A. L. £^ishop — TJie State Wo7'l:s of Pennsylvania. 155 



The works of this company extended 108 miles up the Schuylkill 

 from Philadelphia. Connection was made with the Union canal at 

 Eeading. This improvement was effected by converting the channel 

 into slackwater by building thirty-one dams. Tolls were first taken 

 in 1818, amounting to $233. By 1825 they had increased to 

 $15,776, of which $9,700 were received from coal. The Schuylkill 

 coal industry now had a rapid expansion. By 1823, only eight 

 years after its commencement, the company's tolls amounted to 

 $325,468, of which the sum of $228,000 was derived from coal 

 alone. Much of the balance came from return freights from Phila- 

 delphia on supplies for the mining districts. The report of the com- 

 pany for 1865 showed that 1,000 boats with an average capacity of 

 170 tons passed to and fro through the canal, carrying 1,500,000 

 tons of coal, lumber, iron ore, etc. The cost of the line had been 

 $12,500,000 and a dividend of six per cent, was being, paid. Time, 

 however, brought great changes in the method of transportation, 

 and eventually a rival, the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, 

 obtained control over it through a long lease. The Schuylkill 

 ISTavigation Company remains as one of only four canal and navi- 

 gation companies that now report to the Secretary of Internal 

 Affairs. 



The present condition of the works has been described as 

 follows : — 



"The canal itself has become a memory, the corpus being valu- 

 able only as a possible asset in case a sale should be made for water- 

 works purposes. For the last few years not more than two or 

 three canal boats have passed daily through the lock at the head 

 of Fairmount pool. The wooden locks are but rotting timbers ; the 

 pools are shallow basins, filled with the debris of coal mines; the 

 skeletons of its boats lie bleaching on the shores of the beautiful 

 Schuylkill, the few that are left floating being but sad reminders 

 of the first great transportation enterprise of the Keystone State."* 



Many efforts were made to improve the navigation of the 

 Susquehanna river previous to the commencement of the state 

 works. Large sums of money were expended in removing rocks, 

 deepening channels, and building wing walls, yet the benefit 

 derived from such labor was scarcely perceptible. In the year 

 1793 a company was incorporated to make a canal around the Cone- 

 wago Falls on the west side of the river in the county of York. 



* Scott, Memoir of Charles E. Smith, p. 39. 



