In 1615, the river was traversed by the French explorer
Étienne Brûlé. In the 1670s the Conestoga, or
Susquehannock people, succumbed to
Iroquois conquest by the powerful
Five Nations of the Iroquois League based in present-day New York, who wanted to control the
fur trade with Europeans. The Susquehannock assimilated with the Iroquois. 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 Susquehanna River has continued to play 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 area between the
Delaware River and the Susquehanna, which was part of Lenape territory. In late colonial times, the river became an increasingly important transportation corridor, used to ship
anthracite coal, discovered by
Necho Allen, from its upper reaches in the mountains to the markets downriver. In 1779 during the
American Revolutionary War, General
James Clinton led an expedition down the Susquehanna from its headwaters. His party had made the upper portion navigable by damming the river's source at
Otsego Lake, allowing the lake's level to rise, and then destroying the dam and flooding the river in order for his
flotilla to travel for miles downstream.
James Fenimore Cooper described this event in the introduction to his historical novel
The Pioneers (1823). , with the
Pennsylvania State Capitol dome, seen from
Wormleysburg At
Athens, Pennsylvania, then known as Tioga or "Tioga Point", Clinton met with General
John Sullivan and his forces, who had marched from
Easton, Pennsylvania. Together on August 29, they defeated the
Tories and warriors of allied Iroquois bands at the
Battle of Newtown (near present-day
Elmira, New York). This was part of what was known as the "Sullivan-Clinton Campaign" or the "
Sullivan Expedition". They swept through western New York, dominated by the
Seneca people, destroying more than 40 Seneca villages, as well as the stores of crops the people had set aside for winter. Many of the
Iroquois left New York and went to Canada as refugees; casualties from exposure and starvation were high that winter. Following the United States gaining independence in the Revolutionary War, 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 Susquehanna river. They were to explore a route for a passage to connect the
West Branch with the waters of the
Allegheny River, which flowed to
Pittsburgh and the
Ohio River. In 1792, the
Union Canal was proposed in order to link the Susquehanna and the Delaware rivers in Pennsylvania along
Swatara and
Tulpehocken creeks. In the 19th century, many industrial centers developed along the Susquehanna, using its
water power to drive mills and coal machinery, to cool machines, and as a waterway for the transport of raw and manufactured goods. Based on colonial charters, both Pennsylvania and
Connecticut claimed land in the
Wyoming Valley along the Susquehanna. Connecticut founded
Westmoreland County here and defended its claim in the
Pennamite Wars. Under federal arbitration, eventually the state ceded this territory to Pennsylvania. In the 1790s, English
Lake Poets Robert Southey,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and
Robert Lovell formulated the "
Pantisocracy Plan" to marry three sisters and move to the banks of the Susquehanna River to start a socialist experiment. They made the marriages but Southey moved to
Lisbon, Portugal, to visit an uncle, and they abandoned the plan to move to the United States. 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, which ran through the
Mohawk Valley of New York, ultimately connecting with
Lake Erie through the Wood Canal. In October 1836, water from the Susquehanna was connected to the Erie Canal at
Utica, New York. Water travel was the main form of transportation during that era. The Erie Canal dramatically expanded trade between communities around the
Great Lakes and markets in New York and Pennsylvania. With the expansion of construction of
railroad lines, canal-transport became unprofitable, as it could not compete in speed or flexibility. Boats had to climb a net height of between basins, requiring the use of more than 100
water locks, which were too expensive to be maintained under the new competition. In 1972, the remnants of
Hurricane Agnes stalled over the New York-Pennsylvania border, dropping as much as 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 and the capital Harrisburg was flooded. The
Chesapeake Bay received so much fresh water that it altered the ecosystem, killing much of the marine life that depended on saltwater. In 2006,
a flood caused by a stalled jet stream-driven storm system, affected portions of the river 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 and its communities were hit by
Tropical Storm Lee, which caused the worst flooding since Agnes in 1972. ==Bridges, ferries, canals, and dams==