42
COLUMBIA AND MONTOUR COUNTIES
T he State-aid roads arc built by the high w ay department and maintained by them, one half of the cost of building and maintenance being borne by the State and the other half by the county and township. These roads are built to conform with the State standards and arc under the supervision of the highway de partment. • In 19 14 a section o f State-aided roadway 8,555 length w as built in the boroughs o f Berwick and W est Berw ick, under the supervision of the State highway department. T he base was concrete and the road was sur faced with Watsontown brick, laid in. tar. T he contract price of the work was $31,26 5.33. A strip on each side of the street, including the gutter and curbing, w as added by the two boroughs and laid under the supervision of the State engineers; this additional strip w as paid fo r by the boroughs alone. Its length was 3,200 feet, and extended as fa r as the settled portion of the town o f West Berwick. The present completed State-aid roads are located in Catawissa, Berwick, Danville and a stretch north and south o f Benton. The road from Bloomsburg to Danville and through Montour county to Northumberland is macadamized and kept in a fine state of repair, white in other parts o f both counties work is proceeding on the roads as rapidly as the amount o f funds on hand held by the highway department w ill justify. NORTH
BRANCH
CANAL
T he Susquehanna w as declared a navigable highway by the Provincial Assembly of 17 7 1 and a sum set aside to improve it. "D urham ” boats, so named from a tow'n below Easton, where they were built, were the first to navi gate the river. They were sixty feet long, eight feet wide and two feet deep, and drew twenty inches o f water when loaded with fifteen tons o f merchandise. Four men, with setting poles, moved them against the current at the rate o f two miles an hour. Many attcmpt.s were made to increase their speed mechanjcally before the invention o f steam. Isaac A . 'Oiapman, in 1824. built a boat at Nescopeck designed to be operated by horsepower, but it failed after repeated trials. It was fittingly named the “ Experim ent." Farm ers and merchants of these counties re sorted to (he use o f “ ark s," rafts and fiats for the transportation of their merchandise, but they often lost the results o f months o f labor in a few moments In the rapids and eddies of (lie trcaclicrous stream. According to the
Danville IValchman o f that year the trade on the Susquehanna in 1824, by means o f "a rk s" and rafts, from Columbia county, w as 100,000 bushels of wheat, 3,000 bushels o f clover seed, 3,000 barrels o f whiskey. 250 tons o f pork, and a sn u ll amount o f lumber. It seems that the forests were then beginning to be completely exhausted along the watercourses. in A pril, i8 w, the "Codorus,” a steamer built at Vork Haven and commanded by Cap tain Eiger, passed Berwick on its w av to W ilkes-Barre and Binghamton. T he follow ing month Captain Collins, in the “ Susque hanna," a laig cr boat, attempted to pass the falls o f Ncscopcck, opposite Berw ick, and in the attempt the boiler exploded, killing four and wounding a large number of the passen gers. T his settled the fate o f navigation in the river, and steps were at once taken for the construction o f a canal. Propositions had been made to build a series o f dams across the river, but never went beyond the discussion stage. The North Branch canal, which was an extension of the Penn sylvania State canal system, w as begun in 1826, the first excavation being celebrated at Berwick by a military parade and salutes from the cannon. Alexander Jam eson drove the oxen and N atlun Beach held the plow handles as the first furrow s were turned. T he North Branch canal began at North umberland and extended to the N ew Y o rk State line, there connecting with a canal to E lm ira; thcncc boats were towed down Seneca lake to the branch of the E rie canal, through which either the Atlantic or (he Great Lakes could be easily reached. T he canal was opened as fa r as Nanticoke falls in September, 1 8 3 1; the W yoming extension to Pittston, seventeen miles, was completed in 18 34 : the Tioga branch, to connect with the New Y o rk canal system, w as begun in 18 36; also the line from Pittston to A then s; the Tuiikhannock line was begun in 1838. The North Branch Canal Company w as in corporated in 1843 and took over the unfin ished portion between the luckaw anna river and (he New Y o rk State line, but did not carry out the contract, and in 1848 the State regained control o f that part. T he entire canal and its branches was finallv completed in 1853, hut not fully opened untif 1856, when the “ Tonaw anda" p.isscd up from Pittston to Elm ira with a cargo o f coal. The total cost of the North Branch canal and its branches was S i . 598.379 -3!> The length of the canal through the counties of Columbia and Montour was about twenty-
