<P> 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 . </P> <P> Pennsylvania and Connecticut both claimed land from the colonial era 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 . </P> <P> 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 . </P> <P> 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 popular during that era, and 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 1,009 feet between basins, requiring the use of more than 100 water locks, which were too expensive to be maintained under the new competition . </P>

Where does the susquehanna river start and end