Hike #1157; Frenchtown South Loop

Hike #1157; Frenchtown South Loop

9/6/18 Frenchtown South Loop with Cupcake (Chris Kroschinski), Shane Blische, and Ken Zaruni

Our next hike would be another night hike, this time in the area of Frenchtown once again. The addition of a great many public lands to this area spurred me to put this one together. It’s also easier for Cupcake and Shane to get to, and they’ve been most interested lately.

Shane at Frenchtown Station

There was a lot to cover. I knew at the start that I wouldn’t be able to get to all of what I wanted to, but I’d at least be able to start scraping the surface and getting an idea of what I can do on future hikes. These will be good for night hikes because they’re all so easy for me to get to from work, and I’ll continuously be able to keep doing new stuff.
We met at the old Frenchtown Station, where there’s parking just to the side where the Belvidere Delaware Railroad is now a state park trail (although it angers me that they call this simply D&R Canal State Park trail when the canal never reached this far north. Only the rail.

Historic postcard of original Frenchtown Staton

The Frenchtown Station was once a grand station on the railroad, really a beautiful structure. It was not demolished, but rather remodeled and taken down one story. Included here is an historic dissertation on the station by Shane:

Frenchtown Station

The grand Frenchtown railroad station around 95 years ago in this postcard view. Originally established a railroad stop by the Belvidere-Delaware Railroad in early 1853 when the third leg of the railroad opened from Tumble Falls to Milford, Frenchtown station was one of the busiest stops on the line. The structure was rebuilt by the Pennsylvania Railroad in the early 1870s when they took over the BDRR and it remained a vital stop on the railroad until October 26th 1960 when all passenger service on the Belvidere Division ceased. Back in 1950 it was drastically restored but made a lot smaller than what it used to look like. The station for the next two decades strictly served as a freight depot manned by a freight agent and housed FN interlocking block station, where a block operator and railroad dispatcher worked to control the railroad signals and switches to other tracks in Frenchtown as well as telling trains to slow down, speed up, if another train is behind or ahead. Into 1978 when Conrail was operating trains through Frenchtown a man was still kept in Frenchtown to work the signals and switches.

Historic image

Group of railroaders at Frenchtown station around 1920.

1930s view of the station

Below is what the station looked like after its 1950 renovation which resulted in the removal of most of its second floor (now a crawl space today) and the freight section. Photo taken 1962 by Norman Lipponcott. Passenger service has been gone for two years.

Historic image

Below: Southbound freight train with ALCo RS11-RSD12 power passing the station in 1969. Photo taken by Charles Houser Sr.

Historic photo

Below: Ebay image showing the “updated” Bel Del Station at Frenchtown.

1959 image of the station from Ebay

It had ceased functioning as a freight depot by that time though. In September of 1978 Conrail closed the station and two months later on November 12th 1978 the last train ran through Frenchtown to Phillipsburg from Lambertville ending the railroad era in town.

Frenchtown Station today

The old Bel-Del was sadly torn up in 1982 and subsequently made into a rail-trail by the Delaware & Raritan Canal State Park in 1984. We're very fortunate the station was not subject to demolition as many other railroad stations along the railroad were and today it serves as a lovely restaurant.

1914 image looking north in Frenchtown

My plan at first was to head to the north of town. There was new state land on the bluffs to the east of the roads, and I wanted to have a look at it. No known trails went through.
We chatted with some guy along the rail bed for a bit while we waited for Cupcake.

Looking north in Frenchtown today

We headed across the bridge street and continued north on the old rail bed past the historic buildings heading out of town. Just after the buildings, Shane pointed out an old coaling trestle that was still standing off to the right.

Old coaling trestle

Of course, we couldn’t go on without getting onto the thing for a minute.
We continued on parallel with Railroad Ave, and Shane pointed out an old railroad mile marker on the left side of the grade. Just after that, there was some kind of ruin along the Delaware River to the left, that had something to do with water I think.
Shane pointed out to the right a repurposed building for something or another, I can’t remember what it was, but there was a stack on it.
We continued on past the demolition site of the old porcelain company that used to stand there. It had been vacant for a long time, and I guess now they’re ready to redevelop.

Old coaling trestle

Shane offers a dissertation on this:
Opened around 1910, it was an important customer of the Bel-Del. Clay was delivered by the railroad, and some of the finished products were shipped out. Fine china, floor and wall tiles were produced as well as spark plugs later on. It was one of the last rail customers to be served on this segment of the line. It was served in the early Conrail era. After the Bel-Del south of Milford was officially abandoned in 1979, the plant, by then operating as Star-Plessy Porcelain, trudged on for a few more years. Much of the plant closed after 1985.

Old mile marker

We continued on along the rail bed to the ball fields to the north of town, and cut across there. I wanted to see the property on the other side of Milford Road.
There appears to be an abandoned house back in there I was interested in seeing, and wasn’t sure if it was purchased by the state or what. I didn’t see a good way in when we went to a power conduit area or near one of the houses. There were also a ton of people around, and so I figured we’d forego that portion of it for the next time and move on.

Repurposed mill

We continued down the Milford Road to the south again, in the direction we had come. This was really the worst part of the hike because there wasn’t much to see and it was just on the street. We passed the Citgo near the intersection at the bottom, and then crossed the bridge over the Nishisakawick Creek. We then turned left into Frenchtown Park. I’d come to this point on a hike before, where we followed the lovely Creek Road down stream from Pittstown, and at the time there was nothing much to see other than the park and the nice swinging foot bridge over the Nishisakawick. It didn’t have a trail to anywhere.

Thing along the Delaware River

I didn’t think there was anything new in the area. We took a break and cooled off in the stream. It was brutally hot at the start of this, and so we needed it. It wasn’t what we were expecting out of September, but then again this happens to me a lot, when I think “this is the end of Summer hike!” and then there’s another heat wave.
We walked over to the foot bridge and crossed, and I was surprised to see that there was now a trail back through there, a loop that utilized creek side as well as an old mill race.

The Nishisakawick Creek

We crossed the bridge and turned right to follow the trail up stream from this point. Somewhere in here, Shane sat a hat down that he’d worn, and forgot it for a bit.

Nishisakawick bridge

We continued around to the right, and followed the up stream Nishisakawick. It was a beautiful little section, and we took another quick break for a dip a little further up where the water was a bit deeper. We could see the nice stone culvert carrying a tributary under Creek Road as well.
At the turn around spot, the trail went to the left and picked up the start of the impressive old mill race. Walking up stream on the creek from here would prove difficult if they wanted to extend a trail because of the steep rocks on the north side.

Creek Road culvert

We followed the old raceway back down in the other direction, higher above the creek than one might imagine the old mill race would have been. There were some nice little foot bridges installed along the way, and steps down to get back to the foot bridge.

Shane in the water

We headed back out of the park to Kingwood Avenue and turned to the left. Just then, Shane realized that his hat was missing. He wanted to run back and look for it. I told him we would head up the road to the entrance of the Frenchtown Cemetery and wait there.
We headed up the road, and then I realized there was no official entrance to the cemetery. It was shown as such on google maps, but it wasn’t really public. We waited on the road for a bit for Shane, and didn’t see him, and so we headed up.

Nishisakawick

The entrance road is shown as Summit Ave on Google maps, but it’s just a driveway that has a no thru traffic sign on it. We went anyway, and were able to walk right into the cemetery. I called Shane to let him know he could go in this way.
I wanted to get moving before it started to rain. The forecast was calling for a brief strong storm, and the clouds seemed to promise that it was coming. Amazingly, we never got a drop of rain as I recall, and the weather ended up being quite nice. It did pour further to the north.

Nishisakawick

In retrospect, and looking through my photos, I see Shane wearing the hat in my first photo of him at the Frenchtown Station, and he has it off and sitting on the table in the second one. In all of the following photos, he is not wearing a hat, so my guess is that he left it at the station and not in Frenchtown Park at all.
Shane soon arrived at the cemetery, and we began heading through. The clouds looked bad, but the storm just stayed far enough off. We wandered the cemetery to the southeast side, where we could climb down to the Little Nishisakawick Creek, which joins the Delaware at the same point as the larger one.
We hopped over the creek and followed it up stream for just a short distance.

Nishisakawick

Next, we climbed up steeply to the right, and emerged on one of the trails I had planned the hike to incorporate.
Yellow, orange, red, green, and blue trails pass all through this preserve, and they meander like crazy to fill out the entire property. We wouldn’t have time to do all of them this time.
We turned left on this one, the yellow trail, which follows above the Little Nishisakawick and continues to the east. It was a nice trail with undulating terrain, but not tough. It could have been marked better.

Old mill race

The trail came out to Kingwood Road first, but then continud to the right parallel with Horseshoe Bend Road. We continued on it to a relatively new parking area on the right.
This preserve is apparently state park land according to the signage, but it was the Hunterdon Land Trust that completed the acquisition of the 150 acre parcel. It was in grave danger of being developed with a great many houses, and the land trust recognized the importance of the property because of the streams and springs.

Frenchtown Park

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised since it’s a state thing that it’s so poorly marked with more aluminum trail markers. The land trusts also use these, and they just grow out of the trees in no time. I wish they’d learn that this way just doesn’t work.

Old mill race

We left the trail when we got to Horseshoe Bend Road. From this point, we turned right on the road to head to the north. It was not a busy road at all, and it was narrow, which made it almost as nice as any of the trails anyway.

Frenchtown Preserve

There were beautiful old barns and farm lands along the way which made it that much nicer.
We continued along the road and soon got to the crossing of Copper Creek. A beautiful old stone arch carried the road over the creek, and I was very impressed with how it was worked up for a rather recent road upgrade.
The bend in the road was managed by adding a wall out over the edge of the old bridge which gave it an odd sort of modern look, but the stone work was worked into the original so nicely it looked almost right.

Old raceway walls

We took a break at this point to admire the construction before moving on up across the Copper Creek.
On the other side, we reached Horseshoe Bend Park East. I knew about the stuff on the west side, and that there was a state park trail over that I’d planned to use, but this other area I was totally unfamiliar with. The hike had to change at that point, and we would head into this section to see what was there.

Frenchtown Park

We followed the dirt access road down hill along the north branch of the Copper Creek. It weaved around a bit, and then reached a lovely old house. I can’t tell if it’s still lived in, or if it’s just vacant back there, but it’s really a nice one. The trail continued further down the road, and came to a crossing to another farm up hill to the right. I heard voices and activity coming from up there, so that must still be lived in. We continued to the left in a bit on a trail that encircled more of this property through the woods. Again not well marked.

Abandoned

There was an abandoned building of some sort on the left side as we walked, maybe a summer cottage or something. I’m not sure. Abandoned a while.

Frenchtown Cemetery

The trail weaved around through the woods, and then came right back down to the access road we walked in on. We followed that back out to Horeshoe Bend Road, and could soon see park signs on the right side of the road.
There was a fence on the left side of the first field, with trees to the right. We stepped off of the road and followed this mowed path to the west. The area to the left of us was now the Kingwood Township dog park, There was also a barn building that was now being used for some sort of activities.

Frenchtown Cemetery with storm clouds

We continued to the end of the tree line, and then turned to the left, heading to the south. A family walked by us on the other side of the fence and asked us how we’d gotten over there. I pointed to where, and we continued on along the edge until we got to a driveway entrance of a still private farm in the middle of the preserved property. What we were on must have been part of the orange trail as per the maps we were looking at. We turned right toward the farm, but then decided to turn back because it didn’t look like where we should be.

Very mature, I know

We walked back past the building with people all around it. They must have some sort of programs like yoga or something going on. We turned to the right from this area along an obvious mowed trail. There wasn’t a lot of daylight left to figure out where we needed to be going. We crossed over a stream the map shows as Burk’s Run, and continued on the other side. My plan was to continue to follow these trails out to Fairview Road, but somewhere we made a wrong turn and ended up on a road that went into another park access to the east.

Copper Creek bridge

When we arrived, I started looking at a map. There was a woman walking her dog, and she told us that the access road was the one that went back out to Horseshoe Bend Road.

The old house in HSB East

I didn’t know where else to go at this point. If we continued on the trails, which again were not that well marked, we could be stuck in the dark and have some issues.

Little Nishisakawick

I decided instead that it made more sense to head back toward Horseshoe Bend Road and follow a road walk for a while. It wasn’t the best way, but it was the smartest at the time. There was just too much more to see and we’d have to come back to spend a lot more time.
Like the Frenchtown Preserve, this one too was in danger of development. Over a decade ago, New Jersey Conservation Foundation sought to preserve the property, but couldn’t come to an agreement with the land owners at the time.

Little Nishisakawick

Funds came in from Hunterdon Lands Trust also, and from the township and county open space funds, as well as the state’s Green Acres funds to preserve over 730 acres. The original plan the owners had was to develop it.
Now, the township has some of it as their land, and the lower part, known as the Cooley Preserve, is now part of D&R Canal State Park. There are over eleven miles of trails in these properties alone, so lots more to do.

Frenchtown Preserve

There is also a separate Copper Creek Preserve which encompasses more land that I don’t even think have trails on it yet. I would love to follow that down to the Delaware, it would probably be amazing.
We walked out the entrance road to the park and returned to Horseshoe Bend Road where we turned to the right.
The sun was setting beautifully as we were out in the open areas. We continued to the intersection with Fairview Road, near the larger intersection with Kingwood Road.

Frenchtown Preserve

We turned right on Fairview, which was a nice, smaller road heading gradually down hill. The road crossed the yellow blazed trail twice along the way, which we barely noticed, so it was a good thing we didn't try to follow that.
We soon reached Rt 29 at the bottom of the hill. A brief turn to the left brought us to a small parking area and an access to the old Bel Del Railroad grade. We turned right to follow it north, with more historic dissertation from Shane along the way.

Along Horseshoe Bend Road

Shane’s Dissertation: The Belvidere-Delaware Railroad was chartered in March 1836 and was initially planned to be built not long after.

1907 view of station platform in Frenchtown

Setbacks including the Depression of 1837, lack of materials and manpower, and issues obtaining property stymied construction.

Horseshoe Bend Rd

It was not until 1847 that progress started appearing when the Cooper-Hewitt Iron Company agreed to finance toe Bel-Del in exchange for iron ore being brought to their plant in Trenton via the railroad. Finally in 1848, Bel-Del board officials, some of them also Camden & Amboy officials, met and discussed the ultimate future of the Bel-Del. The last property parcels were acquired peacefully, enough manpower was found and rails from England were purchased for track building.

Horseshoe Bend Rd

Local civil engineer Ashbel Welsh of Lambertville was hired to lead construction of the line. Construction began in 1850 at Trenton. Track reached Frenchtown by early 1853 and was officially opened on February 4th of that year. The line wen into full operation in 1854 when track was connected with the Lehigh Valley Railroad in Phillipsburg.
Freight then started to pick up exponentially through Frenchtown with numerous through coal trains per day running down to Trenton from Phillipsburg.

The Copper Creek bridge

The coal trains were coming from mines near Mauch Chunk, P.A. via the Lehigh Valley Railroad. Iron ore from mines in northern New Jersey was also a significant product, being shipped down to Cooper-Hewitt's facilities in Phillipsburg and Trenton. The Jersey Central took care of dropping off ore traffic for the Bel-Del at Phillipsburg. In 1871, the growing Pensylvania Railroad took over operations of the Bel-Del. Their first big project on the line was the construction of the Kent Yard complex in Phillipsburg, which helped greatly organize freight trains running on the Bel-Del.

Copper Creek Bridge

Many mills and factories sprouted in Frenchtown alongside the railroad to take advantage of the freight services. Such customers over the years included the Frenchtown Porcelain Company, Frenchtown Paper Supply Company, Niece's Lumber Company, O. B. Kerr Chickeries, E. C. White Lumber & Coal Company, Delaware Valley Farmers Assosiaction, Inc. and Hunterdon Gas Company.

Copper Creek

Frenchtown was designated as the halfway point on the 68 mile Bel-Del between Trenton and Manunka Chunk at milepost 32. The 1853 built Frenchtown station housed both a passenger and freight depot, as well as station agent's office, ticket office and interlocking block office. The station boasted two railroad sidings, one of which actually ran into the freight section of the station. In 1950, the 97 year old station was in sad shape, so a drastic renovation was done to the building which involved the removal of the freight section and most of the second floor.

Copper Creek bridge

The station continued to be an active passenger stop until October 25th, 1960 when passenger service was completely terminated on the PRR Belvidere Division. Frenchtown station still had functions many years after as a block signal operator was still assigned there into 1972 and a freight agent was still assigned there into 1977.
On February 1st, 1968, after several years of financial difficulty, the mighty Pennsylvania Railroad officially merged with their longtime rival New York Central to form Penn Central. Talks of a merger first started materializing in 1957.

At Copper Creek

Coal trains were not as prevalent on the Bel-Del, but they were still frequent.

Horseshoe Bend Park East

Coal was still being shipped south for docks at Philadelphia and South Amboy and for power plants in the metropolitan areas from remaining mines in the Schuylkill, Luzerne and Carbon County region. Iron ore had switched directions, being brought up from Venezuela to docks at Philadelphia transferred to hopper cars and shipped up to Phillipsburg for transfer to Lehigh Valley Railroad. The LV then took the cars to Bethlehem Steel. General freight was also still quite plentiful on the Bel-Del being interchanged with Lehigh Valley and Lehigh & Hudson at Phillipsburg.

Weird Copper Creek

Freight interchanging with Lehigh & Hudson largely dwindled after the Poughkeepsie Bridge Fire of 1974. In 1970, Penn Central filed bankruptcy due to severe mismanagement. The PC drudged on under bankruptcy protection until the fateful day of April 1st, 1976 when Conrail was launched. CR closed the Bel-Del south of Lambertville immediately while the Lambertville-Belvidere segment was retained in their Final System Plan. Track south of Phillipsburg was demoted to local freight only.

Abandoned in the HSB East area

The Black River & Western Railroad acquired the Bel-Del in Lambertville just a day before CR launched. Conrail local trains served remaining customers on the Bel-Del, now referred to as their Delaware Secondary, which consisted of Corrugated Paper Group, Jersey Central Power & Light, James River Paper Group, Opdyke Lumber, Frenchtown Porcelain Co. and interchanging with Black River & Western. In January 1977, BRW opened a new link with the old Lehigh Valley main, thus ending the need to use the Lambertville interchange.

Bridge made with cement bag abutment!

This caused service to be suspended below Frenchtown. The Frenchtown Porcelain Co. terminated their contract with Conrail not long after, seeing that trucks were more economical for their needs. Conrail began having a fit with Opdyke Lumber as they were only taking in two cars every couple of weeks, not enough for CR's standards. The ultimatum was given; either set up a transload at Milford or cancel their contract.

Horseshoe Bend East

Opdyke went with trucks, ending use of their siding in summer 1978. The very last train to venture through Frenchtown was a work train on November 12th, 1978 running from Lambertville to Milford consisting of one diesel, a crane car and a string of flatcars and gondola cars. CR was removing track side signals and crossing lights, loading them into the cars. They were preparing to abandon south of Milford. The death knell sadly did finally arrive in January 1979 when Conrail formally filed abandonment of 17 miles south of Milford to Lambertville, N.J. Track removal began not long after.

Historic water tower view in Frenchtown

After track was removed on the Trenton-Lambertville and Lambertville-Milford sections, the right of way was conveyed to the State of New Jersey for use as a recreational trail. The Delaware & Raritan Canal State Park Rail-Trail officially opened in 1984. After all these years, many relics of the once mighty Bel-Del can still be found on the right of way, and there's still many locals in Frenchtown that remember the howling whistles, loud clanks and chugs of locomotives blasting through town with 100 car freight trains. The rails may be gone, but the memories live on.
Big news developed recently with the official announcement that the rail-trail will finally be extended to Milford once the former Riegel Paper Corp. plant is razed and cleaned up. The planned trail extension will continue all the way to Milford on the former Bel-Del right of way. Work is estimated to begin in the not too far off future on the trail extension.

HSB East

The water tower was located in Frenchtown near the porcelain plant. Around 1915, a track pan was installed in this area which the water tower fed. A track pan held water between the rails and let locomotives scoop up water on the fly. The track pan was decommissioned in November 1952 when the last steam locomotives roamed the Bel-Del, having been replaced by ALCo RS1s an RS3s. The water tower was torn down in 1954. Photo from Hunterdon County Democrat newspaper.

Historic Frenchtown Station image

Above: Northbound train seen from the Frenchtown-Uhlerstown bridge with EMD GP35 in 1975. Photo taken by Don Dorflinger.

Historic image

Above: EMD GP30s head south on the Bel-Del below Frenchtown along the passing track in 1975. Photo taken by Don Dorflinger.

Historic image

Above: Northbound train on the main track with ALCo RS11-RSD12 diesels. Photo taken in 1971 by Martin Zak.

Historic railroad phone booth, photo by Shane Blische

I know we passed by the Kingwood Boat Launch on the way, and I believe we stopped and took a dip. I’m pretty sure we did. That part of the memory is actually a bit hazy. I seem to recall telling Shane not to go out too far because the current was pretty strong.

Shane's cup

We continued north with nothing else to hold us back. Shane pointed out another old railroad phone boot on the right as I recall. It wasn’t long before we got back to the station.

Sun setting and storm clouds

Ken had hurried back to the cars while we went to swim I think, and the three of us finished in pretty good time after. It was great to see these new preserves, and I foresee several more variations of this hike in the future to try to cover them all. The next one will probably cover areas north of Frenchtown more.

HAM