Dug by hand mostly by Irish immigrants, the sixty-six-mile D and R Canal was completed in 1834. Seventy-five feet wide and eight feet deep, it originally had fourteen locks to raise and lower boat traffic. It operated as an inland waterway between the Delaware and Raritan rivers, primarily transporting Pennsylvania coal to New York by mule-drawn canalboats. Its busiest years came in the decade following the Civil War, when it proved to be one of America’s most important canals. By 1843, mules were supplemented by steam-powered boats, and the canal was used by a great variety of commercial, pleasure, and naval vessels. Many locks, spillways, tender’s houses, and other nineteenth-century structures remain intact and in use, and the entire canal is on the National Register of Historic Places. Along its scenic route, it also provides recreation and natural habitat for plants and wildlife, and after 1932, when it no longer served as a through route for vessels, its water itself became an increasingly important resource for much of central New Jersey.

Photo: Alan Edelson

Photo: Alan Edelson

New Hope, Pennsylvania · USA