At four A.M., while it was still dark, shouts of "Gid-Up" echoed along the Delaware Canal as pairs of mules strained at their harnesses to move canal boats and conch shell horns alerted locktenders to approaching boats. Built to reliably transport anthracite coal from the mines of northeastern Pennsylvania to cities along the eastern seaboard, the sixty-mile-long canal opened in 1831 and had twenty-four locks, or water elevators, that raised or lowered boats on their journeys between Easton and Bristol. The canal shaped communities as canal boat captains, muletenders, and locktenders made their living on the waterway, neighboring businesses provided the goods and services canal workers needed, and traffic on the canal fueled local enterprise. Along the one hundred sixty-five-foot elevation change between Easton and Bristol, the locks raised and lowered boats, including empty boats heading north for payday and another load of coal and heavy coal-laden boats heading south to market.
