The Port Johnston Coal Docks were built on the Kill van Kull at Constable Hook in Bayonne, New Jersey in 1864 by the Central Railroad of New Jersey. The 2,750-foot (840 m) coal dock was named after the company's president John Taylor Johnston.. At the time of its completion in 1866, it was the largest coal dock in the world and employed 200 men, mostly Irish immigrants. Their job was to empty coal from railroad cars onto barges for shipment across Upper New York Bay to New York.