Canal Links
(Please forward other sites for addition to this list.):
National Canal Museum (in Easton, PA)
American Canal Society Links Page
American Canal Society Photo Gallery
World Canals Conference website
History of the New York State Canals (1906) by Noble E. Whitford
Tug 44 - A photographic cruise log of the Travels of Tug 44 on the Erie Canal, Champlain Canal and Hudson River, including pictures of towns, locks, historical structures, boats, tugboats, lighthouses and other items of interest on the canals.
Early American Canals, University of Virginia
History of the Erie Canal, Rochester University
Trolley Canal boats (Low-tech Magazine, Dec 2009)
Lowell Historical Society website
Medford Historical Commission
Medford Historical Society
Guide to Loammi Baldwin papers at Houghton Library, Harvard University
Baldwin family papers, ca. 1789-1836: an inventory, Harvard University
Allegheny Portage Railroad and Canal 1800's (Part 1 of 2)
Allegheny Portage Railroad and Canal 1800's (Part 2 of 2)
Allegheny Portage Railroad (20 minute video - same as two parts above)
Down the Old Potomac (12 minute video)
Follows a week-long, 180-mile trip on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal through the Potomac Valley from Cumberland, Md., to Washington, D.C. Includes scenes of the locks in operation; a mile-long, hand-dug tunnel which was built in 1840; coal barges plying the canal; Maryland farming country; Harper's Ferry; and Great Falls.
The Blackstone Canal: Artery to the Heart of the Commonwealth
The Incredible Ditch (Anne Miniver Press)
Life on the Middlesex Canal (Anne Miniver Press)
A Social History of the Middlesex Canal (online PDF, Anne Miniver Press)
The Middlesex Canal: Boston’s First Big Dig
Hub History, episode 225, June 20, 2021
When the Road was a River
A story on the Middlesex Canal by Michael Kenney of the Boston Globe
Library of Congress: American Memory
A wealth of information and images. For example, enter "Middlesex Canal" into the search engine and get ready to be amazed by the abundance of high quality images.
Middlesex Canal Wikipedia page
If you are interested in reading about the "...vast system of narrow canals that connects England's byways and backways...", read “Afloat with Fly Boats and Leggers” in the June 2000 issue of Smithsonian magazine. An abstract with photographs is available on line.
Here's an interesting article on Trolley Canal boats (Low-tech Magazine, Dec 2009)
Special Interest:
Photos of the Cochituate Aqueduct (c. 1848) from Natick to the Brookline Reservoir
Photos of the Sudbury Aqueduct (c. 1876) from Framingham to the Chestnut Hill Reservoir (Boston)
Cambridge on the Charles
by Alan Seaburg, Thomas Dahill, and Carol Rose
Illustration by Terry Pepper -- Learn more about the Wabash & Erie Canal