Union Township in Luzerne County, formed in July 1813 from part of Huntington Township, lay along the Susquehanna River and two creeks from River Mountain. Sawmills were established in 1790 in the northwest corner by Peter Gregory and George Fink of Delaware, and Stephen Arnold and Moses Derby settled in Muhlenburg and established successful farms. In 1793 the rich farmland attracted many more settlers, mostly from Connecticut, who arrived on sleds and formed a Dutch settlement. Before the canals, the river provided transportation, and from 1794 to 1830 flat-bottomed arks carried coal, lumber, and farm goods downstream to Philadelphia and Baltimore, though many were wrecked on rocks and, because the trip was one way, were broken up and sold for lumber at their destination. After the Pennsylvania legislature declared the Susquehanna River a highway in 1771 and appropriated money to make it navigable, the first boat, the Experiment, was built at Nescopeck and pulled by horses, and three steamboats were constructed in 1825. The second steamboat, Susquehanna, suffered the worst accident in the upper Susquehanna when its boiler exploded while crossing the Nescopeck Falls rapids, killing many passengers and crew. Delays and accidents on the river made a canal network necessary, and on July 4, 1828, work began at Berwick on this section of the North Branch Canal, which was completed to Nanicoke in less than two years. The canal, forty feet wide at the top, twenty-eight feet wide at the bottom, and four feet deep, with a ten-foot towpath on the riverside, carried boats that could transport twenty-five passengers and thirty tons of freight. Closed from Thanksgiving to April 1 and often damaged or submerged by spring high water and flooding, the canal nevertheless served as the main means of transportation from 1830 to 1845 and helped bring commercial growth to the Wyoming Valley, before ceasing operation on April 11, 1901, because railroads were cheaper and more efficient. In 1813 James Search bought the riverfront land known as Jessup Farm from Phillip and Margaret Hann and raised his family there, and in 1865 his sons Lot Search, a founder of Shickshinny, and George Washington Search built a successful grist mill; George also served on the first Shickshinny Borough Council and as town supervisor, and the Search family cemetery lies south along the Susquehanna Warrior Trail at mile 6.5.