On or about June 20 in 1872, the D&H Canal Company received some good news. The NYS Court of Appeals had upheld a lower court ruling that had granted the canal company a rate increase in its transportation of the coal of the Pennsylvania Coal Company. The decision ended litigation that had dragged on for nearly 20 years.

The D&H Canal was one of the most transformative projects in American history, and Sullivan County, which just happened to be in its way geographically, was immeasurably impacted by it.

The 108 mile long waterway that connected the coal fields of northeastern Pennsylvania to the lucrative NYC market via the Hudson River – and Sullivan County – had opened for business in 1828. In the first 20 years of the canal’s operation, the population of Sullivan County more than doubled – from the 12,364 recorded in the 1830 census to 25,088 in 1850. The completion of the canal made possible the rise of the tanning industry here in the mid-19th century and contributed mightily to the growth of a number of communities from Barryville to Phillipsport.

In fact, by 1870, Wurtsboro, which owed its existence almost entirely to the canal, had a population of 650, which ranked it second in the county behind Monticello (1000). Another canal community, Phillipsport, with a population of 400 was sixth, and Barryville (259) ranked 11th in population.

The D&H was a massive undertaking, and was embarked upon at considerable financial risk. Although the actual construction took but three years – the canal was built entirely by hand with the aid of just a few horses- it was the culmination of a 13-year project first conceived by William Wurts.

Wurts and his brother Maurice decided to construct the waterway after exhausting every other feasible method of getting their coal from Carbondale to New York, including hauling it overland by oxen-drawn sled. As James Eldridge Quinlan points out in his “History of Sullivan County,” published in 1873, it wasn’t an easy decision, nor was it universally regarded as sound:

“Intellectual dwarfs shrink and whither in peril, while the giant mind acquires magnitude in proportion to the dangers which arise and threaten disaster,” Quinlan wrote. “Without competition and with fair profits on the fuel and lumber they sent to market, William and Maurice Wurts probably would have continued the coal business on a small scale, and been contented with their primitive mode of transportation, and their limited revenue from the business. At that time, in a single year, six thousand tons of anthracite glutted the markets of all the cities of the Atlantic coast of the United States. Maurice Wurts, knowing this fact, proposed to send to the city of NY alone one hundred thousand tons annually, and to provide a way to do so, broached the project of scaling the Moosic Mountain with a railroad and constructing a long canal through a rugged and almost unexplored country, from the interior of Wayne County, Pennsylvania to the Hudson! It is not surprising that the boldness of the proposition caused many who could see but the necessities of the hour to regard Maurice Wurts as wild and visionary, if not absolutely insane.”

Once completed, the canal’s economic impact on other parts of the country was equally as great. Quinlan wrote that “the benefit of this canal to Sullivan is a mere bagatelle when compared with its benign influence on the coal-region of Pennsylvania, on New York and other cities, and on the country at large. Its success led to other works for a similar purpose, which now minister to the comforts of the poor, and add to the wealth of the rich. Destroy the coal fields of the Lackawanna, and the public improvements which have been made to convey the carbonaceous deposit to those who consume it, and you will bring upon an immense number of the human family an evil not exceeded by famine and pestilence. From such a contingency only could we learn truly to estimate the benefits conferred by William and Maurice Wurts, whose memory should be honored by all good men.”

Besides its enormous economic impact, the canal had other more subtle effects on the growing nation. In his 1997 corporate history of the waterway, “From the Coalfields to the Hudson,” Larry Lowenthal calls the D&H “one of America’s great pioneer enterprises,” which operated successfully in “a remorselessly competitive environment with few examples to guide it” and “shaped a model for large private enterprises.”

Lowenthal notes that while historians often cite railroads as “the first entities to apply uniform management over territorial expanse,” canals were there first. “While the complexities of their bureaucracy did not equal the major railroad companies, canals pioneered techniques that railroads and others employed on a larger and more systematic scale,” he writes.

It is not possible to overestimate the economic impact of the D&H Canal on Sullivan County, and this columnist, your Sullivan County Historian, will examine that impact when he presents the program, “A Mere Bagatelle: The Economic Impact of the D&H Canal on Sullivan County” at the D&H Canal Linear Park in Summitville on Sunday, June 22. The program starts at 3pm, and is open to the public, but space is limited and pre-registration is required. Email scparks@sullivanny.gov to sign up.

John Conway is the Sullivan County Historian and a founder and president of The Delaware Company. Email him at jconway52@hotmail.com.