Locks

Locks. Delaware and Hudson Canal. The canal ran downhill from Honesdale to Port Jerivis, then uphill to Summitville, New York, then sloped down until it reached the Hudson River at Rondout Harbor (Kingston), an elevation change of about 972-feet over all. Along the way, 108 locks equalized the water level so that the boats could move smoothly along. These simple but clever devices, which originally required two operators, or tenders, "locked" the boats into a water-filled chamber made of stone, sometimes lined with wood. According to canal folklore, a boat fit into a lock like a hand in a glove. Gates let water in to raise the boat up to level, or released water to lower the boat to level, depending which way it was heading. The average elevation per lock was ten feet, and each lock-through, which took about twenty minutes, used approximately 50,000 to 100,000 gallons of water. Initially the locks measured nine ½ feet wide and seventy five feet long; but in 1852, to accommodate larger boats, they were enlarged to fifteen feet wide and ninety feet long. In an early example of technology displacing people, changes to the locking system in 1865 so improved the process that it made lock-tending a one-man operation, putting the second tender out of work. , Besides operating the lock, tenders were responsible for maintaining the water level below the lock; the water level above the lock was the job of the tender up the line. Most lock tenders lived in little company-owned houses perched right on the canal banks and often also did some farming or ran grocery stores or taverns for boatmen and their families. Locks typically operated from sun-up to sundown. In busy periods locks stayed open until 10 in the evening, all night if a freeze threatened; but were closed, as was the entire canal, on Sundays.