an additional of in 1872, and turned its eye toward expansion across New Jersey all the way to the New York City area. In 1870, the Lehigh Valley Railroad acquired trackage rights to Auburn, New York, on the Southern Central Railroad. The most important market in the east was New York City, but the LVRR was dependent on the CNJ and the Morris Canal for transport to the New York tidewater. In 1871, the LVRR leased the Morris Canal, which had a valuable outlet in Jersey City on the Hudson River opposite Manhattan. Asa Packer purchased additional land at the canal basin in support of the New Jersey West Line Railroad, which he hoped to use as the LVRR's terminal. That project failed, but the lands were later used for the LVRR's own terminal in 1889. The CNJ, anticipating that the LVRR intended to create its own line across New Jersey, protected itself by leasing the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad (L&S) to ensure a continuing supply of coal traffic. The L&S had been chartered in 1837 by the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company (the Lehigh Canal company) to connect the upper end of the canal at Mauch Chunk to Wilkes-Barre. After the LVRR opened its line, the Lehigh & Susquehanna extended to Phillipsburg, New Jersey, and connected with the CNJ and the Morris and Essex Railroad in 1868. In 1871, the entire line from Phillipsburg to Wilkes-Barre was leased to the CNJ. For most of its length, it ran parallel to the LVRR. The LVRR found that the route of the Morris Canal was impractical for use as a railroad line, so in 1872 the LVRR purchased the dormant charter of the Perth Amboy and Bound Brook Railroad which had access to the Perth Amboy, New Jersey, harbor, and added to it a new charter, the Bound Brook and Easton Railroad. The State of New Jersey passed legislation that allowed the LVRR to consolidate its New Jersey railroads into one company; the Perth Amboy and Bound Brook and the Bound Brook and Easton were merged to form a new railroad company called the Easton and Amboy Railroad (or Easton & Amboy Railroad Company). The Easton and Amboy Railroad was a railroad built across central New Jersey by the Lehigh Valley Railroad to run from Phillipsburg, New Jersey, to Bound Brook, New Jersey, and it was built to connect the Lehigh