Allegheny Portage Canal

When Pennsylvania began to attract settlers from Europe, most lived in the southeastern corner, now Philadelphia. As these settlers moved west across the state, first, they traveled by canoe or horseback, later with wagons. They eventually had to travel over a high mountain chain, the Allegheny Mountains. Getting over that mountain wasn’t easy. Most of you have seen on television the trouble of traveling over the Rockies by covered wagon. Did you realize that in the beginning the same trouble happened in the Allegheny Mountains but in a lesser degree?

In the early 1800s, a new way to transport people and goods became popular, the canal boat. Canals were hand-dug channels filled with water for the boats. Mules or horse walking on a path beside the canal pulled these boats.

The southern part of the state, specifically, York County, first used a canal in 1797 for transporting goods. The large Erie Canal in New York state appeared on the transportation scene in 1817. After that, canals began to appear in Pennsylvania from one end to the other. One problem with this source of transportation was a mountain. Canals worked well on flat ground. How do you get a canal boat up a mountain?

First, ingenious men found a way to get the supplies from the canal boats over the Allegheny Mountains. The device called the Portage Canal revolutionized the canal boat industry. The newly improved steam engine, only just becoming possible for moving boats and not yet able to move a locomotive up a hill, became a means for pulling cargo up a hill.

What they did was place a steam engine at the top of the steep grade. A heavy rope passed through a large pulley that ran with the help of the engine. One end of the rope pulled up one car on a track while the other end let down a car on another track. That way gravity and the steam power worked together. Canal boats brought their loads to the bottom of the hill. The contents had to be unloaded into the Portage Canal car, pulled to the top of the hill, unloaded into wagons that took the shipment over a lesser grade to the next portage canal that lifted it again. When the transport got to the top of the mountain, the goods went down the other side the same way.

Later, men found a way to get the boats themselves over the mountains. They made sectional canal boats that could be taken apart, put on the Portage cars, carried over the mountain, and put together on the other side.

Western Pennsylvania has preserved this bit of history at the Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historical Site in Gallitzin. They have rebuilt one of the engine rooms at the top of some remaining track to show visitors how this process once worked. A nearby museum contains drawings, photos, and models of the canal boat operation. Following are some pictures I took at this site.

Reproduction of an Engine House

Inside the Engine House

Model of a Sectional Canal Boat on a Portage Canal Car

Pennsylvania History Class 4

The last day of co-op is over. I will miss those little boys. For the last class we traveled to a local historical site, the Lewistown Narrows Canal Park, for a field trip. The open space matched up well with their natural exuberance as they explored every inch of the grounds.

The Lewistown Narrows Canal Park became a reality when the road going by became a side road instead of the main road from Mifflintown to Lewistown. Cars on what is now the main road zoom by at 65 mph on a four lane highway instead of the limited 55 two lanes that we used to travel along the river.

History buffs decided that the former lock keeper’s house and the still surviving canal lock should be restored and opened to the public. I enjoy taking children there. The place gives them a chance to see a sample of the canals that used to extend all over our state of Pennsylvania.

Canals came into existence because of the need to get people and goods from one place to another. Deep trenches dug by hand formed the base of the transportation system. Water from local springs filled the ditches, and boats began to travel down these long narrow water ways. Where the elevation changed, doors were added to make a box-like place within the canal where water could be used to raise or lower the boat to a new height. A man or woman living at the nearby lock keeper’s house had the responsibility to open or close the lock gates to begin the process.

The indentation where a gate used to be fastened.

The Lock Keeper's House

Mules or horses connected to the boats with ropes pulled the canal boats, and a boy guided the animals along the path beside the canal.

The first canal built at Conewago Falls in York County in 1797 allowed boats to continue past the falls. Pennsylvania formed the Pennsylvania Board of Canal Commissioners in 1825 and public locks opened in Pennsylvania six years later. The Board continued to direct canal building and operation until 1859 when railroads had become so popular and efficient that most canals were no longer profitable. Today the only operating canal system in Pennsylvania is the Monongahela River Navigation which is located on the Ohio River between Pittsburgh and West Virginia.

Model of a canal boat at the Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site in the Visitor Center

Remember in my last blog that I told you my class might do a skit about Jimmy Stewart at the closing program? The hesitant boy came through with the courage to perform. Unfortunately, we should have had microphones. My husband and son sitting near the back said they had trouble hearing it. I could hear every word from up front and thought they did a terrific job!