afterwards, but it is worthy of mention as one of the first canal enterprises that was undertaken in Pennsylvania.

The first State to undertake any comprehensive canal project was undoubtedly Pennsylvania. Before the Massachusetts and New York enterprises were undertaken the Legislature of Pennsylvania chartered the Schuylkill and Susquehanna Navigation Company to connect the waters of the Schuylkill and Susquehanna rivers by canal and slackwater navigation, the exact date of the act being September 29, 1791. On April 10, 1792, the Legislature also incorporated the Delaware and Schuylkill Navigation Company to build a canal from Norristown to Philadelphia. It was proposed to have the first named company build a canal from Middletown, at the mouth of the Swatara river, where it empties into the Susquehanna river, to Reading, in Berks county, and thence by canal and slack water to Norristown, where it would unite with the canal of the second named company, thus giving continuous water communication between Philadelphia and the interior of the State. Robert Morris was the president of both these companies. Gordon, in his Gazetteer, published in 1832, gives the further history of these enterprises as follows: "About fifteen miles of the most difficult parts of the two works, comprising much rock excavation, heavy embankments, extensive deep cuttings, and several locks of bricks, were nearly completed when, after an expenditure of $440,000, the works were suspended by reason of the pecuniary embarrassments of the stockholders of the companies. The suspension of these works, and subsequently of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, discouraged every similar work which was projected for many years afterwards." Gordon continues: "In the year 1811 the two companies, composed chiefly of the same stockholders, were united under the title of the Union Canal Company. A large part of new stock was indispensable to the success of the company, which they were authorized to create by act of 29th March, 1819, and for payment of interest thereon the avails of a lottery granted by the last preceding act were pledged. By act of 26th March, 1821, the Commonwealth guaranteed the interest and also

granted to the company a monopoly of lotteries. Thus sustained the managers resumed their operations in 1821. The line of the canal was relocated, the dimensions changed, and it was rendered navigable in 1827."

As completed the Union Canal extended only from Middletown, on the Susquehanna, to a point on the Schuylkill a short distance below Reading, a distance of nearly 90 miles, including about ten miles of branches.

At Reading the Union Canal connected with the works of the Schuylkill Navigation Company, which was chartered on March 8, 1815, to build a canal from Philadelphia to Pottsville, in Schuylkill county, utilizing wherever possible slackwater navigation on the Schuylkill river. This canal, which is still in use from Philadelphia to Port Clinton, in Schuylkill county, about fifteen miles below Pottsville, was completed and opened for business between Philadelphia and Mount Carbon, a suburb of Pottsville, in 1825. In 1828 the canal was extended from Pottsville to Port Carbon, a distance of about two miles. As finally completed there were 58 miles of canal and 50 miles of slackwater, making a total length of 108 miles. This enterprise was undertaken because of the failure of previous attempts to improve the navigation of the Schuylkill river, as described above. The whole line of the canal was leased to the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company in 1870. Since that year its coal and other trade has been almost entirely transferred to this company. In 1826 and 1827 the packet boat Planet made regular trips between Philadelphia and Reading, the fare being $2.50.

During the first two decades of the nineteenth century many canal enterprises were undertaken in many States, including others in Pennsylvania additional to those above mentioned. The most important of these enterprises was the celebrated Erie Canal in New York, to connect Lake Erie with the Atlantic Ocean by way of Albany and the Hudson river, the canal terminating at Albany. The first ground was broken for this work at Rome, on July 4, 1817, and the canal was formally opened from Buffalo to Albany, a distance of 352 miles, on November 4, 1825. The inception and subsequent completion of this really

great work gave a great impetus to canal building in other States, especially in Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.

In addition to the reasons which called for the establishment of closer commercial connections between the different parts of Pennsylvania its citizens could not afford to yield to New York the trade of the Great West through its Erie Canal without making an effort to secure a part of this trade. Leading citizens had long urged the necessity of more convenient means of communication between the Delaware and the western parts of the State than were afforded by roads and turnpikes. The project of uniting the Delaware with Lake Erie by a system of canals and river navigation was considered by the General Assembly as early as 1769, and was embodied in 1811 in the charter of the Union Canal Company already mentioned. Other early projects contemplated the opening of communication by water as far as possible between the Delaware and the Ohio at Pittsburgh. But none of these schemes assumed tangible form until about the time of the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825. Even if practicable in all cases they could not have been realized by individual effort; the State would have had to undertake them.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE BUILDING OF THE PENNSYLVANIA CANAL.

ON February 10, 1824, a committee of the Pennsylvania Legislature, to which had been referred the subject of improving the transportation facilities between the eastern and western parts of the State, recommended that a survey be made of a route "along the valleys of the Susquehanna, Juniata, Conemaugh, Kiskiminitas, and Allegheny rivers, with a view to a continuous canal from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh." On March 27, 1824, an act was passed authorizing three commissioners to "explore a route for a canal from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh by the waters of the Juniata and Conemaugh rivers, and by the west branch of the Susquehanna and Sinnemahoning with the waters of the Allegheny, and also a route from a point on the Schuylkill river in the county of Schuylkill, thence by Mahanoy creek, the river Susquehanna, the Moshannon or Clearfield. and Blacklick creeks, the Conemaugh, the Kiskiminitas, and Allegheny rivers to Pittsburgh." These commissioners recommended the adoption of a canal route from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh by way of the Susquehanna, Juniata, and Conemaugh rivers, with a tunnel through the Allegheny mountains to be four miles long. On April 11, 1825, another act was passed providing for the appointment of five commissioners, who were authorized to explore and report upon two proposed routes of canal communication between the eastern and western parts of the State, and upon three less comprehensive and really local routes.

Only the first two of these routes need be described. One of these was "from Philadelphia through Chester and Lancaster counties, and thence by the west branch of the Susquehanna and the waters thereof to the Allegheny and Pittsburgh, also from the Allegheny to Lake Erie," and the other route was "from Philadelphia by the Juniata to Pittsburgh and thence to Lake Erie." On February 25, 1826, an act was passed providing for the com

mencement of a canal "from the river Swatara, at or near Middletown," by the Juniata route, and from Pittsburgh eastward to the mouth of the Kiskiminitas, the work to be styled the Pennsylvania Canal. Three hundred thousand dollars were appropriated for the beginning of the work. On July 4, 1826, the first ground was broken for the canal near Harrisburg. The canal commissioners, now increased to nine in number, had decided that work on the canal westward should begin at Middletown, at the mouth of the Swatara river, to which point, as previously explained, canal and slackwater communication eastward to Philadelphia had been made or was about to be made by way of the Union Canal and the Schuylkill river. As finally determined by the act of March 4, 1828, the canal was to be continued eastward to Columbia, on the Susquehanna. It was also determined by the same act that connection from Columbia with Philadelphia should be made by railroad and not by canal, and also that a railroad was necessary from Hollidaysburg to Johnstown instead of a tunnel. Thus originated the most important public improvement ever undertaken by Pennsylvania—a more expensive enterprise than the Erie Canal and relatively more difficult than the Panama Canal of our day.

The Pennsylvania Canal, as its courses and distances. were finally decided upon and established by the joint action of the Legislature, the canal commissioners, and the engineers, embraced a main line of combined canal and railroad from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, with numerous canal branches, all the branches from the main line running northward, and also embracing other canals which did not directly connect with the main line. Beginning at Philadelphia the various divisions of the main line may be briefly summarized as follows: The Columbia Railroad, 81 miles long, connecting Philadelphia with Columbia, having two inclined planes, one at Philadelphia and one at Columbia; the eastern division of the canal, 47 miles long, extending from Columbia along the Susquehanna river to Duncan's Island, at the mouth of the Juniata; the Juniata division, 132 miles long, extending from Duncan's Island to Hollidaysburg; the Allegheny Portage Railroad, 36.44