Griggstown is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) located within Franklin Township, in Somerset County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2010 United States Census, the CDP's population was 819. The area was first settled around 1733. The Millstone River and the Delaware and Raritan Canal both flow through Griggstown.
Griggstown Reformed Church
Bridge Tender's House and bridge over the Delaware and Raritan Canal
Bridge Tender’s Station
The Delaware and Raritan Canal is a canal in central New Jersey, built in the 1830s, that connects the Delaware River to the Raritan River. It was an efficient and reliable means of transportation of freight between Philadelphia and New York City, transporting anthracite coal from eastern Pennsylvania during much of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The canal allowed shippers to cut many miles off the existing route from the Pennsylvania Coal Region down the Delaware, around Cape May, and up the occasionally treacherous Atlantic Ocean coast to New York City.
A section of the canal as seen from a footbridge in 2013
The canal's terminus in New Brunswick, New Jersey
This section of the Trenton Freeway was built directly over the canal, which still flows underneath
The canal lock with a dam constructed in place of the upper gate, 2005