The canal descended from Honesdale to Port Jervis, then rose to Summitville, New York, and then descended again to the Hudson River at Rondout Harbor (Kingston), a total elevation change of about 972 feet. Along this route, 108 locks equalized water levels so boats could move smoothly. These simple but clever devices originally required two operators, or tenders, and enclosed boats in a water-filled stone chamber, sometimes lined with wood, where gates admitted water to raise a boat or released water to lower it, depending on its direction. Canal folklore held that a boat fit into a lock like a hand in a glove. The average rise or drop per lock was ten feet, and each passage through a lock took about twenty minutes and used approximately 50,000 to 100,000 gallons of water. At first, the locks were nine and a half feet wide and seventy five feet long, but in 1852 they were enlarged to fifteen feet wide and ninety feet long to accommodate larger boats. In 1865, improvements to the locking system made lock-tending a one-man job, putting the second tender out of work. Besides operating the lock, tenders maintained the water level below it, while the water level above was the responsibility of the next tender up the line. Most lock tenders lived in small company-owned houses on the canal banks and often also farmed or ran grocery stores or taverns for boatmen and their families. Locks usually operated from sun-up to sundown, stayed open until 10 in the evening during busy periods, remained open all night if a freeze threatened, and were closed on Sundays along with the entire canal.