The Morris Canal

The Morris Canal. . , The Morris Canal was an engineering marvel. Created by manual labor, it was mainly intended to transport coal from Pennsylvania's anthracite coal fields to northern New Jersey's industries. , In 1831, the canal operated from Phillipsburg on the Delaware River to Newark on the Passaic. By 1836, it had been extended through Jersey City to the Hudson River to reach the New York City market. Its 102.3 miles crossed a varied terrain that required 23 lift locks and 23 inclined planes. The inclined planes raised and lowered the canal boats over great elevations where the ordinary locks would have been impractical. By the late 1800s, railroads had rendered canal travel obsolete, and the Morris Canal was officially closed in 1924. Although mostly filled and lost to view, remnants of the canal can be found throughout its course. In Jersey City it is represented by the Little and Big Canal Basins. The Hudson-Bergen Light Rail Transit System (HBLRTS) crosses the buried canal at several points in Jersey City, most notably between Marin Boulevard and Van Vorst Street where it follows the canal's former route., The Morris Canal between Marin and Van Vorst , Where the Morris Canal in Jersey City curved southeast between Marin Boulevard (originally Henderson Street) and Van Vorst Street, its north bank was presumably defined by the basins shown on the 1841 Douglass map (near right). By 1923, a year before it was officially abandoned, the canal was partially filled (photo middle right). A major fill component was kaolin, a white clay possibly related to The Jersey City Pottery located between Morris and Essex Streets, east of Warren. This was the last in a succession of potteries that operated at this location from 1825 to 1892 (see red circle on map, near right). Archaeological testing in 1998 revealed remnants of the canal's wood cribbing and an anthracite stone fill that had structured its north bank, some layers of kaolin were also exposed.