Page:Historical and Biographical Annals of Columbia and Montour Counties, Pennsylvania, Containing a Concise History of the Two Counties and a Genealogical and Biographical Record of Representative Families.djvu/71

42 COLUMBIA AND MONTOUR COUNTIES The State-aid roads arc built by the highway department and maintained by them, one half of the cost of building and maintenance being borne by the State and the other half by the county and township. These roads are built to conform with the State standards and arc under the supervision of the highway department.

In 1914 a section of State-aided roadway 8,555 feet in length was built in the boroughs of Berwick and West Berwick, under the supervision of the State highway department. The base was concrete and the road was surfaced with Watsontown brick, laid in, tar. The contract price of the work was $31,265.33. A strip on each side of the street, including the gutter and curbing, was added by the two boroughs and laid under the supervision of the State engineers; this additional strip was paid for by the boroughs alone. Its length was 3,200 feet, and extended as far as the settled portion of the town of West Berwick. The present completed State-aid roads are located in Catawissa, Berwick, Danville and a stretch north and south of Benton. The road from Bloomsburg to Danville and through Montour county to Northumberland is macadamized and kept in a fine state of repair, white in other parts of both counties work is proceeding on the roads as rapidly as the amount of funds on hand held by the highway department will justify.

NORTH BRANCH CANAL

The Susquehanna was declared a navigable highway by the Provincial Assembly of 1771 and a sum set aside to improve it. "Durham" boats, so named from a town below Easton, where they were built, were the first to navigate the river. They were sixty feet long, eight feet wide and two feet deep, and drew twenty inches of water when loaded with fifteen tons of merchandise. Four men, with setting poles, moved them against the current at the rate of two miles an hour. Many attempts were made to increase their speed mechanically before the invention of steam. Isaac A. Chapman, in 1824. built a boat at Nescopeck designed to be operated by horsepower, but it failed after repeated trials. It was fittingly named the "Experiment." Farmers and merchants of these counties resorted to the use of "arks," rafts and fiats for the transportation of their merchandise, but they often lost the results of months of labor in a few moments In the rapids and eddies of the treacherous stream. According to the Danville Watchman of that year the trade on the Susquehanna in 1824, by means of "arks" and rafts, from Columbia county, was 100,000 bushels of wheat, 3,000 bushels of clover seed, 3,000 barrels of whiskey. 250 tons of pork, and a small amount of lumber. It seems that the forests were then beginning to be completely exhausted along the watercourses.

in April, i826, the "Codorus," a steamer built at York Haven and commanded by Captain Eiger, passed Berwick on its way to Wilkes-Barre and Binghamton. The following month Captain Collins, in the "Susquehanna," a larger boat, attempted to pass the falls of Nescopeck, opposite Berwick, and in the attempt the boiler exploded, killing four and wounding a large number of the passengers. This settled the fate of navigation in the river, and steps were at once taken for the construction of a canal.

Propositions had been made to build a series of dams across the river, but never went beyond the discussion stage. The North Branch canal, which was an extension of the Pennsylvania State canal system, was begun in 1826, the first excavation being celebrated at Berwick by a military parade and salutes from the cannon. Alexander Jameson drove the oxen and Nathan Beach held the plow handles as the first furrows were turned.

The North Branch canal began at Northumberland and extended to the New York State line, there connecting with a canal to Elmira; thence boats were towed down Seneca lake to the branch of the Erie canal, through which either the Atlantic or (he Great Lakes could be easily reached. The canal was opened as far as Nanticoke falls in September, 1831; the Wyoming extension to Pittston, seventeen miles, was completed in 1834: the Tioga branch, to connect with the New York canal system, was begun in 1836; also the line from Pittston to Athens; the Tunkhannock line was begun in 1838.

The North Branch Canal Company was incorporated in 1843 and took over the unfinished portion between the Lackawanna river and the New York State line, but did not carry out the contract, and in 1848 the State regained control of that part. The entire canal and its branches was finally completed in 1853, hut not fully opened untif 1856, when the "Towanda" passed up from Pittston to Elmira with a cargo of coal. The total cost of the North Branch canal and its branches was S1,598,379.35

The length of the canal through the counties of Columbia and Montour was about twenty-