Edgett-Burnham Canning Company, was founded in 1863 as the Wayne County Preserving Co. by Ezra Edgett of Camden, New York.
All local produce and crops were grown at first on the factory farm, or purchased from area farmers.
Featured were fruits, vegetables, and—it is said—even canned turkey and geese for Union troops during the American Civil War.
Both waterways served the firm as avenues for shipping and receiving as did the West Shore Railroad that followed along the Erie Canal through Newark.
By the 1960s, any company doing business on or using the canal for dumping of process water, found that times were changing.