Delaware & Hudson Canal
Honesdale, Wayne County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Terminus of the waterway uniting the Hudson and Delaware rivers. Built in 1825-28. A gravity railroad feeder reached to Carbondale. For 70 years the anthracite trade outlet for the region.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Built between 1825 and 1828, the Delaware & Hudson Canal linked the Hudson and Delaware rivers to move northeastern Pennsylvania's anthracite coal to market. Honesdale served as its western terminus, fed by a gravity railroad reaching back to the mines at Carbondale. For some seventy years the canal was the region's lifeline, floating hard coal toward the cities that its clean heat helped to power.
Why it matters
The D&H Canal was part of the transportation revolution that carried Pennsylvania anthracite to a hungry nation, fueling the rise of American industry.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Stourbridge Lion
Honesdale, PA · est. 1947
Honesdale honors its place in railroad history with a replica of the Stourbridge Lion, the English-built engine that in 1829 became the first locomotive to run on rails in the United States. Displayed beside it is the Eclipse, an original passenger coach from the Delaware & Hudson's gravity railroad. Together they recall the town's role at the very dawn of American railroading.
Stourbridge Lion
Honesdale, PA · est. 1947
On August 8, 1829, at Honesdale, the Stourbridge Lion made the first run of a steam locomotive on rails in the United States. English-built for the level stretches of the Delaware & Hudson's gravity railroad, the engine was piloted by Horatio Allen, who took it out despite doubts that the wooden trestlework could bear its weight. The trial proved that steam power could move on iron rails on American soil — a glimpse of the railroad age to come.
Honesdale
Honesdale, PA · est. 1948
Laid out in 1827 at the head of the Delaware & Hudson Canal, Honesdale took its name from Philip Hone, the New York merchant and celebrated diarist who championed the canal and the region's anthracite coal trade. The town became the point where hard coal met the waterway that carried it toward eastern markets, and it grew important enough to become the Wayne County seat by 1841. Its founding tied a remote Pennsylvania valley into the great commercial machinery of the young republic.
Gravity Railroad
Carbondale, PA · est. 1999
Built in 1828–29, this gravity railroad was among the first in the Western Hemisphere, engineered to haul anthracite coal to the Delaware & Hudson Canal for shipment to market. Its line ran from Honesdale and was extended over the years toward Archbald and beyond to Valley Junction near Olyphant. Later carrying passengers as well as coal, it operated until the very start of 1899.