Pump House

Pump House and Water Wheel

Here’s the pump house that contains the big Cyprus water wheel. These building still stand, of course, as our museum. On the left is the building that served as the store room for the Corps of Engineers. The Corps employed many Chesapeake City residents. My father worked in the store room when I was a boy, and my mother took me along to pick him up at 4:30 every week day. The water would flow down this sluice and into the locked canal to replace the water that was lost when vessels locked through either on their way east through the canal or west into Back Creek. Men used to come here to fish with nets for herring or shad.