The Delaware & Hudson Canal

The Delaware and Hudson Canal. . , In 1824 two Philadelphia merchants, Maurice and Wilbur Wurts, proposed a canal to transport coal from mines in northwest Pennsylvania to New York City via the Hudson River. The canal opened in 1828 at a cost of over one million dollars and was 108 miles long with 108 locks. It was 4 feet deep and 28 feet wide at the water line and could carry boats of 20 ton capacity. The first locks and the double-arch aqueduct were 9½ feet wide and made of stone; the rest of the canal was a clay-lined ditch, which was enlarged in 1847 to a depth of 52 feet and in 1848 to 6 feet., The last improvement required widening the locks to 15 feet to accommodate the larger boats and replacing the stone aqueduct with the cable suspension aqueduct designed by John A. Roebling. This 1849 expansion also necessitated extensive changes in the routing of the canal., The canal was a profitable venture for many years, but the increasing development of the railroads caused the D and H Canal Company to cease its operation in 1899. It was sold to Mr. S. D. Coykendall for $10,000 and continued to operate for five years carrying cement and bluestone to Kingston.