The company started out as the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, which built a canal running from Kingston, New York on the Hudson River southwest to Port Jervis, New York on the Delaware River and beyond to the anthracite coal fields at Carbondale, Pennsylvania.
To get the anthracite from the Wurts' mine in the Moosic Mountains near Carbondale to the canal at Honesdale, the canal company built a gravity railroad. The state of Pennsylvania authorized its construction on April 8, 1826. On August 8, 1829, the D&H's first locomotive, the Stourbridge Lion, made history as the first locomotive to run on rails in the United States.
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