The Canal Walk- A Journey Through History – Tales by Will Rivinus, edited by Betsy Rivinus Deny
One of the more interesting projects that I started was the CANAL WALK. The 60-mile Walk follows the towpath from Bristol, Pennsylvania to Easton, Pennsylvania, or vice versa Easton to Bristol. My walk started in the summer of 1960 after I had been working in Manhattan on a start-up that didn’t make it. I came back to the farm, exhausted and unhappy with the world. Deciding I needed some fresh air and exercise, I filled my backpack with necessities, walked down the hill to the Canal from my farm in Solebury, and headed north up the towpath. My objective was to reach Easton via the towpath and then somehow get to the Appalachian Trail, which was crossed a few miles above there. After having done what turned out to be the north half of the towpath, I subsequently walked the southern half, saying to myself, this Canal is perfectly beautiful.
Geologically the Canal is fascinating as it runs down from the Appalachian Mountains through the Piedmont farm district down to the sand and gravel plain of the Jersey Shore. There is a tremendous variety of plant material that grows in the area. The Canal is also the story of American industry, the history of the iron, lime, and coal industries, and the transportation network across Eastern America. It is truly an education in the beauty and the history of America.
As a member of the Friends of the Delaware Canal, I promoted the idea of a Canal Walk. We had the first Walk in 1987, and it has been a regular event every year since then barring floods. It was reinforced by the fact that at virtually the same time, unknown to me, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States William O. Douglas was doing the same thing on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Towpath. He did not go for any great distance, but he got a lot of publicity. So we said, let’s get some publicity for the Delaware Canal and thereby help to prove to Harrisburg that it’s worth keeping and paying for. People who complete the full 60-mile Canal Walk with the Friends of the Delaware Canal earn an expired stock certificate from the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company. The certificates feature the portraits of Josiah White and Erskine Hazzard who built the Lehigh Canal.
