2d. An accident happening to one of my horses occasiond. my setting out, later than was intended. I got off in time, however, to make a halt (to bait my horses) at Womeldorfs 14 miles and to view the Canal from Myers town towards Lebanon—and the Locks between the two places; which (four adjoining each other, in the dissent from the Summit ground along the Tulpihockin; built of Brick;) appeared admirably constructed. Reached Lebanon at Night 28 miles.
Womelsdorf (Middletown) in Berks County, Pa., was a “flourishing town . . . containing about 40 dwellings, and a German Luthern and Calvinist church, united” (). Clunn counted “about 50 Houses mostly built of log. The Church was built by the Lutheran’s & Presbyterian’s for their joint use” (, 48).
Myerstown, Dauphin County, Pa., was about 77 miles from Philadelphia on the north side of Tulpehocken Creek, a few miles below the canal. The canal was part of a construction project of the Schuylkill and Susquehanna Navigation Company and connected Quitipihilla Creek and Tulpehocken Creek (Pa. Mag., 71 [1947], 48, n.25). Quartermaster John Hugg Clunn of the New Jersey militia, visiting the area on 8 Oct. 1794, found Myerstown to be “a Village built of Log. Rode on by the Canal. The Lock is remarkably curious. An Irishman . . . very humbly pulld of his Hatt and asked if I knew the Custom when Gent. came to see the Works. I saw plainly it was 2/ out of my pocket & without further ceremony gave it him—took another look thought it worth 4/” (, 48). Another New Jersey officer noted that the “canal is already dug ten miles, in which are five locks, to embrace thirty feet; that they are executed in a masterly manner—that in the distance already done there is a great number of elegant arched bridges over the canal, wherever it goes across the road. There are now employed 600 hands at it, and every prospect of succeeding in this part of the bold enterprise” (, 81). Lebanon, in Dauphin County, at this time consisted of 2 churches and about 40 houses, mostly built of log (, 48).