The Delaware Canal by Marie Murphy Duess Page A

ground just as they did below.
    The mules that walked the canal were usually better “dressed,” too. Canallers would decorate their mules’ harnesses with bells that jingled a melodious tune. The bells came in useful when a boat moved through dense fog—the boatman at the rudder could steer by listing to the sound of the bells. Many of the mules wore straw hats that were tied under their chins with holes cut out on the brim to make room for their ears.
    Sensible boatmen looked down on others who were cruel to their mules. They knew the invaluable contribution mules made in keeping the boats moving along the canal, and a good mule team, once it was trained properly, could travel the towpath and pull a boat without a driver for long stretches between locks.
    In an article in the Bulletin , Grant G. Emery, once a canalboat captain, told reporter Henry R. Darling:
    A half decent mule with any brains at all was a lot better than a horse. After a couple of trips, the mules knew the canal as well as we did. They knew when to start, stop, and slow down. You didn’t drive the mules. You let them go by themselves .
    Inspectors made regular rounds on the towpath to check the condition of the mules, and a captain could be arrested for improper treatment of his mule. Emery recalled in Bill Yoder’s Delaware Canal Journal :
    They had a woman down there, she’d make you stop the mules and lift the collar; and, if there was a sore on his shoulder, you had to take that mule out, you couldn’t use him. They’d slap a fine on you. She was all through the Delaware . 55
    Emery was referring to Eva Huston, who was the SPCA representative on the Delaware Canal at the time. Eva’s concern was well-founded considering the complicated tack the boat-pulling mules had to wear, which included harnesses, fly nets in the summer and waterproof blankets to cover their backs and shoulders in stormy weather.
    Of course, mules didn’t always need someone else to “speak” for them when they weren’t happy. Many mule drivers received a swift kick that would send them into the canal, and if the hoof hit them in the wrong place, it could mean a serious—or even fatal—injury.
    Normally there would be a team of two mules, often three, and occasionally a horse would be part of the team. They were harnessed in tandem, with the lead mule in front and the second mule or horse—called the shafter—behind the lead. There was what was called a spreader, which kept the traces (lines) spread between the first and second mule to protect their legs from becoming chafed. The mule that was attached to the towline was harnessed to a cross stick called a stretcher.
    The mules would work a sixteen-hour day, resting only when the boat went through a lock, and they pulled their load at a steady pace of 2 to 4 miles per hour. They made the round trip from Mauch Chunk to Bristol and back, which was 212 miles, in seven or eight days. At the end of the day, when their harnesses were removed, they would lie down in the grass and roll in great delight, twisting their necks and flexing their legs. This was their way of relaxing, and it also revived them. In fact, if a boat was close to a lock or at the end of the canal near Bristol, but the mules were showing fatigue (and when they were tired, no amount of pulling, prodding or cajoling would get them to move), boatmen would unharness the mules, allow them to roll in the grass and then hitch them up again to make the last few miles to the basin of the canal.
    Although feed bags were attached to their harnesses every four hours, sometimes mules that weren’t muzzled would stop along the towpath to graze. They were especially fond of eating poison ivy. And, like the mules that lived and worked in the mines, boat-pulling mules were just as fond of tobacco. If a mule driver was careless enough to leave his tobacco in his back pocket, the lead mule would pull it out with