A Hidden Time

About the author: Always ready and willing to share an experience and related story on just about any topic, Mark J. Purcell is thrilled to debut his novel, A Hidden Time. Growing up in the headwaters of the Schuylkill River, he was never far from this historical tributary that played a pivotal part in America’s Industrial Revolution. The word Schuylkill, while hard to spell, translates to the Hidden Creek, compliments of the Dutch navigator that first stumbled upon it.

Engulfed in a career as a financial controller in the manufacturing industry, this author enjoyed escaping to the outdoors. Whether it was hiking, fishing, or kayaking the Schuylkill, he found his retreat from the number crunching. Time spent all along the 108 miles of the Schuylkill lead to curiosity about the structural ruins and manmade debris that remained from its canal days (150 years ago). Fortunately there are many historical societies that reside in the towns and cities that dotted the river and this is where he was able to research the history as well as find hundreds of documented stories about canal life and its folklore.

Let’s step back and take an enlightening journey down a historical canal during a brief period the author calls A Hidden Time.

Book Description: As this title suggests, this book was written to expose a time in American history that has been hidden and overlooked. Specifically, this manuscript describes the life and folklore events that surrounded the Schuylkill River Canal (located in Southeastern Pennsylvania) back in the mid 1800s. 

The book opens with a brief introduction to this period before the growth of railroads. In many ways, it was a simple time, heavily manual, entrenched in diverse ethnic groups trying to “make their way” in the early stages of the American Industrial Revolution.

This thirteen-chapter document starts with an explanation of a “day in the life” of a canalman and his family, and some of the dynamics centering on floating a huge canal boat, the 108 miles from Pottsville, Pennsylvania, to Philadelphia. The accompanying chapters reveal what it was like to live a challenging life that was directly attached to a waterway system that was full of adventure. Real experiences that were sometimes dangerous in nature with flashes of humor and local history. My year-long (or better) research at various historical societies dotted along the Schuylkill River provided me with an abundance of actual events, as well as a mixture of old-fashioned folklore. These historical records became the background for the characters and events that fill these chapters depicting this Hidden Time.