Lost Pages of History: Rediscovering the Susquehanna Canal Survey

Canal Context

The story begins during the Canal Mania days in Pennsylvania, as we strove to make improvements in transportation for economic development, utilization of natural resources, and to keep up with New York after their famously successful opening of the Erie Canal. The Westward Migration was afoot in the early 1880s, and we weren’t going to miss out.

The Main Line of canal works from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh included several sections of conventional canal in the east-west direction, tunnels, aqueducts, and slackwater navigation on existing waterways. Some were well-planned and constructed, while others failed to meet minimum dimensions and were disastrously undersized for the boats being used.

Spur canals were built all along that Main Line. A Portage Railroad was even constructed to lift canal boats out of the West Branch of the Susquehanna River at Hollidaysburg, transport them over the Allegheny Mountains, and deposit them into the Ohio River at Johnstown. Navigation from Baltimore to Philadelphia no longer had to circumvent the Delmarva peninsula once the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal was completed in 1829.

Still, the Susquehanna River was considered unnavigable to commercial boats of nearly every size. Various improvements were attempted to identify, improve, or clear a navigable channel within it from Columbia to the Chesapeake Bay. The North-South transportation problem from resource-rich central Pennsylvania to the Bay and beyond vexed everyone. That was until both Pennsylvania and Maryland began building canal improvements along the western shore of the Susquehanna from Wrightsville to Havre de Grace.

Susquehanna and Tidewater Canals

A four-year construction period culminated in the opening of the 43-mile Susquehanna & Tidewater Canal in 1840. With 29 locks accommodating the 231-foot elevation difference from one end to the other, the construction cost of $3.5 million levied a massive debt on the endeavor that never was able to become profitable with annual revenues never rising above $170K. Add in ongoing costs of maintenance, personnel, seasonal limitations, and the increasing competition from rail transportation, and the business was ultimately left with no choice but to sell its assets to the Pennsylvania and Reading Railroad Company in 1872.

The physical assets were indeed phenomenal. A well-known covered bridge between Columbia and Wrightsville included a two-tier mule team towpath allowing boats to glide across the Susquehanna. A massive dam across the Susquehanna made such lateral movements feasible. A similar dam was constructed just below the Conestoga that allowed boats to cross the Susquehanna and access the Susquehanna and Tidewater Canals via an intermediate outlet lock. Culverts, aqueducts, bridges, lock tender houses, dams, waste weirs, and land feeder channels all served the operation. 

Between each lock was a still section of water with an adjacent towpath for the mule teams to tug the boats in either direction. These sections were plainly called levels, the longest of which was five miles between the locks at either end. The name “Long Level” remains used today as a recreational and residential area in York County.

The Survey

From May 17 until July 22, 1875, on behalf of the PA & Reading RR Co., a four-man survey team led by William H. Dechant spent 44 days measuring and drawing a map of the entire system. It is amazingly accurate, detailed, and well-preserved.

Arranged in a conventional series of “Plan and Profile” sheets, each page depicts a different length of the canal both in a birds-eye view and as if sliced along the centerline to be able to see the various important vertical information along and below the canal. Unfortunately, the outlet lock at Havre de Grace is not depicted and is assumed to be on a missing final page or pages. Sixty-seven pages survived and were bound into a large book of enormous size, each sheet measuring roughly 2 feet by 3 feet. Dechant’s handwritten “Notes and Diary on the Susquehanna Canal Survey” also survived, containing daily entries of the surveyors’ activities.

The Safe Harbor Dam

Planning for the dam began in 1929, which included an evaluation of the terrain to be flooded by the impoundment, the changes needed on each bank of the Susquehanna, and the facilities necessary for the construction of the dam. The Dechant survey book offered some minor assistance along the western shore and came to the Safe Harbor Water Power Corporation as part of the holdings purchased from the Pennsylvania and Reading Railroad Company. Following its opening in 1931, the Dechant survey book remained in a drawer in the archives at the Safe Harbor Dam.

A black and white copy of the 67 pages was made and given to Millersville University in 2016. However, the resolution of the copy is not sufficient to make all of the writing and pencil notes legible. The colored shading was similarly blurred.

Last year, on the coattails of Adam Zurn, I was invited for a tour of Safe Harbor Dam by the gracious invitation of Brookfield Renewables. We were invited back for a public festival event and then also for a private exploration of their archive room, gaining access to incredible maps, plans, and photos. Jonathan Rhodes brought out the Dechant survey book. Never having heard of the book, I was immediately spellbound and snapped decent photographs of each page with my phone, an improvement over the black-and-white copy.

The Susquehanna Ramblers

Releasing a few of these photos onto Facebook caught the attention of Jay Mackley, Chip Fullmer, and Dennis Brooks, who are a trio of landside and waterside explorers with the name “Susquehanna Ramblers.” They informed me of the significance of the book in their explorations of not just the commonly visited Locks 12 and 13 or the Lock House Museum in Havre de Grace but pushing deeper beyond what the casual viewer might discern.

These pages were a veritable treasure map of the history along the shore. I must admit that being allowed to tag along with these guys is a real joy and rekindles my passion for historical exploration.

What a grand day it was in the summer of 2023 to do an all-day ramble with them, Adam Zurn, and Don Kautz!

The State Archives

Somehow or other (perhaps just simple nagging), I convinced Brookfield in 2023 to entrust the Dechant survey to me for high-resolution scanning and an ultimate donation to the Pennsylvania State Archives for inclusion into their massive collection of both canal and railroad items. With great thanks to local engineering firm C. S. Davidson for allowing me to use their large document roller scanner, a very fine set of digital scans was created and made available to the Susquehanna Ramblers, the PA State Archives, the Lock House Museum, and LancasterHistory. 

Finally, the Dechant survey had its formal accession into the custody of the PA State Archives in their brand-new building on Friday, January 5, 2024.

Representatives of Brookfield Renewables were on hand to sign the formal paperwork, and the Susquehanna Ramblers attended to cheer on the preservation of this important information for future researchers. As they like to say, “Ramble On!”

by Benton G. Webber, P.E. January 6, 2024

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Susquehanna & Tidewater Canal PDF

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Click the above PDF for navigation tools. Click here to download a PDF copy.

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