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Before the construction of the Warren County Canal, the
waters of Shaker Creek, flowing westward, united from the waters of Miller’s
Run, which came in from the south. The two streams meeting on level ground,
on the watershed between the two Miami Rivers, spread over a large tract
of several hundred acres, which was known as Shaker Swamp. Through this
swamp, which was covered with woods and decaying logs and branches of
fallen trees, the water had no distinct channel, but tended toward the
northwest and entered a branch of Dick’s Creek, through which they
flowed to the Great Miami. About 1825, the Shaker Society cut an artificial
channel for Shaker Creek for the purpose of shortening the creek through
the lands of the society, and about 1835, the Warren County Canal was
constructed along the eastern borders of the swamp. At one time, it was
proposed to convert the swamp into a reservoir for the purpose of feeding
the canal, but this was never done. The waters of Shaker Creek were intercepted
by the canal, into which it flowed from the east. On the west embankment
of the canal, at the point of confluence, a waste-weir was constructed
for the passage of the surplus water. The waste-weir was found not to
answer the purpose intended, in times of freshet, for the want of sufficient
fall, and eighteen months afterward, it was removed to a point a mile
and a quarter farther north, whence the surplus water flowed into Dick’s
Creek. Thenceforward, so long as the canal was kept in operation, the
waters of Shaker Creek flowed into and were mingled with the waters of
the canal. About 1848, a breach was made in the west bank of the canal,
not far from the waste-weir, which was never repaired, and about the same
time the canal was abandoned by the State as one of its public works.
After the abandonment of the canal, the waters of Shaker Creek flowed
along the line of the canal and were discharged through the breach, and
overflowed, in times of freshets, one or two hundred acres of land, which
had not been overflown before the construction of the canal. Litigation
thus arose, which was settled in the Supreme Court of the State. The Supreme
Court held that the owners of land along the line of the canal had not
the right to keep up its embankment for the purpose of diverting the waters
of Shaker Creek from their natural course, after the canal had been abandoned
by the State. In later years, the bed of the canal
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