Chair, the program committee. Dave and i thank you all for coming this evening to our lecture series. A nice turnout, a lot of different competition out there, but who can compete with this man right . Bill merchant, a great friend of mine, but of course, hes a great historian and hes really wheel and bringing forth the true history of a great story known as the delaware and hudson canal. So tonight, bill will give you a chock full of new information, great insights and wonderment bill merchant everyone. Thank you very much for coming this evening. Im the Deputy Director for collections historian and here at the dean Canal Historical Society and im the chair or president of the delaware and hudson transportation heritage council. Now that ive gotten over the most difficult part of the talk, im really delighted to do this particular presentation. I have never done it here for the Canal Society. My general history of the dredge. Im working on a book on the topic and itll probably be called the dutch canal 19th century engine of prosperity, because indeed it was. This is a story thats important to all americans. So im really delighted with our new museum and visitor center. Our tv are very active Youtube Channel and our social media. Were getting this story out to more of the world. More americans should know this story. And ill give you a few reasons why, as we. But before i get into my program we recognize that were guests in the original homeland of the lenape and muncie peoples. We extend our respect and gratitude to the many Indigenous Peoples who call this land home. Its long past time that we start to recognize injustices. Our past, we historians context. By my lights, this story begins with a war 1812 at the war of 1812. At this point in time, first you have to realize america was just basically all the states east of the appalachian mountains. The appalachian were a huge barrier to settlement, and a lot of the 19th century history of our country is really about getting over the mountains and and all of that, if you will, war of 1812, we we had an energy crisis. We were buying our coal from brits we had because everything east of the appalachians had been clear cut. We didnt have enough wood for fuel as well as building for make barrel making and all the other industries that needed wood it was cheaper at this point in time to ship coal across the Atlantic Ocean than by land in. We didnt have transportation infrastructure. We by and large had one way waterways. We had native american trails, we had roads were actually better in the winter, frozen than they were during the wet, muddy seasons. We had a lot of coal in virginia, but it was there was no affordable way to get it to market canals in general. In the era people say it was the era of canal fever, the 19th century here in america in particular, canals have been around. I mean, Leonardo Da Vinci invents the miter and about 1500 england by this point in time had really developed canals much more than we did. In fact, a lot of our canal engineers would go to england and study, walk around and ask questions, but but but. The danish canal was one of many, many canals that were built in the 19th century as railroads ascended up. So other thing that happened in the war of 1812, there were a of dry goods merchants by the name of Morris William wirtz, the two gentlemen right here. There was actually four work brothers, but these three are the most important to our story. Morris and william. There were good quakers of of swiss extraction, and they got a contract from the Us Government to supply uniforms to the to, the war effort. The Us Government this point in time had more land than money. Some things never change, right . As, as a consequence. Instead of getting paid in cash for these that the uniforms supplies they were given coal bearing land in northeastern pennsylvania northeastern pennsylvania has quarters of all the worlds anthracite coal. An astounding statistic. And throughout the 19th century, they just, i believe, canals that ultimately are built to to bring this resource to market it. Basically, this coal source fuels the Industrial Revolution in america really makes america as we know it possible. The erie canal was really the one that led them all and so, as i said, we didnt have schools of Civil Engineering yet. West point opens in 1808. But its really about military engineering. Rensselaer opens in 1823 or 1824. Later, rensselaer polytechnic institute, in fact, the first Civil Engineering degree in america is not given until the 1840s either by rpi or union. They both claim the credit. Im sure that somebody will will correct on this at some point. So a lot of the brain trust learned on the job and the erie canal was really of really the training ground. And so weve got john jervis, Benjamin Wright, james mcentee, and these names will come up again were Benjamin Wright was the chief engineer of the of the eventually the chief the chief engineer originally he was the engineer for one quarter of the era. But by the time they done he was the of the entire thing. As such, hes now sought after john jervis was a farm boy that started learn engineering on the erie canal, as did james mcentee. James mcentee has a very career and you folks that are kingston area probably know its a famous kingston area name and jervis becomes one of the celebrate engineers in american history. All these people are just theyre not going to college are learning on the job american know chief engineer benjamin right i like to say anybody digging a ditch hired this guy. So he doesnt even do the survey. Its a beautiful 1824 map of the canal route that that was produced. Basically, why was it produced . Because benjamin, right after the survey was done, discovery told them that it was going to take about 1. 5 million to build this. Now, thats a lot of money today, but the buying power today of 1. 5 million is 30 to 40 million, depending on who you talk to. So a Staggering Amount of money. And so in these early days, we dont have the stock market yet. The new york stock exchanges exist in some form or other in the late 18th century, but they dont have their force Board Meeting until 1823 or 24. The tontine house, a wall street in new york city. Coffee houses in this era were places where people who had money to invest find investment opportunities. So the day each company on january 7th, 1825, they overstepped over subscribed their they raised basically one and a half Million Dollars by 2 00 in the afternoon. It was a cold january day in the lower has it that one of the problems was anthracite took a little bit of knowhow to burn blacksmiths love the play love the stuff they were using it. Jesse fell on a narrow nail factory. They were using it in the philadelphia area, but the general public had problems with it. Their stories of people getting a load of this wonderful shiny black rocks in frustration when they couldnt burn it lined the street, which i have to say probably looked kind of nice right. But so one of the things they did is they proved you can burn anthracite coal. And this is something on they actually sold special. We have in our museum a replica of one of the early coal coal burning grates. They get all that money in one pipe. They got 5 down, but with 75,000, they start digging the drake canal. I love this quote, irishman for who else would dig and delve and drudge and do Domestic Work and, make canals, roads and exercise great of internal improvement. Irishman and in fact, the dutch canal could not have been constructed without immigrant labor. And throughout its history it will rely relies on peoples. But the building of it in particular was all irishman. And this is this is Charles Dickens when hes touring america after the canal is up and running by 1842, the canals are pretty successful. Enterprise. And what did they build. This is a this is a map of the danish canal. It was 108 miles long. It had 108 locks, 20 aqueducts, 168 bridges, 84 waist wires, 24 guard locks, 37 named basins, and 76 unnamed basins, basically accidents of topography, of canals were built in river valleys. So you can see the canal started at honesdale actually, it was the forks of debris. But philippon, their first president , so they they had a they named many places after luminaries. So the forks of debris quickly gets named for their first president. Philippon then it followed the lack of wax from river to the confluence of the lack of wax. And then the delaware cross, theyre on a rope ferry. And later on a very famous aqueduct followed the Delaware River at port jervis, named for john jervis, the second chief engineer. He comes over with Benjamin Wright, works as assistant engineer and takes over when wright gets too busy and takes his paycheck and runs it, then follows the never seen river. The bascule, the sandburg creek, the round joins it and ellen bill and it winds up in the city of kingston at eddie ville and round out in kingston still 80 miles from its intended market in new york city. But this was topography is king the showing of mountains which were along the right hand side of this line were too big a barrier at this point in time. They dont get tunnel for another or 60 years. But this is this is what Benjamin White suggested, how they build it . This is how it was built that he got it right and it ran a little more money. But but he pretty well got it got it got it right the first time and this is just a wonderful period painting gives you an idea of what the what the damage looked like back in the day of that bridge is interesting because believe it or not, thats Covered Bridge. So wouldnt trust bridges would last maybe 15 years. But if you cover the trusses the last 50 to 60 years so we all think that they were covering it for us. But in fact, on these bridges, its called a pony truss Covered Bridge. The historian ron knapp, whos done a couple of public works on Covered Bridges, taught me about these Covered Bridges. And between weve now uncovered, i think its 23 Covered Bridges on the canal that we can prove unknown the society for the Covered Bridge into my spare time. Were going to go write an article in, let him know about it. But theres an awful lot of work to do. Fortunately, a lot of fun. Lets see if we can get you to move. And heres just to give you an idea of this is alan villa in pictures. I love this picture because its the best, best image of the kind locks they built. So they they got two prices cut. Stonemason and youll see those out on our five block walk. These locks that we see here were built in the final enlargement of 1850. Theyre all cut. Stone thats more expensive. These are what, we call composite locks in this image can really see the white lining that these that these locks so theyre just dry large stone. So if you go to a one of these locks today, youre just going to see dry laid stone. You wont see sometimes youll see a little bit of metal. One or two still have some of the wood, but it was cheaper to build them with a white oak lining. But this meant that they had to be repaired every ten years or so. White oak is water resistant, but its resistant not waterproof. The bolts were also made of white oak and they also had a similar. They only between five and ten years. Ill talk about that a little more in the talk. Im just going to. The dna had a another problem that they had to deal with to get their coal to market. I told you that honesdale is where they started the canal, but the coal was 70 miles and 850 foot up and back within the town of carbondale. I love how they name places back then, right . Carbondale. Carbondale was just nothing. There was a farmer too, when the wirtz were given the land around there. They actually went around and they had somebody help buy more land. They were, they really got into this, but they had to get up over 850 foot of the lucic mountains. Theres no water there. Thats an awful these these locks had about ten foot of lift so you do the a little not enough water in a mountain john jervis designs the very first Gravity Railroad it was called a Gravity Railroad because they use the all the cars were connected and they used the weight of the laden cars descending to pull up the cars on the other end. And it had i think it was five planes. So there was a lot of up and down, but it worked quite successfully and in very early era. Now you see this this is a very late picture. The original one was much more like the models in our museum have like stringers with half inch by two inch iron plating on of it. The dredge company, theyre a company of firsts. They theyre an american company. They really they embraced new technologies at every turn. They won the first Steam Locomotive in the hemisphere, the stockbridge line, albeit for two days. And heres something that i think it finally got in a book. Nobodys able to say. We know that it wound up too heavy for the tracks. John jervis designed the railroad to carry five tons. So thats it. So four tons of coal in each car. And the cars were about a ton. The locomotive with the water had to be five tons. It gets honesdale. Its seven tons. I like to say the star bridge lane was five tons in stockbridge, england where it was built, but it was seven tons in honesdale. This is because of the imperial system and ive done the math. The measurements have changed, but in this era, five imperial tons were more or less seven american tons. So it was an honest. And weve had these problems with, the space program, the Hubble Space Telescope went up in the air with something that was made to metric or vice versa. They had to send a whole Space Shuttle up to repair one of the mars landers had the wrong distance, its engine shut off before it landed. So it like a simple mistake. But in fact this is this is my best guess as a historian we speculate good historians will tell you when theyre speculating this is my speculate and ive read an awful lot of other reasons why none of them make as much sense as this one does to me. Of course, we all like our own ideas right . So the canal, you know, these immigrant workers get out there, they build it in basically three years. In fact, a stretch. Port jervis to randolph was operational in 1827. Their training are learned how to run a canal. But it was more or less a budget and it was it started to move their coal. The story so involved when you try to do an hour long, you have to pick and choose so many of the people who built canal went on to work at i love john johnston. John johnston was a was a youngster and remembers the surveying crews camping on his familys property. He grows up to become a surveyor, which means he becomes a lawyer. In early american history, people who wrote surveys, then had to defend them. So they learned law once again. We didnt have law schools yet. Harvard law was an open yet harvard was. Although maybe you know, i have to look into that now. But john johnston, he grows up. He in pond eddy on the Delaware River his entire life. And then he writes his reminiscence when hes in his eighties, his wife passes. Hes got nothing to do. Its a wonderful read. You can buy it at the mini valley society. He doesnt pull any punches. You know how he feels. But its really a potent source. And i love this particular quote. The mass were composed of the vulgar and debased of ages from 10 to 60 of the various kinds of nationalities irish, dutch, africans, americans and others, all of the most lewd, vulgar and depraved and honesty compels the that the most objectionable features were filed amongst the americans. Some things never change, by the way, when he says dutch he much, most, most assuredly deutsch means german. Although we do have an oral history of one dutchman who who was a lot tender in his descendants, emailed us the story. Were collecting oral histories at times. Were still filling out the story that apparently he hated catholics. And i scratch my head, given the preponderance of irishmen, the canal. And there were up to 5000 canadian plying their trade and hes turning away everybody. They got the last laugh. The family is now catholic. But also a kids, children of child labor. I do a whole presentation on child labor. And in fact, you grew up young in this era. We most often see this is young, young man. Hes a hoagie, a buell driver, hoagie. The two phrases he would use the most whole for stop guy for go that the mules were the preferred animal. They used horses as well, but mules were the preferred animal for them. The mule a little side sideline. The mule was actually popularized in america under George Washington when he was president the president. The king of spain gives them to donkey studs and he using using them on his farm. Eventually, by the 19th century. This is the animal you wanted, worked longer and harder and less speed. They were they were less flighty than horses. So they were just a better investment. And they became the preferred draft animal throughout that era. They also had they were hiring immigrants continuously. They first started mining their coal and they got surface. Thats fine. But eventually you got to dig into the ground. And that takes specialized knowledge. They assiduously they would put ads in the papers and get workmen from from scotland, ireland, the United Kingdom and wales, the town of carbondale to this day has a really large proportion of people descended from the that came because they had the knowledge of how to how to extract this this coal and then in an International Enterprise in a sign you know immigration at this point in time that we none of this would