The Army Corps built a low level bridge close to the pre-canal alignment.

Before 1854, the area based around Bridgeton was a strong business and legal section in Cape May County.

The turnpike company, upon incorporation, was to build a toll road along roughly the U.S. Route 9 corridor.

Progress in constructing the toll road was slow at first, with subscribers from Cape May County being hesitant to buy stock from the turnpike company.

Citing the Panic of 1857 made it hard to convert securities to cash, Whilldin suggested that a steamboat would be more profitable than the turnpike.

Richard Holmes and Henry Swain, the director of the turnpike company, were running into problems including failure to buy land from Elijah Hand's pasture and Samuel Hoffman's local residence for the turnpike route, because they kept land prices high.

The farmers refused to the sell their rightful land, and locals started showing opposition due to the fact it would cost money to deliver important foods.

Walters Miller, a big investor of the turnpike company, decided to leave the syndicate in favor of working towards railroads.

Cook proposed three routes in 1852, one from the Camden waterfront to Cape May economic region, one through Millville and Bridgeton and a third through Salem.

[4] During the 1930s and 1940s, the proposal for a canal to supply ships with an evacuation route from Germany's U-boats in World War II along with dangerous shoals of the Delaware Bay came forward.

From there, Route 162 reaches the Cape May Canal, crossing on the two-lane Relocated Seashore Road Bridge for a short distance.

NJDOT maintains the bridge itself but once the route returns to land on the other side of the canal, county maintenance resumes.