The Schuylkill Canal, or Schuylkill Navigation, was a system of interconnected

canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface ...

s and slack-water pools along the

Schuylkill River The Schuylkill River ( , ) is a river in eastern Pennsylvania. It flows for U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map(). accessed April 1, 2011. from Pottsville, Pennsylvania, Pottsville ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

, built as a commercial waterway in the early 19th-century. Chartered in 1815, the navigation opened in 1825, to provide transportation and water power. At the time, the Schuylkill River was the least expensive and most efficient method of transporting bulk cargo, and cities on the

U.S. East Coast The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, the Atlantic Coast, and the Atlantic Seaboard, is the region encompassing the coastline where the Eastern United States meets the Atlantic Ocean; it has always played a m ...

were experiencing an energy crisis. It fostered the mining of

anthracite Anthracite, also known as hard coal and black coal, is a hard, compact variety of coal that has a lustre (mineralogy)#Submetallic lustre, submetallic lustre. It has the highest carbon content, the fewest impurities, and the highest energy densit ...

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

as the major source of industry between Pottsville and eastern markets. Along the tow-paths, mules pulled barges of coal from Port Carbon through the water gaps to Pottsville; locally to the port and markets of

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

; and some then by ship or through additional

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

waterways, to

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

markets. The Schuylkill Canal was in operation until 1931History of the Schuylkill Navigation System
, Reading Area Community College. and was almost completely filled in the 1950s. Some remaining watered reaches are now used for recreation.

History

Schuylkill_Canal_aka_Schuylkill_Navigation

The Schuylkill Navigation Company was incorporated in 1815. An application for a charter to improve the Lehigh also was filed that year. These represented the growing impetus in the United States to develop a

water transportation Water transportation is the international movement of water over large distances. Methods of transportation fall into three categories: * Aqueducts, which include pipelines, canals, tunnels and bridges A bridge is a structure built to span ...

network similar to that emerging in

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...

. The lower

Lehigh Canal The Lehigh Canal is a navigable canal that begins at the mouth of Nesquehoning Creek on the Lehigh River in the Lehigh Valley and Northeastern regions of Pennsylvania. It was built in two sections over a span of 20 years beginning in 1818. Th ...

project made its first test shipments of coal in 1819, proving the Lehigh's locks concept. Its delivery in 1820 of over 365 tons of Anthracite to Philadelphia resulted in a temporary market glut. These and regularly increasing tonnages shipped down to Philadelphia's docks over the next 2–3 years attracted investors and speculators from all along the Eastern Seaboard to capitalize and fund similar companies. This began a deluge of private canal and canal resumption projects in the 1820s. The

Delaware and Hudson Canal The Delaware and Hudson Canal was the first venture of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, which would later build the Delaware and Hudson Railway. Between 1828 and 1899, the canal's barges carried anthracite coal from the mines of northeast ...

companies, the Delaware and Raritan Canal, the

Morris Canal The Morris Canal (1829–1924) was a toll road, common carrier Anthracite, anthracite coal canal across North Jersey, northern New Jersey that connected the two industrial canals in Easton, Pennsylvania across the Delaware River from its weste ...

, the

Chesapeake & Delaware Canal The Chesapeake & Delaware Canal (C&D Canal) is a -long, -wide and -deep ship canal that connects the Delaware River with the Chesapeake Bay in the states of Delaware and Maryland in the United States. In the mid-17th century, mapmaker Augus ...

and various others followed, triggering the

North American North America is a continent in the Northern and Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea, and to the sou ...

Canal Age and helping fuel the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a transitional period of the global economy toward more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes, succee ...

in America.

Founding

As related in ''The Delaware and Lehigh Canals'' history, two of the principle investors in the Schuylkill Navigation Company were partner industrialists and mill owners

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

and

Hazard A hazard is a potential source of harm. Substances, events, or circumstances can constitute hazards when their nature would potentially allow them to cause damage to health, life, property, or any other interest of value. The probability of that ...

, who were anxious to secure a reliable source of fuel for their mills. Early on in the board meetings of the new corporation they'd quarreled with others over the funding, timings, and tasks necessary and when they could not prevail to speed the project, immediately explored the option of making a navigation on the

Lehigh River The Lehigh River () is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 1, 2011 tributary of the Delaware River in eastern Pennsylvania. The river flows in a generally southward ...

and acquiring the mining rights of the failing Lehigh Coal Mine Company and other investors to fund the projects. The Lehigh and Schuylkill canals had similar problems, both had to make navigable a series of rapids with rivers providing less water than was optimal—and ironically, by the 1820s, both eventually shipped coal from the opposite ends of the Little Schuylkill River's tributary, and the coal deposits once owned by Lehigh Coal Mine Company (the LCMC), in the Panther Creek Valley. When the engineering challenges and finances allowed, the Schuylkill Canal began operations in 1825. The initial configuration completed in 1827, was waterway of was linking

to Port Carbon in the Southern Anthracite Coal Fields near Pottsville. Combining of separate canals, often referred to as "reaches", with of slack water pools (so called ''"levels"''), the Schuylkill Navigation used 92 lift locks to overcome the difference of in elevation between its terminal points. This was similar in degree to the gradients of the

but twice the height drop in twice the distance, both much steeper than the

Erie Canal The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east–west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigability, navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, ...

s leisurely descents. In point of fact, canals in the United States rarely kept their original configurations and improvements continued over their life; if for no other reason, periodically ice damage and

freshet The term ''freshet'' is most commonly used to describe a snowmelt, an annual high water event on rivers resulting from snow and river ice melting. Description A spring freshet can sometimes last several weeks on large river systems, resulting ...

s occur pointing out shortcomings, leading to improvements. By the early 1820s, the coal coming down the Lehigh and Schuylkill canals having alleviated the high costs of heating, overcoming in just a few years the long suffered shortages of fuels in Eastern cities and towns The Auburn Tunnel, a 450-foot (137 m) bore through a hill near Auburn, was completed in 1821, but by 1857, due to increased traffic, canal capacity (widening) modifications turned it into an

open-cut In civil engineering, a cut or cutting is where soil or rock from a relative rise is removed. Cuts are typically used in road, rail, and canal construction to reduce a route's length and grade. Cut and fill construction uses the spoils from cu ...

. Like the later Delaware Canal was to the Lehigh, the Union Canal, built between 1821 and 1828, was purpose designed to connect the

Susquehanna River The Susquehanna River ( ; Unami language, Lenape: ) is a major river located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, crossing three lower Northeastern United States, Northeast states (New York, Pennsylvani ...

with the Schuylkill Canal at

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of symbols, often specifically those of a written language, by means of Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifacete ...

. When completed, the two canals combined to make a water link between Philadelphia and the slack water level of the Susquehanna River at Middletown. This route along the Schuylkill Valley was envisioned primarily as a coal road, whilst the Union Canal was engineered for cross-state passenger and cargoes; but it also competed with and then became secondary to the east–west divisions of the Pennsylvania Canal System on the Main Line of Public Works between Philadelphia, Harrisburg, and Pittsburgh. The Schuylkill Canal also featured the first transportation tunnel in

America The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

By transporting bulk cargoes and provide water power, the Schuylkill Navigation transformed the towns of

, Norristown, and Pottsville into early manufacturing centers. By using the

Delaware River The Delaware River is a major river in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States and is the longest free-flowing (undammed) river in the Eastern United States. From the meeting of its branches in Hancock, New York, the river flows for a ...

and the Delaware and Raritan and

s, manufactured products and

from the Schuylkill Valley could also reach

New York Harbor New York Harbor is a bay that covers all of the Upper Bay. It is at the mouth of the Hudson River near the East River tidal estuary on the East Coast of the United States. New York Harbor is generally synonymous with Upper New York Bay, ...

. The Schuylkill Navigation system quickly assumed a

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek and ) is a market in which one person or company is the only supplier of a particular good or service. A monopoly is characterized by a lack of economic Competition (economics), competition to produce ...

position in the transportation of anthracite coal from the coal mines of Schuylkill County to

, and by 1841, was annually transporting over 737,517 tons of cargo.

Competition with the railroad

In 1841, the

Philadelphia and Reading Railroad The Reading Company ( ) was a Philadelphia-headquartered railroad that provided passenger and freight transport in eastern Pennsylvania and neighboring states from 1924 until its acquisition by Conrail in 1976. Commonly called the Reading Railro ...

opened, and within four years, was hauling three times as much anthracite to Philadelphia each year as the Schuylkill Navigation. In response, the Schuylkill Navigation Company enlarged its canals; by 1847, they could accommodate the passage of boats carrying 230 tons of

. These barges were better than twice the size that could be used on the rival Lehigh and Delaware Canals with the latter's limited lock lengths; an artifact of having a state run a practical construction project without businessmen’s balancing viewpoints. In 1850, a price-fixing arrangement with the railroad stabilized prices for the transportation of anthracite. This decade was the Schuylkill Navigation's most prosperous period; in 1859, its peak year, it transported 1,700,000 tons of cargo. However, in that same year the

carried over 2,500,000 tons, an amount comparable to the Lehigh Canal's 1855 peak of 2,300,000 tons of coal. Schuylkill Navigation Company 1870

During the 1860s the railroads had become the king of transportation with their improved power and speed of travel, so like most North American canals, the Schuylkill Canal began to decline in use for general freight and the wealthier westward bound passengers had long since used the

Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad (P&CR) (1834) was one of the earliest commercial railroads in the United States, running from Philadelphia to Columbia, Pennsylvania, Columbia, Pennsylvania, it was built by the Pennsylvania Canal Commission in l ...

to reach the Pennsylvania Canal System to cross the Alleghenies. In 1857, the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad ( reporting mark PRR), legal name as the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, also known as the "Pennsy," was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At its ...

had connected

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

and

, would eventually add

and

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

, and was instrumental in the declining fortunes of Pennsylvania's far flung network of canals. Railroads could reach mine heads and coal breakers where no stream existed to support the costly digging of a new ditch. Coal shifted away from canals to the more flexible means of bulk goods transportation. Where the established canals supplied, their markets mostly remained relatively stable and they generally remained competitive with only a gradual erosion of market share as decades passed. Eventually, oil heat and their perennial problems of delivering in winter's cold diminished their role. The self-examination during the early years of the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

would end up closing most, as it did the Schuylkill Navigation Company.

Decline

In 1869 the Schuylkill Navigation was damaged by a flood, hindering operations for some time whilst repairs could be made. In 1870, its board of directors forced by stockholders, the Schuylkill Navigation Company leased its waterway to the

for 999 years, surrendering to the competition. Under the railroad's control, the Schuylkill Navigation continued to decline as a general freight carrier, but operated primarily as a coal road, like the Lehigh and Delaware Canals into the 1930s, since for

heating In thermodynamics, heat is energy in transfer between a thermodynamic system and its surroundings by such mechanisms as thermal conduction, electromagnetic radiation, and friction, which are microscopic in nature, involving sub-atomic, atom ...

and especially,

steam power A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be transf ...

, nearly everyone needed anthracite. The traffic on the canal was expedited by corporate maneuvers when its

and New Jersey markets connecting Delaware and Raritan Canal was acquired in 1872 by the competing

—in a blatant act supporting a bid for

, soon Schuylkill boats were denied access to this important

waterway. As a result, traffic on the Schuylkill decreased rapidly. Adding insult to injury, the PRR itself invaded the Schuylkill's territory with the construction of its Schuylkill Branch in the mid-1880s. By 1890 only 144,994 tons of cargo passed through the Schuylkill Navigation. The Schuylkill Navigation was also hindered by coal silt deposits that made its upper sections almost unusable. By 1891 the portion of Navigation above Port Clinton was abandoned. By 1904 the anthracite traffic had almost completely ceased, and after 1913 only an occasional cargo passed between Port Clinton and Philadelphia. Excursion vessels and pleasure boating remained active on the Schuylkill Navigation until most of the canals were filled by the

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Maryland to its south, West ...

during 1947–1979 in efforts to remove coal

silt Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension (chemistry), suspension with water. Silt usually ...

from the Schuylkill River.

Chester County Canal

The Chester County Canal, also known as the Phoenixville Branch Canal, was an addition to the Navigation built by the Schuylkill Navigation Company in 1828 to provide water power to a new nail works in Phoenixville. The new canal connected the slackwater pool of the Schuylkill Canal above the Black Rock Dam to Phoenixville. This canal paralleled the top end of the Oakes Reach, on the opposite side or the river. While the Chester County Canal was initially built to provide water power to the mill, in 1847 it carried scheduled passenger service between Phoenixville and Norristown. The spring

of 1869 destroyed the mill "and very much injured the canal and its locks."

Today

While many of the dams still stand, few watered stretches of the canal remain. Some of the original long Oakes Reach between Oaks and Mont Clare and the reach in Manayunk. Ruins and remnants of the canals structure are still visible along its length. Many of the locks chambers still exist but are buried to varying degrees. Some of the locktender's houses still exist. Even if filled in, the canal's presence in many river communities is memorialized by several Canal Streets. Leesport has a restored Locktender's house on E. Wall Street. The adjacent lock had long been filled with a car wash located on the site, but in 2011, the lock car wash was removed, and the lock unearthed. Near

Gibraltar Gibraltar ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory and British overseas cities, city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the A ...

, the Allegheny Creek Aqueduct still exists along with a drained section of the canal prism. The Aqueduct is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Oakes Reach

The head of the Oakes Reach is at the Black Rock Dam (Dam #26), near Mont Clare. The canal passes through the dam structure at Lock #60. The volunteer

Schuylkill Canal Association The Schuylkill Canal Association (SCA) is a non-governmental organization that maintains the Oakes Reach and Lock (water transport), Lock #60 of the Schuylkill Canal as a public recreation area and historical site. Organized in 1982 as the Schuyl ...

has restored Lock 60 to operating condition. The nearby locktender's house has also been restored. The Reach runs under

Pennsylvania Route 29 Pennsylvania Route 29 (PA 29) is a north–south state highway that runs through most of eastern Pennsylvania. The route currently has a southern and northern segment. The southern segment runs from U.S. Route 30 in Pennsylvania, U.S. Rout ...

in Mont Clare, directly across the river from Phoenixville, then through Port Providence. An impounding basin from the silt removal project cuts the canal after Longford Road and the final mile of the Reach, has been filled in. An old stone aqueduct, that carried the Canal over Crossman's Run, and the outlet lock tender's house are still existent; but Lock 61, Brower's Lock, was filled in. This reach is named for Thomas Oakes, chief engineer of the Schuylkill Navigation Company. The Oakes Reach canal, locks, locktenders' houses, Black Rock Dam, and the slackwater pool extending up to the Pennsylvania Route 113 bridge form the "Schuylkill Navigation Canal, Oakes Reach Section"

historic district A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains historic building, older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal p ...

. On December 30, 2017 what is thought to be the non-mechanized, human powered speed record was set on the Oakes Reach by Todd Martin, originally of Mont Clare. The record of 19 minutes 38 seconds, was set on ice skates from the existing waste water control valve structure at the lower end to the Lock 60 Lower Lock Head Wall. The distance traveled for the record is 2.33 miles. 3" of snow was present on the ice, temp 14 F, head wind approximately 10–15 mph. * Lock 60 * Present end of reach * Lock 61 Tender's House

Manayunk Reach

The head of the Manayunk Reach is at the Flat Rock Dam (Dam 31), near Shawmont. The canal originally passed through the dam structure at Lock 68. However Lock 68 is plated off, and the forereach area above has silted in. Schuylkill Navigation Lock 70

This stretch of canal forms the northern side of Venice Island, which is facing development pressures. At the downstream end of this reach, the canal runs through Manayunk and returns to the river via Locks 69 & 70. All three lock structures still exist. * Lock 68 * Locks 69&70

Schuylkill River Trail

The

Schuylkill River Trail The Schuylkill River Trail ( , ) is a multi-use trail along the banks of the Schuylkill River in southeastern Pennsylvania. Partially complete, the trail is ultimately planned to run about from the river's headwaters in Schuylkill County, Penns ...

(SRT) now overlays portions of the canal route. In Manayunk, the Trail was constructed across the canal from the towpath. (The Reading railroad built a freight spur on the canal towpath.) In 2008 the extension of the Schuylkill River Trail from the

Perkiomen Creek Perkiomen Creek is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed April 1, 2011 tributary of the Schuylkill River in Berks, Lehigh, and Montgomery counties in Pennsylvania.Gertler ...

to Longford Road in Oaks opened. This length of the Trail makes use of the general course of the filled portion of the Oakes Reach and originally used the old canal aqueduct to cross Crossman's Run. On 14 February 2008, a meeting was held to announce the survey work for the extension of the Schuylkill River Trail along the towpath of the watered portion of the Oakes Reach. It was expected that the towpath restoration itself would commence around March 2009. Restoration of the canal towpath between Longford Road and Mont Clare is now complete. However, this one-mile-long segment of Schuylkill River Trail is a narrow crushed-stone path, designed for pedestrians and slower bicycles. Cyclists who prefer higher speeds are encouraged to ride on parallel Walnut Street, rather than the Longford Road-to-Mont Clare section of tow-path. File:Fairmount Waterworks 1835 (cropped).jpg, "Schuylkill Waterworks" (1835), with Schuylkill Canal in the foreground. File:Locks, from Robert N. Dennis collection of stereoscopic views.jpg, Locks on Schuylkill Canal. File:View of a bridge, by Cremer, James, 1821-1893.jpg, Bridge over Schuylkill Canal. File:On the Schuylkil (Schuylkill), Pennsylvania, from Robert N. Dennis collection of stereoscopic views.jpg, Mouth of the Schuylkill Canal, below Fairmount Dam, Philadelphia. The Wire Bridge (background) stood at the site of the current Spring Garden Street Bridge.

Notes

References

External links

Schuylkill Navigation
History, description and list of locks, dams, and reaches *
Historical Berks county and the Schuylkill Canal
*Schuylkill Navigation Collection at Reading Area Community College:
Period company documents and maps

Friends of the Manayunk Canal
– Manayunk Reach
Schuylkill Canal Association
– Oak Reach
PA Historical Marker and information
* NRHP Registration Form for Oakes Reach– Us
search form on PA ARCH
site for additional image
Information and pictures of the Schuylkill Canal in Schuylkill Haven, PA
{{National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania Canals on the National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania Canals in Pennsylvania Historic American Engineering Record in Pennsylvania Ruins on the National Register of Historic Places Schuylkill River Transportation buildings and structures in Chester County, Pennsylvania Canals opened in 1827 Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania National Register of Historic Places in Chester County, Pennsylvania 1827 establishments in Pennsylvania Transportation buildings and structures in Berks County, Pennsylvania Transportation buildings and structures in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania Transportation buildings and structures in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania Transportation buildings and structures in Philadelphia