Hike #1013; Bordentown to Yardley

Hike #1013; Bordentown to Yardley

2/16/17 Bordentown to Yardley with Snoop Dougie K (Doug Kiovsky), John Kosar, Sue Bennett, Jim "Uncle Soup" Campbell, Dan Assnis, Russell Lord Byron Rapp, and Shayna Michaels

The group between Morrisville and Yardley

Our next hike would be a point to point after work trek between Yardley Park and Ride and Bordentown Shop Rite.
My feelings have been a mess with with regard to everything, and of course it spilled over into this hike. It was a Thursday, and my last day working at Washington’s Crossing was to be Friday. I received notice that I was to return to my former position, same place, under the same supervisor. I’d had so many problems in the past, I couldn’t believe I’d been ordered back.
I’m not afraid to go back there. The truth is I’m angry. Worse. Livid. I’m distressed. It’s unfair. It’s disgraceful. It’s asking me to go against everything I believe in. The physical manifestations that went along with this combination of emotions was debilitating.
I’d been put in a situation where I had no choice but to push back. There are indictable, felony level crimes falsely attributed to my name that could not be ignored, but were treated as a joke. Everything has been found in my favor, but somehow I’m thrown back into the fire, which makes no sense.
I’ve been getting little sleep. I’d only eaten dinner a couple of nights over the course of the past few weeks (no worries, big lunches). I spent countless hours reading into laws, etc. I hired an attorney. This was all new ground for me. All at the same time, I feel belittled that I have to go this far with it. I can’t be completely forthcoming with information, yet I’ve gone through things that would literally put many of my peers in a straight jacket.
Everyone who reads these journals might feel some degree of empathy, but the fact of the matter is that this could in the long run end all of my Sunday hikes from March through October if I were to just follow orders blindly.
Rest assured, this will not happen. I do not believe in working Sundays, and if they push far enough, I’ve not even brought up the fact that I’ve been an ordained minister since I was 19.
Consequently, this could be my last late hike I’d post while stationed at Washington’s Crossing, so I wanted to make it something special. I wanted to stretch the limit of how far we could go, but also do something memorable. It seemed right to repost some of the final NJ Perimeter hike as part of this, to visit the capital, but also to throw something new in there. I also wanted to do something convenient for my old friend Snoop Dougie K (Doug Kiovsky), former Assistant Park Planner for Hunterdon County Parks Department. He’d only recently discovered the hikes I was posting were so close to him, so he missed out on many, but I knew it would be a treat to do something where we’d pass through his town of residence (Bordentown). He’s recently moved there from Princeton, and it would be an easy commute for him.
I put together a hike meeting at the Yardley Park and Ride, which we’d used a couple times recently, and it would start in Bordentown. I originally planned to park on street at a sort of apartment area where I’d found a series of paved pathways that would lead us in through town, and then down to the D&R Canal. A few days prior, I realized I’d not done the Bordentown Bluffs, a state park preserve on the north side of town, which would give us just the right amount of miles to put us around fifteen whe we reached Yardley (the hike I’d scaled was 13, so I needed to come up with a couple of miles at the start that’d be new).
We met at Yardley Park and Ride, and shuttled in both Dan and Uncle Soup’s cars south to Bordentown. Dougie met us there. Lord Byron would meet us later.

Bordentown Bluffs

From the Shop rite side lot, we walked over to a store to get some drinks. I felt like I needed something badly. I’d spent the day hoping that I would have something to celebrate it’s end, but I’d gotten no word. I felt in limbo. I was stressed out from my long ride every day, but I still was far better off in that situation than where I was. I feel like such a bloody fool for putting up with the abuse I endured for six years without putting a stop to it. Now I have an additional level of stress from thinking I’ll come across as some sort of cry baby. I wanted to forget his stuff for the night, but nothing would work.

Bordentown Bluffs map

We walked to the south a bit, weaved around a jug handle, and then headed south briefly along Rt 206. We made our first right on Glen Road, then a left on the pleasant and calm Orchard Avenue. We followed that to the end, where a trail entered the woods for the Abbott Marshlands and Bordentown Bluffs.
I was immediately annoyed that the trail was marked with sloppy yellow spray paint rather than a good standard blaze done neatly. In so many cases, even Superintendents of parks don’t know about blazing or how to best handle it. They might just send maintenance out to take care of it, and they create a sloppy mess. In some places, there were so many sloppy yellow lines that it looked like vandalism in this place. Instead of turn blazes, there were sloppy yellow arrows sprayed on the trees. It’s amazing how few people realize that well marked trails are NEVER spray painted. The whole marking system in this particular park reminded me of my Supervisor I’d had so many problems with, and how he bragged about painting turn blazes going the wrong way, and in some cases painted giant blobs over turn blazes intentionally, because it was funny to get patrons lost. I had a sickly feeling about me walking this trail for a while.
We soon came to a narrow gulch where wash it the Crosswicks Creek. it was quite pretty, and I started feeling a bit better.

Crosswicks Creek from Bordentown Bluffs

A trail led us along the edge of the gulch and to a steep slope that was so high I’d have thought it was a glacial moraine, but it was not. At the top, there was an outstanding view up stream of the Crosswicks Creek. I’d never been to this place, but was quite impressed by it’s natural beauty.

Bordentown Bluffs

There were several trails going off in different directions, but the one badly marked yellow one seemed to weave around just a bit inland. We had the best views near the steep slope on an unmarked trail. The yellow trail actually missed almost all of the good areas.
We continued on the high bluffs heading down stream along the Crosswicks, and at one point we ended up going out onto a peninsula where there was a small inlet. There was no way to get across it, so we had to backtrack just a bit. We went down and crossed over a sandy dry wash that flowed out of an apartment area beyond, then continued on the trail on the other side. We got on another unmarked one after a bit of light bushwhacking.

Bordentown Bluffs

We followed a route that had no blazing for a bit of time again, staying close to the edge of the slope for the better views, and the yellow trail disappeared somewhere. More poor red blazes were found for a time as we headed to the south a bit more.

Bordentown Bluffs

There was a sign at an intersection that pointed to the road we’d come in on to the right, and to the left to the “beach”. It referred to a tidal beach along Crosswicks Creek.
We opted to take that route and gradually made our way down to the tidal beach area. It wasn’t much, but a nice little enclave. From there, we turned back on another trail, and then turned right on an unmarked route that led us to a buried utility. We followed the utility clearing for a ways, came very close to a creek inlet, and then continued until it reached the intersections of Rt 206 and 662. We turned right there, and I saw a billboard for the new three kinds of Big Macs for McDonalds. There is apparently now a huge one called a “Grand Mac” which I’d actually like to try.

Only remaining home of the Bonaparte Estate

We continued to the right and walked down the street past an apartment complex. We then reached the property of the Bordentown Seminary. Here, Snoop Dougie K gave us a little of the area history pertaining to Joseph Bonaparte.
Bonaparte, the less famous brother to Napolean Bonaparte, lived in Bordentown from about 1817 until 1832, on property he purchased from Stephen Sayre and named Point Breeze. He expanded upon Sayre’s original dwelling considerably, which sat on the bluffs above Crosswick’s Creek, and built gardens and other infrastructure. The house we passed was a gardener or land manager’s home of sorts. Today, it houses a priest or something.

Historic image of Bonaparte's gardener's house

It still retains it’s historic characteristics, but really is not very grandiose in it’s look.

Second Joseph Bonaparte mansion

Bonaparte and his family were banished from France about 1916, and Joseph (but not his wife) secretly made their way to NY, and then settled in Point Breeze.
His original mansion from Sayre burned in 1820, and so he either built or rehabilitated his stables into a new home just to the north as his new mansion.

Site of second Bonaparte mansion

Doug pointed out soon on the right side of the road where the second mansion had been, with some stone work still visible. We then moved a bit further on, and crossed a crek inlet to Crosswicks Creek known as Thorton Run.
Doug said that the area to our right was once a big pond area with swan shaped boats and such. There was once a dam just down stream from there, and it looked completely different than the gully full of slash wood, gnarled trees and vines it is today. I’d love to explore the property, however it is now privately owned and the Seminary calls the police for people trespassing on the property regularly according to Doug. So we didn’t bother.

Point Breeze attributed to Charles B. Lawrence circa 1817-1820

Bonaparte was known to have had escape tunnels from his estate out to the Delaware River, which would be amazing to explore if we could get in there. It’s one of the main reasons the property is such a draw to urban explorers, though I know of no one finding these personally.

We crossed the former pond area, went up hill a bit, and then came to the intersection with 3rd Street, where we turned right. There was a military academy here, and many of the buildings are still standing and have been repurposed.

Former Point Breeze estate pond

Doug mentioned that Schwartzkoff went to school there, and that he hated it before going elsewhere. the building were brick construction, and the ones we passed directly were part of the old Seminaries.

Yellow Brick Road on Irishtown

I had no idea Bordentown had so much history, but it was a good thing we did this while Doug could be a part of it.
After passing the former military installations, as well as a large double gabled roof house, we made a left turn onto Thompson Street. Doug told us this was the part of Bordentown known as “Irishtown”. It was where all of the Irish folks lived that worked on the railroad and the canal when they were being developed. The houses weren’t very big, but they were beautifully maintained and with interesting little color schemes.

Don't get caught in Shayna's web!

Doug said that every year for the holidays, every house works together and does something in the same exact theme. They coordinate their stuff, and one year they did “Wizard of Oz” for Halloween. The center of the road was painted with a “Yellow Brick Road”, which was kind of interesting!
Further along there was a giant spider web painted on the street, as well as an enormous crafted spider sitting along the edge of someone’s house. Doug says the guy who made it had it on the edge of his house for a long time. There are definitely some very crafty people who live on this particularly interesting block.
A guy was walking out of his house with a giant trash can full of busted up dry wall. I helped him carry it to a nearby dumpster, because that’d have been tough to lift alone. We then turned right on 2nd Street.

Point Breeze Garden

We then reached the entrance to Hilltop Park, with a nice pathway along the top of the bluffs. This was originally all part of the same Point Breeze Estate. Doug told us that this was the first CCC style project to happen in Burlington County during the Great Depression in the 1930s.
There was a garden along the south side of the park, and Doug called us over to have a look at it. It was named “Point Breeze Garden” after the historic estate, but then we saw on the plaque on the thing that Doug had designed this one himself! The garden was to commemorate the gardens that used to be on the Bonaparte estate.

The sun was setting beautifully from these bluffs. We could see out to the confluence of the Delaware River and the Crosswicks Creek, with the Interstate 295 bridge crossing over it at the same point.
We continued to the end of the pathway at Hilltop Street, and then turned to the right on Farnsworth Avenue, which descended through a narrow passage to cross over the tracks of the River Line, the light rail between Trenton and Camden. We had hiked this section before on the final Jersey Perimeter hike. We turned to the right on the bottom of the hill to the trail.

Sunset at Hilltop Park

It’s a really cool spot because the trail is affixed to the side of the railroad bridge across the Crosswick’s Creek. It’s a really good example of how “rail with trail” can work out. We went out to the middle and I told everyone a bit about the Delaware and Raritan Canal, which started at this point. It was completed in 1834.
Doug pointed out a little inlet on the other side of the bridge, which was the original place they started construction of the canal, but it was found to be too soft and muddy, and that place was abandoned in favor of another spot just a little bit to the west.

Sunset from the rail bridge on the trail

I pointed out how on the far side of the bridge, just barely submerged was the remants of an old canal boat that had been sunk there, probably intentionally.

River Line

The boat was actually not from the D&R Canal, but rather from the Schuykill Navigation System that must have been brought up river for some reason before it was sunk.
Also near the bridge was an old brick building with a date from the 1800s on it that I cannot remember. Doug told us that this was once an old iron forge.
We continued across the bridge, and on the other side turned to the left. We crossed over the end of the canal at the site of the former tide lock. This is the only lock on the canal that is still missing at this point. Doug also pointed out the “snubbing posts” and cited that this is probably the only place on the canal they still exist.

Snubbing post

Some of the wood infrastructure on the lock is still in place, but it’s rotten and in pretty poor condtion.
The area we were in was known as “Duck Island”. There was once far more to it than there is today. It now has an access from an overlook off of Rt 295, and is actually a known gay hookup area. When I was scouting for the NJ Perimeter series, guys with sort of matching horizontally striped polo shirts followed me down obscure paths I was exploring alone. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, other than the fact that it was odd, until one of my friends on Park Police told me that they were thinking I was signaling them to hook up. I got laughed at for being naive in this situation quite a bit.

Historic image at Crosswick's Creek and the canal

There would have been a lock tender’s house, as well as a store and other dwellings in the area, and none of them remain today. We turned around and began following the old canal to the north, which is still watered, but no subject to tidal activity.

The canal in it's heyday

In this area particularly, the railroads were already taking over at the same time the canals were completed. The Camden and Amboy Railroad was already up and running in the 1830s, and the canal was immediately obsolete.

Abandoned boats at the mouth of the canal

The only years it really made good money were during the Civil War, but the D&R lasted much longer than many of the other canals. Most canals were finished by the 1920s, but this one lasted into the thirties.

Old canal lock

We passed the upper lock site and continued to walk the old canal route to the north.
It was very pleasant, and the train of the River Line went by several times while we were there.
We passed the point where we turned off of the canal on the final Jersey Perimeter hike, so this was a section of it I had not walked yet. We followed it to the north, under Rt 295, and as it came close to Lamberton Road, and then turned away again. It left the very edge of the canal, which would have been the towpath, and then returned to it. I was somewhat surprised to see that it still had water in it all the way to the parking area on Canal Blvd.
We turned left on Canal Blvd, out to Lamberton Road and waited for Lord Byron a bit. He was supposed to meet there, but we weren’t finding him. We moved on a bit, up Lamberton Road and waited at the Trenton boat launch area and still didn’t see him. It turned out he went too far up north, and parked in Trenton itself rather than the south side.
A paved path went from this point behind some buildings along the Delaware. We followed them to I think it was across from ANF Food Services where we had to cut through a gate in a fence (by cut I mean walk through a gateway, not break anything) out to Lamberton Road and turn left.

Silliness

We soon reached a highway area near the sewage place and Lord Byron emerged from the path to the left. We all continued to the north, as the path went back to the water front at this point past some old crane things that were used for removing cargo from ships and vice versa. There were also some old wheeled vehicles that were for moving lumber.
The pathway went up closely along the left side of Rt 29, then climbed when Rt 29 went into the tunnel to a park developed on top of it.
We walked the nice park route through the top, and continued heading north across Lalor Street, and then turned to the left when steps led down to the Waterfront Park and sports complex. The path continues more closely to the Delaware again on the other side of the buildigns beyond where the highway came out of the tunnel.
We came out at the other side at the parking area of Old Wharf, a former ferry site. From there, we had to follow a series of streets to the north to reach the Capital. We crossed 29 and went up Warren Street, and there was a sidewalk path beneath the railroad tracks and then beneath Rt 1 to Bridge Street, which at one time was a regular through road that had been blocked off. We crossed Bridge Street and continued across the lots we met in for the Perimeter Hike.

Historic postcard of William Trent House

We then passed the William Trent House, built in 1719. Trent came to North America with his brother in the 1690s and was a Philadelphia merchant. He imported all sorts of goods and was also a huge slave trader. In fact, he died in 1724 of a stroke, but three slaves were tried and hanged for allegedly poisoning him.

William Trent House

I pointed out that this house, in “Trent’s Town” was the southern terminus of the Union Road we had hiked on and by up by Spruce Run, the norther terminus of the same road. “The Union” was the thirty thousand acres of land surrounding the Union Furnace.
Trent’s House was shelter to Hessians serving the British during their occupation of Trenton during the American Revolution, and after that it served as the Governor’s Mansion for several governors before Drumthwacket was the place.
We continued across a little bridge and through an area of trees with black birds flying around and going nuts. It was like something out of a horror film. We could hear them shitting everywhere, with splatters all around us. Lord Byron made a bunch of noise and they took off. I was wearing my suit, but it was getting cold so I put a sweat shirt over it, which fortunately had a hood that could protect me a bit more.

NJ State House

We made our way up to the State House, by way of the back, a lovely building were we finished the NJ Perimeter series and I gave a speech on the steps.
I wanted to relive some feeling of some of that with everything that had been going on.
My thoughts spun; I had done something that no one in history had ever done, covered the entire NJ perimeter by foot, and invited anyone who wanted to take part on every day I spent along the way. Yet, my Supervisor not only never congratulated me, he gave me a note stating “You are not a volunteer. Fire fighters and EMTs are volunteers. The woods are better off without you”.
I never asked for credit for it; all I want is respect for what I do, and all I get is constant personal and professional attacks.
I went over a bit of the history, and Doug added some in regarding the capital.
NJ’s State House was first built in 1792, and it is the third oldest continuously used state house of all of the fifty states, with only Maryland and Virginia being older. Some of the original 1752 structure is gone, and a current plan is to demolish the remaining oldest portion in favor of some new development, it would seem in true NJ style.

Yardley aqueduct

We continued down State Street from here and then turned left on Calhoun Street. That took us across the Delaware to the Delaware Canal. We turned right on that, and followed it up from Morrisville and through Yardley.
Shayna went ahead of the rest of the group to finish well before the rest of us.
I had a nice time having conversations with different members of the group, from Lord Byron with his latest filming, to Doug and our days back at Hunterdon. He and I had had some similar problems and similar difficulties getting them addressed, but he was able to retire to get away from it all. I don’t have that luxury at this point.
We regrouped and got one more group shot, and then continued toward our end point.

The Delaware Canal, like the Delaware and Raritan Canal, was also a long lived canal, and is considered to be the longest lived of all of America’s canals. It lasted on until the 1930s, after which it was taken over by DCNR in Pennsylvania as a state park. It was built in 1832 as part of the “Main Line of Public Works”, a state funded system of transportation improvement.
In the towns, there were still several people out and walking, despite the fact that it was so incredibly cold and windy before the end.
After we passed beneath Interstate 95, we turned left and reached the Yardley Park and Ride to complete the hike. Sue took Uncle Soup, Dougie, and Dan back to their cars in Bordentown, and I got Lord Byron back to his car on the south side of Trenton.
I felt rather defeated by the end of the night. There is hope, but every time it seems like something positive might happen, there is a set back and decisions made that are so ridiculous. I was clueless who to go to or what to do, and my fatigue made it all that much harder.
I left this one feeling pretty much lost, and something would have to be done.