Delaware and Raritan Canal

The Delaware and Raritan Canal is a canal in central New Jersey, United States, built in the 1830s, that served to connect the Delaware River to the Raritan River. It was intended as an efficient and reliable means of transportation of freight between Philadelphia and New York City, especially coal from the anthracite fields in eastern Pennsylvania. Before the advent of the railroads, the canal allowed shippers to cut many miles off the route from the Pennsylvania coal fields, down the Delaware, around Cape May, and up along the Atlantic Ocean coast to New York City.HistoryThe idea of a canal between the Raritan and Delaware Rivers had a long history, going back to William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, who suggested it in the 1690s. Such a canal would shorten the journey from Philadelphia to New York by 100 miles, and relieve the need for boats to venture into the Atlantic Ocean.In 1816, the New Jersey legislature created a commission of three people, including John Rutherfurd, a former United States Senator and a major landowner in New Jersey, which was authorized to survey and map a proposed route for a canal. Rutherfurd engaged John Randel Jr. to do the survey; Rutherfurd knew Randel from his work on the New York City Commissioners' Plan of 1811, for which Rutherfurd was one of the commissioners, and Randel was the chief surveyor. The route was to be "a level line as far as was practicable from Longbridge farm to the Delaware, and to the Raritan, in the shortest direction direction that the ground would admit, which line should be run with the greatest accuracy, and be esteemed the base line of the work." Randel spent two months surveying this route and, with the aid of a millwright, estimating water flow. They came to the conclusion that the canal would require less than an eighteenth of the water passing through the local streams, which would still leave enough water flow for local mills. Despite Randel's report, and the clear advantage of having such a canal, the opposition to the project managed to keep anything from happening until 1830.