Everyone knows that Washington crossed the Delaware and turned the

times that try men’s souls
into a triumphal victory. And today
residents of and visitor to New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania enjoy
canoeing and tubing, shad fishing and bed and breakfasting along the
Delaware. Have you ever wondered about the life of the river in the two
centuries in between? The Delaware was the scene of important events
after the Revolution, too- an early and tragic experiment in steam
propulsion, a notoriously lethal prison camp in the Civil War, memorable
floods, hurricanes, ice storms, and even a furious battle with the U.S. army.

Frank Dale, who has lived near the Delaware all of his life, has burrowed into old newspaper files and archives and traced down eyewitnesses o the life of the Delaware. Rivers were the highways of choice in early America, and the Delaware presented much greater
challenges than the nearby Hudson. Filled with rapid, falls, and
inconvenient rocks, the river refused to accommodate itself easily to
the needs of commerce. The rivermen who ventured down the Delaware on
massive timber rafts or Durham boats filled with iron ore earned a
deserved reputation for pure ornery courage. Later entrepreneurs tried
steamboats, canals, and bridges to attempt to harness and exploit this
most unexploitable river, with decidedly mixed results. In recent times,
the Tocks Island Dam was defeated by a community that had come to
admire the river’s stubborn resistance to being conquered and harnesses
to human ends. Canoeists and waterside strollers can now appreciate its
unspoiled beauties.