Canal boat sinks in Hawley’s basin
This isn't the April Fool's edition. If not a ship, then a canal boat, loaded with an expensive cargo of anthracite coal, sank to the bottom of the basin in
What's more, the boat sank and was not recovered for at least 35 years.
Today the basin site is a broad, mowed field with two baseball diamonds, baseball and tennis courts. It is that great expanse between the playground, next to the bandstand, and the skate park near where
Today it is easy to see the remnants of the berm that marks the rim, especially along
Some background
At
The canal was used mostly for shipping coal. In 1849 the basin at
Coal arrived near the bandstand site where boats docked. The PCC had a fleet of 495 boats by the end of 1854. In 1849,
After the PCC switched to transferring coal onto steam trains in 1863,
Only three boats continued to be loaded at the basin, with PCC coal, and transported only from
In 1869, a portion of the basin was to be filled up by removing culm. The railroad was building shops in the flats between the basin and the
When the D&H abandoned the canal, basins at
Communities dealt with the problems of stagnant, polluted water. Left over coal, however, presented an opportunity.
About that sunken boat...
"A new industry has developed at
"Now that the canal is abandoned and on account of the coal strike there are many idle people in
"So far at least 100 tons have been gathered and stored away for future use and the work is still going on. The coal miners, many of them
"The land being worked is about one-eighth of a mile in length and is rich with coal.
"Another scheme on hand is to find a canal boat that was sunk in the basin at
This opportunity proved to be short-lived.
Little other reference has been found to this activity.
"The mining of the coal in the canal basin was ordered stopped last Friday afternoon. Some people were not contented with getting the canal for their own use, but went to selling it to other people, hence the mining was stopped for every one."
A column in
"
Many questions
Not enough information has been handed down to explain what happened to the canal boat, why it sank and when (and if) its remains and the coal were finally recovered.
The D&H had enlarged the canal twice, to accommodate larger and larger shipments. At first, the wooden boats had only a 20-ton capacity. In 1844, the canal was enlarged to provide for 40-ton capacity boats. By 1850, the newly expanded canal allowed for boats that could carry 98 tons. Finally, boats of 130 ton capacity could be used. This helped the D&H meet the goal to transport as much as a million tons in the 1855 and 1856 seasons.
The 130-ton capacity boats were 91 feet long and 14-1/2 feet wide.
It doesn't seem likely that an older boat was loaded at the
We have to presume that any canal crew members on board were able to escape safely.
We'd also like to know how well the wooden boat would have lasted underwater for 35 years, how much was buried in sediments and whatever happened to the salvaging effort.
Apparently the basin was deep enough that the sunken vessel did not hinder navigation.
Boats were purchased by canal boat operators and were a major investment. These weren't pleasure craft. They were the bread and butter for hundreds of hardy canal families, who found taking to 10 -- 11 day trip down the canal in all sorts of weather, a way of life. Loss of a boat had to have been devastating, unless there was insurance for them.
A search of old newspapers did not find more on this incident, but it did find that sunken canal boats were not all that uncommon. If it was blocking a canal that was a serious issue and created a traffic jam for other canalers, just as a highway accident might.
An article published in 1898 told of the methods used to retrieve coal from a sunken canal boat. The old method was to try to raise the boat with the coal with pontoons and chains. A less expensive method was developed which pumped the coal out, using a siphon. Emptying the sunken boat would typically cause the boat to float to the surface, unless it was too badly damaged, water-soaked or wedged in.
Further information was not located in
Black diamonds to baseball diamonds
The
Bits of coal have surfaced at times even in recent years. When the restrooms were being built near the bandstand in 2015-2016, large amounts of coal dust and small chips of coal turned up in the excavator's shovel.
Perhaps there's still remains of a sunken boat somewhere under a baseball diamond or in the outfield.
...
Main sources:
Vintage newspapers found at Fultonhistory.com
Coal Boats to Tidewater (1971) by
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