Hike #1154; Freeland to Lehigh Tannery

Hike #1154; Freeland to Lehigh Tannery

8/30/18 Freeland to Lehigh Tannery with Pete G. Wilcox, James Quinn, and Dan Asnis

This next hike would be another point to point tracing old anthracite railroads. We had been doing really great tracing these old lines on my mandatory Thursdays off from parks, and so when Pete is available to do them, I’m ready to get on it.

Lehigh Valley branch in Freeland

Such was the case for this hike, where Pete had been talking to me for a long time about the old Central Railroad of New Jersey’s Drifton Branch.
The Drifton Branch was very interesting in that it was abandoned early, and served anthracite interests to nearly the same spot as the branch from White Haven to Upper Lehigh.
The Drifton Branch was built in 1893, and was 10.54 miles in length. It continued along the Sandy Run to Eckley area, then along slopes through Jeddo area to Drifton where Coxe Bros. and Co had a breaker and shops. The CNJ lost it’s business to the Lehigh Valley Railroad in 1921, and the branch was abandoned in 1934. We had hiked the Lehigh Valley Railroad grade to the same site on our previous hike to Freeland. That was known as the Woodside Branch according to some of the early maps.
I had been going over the maps and grew more and more interested in the old branch. I had been saving it up thinking it would be a good one for a larger group hike, but when I looked closer there were sketchy places, so it would fit well as one of these random day ones.
The last time we hiked into Freeland on the Lehigh Valley line, we ended at Carone’s Market, a little grocery store, so this time we decided to start there, and we would end at the parking area at Lehigh Tannery on the D&L Trail where the trail follows the old CNJ main.
I met Pete and Dan there and we shuttled over to Freeland and met James.
The former Lehigh Valley Railroad used to go right behind Carone’s. We didn’t get to following this bit of the line our last time in to town because it was getting dark. This time, we got some food at the store, then headed out behind where we could rather easily see the grade. It used to serve a silk mill and other industries there.

Historic image on Birbeck St.

We walked slightly down slope behind the store and then down behind the Family Dollar to reach the parking lot. We then crossed over Rt 940 through the lot of Feussner Ford where the tracks once went and entered the woods on a good clear grade.

50s or 60s image of Carbon Street crossing from Greg Gunshore collection

This took us out to Carbon Street where there used to be a bridge. There was a sort of junction spot just on the other side where a little spur must have gone off to the right. We walked it out to where it stopped and then headed back up Carbon Street to the east.

Carbon Street at the bridge site

The grade goes off into back yards beyond, and so we walked Carbon Street instead until we got to Adams Street and turned right. The route was clearly visible there, but a house to the west on the next block, Washington Street, was built over it. We walked down to Wyoming Street and then came back up Washington Street where we could follow a block of the historic route though a disturbed area heading to the west to where an annex to the MMI prep school was built over it. We continued on to the west and were able to get on it again where they built a tennis court over it at Ridge Street.
We turned right on Fern Street to Carbon Street and Pete pointed out where there used to be a station. There’s a house that occupies the site now and looks to be none of the station.

Old LV station

This station was on a bit of a spur from the through route we were following. We continued to the left down Carbon Street until there was a path going off into the woods to the left. We were able to pick up some of the old rail grade there and looked around for remnants on the way to a ball field section. Ball fields were build adjacent to the rail bed, and we could see what we thought to be the junction between the through route and the route up to the station beside them. A bit of a trail was constructed on part of the railroad bed through the ball field.
Near the south end of the ball fields, we entered the woods on more obvious railroad grade.

Crossing a stream

We reached a former stream crossing with good bridge abutments in place. It was tiny so we just stepped over and continued. Soon, the grade seemed to disappear into the back of a building I think had something to do with water authority, and we headed around it. We then crossed Rt 940 and followed a bit more of the grade until it disappeared into wrecked coal lands. We had come out in this area on the previous hike, only up the hill a bit.

Coal stripping

The amount of work one in this area has obliterated much of the earlier railroad lines. The Lehigh Valley was apparently the last to occupy this area. The CNJ Drifton Branch lost the business to the area in 1921, and the Lehigh, Schuykill, and Susquehanna eventually became part of the Lehigh Valley line. There was once a breaker back there and I found some old metal pieces of stuff as we started walking off the railroad grade.

Mines in Freeland area

Delaware, Schuykill, and Susqehanna opened in 1891 and was headquartered at Drifton. It remained in service there closely associated with the Coxe Bros. operation, until it became part of the Lehigh Valley system in 1905.

Map of former DS&S lines with Lehigh Valley lines

There’s a giant heap of coal culm in the middle of the old mining area, and I’m not sure exactly where the tracks went. All I’m pretty sure on is that the Lehigh Valley Railroad skirted the other side of the pile, and we followed that last time.

1899 wreck at Drifton on DSS from Charles S. Gallagher Collection. It shows Gallagher's great grandfather Patrick J. Gallagher.

I’m sure we were on or closer to the DS&S line. I really want to get to following that route in the near future because it looks like it’ll be a really good one.
This time, we continued to where we figured the Jersey Central line came in.

Drifton PA in 1902, DS&S, from Charles S. Gallagher Collection. It shows Gallagher's great grandfather Patrick J. Gallagher.

We came upon a giant tank on a hillside with a bit of a grade behind it. We weren’t sure what this was, but figured it might have been for refilling water in steam engine boilers. After looking at the maps later, this was pretty much the terminus of the CNJ Drifton Branch.

Big tank at the end of the drifton branch.

This time, Pete brought his Mac Book thingy out with him, which he had uploaded the KMZ file I provided to James with all of the anthracite railroads shown rather accurately on them. Using that and side by side GPS location, we were able to determine when we were in the right place.
We started walking to the west of the tank, after climbing on top of it of course. The right of way became apparent rather quickly. The Lehigh Valley line also ran closely parallel with the CNJ in this section, and had it’s Drifton Station here.

Drifton Station historic image

We came to a pretty open area where it was kind of confusing. There was a giant slope to the left, and we couldn’t quite tell when we were on it or not. Certainly some of these piles had been put on top of it. We went up hill on one, and then back down hill to find an ATV path make a hard right onto what seemed to be an obvious grade. We had found it again.

CNJ abandonment article

I find it curious that the CNJ had two lines coming to nearly the same area. The Upper Lehigh Branch, which we followed last year, was into Freeland but only from the north. I think that one might have been also known as the Sandy Run Branch, even though this one actually goes along the Sandy Run at the end.
The best bet I have for that is that the one to Upper Lehigh was originally Lehigh and Lackawanna Railroad, which became part of the CNJ later.
As we continued walking the grade, to the right of us we could see another grade up on a fill heading away. This was, as per the KMZ file, the Woodside Branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, which was the branch out of Jeddo that went into Freeland and the Coxe Bros site. I don’t think we found that section of it the previous visit.
The grade of the CNJ got to be much clearer and lovely to walk. It continued on a slope above the settlement of Jeddo, while the Lehigh Valley line continued right into the current town. We came down parallel with North Street above houses, but never got back into the town. The Lehigh Valley, CNJ, and DS&S all were parallel with one another serving the same points here.

Drifton Branch

The two towns here were known as Japan-Jeddo at one point, and switched to Jeddo-Japan, after the Japanese Port of Edo. The name Jeddo Japan continued in use until World War II when anti-Japanese sentiment among Americans led them to dropping the Japan part of it, similar to how German names were dropped from towns in New Jersey.

Wide grade

We crossed Smithwood Road and a couple of access points, but never really got into any town area. The grade started to widen just to the east of Jeddo where we passed some substantial industrial ruins on the right. There were large concrete foundations. Above us on the left, there were some older stone foundations with some concrete added. The DSS line was just above this within sight. We’re still not sure what it was we came across here.
It was in this area that I found out later we made a mistake. We were walking ahead on the grade, and it looked like the KMZ showed the line going to the south. It didn’t seem to make sense at the time, but it looked like it. Sometimes, the KMZ changes a bit depending on the orientation of the google maps we use it on. If it’s off at a tilt, the entire track appears in a different location. Maybe that’s what happened here.
We ended up walking down to the Eckley Road through the ruins, and then out along it to where it looked like a grade might have crossed. We did find remnants of what appeared to certainly be rail grades, but they were more than likely local mining grades. The CNJ line remained up higher and closer to the DS&S line.
We crossed over Eckley Road following one of these grades adjacent to active mining, and came out to cross Highland Road where it became Eckley Road. We bushwhacked through woods here and eventually headed back up hill again to pick up the CNJ grade where it actually was. A lot of the area here is disturbed through mining, so we wouldn’t have found it easily either way.

Drifton Branch

The grade got really hard to follow at some point. I thought I saw something go to the left, but trying to follow it, we ended up to the right. There was a definite grade we were on, but it disappeared under mounds of piled earth to the right. It wasn’t easy going. I realized at some point that we were far too south from the grade we wanted, and so we bushwhacked again to the north until we got to where we were supposed to be.
What we ended up finding was a sort of drainage ditch above the mining area. At first, I thought we might have gone wrong and this was just a thing they built to keep runoff from occurring, but then realized it actually was the Drifton Branch. When the line was abandoned, the other lines serving the site took the job of the CNJ, and so the former CNJ was dug out and used to catch runoff in this one section. We walked along a berm along the dug out section, and when we got to the stream access, the grade resumed as an obvious recognizable railroad grade.

Drifton Branch

It got really badly overgrown at one point, and so we bushwhacked up and followed the DS&S line for just a short bit, and when the Drifton Branch started to turn away, we headed back down to follow it instead.
I was anticipating coming out on a paved road known as Valley Road, but it turned out this was an old abandoned gravel road that only ATVs use. The grade was still recognizable to this point, and maybe a tiny bit beyond, but from there it’s been completely obliterated. I didn’t realize just how badly at first.
We turned back when it got bad and followed the Valley Road to the right. We got off of it for a bit through woods looking for any remnants we could find, but there was nothing. I eventually figured we would just follow it into the active coal mining area and see if we could get through.

Drifton Branch

There were vehicles moving stuff around, loading stuff up and taking it away to another location. They were going between two nearby points, and so we waited for one to head off with a load to head over to the east a bit.
We found a cliff face where the entire north side of the mining area was stripped away. This destroyed any and all remnants of rail grades that existed in this area before. It was a good thing we didn’t try to continue through that section because we would have just come to an open cliff. We skirted this area and started heading to the south. It wouldn’t be safe to continue along the cliff.
There was a giant pile of coal refuse to the right of us, and I figured we’d skirt the edge of that and make our way down to get to the other side and resume on the grade where we could see it clearly on the google images.
I made my way up higher to get better bearings. It was like talus slope like we see in Delaware Water Gap. Somewhat loose, but navigable when you’re careful. Dan asked if he could just stay a bit lower rather than climb up as much to continue around and out of the woods. That seemed like a fine idea, but he still unfortunately lost grip and hit his head on one of the rocks. Thankfully it wasn’t really a fall down, but a fall forward or it’d have been worse.
I hurried back over to him down the slope, and almost panicked myself at first. His forehead at the hair line was cut badly. We gave him some towers to compress on it, which actually stopped the bleeding very quickly.
I tried to stay composed and spoke calmly. I wanted to make it sound like I was far less concerned than I actually was just in case it would be harder to get out. I checked the aerial images, and fortunately it was an easy shot right over to the Eckley Miners Museum. We took Dan’s pack and watched him closely as we walked back out sort of the way we came, but not as close to the cliff. There was one spot of rocks we had to scramble over before getting to really easy flat ground. We needed to make sure we weren’t in too much a hurry over those.
Once we were on the level ground we could hurry along better. I was most concerned with the head injury in terms of concussion than from the cut. We got out to the street at Eckley Miners Museum and sat down in the shade while I called 911. We immediately realized we were better off across the street at the museum in the shade where we could get Dan water if needed.
The hospital that was nearest was Hazleton. It was fortunate only that we were so close to a road and not in one of the spots in the middle of nowhere. I knew it was going to require some stitches for sure, but still wanted to just make sure Dan stayed calm.

Dan's head shot

Pete and I checked out the museum a bit while we waited for the ambulance to show up.
Dan was actually handling it all great, with his only concern being his job interview the next day.
They took him off to the hospital and just waited to hear back from him.
My phone died, but fortunately Pete had a lot of power, and Dan updated us along the way that he was feeling fine and they he was waiting to be released.
It was a huge relief that we got him out as quickly as we did. I was really stressed out, and it’s even harder trying not to show it. The three of us then continued on our way.
We made our way down Eckley Road, now knowing that a good amount of the grade was gone. We bushwhacked off again through woods when we figured we’d be able to get back down to it again. I was moving along fast because my nerves were still a wreck.
We reached the mining road and headed to the right. We also got up on the height of the land trying to find the Drifton Branch, but found nothing at first. Something didn’t seem right.
We reached an area of wide, active quarrying, and cut to the right. When I checked the GPS aerials, the entire remaining grade through this section had been obliterated. The quarrying had expanded in the short time since the most recent google image, and people were actively working when we approached. This was going to suck.
The only thing we could do was to head up the hill on one of the other old area roads and try to make our way to the other side of the quarry area with hopes that it didn’t expand to the east as well.
We crossed the grade, and we could see straight into the active quarry area. We headed up hill on the management road or whatever it was, to the next one up above the grade and turned left. It was absolute crap. There were tons of rocks, thick blueberry bushes with no redeeming fruit, and the fright of hitten a stinging insect’s next at any time.
We reached another management road, and it headed up and down hill. This was on or very close to the Buck Mountain Coal Company Gravity Railroad’s right of way, which we hiked on one of the previous trips. It terminated out in the now quarried area. Another branch of it was above, and had I known at the time, I probably would have attempted to follow one of those earlier on instead.
We continued to the next management road route heading down hill, which on the current aerials showed as the end of the active quarrying. We followed it to where it ended, and we were still above the grade. We headed down hill, sometimes steeply, through woods to the northeast until I could see the grade below us in dense woods. The active quarrying ended just to my left, maybe two hundred or so feet away from where we reached it.

Drifton Branch at end of active quarrying

It was a bit rough going, but at least we were on the grade and less of the plants we were walking through were abrasive, and we had a shady canopy to keep us from sweating as badly.
We crossed a quarry road known as Number 1 Lane, and after that it got a bit clear with lovely hay ferns along the rail bed.
We continued not all that long to reach another unnamed quarry road of sorts. The grade was not only overgrown on the other side, it was nearly impenetrable, which is saying a lot for me. We instead turned right briefly, then left on another woods road, which quickly led back to the grade.

Drifton Branch

The ATV path’s most prominent route turned onto the rail grade when we got back to it, and it continued very nicely on a shelf on the side of the Buck Mountain. We would have a long distance of easy walking, redemption for all of the crap we went through earlier.

Owl Hole

The peak of redemption was when we reached an old mine area, now full of water, known as Owl Hole. There was a path going down to it, and it even looked inviting on aerials. We took the path down to find the pale blue waters of the lake with a dock. We wasted no time getting in and cooling off.
The water felt perfect and no one was around. It was just the break we needed. I put a beer in the water to cool it down for when I got out, which was a total varsity move on my part, because that stuff was getting disgustingly warm.

Drifton Branch

After our break, we headed back up hill to the railroad bed, where Little Sandy Run passes under it with lots of springs. We then continued generally east, although the grade turns kind of to the north briefly. We passed through an impressive cut and basically remained on a shelf along the north slope of a ridge.
The route was just relaxing. We passed over one impressive fill, and the Sandy Run was far below, though we continued to lose elevation as we walked. The shelf became less pronounced as we headed east.

Drifton Branch

The only nervous bit of this entire section was where we reached two houses. The ATV use diminished at some point and we were walking through light vegetation again until we reached these two houses. One was just on the left, the other was on the right, and both of them utilized the railroad grade as their driveway. In order to follow the grade, we would be walking the driveway for a full mile. The house on the right had no one in it at the time, but was not abandoned, and the house on the left someone was definitely home.

Drifton Branch

We hurried by without saying a word, and picked the pace up a bit on the other side. No one ended up coming by, and we passed one more house on the way out at Lehigh Gorge Drive.
We couldn’t follow the grade on the other side from here because it’s all private driveways and such. It wasn’t necessary to follow it any longer on the other side yet anyway, because just on the other side of that last house was the old Hayes Creek Branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, which we followed on a hike last year, and another part this year.

Drifton Branch

We turned right on Lehigh Gorge Drive, and then left on the Hayes Creek Branch which is now a State Game Lands access road. We followed it to the parking area, and then crossed a utility clearing entering deeper woods.
Once we were in those woods, we decided to bushwhack down hill a bit and see if we could get back on the Drifton Branch within the game lands. We could see it just on the other side of the Sandy Run where we came down.
The line must have crossed the Sandy Run somewhere back there closer to the homes.

Sandy Run crossing

We waded across the stream there. I made it across first and James and Pete took their time a bit more to be careful. The grade was easy to walk from there, east to the other bridge site.

Sandy Run crossing

The pier and abutments were in pretty good shape for being on a stream that floods pretty badly and considering it hasn’t been used since the thirties.
We waded across the stream yet again at the bridge site, and I cooled off again laying in the water.
The line continued across the bridge and immediately into a substantial cut, then continued on a shelf above the Sandy Run heading to the east through Hemlocks and Rhododendrons. It was more worn from erosion in this section than what we had seen on the good shelf back between the game lands and the quarry.

Drifton Branch

Not long after turning right again along the Sandy Run, we reached where the Hayes Creek Branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad passed over top on a high trestle. I still have never seen any photos of this bridge when it was still standing, though there should most certainly be some because it was built in 1911 and kept in service until much later than the Drifton Branch. I wonder if the Drifton Branch was revived to any degree in order to move materials for the construction of this bridge. It seems like it would have made sense, but the size of the trees growing through it lead me to believe that it was probably not used.

Hayes Creek Branch trestle site

There was one spot along the grade beyond the Hayes Creek trestle that looked like there was a siding going down, or at least a road headed down to the Sandy Run. I’ve no clue what it was.
The grade continued pretty easy to follow. It was level, but we had to weave back and forth to get around the little trees along the way, and duck under some Rhododendrons. Someone has taken it upon themselves to cut out notches in the larger fallen trees over the grade, which made walking it that much easier, but it wasn’t like normal trails.

Some side grade thing

There was one spot where a tributary came down and the grade would have had to cross it on a bridge or with a culvert, but that was all gone, so we went down and up briefly. Other than that it was all easy.
We emerged at Drifton Junction on the main line in just a little while, which is almost unrecognizable if you don’t know it’s there. A wall of Rhododendrons blocks off the entrance to them, and you have to part the leaves in order to get into the path that follows the grade.
It appears that there was a northbound and southbound junction. The more prominent one is the southbound (which officially is probably eastbound on the CNJ). There does seem to be some grade heading toward the north to connect heading toward White Haven though.

Drifton Branch

We turned right and checked out the potential junction site, then crossed Sandy Run on the D&L Trail, former CNJ main line. On the other side, Pete wanted to show us some stuff along the creek on another trail he’d explored. There were old stone rows and such, but he didn’t see what he was hoping to show us and figured it might have been another spot.

Drifton Junction and Sandy Run bridge

We continued following these paths to the west again, for some obvious bonus mileage, and made our way up to the Hayes Creek Branch of the Lehigh Valley line again.

Hays Creek Branch

We managed to follow the Hays Creek Banch, also known as the Tannery Branch, from here almost to where the trestle used to be where it crossed over the Lehigh. We climbed down via side trail Pete knew of just prior to this point.
The Hayes Creek Branch was built to bypass the Penn Haven Planes when it came to northbound traffic. It was a long process to ascend the planes to move material, and there was no other good northbound route toward White Haven and areas north, so the line was created.
It was actually rather short lived compared to other rail lines because it didn’t really even survive more than a half a century. It was abandoned in the 1960s.

Hays Creek Branch trestle; Greg Gunshore collection

We turned left at the bottom to get on the former CNJ main line again and started walking back toward the parking lot. On the way, there was a family walking after having done some rock hunting. The mom showed me some interesting ones she’d found and showed us where.

John W. Berriger III collection image of Hays Creek Branch trestle. Note the possible Lehigh Canal lock/dam site still in place.

They seemed interested in joining a future hike, but as of yet I still have not yet heard from them. We walked with them pretty much all the way back to the Lehigh Tannery trail head where we finished.

Greg Gunshore collection photo just after Hays Creek Trestle removal.

We got together at a little pizza place in Freeland to have a bit to eat because we had absolutely no food stops along the way (Pete and I usually buy a sandwich for these back woods things, promise ourselves that we won’t eat it all at once, but always do).
Aside from the scare with Dan, everything went really well. Dan stayed in touch and was released later that night. Fortunately, Pete saved the day and was able to get him from the hospital and back to his car, and so he didn’t end up missing his interview at all.
This was one of the tougher of the anthracite railroads to follow, and although we still have so many more to do and could probably devote a lifetime to just these, we’ve managed to knock out quite a few. This was a big one.