Port Colden, NJ

Port Colden is a Warren County census-designated place within Washington Township, New Jersey. The community was created as a CDP in 2010, and the 2020 census counted 260 residents. Its name points to the Morris Canal and to Cadwallader D. Colden, who served as president of the Morris Canal Company. Port Colden grew around a canal boat basin below Upper Pohatcong Mountain, where water transport once gave a small inland settlement a reason to exist.

The canal is still the clearest local feature, even though its working days are over. A greenway segment follows the old route from Port Colden toward Port Murray, passing forest, farmland, and the base of the mountain. The Port Colden Historic District was listed in 1999, and the old schoolhouse built beside the canal boat basin in 1869 remains another reminder of the village's working past. Today Port Colden is a compact place of homes, woods, and historic traces, with the old canal corridor giving its roads a story that reaches beyond the surrounding township.