Photo Gallery > History of the Delaware River
The Delaware River, as the song says, is deep and wide and Pennsylvania is on the other side, but it wasn’t always that way, as guests will learn Sept. 25 at the next Shipman Mansion Foundation lecture at the Red Dragon Canoe Club in Edgewater Park.
Geologist Pierre Lacombe will unveil the history of our favorite river, going 20 million years back and, for more recent comparisons, 100 years.
Then, in 1919, the river was 15 to 20 feet deep. Its flow “was at the whim of the seasons, and islands of feces floated down the river.”
Today, with dredging, the river is, in its shipping channel, more than 40 feet deep. Lacombe, who is retired from the U.S. Geologic Survey, will explain how the Delaware’s flow is now regulated and will delve into the renewed cleanliness of the currents, which now permit the migration of diadromous fish to their spawning grounds.
Lacombe’s talk will benefit from the assist of Red Dragon member Bill Matulewicz and will begin at 7 p.m. at the Red Dragon, 221 Edgewater Avenue. Lacombe has, for the past 35 years, investigated the geology and hydrology of New Jersey and has authored several technical reports on the topic.
Lacombe’s program is the first in the fall series of lectures, presented free to the public, by the Shipman Mansion Foundation, a charitable non-profit created to fund the restoration of the 1869 mansion and to research, preserve and present to the public the cultural, architectural and maritime heritage of the Edgewater Park area.
