary Halker (my great-grandmother) is engraved inside the wardrobe, along with the date. This heirloom was passed on to my grandmother, Anna Kemper Krieft and to my mother. This treasure still graces the home of one of our family members.