Pennsylvania Canal
Williams Township, Northampton County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
A system of State-built public works to connect Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Lake Erie. The Delaware Division, Bristol-Easton, begun 1827; operated by the State 1831-58, and by private owners to 1931. A State Park since 1940.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
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.
Why it matters
The state canal system was Pennsylvania's answer to New York's Erie Canal—a public gamble to knit a mountainous state together before the railroad age.
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Nearby & related markers
Delaware Canal
Williams Township, PA · est. 1949
Just below the highway runs the channel of the Delaware Canal, the towpath waterway that once carried anthracite coal and freight along the Delaware River. Here stand Locks No. 22 and 23, the final lift locks in the 60-mile run from Bristol up to the Lehigh River at Easton. In the canal era, such locks stepped boats up and down the changing elevations, letting mule-drawn barges move heavy cargo before the railroads took over.
Delaware Canal
Durham Township, PA · 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.
The Lehigh Canal
Glendon, PA · est. 1995
Dug between 1827 and 1829, the Lehigh Canal ran 47 miles from Mauch Chunk to Easton, where it met the Delaware Canal to Philadelphia and the Morris Canal to New York. It was a vital artery for hauling anthracite coal out of Pennsylvania's hard-coal region, fueling the rise of the anthracite iron industry that powered the young nation's growth. The canal ran in full operation until 1932, and this restored section reopened in 1976.
Delaware Canal
Tinicum Township, PA · est. 1949
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.