The Miami and Erie Canal, extending 249 miles from Toledo to Cincinnati, Ohio, was built between 1825 to 1845. The canal included 19 canal aqueducts such as Jennings Creek, which aided either draining or avoided creating swamp land by allowing creeks to flow under the canal.
One county to the north of Jennings Creek was the section which claimed the most worker's lives. It was the last section of the Miami and Erie Canal to be completed because of the difficulty of draining swamp land. Men worked in 3 feet of water digging sticky clay by hand tools through 10 miles of disease-infested Great Black Swamp within Putman County. 9
In 1912, an electric power company had the floor of the Jennings Creek aqueduct dynamited to divert the water down the creek. This effectively ended the flow of the canal northward to Defiance Ohio.11 After the transportation era ended on the canal, deteriorating wooden locks were replaced by spillways that continued to maintain water levels to service various industries. The State sold water from the canal to the Delphos area into the 1970s.ODNR
Today, only the foundation of the Jennings Creek Aqueduct still remains with the canal leveled into farm fields to the north. Jennings Creek, is 1/4 mile hiking distance north from Pohlman Road.
pages 9 & 11 Source:, "Miami and Erie Canal Corridor Association Resource Plan“
ODNR Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Water