Ok, it's not actually the Erie Canal but I don't know any other canal songs. This is a little 5"x7" gouache study I did of the Delaware and Raritan Canal as it appears in Lambertville, NJ.

Debbie and I made the trip out to western New Jersey last weekend to check out some restaurants for her blog, Jersey Bites. In true history geek style, I found something for me too (besides great food and company that is). The D&R Canal. I plan on getting out there again in the fall to paint the foliage on this beautiful stretch of canal.

Besides beauty, history abounds on the canal too. A simple stroll along the tow path will provide the history geek with plenty of eye candy in the form of old buildings and historic architecture. At times, you can almost forget the present entirely and feel as though you are in a different era. An era where canal boats literally fueled the fire of the Industrial Revolution with coal, which made up eighty percent of the cargo hauled on the canal. The D&R remained in operation from it's completion in 1834 to it's closure in 1932. Almost 100 years.

The idea for a canal through the "waist" of New Jersey had been around a long time. As far back as 1676, William Penn signed a document giving the OK for surveyors to examine the possibility. It wasn't until 1830 that an act was passed authorizing the Delaware and Raritan Canal Company and the Camden and Amboy Railroad Company to begin work. The 44 mile, 75 foot wide and 7 foot deep canal was dug by hand. As if the back-breaking work wasn't enough, many of the Irish laborers who worked on the canal dig became vicitims of a 1832 Asian Cholera epidemic.

Nowadays, the canal is a State Park and most of it is protected. It's not the only canal in New Jersey either. Check out the Canal Society of New Jersey's website where history geeks with a love of engineering can get their fill. Or, for the rest of the country, you can go to the American Canal Society to find out where the nearest canal is in your state and revisit a time before trains and 18-wheelers moved the country's freight. A time when all along the canal was heard:

Low bridge!

Everybody down

Low bridge!

We're comin' to a town.....

Ok, I know that was corny but I'm a geek and I can get away with it.