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
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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.
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Pennsylvania Canal
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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
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