From the archives (ed. note: I did add the boldness to resolution 2):

FIRST ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE
PRESIDENT TO THE STOCKHOLDERS
OF THE
JAMES RIVER AND KANAWHA COMPANY,
TOGETHER WITH THE
PROCEEDINGS OF THE STOCKHOLDERS
At their first Annual Meeting in December 1835.
TO WHICH IS PREFIXED,
AN INTRODUCTION,
CONTAINING THE
PROCEEDINGS OF THE STOCKHOLDERS
At their first General Meeting, commencing on Monday the
25th of May, 1835.

page vii

TUESDAY, May 26th, 1835.
The stockholders met pursuant to adjournment.
Present as on yesterday, and stockholders and proxies representing
704 additional shares of stock.
Mr. Johnson, from the committee appointed on yesterday,
reported in part the following resolutions :
1. Resolved, That of the three plans of improvement specified
in the 22d section of the act, entitled, “an act incorporating
the stockholders of the James river and Kanawha com.
pany,” and by one or the other of which, to be selected at its
discretion, the company is charged with the duty of connecting
the tide water of James river with the navigable waters of
the Ohio, the stockholders deem it expedient and proper to
prefer, and do hereby elect, the first in the order of specification
set forth in said section; that is to say, “by a continuation
of the lower James river· canal to some suitable point on
the river not lower than Lynchburg, a continued rail-road
from the western termination of that canal to some convenient
point on the Great Kanawha river, below the great falls
thereof, and an improvement of the Kanawha river from
thence to the Ohio, so as to make it suitable for steam-boat
navigation.”
2. Resolved, That, with the exceptions herein after speci-
fied, the canal shall have a breadth at the bottom of not less
than 35 feet, and at the surface of not less than 50 feet, and
a depth of water of not less than 5 feet, with a suitable towpath
and guard-bank.
3. Resolved, That the breadth of the canal may, within
the minimum limit prescribed by the charter, be modified,
where local circumstances require it; and more especially in
the cases of deep cutting, steep side cutting, embanking, and
also where it is supported by walls; but a depth of 5 feet shall
be preserved throughout the line.

Venture Richmond Director Jack Berry gave a presentation on the proposed amphitheater at the July meeting of the Oregon Hill Neighborhood Association. One the main assertions Berry made was that the tow path on the south bank of the canal was only 12 feet wide until it was enlarged in the 1880s to make way for the railroad. He wants to remove over half of the tow path on the south bank of the canal, from 25 to 12 feet to improve the sight lines of the the proposed amphitheater.

Disproving Berry’s assertion is the 1848 plat of Lewis Harvie’s property on file at the Henrico Courthouse (Plat 3-417), which is far more detailed than the Morgan map cited by Berry. This plat is of such detail that it actually gives the dimension of the tow path as being 30 ft. wide at the location of what is now Venture Richmond’s proposed amphitheater. (See measurement on the attached Henrico Plat below the word “Path” to the left of the “House.”) The east-west street above the canal is the same width as the tow path and is also labeled “30 feet wide.”

This 1848 Henrico plat establishes that the towpath was at least as wide as it is today during the canal’s primary period of significance, and long before the railroad purchased the right-of-way on the canal bank. This canal was carefully engineered with an impermeable “puddled” clay layer that would be irreparably damaged if half of the south canal bank is removed.