Page:Some History about the Village of Berlin.pdf/170

The Village of Berlin was not a milling town before 1870.

It was unlawful for a mill that ground grain to use canal water before 1874. The law that was passed in 1832 not only stopped the canal from selling water power to a mill that ground grain but also that said that whether grain was ground into flour or shipped whole the cost to ship it on the canal was the same. This did not apply to the railroad. Shipping a barrel of milled flour or whole corn on the C & 0 Canal cost the same amount of money. It took 300 pounds of corn to make a barrel of flour. So, each barrel shipped cost the same as if the barrel weighed 300 hundred pounds. Is it any wonder that the road of rails and not the canal shipped the flour to Baltimore and not to Georgetown. It was the courage and tenacity of people like C. F. Wenner that this Law was repealed and Berlin became a Milling Town. C. F. Wenner's first bill for water rent came from the C & 0 in 1870. This man not only convinced a major company to break the law after 40 years but to help him get the law repealed. This was not the first or last time people like C.F. Wenner overcame unjust laws but it shows that from the early times there have been and still are those in Berlin /Brunswick who care and love their community. A law passed by Maryland in 1832 called, Chapter 291 "An act to provide for the continuation of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road to Harper's Ferry, and for other purposes." contained this sentence: The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company shall not at any time or any place sell or dispose of surplus water to the manufacture of any species or description of grain: and provided also, the tolls charged on the canal for transportation of flour, meal, or other manufactured grain, shall be the same, weight for weight, with the tolls charged for the transportation of the unmanufactured grain. On April the 11th , 1874 the repeal was granted. Therefore be it enacted by the General

Assembly of Maryland, That so much of the second proviso of the second section of the act passed March 22, 1832 as prohibits the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company from selling or disposing on any of the surplus water of said canal, to be applied any where within this State to the manufacture of any species or description grain, be and the same is here repealed, and full power and authority is hereby given to the said company to sell, lease or otherwise dispose of the surplus water."