The two-family Plane Tender’s House was built around 1850 for the plane tender and his family as well as another canal employee.

The Plane Tender’s House, which now houses the Jim and Mary Lee Museum, was built around 1850 when Plane 9 West was upgraded from using an overshot waterwheel to a scotch reaction turbine. When this change was made the plane was drastically reconfigured and the operating controls were moved from the top of the plane to the powerhouse, located a little more than halfway down the plane. A new, two-family house was built closer to this powerhouse. This is what we call the plane tender’s house today. It would have housed the plane tender and his family and possibly the brakeman or some other canal company employee. There were also two small buildings, probably a small office and an outhouse, situated in front of the plane tender’s house. The house is a two-story frame building built to house two families. For each family there was one room downstairs heated by a stove, and two rooms upstairs accessed by a winding staircase in the front corners of the building. The cellar under each half of the house was accessed by a stairway under the winding stair. The house looks a lot different today with a large, partially enclosed porch, and a museum room added to each end.