Hike #1161; Pipersville to Stockton

 Hike #1161; Pipersville to Stockton

9/20/18 PipersVille to Stockton with Chris "Cupcake" Kroschinski, Shane Blische, Justin Gurbisz, James Quinn, and Jennifer Berndt

This next hike would be another regular night hike, this time between the village of Pipersville PA and Stockton New Jersey.

Deep Run

There were a couple reasons for my organizing this particular hike, apart from just trying to do different stuff all of the time.
My love for the Bucks County Delaware River region was renewed with not only the Neshaminy series I’d been doing, but a few of the night hikes I’d done in the area. I realized that it was within good proximity to where I could get for night hikes, so I scaled off several possible trips.
A second reason for organizing this was my wanting to cover more of the Tohickon Creek through the gorges down stream of Ralph Stover State Park.

Deep Run

Third, I had done a variation of this hike, only ending in Ottsville to the north, which was unplanned to start in Stockton. I had forgotten my shoes and we had to go there so I could purchase duct tape. This upset Shane, because we were so close to his place and didn’t tell him, though it was a completely unintentional thing to start in Stockton at all. This hike would be nearly the same route save for some different stuff at the west end, and we would finish in Stockton rather than start there.

Deep Run area

The first part of the hike I decided to utilize back roads, then we would use trails, followed by more back roads, then canals and rail beds to the end. We met in Stockton near the former train station, now deli. From there, we would all hop in my van and shuttle to Pipersville where we’d park by the post office. Post offices close at about the time we start, so I figured we’d have no problem with that.

Deep Run area

The Pipersville area itself has a rich history. The vicinity was originally known as Deep Run by the settlers that lived there. It was part of William Penn’s land holdingsstarting in 1681, and the Penn family conveyed the property to Philadelphia businessman William Allen about 1730. Allen was a Tory, and was involved in a lot of projects including the Union Ironworks in New Jersey where I work. He ran off to England with his family when the Revolution broke out. In 1742, residents petitioned to create Bedminster Township, which included several little villages: Pipersville, Hagersville, Keelersville, Dublin, and Bedminsterville. The little streams, including Deep Run, which flowed into the Tohickon Creek were great for milling.
The Pennsylvania Assembly seized most of William Allen’s lands in 1778, and his heirs managed to get some of it back many years later. My plan from the start was to try to follow some backroads parallel with the Deep Run and then to the Tohickon Creek.

Tributary to Deep Run

After parking at the post office, we headed directly across Route 611 and onto Rolling Hills Road, a tiny back road with very little traffic. It took us past a few homes, then steeply down hill to cross over the Deep Run at a point where there must have once been a mill. There is a dam across the creek, very pretty, just up stream from the crossing.
We continued along the road past the intersection with Creek Road on the left. A beautiful old stone house, maybe a miller’s house, was on the hillside to the left, and beautiful farmland was visible off to the right. We continued straight to a fork in the road.

Creek Road

We turned to the right to follow the lovely Creek Road. This road was narrower than a lot of the rail trails we follow, and had very little traffic. Only maybe a couple of cars passed us the entire time we were walking on it.
We passed a beautiful old stone farm house on the left, and then a farm pond on the right before heading into more woods, then going parallel closely with Deep Run again. We passed along this, then went into more fields past a couple more homes, and then headed back along the brook some more.

View on Creek Road

Some of the sections, with the steep rock cuts along the left side of us, almost looked like railroad bed, but shouldn’t have been because I don’t know of any in the area, nor do I know of a trolley right of way that would have gone there.
Creek Road eventually came out to Rt 611 where we would need to cross over.
The road had a nice routed wooden street sign atop a metal pole where we crossed.
I had been to this area once before on a past hike, in March of 2007.

Pond view

On that hike, we had started out at Lake Towhee, near Lake Nockamixon, and headed down around the reservoir and along the Tohickon Creek to Ralph Stover State Park. My plan was to use the route we followed for a portion of that hike this time.
Where Creek Road comes out to 611 was where we turned that day on the other side, on Randtz Mill Road. This time, though, we didn’t have the weird experience we had had on that previous hike. There is a biker bar just to the north of the crossing we were at, and we were accosted by one of the patrons while we walked by the establishment.

Creej Riad

Jason Itell was there, and he joked that we survived a cliff, bushwhacking, trespassing, and if we could survive walking by this biker bar we’ll be doing something.
I remember as a long bearded guy was getting on his bike out front, he called out “HEY! HEY YOU!”
I responded. “Yeah! What are you doin’???”.
“We’re hiking...” I replied cautiously. He walked toward me and bellowed “HIKING??? I LOVE THAT SHIT!” as he abruptly hugged me like a brother. I looked over to my group who looked at me with utter disbelief. Things got weirder when the guy said “C’mon in the bar! Drinks on me!”

Creek Road coming to 611

So on that day, we went into the biker bar and we all had drinks on the biker man who invited us in.
So, we were continuing in that route we had followed that previous time.
We continued on Randt’s Mill Road and soon crossed the Tohickon Creek. The road bridge was built in 1925 of concrete. Just up stream from the bridge, we could see the remnant of the dam that would have supplied power to the Randt’s Mill, also known as Ott’s Mill. This historic mill was built in the 1780s and remains in good shape.

Biker bar visit in 2007

There was a lovely old white farm house right across the street, which was built in the 1850s, and the farm further up the street from the same area dated back to the 1740s.

Old Randtz Mill Dam site

There was originally a three span covered bridge that crossed the Tohickon to reach the mill.
We turned left as soon as we crossed the bridge, passed the miller’s house, then turned to the right immediately along the continuation of Randtz’s Mill Road. This section was beautiful, and not even paved.
This particular road is more a step back in time than most any of them I can think of. It doesn’t even have utilitity poles along it. It feels like we’re stepping onto someone’s driveway, but it’s all public.

Old 1925 bridge plaque

A guy drove up and said hello to us going by. It’s really beautiful country.
We continued on the very pleasant back road to the east, with fields all around us. When I’d done this before, we cut across fields to the right to end up in a small municipal park, but we didn’t do that this time. We just stayed on the road. That took us out to Ervin Road, where we turned to the right. We then turned right on Dark Hollow Road, which was a much busier road heading down hill to the right. It took us longer than expected to get to this point.
We continued walking down the road and crossed the Tohickon Creek at another old dam.

Crossing Randtz Mill Bridge

Immediately after crossing the creek, we turned to the left into the rear of the Stover-Myers Mill, a Bucks County park property.
This historic mill was built about 1800 by Jacob Stover to grind flour and feed for livestock, and it also doubled as a saw mill. It was rehabilitated in 1885 by Christian Myers with the use of steam power.
The mill remained in use grinding flour until about 1920, and then remained in service as a feed mill until 1955. Bucks County purchased the historic site in 1967.

Randtz Mill

We continued along the back of the historic mill, and there was a trail that continued along the mill race out toward a parking area. Jen was to meet us in this area, coming off of Dark Hollow Road near the intersection with Covered Bridge Road.
We didn’t have to hang out there for long and she was coming around the corner. Once we were good to go, we came out to Covered Bridge Road and started following it parallel with the down stream Tohickon Creek, a rather lovely section.

Randtz Mill

We passed by where Iron Bridge Road used to intersect. I’m assuming an iron bridge must have once crossed here, but I couldn’t find any photos of it anywhere.

Randtz Mill Road

We continued from this point on to the historic Cabin Run Covered Bridge, which spans a small tributary to the Tohickon of the same name.
The Town Truss style covered bridge was built in 1871 and remains in very nice shape.
I used the covered bridge as a reference point for turning. I knew we would need to cross the Tohickon Creek, and I had done it near this point before on my previous hike back in March of 2007. The creek was shallow enough, even during high times, to get over here.

Randtz Mill Road

Most of the group seemed none too happy about the prospect of wading across the Tohickon, but I had it put in the write up that this was what we had to do. There was no other way through. After the covered bridge, that road goes way up hill and out of the way. There is no other bridge across in this direction until Ralph Stover State Park, so we had to cross here. I got over first, and slowly everyone started to follow. Justin and James seemed to be the most apprehensive about doing it, but soon made it over as well while we waited.

Randtz Mill Road

There were a lot of rock outcrops where we crossed over. It was really pretty. There was barely a path to follow, but it was clear enough that we could walk sometimes right on the shore of the Tohickon, or just up into the woods. The water level was kind of high, otherwise we’d probably have been able to walk closer to the shore line.

Randtz Mill Road

We went up and down hill on whatever paths looked most obvious as we followed the creek down stream. As we moved on, the pathways became more and more prominent. The land of Ralph Stover State Park stretches on that side of the Tohickon well beyond the area of the active use part of the park, which is on the opposite side. We came to a nice spot where I took a dip in the creek. No one else really seemed too into getting in yet.
From about that point, the trail out to Stover Park Road was much more developed, complete with bridges and all, but it is not on the state park maps. I think I have an older version of the maps that shows it, but it’s not on the current ones.

A...covered bridge...shed? Along Dark Hollow Road

We eventually came out to Stover Park Road. The trail crosses over the road directly and continues on the other side toward the High Rocks Vista.
The pleasant path continued through woods and different paths broke off in all directions it seemed. I did my best to follow the more obvious one until we got to the High Rocks. There, we just went over to the fences that protect people from falling off, and followed that for a while.
When the cliffs became a little less dramatic, we moved away from them somewhat and took on a trail a bit further up the hillside. I think the main trail does remain a bit lower as it makes it’s way from the Ralph Stover State Park lands into Tohickon Valley County Park.

Dam on the Tohickon from Dark Hollow Road

On previous hikes, I had always tried to take the main trail closest to the bluffs, but when I saw a prominent trail continud a little further up, I decided this was the good opportunity to try to follow it all the way through.
The trail remained much more level than the one further down. It passed through a stone row, and nearer to the cultivated fields to the north and west, but still mostly remained in the woods. At some point, some of the group got off of the route the rest of us were following, and were on the trail below. We could see their flashlights, and they paused and sat still for a bit because they thought we were police or something looking for them. I didn’t think it through that well that it would be this dark by this time. My original intention was to remain right on the creek down through the narrow gorge, but that wouldn’t have worked because we could barely see anything.

Old Stover mill engines

The trail seemed to go on forever, but we managed not to lose it, even though it was in the dark.
We didn’t have to go up and down as much because we weren’t so far down the slope.
We continued to follow it, and it continued to get easier. Eventually, we emerged on the cul de sac at the end of the camp grounds in the county park. I told everyone to keep their flashlights off just in case. We wouldn’t need them through there anyway. We continued from here to walk through the park heading kind of south.

Stover Mill

There were a few people camping out there. We could see their fires as we walked through. We didn’t engage with them, and just stayed on the camp roads heading toward the exit to the park. When we emerged in a large grassy field, there was another path that connected to the east a bit, with a sign saying to the pool.
There’s a public swimming pool out there somewhere, and I figured we’d head through the wider, clearer section of the park rather than walk the parallel road. We headed through the line of trees, and then saw some head lights ahead of us, slightly off to the left.

Old stone arch by the Stover Mill

We had had some flashlights on, and I was sure someone had seen it. The lights seemed to move off to the right a bit more, further down into the park. Rather than have an issue, we backtracked for just a little bit, then turned to the east. This path took us out to Cafferty Road, where we turned right, heading to the south.
At least one of the headlights we had seen turned out to be a guy in his driveway across the street from the park entrance. It didn’t look like it was so close to the edge of the park from where we had seen it.

Old house by the mill

We simply continued to walk down the road further from here. There is a good parallel trail for a long while in the woods from the road, but it gets kind of rocky and I didn’t want to be fighting through it in the dark. Besides, the road was so lightly used, it was like walking an easy trail anyway.
We continued gradually down hill, and as we walked a ranger did end up driving by us. I was rather surprised that he did not bother to stop and see what we were doing, and he didn’t come back after continuing ahead of us down the road.

Old iron bridge site over the Tohickon, long gone.

We soon made our way into the little settlement of Point Pleasant. We paused for a bit there along side the road, then cut across a parking area to the left to continue on.
We had to walk the old road that went toward the old Byram Point Pleasant Bridge, a bridge that used to span the Delaware before it was washed out in the Flood of 1955. The road that used to cross the bridge now goes over to Bucks County River Country outfitters. The old truss bridge over the Delaware Canal is still in place though.

Cabin Run Covered Bridge

We walked down Byram Road across the bridge, and once on the other side turned to the right on the connecting trail onto the Delaware Canal towpath. Some of the others went the wrong way through fields to get over to it.
Once we were all on the towpath, we started heading to the south. It was a relaxing and pleasant route.
There was a lot of water rushing through the weirs and spillways on this route as we walked, but other than that it was rather normal. It wasn’t long before we passed over the Tohickon Creek Aqueduct.

Crossing the Tohickon

The span was redone in recent years in a handsome red outside with arch patterns. It might not be historically accurate, but it’s an attractive looking one.
We continued from there to pass Lock #14, which still has a tender’s house next to it as I recall. It wasn’t all that far past this that we reached Lock #13. This one no longer has a lock house. From there, the residences on the right started to disappear, and soon the canal was closely parallel with Route 32, and the river was on the steep slope to the left.

Crossing the Tohickon

We could hear the loud noise of the wing dams in the Delaware River to our let, which provide the slack water to fill up the Delaware and Raritan Canal at it’s northern terminus.
Soon, we could see ahead toward the Raven Rock-Lumberville Bridge, also known as the Bulls Island Footbridge.
The original bridge at the site was a vehicle bridge, which suffered some damage in the Pumpkin Flood of 1903.

Rocks along the Tohickon

A couple of the spans of the old covered bridge were washed away and replaced with steel truss ones. These lasted for a while, but eventually the old bridge was demolished and replaced with the footbridge, built by the Roebling Company, which remains today.
We continued up stream until we got to Lock #12. Here, we can cross the canal and bypass flume to reach Rt 32 and walk up to the foot bridge. If we hadn’t turned here, we have to count on the canal being empty to get down and up at the bridge piers.

Rocks along the Tohickon

We turned to cross the foot bridge next to the old toll house building, and stood to admire the river from it for a bit. There were other people walking across while we were on there, and a couple waited on the other side for us to pass, as if wondering what we were going to do.
We got to the other side and headed across the former Delaware and Raritan Canal at a lock site that’s now a bridge. Just on the other side we reached the right of way of the Belvidere-Delaware Railroad and site of Raven Rock Station.

Shane and rocks

We paused for a few moments while Shane gave us some historic dissertation on the Bel Del Railroad before we moved on. Then we headed south on the old line.

Crossing the Tohickon

We continued south and crossed over the Lockatong Creek. This is a really great swim spot, but almost no one wanted to stop for a dip at this point. They were all in a hurry to get done and go home I guess.
Shane wanted to stop and swim at the confluence of the Delaware and the Wickechoeoke which has a similar spillway over the D&R Canal as the one at the Lockatong, but I think the Lockatong is more hidden and a better approach to the water than the spillway at the Wickecheoke.

The Tohickon

We just continued south from both the Lockatong and the Wickecheoke, and then continued through on pleasant railraod grade to the Stockton Station where we were parked.
Justin shuttled us back to our cars, and we were on our way.
I really enjoyed seeing more of the creek and it’s tributaries, but this was the third try I had at making my way through the Tohickon Gorge below Ralph Stover State Park, so I’ll have to give it another go maybe next Summer.
Shane offers us an historic dissertation on the Stockton area on the Bel Del:

The group

Old photo taken by Frank Barry in the early 1950s, from the Hunterdon County Historical Society collection. Pennsylvania Railroad doodlebug #4669, built by J. G. Brill Co. of Philadelphia, is at the station coupled with a mail/RPO car.

Doodlebugs, self propelled, trolley-esque cars, were used on branch lines that had lower passenger traffic. By 1950, doodlebugs had replaced the steam express trains. Passenger service was provided on the Bel-Del between Trenton and Phillipsburg until October 25th, 1960 when PRR terminated commuter service on the scenic line. Stockton had already been closed for two years.

The newer photo is by Shane Blische taken July of 2018.
Old photo dated around 1910, from Delaware River Mills Society. The switch led to a short passing track to allow smaller trains to pass each other.

The north switch was by the Prallsville Mills. The building to the right was the railroad telegraph office with call sign "S". The wooden pole by the switch was used to hold a mail bag. Bags were set by the station agent an caught on the fly by the train mail handlers.

Old photo taken by Don Wentzel in 1953, from West Jersey Chapter of NRHS collection. Don worked for the Railway Post Office. We see the station master and town postmaster on the Stockton station platform collecting mail from a northbound passenger train.

The ticket agent is seen closer to the station. A Reading Railroad boxcar is sitting on the Stockton station sidetrack. Mail service on the Bel-Del was discontinued later that year. Into the 1970s, the station sidetrack was used to transload tank cars for Northern Propane Co., which was based in Lambertville. Until recently, the derail (a mechanism used to stop runaway cars) for the sidetrack was still in the weeds below the station, but sadly disappeared earlier this year.

Newer photo by Shane Blische, July 2018.
The first Stockton station was built in 1851-1852, completed just in time for the opening of the Belvidere-Delaware Railroad on April 4th, 1852. The original station was said to be a two story stone structure. Nearby hamlets Brookville, one half mile below Stockton, and Prallsville, one half mile above Stockton, had flagstops. The Brookville and Prallsville flagstops were discontinued in 1876, making Stockton the main passenger stop in the area. On November 27th, 1894, burglars broke into the station and attempted to raid a safe containing a $1700 payroll for a nearby quarry company. They strapped too much dynamite to the safe and destroyed the station. The new current station was built in 1895 and functioned as a combined passenger and freight depot with one sidetrack, a separate telegraph office structure and semaphore signal. Stockton station was a center of commerce and social interaction for the town. Before Route 29 was built between Stockton and Frenchtown, the railroad was the only way to go between towns. Shortly after the new station was built, Pine Tree Hatchery, later C. D. Wilson Hatchery, began operation and used the railroad to ship eggs and chickadees from Stockton station since they did not have a siding. Eggs and chicks were shipped via rail into the 1940s. Route 29, dubbed the Missing Link by locals, was built in 1953-1954, finally creating a direct road between Frenchtown and Stockton. Passengers using Stockton station then started to dwindle. In 1958, Pennsylvania Railroad decided to close Stockton station, selling off the building not long after. By 1962, it was the Stockton Shop, an antique and nick nack business. By 1990, it was Video Juntion, a video store. For the last 15 years, the station has been the Stockton Food Store, a convenient store and deli. Eight to sixteen freight trains per day, some over 100 cars long, passed by the station until March 28th, 1976. The operator by then was the bankrupt Penn Central. Three days later on April Fools Day, Conrail launched, eliminating through freight trains leaving only a few local train a week. The very last train, a Conrail work train that was removing signals along the track, passed through Stockton on November 12th, 1978. Track through town was abandoned in January 1979 and torn up in early 1980. The right of way has been the Delaware & Raritan Canal State Park rail-trail since 1984. - Shane Blische

I’m now out of time in the days to get it done as a night hike, and the weather will be cooler than I’d want it to be to do it. Still, it was a good exploration and a fun time walking. I’ll look forward to exploring more of those back roads and learning the history of the little settlements another time.

HAM