The Morris Canal was a 107-mile (172-km) canal across northern New Jersey in the United States that connected the Delaware River to the New York City markets via a total elevation change of more than 900 feet (270 m) using the first inclined-plane canals in the United States. Primarily, it was an anthracite coal canal built in response to widespread deforestation near eastern cities and energy needs in the early industrial revolution. In use from the late 1820s to the 1920s, it stretched from Phillipsburg on the Delaware River eastward to Jersey City on the Hudson River. It was considered an ingenious technological marvel for its use of water-driven inclined planes to cross the northern New Jersey hills. (The canal was sometimes called the Morris and Essex Canal, in error, due to confusion