154 A. L. Bishop — The State Works of Pennsylvania. 



for a second settlement in the Province of Pennsylvania."* It 

 is difficult to draw any satisfactory conclusions as to how Penn 

 proposed to bring about the communication, but the fact is that 

 a canal was commenced between these rivers exactly a century after 

 the document referred to was written. If it was his idea to join 

 the Schuylkill and the Susquehanna by a canal, Penn was far in 

 advance of the age in devising means of internal transportation, 

 for at this time canals were unknown even in Great Britain. 



ISTearly three-quarters of a century had yet to elapse before any 

 movement for the improvement of the means of inland navigation 

 of Pennsylvania crystallized into an act of legislature authorizing 

 the same. The first activity was directed to the improvement of 

 the rivers. Large sums of money were thus expended with little 

 results before this device was supplemented by building artificial 

 waterways. 



The Schuylkill river was the first to receive attention. By Act 

 of March 14th, 1761, f fifteen commissioners were appointed to 

 make this waterAvay "navigable and passable for boats, floats, rafts, 

 canoes and other small vessels from the ridge of mountains com- 

 monly called the Blue Mountains to the river Delaware." Power 

 was also vested in them to receive and appropriate all moneys 

 donated for this purpose. Supplementary acts| were passed from 

 time to time appointing new commissioners. IN'o general plan of 

 improvement was carried through, however, until the formation of 

 the Schuylkill l^avigation Company, a private enterprise incor- 

 porated in 1815. 



* "It is now my purpose to make another settlement, upon the river of 

 Susquehannagh, that runs into the Bay of Chesapeake, and bears about fifty 

 miles west from the river Delaware, as appears by the Common Maps of the 

 English Dominion in America. Tliere I design to lay out a Flan for the 

 building of another City, in the most convenient place for communicating 

 with the former plantations on the East; which by llind, is as good as done 

 already, a way being laid out between the two rivers very exactly arid con- 

 veniently, at least three years ago; and which will not be hard to do by 

 water, by the l)enefit of the river Scotilhill ; for a Branch of that river lies 

 near a Brunch that rims into the Susquehannagh River, and is the Common 

 Course of the Indians with their Skins and Furrs into our Parts." See Haz. 

 Reg., I, p. 400. 



f Smith's Laws of Pennsylvania, T, p. 2.35. 



t February 2Gth, 1773; March 24th, 1781; March 15th, 1784. 



