History of the Canal

History of the Canal. Delaware and Hudson Canal. In 1816 two Philadelphia dry-goods merchants, William and Maurice Wurts, purchased some anthracite coal fields in the Lackawanna Valley of Pennsylvania and began a small-scale mining operation. Their timing was impeccable , the War of 18 12 had put an end to coal shipments from Britain and new sources were urgently needed. But getting their freshly mined coal to lucrative east coast markets posed a challenge. Ruling out a route to Philadelphia, which was supplied by other coal fields, the brothers also rejected horse-and-wagon transportation as too time-consuming and costly. , With the help of renowned engineers Benjamin Wright and John Jervis and financial backing from Phillip Hone and others, the enterprising Wurtses created The Delaware and Hudson Canal and Gravity Railroad Company, which eventually carried coal by train from Carbondale to Honesdale in Pennsylvania, then by water through the Lackawaxen, Delaware, Neversink, and Rondout river valleys to the Hudson River, where it traveled down river to New York. Built in three years with pick-and-shovel labor and primitive blasting techniques by 2,500 people, mainly locals, recent immigrants, and contractors from the Erie Canal, the canal represents a monumental engineering achievement. , Canal construction was dangerous. Blasting was done with a paper wick saturated with salt peter and gun powder, lit, and stuck into a hole in the rock. The workers then got quickly out of the way and waited for the blast. The danger came when they went back to see why the wick hadn't lit and got caught in the delayed blast. Many workers lost their lives that way. , Although beset by financial woes, market fluctuations, floods, even an outbreak of cholera in its early years, by 1846 the hugely successful Delaware and Hudson Canal was the nation's largest private corporation, moving more than a million tons of coal a year. It was also this country's first vertically integrated corporation , it controlled both its product and the means of distribution for that product. At its peak, after several enlargements of width and depth, it moved more than a thousand boats each season, each carrying 140 tons of coal. , Gradually put out of business by the more economical and efficient railroad, the canal shut down operations in November of 1898, leaving a legacy as one of the greatest transportation systems in the country and an important contributor to the development of industry in 19th-Century America.