Brady township

Jackstown Aqueduct Canal

The Jackstown aqueduct in Jack's Narrows, from a W. T. Purviance stereograph of about 1870 to 1880W. T. Purviance, about 1870 to 1880, New York Public Library. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain

The Pennsylvania Canal crossed the Juniata on an aqueduct at Jackstown, in Jack's Narrows. The 1966 Mapleton Centennial book says the canal ran east of Mapleton on the north side of the ball field before it crossed, and since there was no bridge at Mapleton, the most accessible point of the canal was at Jackstown. The area apparently did a good business with the canal, in freight and in passengers.

Africa's 1883 county history records that the contract for the Jackstown aqueduct went to Bishop & McCoy. In November 1830 water was let into the level at Huntingdon to test the banks, and on November 9 the Advocate, a Huntingdon paper, reported that the completion of the aqueducts at Jack's Narrows and Shaver's Ford was all that was still wanting to have the canal in complete operation from Middletown to Huntingdon.

When the Mapleton book was written in 1966, the remains of the piers were still noticeable in the river, and a 1991 inventory of the county's historic engineering and industrial sites counted rubble of the piers that supported the Jackstown aqueduct among the traces of the canal visible to a knowledgeable observer.

Checked and confirmed. Confirmed 2026-10-30 against the sources listed: every factual sentence was tied to a word-for-word passage in its source. Where sources disagreed on a number, the number was left out.

Sources