Millstone River

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The Millstone River is a tributary of the Raritan River in central New Jersey in the United States.

The Millstone River begins in western Monmouth County and flows northward through southern Somerset County into the Raritan River at Manville. Almost three quarters of its length is paralleled by the Delaware and Raritan Canal. Both the Millstone River and parallel canal provide drinking water to portions of central New Jersey and provide recreational uses as well.

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[edit] Flooding

The Millstone River basin has suffered a number of severe flooding events over the past 200 years. Hurricane Floyd in September 1999 produced a particularly severe flood in the basin, especially in the Lost Valley section of Manville, which sits on a flood plain between the Millstone River and the Raritan River.

Two Millstone River basin flood control and mitigation studies are currently underway by separate governmental bodies to determine if future flooding can be mitigated or controlled:

[edit] Water Supply

The Millstone River provides drinking water to 10,000s of households and businesses in Central New Jersey. A water intake pumping station is located where the Millstone River and Raritan River meet. The water is purified and distributed by the New Jersey American Water.

[edit] Commercial History

In earliest colonial times as land routes began to supplant sea shipping, commerce between the emerging centers New York and Philadelphia was carried by stage coach along a direct route from South Amboy to Bordentown. Much later that route became a railroad. A series of New Jersey towns still extant sprouted up along the stage coach route, including South Amboy, Sayreville, South River, Spotswood, Helmetta, Jamesburg, Cranbury, Hightstown, Windsor, Robbinsville, and Bordentown. In general, the stage coach took a bee-line route, straight as the crow flies, between the Raritan Bay at South Amboy and the Delaware River at Bordentown.

As the country grew and its economy began to thrive, large buoyant barges supported by water on canals emerged as much more suitable for heavy shipping. Unlike the stage coaches, however, routes for canals were obliged to follow the most level land — riverbeds. Hence the importance of the Millstone River which provides a north-south waterway through New Jersey connecting the two great cities of Philadelphia and New York.

The Millstone River is an important tributary of the Raritan River. The Raritan River empties into the Raritan Bay, a bay of the Atlantic Ocean. The Raritan Bay is contiguous to New York Harbor and separates the New York City Borough of Staten Island (Richmond County) from Central New Jersey along with the Arthur Kill a more narrow channel of water between Staten Island and New Jersey.

As the Raritan River flows eastward towards Raritan Bay, it joins the Millstone River flowing north in the vicinity of Bound Brook, New Jersey. The Millstone River traces an arc through several New Jersey Counties, originating in Monmouth County and flowing more-or-less west through Mercer County, then northwest through Somerset County, then northward towards Bound Brook.

The uniqueness of the Millstone River is highlighted by the following geographical fact: There are no natural waterways that approach the Delaware river basin south of the Millstone River which flow from a northerly direction. This is evidenced by the bend taken by the Delaware river at Trenton and Bordentown. At Trenton, the Crosswicks Creek flows westward into the Delaware River from New Jersey. There are several other creeks which, similarly, flow westward from New Jersey into the Delaware River farther south of Trenton.

[edit] Delaware and Raritan Canal

The Delaware and Raritan Canal runs along east side of the Millstone River for much of its length, from Lake Carnegie in Princeton, New Jersey to the location where the Millstone River empties into the Raritan River in Franklin Township, Somerset County, New Jersey. There the canal continues along the right (south) bank of the Raritan. The land between canal and river is a flood plain that generally consists of swamps, wooded areas and some farmland. A number of spillways allow water to run off from the canal into the Millstone River during periods of heavy water flow.

In Lawrenceville, New Jersey, at a site known as Bakers Basin today located along U.S. Route 1, the canal makes the few mile remaining connection into Trenton, the state capital, and then to the Delaware River.

Hence the Millstone and Raritan Rivers enabled the major shipping route between New York and Philadelphia in the early 19th century. From New York, of course, goods could be shipped north along the Hudson River and Erie Canal to upstate New York, and thence to Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, and other Great Lakes States upstream of Niagara Falls.

[edit] Tributaries

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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