Canal Boats

You are looking at the bow and stern sections of a replica canal "cargo" boat that was salvaged from the National Canal Museum, Easton by Muncy Historical Society volunteers in January 2012. Brought to Muncy in many pieces, the sections were reconstructed on this site in 2014.

Canal boats were similar in overall size, although they varied in the techniques used to construct them. The variations in framing techniques depended on different craftsman [sic - craftsmen] and/or construction practices in use at the various boatyards along the canals.

Generally, a typical cargo boat was about 100 feet long and about 14½ feet wide, only a few inches narrower than the locks, with six feet between the flat hull and the deck. While on the deck, you walked along the side of the boat on the race plank. The stable for the mules would have been in the front end, or bow and mostly underneath the deck. There was a little plank for the mules to walk into the stable. Hatches, which covered the hay house and the cargo, extended the entire length of the boat. At the stern or "aft" or "after" end of the boat, you entered the cabin from the race plank, again, stepping down into the living quarters. The bow lantern, or night hawker, was mounted on the head. Joseph Shaw, Samuel Shopbell, Lewis Smith, William Corson, Phillip Shay, Samuel Menges, and George McCarty captained some of the canal boats that passed by this spot. Fleming Walton, John Waldron, Augustus Wilson, Daniel Feister, John Fowler and John Lebo made their living as "boatmen" in the 1850-60s. Cargo boat were identified by numbers or names. Some of [the] names of Muncy-owned boats were the Captain Shopbell, the Col. Jacob Bieber, the Captain Philip Shay, the American Eagle, and Stars and Stripes.