Morris Canal information

Route map
	Legend
1871
	Passaic River Aqueduct
	Little Falls
	This diagram: view; talk; edit;

Morris Canal
Morris Canal
	Lock 3 West at Waterloo Village, New Jersey
	1827 map of the canal
Specifications
Length	107 miles (172 km)
Maximum boat length	87 ft 6 in (26.67 m)
Maximum boat beam	10 ft 6 in (3.20 m)
Locks	23 locks + 23 inclined planes
Maximum height above sea level	914 ft (279 m)
Status	Closed
History
Original owner	Morris Canal and Banking Company
Principal engineer	Ephraim Beach
Other engineer(s)	James Renwick, David Bates Douglass
Date of act	December 31, 1824
Construction began	1825
Date of first use	1829
Date completed	May 20, 1832
Date closed	1924
Geography
Start point	Phillipsburg, New Jersey, U.S.; (Cable Ferry connected across the Delaware River to the Lehigh River and Pennsylvania Canal's river gate lock.)
End point	Jersey City, New Jersey, U.S.; (originally Newark, New Jersey, U.S.)
Connects to	Lehigh Canal
	Morris Canal
	U.S. National Register of Historic Places
	U.S. Historic district
	New Jersey Register of Historic Places
Location	Irregular line beginning at Phillipsburg and ending at Jersey City
NRHP reference No.	74002228 (original); 16000177 (increase)
NJRHP No.	2784; 5503
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	October 1, 1974
Boundary increase	April 19, 2016
Designated NJRHP	November 26, 1973; February 18, 2016
Route map
Route map
	Legend
1871
	Passaic River Aqueduct
	Little Falls
	This diagram: view; talk; edit;

The Morris Canal (1829–1924) was a 107-mile (172 km) common carrier anthracite coal canal across northern New Jersey that connected the two industrial canals in Easton, Pennsylvania across the Delaware River from its western terminus at Phillipsburg, New Jersey to New York Harbor and New York City through its eastern terminals in Newark and on the Hudson River in Jersey City. The canal was sometimes called the Morris and Essex Canal,^[4] in error, due to confusion with the nearby and unrelated Morris and Essex Railroad.

With a total elevation change of more than 900 feet (270 m), the canal was considered an ingenious technological marvel for its use of water-driven inclined planes, the first in the United States, to cross the northern New Jersey hills.^[a]

It was built primarily to move coal to industrializing eastern cities that had stripped their environs of wood.^[5]^[b] Completed to Newark in 1831, the canal was extended eastward to Jersey City between 1834 and 1836. In 1839, hot blast technology was married to blast furnaces fired entirely using anthracite, allowing the continuous high-volume production of plentiful anthracite pig iron.^[8]

The Morris Canal eased the transportation of anthracite from Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley to northern New Jersey's growing iron industry and other developing industries adopting steam power in New Jersey and the New York City area. It also carried minerals and iron ore westward to blast furnaces in western New Jersey and Allentown and Bethlehem in the Lehigh Valley until the development of Great Lakes iron ore caused the trade to decline.

The Morris Canal remained in heavy use through the 1860s. But railroads had begun to eclipse canals in the United States, and in 1871, it was leased to the Lehigh Valley Railroad.

Like many enterprises that depended on anthracite, the canal's revenues dried up with the rise of oil fuels and truck transport. It was taken over by the state of New Jersey in 1922, and formally abandoned in 1924.

While the canal was largely dismantled in the following five years, portions of it and its accompanying feeders and ponds have been preserved. A statewide greenway for cyclists and pedestrians is planned, beginning in Phillipsburg, traversing Warren, Sussex, Morris, Passaic, Essex, and Hudson Counties and including the old route through Jersey City.^[9] The canal was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 1, 1974, for its significance in engineering, industry, and transportation.^[10] The boundary was increased in 2016 to include the Lake Hopatcong station in Landing.^[11]

^ "National Register Information System – Morris Canal (#74002228)". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. November 2, 2013.
^ "National Register Information System – Morris Canal Historic District (Boundary Increase) (#16000177)". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. November 2, 2013.
^ "New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places – Morris County" (PDF). New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection - Historic Preservation Office. March 23, 2022. p. 23.
^ Drago, Harry Sinclair (1972). Canal Days in America, The History and Romance of Old Towpaths and Waterways. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc. ISBN 0-517-500876. p. 112, 117. Here are two cases in a historical book where it's confusingly called the Morris and Essex Canal in the two photo captions, but for the chapter, and in the main text, it's called the Morris Canal (p. 111 ff).
^ ^a ^b James E. Held (July 1, 1998). "The Canal Age". Archaeology (Online) (July 1, 1998). A publication of the Archaeological Institute of America. Retrieved June 12, 2016. On the settled eastern seaboard, forest decimation created an energy crisis for coastal cities, but the lack of water- and roadways made English coal shipped across the Atlantic cheaper in Philadelphia than Pennsylvania anthracite mined 100 miles away. ... George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and other founding fathers believed they were the key to the New World's future.
^ Fred Brenckman, Official Commonwealth Historian (1884). History of Carbon County Pennsylvania (627 pages, Archive.org project PDF e-reprint, (1913) 2nd ed.). Also Containing a Separate Account of the Several Boroughs and Townships in the County, J. Nungesser, Harrisburg, PA. {{cite book}}: External link in |edition= (help)
^ LEHIGH VALLEY RAILROAD Guide Book, The Hopkin Thomas Project.
^ Brenckman, Chapter II - Improvements.
^ Morris Canal Greenway Plan North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority
^ Kalata, Barbara (October 1973). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Morris Canal". National Park Service. With accompanying 25 photos
^ Hickey, Margaret M.; Bjorklund, Beth A. (January 2016). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Morris Canal Historic District (Boundary Increase)". National Park Service. With accompanying 18 photos

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

[nris-1] "National Register Information System – Morris Canal (#74002228)". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. November 2, 2013.

[nris2-2] "National Register Information System – Morris Canal Historic District (Boundary Increase) (#16000177)". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. November 2, 2013.

[NJRHP-3] "New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places – Morris County" (PDF). New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection - Historic Preservation Office. March 23, 2022. p. 23.

[4] Drago, Harry Sinclair (1972). Canal Days in America, The History and Romance of Old Towpaths and Waterways. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc. ISBN 0-517-500876. p. 112, 117. Here are two cases in a historical book where it's confusingly called the Morris and Essex Canal in the two photo captions, but for the chapter, and in the main text, it's called the Morris Canal (p. 111 ff).

[Held-5] James E. Held (July 1, 1998). "The Canal Age". Archaeology (Online) (July 1, 1998). A publication of the Archaeological Institute of America. Retrieved June 12, 2016. On the settled eastern seaboard, forest decimation created an energy crisis for coastal cities, but the lack of water- and roadways made English coal shipped across the Atlantic cheaper in Philadelphia than Pennsylvania anthracite mined 100 miles away. ... George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and other founding fathers believed they were the key to the New World's future.

[HistCC01-7] Fred Brenckman, Official Commonwealth Historian (1884). History of Carbon County Pennsylvania (627 pages, Archive.org project PDF e-reprint, (1913) 2nd ed.). Also Containing a Separate Account of the Several Boroughs and Townships in the County, J. Nungesser, Harrisburg, PA. {{cite book}}: External link in |edition= (help)

[LHVguide-8] LEHIGH VALLEY RAILROAD Guide Book, The Hopkin Thomas Project.

[FOOTNOTEBrenckmanChapter_II_-_Improvements-10] Brenckman, Chapter II - Improvements.

[11] Morris Canal Greenway Plan North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority

[nrhpdoc-12] Kalata, Barbara (October 1973). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Morris Canal". National Park Service. With accompanying 25 photos

[nrhpdoc2-13] Hickey, Margaret M.; Bjorklund, Beth A. (January 2016). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Morris Canal Historic District (Boundary Increase)". National Park Service. With accompanying 18 photos

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