Join us in the Steinberg Room on Monday October 27th at 7PM for the latest program in the Elting Memorial Library's partnership with New Paltz Historical Society. October's speaker is Bill Merchant and the lecture will cover the engineers of the D&H Canal and Gravity Railroad. Register to get an email reminder the day before the program. Registration is optional.

Program description: "Bill Merchant presents The Engineers of the D&H Canal and Gravity Railroad, an illustrated presentation on the many talented engineers who designed, constructed and oversaw the Delaware and Hudson Canal and its innovative Gravity Railroad, one of the very first in America. Come learn about the talented engineers who helped make the D&H Canal Company the largest coal company in America in the 1800s."

Speaker bio: "Bill Merchant is the Deputy Director for Collections, Historian and Curator of the D&H Canal Historical Society and President of the D&H Transportation Heritage Council. He is on the Ulster County Commission to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Revolutionary War. He recently led the field survey for the current update to the D&H Canal’s National Historic Register listing and is the main contributing historian for both its narrative history and its inventory of over 400 extant features. He is currently writing both a new history of the D&H Canal and Gravity Railroad and a guide book detailing those features. In 2023, the Museum Association of New York awarded him their Individual Achievement Award for his work at the new D&H Canal Museum in High Falls."