MORRIS CANAL
Morris Canal History
The Morris Canal was built to fill a need. Transporting and supplying goods across northern New Jersey more efficiently became the goal.
Canal boats could carry a much larger quantity of cargo at one time than the current usage of horses and wagons.
Thanks to Morristown businessman, George P. McCulloch’s idea, the Canal became a reality. In November of 1822, a feasibility study was conducted to determine a possible route and potential costs. As a result, the Morris Canal & Banking Company was incorporated by private investors in 1824. Their purpose was to construct an artificial waterway between the Passaic and Delaware Rivers.
Starting with the Delaware River in Phillipsburg, N.J., the Canal climbed across the northern mountains with the highest climbing elevation of 1,674 feet, exceeding any worldwide! Locks were used for small elevation changes and incline planes for heights above twenty feet. This east west route crossed lakes and rivers until reaching Lake Hopatcong at summit level. Then, the Canal descended from there down to tide level at Newark.
Construction officially began in the Fall of 1825 with seven hundred men digging out the Canal bed. Locks and incline planes were formed later. By 1826, eleven hundred men were working towards the completion and in 1827, the water level at Lake Hopatcong was raised five feet by a new dam.
Finally, on November 4, 1831, the first trip from Newark to Phillipsburg was taken. It was ninety miles long and took five days. The first full boating season started in 1832, costing over two million dollars.
An eleven and three-fourths mile extension was finished in 1836. It became the main line equaling one hundred two and fifteenth tenth miles long to Jersey City. Then by 1845, this waterway was enlarged to one hundred nine and twenty-six-tenth miles including twenty-three inclined planes and thirty-four locks. Section boats were introduced that same year. They were able to carry forty-four gross tons even though the Canal was originally built for boats to carry only ten gross tons but increased to twenty-five gross tons.
Coal was the primary cargo in 1855 along with grain, wood, cider, vinegar, beer, whiskey, bricks, hay, hides, iron ore, sugar, lumber, manure, lime, and more. Time passed and in 1860 boats were carrying seventy gross tons! After years of improvements, the Canal’s all-inclusive expenses incurred were five million one hundred thousand and the years between 1860 and 1870 proved to be the only prosperous time for the Canal.
Information secured and summarized from: Morris Canal – A Photographic History by James Lee
For further reading:
https://www.canalsocietynj.org