Burnt Mill Canal

smoke_jumper

Piney
Mar 5, 2012
1,606
1,164
Atco, NJ
With all this talk about canals I am curious if anyone has any info about this canal. I’ve seen it and want to explore it but haven’t had a chance yet. I can’t seem to find much about it.
5794AFF8-FD1A-4C0C-A0A5-08FC1050789D.jpeg

Looking at the LiDAR I can see it’s still somewhat visible.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Boyd
Apr 6, 2004
3,620
564
Galloway
From William Farr's "Watermills of Camden County":

"One of the courses of the road return was to “Cooper’s Small Dam,” which had been erected where the road crosses Coopers Branch, the name apparently being in contrast to the bigger dam at Burnt Mill. The small dam was presumably built by Isaac Cooper to produce and supply additional water power to Burnt Mill Pond, not, as the writer first supposed, to provide power for an additional sawmill."

According to the lidar elevation, the canal ran from Burnt Millpond to the pond on Cooper Branch. Could Farr had gotten this part backwards? @Jerseyman?
 

Boyd

Administrator
Staff member
Site Administrator
Jul 31, 2004
9,825
3,005
Ben's Branch, Stephen Creek
As I mentioned in another thread, a bug prevented the correct elevation from being displayed when you first opened a map link. I believe this has now been fixed - or at least it's working for me with the links on this page. There's now a delay of a second or so before the elevation first appears while the data is initialized. Like any code change, your browser cache may prevent this from working initially. Clearing your the cache should force the new code to be loaded (on a phone, you might have to delete the app and re-install). Otherwise, just wait and it should automatically start working in a few days.

Also... remember that the 3d maps (shown in blue on the menu) use twice as much data and more memory/resources to render the 3d surface. This makes them load much slower (especially on a phone). So, if you aren't using 3d view, use the 2d maps. For example:

https://boydsmaps.com/#15.62/39.745670/-74.840797/midatlidar/0.00/0.00
https://boydsmaps.com/#15.62/39.739815/-74.835909/midatlidar/0.00/0.00
 

enormiss

Explorer
Aug 18, 2015
607
409
Atco NJ
Went for a visit there today to get some fresh air before game day couch time :)
You can clearly see and follow the canal. This spot is the only place where the canal no longer exists. It crossed back to the west side of the road here.
There is high ground between the two ponds and I was surprised how deep the canal was dug.
Assuming both ponds had much higher water or the canal was even deeper back then.
So is the structure that is still at the small pond today the dam referenced above? Date?
Oh, and the beavers are still busy at Beaver dam lake!
 
Top