Morris Canal
The Morris Canal was a 107-mile common carrier coal canal across northern New Jersey in the United States that connected the two industrial canals at Easton, across the Delaware River from its western terminus at Phillipsburg, New Jersey, to New York Harbor and the New York City markets via its eastern terminals in Newark and on the Hudson River in Jersey City, New Jersey. 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, it was built to move coal to industrializing eastern cities that had stripped their environs of wood. Completed to Newark in 1831, the canal was extended eastward to Jersey City between 1834 and 1836. In 1839, hot blast technology was married to blast furnaces fired using anthracite, allowing the continuous high-volume production of plentiful anthracite pig iron; 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 carried minerals and iron ore westward to blast furnaces in western New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania 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 in the United States, in 1871, it was leased to the Lehigh Valley Railroad. Like many enterprises that depended 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, formally abandoned in 1924. Although it was dismantled in the following five years, portions of the canal and its accompanying feeders and ponds are preserved. A statewide greenway for cyclists and pedestrians is planned, beginning in Phillipsburg, traversing Warren, Morris, Passaic and Hudson Counties and including the old route through Jersey City. On the canal's western end, at Phillipsburg, a cable ferry allowed Morris Canal boats to cross the Delaware River westward to Easton and travel up the Lehigh Canal to Mauch Chunk, in the anthracite coal regions, to receive their cargoes from the mines.
From Phillipsburg, the Morris Canal ran eastward through the valley of the Musconetcong River, which it 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 around the northern end of Paterson's Garret Mountain, south to its 1831 terminus at Newark on the Passaic River. From there it continued eastward 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, the canal was 107 mi long, its ascent eastward from Phillipsburg to its feeder from Lake Hopatcong was 760 ft, 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 — short railways that carried canal boats in open cars uphill and downhill using water-powered winches. Inclined planes required less time and water than locks, although they were more expensive to build and maintain.
The idea for constructing the canal is credited to Morristown businessman George P. MacCulloch, who conceived the idea while visiting Lake Hopatcong. In 1822, MacCulloch brought together a group of interested citizens at Morristown to discuss the idea; the Palladium of Liberty, a Morristown newspaper of the day, reported on August 29, 1822: "... Membership of a committee which studied the practicality of a canal from Pennsylvania to Newark, New Jersey, consisted of two prominent citizens from each county concerned: Hunterdon County, Nathaniel Saxton, Henry Dusenberry. On November 15, 1822, the New Jersey Legislature passed an act appointing three commissioners, one of whom was MacCulloch, to explore the feasibility of the project, determine the canal's possible route, estimate its costs. MacCulloch greatly underestimated the height difference between the Passaic and Lake Hopatcong, pegging it at only 185 ft. On December 31, 1824, the New Jersey Legislature chartered the Morris Canal and Banking Company, a private corporation charged with the construction of the canal.
The corporation issued 20,000 shares of stock at $100 a share, providing $2 million of capital, divided evenly between funds for building the canal and funds for banking privileges. The charter provided. In the event that the state did not take over the canal, the charter would remain in effect for 50 years more, after which the canal would become the property of the state without cost. In 1823, the canal company hired Ephraim Beach, an assistant engineer on the Erie Canal, as its chief engineer, to survey the routes for the Morris Canal. Construction started in 1824 with a channel 31 feet wide and 4 feet deep; the canal started from Upper Newark Bay, followed the Passaic River and crossed it at Little Falls went on to
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is located on a peninsula, bordered on the north and east by the state of New York along the extent of the length of New York City on its western edge. New Jersey is the fourth-smallest state by area but the 11th-most populous, with 9 million residents as of 2017, the most densely populated of the 50 U. S. states. New Jersey lies within the combined statistical areas of New York City and Philadelphia. New Jersey was the second-wealthiest U. S. state by median household income as of 2017. New Jersey was inhabited by Native Americans for more than 2,800 years, with historical tribes such as the Lenape along the coast. In the early 17th century, the Dutch and the Swedes founded the first European settlements in the state; the English seized control of the region, naming it the Province of New Jersey after the largest of the Channel Islands and granting it as a colony to Sir George Carteret and John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton.
New Jersey was the site of several decisive battles during the American Revolutionary War in the 18th century. In the 19th century, factories in cities, Paterson, Trenton, Jersey City, Elizabeth helped to drive the Industrial Revolution. New Jersey's geographic location at the center of the Northeast megalopolis, between Boston and New York City to the northeast, Philadelphia and Washington, D. C. to the southwest, fueled its rapid growth through the process of suburbanization in the second half of the 20th century. In the first decades of the 21st century, this suburbanization began reverting with the consolidation of New Jersey's culturally diverse populace toward more urban settings within the state, with towns home to commuter rail stations outpacing the population growth of more automobile-oriented suburbs since 2008. Around 180 million years ago, during the Jurassic Period, New Jersey bordered North Africa; the pressure of the collision between North America and Africa gave rise to the Appalachian Mountains.
Around 18,000 years ago, the Ice Age resulted in glaciers. As the glaciers retreated, they left behind Lake Passaic, as well as many rivers and gorges. New Jersey was settled by Native Americans, with the Lenni-Lenape being dominant at the time of contact. Scheyichbi is the Lenape name for the land, now New Jersey; the Lenape were several autonomous groups that practiced maize agriculture in order to supplement their hunting and gathering in the region surrounding the Delaware River, the lower Hudson River, western Long Island Sound. The Lenape society was divided into matrilinear clans; these clans were organized into three distinct phratries identified by their animal sign: Turtle and Wolf. They first encountered the Dutch in the early 17th century, their primary relationship with the Europeans was through fur trade; the Dutch became the first Europeans to lay claim to lands in New Jersey. The Dutch colony of New Netherland consisted of parts of modern Middle Atlantic states. Although the European principle of land ownership was not recognized by the Lenape, Dutch West India Company policy required its colonists to purchase the land that they settled.
The first to do so was Michiel Pauw who established a patronship called Pavonia in 1630 along the North River which became the Bergen. Peter Minuit's purchase of lands along the Delaware River established the colony of New Sweden; the entire region became a territory of England on June 24, 1664, after an English fleet under the command of Colonel Richard Nicolls sailed into what is now New York Harbor and took control of Fort Amsterdam, annexing the entire province. During the English Civil War, the Channel Island of Jersey remained loyal to the British Crown and gave sanctuary to the King, it was from the Royal Square in Saint Helier that Charles II of England was proclaimed King in 1649, following the execution of his father, Charles I. The North American lands were divided by Charles II, who gave his brother, the Duke of York, the region between New England and Maryland as a proprietary colony. James granted the land between the Hudson River and the Delaware River to two friends who had remained loyal through the English Civil War: Sir George Carteret and Lord Berkeley of Stratton.
The area was named the Province of New Jersey. Since the state's inception, New Jersey has been characterized by religious diversity. New England Congregationalists settled alongside Scots Presbyterians and Dutch Reformed migrants. While the majority of residents lived in towns with individual landholdings of 100 acres, a few rich proprietors owned vast estates. English Quakers and Anglicans owned large landholdings. Unlike Plymouth Colony and other colonies, New Jersey was populated by a secondary wave of immigrants who came from other colonies instead of those who migrated directly from Europe. New Jersey remained agrarian and rural throughout the colonial era, commercial farming developed sporadically; some townships, such as Burlington on the Delaware River and Perth Amboy, emerged as important ports for shipping to New York City and Philadelphia. The colony's fertile lands and tolerant religious policy drew more settlers, New Jersey's population had increased to 120,000 by 1775. Settlement for the first 10 years of English rule took place along Hackensack River and Arthur Kill –
Ice age
An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth is in the Quaternary glaciation, known in popular terminology as the Ice Age. Individual pulses of cold climate are termed "glacial periods", intermittent warm periods are called "interglacials", with both climatic pulses part of the Quaternary or other periods in Earth's history. In the terminology of glaciology, ice age implies the presence of extensive ice sheets in both northern and southern hemispheres. By this definition, we are in an interglacial period—the Holocene; the amount of heat trapping gases emitted into Earth's Oceans and atmosphere will prevent the next ice age, which otherwise would begin in around 50,000 years, more glacial cycles. In 1742, Pierre Martel, an engineer and geographer living in Geneva, visited the valley of Chamonix in the Alps of Savoy. Two years he published an account of his journey.
He reported that the inhabitants of that valley attributed the dispersal of erratic boulders to the glaciers, saying that they had once extended much farther. Similar explanations were reported from other regions of the Alps. In 1815 the carpenter and chamois hunter Jean-Pierre Perraudin explained erratic boulders in the Val de Bagnes in the Swiss canton of Valais as being due to glaciers extending further. An unknown woodcutter from Meiringen in the Bernese Oberland advocated a similar idea in a discussion with the Swiss-German geologist Jean de Charpentier in 1834. Comparable explanations are known from the Val de Ferret in the Valais and the Seeland in western Switzerland and in Goethe's scientific work; such explanations could be found in other parts of the world. When the Bavarian naturalist Ernst von Bibra visited the Chilean Andes in 1849–1850, the natives attributed fossil moraines to the former action of glaciers. Meanwhile, European scholars had begun to wonder. From the middle of the 18th century, some discussed ice as a means of transport.
The Swedish mining expert Daniel Tilas was, in 1742, the first person to suggest drifting sea ice in order to explain the presence of erratic boulders in the Scandinavian and Baltic regions. In 1795, the Scottish philosopher and gentleman naturalist, James Hutton, explained erratic boulders in the Alps by the action of glaciers. Two decades in 1818, the Swedish botanist Göran Wahlenberg published his theory of a glaciation of the Scandinavian peninsula, he regarded glaciation as a regional phenomenon. Only a few years the Danish-Norwegian geologist Jens Esmark argued a sequence of worldwide ice ages. In a paper published in 1824, Esmark proposed changes in climate as the cause of those glaciations, he attempted to show. During the following years, Esmark's ideas were discussed and taken over in parts by Swedish and German scientists. At the University of Edinburgh Robert Jameson seemed to be open to Esmark's ideas, as reviewed by Norwegian professor of glaciology Bjørn G. Andersen. Jameson's remarks about ancient glaciers in Scotland were most prompted by Esmark.
In Germany, Albrecht Reinhard Bernhardi, a geologist and professor of forestry at an academy in Dreissigacker, since incorporated in the southern Thuringian city of Meiningen, adopted Esmark's theory. In a paper published in 1832, Bernhardi speculated about former polar ice caps reaching as far as the temperate zones of the globe. In 1829, independently of these debates, the Swiss civil engineer Ignaz Venetz explained the dispersal of erratic boulders in the Alps, the nearby Jura Mountains, the North German Plain as being due to huge glaciers; when he read his paper before the Schweizerische Naturforschende Gesellschaft, most scientists remained sceptical. Venetz convinced his friend Jean de Charpentier. De Charpentier transformed Venetz's idea into a theory with a glaciation limited to the Alps, his thoughts resembled Wahlenberg's theory. In fact, both men shared the same volcanistic, or in de Charpentier's case rather plutonistic assumptions, about the Earth's history. In 1834, de Charpentier presented his paper before the Schweizerische Naturforschende Gesellschaft.
In the meantime, the German botanist Karl Friedrich Schimper was studying mosses which were growing on erratic boulders in the alpine upland of Bavaria. He began to wonder. During the summer of 1835 he made some excursions to the Bavarian Alps. Schimper came to the conclusion that ice must have been the means of transport for the boulders in the alpine upland. In the winter of 1835 to 1836 he held. Schimper assumed that there must have been global times of obliteration with a cold climate and frozen water. Schimper spent the summer months of 1836 at Devens, near Bex, in the Swiss Alps with his former university friend Louis Agassiz and Jean de Charpentier. Schimper, de Charpentier and Venetz convinced Agassiz that there had been a time of glaciation. During the winter of 1836/37, Agassiz and Schimper developed the theory of a sequence of glaciations, they drew upon the preceding works of Venetz, de Charpentier and on their own fieldwork. Agassiz appears to have been familiar with Bernhardi's paper at that time.
At the beginning of 1837, Schimper coined the term "ice age" for the period of the glaciers. In July 1837 Ag
New Hampton, New Jersey
New Hampton is an unincorporated community located within Lebanon Township in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, United States. New Hampton is the birthplace of Revolutionary War General Daniel Morgan; the New Hampton Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 6, 1998 for its significance in architecture, education and community development. The Lebanon Township Museum, in the c. 1825 schoolhouse, supports local history and is next to the memorial to General Daniel Morgan
Washington Township, Morris County, New Jersey
Washington Township is a township in Morris County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township's population was 18,533, reflecting an increase of 941 from the 17,592 counted in the 2000 Census, which had in turn increased by 2,000 from the 15,592 counted in the 1990 Census, it is one of six municipalities in the state of New Jersey with the name "Washington Township". Washington Borough, in fact is only 10 miles away. To add to the confusion, Washington Borough is surrounded by another municipality, called Washington Township. Washington Township was incorporated as a township by the New Jersey Legislature on April 2, 1798, from portions of Roxbury Township. Portions of the township were taken to form Chester Township as of April 1, 1799; the township was named for George Washington, one of more than ten communities statewide named for the first president. According to the United States Census Bureau, the township had a total area of 44.771 square miles, including 44.387 square miles of land and 0.384 square miles of water.
Long Valley is an unincorporated community and census-designated place located within Washington Township. The Long Valley section — the heart of the township — was called German Valley when it was first settled in the 18th century by people from Saxony, in Germany, until its name was changed around 1917 in the wake of anti-German sentiment following World War I. Other unincorporated communities and place names located or within the township include Bartley, Crestmoore, Fairmount, Four Bridges, German Valley, Lake George, Middle Valley, Parker, Pleasant Grove, Scrappy Corner and Stephensburg. Schooley's Mountain is an unincorporated community in Washington Township named for the Schooley family, who owned a considerable amount of land there during the 1790s; the natural springs in the area helped attract visitors to the Schooley's Mountain section in the 1800s. Neighboring municipalities include Morris County communities Chester Township to the east, Mount Olive to the north, Hunterdon County communities Tewksbury Township to the south and Lebanon Township to the southwest as well as Warren County communities Mansfield Township to the west and Hackettstown to the northwest.
In Somerset County in the extreme southeast corner of the town there is a border with Bedminster Township. As of the 2010 United States Census, there were 18,533 people, 6,237 households, 5,195.421 families residing in the township. The population density was 417.5 per square mile. There were 6,488 housing units at an average density of 146.2 per square mile. The racial makeup of the township was 93.06% White, 1.39% Black or African American, 0.06% Native American, 3.30% Asian, 0.01% Pacific Islander, 0.69% from other races, 1.49% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 4.57% of the population. There were 6,237 households out of which 43.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 73.7% were married couples living together, 6.8% had a female householder with no husband present, 16.7% were non-families. 13.9% of all households were made up of individuals, 6.3% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.95 and the average family size was 3.27.
In the township, the population was spread out with 28.7% under the age of 18, 5.8% from 18 to 24, 19.6% from 25 to 44, 34.5% from 45 to 64, 11.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 43.0 years. For every 100 females there were 96.1 males. For every 100 females ages 18 and older there were 93.3 males. The Census Bureau's 2006-2010 American Community Survey showed that median household income was $112,651 and the median family income was $124,818. Males had a median income of $92,019 versus $66,302 for females; the per capita income for the borough was $49,154. About 0.1% of families and 0.9% of the population were below the poverty line, including 0.2% of those under age 18 and 4.8% of those age 65 or over. As of the 2000 United States Census there were 17,592 people, 5,755 households, 4,874 families residing in the township; the population density was 392.1 people per square mile. There were 5,890 housing units at an average density of 131.3 per square mile. The racial makeup of the township was 96.16% White, 0.83% African American, 0.09% Native American, 1.87% Asian, 0.05% Pacific Islander, 0.35% from other races, 0.65% from two or more races.
Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.21% of the population. There were 5,755 households, out of which 47.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 76.1% were married couples living together, 6.3% had a female householder with no husband present, 15.3% were non-families. 12.2% of all households were made up of individuals and 5.4% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.02 and the average family size was 3.31. In the township the population was spread out with 30.2% under the age of 18, 5.3% from 18 to 24, 28.2% from 25 to 44, 28.1% from 45 to 64, 8.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females, there were 95.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 93.5 males. The median income for a household in the township was $97,763, the median income for a family was $104,926. Males had a median income of $76,791 versus $41,759 for females; the per capita income for the township w
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is carbon with variable amounts of other elements. Coal is formed if dead plant matter decays into peat and over millions of years the heat and pressure of deep burial converts the peat into coal. Vast deposits of coal originates in former wetlands—called coal forests—that covered much of the Earth's tropical land areas during the late Carboniferous and Permian times; as a fossil fuel burned for heat, coal supplies about a quarter of the world's primary energy and two-fifths of its electricity. Some iron and steel making and other industrial processes burn coal; the extraction and use of coal causes much illness. Coal damages the environment, including by climate change as it is the largest anthropogenic source of carbon dioxide, 14 Gt in 2016, 40% of the total fossil fuel emissions; as part of the worldwide energy transition many countries use less coal. The largest consumer and importer of coal is China.
China mines account for half the world's coal, followed by India with about a tenth. Australia accounts for about a third of world coal exports followed by Russia; the word took the form col in Old English, from Proto-Germanic *kula, which in turn is hypothesized to come from the Proto-Indo-European root *gu-lo- "live coal". Germanic cognates include the Old Frisian kole, Middle Dutch cole, Dutch kool, Old High German chol, German Kohle and Old Norse kol, the Irish word gual is a cognate via the Indo-European root. Coal is composed of macerals and water. Fossils and amber may be found in coal. At various times in the geologic past, the Earth had dense forests in low-lying wetland areas. Due to natural processes such as flooding, these forests were buried underneath soil; as more and more soil deposited over them, they were compressed. The temperature rose as they sank deeper and deeper; as the process continued the plant matter was protected from biodegradation and oxidation by mud or acidic water.
This trapped the carbon in immense peat bogs that were covered and buried by sediments. Under high pressure and high temperature, dead vegetation was converted to coal; the conversion of dead vegetation into coal is called coalification. Coalification starts with dead plant matter decaying into peat. Over millions of years the heat and pressure of deep burial causes the loss of water and carbon dioxide and an increase in the proportion of carbon, thus first lignite sub-bituminous coal, bituminous coal, lastly anthracite may be formed. The wide, shallow seas of the Carboniferous Period provided ideal conditions for coal formation, although coal is known from most geological periods; the exception is the coal gap in the Permian -- Triassic extinction event. Coal is known from Precambrian strata, which predate land plants—this coal is presumed to have originated from residues of algae. Sometimes coal seams are interbedded with other sediments in a cyclothem; as geological processes apply pressure to dead biotic material over time, under suitable conditions, its metamorphic grade or rank increases successively into: Peat, a precursor of coal Lignite, or brown coal, the lowest rank of coal, most harmful to health, used exclusively as fuel for electric power generation Jet, a compact form of lignite, sometimes polished.
Bituminous coal, a dense sedimentary rock black, but sometimes dark brown with well-defined bands of bright and dull material It is used as fuel in steam-electric power generation and to make coke. Anthracite, the highest rank of coal is a harder, glossy black coal used for residential and commercial space heating. Graphite is difficult to ignite and not used as fuel. Cannel coal is a variety of fine-grained, high-rank coal with significant hydrogen content, which consists of liptinite. There are several international standards for coal; the classification of coal is based on the content of volatiles. However the most important distinction is between thermal coal, burnt to generate electricity via steam. Hilt's law is a geological observation, the higher its rank, it applies if the thermal gradient is vertical. The earliest recognized use is from the Shenyang area of China where by 4000 BC Neolithic inhabitants had begun carving ornaments from black lignite. Coal from the Fushun mine in northeastern China was used to smelt copper as early as 1000 BC.
Marco Polo, the Italian who traveled to China in the 13th century, described coal as "black stones... which burn like logs", said coal was so plentiful, people could take three hot baths a week. In Europe, the earliest reference to the use of coal as fuel is from the geological treatise On stones by the Greek scientist Theophrastus: Among the materials that are dug because they are useful, those known as anthrakes are made of earth, once set on fire, they burn like charcoa
Delaware River
The Delaware River is a major river on the Atlantic coast of the United States. It drains an area of 14,119 square miles in five U. S. states: Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania. Rising in two branches in New York state's Catskill Mountains, the river flows 419 miles into Delaware Bay where its waters enter the Atlantic Ocean near Cape May in New Jersey and Cape Henlopen in Delaware. Not including Delaware Bay, the river's length including its two branches is 388 miles; the Delaware River is one of nineteen "Great Waters" recognized by the America's Great Waters Coalition. The Delaware River rises in two main branches that descend from the western flank of the Catskill Mountains in New York; the West Branch begins near Mount Jefferson in the Town of Jefferson in Schoharie County. The river's East Branch begins at Grand Gorge near Roxbury in Delaware County; these two branches flow west and merge near Hancock in Delaware County, the combined waters flow as the Delaware River south. Through its course, the Delaware River forms the boundaries between Pennsylvania and New York, the entire boundary between New Jersey and Pennsylvania, most of the boundary between Delaware and New Jersey.
The river meets tide-water at the junction of Morrisville and Trenton, New Jersey, at the Falls of the Delaware. The river's navigable, tidal section served as a conduit for shipping and transportation that aided the development of the industrial cities of Trenton and Philadelphia; the mean freshwater discharge of the Delaware River into the estuary of Delaware Bay is 11,550 cubic feet per second. Before the arrival of European settlers, the river was the homeland of the Lenape Native Americans, they called the river Lenapewihittuk, or Lenape River, Kithanne, meaning the largest river in this part of the country. In 1609, the river was first visited by a Dutch East India Company expedition led by Henry Hudson. Hudson, an English navigator, was hired to find a western route to Cathay, but his discoveries set the stage for Dutch colonization of North America in the 17th century. Early Dutch and Swedish settlements were established along the lower section of river and Delaware Bay. Both colonial powers called the river the South River, compared to the Hudson River, known as the North River.
After the English expelled the Dutch and took control of the New Netherland colony in 1664, the river was renamed Delaware after Sir Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, an English nobleman and the Virginia colony's first royal governor who defended the colony during the First Anglo-Powhatan War. The Delaware River is named in honor of Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, an English nobleman and the Virginia colony's first royal governor who defended the colony during the First Anglo-Powhatan War. Lord de la Warr waged a punitive campaign to subdue the Powhatan after they had killed the colony's council president, John Ratcliffe, attacked the colony's fledgling settlements. Lord de la Warr arrived with 150 soldiers in time to prevent colony's original settlers at Jamestown from giving up and returning to England and is credited with saving the Virginia colony; the name of barony is pronounced as in the current spelling form "Delaware" and is thought to derive from French de la Guerre. It has been reported that the river and bay received the name "Delaware" after English forces under Richard Nicolls expelled the Dutch and took control of the New Netherland colony in 1664.
However, the river and bay were known by the name Delaware as early as 1641. The state of Delaware was part of the William Penn's Pennsylvania colony. In 1682, the Duke of York granted Penn's request for access to the sea and leased him the territory along the western shore of Delaware Bay which became known as the "Lower Counties on the Delaware." In 1704, these three lower counties were given political autonomy to form a separate provincial assembly, but shared its provincial governor with Pennsylvania until the two colonies separated on June 15, 1776 and remained separate as states after the establishment of the United States. The name became used as a collective name for the Lenape, a Native American people who inhabited an area of the basins of the Susquehanna River, Delaware River, lower Hudson River in the northeastern United States at the time of European settlement; as a result of disruption following the French & Indian War, American Revolutionary War and Indian removals from the eastern United States, the name "Delaware" has been spread with the Lenape's diaspora to municipalities and other geographical features in the American Midwest and Canada.
The Delaware River's drainage basin has an area of 14,119 square miles and encompasses 42 counties and 838 municipalities in five U. S. states—New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. This total area constitutes 0.4% of the land mass in the United States. In 2001, the watershed was 18% agricultural land, 14% developed land, 68% forested land. There are 216 tributary streams and creeks—an estimated 14,057 miles of streams and creeks—in the watershed. While the watershed is home to 4.17 million people according to the 2000 Federal Census, these bodies of water provide drinking water to 17 million people—roughly 6% of the population of the United States. The waters of the Delaware River's basin are used to sustain "fishing, power, cooling and other industrial and residential purposes." It is the 33rd largest river in the United States in terms of flow, but the nation's most used rivers in daily volume of tonnage. The average annual flow rate of the Delaware is 11,700 cubic feet per s
