History of New York City (1784–1854) as the financial and mercantile capital of the western hemisphere. The Great New York City Fire of 1845 destroyed 345 wooden buildings in the Financial District. The Hudson River Railroad (which grew into the New York Central) opened October 3, 1851; it extended the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, the first railroad built in the state, south to New York City. The city and its nearby suburbs grew rapidly for several reasons. The natural harbor at the base of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the New Jersey ports at Newark and Elizabeth provided almost unlimited capacity for trading ships and protection from storms.
Millstone River of Philadelphia and New York. The Millstone River is an important tributary of the Raritan River. The Raritan River empties into the Raritan Bay, a bay of the Atlantic Ocean. The Raritan Bay is contiguous to New York Harbor and separates the New York City Borough of Staten Island (Richmond County) from Central New Jersey along with the Arthur Kill a more narrow channel of water between Staten Island and New Jersey. As the Raritan River flows eastward towards Raritan Bay, it joins the Millstone River flowing north in the vicinity of Bound Brook, New Jersey. The Millstone River traces