Delaware and Raritan Canal
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The Delaware and Raritan Canal (D&R Canal) was a canal in central New Jersey that served to connect the Delaware River to the Raritan River. It was intended as an efficient and reliable means of transportion of freight between Philadelphia and New York City. The main section went between Bordentown, NJ and New Brunswick, NJ; a feeder section stretched 22 miles northward from Trenton, NJ, upstream alongside the Delaware, and was used to feed water from the higher elevation into the highest section of the main canal. (Locks were used to overcome elevation differences along the canal.) The total length of the canal system was approximately 66 miles. The main section was 75 feet wide and 8 feet deep; the feeder was 60 feet wide and 6 feet deep.
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Image:d_and_r_canal_map.PNG
Map of the Delaware & Raritan Canal
The canal system was dug mostly by hand, mostly by Irish immigrants. Work began in 1830 and was completed in 1834. When the canal first opened, teams of mules were used to tow canal boats through it (the steam engine had not yet been introduced). The canal's greatest usage occurred during the 1860's and 1870's, when it was used primarily to transport coal from Pennsylvania to New York City, which had entered the Industrial Revolution. On May 18, 1872, the D&R Canal Company was merged with several parallel railroads into the United New Jersey Railroad and Canal Company, and leased by the Pennsylvania Railroad. Over time, the importance of the D&R Canal waned as railroads were used to perform, more rapidly, the same function as canals, but it remained in operation until 1932. Years later, the section between Trenton and Bordentown was filled for various road and rail projects, leaving the feeder waters to solely supply the main canal from Trenton northwards to New Brunswick. Two other sections of the canal were piped underground: one in Trenton when the Trenton Freeway (US 1) was constructed in 1952, and the other in New Brunswick when the Elmer Boyd Parkway Extension (NJ 18) was constructed in 1984.
In 1974, most of the canal system was declared a state park. It remains one today, and is used for canoeing, kayaking, and fishing. A graded natural-surface trail along the canal is used for hiking, jogging, bicycling, and horseback riding.
When the canal was used for transportation, New Jersey's landscape was mostly rural, and its primary business was agriculture. "Now," in the words of Howard Green, research director of the New Jersey Historical Commission, "it is one of the most beloved parks in the state, a sinewy, snake-like greenway through one of the most heavily populated parts of the world. It has gone from being the machine in the garden, to being garden in the machine."
External links
- Delaware and Raritan Canal Commission (http://www.dandrcanal.com/)
- A history of the canal, published in the Home News Tribune, October 13, 2003 (http://www.thnt.com/raritanriver/stories/0,21623,830522,00.html)