The Chesapeake and Delaware Canal was one of several "internal improvements" projects completed in Maryland in the antebellum period. The canal was first envisioned in the seventeenth century by geographer and promoter Augustine Herrman, who observed that two great bodies of water, the Delaware River and the Chesapeake Bay, were separated by a narrow strip of marshes and lowlands. A canal could connect the Chesapeake Bay with the Atlantic Ocean, Herrman argued. /font>

The canal became more than just a passing idea in the 1760s when business leaders led by Benjamin Franklin raised the issue of constructing a waterway to improve Philadelphia's commerce. The original plan called for the construction of a canal with 14 locks. After several surveys and false starts, the canal project was deferred until 1822 when the Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland legislatures agreed to capitalize the canal venture. Unstable hills and tidal marshes made construction at that time very difficult, and inventive engineering was required. Over 2,600 men worked several years on the "ditch" with pick and shovel in the swampy terrain, Workers received 75 cents a day for ten hours' work /font>

The canal opened in 1829 after an agonizing period of construction. It cost $2,250,000 and ran 13.6 miles from the Elk River and Chesapeake City to Delaware Bay. As the Chesapeake was seven feet higher in elevation than the waters of the Delaware River and the Atlantic, the canal had three elaborate locks. It was one of the most expensive canal ventures of its time. Noted Baltimore business publicist Hezekiah Niles called the canal "a stupendous public work." One of the major locks was located at Chesapeake City, Maryland. Starting as nothing more than a lock house and a tavern, the town grew quickly and flourished as a canal port. /font>

From its inception the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal became a tourist attraction. Teams of mules and horses towed freight barges along the canal and cargoes consisted of lumber, grain, fish, cotton, oil, and whiskey, Cargo tonnage peaked in 1872 with more than 1.3 million tons traversing the canal. Canal passenger barges were well-appointed and comfortable. Historian Ralph Gray commented on the barges: "Pulled by five or six horses hooked in tandem and moving at a rapid trot, they could traverse the canal in approximately two hours, thereby completing the all-water communication between Baltimore and Philadelphia. The time required for the three-stage journey overland was eight to ten hours." Chesapeake tourists of that era were good customers, and the passenger barges earned the canal $20 for a one-way trip. Today at the local Canal Museum at Chesapeake City one can still see the old steam engine and water wheel that pumped water into the lock. /font>

Within a short time canal authorities could boast that that nearly 170 vessels a month passed through the canal, creating toll revenues of $2,289 for January 1830. Unfortunately the canal became an economic prize that investors and politicians fought over and the "C&D" never lived up to its promise as a major transportation artery on the Atlantic coast. During the Civil War the canal transported food, troops and occasional Confederate prisoners of war who were housed in an island prison, Fort Delaware, at Delaware City. After the Civil War the big moneymaker for the canal was coal tonnage until regional railroads like the Baltimore & Ohio offered competitive rates that cut heavily into canal revenues. By the 1880s the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal was a struggling operation plagued by "dissensions and defalcations." /font>

The canal was ultimately purchased by the United States government in 1919 and enlarged. From 1921 to 1927 the Army Corps of Engineers converted the "C&D" to a sea-level canal by widening it and removing the locks. Unfortunately, on the Delaware end of the canal the Army Corps of Engineers dredged a new route that bypassed the canal port of Delaware City and the town's prosperity evaporated. /font>

Yet the canal retained its romantic image. Until 1940 on the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, narrow steamers of the Ericsson Line on the Baltimore to Philadelphia route traversed the waterway and were quite popular with excursionists. A voyage on the canal, wrote Edward Vallandigham, "seemed like an adventure in toyland." On the upper deck of the tiny canal steamer there was just room enough for an officer and six passengers. The stateroom and galley were equally cramped, but the canal journey was exciting, especially after the boat left Delaware City and headed into the locks of the canal. Although conditions on board were far from luxurious, the hospitality of the crew was legendary. As was the case with most Chesapeake steamers, travelers remembered the insinuating courtesy of black waiters who would whisper in their ears at breakfast: "There's ham an' lamb, an' chicken an' fried oysters and clam fritters an' soft crabs; and I reckon ya'll have your eggs sof'bilt, and syrup with yo' griddle cakes?" /font>

The Chesapeake and Delaware Canal today remains an important highway of commerce for large vessels, and Chesapeake City has become a flourishing tourist center. Four hundred and fifty feet wide and 37 feet deep, the canal cuts off 340 miles for ships traveling between Baltimore and Philadelphia. Its importance to the mid-Atlantic economy was demonstrated during World War II when it provided an alternative route to the upper Chesapeake for ships that normally would have been the prey of Nazi submarines prowling the Atlantic.

Today the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal is part of the very busy Intercoastal Waterway and a thriving artery for recreational boating. Since the canal began to have significant ocean-going commerce, eight ships have collided with bridges along the artery. Many shipping firms use Delaware Bay pilots to navigate their vessels through the canal to the Chesapeake. Much of today's canal traffic consists of tankers and container vessels. /font>

The Chesapeake and Delaware Canal is owned and operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Philadelphia District. The Corps also manages the C&D Canal Museum in Chesapeake City. The Chesapeake and Delaware Canal has been designated a National Historical Landmark.