Which did construction start on first, the Delaware and Raritan Canal or the Pennsylvania Canal?
Delaware and Raritan Canal The Delaware and Raritan Canal (D&R Canal) is a canal in central New Jersey, United States, built in the 1830s, that served to connect the Delaware River to the Raritan River. It was intended as an efficient and reliable means of transportation of freight between Philadelphia and New York City, especially coal from the anthracite fields in eastern Pennsylvania. Before the advent of the railroads, the canal allowed shippers to cut many miles off the route from the Pennsylvania coal fields, down the Delaware, around Cape May, and up along the (occasionally treacherous) Atlantic Ocean coast to New York City.
Codorus Navigation The Codorus Navigation Company, based in York in south-central Pennsylvania, was formed in 1829 to make a navigable waterway along Codorus Creek from York to the Susquehanna River, a distance of 11 mi . Plans called for 3 mi of canal, 8 mi of slack-water pools, 10 dams, and 13 locks with an average lift of about 7 ft .