Early in the 19th century, the Leiper Canal built in 1828–29 during the middle of the American canal age ran about along

Crum Creek Crum Creek (from the Dutch, meaning "crooked creek") is a creek in Delaware County and Chester County, Pennsylvania, flowing approximately , generally in a southward direction and draining into the Delaware River in Eddystone, Pennsylvania. I ...

in Delaware County to its mouth in eastern

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

's Delaware Valley carrying its owner‘s quarried products to docks on the Delaware River tidewater until 1852.

Early days

Previously, a horse-drawn tramway, the

Leiper Railroad The Leiper Railroad was a 'family business–built' horse drawn railroad of , constructed in 1810 after the quarry owner, Thomas Leiper, failed to obtain a charter with legal rights-of-way to instead build his desired canal along Crum Creek. The qu ...

, carried stone from the quarry for 18 years before the opening of the canal. The tramway was built by Leiper's father,

Thomas Leiper Thomas Leiper (15 December 1745 – 6 July 1825) was a Scottish American businessman, banker and politician who owned a successful tobacco exportation business as well as several mills and stone quarries. He served as a lieutenant in the Philad ...

, whose request to build a canal in 1791 was denied by the Pennsylvania Legislature. However, the Legislature of 1824 were of a different mind, and were unbiased by reports of failed attempts to improve the

Schuylkill River The Schuylkill River ( , ) is a river running northwest to southeast in eastern Pennsylvania. The river was improved by navigations into the Schuylkill Canal, and several of its tributaries drain major parts of Pennsylvania's Coal Region. It f ...

(a series of failures, back to 1764) as they were debating parts of the

Main Line of Public Works The Main Line of Public Works was a package of legislation passed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1826 to establish a means of transporting freight between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. It funded the construction of various long-proposed can ...

omnibus transportation package of bills, and the project, once ranked a crackpot idea, was in 1824 simply stylish.

Changing times

As it had evinced enthusiasms for toll roads connecting the far off frontier settlements to the east, or to better connect parts of the old east itself, between 1790 and 1820, as the 1820s progressed, the whole nation had entered a period of frenzied canal building spurred on by the successful effects of the commerce on the

Lehigh Canal The Lehigh Canal, or the Lehigh Navigation Canal, is a navigable canal that begins at the mouth of Nesquehoning Creek on the Lehigh River in eastern Pennsylvania. It was built in two sections over a span of twenty years, beginning in 1818. The low ...

and Schuylkill Canals; along with the ongoing construction of the Union Canal, Chesapeake and Delaware Canal locally expected within a few years, and New York's pending completion of the

Erie Canal The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east-west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, vastly reducing t ...

(first section now open) even while the various Delaware and Hudson Canal projects were in the news. In light of the big projects contemplated to link Philadelphia by canal with Pittsburgh and Erie, Pennsylvania and

Lake Erie Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also h ...

, the Pennsylvania general court speedily approved a second canal proposal by Thomas Leiper, and the construction project was carried out by his son. The Leiper Canal was one of several privately funded canals such as the

, Union Canal and the Schuylkill Canals that operated in Pennsylvania during the same boom era as when the

Pennsylvania Canal System The Pennsylvania Canal (or sometimes Pennsylvania Canal system) was a complex system of transportation infrastructure improvements including canals, dams, locks, tow paths, aqueducts, and viaducts. The Canal and Works were constructed and assemb ...

was constructed. In 1852, the families railway was reopened and the canal and locks were eventually filled in. Completed in 1828 to haul stone in flat-bottomed boats from his quarry near Springfield Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, to the navigable Delaware River at Eddystone, industrialist George Leiper financed the canal based on a dream of his father, using it when completed to replace the animal powered

between 1829 and 1852.

Configuration

Crum Creek's mouth is located at .—and perhaps uniquely ironic in history, was in turn replaced by the same railroad in 1852 when it was refurbished and reopened with new superior and now mature railroad technology. The system, which had three

locks Lock(s) may refer to: Common meanings *Lock and key, a mechanical device used to secure items of importance *Lock (water navigation), a device for boats to transit between different levels of water, as in a canal Arts and entertainment * ''Lock ...

, replaced an

industrial railway An industrial railway is a type of railway (usually private) that is not available for public transportation and is used exclusively to serve a particular industrial, logistics, or military site. In regions of the world influenced by British ra ...

built in 1810 by the elder Leiper when he failed to obtain a

right-of-way Right of way is the legal right, established by grant from a landowner or long usage (i.e. by prescription), to pass along a specific route through property belonging to another. A similar ''right of access'' also exists on land held by a gov ...

charter for any canal; operated by his family, the

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million yea ...

-drawn industrial railroad carried the families stone goods until the canal, which could carry heavier loads, received legislative blessings and was completed in 1828.

Recognition

The

Thomas Leiper Estate The Thomas Leiper Estate, also known as Avondale, is a historic estate located at Wallingford in Nether Providence Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania. It was built by Thomas Leiper around 1785, and named Strath Haven after Leiper's birth ...

was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1970. The Thomas Leiper House has been turned into a public museum in the well-to-do neighborhood of Wallingford.

Footnotes

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External links