Program

Historic Transportation Canals

Subject

Transportation

Location

37 Hoag Rd, Cuddebackville, NY 12729, USA

Lat/Long

41.458784, -74.603473

Grant Recipient

Town of Deerpark

Opened in 1828, the Delaware and Hudson Canal (D&H Canal) spanned 108 miles and featured locks, aqueducts, and bridges to transport coal from mines in Pennsylvania to markets along the Hudson River and in New York City. John A. Roebling, a Prussian civil engineer, designed the Neversink Aqueduct, which was constructed under his supervision from 1849 to 1851. In a letter to the American Railroad Journal in 1849, Roebling described the proposed scale for the Neversink Aqueduct:

I have contracted with the company, for two more aquaducts [sic], one over the Roundout [sic] river, the other over the Sink [sic] river, of 170 feet span, requiring cables of 9 ½ inches diameter, large enough for the support of a suspension bridge over the Niagara river, at the site in contemplation below the falls, of 750 feet span.

Sources credit Roebling with the development of wire cables, which he used in his designs for the Neversink Aqueduct as well as three other cable suspension aqueducts on the D&H Canal. Roebling later became renowned for his design of the Brooklyn Bridge. By 1899, the D&H Canal was abandoned and the Neversink Aqueduct was dismantled.