One of the oft-told stories of the C&O Canal is that of Lockkeeper Joe Davis. “Lock tender Joe Davis and his wife were murdered here by shooting in 1934,” Thomas Hahn wrote in his Towpath Guide. He expanded on the story in The Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Lock-Houses & Lock-Keepers writing that Davis took care of Lock 61 in the last decades of the canal’s operation. Hahn wrote that the bodies of Davis and his wife were burned after the murder to try and cover up the murder. George “Hooper” Wolfe told a similar story in I Drove Mules on the C and O Canal. He did not name the lockkeeper and made no mention of his wife. He also wrote that the lockkeeper was murdered to steal his rare coin collection and that the murderer was later caught in Read more…