The Delaware Canal

by Marie Murphy Duess

  But those who believed slavery was immoral began to travel throughout Quaker towns and villages, preaching that it was an aberration to the Quaker faith. One of these men was Anthony Benezet, a French-born Quaker who was renowned for his fight against slavery. He was able to convince Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush to lead the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery. Soon, other prominent abolitionists—such as Lucretia Mott, Anna Dickinson, Ann Preston, Jane Swisshelm and Susan B. Anthony—became more vocal in supporting the cause against slavery. The Pennsylvania Abolition Society raised funds to purchase slaves and immediately set them free. Thaddeus Stevens, who was elected to the House of Representatives in 1859, was an unrelenting foe of slavery.

  In March 1780, the Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery was passed by the Pennsylvania Assembly. It called for the gradual release of every Negro and mulatto child born within the state after the act was passed. Once released, they would be given the same rights as servants that had been bound by indenture for four years. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a start, and slavery did decline in Pennsylvania after the passing of this act.

  The gristmill in Yardley, which is located along the canal, was also a “station” on the underground railroad. Author’s collection.

  There was a large settlement of former slaves located in Columbia, Pennsylvania. This settlement was a refuge for those who fled from bondage in Virginia, Maryland and other Southern regions close to Pennsylvania. Once the fleeing slaves reached that area, slaveholders had a very difficult time finding them. Before long, the slaveholders were saying that slaves must be escaping in some sort of “underground railroad.” The expression took hold, and soon there were “conductors” who guided “passengers” from “station” to “station” (homes or buildings that would hide them). Then there were “stockholders,” who financed the organization. Secrecy was crucial to success, and as a result there are very few documents that lay out the routes, name the slaves or identify the “railroad workers.”

  Many of the stationmasters and conductors were free black men, but without the assistance of the Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey white abolitionists and sympathizers to the cause of freedom, they could not have been as successful as they were. Mostly Quakers, they housed, fed and clothed the fugitive slaves, then passed them on to the next conductor. They learned the code words and symbols, and they worked in the middle of the night. They knew very little about the next station or the people involved so that when the slave catchers came to their doors, they really wouldn’t have much to tell. They were breaking the law, and they risked the freedom of their own African American friends and servants. Under the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, suspected fugitives had no right to a jury trial and could not testify on their own behalf when brought before a magistrate. Free black men and women could be taken by slave hunters and forced into slavery if they were “suspected” of being fugitive slaves. As a result, Pennsylvanians were silent about their work and brought as little attention to themselves and the work they were doing as possible.

  Underground railroad researcher Millard Mitchell stands in front of the historic library in Yardley. Author’s collection.

  The main line of the escape path through Pennsylvania was primarily by way of York, Adams, Lancaster and Chester Counties. Bucks County was the “Fourth Road” in the escape route of fugitive slaves from the South, and it ran from 1840 to 1850. The Bucks County route was less used, yet many slaves came through the county and went on to reach Canada.

  During speaking engagements and when talking to students, Millard Mitchell uses photographs, maps and newspaper articles to tell the story of the fleeing slaves who made their way through Bucks County during the years of the underground railroad. Author’s collection.

  The fugitives traveled in constant fear all night long and rested in hiding places during the day. They believed that discovery was just around the next bend, at the next barn or in the next cellar. The route in Bucks zigzagged to elude pursuit, but most accounts recall that it started in Bristol, moved through Morrisville, Yardley, Langhorne, Newtown, Wrightstown, Buckingham, New Hope and almost always ended in Quakertown at the home of Richard Moore, the last stop of the underground railroad in Bucks County. There are accounts of numerous tunnels throughout the county that connect one station to another.

  Stories, given to us from recollections by reliable sources in Bucks County, also point out places along the river and canal that were stations, and it makes sense that the Delaware Canal was a route on the underground railroad, just as the Delaware and Hudson, Erie, Morris and Ohio Canals all claim to have been.

  Millard C. Mitchell, the foremost authority on the underground railroad in Bucks County (particularly in Yardley), reports “I’ve seen very little in writing due to the fact that the underground railroad was secret—everything was secretly done for protection from prosecution from the Fugitive Slave Law.” Yet, Mr. Mitchell has met and interviewed several residents of Yardley and other towns along the canal who have verified stories handed down from generations of canallers. When Mitchell, who is originally from North Carolina and is the grandson of a fugitive slave, first moved to Yardley in 1956, he found that several of his neighbors and new friends were the grandsons of operators in the underground railroad. He also visited the subterranean rooms in several of the buildings and homes in Yardley that hid men, women and children on their flight to freedom. Upon receiving information from what he discerned to be “very reliable sources,” he visited cemeteries and looked at records to authenticate that those people who were assumed to be participants in the underground railroad were alive during the years before the Civil War and worked in occupations that would attest to their availability to help. According to Mitchell:

  There was an African American minister of the AME Methodist Church in Yardley, a Rev. Miller, who was instrumental in securing places in Yardley to hide the fugitive slaves. There were about ten stations in Yardley.

  The Continental Tavern was one of the “stations” on the underground railroad. Tunnels from the canal connected several buildings and homes in Yardley where runaway slaves could hide. Courtesy of the Continental Hotel.

  Four stations were very close to the canal: the town’s general store, the Continental Tavern (which was a temperance house at the time), the gristmill and Lakeside, a private home facing Lake Afton that backs up to the canal.

  The Continental Tavern has recently been renovated by new owner Frank Lyons, who was proud to share information about a stone-walled, dirt-floor chamber in the lowest level of the building that can be entered at this time through a trapdoor only. Other parts of the cellar of the building are readily accessible and show evidence of a shop and other common uses, but there is no way into this secret chamber from any other part of the building.

  Additionally, there is a well-shaped hole in the hidden chamber that could have been used to allow the entry of fugitives from an underground tunnel that is reported to come directly from the canal bank. As layers of the dirt floor are excavated, Lyons and his workers are finding artifacts from each era—there is very strong evidence that the Continental was a speakeasy during Prohibition, as they found ten to fifteen thousand bottles, whole and broken in every size and shape, from that era. As they dig deeper into the floor of the chamber, they hope to find further evidence of the underground railroad. With Millard Mitchell’s assistance, Lyons intends to rebuild the chamber and add the kind of furniture and utensils that would have been there before the Civil War for patrons to view.

  This trapdoor leads to a chamber in the lower level of the Continental Hotel. Although there is access to other parts of the basement in this building, the only entrance to this chamber is by the trapdoor in the kitchen of the tavern. Courtesy of the Continental Hotel.

  Mitchell has seen similar subterranean chambers in other homes and buildings in Yardley that had been kept intact, a whisper that confirms the courage of people who wanted to do right and the determination
of refugees who fled tyranny and slavery to seek freedom.

  Fugitive slaves would travel up from the lower portion of Pennsylvania through Germantown, which was occupied mainly by German Quakers who were strong abolitionists, and in the cover of night they would go to the docks in Philadelphia where the coal boats had just been emptied of their cargoes. The boatmen—African American, Quaker and even Irish and German sympathizers—would usher their human cargo into the holds and close the hatches, undoubtedly with provisions of food and water.

  From Philadelphia, the boats would be pulled by steamboat back to the Bristol basin and into the Delaware Division Canal, where the boatmen would begin the return trip to Mauch Chunk. According to Mitchell, there was a lookout point on River Road just south of Yardley, where a sympathizer watched from the top of his house to see if the militia from the barracks in Trenton was on the way across the bridge in search of lawbreakers. If he saw activity, he’d send an alarm out to the boats and other stationmasters and conductors.

  This is a chamber that is believed to have been a hiding place of runaway slaves. Courtesy of the Continental Hotel.

  Frank Lyons, owner of the Continental Tavern, is excavating the secret chamber and cistern that is located in the basement of the restaurant to find the tunnel that is alleged to connect to the canal. Courtesy of the Continental Hotel.

  It was a one-day trip from Bristol to Yardley, where the boats would tie up, the mules would be stabled and the fugitives would be guided to a hideout in one of the stations closest to the canal. They would be fed and have a chance to rest. Depending upon the “climate” in the region, the fugitives would either return to the boat before dawn to continue their escape to the north, or they would be hidden in a wagon and taken in another direction, probably through Attleborough (now Langhorne), just a few short miles from Yardley, which also was a safe haven for fugitive slaves. Sometimes the slaves would stay in Yardley for a few weeks, working in the gristmill or on local Quaker farms to earn some money before they moved on to the next station.

  Sadly, many of the conductors and stationmasters never found out what happened to the hopeful people they helped. Few letters were sent since the majority of slaves hadn’t been educated and didn’t know how to write, and even if a newspaper article was published along the route relating the capture of a fugitive slave, it normally didn’t make it to other municipalities. The “operatives” didn’t know if those they helped were captured or living free in Canada. They had only their own consciences to tell them that the guarded work they had done was righteous and compassionate.

  During excavation of the chamber, this canalboat “night hawker” was found in the rubbish. Courtesy of the Continental Hotel.

  Houses like this one located on the Delaware River are reported to have been used as lookout locations to watch for slave hunters or militia crossing from New Jersey. If seen, an alert would be sent into town to move or hide the fugitive slaves. Author’s collection.

  A row of quaint houses on Canal Street in Yardley overlooks the now peaceful waterway. Author’s collection.

  Chapter 10

  The Canal’s Worst Enemy

  From Freshets to Floods

  The Delaware Division Canal and the Lehigh Navigation Canal endured both freshets and floods, and did so frequently. Melting snow and ice coming from the hills and mountains surrounding the canal caused the streams and creeks to overflow several times a year. Although both the Delaware and Lehigh Canals were built to cope with these freshets, there were years that spring rains and raging storms created greater flooding than the canals were designed to handle, causing breaches and damaged banks.

  The Delaware River floods were not as frequent as the freshets, but when the river did flood, it was usually catastrophic for the river towns. One of the major flaws of the Delaware Division Canal was the fact that it was built so close to the river.

  The first freshet to damage the canal was in March 1832, not long after it had opened. In January 1839, a violent storm descended on New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania, causing flooding across those states and major damages to the canals, except for the Lehigh Navigation Canal, which suffered very little from the storm.

  The Delaware Canal suffered major breeches when the flood reached twenty-two feet above the low-water mark. It flooded all the lower levels of the canal, swept off aqueducts and filled the canal with soil from the destroyed banks.

  The dam at Easton was almost completely destroyed, but the local residents and canal workers moved as one force to rebuild it, even during a raging current in the cold month of January. But the cost of repairing the canal that month was overwhelming.

  The flood of 1841, caused by heavy rains melting the snow in the mountains, nearly destroyed both the Delaware Division and Lehigh Navigation Canals. It carried away locks, dams, houses, boats and bridges. This January flood was especially devastating to the Lehigh Navigation Canal, which had escaped major damage in 1839. The winter flood was followed by more that same year, in June, July and August, and as quickly as the damage was repaired, there was more damage to be fixed.

  Floods from the Delaware River frequently put the canal out of commission for weeks, months and even years. This photo was taken near the River House (Chez Odette’s) and shows the canal completely underwater. Courtesy of the New Hope Historical Society.

  The LC&N called Josiah White out of semiretirement and employed an engineer, E.A. Douglas, to determine the entire damage. It took months to repair both waterways, and that year toll collection dropped to $64,974.93 as the expenses rose to $109,338.81.68 The floods of 1841 nearly bankrupted the LC&N.

  Faults in the construction of the Delaware Division—shortcuts taken during its construction—contributed to the damages. After the floods of 1841, guard gates were incorporated into the design of the canal, and they did seem to relieve damage from flooding to some extent. However, the region was still plagued by floods: in the spring of 1843, in the fall of 1845 and again in 1850, 1852, 1862 and 1868. All of this flooding interrupted boating from a month to several months. During some of these floods, families lost their homes, businessmen lost their businesses and, sadly, some lost their lives. When the waters subsided, logs, boats, houses, bridges and dead livestock littered the river towns along the Delaware. The early twentieth century wasn’t kinder with high waters, floods and freshets in 1901, 1902, 1904 and 1906.

  This photo shows the Yardley Inn underwater during one of the many floods that plague Bucks County towns and boroughs even to this day. Courtesy of the Yardley Inn.

  In March 1936, when the transfer of the Delaware Canal to the state was being discussed, a statewide storm produced disastrous floods in all of the river valleys. And repairs were necessary once again when Hurricane Diane swept through eastern Pennsylvania and caused yet another flood that took a heavy toll in the form of human life and property.

  In fact, the Delaware Valley is vulnerable to this day, with heavy flooding from the Delaware River, brought on primarily by overflows from two New York reservoirs and a mountain lake in Pennsylvania.

  Chapter 11

  Beautiful Impressions

  The Delaware Division Canal passes through some of the most picturesque landscapes in the United States. In some places it is breathtaking. The canal meanders through beautiful countryside, sandwiched between the Delaware Canal on one side and neatly laid-out farms, charming little colonial villages and wildflower-laden fields on the other.

  Its beauty was not lost on some of the most renowned American impressionists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Members of what are called Pennsylvania impressionists and the New Hope School, these artists came from many parts of the country to Pennsylvania to study and teach at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. The circle was formed in 1898, when many of them made their homes in the tiny hamlets and villages along the Delaware Canal and established their studios in and around New Hope.

  A noted painter and critic of the time
, Guy Pène du Bois, declared that their work was “our first truly national expression.” It is impossible to say which of them is the most famous, for all have made their marks in American collectors’ hearts. They reflect life as it was in small-town America during the late 1800s and the early 1900s, and they portray the beauty of the landscape before paved roadways and unsightly telephone and electric poles and wires blemished the views of magnificent barns, beautiful rivers and Victorian villages.

  The New Hope Artists

  Edward W. Redfield may have won the most awards of any American artist except John Singer Sargent. Redfield would tie his canvasses to trees in the brutal winter weather in order to paint a perfect winter scene, yet his spring and summer paintings are just as moving and his city skyline paintings are renowned. After studying in Philadelphia, France, Italy and England, he settled in Centre Bridge in 1898. He was one of the first American artists to paint on location and complete a painting in one session.

  The New Hope Circle of American impressionists was fascinated by the Delaware Canal and often used it as a model for its paintings and sketches. This is John Fulton Folinsbee’s Mule Barn. Courtesy of Gratz Gallery, New Hope, PA.

  William Langson Lathrop was instrumental in establishing this special community of artists when he moved to Phillips Mill in 1899. He brought his students to his studio, and his wife, Anne, hosted weekly teas for his colleagues. He never took formal training, but instead learned from many artists he admired, and, in turn, he mentored several members of the New Hope School’s first and second generation of artists. He was beloved and greatly missed when his boat sank in Long Island during a hurricane in 1938 and he drowned.