The Delaware Canal

by Marie Murphy Duess

  Immigrants to Pennsylvania in the colonial period were mainly English, with a large population of Germans (150,000 by 1775) and Scotch-Irish (175,000 by 1775). Approximately 5 percent of the population was French, Dutch, Welsh, Swedish, Jewish, Irish or Swiss. When the American Revolution began, the population of “Penn’s Woods” had grown to nearly 300,000 and was one of the largest colonies in America with the most diverse population. After the American Revolution, immigration continued at a rate of approximately 60,000 a year, mainly from Western and Northern Europe. In the early and mid-nineteenth century, those numbers increased greatly with Germans fleeing Europe because of crop failure and religious persecution, and the Irish escaping the potato famine. Between 1830 and 1860—the height of the canal age—more than 2,000,000 Irish and approximately 1,500,000 Germans arrived in America.57 Many of these new immigrants made their way to Pennsylvania.

  The German influence on both the Lehigh and Delaware Canals was very strong. In fact, on the Lehigh there were so many German canalboat captains and lock tenders that even the Irish and the African Americans who worked the canal learned the German dialect.58

  On the canal, the light boats returning to Easton had the right of way. Martha Best, whose laundry is hanging on the line of her husband’s boat, steers toward the berm to allow LC&N boat 267 to pass. Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Canal Society Collection, National Canal Museum, Easton, PA.

  The German Immigrants

  For many years they were erroneously called “Pennsylvania Dutch,” but in fact, not all German-speaking immigrants were from the Netherlands. Many were Palatine German, Alsatian, Swiss, Hessian and Huguenot, and although they were primarily Quakers, German-speaking groups of various religious affiliations—including Lutheran, Reformed, Anabaptists (Amish, Hutterites and Mennonites) and Catholics—also settled in the colonies.

  The earliest German immigrants in America came to Philadelphia County during the years 1683–85, and more came in the early 1700s. They left their European homes at the invitation of William Penn, whose First Frame of Government promised religious freedom and economic growth. Penn was particularly impressed with the organized Quakers in Holland and Germany long before he was granted land from the King Charles II, and when he was establishing his colony in America, he campaigned to persuade all persons interested in economic opportunity and freedom from religious persecution to immigrate to Pennsylvania by offering five-thousand-acre tracts of land at £100 per tract.

  Germantown in Philadelphia County was where most of the German-speaking immigrants settled. In 1689, William Penn signed a charter incorporating Germantown, appointing Francis Daniel Pastorius as the first bailiff. (Later, Pastorius was to draw up a written protest against African slavery in 1688; it was the first in American history.)

  All immigrants shared a common method of journeying to the shores of America—they came by ship. Each voyage was unique, and some fared better than others, but there were many immigrants who did not survive. It was a common practice that when a ship approached the shore, the dead were brought off first and buried in ditches along the beach. Those who were left onboard faced the New World alone. Sometimes they were orphans; other times they were parents who had dreamed of a better life for their children but now had empty arms.

  In Philadelphia, by the mid-1700s, there were sixty-five docks covering the west bank of the Delaware River, and those docks were crowded with new immigrants. When ships approached the shores of Pennsylvania, people gathered on the wharf, some to greet family members, others to find workers. Merchants were alerted by newspaper advertisements when German servants for “sale” were arriving by ship.

  All the immigrant passengers disembarked and were taken to the courthouse, where they pledged an oath that they would conduct themselves as good and faithful subjects of the British Crown and that they would renounce any allegiance to the pope. They signed their names to two papers—one belonged to the king and the other to the government of Pennsylvania.59

  Many of the new colonists who had come with money didn’t remain in Philadelphia. According to settlement patterns in southeastern Pennsylvania, they flocked to the countryside where they could purchase homesteads and begin to farm their land—their own land—happy to have shrugged the yoke of tenant farming in their European homes. The farther away from Philadelphia, the more affordable land was. For the most part, Germans attempted to settle in pockets, since it was easier to communicate with each other and help one another when they planted their crops and built their homes.

  Newly arrived Germans settled in Lancaster, Berks, Northampton, Bucks and Montgomery Counties. They walked over Native American paths through dense woods or traveled in canoes on the river and following Indian creeks to find their settlements. They brought with them skills as craftsmen and millers. They grew corn, squash and wheat in fertile soil, and they raised healthy livestock. Their barns were so well built and impressive that English settlers started to adopt their methods. And they established schools.

  Before long, the Germans were holding public office. They worked diligently to establish their presence in their new country. They wanted religious freedom, a government that would allow them to control their own lives, land and success, all of which they found.

  And the Germans weren’t alone in these dreams. As the iron and coal industries grew in America in the 1800s and offered a greater—almost insatiable—need for laborers, an influx of immigrants came to the newly formed United States from many different countries. Fifty different nations and ethnic groups were identified among the immigrants of the nineteenth century, all longing for a better life, more opportunity and a kind of freedom they had never known.

  The Pennsylvania coal mines and canals brought many of them to the Lehigh and Delaware Valleys.

  The Irish

  It would not have been quite as easy for the Irish immigrants to pledge an oath to renounce the pope when they were taken to the courthouse in Philadelphia, and so began their tribulations in America.

  By all accounts, the boatmen were a rough bunch and had a reputation for fighting and drinking—or at least the Irish did. The fighting instinct in the Irish could be partially genetic, but in fairness, it is also a result of the kind of environment in which they lived, under the thumb of the British Crown. The Quakers and other Protestant religious sects came to America in search of freedom to worship according to their own consciences and because of the religious persecution they experienced, and so did the Irish, but for the Irish their Catholic religion was an obstacle to being accepted in the mainly Protestant colonies of America. Although Pennsylvania did allow greater religious freedom than other colonies—and in fact, the Catholic Mass was allowed first in Pennsylvania—the Irish Catholics experienced discrimination.

  The Irish had been impoverished in their own country for many years. The Crown had given land grants to Protestant English citizens—land that the Irish Catholics had lived on for ages—and it caused constant hostilities. The Irish became defensive, self-protective, frustrated and very often hopeless. They fought with their Protestant landlords, and they fought among themselves about whether they wanted a free-state form of government or a republican form of government once they revolted. While they were arguing amongst themselves, they had no choice but to work for the landowners who had usurped their property. Because of the prejudice of their Protestant masters, many of them felt they had no alternative but to immigrate to America in search of a better life even before the potato famine. With next to nothing, they boarded overcrowded “coffin ships,” which didn’t have adequate food or water. As many as 250 passengers were expected to share thirty berths. Too many of the immigrating passengers never made it alive—strong men, delicate women and precious children alike. And many of these ships never made it across the ocean or capsized in sight of the shore when the unusually heavy-bottomed ships scraped underwater rocks they would have normally sailed over.

  This cross-continental journey was a test of survival of t
he fittest, and the fittest were those who were most driven by pain, anger, fear, poverty and religious persecution.

  Once in the United States, they quickly realized that arriving in America wasn’t a magical key to happiness, and they also learned that the streets weren’t paved with gold as they had believed. They arrived without resources, without capital to start businesses or buy farms and the prejudice they had experienced in Ireland was just as strong in America. “Irish need not apply…No Irish allowed inside,” was plastered on doors of buildings and stores everywhere.

  Fortunately, the greatest number of Irish immigrants arrived when America’s economy was expanding at the advent of America’s Industrial Revolution, and they were willing, ready and able to do the grunt work that was needed to mine the coal, build the canals and lay the rails for the national transportation system. Then they climbed onboard to be the first drivers, engineers and conductors.

  They worked at unskilled and semiskilled jobs, even if they were talented craftsmen, but in doing so, they built the foundation for their children to become skilled plumbers, steamfitters, policemen and firefighters. As was their way, they worked hard and fought hard to attain and keep whatever they needed to survive, and for many at the end of the day, they found solace in a bottle of John Barleycorn—albeit a false sense of solace.

  They soon found themselves in a position of losing it all when the “new immigrant” started to infiltrate the industries of which the Irish had just become part. Before long, they found themselves vying for positions against the new immigrant labor force from Italy, Poland and Hungary, leading to a vicious cycle of discrimination, polarization and brawls. Instead of welcoming the newcomers in a way that they themselves had not been welcomed, they were fearful and suspicious.

  However, there is evidence that they put down their fists and helped one another in times of need. In W.W. Davis’s History of Bucks County, he writes that during 1849, when the Asiatic cholera reared up again, it was brought to the Durham Furnace by a sick man on a canalboat. The lock tender, a man named Hough, was asked to look in on the boatman. He did, and then took sick a few days later and died. The disease spread throughout the village. In total, thirty people died; the epidemic took whole families or left young orphaned children. Despite the danger of being infected with this feared disease, women and men with Irish last names nursed each other.

  The Irish immigrants, just arriving to work at the furnace, were the earliest victims. The wives of the workmen, a noble set of women, braved death in nursing the sick and preparing the dead for burial…and among the men, conspicuous for their services during this trying period, were Edward Keelon, John Young, Thomas and Farrel Riley, and Samuel F. Hartman. The widows and orphans of the cholera victims were cared for by the neighbors.60

  It didn’t help that work on the canal was tedious. Some of the canallers picked fights to amuse themselves, or even pitted their mule-driving sons against the sons of other boatmen. All boatmen, even those who were normally even-tempered, could be aggressive when approaching a busy lock where they could be detained because of long queues.

  Quarreling was often occasioned by one boatman stealing the locking turn of another, for instance while the crew of one boat slept another boat might pass by and take his place, after which a dispute and often a fight resulted.61

  For the most part, the Irish canal men weren’t liked much in Bucks County, especially in the towns where they spent much of their time between trips, as in Bristol and Easton. In addition to boatmen, there were also about three hundred men who lived in Bristol and worked on the wharves there, screening, picking and transferring the coal to schooners. Their hard drinking and fisticuffs left the native residents feeling nothing more than contempt for them. Yet the fun-loving spirit of the Irish couldn’t be ignored, either. They made up songs and funny little limericks, played musical instruments, wrote in journals and found ways to make the sometimes mind-numbing work go faster. Some Bucks Countians acknowledged their charms. In War Times In Bristol, Burnet Landreth writes:

  Really in all their crudities they were a lovable class with their broad brogues, their laughable mistakes and fondness for fist fighting, but with a warm attachment for those in whom they had confidence. I recall some of these men whose joyous, sometimes laughable salutations it was a pleasure to return.62

  Walking the Towpath

  Boys who drove the mules along the canal towpath were either sons of boat captains or they hired out at the age of seven or eight to work as mule drivers. Some of them were redemptioners (indentured servants), sold right from the ship they arrived on. The day began before four o’clock in the morning and ended around midnight. They walked most of the way, anywhere from sixteen to twenty hours a day, usually barefoot, sometimes twenty-five miles. Their job was to currycomb, brush and harness the mules before dawn, hook up their traces to the boat, lead them throughout the long day, unharness them at around ten o’clock at night, allow the mules to roll and stretch, brush, feed and water them for the last time and stable them. Only then were the boys allowed to rest, and they slept for no more than four hours, usually fewer.

  Children as young as six worked as mule drivers in the early years of the canal era. Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Canal Society Collection, National Canal Museum, Easton, PA.

  In spite of their youth, they mastered difficult skills quickly. One of the most important lessons they learned right from the start was how to pass another boat coming in the opposite direction on the canal. If they didn’t unhook their mules and drop the line properly when the other boat passed their boat, they risked their mules being pulled into the canal.

  They were also responsible for snubbing the boat by wrapping the rope around a post to slow the boat’s speed, and they had to do it right, for if the boat was going too fast, it could burn the rope through and enter the lock incorrectly, causing damage to either the boat or the lock, or both. Snubbing the boat was especially difficult when it was fully loaded and weighed as much as one hundred tons.

  Learning how to be good canallers was the extent of their education. Except for the three midwinter months of December, January and February when the canal was not in operation, there was no time to attend school.

  Although the boys were capable and had to grow up long before other boys their age, they were still just boys. The era was one that was filled with superstitions, especially for the immigrants, and there are accounts in several books that describe how frightening the walk could turn when the sun set and it was dark and quiet on the towpath. Sounds they could easily identify in the daylight sounded ominous in the dark, lonely countryside. That was when they appreciated the warm sides of their mules where they could nestle closer. Because of the long hours they worked, it wasn’t uncommon for a mule driver to fall asleep on his feet and veer from the path into the canal. They often climbed up on the backs of their mules and fell sound asleep.

  They dealt with snakes and eels crossing in front of them on the towpath, mosquito bites and bee stings. The sun beat down on them in the heat of summer, and there was no relief from pelting rain or snow in the cold months. They were warned not to walk too close to their mules during storms as the shoes attracted lightning. And for this work they earned five dollars a month.

  The food was pretty good by all accounts, however. Breakfasts consisted of bacon or ham and eggs, bread and butter. The midday meal was cured meat, usually ham. A stew of meat with cabbage, potatoes and beans was a common dinner. Sometimes, when the canal men were lucky, they could abduct a stray chicken from a local farm, and they were notorious for “borrowing” corn in the late summer months from the rows that had been planted along the towpath. Honest boatmen, and they were in the majority, would leave a bag of coal as payment. Lock tenders sometimes sold fish that had just been taken from the Delaware or the canal, and because most of the lock tenders had large gardens or farmland near their houses, they would sell fresh vegetables to the canallers. Suppers were usually light—leftovers from
dinner and possibly a piece of cake or pie brought from home.

  On Sunday mornings, when there was very little movement on the canal since lock tenders didn’t work on Sundays, the boatmen would enjoy mackerel or ham, fried potatoes and usually fresh-baked bread that they purchased from a lock tender’s wife or at the local store. Sunday meals were always best and usually consisted of a roast of beef, with a pudding they called hunks-a-go pudding, which was essentially a typical Yorkshire pudding made with a batter of eggs, milk and flour poured into the grease and juices produced by the beef roast. They’d put a lid on the pan and let it cook on the stove until it was solid and steaming.

  They worked hard, but they played hard, too, when they had the opportunity. The boys played marbles, dominoes, checkers and cat in the cradle with cord. They fished, played musical instruments and told tall tales to each other. Sometimes they boxed. Most of all, they enjoyed whatever much-needed rest and respite they could get on lazy Sunday afternoons.

  The six-year-old mule drivers didn’t know when they set off on foot along the towpath for the first time that it usually meant lifetime employment. They often became captains of their own boats, sometimes at as young as sixteen. The only qualification for captain was to be able to skillfully navigate a hinge boat through a lock.

  Safeguarding the Canal

  In addition to the tug captains who pulled the boats across the river from New Hope to Lambertville, the steamboat operators who pulled them from Bristol to the docks of Philadelphia and the superintendents hired by the LC&N to oversee the law along the canal and report to the canal commissioners regarding the conditions of the canal, the next most important canallers would be the maintenance crews.

  They worked on dredgers, mud diggers, carpenter boats and flickers, and the work required long days, Monday through Saturday, and continued in the winter months. A crew of two men, called engineers, worked double shifts and shared the responsibilities of foreman on the mud diggers. One worked while the other slept and ate. They dredged the silt on the bottom of the canal to keep the depth required for boats to safely glide down the canal.