Susquehanna River - History

History

In the 1670s the Conestoga succumbed to Iroquois conquest and assimilation. In the aftermath, the Iroquois resettled some of the semi-tributary Lenape in this area, as it was near the western boundary of the Lenape's former territory, known as Lenapehoking.

The river has played an important role throughout the history of the United States. In the 18th century, William Penn, the founder of the Pennsylvania Colony, negotiated with the Lenape to allow white settlement in the colony between the Delaware River and the Susquehanna. In late colonial times, the river became an increasingly important transportation corridor with the discovery of anthracite coal by Necho Allen in its upper reaches in the mountains. In 1790, Colonel Timothy Matlack, Samuel Maclay and John Adlum were commissioned by the Supreme Executive Council of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to survey the headwaters of the river and explore a route for a passageway to connect the West Branch with the waters of the Allegheny River. In 1792, the Union Canal was proposed linking the Susquehanna and the Delaware along Swatara Creek and Tulpehocken Creek. In the 19th century, many industrial centers grew up along the river.

In 1779 General James Clinton led an expedition down the Susquehanna after making the upper portion navigable by damming up the river's source at Otsego Lake, allowing the lake's level to rise and then destroying the dam and flooding the river for miles downstream. This event is described by James Fenimore Cooper in the introduction to his novel The Pioneers. At Athens, Pennsylvania, then known as Tioga or "Tioga Point", Clinton met up with General John Sullivan's forces, who had marched from Easton, Pennsylvania. Together on August 29, they defeated the Tories and Indians at the Battle of Newtown (near today's city of Elmira, New York). This became known as the "Sullivan-Clinton Campaign" or the "Sullivan Expedition".

Conflicting land claims by Pennsylvania and Connecticut to the Wyoming Valley along the Susquehanna led to the founding of Westmoreland County, Connecticut, and the Pennamite Wars, which eventually led to the territory being ceded to Pennsylvania.

In 1833, John B. Jervis began a canal system to extend the Chenango river and connect the waters of the Susquehanna from Chenango Point to the Erie Canal. In October 1836, water from the Susquehanna was connected to the Erie Canal at Utica. Although water-travel was popular during that era, canal-transport became unprofitable after the railroad became the dominant means for transportation. Forcing boats to climb a net height of 1,009 feet between basins, there were over one hundred water locks which could not be maintained.

The Susquehanna River holds importance for members of the Latter Day Saint movement as the location where Joseph Smith, Jr. and Oliver Cowdery received the priesthood from heavenly beings and the place in which the first Latter Day Saint baptisms occurred. Smith and Cowdery said that they were visited on May 15, 1829, by the resurrected John the Baptist and given the Aaronic priesthood; following his visit, Smith and Cowdery baptized each other in the river. Later that year, they said they were also visited near the river by the apostles Peter, James and John. Both events took place in unspecified locations near the river's shore in either Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, or Broome County, New York.

During the Civil War's 1863 Gettysburg Campaign, the commander of the Department of the Susquehanna, Union Major General Darius N. Couch, resolved that Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia would not cross the Susquehanna. He positioned militia units under Maj. Granville Haller to protect key bridges in Harrisburg and Wrightsville, as well as nearby fords. Confederate forces approached the river at several locations in Cumberland and York counties but were recalled on June 29 when Lee chose to concentrate his army to the west.

In 1972, the remnants of Hurricane Agnes stalled over the New York-Pennsylvania border, dropping as much as 20 inches (510 mm) of rain on the hilly lands. Much of that precipitation was received into the Susquehanna from its western tributaries, and the valley suffered disastrous flooding. Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, was among the hardest hit communities. The Chesapeake Bay received so much fresh water that it killed much of the marine life.

In June 2006, portions of the river system were affected by the Mid-Atlantic Flood of June 2006, a flood caused by a stalled jet stream-driven storm system. The worst affected area was Binghamton, New York, where record setting flood levels forced the evacuation of thousands of residents.

In September 2011, the Susquehanna River witnessed some of the worst flooding since Agnes back in 1972.