What Is This Small Body of Water?

What Is This Small Body of Water?. Historic Walk. , Still existing today are the remnants of the Morris Canal, an artificial waterway constructed in the 19th century to connect the New Jersey counties between the Hudson and Delaware Rivers., You Can Still See , The Sugar House, located just off the canal at the corner of Washington and Essex Streets, is now residences but was once a warehouse of the American Sugar Refining Company. In the early 1900's, the company would refine more than 5,000 barrels of sugar a day., Once a Sanctuary for Locals , In the 1960's and '70s, this section of the canal basin was populated by houseboats. Members of the "Greene Street Boat Club," as it was known, were attracted by the opportunity to live rent-free and enjoy this modest, self-made fishing camp., A Boon for Transportation , At its peak, just after the Civil War, the canal shuttled 900,000 tons of anthracite coal from mines in Northern Pennsylvania to markets in the east. Boats also transported iron as well as crops, livestock, and other agricultural products. Each mule-powered canal boat could carry 70 tons of cargo at a time, taking five days to traverse the entire canal. Once the railroads took over the transportation industry, slashing transport time along the route to a mere eight hours, the canal was leased to the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, which used it to extend its rail network., Two Basins in Jersey City , Workers in Jersey City dug a 40-foot-wide dry channel, called the Little Basin (directly in front of you) to connect the canal to the Hackensack River. The Big Basin, just further south, was created two decades later to accommodate larger wharves and piers. The two now mark the edge of Liberty State Park. Today, efforts are underway to translate much of the canal path for recreational use, helping to realize a vision for the Morris Canal Greenway., [Timeline:] ,

1824: The New Jersey state legislature charters the Morris Canal and Banking Company to fund the canal's construction. , 1831: Construction begins on the canal to establish a route from Jersey City to Phillipsburg, New Jersey, on the Delaware River. , 1836: The canal is extended from Newark to the Hudson River in Jersey City, completing 102 miles of waterway, with dozens of locks. , 1923: Use of the Morris Canal ends, as railroads come to dominate travel. The following year a plan is adopted to drain and dismantle it. , 2019: Jersey City receives a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to identify sites along the canal route, as part of a greenway initiative spanning its full 102 miles.