The railroad industry and the Morris Canal are the reason why Bloomfield is what it is today. That was the theme of author and preservationist Rich Rockwell’s walking tour this month that traversed both the Morris Canal Greenway and the abandoned tracks of the Erie Lackawanna that will soon become the Essex-Hudson Greenway.
The two-hour tour began and ended at 180 Baldwin Place, once a stop along the 102-mile-long Morris Canal. Without the help of a historical marker, it may not be obvious that a canal once passed through here. At this particular location, Wrights Field, the canal bed was filled in and became walking trail.
But here the first of 30 historical markers was installed in 2017 along the old canal corridor to honor its former history with historical photos of the canal in its glory days. One fascinating discovery revealed during the tour is that there used to be an aqueduct at Newark Avenue that allowed the Morris Canal to cross over the Second River. This aqueduct was one of the reasons the Morris Canal was considered an engineering marvel in its day and carried more freight than the Erie and D&R canals.
When the canal closed in 1924, the state legislature sold off the segments to municipalities. Newark’s city government, as many know, used its segment for a light rail. What many may not know is that Bloomfield Mayor Charles Demarest also planned a rail line along the town’s five-mile segment, but the project never materialized. At the time, the township’s leaders didn’t have the foresight of reserving the entire canal as a heritage trail. So some segments were lost as parking lots, streets, and highways were built.
“We’re never going to have a contiguous Morris Canal Greenway all the way through New Jersey unfortunately because there are highways and streets built on top of it,” Rockwell said. “But we’re doing the best we can.”
The construction of the Essex-Hudson Greenway, a nine-mile linear park along an abandoned Erie Lackawanna rail corridor, is now underway in Newark. It will someday intersect with the Morris Canal Greenway along JFK Drive. Rockwell, who is a board member of the Canal Society of New Jersey, saw this as an opportunity to revive the walking tour he last gave six years ago and combine the history of Bloomfield’s railroad history with the Morris Canal.
“Both the railroad and the Morris Canal were very important transportation routes that had a lot to do with the development of this whole area,” he said. “Most neighborhoods we know today started up around train stations and the Morris Canal was extremely important in getting coal into this area to heat homes and for the manufacturing of iron and steel.”
For decades, rail transportation worked in tandem with the canal, primarily to transport anthracite coal from northeast Pennsylvania to Bloomfield homes and local iron and steel factories, including to Bloomfield’s Jas. E. Brooks Co. Structural Steel Works. But in time, the railroads caused the demise of the canal, which required five days to travel from Jersey City to Phillipsburg.
“The railroads could get across the state in less than a day,” Rockwell said. “They could run all night and even when it was snowing.”
Although it is possible to do a self-guided version of the tour, Rockwell’s walking tour is the best way to enjoy the Morris Canal Greenway as the path is not always linear due to the parts of the canal being lost to development and public infrastructure like roads — JFK Drive was built on top of the canal. It is the only opportunity to get a sneak peak of the Essex-Hudson Greenway as it is closed off to the public for now. Perhaps the best reason to take the tour is that the canal’s history is passion for Rockwell and he brings the history alive with colorful stories about local history.
“I hope people walk away from the tour with a general appreciation of history and what used to be here and how things have changed,” he said. “You’re not going to see Bloomfield the same way again.”
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Learn more about the Essex-Hudson Greenway here
