Canoe Brook
Encyclopedia
Canoe Brook is a tributary
Tributary
A tributary or affluent is a stream or river that flows into a main stem river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean...

 of the Passaic River
Passaic River
The Passaic River is a mature surface river, approximately 80 mi long, in northern New Jersey in the United States. The river in its upper course flows in a highly circuitous route, meandering through the swamp lowlands between the ridge hills of rural and suburban northern New Jersey,...

. It runs behind several municipal buildings in Livingston, New Jersey
Livingston, New Jersey
Livingston is a township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the township population was 29,366.Livingston was incorporated as a township by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on February 5, 1813, from portions of Caldwell Township and Springfield...

 such as the police station and town hall. Its average depth is about 6 inches (15.2 cm) deep, but its water level can rise to well more than a foot (30.5 cm) during heavy rains.
In the early 1980s a flood claimed the lives of three kids rafting in a flood. The flood waters went nearly to the bridge on Northfield, completely over the bridge at East Hobart Gap and finally went across East Hobart Gap Road by Burnett Street, where it flooded a home. The home was torn down shortly thereafter. In the mid 1980s the brook was reconstructed of concrete and stone from the Swan Street area to East Hobart Gap Road.
During Hurricane Floyd
Hurricane Floyd
Hurricane Floyd was the sixth named storm, fourth hurricane, and third major hurricane in the 1999 Atlantic hurricane season. Floyd triggered the third largest evacuation in US history when 2.6 million coastal residents of five states were ordered from their homes as it approached...

in 1999, the river overflowed its banks, well over three meters in some places, as the volume of water was too great to pass through the culverts under the residential bridges, flowed over them and through nearby homes as well.

This brook is also a historic waterway as a sawmill alongside the brook near what is now Northfield Avenue. It was used as an early power source by the town's early settlers in the 19th century. Also, one of the oldest buildings in Livingston, the Force Hill homestead, lies only a short distance upstream.
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