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Saturday April 24, 2004 Hawley to Honesdale to Carbondale, Pa. The walk from Hawley to Carbondale is pretty, but it is the people that impressed me most. The local paper had run a story on the walk, so there were a lot of people beeping (I'll assume they were friendly beeps) waiving and saying "hi." Several people offered me water and even money. One kid gave me a banana and a dollar. His brother also gave me a dollar. These were not rich kids, by far. I didn't want to take the money, but when they insisted, how could I refuse such a nice gesture. I also met some high school kids who run a store where they personalize (engrave?) items. Their profits go to local causes. That was an upper. The road from Honesdale to Carbondale is one hill, following the tracks where trains filled with coal were hauled up one side then went down the other by gravity. The reached the H & D Canal in Honesdale, where barges took the coal to the Hudson River and New York. The first locomotive in the U.S. was used on the mountain, but it didn't work out.
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The (Delaware and Hudson) Canal was an engineering masterpiece…dug by pick and shovel over 108 miles of mountainous terrain in two years. The canal opened in 1829 and continued to be used until 1898 when railroad transportation put it out of business. In its peak, over 5000 boats were travelling the canal at one time, carrying as much as 150 tons of coal apiece. Coal was transported to the canal during its entire existence over a gravity railroad stretching from Honesdale to Carbondale. “Heavy” and “light” tracks were built separately to carry loaded cars or empty ones, hence the term.