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Pennsylvania: Schuylkill Navigation System Carried Coal to Philadelphia in the Mid-1800s

 

 

February 2, 2025 - It was clear in the early 1800s that Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania's coal deposits were going to become big business.


Investors like Stephen Girard, a Philadelphia banker and one of the richest men in the world, rushed in to buy huge tracts of coal lands.


Indeed, the Girard Estate still has an office in Girardville — named for Stephen Girard.

 

Canal boat laden with anthracite coal passes through Schuylkill Haven circa 1840. 

Contributed photo


The problem was how to get the black diamonds to market in Philadelphia, and other metropolitan areas on the East Coast.


Initially, coal was hauled by carts over primitive roads. Not only was it a slow, tedious task, but it proved impractical as demand for anthracite coal grew.


Then, only 16 years after Necho Allen discovered coal on Broad Mountain near Pottsville, forward-looking investors and public officials began construction of the Schuylkill Navigation System in 1815.


For the next 40 or so years, until it was replaced by railroads, the system was the major artery for transporting coal mined in Schuylkill County to Philadelphia.

 

Mike Szilagyi discussed the evolution of the navigation system recently in a lecture and slide presentation at Alvernia University-Pottsville CollegeTowne campus.


The talk, which drew more than 50 people, was part of Anthracite Mining Heritage Month, a 15-day series of lectures throughout Northeast Pennsylvania.


Beginning on Jan. 10, the series included presentations on anthracite mining history at King’s College, Eckley Mining Village and Everhart Museum in Scranton.


Topics included the Avondale Mine Disaster, the Knox Mine Disaster and the Molly Maguires.


Mining engineer Eric Bella introduced Szilagyi, whose writings include “Berks County Trolleys,” at Alvernia.


“The initial solution, animal carts driven over primitive roads, evolved rapidly into canals, inclined plains, railroads and highway trucks,” Bella said. “This lecture focuses on the network of inland waterways engineered and built 200 years ago — specifically, the Schuylkill Navigation system.”


Szilagyi stressed the importance of differentiating between the canal and the navigation system.


The Schuylkill Canal was only part of the 108-mile-long navigation system between Port Carbon and Philadelphia.


The system, which utilized the Schuylkill River as well as the canal, took nine years to build. An engineering marvel, it had an elevation drop of 618 feet over its course.


The canal had 71 locks fed by 25 dams over about 58 miles. Most boats carried 60 tons of coal, though larger ones could accommodate 100 or more tons, and took several days to reach Philadelphia.;


In 1859, 34 years after it opened, 2 million tons of freight was transported over the navigation system. The bulk of it was anthracite coal.


Canal boats passed through the 450-foot-long Auburn Tunnel, the first transportation tunnel in the United States, starting in 1821.


The tunnel became a tourist attraction, with people traveling 97 miles upstream from Philadelphia to see it, before the Schuylkill Navigation Co. had it daylighted, or opened, in 1857.


Beginning in 1872, certain sections of the system were abandoned. The last canal boat reached Lock No. 70 in Manayunk in 1932 — 107 years after it opened.


The Schuylkill Canal Association received a special recognition award for its restoration of Lock No. 60 in Upper Providence Twp., Montgomery County, in 2005.


The Flat Rock Dam Betterment Project, a $15.5 million restoration project that reconnects the Manayunk Canal to the Schuylkill River, is expected to be completed this year.


The Auburn Gap Bridge, a $2.2 million project connecting Schuylkill and Berks counties on the Schuylkill River Trail, opened in 2023.