Edwin Charles of Middleburg collected the stories of family members and others from the Middle Creek area of Snyder County for more than 60 years. One of his more memorable chronicles was a diary kept by his father, William Edwin Charles. At age 18, he was hired to tend four mules towing two canal boats from Port Trevorton to New York City and back in 1888.

The excerpts were published as “A Canaller’s Diary – 1888” in American Canals, No. 75, November 1990. Also, in November of that year, the Patriot-News of Harrisburg also published the canal man’s diary, with a few deletions of extraneous material and definitions of archaic words.

We continue the diary entries of William Edward Charles, beginning on July 1^st of 1888.

July 1: Get up early. Forgot to tell that we had the mules on the boat. We had them on the boat from Havre de Grace to Chesapeake City and put them on again at Delaware City.  Well, I fed the team and then came up on deck. There were a few boats running across the river farther down. There were lots of carriages and buggies on these boats. There is no bridge here, and that is the way they get over. Out in the city is a building with an awful high tower. On top of the tower stands a statue of William Penn in a broad hat. They claim this is the highest building in the world. The bells start ringing for church. I never heard as many bells at one time before. My, the wind is blowing hard this morning, and it is too cold to stay on deck. I bought a newspaper off a boat. It has 24 pages. It kept me busy pretty nearly all day reading it.

Monday, July 2: A tugboat is coming up the river. It has a great raft of boats (in tow). A few of ours, some lakers, and a lot of Schuylkill tar-boxes. Their boats aren't nearly so pretty as ours. As it comes near us, the tug boat begins to blow its whistle. He was blowing to pick us up. We loosened the ropes and floated away from the wharf, alongside the fleet that looked as though there might be a hundred boats in it. Rich threw the end of a line to a man in the fleet. He hung it over a cleat, and we snubbed our boats into line. Captain Moyer hung a heavy rope fender where they came together so they would not bump too hard and start leaking. The tug towed us on up past Bristol and Burlington and a lot of smaller places to Bordentown, N.J.

Tuesday, July 3: Here (Bordentown)we lock into the Delaware and Raritan Canal. It is 44 miles long. The Chesapeake and Delaware Canal is only 14 miles long. The locks here are strange to me. They open the gates and close them with steam. We take out the mules. They seem glad to be on the ground again. It was 3 miles to Trenton. The first thing I saw was the penitentiary. Soon we came to a railroad bridge right across the canal. It has a train on it. We stopped until the train was off, and then they turned the bridge sideways so that we could go through. There are lots of potteries here at Trenton where they make dishes and whiskey jugs. Here is where Washington came over the river in the ice and licked the Hessians. It was colder than it was today. Gosh, it is a change in the weather since Sunday. We go on up through Princeton, and when night comes, we are at a town called Millstone. We don't lose much time after tying up to get to bed.

Independence Day, Wednesday, July 4: We get out early, and as this is a holiday, the cannons are already cracking away like a battle. Picnic boats are on the canal. Flags are flying and pennants and flag poles, all in honor of the brave soldiers who fought here and elsewhere to make America free. Onward we go, almost on the same track that Washington and his army went over a hundred years ago. We reach New Brunswick. There we lock out into the Raritan River. We leave our mules at New Brunswick, for we won't need them till we come back. In the river, we are added to a great raft of boats --- all kinds --- some of our own boats, boats off the Schuylkill, chunkers off the Lehigh, lakers, and great barges. A great tug sends a long cable, and it is fastened to the fleet. The tug is an ocean-going tug called the Blue Bonnet. It goes through the water at a great rate. People at Highland Park are hurrahing and waving at us, shooting crackers. Between Amboy and Perth Amboy, we anchor midstream for the night. The fireworks on the shore were beautiful. On the boats, we watched the rockets and fought mosquitoes. The wind brought them from the swamps in clouds. They must have been British mosquitoes and were bent on spilling American blood.

There were little mosquitoes and big ones. One fellow said there was an exceptionally big mosquito sitting on the bow stem of his boat, picking his teeth with a tide pole; I didn't see that big one. To get away from them, we went into the cabin. The fellows lit their pipes. No good. They put a peck of oats in the cabin stove, poured on coal oil, lit the stuff, and then closed the damper. The stench was awful, and the smoke was awfuller. We are almost smothering. Still the mosquitoes are charging on us. My hands and face are bleeding. I am mad. I dip my pen in the bleeding bubbles and write the last words in today's record in my blood.

New York City,

Thursday, July 5: When we got awake this morning, the old town of Elizabeth [N.J.] was near. It wasn't long till we were going through the Kill van Kull and the Staten Island Sound and passing the New York Harbor. Oh, what a sight this was for a young chap. The more I gazed, the more bewildered I got. Ship after ship, brig after brig, schooner after schooner, barge after barge, great scows with a dozen railroad cars upon them, craft after craft, great whistles blowing steam, hissing and puffing, clouds of smoke rolling from hundreds of stacks. It just seemed that all the boats in the world gathered here for a grand picnic. Then, there ahead of us was the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge. We come to anchor near the statue. Small boats come and whisk boat after boat from our fleet. The Lehigh boatmen and some of the Schuylkill men, too, swear at the Pennsylvania Canal boatmen and claim we are taking their market from them. They get mean, and sometimes I am afraid they are going to fight. One of our boats is taken to New York City and the other to Brooklyn. I am on the one to New York. Soon after we landed, I start on a tour of adventure, travel, walk along, look and stare, and stand and watch. Such noise, such commotion, such a peculiar odor. Then I get lost and ask for information of a dozen people before I found one that could talk English and give me my bearings. I went back to our little craft that seems so large at home and so insignificant here. At night, we pay a watchman to keep a lookout so that the very rigging is not carried away. There are many interesting stories of this thievery. 

 Friday, July 6: This morning, there came in another tow, and who should land at our wharf but the boats of C.W. Knights of our town of Port Trevorton. Oh, the joy I felt at the sudden and unexpected arrival of somebody from home. Mr. Knights had with him two brothers, Harry and Edwin, and his sister, Sue. Now, when the boats were not running in the canal, the cooking devolved on me. This was a difficult and irksome job. I had no cookbook and invented most of my meals. Concoctions, the rest of the crew called them. Well, Miss Sue helped me out of that difficulty while our boats lay side by side. She cooked the meals for us in my stead. I acknowledge she can cook better than I can. 

Saturday, July 7: Today, while the boats were unloading, Sue, her brothers, and myself to a trip to Brooklyn on a Cable car. Then we walked back. It was a grand sight to see the harbor full of ships and the great buildings and the traffic and movement everywhere about us. One thing we did see that was hard to believe [was] streetcars in New York still drawn by horse. We came back to the boats after an interesting time. Our boat is unloaded. Late in the afternoon, a tug comes and picks us up and takes us up the East River, gathering boats here and there. It is glorious to see the city in the twilight and to watch the lights come on as the night sets in. During the night, we are taken down to Elizabeth, N.J.

Sunday, July 8: We anchored for a while in the river with a large fleet. There, I bought the New York World, 36 pages. Also bought of a Troy, N.Y., man two bayonets forged out of horseshoes. He said they had been in the Revolutionary War. Gave him a quarter for the two of them. The large tow started and took us to New Brunswick.

 Monday, July 9: Lie at New Brunswick all day. A couple of nice girls in grocery. Evening, get a boat and take the girls over to Highland Park. Come home late. Captain jaws about staying out late, and I'm not saying anything to him. Homeward bound.

Tuesday, July 10: Fleet comes in, our boat on outside. Rich threw off the line and the momentum carries our boat into the lock. Lehigh chunkerman gets mad and wants the lock tender to make him pull back. Lock tender pulls our boat through. Some boats get between our bow and stern boats; we have a nice mix-up. Gee, how the Lehighers and Schuylkillers fist at us about it, and how they wanted to fight. By and by, we get lined up. They come at us with a bone in their teeth. But in vain, whoever saw a chunkerman pass a Pennsylvania boat. We show them thumbs and fingers and lose them. Tie up tonight at Bound Brook.

Wednesday, July 11: Downriver to Philadelphia. Thursday to Delaware City.

Friday, July 13: To Chesapeake City. Leave that night.

Saturday, July 14: Reach Havre de Grace, lock into the canal, pull up the ditch to a shady nook above Conowingo. Tie up there and tie up mules under trees on the outside. Feed them out of the sling trough. It is pleasant here.

Monday, July 16: Pull out at midnight and reach Hog Pen Lock.

Tuesday, July 17: Going toward home. Smell Mother's cooking. Get hungry for noodle soup and custard pie. Skum 'em along lively and reach Shaffers (Frys).

Wednesday, July 18: Lazed along and reached Independence soon after dinner. Got my 13 silver dollars, loaded my turkey, gave the captain and the mules goodbye, and reached home after more than a month. Mother kisses me and is glad I am safe and home again.

William Edwin Charles was born in Port Trevortion in 1870. In later years, he served as the Register and Recorder in Snyder County, operated a seed supply company, and became the Editor of the Middleburg Post. He died in 1933.