National Canal Museum

Last updated
National Canal Museum
National Canal Museum
Established1970 (1970)
Location Easton, Pennsylvania
Type History museum
Accreditation American Alliance of Museums
Owner Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor

The National Canal Museum, officially the Hugh Moore Historical Park & Museums, is a museum in Easton, Pennsylvania, and part of the Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor.

Contents

After a three-year transition during which the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor operated the canal museum under a management agreement, the two merged. The D&L is now responsible for the National Canal Museum, Hugh Moore Park, the Emrick Technology Center, the Locktender's House Museum and the canal boat, Josiah White II.

Officially known as Hugh Moore Historical Park & Museums, the National Canal Museum is located in Easton's Hugh Moore Park.

History

The National Canal Museum opened in 1970 as a joint cooperative effort between the City of Easton's Hugh Moore Park Commission and the Pennsylvania Canal Society. [1] Sitting at the fork between the Delaware and Lehigh Rivers, the museum was intended to highlight and operate within Hugh Moore Park.

The Josiah White, a functioning replica canal boat, debuted in 1978. Canal boat rides became a significant attraction for museum and park visitors.

In 1982, the museum's exhibits were redesigned. New exhibits highlighted the broader history of the towpath canal era and the industrial heritage of the Lehigh Valley.

During this period, the National Canal Museum began hosting several major events, including the annual Canal Festival and annual Canal History and Technology Symposium, the latter being held at Lafayette College. By 1985, the museum was realizing the ability for a complete collection and archival ability of important artifacts of both the canal era and the Industrial Revolution.

In 1996, the National Canal Museum moved to Two Rivers Landing in an effort to revitalize Easton’s downtown district. Today, Two Rivers Landing receives an average of 250,000 visitors each year. Beginning in 2002, the museum began a campaign to add hands-on activities to the existing exhibits. A proposal to the National Science Foundation(NSF) resulted in a grant of $1.4 million, later increased to $2 million, for the creation of exhibits based on the “science and technology of canals and inland waterways."

A new exhibit space was installed in March 2006, focusing on the history, science, and technology of canal construction and navigation.

In 2011, the museum’s 15-year lease period in Two Rivers Landing ended and was not renewed. On January 1, 2012, the museum was relocated, returning to Hugh Moore Park. The Emrick Technology Center was repurposed to act as the main exhibit and administrative space during the Crayola Factory shutdown.

In 2013, the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor began operating the National Canal Museum under a management agreement during the first Crayola Experience opening. This marked the beginning of a three-year transition in which the two organizations would merge. The transition allowed the D&L to integrate the management, finance, marketing, and development functions of the two organizations. The transition period ended in 2017. The museum, along with the other operations of Hugh Moore Historical Park & Museums, is now the Signature Program of the D&L.

Collections

The museum's collections reflect the material culture and document the history of America's canals and navigable rivers, as well as canal-related industries in the Lehigh Valley. The museum's holdings include 3,753 artifacts; 3,890 reels of film, video cassettes and oral history audio tapes; 52,782 slides, photographs and negative images; 31,824 engineering drawings; a library of more than 13,483 volumes; 736 linear feet of manuscript materials; and 261 rolls of microfilm. Among the museum's archival holdings are rare film footage of canal life, historic photographs, canal maps, captain's logs, a complete set of the Army Corps of Engineers' annual reports to Congress, and engineering plans for 15 towpath canals east of the Mississippi River.

The museum is responsible for maintaining and interpreting the historic structures and sites within the 260 acres that comprise Hugh Moore Park, a National Register Historic District. These include Section 8 of the Lehigh Canal and its three operating locks, a locktender's house, ruins from three 19th century industrial areas, and the remains of the Change Bridge, one of the first iron cable suspension bridges constructed in America.

Accreditations and affiliations

The National Canal Museum is accredited by American Alliance of Museums and is an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution.

Hugh Moore Park

Hugh Moore Park is a City of Easton park between the Lehigh River and the Lehigh Canal. It covers 520 acres (2.1 km2), including part of the Lehigh River and section 8 of the Lehigh Canal. The area now known as Hugh Moore Park was originally an industrial park, built due to the large amount of anthracite coal being brought down the Lehigh Canal from present day Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania

The park was purchased by the City of Easton in 1962, using money donated by Hugh Moore. This led to the formation of the Pennsylvania Canal Society in 1966 and the eventual creation of the National Canal Museum. Improvements to the park and its facilities have continually enhanced its visitor experience. These improvements include a biking and hiking trail, a boat launch, and pavilions. Additionally, the park has aided in the preservation of industrial ruins, including three locks, one of which is the only functioning lift lock in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

The Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor, which has merged with The National Canal Museum, is responsible for maintaining and interpreting the historic structures and sites within the 260 acres (1.1 km2) that comprise Hugh Moore Park, a National Register Historic District. These include Section 8 of the Lehigh Canal and its three operating locks, a locktender's house, ruins from three 19th-century industrial areas, and the Change Bridge, one of the first iron cable suspension bridges constructed in America.

The Emrick Center

The Elaine and Peter Emrick Technology Center is a 14,000-square-foot (1,300 m2), two-story brick building constructed to resemble a factory, the likes of which would have been seen throughout the park in the industrial era. The building holds a reception area, exhibit spaces, offices, and the Hugh Moore Park and Museums Archives.

The building opened in 2007. The inaugural exhibit, "From this Valley: Iron, Steel and the Birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution," tells the story of the Lehigh Valley's critical role in the Industrial Revolution. In 2012, the National Canal Museum relocated from Two Rivers Landing to the Emrick Center, and transferred most of the exhibits and hands-on educational activity stations there. The relocated Museum, which is adjacent to the mule-drawn canal boat, the Josiah White II, opened on Memorial Day weekend, 2012. It came under operation of the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor in 2013, completing its merger in 2017.

Archives

Also currently held in the Emrick Technology Center is the archives of the National Canal Museum. Since the inception of the institution and through all of its incarnations, and beginning with the first master plan, there have been provisions for the National Canal Museum to preserve the transportation and industrial history of the area. Since the acquisition of property for this purpose in 1985, the collection has undergone rapid growth, and is now the premier site for information concerning the technology of the Lehigh Valley and canal transportation in America.

The museum's collection reflects these areas, and document the history of America's canals and navigable rives, as well as the related industries in the Lehigh Valley. According to the museum website:

"The museum's holdings include: 3,753 artifacts; 3,890 reels of film, video cassettes [sic.], and audio (oral history) tapes; 52,782 slides, photographs and negative images; 31,824 engineering drawings; a library of more than 13,483 volumes; 736 linear feet of manuscript materials; and 261 rolls of microfilm. [2] "

In addition to a large amount of historical artifacts and data, the museum also employs an in-house historian, available for lectures, researchers, and inquiries.

Locktender's House

Locktender's House and Guard Lock 8 Lehigh Canal-Glendon.jpg
Locktender's House and Guard Lock 8

The Locktender's House is a restored locktender's house nestled between the Lehigh River and Guard Lock 8 on the Lehigh Canal. A museum is located on its first floor. The Locktender's House displays the living and working conditions of people in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Locktender's House was built for the person with the responsibility of operating the lock. In order to ensure that lock was operated, the house was constructed as near to the lock as possible, so there was no reason for someone in the house to be unable to come out and operate the lock.

Opened in 1974, the museum is meant to provide a rough equivalent of what working on the canal would entail. Costumed guides provide background and information during a tour of the rooms of the house.

Josiah White II

The Josiah White II, the current boat used for the canal boat ride, is a steel-hulled boat built in 1993 by Bethlehem Steel at its former Sparrows Point Shipyard in Sparrow's Point, Maryland.

The original canal boat, named the Josiah White, served operationally during the summer from 1978 until 1993, when it was allowed to sink near the feeder gate for the canal. It currently serves as a visual aid for the canal boat ride.

The canal boat ride was developed to provide visitors with context and historical information, including information about building, living, and working on the canal. Pulled by two mules, named Hank and George, the ride intends to recreate the experience of moving down the canal during its operational period. Average rides are 40 minutes long, and discuss a multitude of topics, including mules, mule tending, and the history of the canal.

Timeline


See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Easton, Pennsylvania</span> City in Pennsylvania, United States

Easton is a city in and the county seat of Northampton County, Pennsylvania, United States. The city's population was 28,127 as of the 2020 census. Easton is located at the confluence of the Lehigh River, a 109-mile-long (175 km) river that joins the Delaware River in Easton and serves as the city's eastern geographic boundary with Phillipsburg, New Jersey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chesapeake & Delaware Canal</span> United States historic place

The Chesapeake & Delaware Canal is a 14-mile (22.5 km)-long, 450-foot (137.2 m)-wide and 35-foot (10.7 m)-deep ship canal that connects the Delaware River with the Chesapeake Bay in the states of Delaware and Maryland in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Schuylkill River</span> River in eastern Pennsylvania, United States

The Schuylkill River is a river in eastern Pennsylvania. It flows for 135 miles (217 km) from Pottsville southeast to Philadelphia, the nation's sixth-largest city, where it joins the Delaware River as one of its largest tributaries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Morris Canal</span> Canal in New Jersey

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lehigh River</span> River in Pennsylvania, United States

The Lehigh River is a 109-mile-long (175 km) tributary of the Delaware River in eastern Pennsylvania. The river flows in a generally southward pattern from the Pocono Mountains in Northeastern Pennsylvania through Allentown and much of the Lehigh Valley before joining the Delaware River in Easton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Union Canal (Pennsylvania)</span> United States historic place

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.

Anthracite iron or anthracite pig iron is iron extracted by the smelting together of anthracite coal and iron ore, that is using anthracite coal instead of charcoal in iron smelting. This was an important technical advance in the late-1830s, enabling a great acceleration of the Industrial Revolution in the United States and in Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Delaware and Hudson Railway</span> Railroad in the northeastern United States

The Delaware and Hudson Railway (D&H) is a railroad that operates in the Northeastern United States. In 1991, after more than 150 years as an independent railroad, the D&H was purchased by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CP). CP, which would itself become part of Canadian Pacific Kansas City in 2023, operated D&H under its subsidiary Soo Line Corporation, which also operates Soo Line Railroad.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Main Line of Public Works</span> United States historic place

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Schuylkill Canal</span>

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canvass White</span> American engineer and inventor

Canvass White was an American engineer and inventor. He was chief engineer at the Delaware and Raritan Canal and he patented Rosendale cement, which became the dominant cement in the United States until 1900.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pennsylvania Canal (Delaware Division)</span> United States historic place

The Delaware Division of the Pennsylvania Canal, more commonly called the Delaware Canal, runs for 60 miles (97 km) parallel to the right bank of the Delaware River from the entry locks near the mouth of the Lehigh River and terminal end of the Lehigh Canal at Easton south to Bristol. At Easton, which today is the home of The National Canal Museum, the Delaware Canal also connected with the Morris Canal built to carry anthracite coal to energy-starved New Jersey industries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lehigh Canal</span> United States historic place

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 greatest extent, the Lehigh Canal was 72 miles (116 km) long.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Delaware Canal State Park</span> State park in Bucks and Northampton counties, Pennsylvania

Delaware Canal State Park is a 830-acre (336 ha) Pennsylvania state park in Bucks and Northampton Counties in Pennsylvania. The main attraction of the park is the Delaware Canal which runs parallel to the Delaware River between Easton and Bristol.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pennsylvania Canal</span> Former canal network in Pennsylvania

The Pennsylvania Canal, sometimes known as the Pennsylvania Canal system, was a complex system of transportation infrastructure improvements, including canals, dams, locks, tow paths, aqueducts, and viaducts. The canal was constructed and assembled over several decades beginning in 1824, the year of the first enabling act and budget items.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ark (river boat)</span>

In early periods of North American industrial development, an ark was a temporary boat used for river transport in eastern North America before slack-water canals and railroads made them obsolete. Because they could be built using relatively crude hand tools, arks were built in American colonial and early republic times, primarily to carry cargo downriver on the spring freshets, and especially to carry milled lumber, charcoal and other forest products and bulk agricultural produce to a city or a port downriver. While logs were often tied into rafts, on long trips which could take weeks, the rafts would be accompanied by such arks as crew support quarters. Deep rivers allowed large log arks as described below instead of less controllable rafts. Since by 1800, most eastern towns and cities were short on heating fuels, even badly processed timber or planks could readily be sold at the destinations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor</span> United States National Heritage Area in Pennsylvania

Delaware & Lehigh Canal National and State Heritage Corridor (DLNHC) is a 165-mile (266 km) National Heritage Area in eastern Pennsylvania in the United States. It stretches from north to south, across five counties and over one hundred municipalities. It follows the historic routes of the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad, Lehigh Valley Railroad, the Lehigh Navigation, Lehigh Canal, and the Delaware Canal, from Bristol northeast of Philadelphia to Wilkes-Barre in the northeastern part of the state.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company</span> Defunct mining and transportation company

Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company was a mining and transportation company headquartered in Mauch Chunk, now known as Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. The company operated from 1818 until its dissolution in 1964 and played an early and influential role in the American Industrial Revolution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catasauqua Creek</span> River

Catasauqua Creek is an ENE–SSW oriented creek draining 6.6 miles (10.6 km) from springs of the Blue Mountain barrier ridge several miles below the Lehigh Gap in the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians located upriver and opposite from Allentown in Lehigh and Northampton counties in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania.

The Canal Age is a term of art used by science, technology, and industry historians. Various parts of the world have had various canal ages; the main ones belong to Egypt, Ancient Babylon, and the historical empires of India, China, Southeast Asia, and mercantile Europe. The successes of the Canal du Midi in France (1681), Bridgewater Canal in Britain, and Eiderkanal in Denmark (1784) spurred on what was called in Britain "canal mania". In the Thirteen Colonies in 1762 legislation was passed supporting in the colonial-era Province of Pennsylvania to improve navigation on the Schuylkill River through Philadelphia.

References

  1. National Canal Museum Timeline
  2. "About the Archives". canals.org. Archived from the original on 2007-02-28.

40°39′44″N75°14′20″W / 40.66224°N 75.23900°W / 40.66224; -75.23900