By Henry M. Holden

 The Morris Canal (1829–1924) was a 107-mile common carrier of anthracite coal. Its route was across northern New Jersey connecting two industrial canals in Easton, Pennsylvania, , and New York Harbor and New York City through its eastern terminals in Newark .

In 1882, Morristown resident George P. McCulloch was fishing at the Great Pond (now Lake Hopatcong).

He could “envision” cities sprouting up in New Jersey.  He had watched the slow-moving horses and mules dragging wagons filled with iron ore. It was a slow process and expensive. All he needed was a boat to ship iron and coal to the interior of New Jersey. His enthusiasm was outrunning the practical side of his dream.

It occurred to him that the first thing he needed was a manmade waterway to ship the heavy material from the coal and iron mines to the growing manufacturing centers on the interior. His only recourse it seemed was depending on slow-moving horses and mule-drawn wagons. Yet, to him the amount of water spilling out of the lake would be enough to maintain a canal running from Lake Hopatcong   Between Denville and Parsippany there was an incline of almost 30 degrees. It took powerful horses and still the horses were only able to haul small loads over the hill.

Following the discovery of abundant iron ore in Morris County, forges had sprung up before the Revolutionary War. In a single stretch of a proposed canal between Rockway and Andover, 15 miles, there were 56 forges, most of which had been forced to shut down because they had exhausted the local supply of wood for fuel.

Investors smelled a lucrative investment waiting for McCulloch’s idea to take wings. The original charter provided for a capital stock of $2,500,000. The right to condemn land for canal purposes was granted. It also allowed the State to take over the canal at a fair evaluation after 99 years or extend the charter to another 50 years with no additional penalty.  

Genuine attraction in the canal was stimulated with great expectations with the success of the Erie Canal in New York completed in 1825. But the proposed route offered great obstacles for the engineers. Sloping the 55 miles from the Hudson to the Delaware the canal would have to wind for almost twice that distance through the hills, climb a height of 1,000 feet and descend more than 700 feet over the humped back ridge of New Jersey.

The only solution was to build planes and inclined tracks connecting one level of water with another. A boat would flood into a cradle car. When the boat was securely settled both were dragged uphill by chains wrapped around drums. Power was provided by the overflow of water from the upper and lower levels. When possible, mules and oxen were used.

Boats nearly 90 feet long and capable of carrying seventy tons of cargo were transported with coalfrom Pennsylvania. The canal’s lifeblood along with other products such as building supplies, household perishables, firewood and manure.

The canal system’s series of inclined planed and locks allowed the boats to conquer an unprecedent 1,000-foot change in elevation along its route.

Lake Hopatcong was produced by damming and flooding of two ponds, known as the Great Pond and Little Pond, and the Musconetcong River, its natural outlet. Historically known as a resort lake for vacationing New Yorkers, it is now a mostly suburban residential lake.

With a total elevation change of more than 900 feet 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.

Construction of the Morris canal began in 1825 right after the first money had been raised. Six years later the waterway was opened to traffic between Newark and Phillipsburg.

Hand labor was the backbone of the construction. Concrete used today was unknown. All masonry had to be stone construction, held together by lime mortar, no iron girders, or “I” beams. The workday was from sunrise to sunset. The wages were 90 cents a day or less. There were no compressed air drills or dynamite. Rocks were blasted by drilling holes with hand drills and then filling the holes with black power. After tamping them with clay and dropping a glowing coal on the clay the blaster ran for cover. Practically every foot of earth and stone was removed from the canal excavation by hand. Even wheelbarrows were scarce. Horses and oxen were needed for farm work, and the farmers leased them to the construction work.

The organizers were more interested in the potential revenue stream than safety. A mistake in the construction plans left only 52 feet wide at the top, and 20 feet at the bottom and only 4 feet deep. Compared with other canal of the day, it was woefully too small. The 70-ton barges in use on the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania were too large. This meant that coal, instead of being carried directly from the mines, had to be transferred from the larger boats to smaller ones carrying only 25 tons.        

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

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 depend 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.

From Phillipsburg, the Morris Canal ran eastward through the valley of the Musconetcong River, which it roughly paralleled upstream to its source at Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey’s largest lake. From the lake, the canal descended through the valley of the Rockaway River to Boonton, eventually around the northern end of Paterson‘s Garret Mountain, and south to its 1831 terminus at Newark on the Passaic River. From there it continued eastward across Kearny Point and through Jersey City to the Hudson River. The extension through Jersey City was at sea level and was supplied with water from the lower Hackensack River.

With its two navigable feeders, ascent eastward from Phillipsburg to its feeder from Lake Hopatcong was 760 feet and the descent from there to tidewater was 914 ft. Surmounting the height difference was considered a major engineering feat of its day, accomplished through 23 locks and 23 inclined planes,  essentially, short railways that carried canal boats in open cars uphill and downhill using water-powered winches.

With a total elevation change of more than 900 feet 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.

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  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, and in 1871, it was leased to the Lehigh Valley Railroad.

While the canal was mostly dismantled its accompanying feeders and ponds have been preserved. A statewide greenway for cyclists and pedestrians was planned, beginning in Phillipsburg, traversing Warren, Sussex, Morris, Passaic, Essex, and Hudson counties and including the old route through Jersey City. 

         Lake Hopatcong, descended through the valley of the Rockaway River to Boonton, eventually around the northern end of Paterson‘s Garret Mountain, and south to its 1831 terminus at Newark on the Passaic River. From there it continued eastward across Kearny Point and through Jersey City to the Hudson River. The extension through Jersey City was at sea level and was supplied with water from the lower Hackensack River.

Although it was ultimately doomed to financial failure and decay, the new waterway brought prosperity to the surrounding villages. For example, Boonton was a typical village with grass-grown streets. It sprang into life with a blast furnace, four forgers and a mill for manufacturing iron sheets. The machinery and expert workers were brought from England and soon 200 workers were employed by the East Jersey Iron Manufacturing Company. Little towns such as Port Murry, Pequannock, Pompton and Rockway were developed. The canal was a godsend to the people of Newark where people welcomed cheap coal. The growth was phenomenal. Between 1830 and 1835 the city doubled its population.

At the peak of its prosperity in 1866, there were as many as 1,200 boats, in operation an average of 12 boats a mile.

The canal was too little too late. The time to travel from Phillipsburg and Jersey City had been five days; railroads made the trip carrying coal in each car in eight hours.   

The canal was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 1, 1974, for its significance in engineering, industry, and transportation.  The boundary was increased in 2016 to include the Lake Hopatcong Station in Landing.