Delaware and Hudson Canal

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=90 BGCOLOR="#006699" TEXT="#080000" background="04fd05a3.jpg"> <div> Orange County, New York</div> <div> American History and Genealogy Project</div> <div> Delaware and Hudson Canal</div> <bR> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#FFCC66" TEXT="#080000" background="050d2123.jpg"> <div> <A HREF="http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ny/county/orange/" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ny/county/or"><U>Orange County AHGP/ALHN</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ny/state/" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ny/state/"><U>New York AHGP/ALHN</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="http://ahgp.org" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://ahgp.org"><U>AHGP</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="http://alhn.org" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://alhn.org"><U>ALHN</U></A></div> <bR> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=390 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div>   Our country owes this great work to the farseelug intelligence of William and Maurice Wurts-gentlemen who were at first deemed fit subjects for an insane asylum, because they labored to convince the public that anthracite coal would become an article of necessity.</div> <div>      As early as 1812, William Wurts, who was then a young merchant of Philadelphia, commenced exploring the coal-beds of Luzerne county.  With compass and pickax, he attempted to trace the coal up the Lackawanna valley, and from thence to the Delaware river; but as he approached the latter, he encountered the sand-rocks which underlie the coal-measures rocks in which no valuable seam of coal can be found.  He abandoned his search for this valuable mineral in the immediate vicinity of the Delaware; but did not resign his project of making that river a highway for transporting coal to the seaboard.  He examined the eastern gaps of the Moosic mountains to find a practicable route to the head-waters of the Lackawaxen, upon which he delieved coal could be floated to the Delaware, and in 1814 purchased large tracts of land, one of which covered the present site of Carbondale.  In the same year, he transported coal to New York and Philadelphia for exhibition, to which places it was taken by the western route.  Eight or ten miles from his coal openings, at the opposite base of the Moosic range is a narrow, sluggish stream known as Jones creek, a tributary of the Wallenpaupack, as the latter is of the Lackawaxen.  The summer of 1815 was spent in removing obstructions from the first-named stream, an during the fall two sleigh-loads were hauled over the mountain, and placed upon a raft.  After a heavy rain, when the water was high, the primitive craft was started for the Delaware. The attempt was a more decided failure than was Van Tuyl's first endeavor to navigate the Neversink.  After passing down stream far about a mile the raft caine in contact with a rock, and the shining freight lodged in the bed of Jones' creek.</div> <div>      Mr. Wurts next hauled coal with oxen to the Wallenpaupack, twenty miles distant.  It was then rafted to Wilsonville Falls, around which it was carried on wagons to the Eddy in the Lackawaxen; then re-loaded in arks, and if the latter survived the perils of the Lackawaxen and Delaware, it was taken to Philadelphia,  where nobody wanted the black stuff as all the blowing and stirring given to it did not make it burn.”<A HREF="#_hollister_s_lackawanna_valley" TITLE="Delaware and Hudson Canal"><U>*</U></A>  The public were not only ignorant of the utility of this kind of fuel, but the expense of getting it to a market was ruinous.  Consequently but little was taken over this route, and the enterprise of rafting coal on the Wallenpaupack was regarded as a failure, and Mr. Wurts as a monomaniac.</div> <div>      In 1822, Maurice Wurts became interested with his brother William, and the two proceeded to Carbondale, with a number of workmen, where they camped in the woods, and slept on hemlock-boughs, transporting their provisions for miles on horseback.  Here, at great expense, they mined about eight hundred tons of coal, which they intended to haul to the Lackawaxen during the ensuing winter.  They determined to substitute pine-rafts in the place of the more frail arks, and believed that the sale of the timber and coal together would yield a handsome profit.  But the finest schemes of man are often thwarted by unexpected contingencies.  The ensuing winter was unusually mild ; there was but little snow; instead of taking eight hundred tons of coal to the Lackawaxen on sleighs, they were able to haul but one hundred; coal was worth from ten to twelve dollars per ton in Philadelphia when they commenced mining at Carbondale; but the quantity sent from the more accessible Lehigh region reduced the price so that there was no margin for profit to the Messrs. Wurts, at least while they transported coal over mountains on sleighs, and down wild rivers on rafts.</div> <bR> <div>  <A NAME="_hollister_s_lackawanna_valley_1"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A>*Hollister's Lackawanna Valley</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <A HREF="pg2.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="D H Canal, Page 2"><U>Next Page</U></A></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div>  <a href="http://www.usgennet.org/">3347th</a>  </div> </td> </tr></table></body>