Hike #1097; Bristol to Neshaminy

Hike #1097; Bristol to Neshaminy

12/9/17 Bristol to Neshaminy Mall with Red Sean (Patrick Ó Ríoghbhardáin) Reardon, Craig Craig, Lara Nycum, and Charles Updike

This one was a really cool one, and a return to more stuff I’d set out to do over ten years ago and never finished.
The day would mark the first substantial snow of the new year, which worked out pretty well that this was the hike I had planned. The first two hikes in my new Neshaminy series are slightly different versions of the same one, on opposite sides of the creek. The “part two” version I had planned would take us on easier routes that involved more back roads, which I figured might occur further into the Winter. With snow accumulating more in the latter portion of the day, I was able to shift to that planned route.

Happy truck

Red Sean picked me up in the morning at my house. He had a much better car than mine for the snow (his SUV is named Sanguinius), so we went in his.
We traveled south to the Neshaminy Mall where we met up with Craig, Lara and newcomer Charles Updike, and then shuttled to the start in Sean’s vehicle again.
Riding with Sean is always fun; on the way, he had an open kettle of tea, which he poured into coffee mugs and attempted to drink while driving. He handed me one, which I was expected to drink my Arizona Rx Energy drink from. When we pulld up at stop lights with someone beside us, Sean held up his tea and poured more, as if to offer some to the next driver.

End of the Delaware Canal

The same happened on the way to our starting point: Bristol Pa, at the southern terminus of the Delaware Canal.
Charles Updike had a good understanding of the area history, which complemented the hike well. He mentioned that the circle at the end of the park was once something that held a crane for unloading canal boats, which I’d never known before. I’d been to this site to start hikes on two different occasions in the past.
The first one was part of the Delaware Canal series, when I’d hiked it in October 2006.

On our hike in 2006

On that day we walked from Bristol up to Washington’s Crossing PA on the canal.
The second time I’d hiked from this spot was a year later in October 2007. It was on that date I had originally intended to hike the Neshaminy north.
I scaled off a trip that would begin at Bristol, follow the Delaware River down stream as best we could, and then follow the Neshaminy up stream.
On the maps, I thought it looked like the Neshaminy hike would be too much road walking, and so I decided to pass it by in favor of another hike, which followed odd linear parks directly out of Bristol and heading to the north.

Art on the canal memorial

That hike ended up being excellent, and I ran three more connective hikes to the north, which picked up the Neshaminy Creek again to the north. I never got back to hiking along the Neshaminy until early 2017 after a long hiatus. I’d still never hiked the lower end, and I’d never done any of it north of Tyler State Park. Because my friend Martyn suggested I do a few more hikes closer to Philly, I figured it was a good time to post one.
So, I re-worked the hike plan where we’d start at Bristol and walk to Neshaminy State Park, then follow the waterway up stream toward Neshaminy Mall. If we ran short on time, we could always cut a corner back to where we started without a problem.

View of the Delaware at end of Delaware Canal

During the drive, we headed onto the PA Turnpike, but somehow missed where we were supposed to get a ticket apparently. When we got to the first toll booth, and we had no ticket, the woman there charged Red Sean $44! He was fortunately able to contest it and it should be dropped, but that was not a fun way to start off the day for sure.
We were able to park right where I wanted to start, at the former terminus of the canal, Lock #1 site. This was an incredibly important site for transportation and industry starting in 1827.
Bristol was originally called Buckingham when it was settled in 1681, named for Buckingham, England. The growth, however, really started happening with the canal.

Historic image of Lock #1 on Delaware Canal

Actually the “Pennsylvania Canal, Delaware Division”, it say it’s heyday up until around 1855 when railroads began to take over for the canals. In those early years, Bristol was a major boat building town.

Historic image of a boat exiting Lock #1 on the Delaware Canal

The Delaware Canal was a regular mule drawn canal like others, which traveled north to Easton PA. There, travel was possible up the Lehigh Canal to the west and north, and across New Jersey on the Morris Canal. In New Hope, two locks and slack water in the Delaware made possible travel across and into Delaware and Raritan Canal, to New Brunswick.

Outflow at Lock #1, Bristol

Like the previous hikes we’d been doing on the Lehigh Canal and area around it, this canal was used much for hauling the hard anthracite coal from the mines to the major markets, being New York and Philly. Bristol was only about a half hour travel time from Philly.

Another historic image of Lock #1

Boats would lock out of the Delaware Canal to the tidal Delaware River at Bristol, and then tug boats would take them down stream to Philadelphia. There, boats could make use of the Schuykill Navigation System, another series of canals and slack water pools.

Boats waiting for the tug boat at Bristol

We checked out the historic markers at the sites of the lock, the lock tender’s house, and then where the canal went under the road to head inland and to the north.

Maple Beach Road

From there, we headed along Canals End Road just a bit to the south, and turned to the left to follow Maple Beach Road.
I was totally expecting this to be an open public highway with traffic and such, but I was delighted to see it was blocked off to traffic and was going to be a very nice walk!
We stepped over the galvanized rails blocking off the bridge over the Mill Creek. It was in pretty bad shape, with deteriorating concrete and lots of exposed metal re bar everywhere. Some sections of the bridge railings were missing altogether. Charles told us that this was the proposed route of the East Coast Greenway through the area, which is excellent.

Maple Beach road bridge

There was apparently once a major development down along the Delaware at Maple Beach.
Maple Beach was a development purchased by Rohm and Haas, a mostly chemical company, in 1917. There were once twenty seven or so houses and a grid of a few streets at Maple Beach. The beach itself, and apparently “Lake Adeline”, was created by Rohm and Hass for their employee social activities.
The road that passed through it is now cut off at the east end, and only accessible on the west side. Of all of the house that were once there, there are reportedly only four that remain, and we only noted three of them I believe when we got to walking by.

Mill Creek bridge to Maple Beach

This was some of that really cool stuff that reminded me much of the New Jersey Perimeter series. It was just so odd. I’d wished Serious Sean could have been with us, because he enjoyed those hikes so much too, and after talking to him at the Strikesound party a couple of days before, I though the’d be there, but he was stuck babysitting a dog.
When I did see him, he gave me a couple of beers made by Dogfish Head, called “Old School”. I tried one out right there, and it was absolutely awesome! Strangely, it is brewed with dates and figs, so I didn’t expect it to be all that incredible.

Ramp thing

Just over the bridge, the road got to a wacky speed bump, where some sort of giant ramp of asphalt was piled up, followed by more galvanized railing to keep vehicles from getting over. It seemed like a bit of overkill, but it gave it character.
We continued on the other side up the road, heading toward the Delaware River. This section still had the yellow line up the center visible.
We followed this out and past some sort of access to a treatment plant or something, then to a lake of sorts on the right side. Just beyond that, there was a berm to the left and another lake. We walked over to check this one out.

Historic photo

Above: Lake Adeline was apparently part of the recreational development constructed at Maple Beach in it’s heyday.

Maple Beach Road

There was an abandoned building of some sort on the shore of the one on the left, that was obviously wide open. We went over to check that out next.
It was covered in graffiti, and Red Sean noted that there was a condom on the floor on the right. There was equipment inside, which looked as though it must have been some kind of pumping station. We continued out and onto the berm of the pond, and followed it a bit more to the east, where it came right back to the side of Maple Beach Road. We went down and followed the road from there into the almost defunct community.

Abandoned

There were signs along the berm as it made it’s way to the edge of the Delaware River, saying to keep off, private property.
We were approaching the last remaining few homes in the Maple Beach community.
This has been an area of problems, because people reportedly were going down there to fight or to make drug deals in the past, so the road was made private. There are however no signs when coming from the Bristol side. There are also major plans to make this the through trail, though obviously this has not happened yet. No one bothered us walking the road.

Abandoned

We walked by the houses, which were mostly in pretty good shape. One of them looked like the porch was damaged rather badly, and it was sort of ramshackle put together in the front. Still, it was lived in and mostly in pretty good shape.
We passed by some of the old grid of streets to the right of us when we passed the houses, which just looked kind of creepy with nothing on them.
To the left of us, we had a really good view of the Burlington Bristol Bridge, and across was the Doane Academy, founded in 1837 by George Washington Doane, who championed the cause of equal education for women. The chapel building, built in 1847 still stands (I remembered at the time it was historically significant, but couldn’t remember more).

Maple Beach historic image

We had some good views also of the Burlington-Bristol Bridge, which is among my favorite Delaware bridges because it has so much character about it.

Maple Beach

The Burlington Bristol Bridge has an uncommon lift action in the central span, which is antiquated and is one of the reasons it’s replacement was called for many times.

Burlington Bristol Bridge

If the bridge were to be replaced, there is an industrial site, as well as other historic structures in the way. A new bridge would have to connect with nearby Rt 130, and it’d be a political uproar to do anything about it, so the bridge remains.
We continued walking toward the bridge, and could see it a bit better. There were some old signs along the side of the road pointing directions to the on ramp. They were grown over with tree branches, which made the whole place seem kind of forbidden.
We continued directly under, and got even better un-obscured views of the structure.

Burlington Bristol Bridge,1930

The bridge broke ground in April of 1930, and opened to traffic in May of 1931. It is sixty one feet high at the center, and 2,301 feet long. Unfortunately, pedestrians are not allowed to cross it. If that were the case, I’d have found a way to incorporate it into this one.
We continued ahead, and we could also see over to the Burlington Generation Station on the opposite side.
The road on the PA side under the bridge is called Beachway Road. I didn’t know if it’d be smart to go this way, or better to just head the easiest way. That’s not me though.

Old signs at Burlington Bristol Bridge

We headed beneath the bridge, and Lara seemed to remember talking about hiking the area with a guy named Sidney that leads hikes all over Philadelphia, and that he’d know what to do.
The road continued on to the west of the bridge, and there was another that went parallel with it, with what looked like the garage to another old house still standing. Rather than go that way and take an inevitably long road walk, we all agreed it would be better to continue walking as best we could along the waterfront. This was a rather open ended hike, and we could always bee line to the Neshaminy mall if we happened to start running too far behind.

Abandoned Maple Beach road

We continued on the road until another one went off to the right to join the road off of the bridge. An unpaved road continued parallel with the Delaware downstream, and Lara said that Sidney had told her there was some kind of way through there. I’d never met the guy, but apparently he has rules like “Never question the leader” and such.
I’ve also heard a lot of good things. Maybe one day I’ll get to meet him. If he’s up for this stuff he can’t be bad.
We walked along and got up on the flood berm to get more views of the bridge.

Burlington Bristol Bridge

We could also see the power plant just down stream from that. I remembered doing the perimeter hike series, and how there was a road walk we had to do around that plant, but a weird section of back woods on the other side.

Power plant in Burlington

We continued on the road as it moved slightly away from the river, and in this area Red Sean found a rope and made a noose out of it. He went on to describe different ways to make them so that it would snap the neck quicker or not.
It had already started to snow at this point, and it wasn’t long before we started seeing accumulation.
The old road led us to a fenced in area we could walk right around, but the problem was it said “no trespassing” in either direction. We opted to just keep going, and came out at a creek I have no name for.

Being morbidly silly

There was no good way to cross the thing that we could find, and we tried bushwhacking up it a bit, but it had too many of those green thorny vine type bushes, and it would have been no fun to keep going. We decided to backtrack slightly to a power line clearing we crossed just before the creek. We followed that north, and then cut on an access road to the west which led us to a bridge over the creek. This led into a chain link fenced in area on the other side. It was open, but we didn’t know we’d find any way out (although later on, when on the road, we passed a hole in the fence where people do it).

The Neshaminy at Croydon

Rather than take any further chances, we kept on the access road north. When it went toward buildings, we cut off the road to go off trail along the creek. This led us over an outflow where Sean got his foot wet and had to change socks, and then eventually out to River Road where we turned to the right.
There were properties of The Heritage Conservancy across, but we didn’t bother to try to follow those. We skirted the fenced in area heading west into the settlement of Croydon, and went right on Cedar Ave to Ray Ave to the Neshaminy Brewing company. They were closed still, so we opted to continue for a loop and come back after they opened.

In Neshaminy State Park

The area was reportedly an historic crossing dating back to early settlement, in the late 1600s. Croydon is unincorporated community of Bristol. It apparently takes it’s name from the ancestral homeland of Major Thomas Barnsley, a British officer who came to America with Lord Loudon in 1756 to serve with him in the French and Indian War. Records of the area refer to it as the “Tatham Plantation”, but Major Barnsley called it “Croydon”. A lot of the earlier history of the area is lost, but it’s somehow managed to remain relevant. The Bristol area was even the subject of a hit song by The Dovells in 1961 (though it was recorded by Terry and the Applejacks). Chubby Checker also did a version of the song a year after the original.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/CinviAVC5jY

We made our way to the Neshaminy Creek again, and checked out a bar to potentially get some lunch, but then opted to head back out and do some more walking first. They looked at us kind of funny inside. We then crossed the Neshaminy on State Road.

Neshaminy State Park

There was a walkway on the north side of the bridge, but not nearly enough on the rest of the road. We had nearly no shoulder heading across to the west side, Bensalem.
Bensalem is likely named after a manor house that took the name from a piece of fiction, an island named Bensalem tagged as “New Atlantis” by an early aristocratic settler, or even maybe because of a nearby “Salem” name.
We followed the road to a small building to the left of the road, and went around the fence to get on one of the trails in Neshaminy State Park. We walked to the south on this for a bit.

Tidal Delaware

Neshaminy State Park has been on my “to do” list forever. The 330 acre park occupies the southwest side of the confluence of the Neshaminy Creek and Delaware River, known as Logan’s Point.
The park was donated to the state of Pennsylvania by the estate of Robert R. Logan in 1956. Robert Logan was a descendant of James Logan, who was colonial secretary to William Penn who founded Pennsylvania.
We followed the first trail to an intersection with “Logan Walk” and I made some stupid joke about it being a walk vs. “Logan’s Run”. As it turns out, the trail we followed to the left was the site of the Logan House, which was removed, and the road to the right was the access.

Along the Delaware

This part of Logan Walk was just a loop, in an open meadow area that I can only assume was the location of the old house. We returned to the other trail, Oak Lane, and started following that close to the Neshaminy to the south.
This trail changed names to River Walk, and we continued beyond the confluence with the Delaware a bit until we saw a path leading down to it’s edge to the left. This section of the Delaware is a tidal estuary, and so it was quite low. This was the perfect opportunity to get down and walk the river edge rather than the trail, so that’s what we did.
It made for some very nice walking heading to the west. Not really muddy at all, just had some stones and sand. We followed this route all the way to the west end of the park, where Dunksferry Road comes out to the edge of the Delaware. This originally led to the point of Dunks Ferry over the river, where there was an inn that served travelers in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Along the Delaware

Dunksferry Road is one of the oldest roads in Pennsylvania, having been built in 1679 by Dunken Williams to reach the ferry.
We climbed up at the end of the park, and headed across through paved trails and picnic areas. Apparently some of the area was the garden of Mr. Logan, but it was snowing so hard I think we just wanted to keep on moving.
We reached the west end of Logan Lane, and followed it east again. This took us back to Oak Lane, where we turned left and exited the park the same way we went in. We then turned right on State Road and headed back to Neshaminy Brewing Company for a tasting.

In Neshaminy Brewing

We had a seat and saw what they had had on tap. I was hoping to try an English Barleywine they had known as “Concrete Pillow”, but they no longer had it. Still, what we did have tasted pretty good. I didn’t get any to go, but Craig cut out from us early at this point, and he came back and got some for a party he was going to. They had a canning machine, and very large cans for whatever orders they made to go, which was something I’d never seen at a brewery before. We had a few laughs, and Red Sean said he didn’t do so well with women until he employed my technique of always talking about Jesus and/or diarrhea. I really am not at all suave.

As a joke, when the girls were serving us drinks, I just randomly started talking ridiculously about Jesus, and for whatever reason they seemed to think it was funny. Red Sean wispers to me then “QUICK! Bring up diarrhea!”
We had a nice time there, and then continued out to make our way to the north along the Neshaminy. It was snowing quite a bit at this point, and we’d only stopped briefly for some pizza at La Vera Pizza, which was good.
We followed a series of streets to the north, toward the Croydon Station on SEPTA tracks, keeping mostly to the west as to be near the Neshaminy Creek. Along the way, Red Sean saw a snow man in someone’s yard, and decided to take the noose he had been carrying since Bristol and put it around it’s head. Fortunately he wasn’t seen doing so.

Snow man noose

We passed beneath the tracks, then turned to the left across the parking lots. We followed Rt 13 west for a bit, to the corner of Neshaminy Road, and took a quick break at the 7 Eleven store.
From there, we followed the road to the north along Neshaminy Creek.
We passed through neighborhoods, and then reached Newportville Road and turned left, much closer to the creek.
The word “Neshaminy” comes from the Lenape word 'Nesha-men-ning', which loosely means “place where we drink” twice, and refers to a palisades in what is now Dark Hollow Park upstream, where the creek almost doubles back on itself.

Several other variations were applied to the creek over the years, including Nishambanach (1671), Nichmink, Nishammis (1679), Nishmines (1680), Neshimineh (1682), Neshamineh (1686), Neshaminia (1688), Neshamenah (1702), and more.
Newportville Road had homes on both sides with limited views of the creek for a time, bu then opened up on the left after the intersection with Maple Ave.
We walked on the right side, parallel with some apartments, and then passed beneath the bridges of the Delaware Expressway/Route 95. After that, we were able to keep to the right through some sort of commercial properties on the grassy edges of the land, a sort of slope above the road. The ground was covered in snow, but it wasn't so deep that it was bad to be walking on.

The Neshaminy

Just after this area, I started noticing there were signs to the left reading that it was Bucks County park lands. The Neshaminy moved off to the west, out of sight of the road, and we all agreed that we could get over closer to it by bushwhacking down just a little bit.
We made our way through woods that weren't too overgrown, and then to the side of the creek. We managed to walk up stream and emerged behind a small building and an access road from the right. It was then easier to walk for a bit. We passed a parking spot and a gated area, but were able to continue walking along the creek. There was another access to the right and we actually passed two walkers.

Neshaminy

We eventually came to the rather obvious end to the park lands at some houses. We cut up hill to the right, on what appeared to be a path, and it took us to the intersection of Newportville Road and Lower Road, and so we took Lower Road, which was a narrow and pleasant road along the creek heading north. We then passed signs saying we were entering Newportville.
I really don't know a lot about the history of Newportville. I don't have any books on it, and the Bucks County history book I've been referencing seems to have very little on it. It is definitely very old, and has an old inn along the creek.

The Neshaminy

We reached the New Falls Road Bridge and went down beneath it for a look. It turned out we could continue along the creek rather well below, and so we did so. This led us out behind houses, and at this point we figured “screw it” and just walked along the backs of the back yards to the north. It was so snowy, no one wanted to come out and bother with us I’m sure.
We continued until a mess of woods just before the PA Turnpike/Interstate 76 bridge over the Neshaminy. We headed up to the road there. One of the old houses just to the south appeared to be a former mill, and I think I could make out some remnants of the old raceway adjacent to the PA Turnpike bridge.

Newportville, Lower Road

We couldn't go far along the creek below because there were too many homes, so we went up to follow Newportville Road once again to the north. The other side of the creek from here has a trail along it, which was my original planned route. Rather than take to the west side like I had intended, the east side has more road walking, which I figured was appropriate for the snowy conditions. We were pleasantly surprised at just how much we were able to get off of the road for this hike, and I would assume we'll probably be pleasantly surprised with this entire series.

Neshaminy near Hulmville

We remained on Newportville Road heading to the north. This switched names to Main Street as we began to enter Hulmeville just ahead. We soon started passing by houses on the street again.
Hulmeville was originally known as Milford Mills. It is named in honor of John Hulme, Jr, an industrialist who purchased the village in 1795. He established the first bank in Bucks County, the Farmers Bank of Bucks County, in 1814. Once the center of industry in Bucks County, some of that character lives on now, which we saw in some of the old buildings adjacent to the creek as we reached the main part of the town. The old Hulmeville Inn is still in business as well, on the corner near the Rt 513 bridge over the Neshaminy.

Hulmeville Inn

Hulmeville was the point where we had to make a decision to either continue trying to follow the Neshaminy, or to give it up and make a bee line toward the Neshaminy Mall. To the north, we'd have to walk Neshaminy Street out toward Rt 1, and see about an unpredictable open space along the creek and then head south to the mall. This was not something we could be doing in the dark, and it was nearly dark already. It was smartest to go to the west at this point.
Fortunately, I had already been looking over maps for alternative routes prior to this hike taking place, which would provide us a route back to the mall with minimal road walking. We headed left to cross the Rt 513 bridge, then turned to he right on Bensalem Blvd.

Apartment walking

Along Bensalem Blvd to the right, there were good apartment complex sidewalks, further away from the road and closer to the buildings. These provided a better route walking than directly alongside the road. We followed these to a great extent out to where Donallen Drive hits Bensalem Blvd, and then were able to cut to the west across the yard of the Valley Elementary School. We went around the building to the west, then north, and found a spot with an opening in the fence. It was an access trail out to Independence Court. We turned left, then cut the corner left to a parking lot, and walked straight across into another area with tennis courts or something. We turned to the right to cross Gilbert Drive, and had a good long sidewalk between apartment buildings leading us to the north.

Neshaminy Mall

There were people all walking through the place, and the snow was coming down harder. We just kept going to the north, turned a slight left, then a slight right, and then went through a recreational area which passed by more tennis courts or something. We cut to the left here, which took us out in a parking area adjacent to Neshaminy Blvd. There might have been a good greenway behind all of the buildings to the north and west along the creek, but we'll have to save that for a future one.
We followed Neshaminy Blvd without making any further efforts to get off of he road. I think it was only another 1.3 miles to the mall.

Neshaminy Mall

We regrouped at the corner of Bristol Road and Neshaminy Blvd where there was a Dunkin Donuts and Baskin Robbins or something. We then walked across the lot directly to the entrance to the Boscov's at the mall. It was nice to get inside and out of the cold. We could walk through the mall for most the remainder of the distance.
Lara told us that the Neshaminy Mall was one of the oldest indoor malls in the country, which I had not known before. It might be in the top twenty in the country, but not the oldest in PA (that distinction belongs to King of Prussia Mall).

Fountain at Neshaminy Mall

Neshaminy is the sixth mall to have opened in eastern Pennsylvnia, in 1968. Although it's seeing some decline, it still was quite busy.
We headed through straight, and Lara pointed out that there was an interesting fountain with a Native American on it, which seemed appropriate for the history of the area.
We continued on through, and both Charles and Lara were about ready to head out. I had to remind that that Red Sean had driven to the start, and that we'd be stranded there. Fortunately Lara offered to get us back, but she just had to stop at Barnes and Noble first.

Mall fun

Sean and I are entirely too entertained by the people at the mall and will walk around making ridiculous faces. We went off to use the restrooms and check out the food court along the way, and told Lara we'd meet her at Barnes and Noble.
Sean was commenting on how cool the hats of the guards were, and he disappeared at one point. Turns out he had flagged one down to ask if he could try his hat on and get a photograph.
We headed over to the Barnes and Noble and found Lara laying on the floor near the entrance with stuff she was going to buy. We were able to exit directly from there, and we were parked just to the south.
We helped Lara clean her van off, and wrote "Jesus" all over it in the process.
The roads were pretty bad, and we took a roundabout way rather than having to deal with the EZ Pass debacle we had dealt with before.

Mall fun

Red Sean and I had a nice and easy ride on back home in the snow, and we stopped on the way to get some Wendy's for dinner.
It was too bad Martyn had family stuff to do, and Serious Sean was busy, because this was one of those hikes that those guys would have loved. It was really a throwback to some of the hikes we'd done a couple years before, and I'd forgotten how much I'd enjoyed them. Additionally, the hikes that follow waterways, even when we can't swim, are always very interesting and full of history. I'm going to have to make it a point to continue doing ones like this, because they should be more popular when weather is more amenable.
The creek itself is about forty miles long, but with it's tributaries and adjacent greenways, I feel pretty confident that I'll be able to milk at least ten hikes out of it, all of which will be pretty interesting.
To the north, through Dark Hollow and beyond, where it splits into two branches, there are so many more trails on the route. Other little parks including Lake Galena with it's perimeter path are all things I haven't done, which looks quite interesting.

Neshaminy Map

I will have to try to post the next hike in this series sometime in January of February, weather permitting. I'll have a back up for that next one as well, so if there is significant snow on the ground, we can take to a route with more of the back streets. Either way, we now know it will be good.

Boat on the Delaware near Bristol

Ham