Friends for the Marsh

The Hamilton-Trenton-Bordentown Marsh provides a unique educational experience for Central New Jersey because the focus is wetlands. Water, which is so essential to our life and livelihood, is found in varied habitats that include the Delaware River, Spring Lake, tidal channels, temporary pools, and beaver ponds; these may be natural or completely the result of man's activities. Weather/climatology, biological productivity/ecology, hydrology, geology, chemistry, and limnology at some level interacted to determine the uses of the area by Native Americans, colonists, and current residents, as well as construction of the Delaware & Raritan Canal and industrial development along the Delaware River. Study ultimately shows an integration of natural and human history; food availability -- fish in the rivers, plants in the marshes -- determined the location of Indian encampments; the geological fault line on the Delaware River limited river transport of goods and determined the location of Trenton, once known as the Falls of the Delaware. There are many kinds of interconnections that provide an exciting view of how natural and human history have been connected; this all can set the stage for thinking about the future, of man's impact on the environment.