|
JOIN THE SRC WALKING GROUP
Friday, August 4th @ 10:00 am
at
Florence W. Kuipers Memorial Park
in Hackettstown
(weather permitting)
A premiere site along the historic Morris Canal Greenway, this park is named in honor of Florence Kuipers (1942-1999), who became an early member of the Warren County Morris Canal Committee and the Board of Recreation Commissioners. She was active in the 4-H Horse Club and began to promote the vision of a greenway across Warren County so the public could enjoy using the canal towpath as a trail. The park contains over a mile of the Morris Canal prism and towpath as it passes between the New Jersey Fish and Wildlife’s Rockport Wildlife Management Area. Near the memorial to Florence Kuipers, the remnants of a canal store can be found along the Harvey Street entrance, marked with an interpretive sign. Visitors can also venture up the Rockport Wildlife Management Area Trail loop, which climbs the Pohatcong Mountain.
In use from the 1820s to the 1920s, the historic Morris Canal stretched 102 miles from the Delaware River along Phillipsburg to the Hudson River along Jersey City. Overcoming a height elevation of 914 feet using 23 locks and 23 inclined planes, the canal became known as the “Mountain Climbing Canal” and was a major engineering feat of its day. Today, a nice section of this canal has been cleared and offers a lovely walk where you can see the prism that once held water and towpath traveled by mules pulling the boats along.
| 
