I was very much interested in Mother’s story of that canal trip of two weeks – the hot weather; the moonlight nights, when they sat on the deck because it was too hot to go down in the cabin to sleep; hearing the horses tramp on the tow path, the frogs croaking, and the captain’s horn which so often scared Henry.  Captain Hone was very fond of his snaps [schnapps], but Mother found that Mother Hone was the boss of the canal boat; she was a kind old lady, the seven-year-old granddaughter was a wile one.  Usually, when they would go through a lock, Mrs. Hone would pen the little girl up in the cabin.  One day Mrs. Hone was sick and Mother was down in the cabin getting dinner when they reached the lock.  After the boat had passed through, the little girl and Henry were missing.  Then the horn did blow; Mother was scared and Mrs. Hone was angry.  The Captain found the children in the woods behind a barn, chasing some lambs.  Mrs. Hone ducked the little girl in the canal; Henry did not get off the boat again until they arrived in Pittsburgh.

Father was two days ahead of the canal boat.  He went over to Birmingham, now South Side Pittsburgh, to find his friends, Mr. and Mrs. Hedrick.  Just that morning, they had received a letter that Father had mailed in Philadelphia, so you see how long it took to get mail at that time.  Father spent that night with his friends and the next morning went over to the canal.  There was no boat in, so after dinner he walked five miles east along the canal to the first lock to wait for the most precious thing to him in all the world – his wife and boy.  Finally, he saw a boat coming around the bend and when it came close enough, he recognized Captain Hone on the cabin deck.  Then Mother came out of the cabin with Henry, waving her apron to him.  Mother told me that was the second time God was good to her, when she got off the vessel at New York, and when she saw Father on the lock.¹⁾My Early Life and the Civil War, Conrad Smith, 1920, pages 6-8

To learn more about the Pennsylvania canal system, see this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Canal