Point of Interest - crossing the D&H Canal. The Delaware and Hudson Canal was a 108-mile, man-made waterway, an engineering feat of pre-industrial America that brought a new form of energy from the hills of Pennsylvania out to the Hudson River. From 1828 to 1898, mules pulled barges laden with anthracite coal along river valleys from Honesdale in northeastern Pennsylvania to Eddyville on the Rondout Creek near the villages of Kingston and Rondout. From here, it was shipped on barges down the Hudson to New York City and up the river to Canada. A state of the northeast United States. It was admitted as one of the original Thirteen Colonies in 1788. First explored by Samuel de Champlain and Henry Hudson, the region was claimed by the Dutch in 1624 but fell to the English in 1664–1667. The building of the Erie Canal and railroad lines in the 1820s and 1830s led to development of the western part of the state and great economic prosperity, establishing New York City as the financial center of the nation. Albany is the capital and New York City the largest metropolis.