A thousand hands shaped its banks and a thousand ships have traversed the waters of a canal that defined a region. The Chesapeake and Delaware Canal has both provided an important route between the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays and acted as a secondary and unofficial boundary between the North and South. Yet this historic waterway almost failed before the first shovel struck earth in 1804. Local historian David Berry tells the fascinating story of the C&D Canal, from the tenacious Gilpin family's sixty-year struggle to open the shipway to the canal's role in the Civil War as a vital path for Union troops and supplies to quickly cross the Delmarva and travel down the Chesapeake.

All but forgotten except as a part of nostalgic lore, American canals during the first half of the nineteenth century provided a transportation network that was vital to the development of the new nation. They lowered transportation costs, carried a vast grain trade from western farms to eastern ports, delivered Pennsylvania coal to New York, and carried thousands of passengers at what seemed effortless speed. Along their courses sprang up new towns and cities and with them new economic growth. Canals for a Nation brings together in one volume a survey of all the major American canals. Here are accounts of innovative engineering, of near heroic figures who devoted their lives to canals, and of canal projects that triumphed over all the uncertainties of the political process.

Acclaimed as the standard history of the Keystone State, this book has been updated to cover the 1978 gubernatorial election as well as other developments&—political, economic, social, and cultural&—during the six years since publication of the original edition. Dozens of new illustrations have been added throughout the book, and both the text and the chapter-end bibliographies take account of significant recent scholarship.

During the American War for Independence in Augustand September, 1777, the British invaded Delaware aspart of an end-run campaign to defeat GeorgeWashington and the Americans and capture the capitalat Philadelphia. For a few short weeks the hills andstreams in and around Newark and Iron Hill and at Cooch's Bridge along the Christina River were the focus of worldhistory as the British marched through the Diamond State between the Chesapeake Bay and Brandywine Creek.This is the story of the British invasion of Delaware,one of the lesser known but critical watershedmoments in American history.

Examines the history of Delaware, from its first inhabitants and the arrival of European settlers to the effect of modern times on its business and government.