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How is the Erie Canal funded now? How do they pay for maintenance? Who does the maintenance?

In response to your questions, all of the active New York State canals were transferred from the authority of the Department of Transportation to the New York Thruway Authority. The Thruway Authority has a greater source of income since it depends on tolls and not taxes for its funding. The canals are maintained by special crews who are based on dry docks throughout the canal system. The canal workers also operate a number of tugs, work boats and dredges.

I have a research question about the Lehigh Canal. I have read that some boats came up the canals, filled with tourists. Were there any boat such as this using the Lehigh Canal in the late 1800s?

The trip to which you refer is the famous voyage of the Molly Polly Chunker that occurred in June 1886. the roster of the party included the great artist and glass designer Louis Comfort Tiffany, Henry Holt, a famous New York publisher, Robert Wade Forest, the general counsel of the NJ Central Railroad and the father of radio pioneer L.D. Forest, and Lois Knox, the daughter of the president of Lafayette College in Easton and the future wife of Tiffany. The party traveled between Bristol and Mauch Chunk, PA in a converted work boat. We have additional information on the Molly Polly Chunker, including photographs.

I have placed on Ebay a stock certificate dated 1860 for the Morris Canal. I do not know much about this item, other than some information obtained from a stock certificate dealer. Can you give me any input on this item?

Thank you for your inquiry about the Morris Canal. The state of New Jersey chartered the Morris Canal and Banking Company in 1824 for the purpose of building a canal across the state from the Delaware River (Phillipsburg) to the Hudson River (Jersey City). The state also gave the company banking privileges, but when the company went bankrupt in 1844, these were nullified. By 1831, the Morris Canal had been completed between Phillipsburg (where it was connected by a cable ferry to PA's Lehigh and Delaware Canals) and Newark. In 1836, the canal was extended to Jersey City, giving it a 102.15 mile length. To overcome a 950 foot summit, the Morris Canal utilized 23 incline planes and 32 lift locks. The canal's peak year was 1866, when it carried over 700,000 tons of cargo. In 1871, the Morris Canal was leased to the Lehigh Valley Railroad. Fifty-one years later, the state of New Jersey acquired the canal. Except for the canal's Hudson River basins and the dam at Lake Hopatcong, the Morris Canal was largely destroyed between 1924-1928.

Somewhere I saw that a canal boat can travel 65 miles in a day. Do you agree with this number?

A towpath canal boat could cover at most 35 miles a day due to the speed restriction caused by the canal's clay lining and its earthen construction. The top speed on most canals was 4 miles per hour. A canal boat traveling faster than 4 miles per hour would cause a wake that would begin to erode the lining and earthen banks. I do not know how fast a modern boat could go on a canalized river.

I know along the D&R Canal, the boats weren't supposed to go more than 4 m.p.h. But did the mule-drawn ones go that fast? Or was it more like 2-3 miles per hour? This is a team of two, not four. I'm asking because I turned in an article on the D&R, and now I realize I need to get that fact straight.

Thank you for your e-mail request about the speed of canal boats. The top speed on most canals was 4 m.p.h. A canal boat's wake over the 4 m.p.h. speed limit would damage the earthen walls of the canal. Most canal boats, however, traveled about 2 m.p.h., especially if they were loaded with cargo. In order to get above 2 m.p.h., a team of mules would have to trot. Because of the nature of the work performed by mules on the towpath, slow and steady was more efficient economically and otherwise than fast.

What kinds of machines did they use to build the canals?

The soft material was dug out by hand. Even the blasting holes in rock were drilled by hand. People from many part of the world came to work digging the canal, many of them from Ireland.