Embrey Dam and Rappahannock Canal Trail

Saturday, December 11, 2021 

Hi Blog!

After our trip to George Washington's boyhood home along the Rappahannock River, we decided to explore the river a little further. Fredericksburg has a trail system that includes several miles of hiking along the Rappahannock.

Here we are at the trailhead for the River Heritage Trail.

The first part of the trail follows an old canal path. This section of the old canal still has plenty of water.

We soon reached the site of the former Embrey Dam and Lock.  Construction of a canal on the Rappahannock River began in 1829. Construction of nearly 50 locks, 20 dams, and 15 miles of slackwater canal from the Fall Line at Fredericksburg upstream to Waterloo in Fauquier County was completed in 1849 almost 20 years later. However, within five years of completion, the Rappahannock Navigation Company was bankrupt, because operations and maintenance costs exceeded revenue from tolls.

The Embrey Dam was the last remaining dam on the Rappahannock. Fredericksburg found a creative way to have the Embrey Dam removed at Federal, rather than local, expense. It recruited the US military, under its Innovative Readiness Training program, to treat the dam removal as a training exercise. The plaque pictured below honors Senator John Warner who helped spearhead the removal project. The rapids once covered by the dam were renamed John Warner Rapids.

The Rappahannock River has a long history of settlement by the Rappahannock people. In 1608, Captain John Smith mapped the Chesapeake Bay and its major tributaries in two separate voyages. His men sailed and rowed upstream to the Fall Line before discovering boat-stopping rapids.

The Rappahannocks first met John Smith in December 1607 at their capital town “Topahanocke” on the banks of the river south and east of Fredericksburg. At the time, Smith was a prisoner of Powhatan’s brother, Opechancanough. He took Smith to the Rappahannocks for the people to determine if Smith was the Englishman who, three years earlier, had murdered their chief and kidnapped some of their people. Smith was found innocent. The perpetrator was a tall man. Smith was too short and too fat. Smith returned to the Rappahannocks' homeland in the summer of 1608. He mapped 14 fourteen Rappahannock villages on the north side of the river. The Rappahannock’s territory on the south side of the river was their primary hunting grounds.

Smith placed a pair of Maltese crosses to mark where he and his fellow explorers reached the Fall Line at modern-day Fredericksburg. While the original crosses where never found, Smith's maps were so detailed that researchers are convinced that this is the exact location and they placed a monument to Smith's exploration.

These falls may not look like much, but the river drops 25 feet over a distance of one mile. For more than two centuries, industries in this fall zone used this natural energy. Early settlers brought their corn and wheat to water-powered grist-mills in Fredericksburg and Falmouth. As the area grew and prospered, larger merchant mills provided even greater capacity. Not much remains of those early mills.

In addition to mills, there were several quarries along the path. Fredericksburg became known for its "Battlefield Granite." The term, “Battlefield Granite” was a tradename for a granitoid rock that was extracted from what today is called the Fredericksburg Complex. Technically, the Fredericksburg Complex is a group of metamorphosed rocks, which include gneisses, schists, and granites. Blue-gray biotite granites with several joint sets (fractures) were extensively quarried for building and monumental stone. The color of the granite comes from the combination of minute flakes of black biotite mica scattered throughout a gray-white feldspar background. It's impressive!

There are several sections of the trail that had to be re-routed due to washouts. Can you see Kathy hiding behind the warning sign?

The rock ledges make it seem like you could walk right across the river. However, those gaps between the rocks are wider than they appear.

One section of the trail passes under I-95. New lanes are being added to ease the traffic pressure around Fredericksburg. Since today was Saturday, there was no activity at the construction site. However, the roar of the traffic overhead was hard to ignore.

Once we passed I-95 we left the Embrey Dam Trail and picked up the Quarry Trail. The Quarry Trail is a system of mountain bike trails, the easiest of which is the Beach Trail, which runs along the bank of the river. Once we left the quarry, we followed the Beach Trail.

The Taylor Dam was one of the 20 dams along the Rappahannock. We took the stairs down to the canal landing to see what we could see.

There are no shortages of rocks in this area of the river.

We meet a few other hikers as well as mountain bikers on the tail. We stopped and compared notes with another couple on what this structure could possible be. First impression was an outhouse, but closer inspection suggested it was a pumphouse. After further research, we could not confirm the use of this structure. Some mysteries just cannot be solved in the amount of time we have.

As we make our way back to the trailhead, it is always interesting to find things we missed on the way out. How did we not see this giant hole in a tree!?

As we crossed the bridge over the canal, we could see the clouds thickening. Time to head back to camp and prepare for the rain.

It may be a couple days before we can get out and about again. Until then, stay thirsty my friends.