HistoricSiteMarkers
Early Republic

Delaware Canal

Tinicum Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania

Marker Inscription

Uhlertown, known as Mexico at an earlier date, was named for Michael Uhler, boatbuilder and operator of a line of canal boats. Lock No. 18 and well-kept buildings are interesting reminders of canal days.

Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission

The Story

The little canal community once called Mexico took the name Uhlertown from Michael Uhler, a boatbuilder who ran his own line of boats along the Delaware Canal. Lock No. 18 and the tidy buildings clustered around it survive as reminders of the busy waterway era. In the mid-19th century, places like this hummed with the traffic of mule-drawn boats hauling coal and freight.

Why it matters

Uhlertown captures how Pennsylvania's canals spun up whole working communities, powering the industrial rise of the young republic.

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Related people

  • Β· Michael Uhler

Themes & tags

Nearby & related markers

Delaware Canal

Durham Township, PA Β· est. 1949

Here at Lock No. 21, one of twenty-three lift locks numbered from Bristol to Easton, the Delaware Canal carried boats over Cooks Creek by aqueduct. The nine aqueducts along the route floated both water and freight across the streams feeding the Delaware River. In the canal's heyday, mule teams plodded the towpath hauling coal and goods through this quiet stretch of Bucks County.

Delaware Canal

Solebury Township, PA Β· est. 1949

Lock No. 12 marks one of the twenty-three lift locks that carried boats along the Delaware Canal between Bristol and Easton. Just upstream, one of the canal's nine aqueducts lifted the waterway and its traffic across a small stream draining toward the Delaware. In the mid-1800s, mule-drawn boats laden with coal passed through here in steady procession.

Pennsylvania Canal

Solebury Township, PA Β· est. 1949

Pennsylvania's ambitious public works program aimed to link Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Lake Erie by water. The Delaware Division, running Bristol to Easton, was begun in 1827 and carried anthracite and goods along the river. Operated by the state from 1831 to 1858 and by private owners until 1931, the corridor became a state park in 1940.

Pennsylvania Canal

Williams Township, PA Β· est. 1949

The Pennsylvania Canal was an ambitious system of state-built public works meant to bind Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Lake Erie together with water. Its Delaware Division, running from Bristol to Easton, was begun in 1827 and operated by the state from 1831 to 1858 before passing to private owners who ran it until 1931. In 1940 the corridor was preserved as a state park, saving a rare working relic of the internal-improvements era.