Bernville is a borough in Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 905 at the 2020 census. Bernville is bordered by Penn Township to the north, east, and south and by Jefferson Township to the west. It is believed by few that the borough would have been a county seat of a small county called Tulpehocken County. However, no official sources can be found.
East Coventry Township is a township in Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 7,068 at the 2020 census.
Upper Providence Township is a township in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2010 census, the township population was 21,219.
The Delaware and Raritan Canal is a canal in central New Jersey, built in the 1830s, that connects the Delaware River to the Raritan River. It was an efficient and reliable means of transportation of freight between Philadelphia and New York City, transporting anthracite coal from eastern Pennsylvania during much of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The canal allowed shippers to cut many miles off the existing route from the Pennsylvania Coal Region down the Delaware, around Cape May, and up the occasionally treacherous Atlantic Ocean coast to New York City.
The Morris Canal (1829–1924) was a 107-mile (172 km) common carrier anthracite coal canal across northern New Jersey that connected the two industrial canals in Easton, Pennsylvania across the Delaware River from its western terminus at Phillipsburg, New Jersey to New York Harbor and New York City through its eastern terminals in Newark and on the Hudson River in Jersey City. The canal was sometimes called the Morris and Essex Canal, in error, due to confusion with the nearby and unrelated Morris and Essex Railroad.
The Union Canal was a towpath canal that existed in southeastern Pennsylvania in the United States during the 19th century. First proposed in 1690 to connect Philadelphia with the Susquehanna River, it ran approximately 82 mi from Middletown on the Susquehanna below Harrisburg to Reading on the Schuylkill River.
The Main Line of Public Works was a package of legislation passed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1826 to establish a means of transporting freight between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. It funded the construction of various long-proposed canal and road projects, mostly in southern Pennsylvania, that became a canal system and later added railroads. Built between 1826 and 1834, it established the Pennsylvania Canal System and the Allegheny Portage Railroad.
The Schuylkill Canal, or Schuylkill Navigation, was a system of interconnected canals and slack-water pools along the Schuylkill River in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, built as a commercial waterway in the early 19th-century. Chartered in 1815, the navigation opened in 1825, to provide transportation and water power.
Oaks is an unincorporated community located in Upper Providence Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. The community is 18 miles (30 km) northwest of Philadelphia and its boundaries are defined in large part by the village's position at the junction of Perkiomen Creek and the Schuylkill River.
Mont Clare is a village in Upper Providence Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. The village is located on the left bank of the Schuylkill River opposite Phoenixville and Chester County. Mont Clare is at the site of the former Jacobs' ford. Mont Clare hosts the only functional lock and one of only two remaining watered stretches of the Schuylkill Canal. Mont Clare was the birthplace of the infamous outlaw Sundance Kid. As of the 2020 United States census the population was 1,852.
Swatara State Park is a 3,515-acre (1,422 ha) Pennsylvania state park in Bethel, Swatara and Union Townships, Lebanon and Pine Grove Township, Schuylkill Counties in Pennsylvania in the United States. 8 miles (13 km) of Swatara Creek lie within the park's boundaries, which are roughly formed by Pennsylvania Route 443 to the north and Interstate 81 to the south. The park is in a valley in the ridge and valley region of Pennsylvania between Second Mountain (north) and Blue Mountain (south).
The Lehigh Canal is a navigable canal that begins at the mouth of Nesquehoning Creek on the Lehigh River in the Lehigh Valley and Northeastern regions of Pennsylvania. It was built in two sections over a span of 20 years beginning in 1818. The lower section spanned the distance between Easton and present-day Jim Thorpe. In Easton, the canal met the Pennsylvania Canal's Delaware Division and Morris Canals, which allowed anthracite coal and other goods to be transported further up the U.S. East Coast. At its height, the Lehigh Canal was 72 miles (116 km) long.
Early in the 19th century, the Leiper Canal built in 1828–29 during the middle of the American canal age ran about 3 miles (5 km) along Crum Creek in Delaware County to its mouth in eastern Pennsylvania's Delaware Valley carrying its owner‘s quarried products to docks on the Delaware River tidewater until 1852.
The Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal between Wrightsville, Pennsylvania, and Havre de Grace, Maryland, at the head of Chesapeake Bay, provided an interstate shipping alternative to 19th-century arks, rafts, and boats plying the difficult waters of the lower Susquehanna River. Built between 1836 and 1840, it ran 43 miles (69 km) along the west bank of the river and rendered obsolete an older, shorter canal along the east bank. Of its total length, 30 miles (48 km) were in Pennsylvania and 13 miles (21 km) in Maryland. Although rivalry between Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Baltimore, Maryland, delayed its construction, the finished canal brought increased shipments of coal and other raw materials to both cities from Pennsylvania's interior. Competition from railroads was a large factor in the canal's decline after 1855. Canal remnants, including a lock keeper's house, have been preserved in Maryland, and locks 12 and 15 have been preserved in Pennsylvania.
The Leesport Lock House is a house accompanying a lock on the Schuylkill Canal in Leesport, Pennsylvania, USA. The house was built adjacent to the Leesport Locks #36 and #37 to allow canal barges to move quickly up and down the canal. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 9, 1977. The property was purchased in 1975 by a group of teachers and school directors from the Schuylkill Valley School District. They organized the Leesport Lockhouse Foundation. After paying the no interest mortgage, provided by The First National Bank of Leesport, they turned title to the property over to Berks County. The County purchased the neighboring car wash, built over a section of the locks, and transferred ownership to the Borough of Leesport. The property and programs are administered by the Leesport Lockhouse Foundation, Inc.
The Black Rock Dam is a low head dam in the Schuylkill River. Originally constructed as a stone filled, timber crib dam in the early 19th century by the Schuylkill Navigation Company, the dam was one of dozens built to create a slack water pools for the Schuylkill Navigation System. The dam is a contributing property of the "Schuylkill Navigation Canal, Oakes Reach Section" registered historic district. The dam is located between Phoenixville and Mont Clare in southeastern Pennsylvania, USA.
The Ghost Town Trail is a rail trail in Western Pennsylvania that runs 36 miles (58 km) between Black Lick, Indiana County, and Ebensburg, Cambria County. Established in 1991 on the right-of-way of the former Ebensburg and Black Lick Railroad, the trail follows the Blacklick Creek and passes through many ghost towns that were abandoned in the early 1900s with the decline of the local coal mining industry. Open year-round to cycling, hiking, and cross-country skiing, the trail is designated a National Recreation Trail by the United States Department of the Interior.
River Bend Farm is a historic farm located in East Coventry Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania in a bend of the Schuylkill River near Pottstown. The farm house is a good example of early Chester County construction techniques, being built with stuccoed stone walls and pegged rafters. The farm was owned, but not lived in, by Michael Hillegas, the first Treasurer of the United States. It was also owned by members of the Joshua family political dynasty.
The Pottstown Landing Historic District is a national historic district that is located in North Coventry Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania.
The Reading Company used two passenger railway stations in or near Birdsboro, Pennsylvania. The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad built a station on its Main Line in Exeter Township, on the opposite side of the Schuylkill River from Birdsboro. The Wilmington and Northern Railroad established a freight line to Birdsboro in 1870, but it was not until after its merger with the Reading Company that its passenger station was built in the borough.
