From a Canal Boat To the Library

Last week my family visited the National Canal Museum in Easton, PA and rode on a model of a canal boat. Being on vacation, I did not expect our boat ride to lead me back to the Jefferson library. But that is exactly where I ended up.

You’re probably wondering how a boat ride in PA. led me back to Jefferson, NJ. Let’s start with the coal. The canal I sailed upon in Easton was built to ship coal from northern PA to New York City and New Jersey. Coal was needed to fuel iron furnaces, like the ones that populated the Jefferson area until the late ninetteenth century. It was also used to heat homes.

Then I learned about the water in the canal. Any canal needs a source of water.  In Easton I learned that Lake Hopatcong was the source for the Morris Canal, which cut across northern New Jersey.

Depending upon the path of the canal, it also needs mechanisms to control the levels of water fromon elevation to the next.  Most canals use locks to manipulate the level of water in the canal.

Locks were considered a technological marvel of their day. Essentially locks enabled canal boats filled to the brims with tons of freight to climb and descend hundreds of feet.

The most ambitious of these lock systems was found in the Morris Canal.  It enabled canal boats to rise 914 feet above sea level, as they traversed northern New Jersey. America’s most famous canal, the Erie Canal in New York, took boats to 700 feet above sea level.

My indirect journey from a canal boat in Easton back to Jefferson captures one of the great features of the public library—serendipity.  

I did not expect to find myself reading about the Morris Canal, Jefferson’s iron mines and forges, locks and Lake Hopatcong this week, but a simple ride on a canal boat made me curious and led me back to the library.