Cemented in the Past

Cemented in the Past. . "The mill was shut down before 1909, but the millstones and some of the machinery was still there. We used to play around the mill and run the truck back and forth across the bridge on the steel rails."

George Fox, , C.P. Yoder's Delaware Canal Journal, 1972

Looking down from Nockamixon Cliffs at the "Narrows,” a narrow stretch of land between the Delaware River and the Cliffs.

A loaded boat approaching Lock 20 and Nockamixon Cliffs from the north.

Before canal days, Samuel Rufe's gristmill ground local farmers' grain. Then opportunity knocked at his door along the narrow river- bank. Contractors building the canal's locks and aqueducts needed hydraulic cement- a new product that hardened under water. From 1829 to 1833, Rufe's millstones ground lime into hydraulic cement. Lime arrived on boats from limestone quarries located a few miles upstream on the river's New Jersey side. The Narrowsville mill manufactured most of the cement used for masonry on the Delaware Canal, then resumed operation as a gristmill until the early 20th century.

The canal also brought Lock 20 to Narrowsville and with that, more people and houses to form a village that has come and gone. About one mile below the lock, the popular Narrows Hotel hosted boatmen, serving five-cent tin pails of beer, known as blickys. Canal boats docked in the basin south of the hotel while nearby stables, barn and blacksmith shop tended weary mules.