Hike #814; Thompson's Beach to Port Norris

Hike #814; Thompson's Beach to Port Norris

11/23/14 Thompson's Beach to Port Norris with Gregg Hudis, Carla ?, Ric Giantisco, Lyz Hagenbuch, Jack Lowry, Serious Sean Dougherty, Michele Flackalacka, Cathy V., Jess Collins, Wilma Vargas, Susie Duncan, Lance R. Beden, and Jen Berndt.

The group on Little Mill Creek bridge

Our next hike would be a point to point, yet another in the NJ Perimeter Series. Fortunately, these hikes have been growing somewhat in popularity.

I've very happy that despite any negativity that happens within my group of friends, everyone still comes together to create the positive experience that I need so badly. It's always been a fear that the extended family of people who come together for these trips might some day diminish, or that I might become like some of these other groups with attendance going down all the time because of the inability to grow.

I've always likened the rate people come and go at to that of a grocery store and it's turnover of employees. I've worked at two Shop Rites, three A&Ps, two Radio Shaks, one JoAnne Fabrics, one Wal Mart, and one Taylor Rental. In these stores, I saw countless people come and go, moving on to other things, getting fired, quitting, getting promoted, transferring. On the hikes, people would come, and usually come back for more. Some would go off to school, start families, find new hobbies that take more of their time. Some go to more regimented groups like AMC, some go for shorter trips. A few hate my hikes altogether and never return, and a couple I removed for disrespectful behavior. Still, people continue to join and the experience remains overall very positive.

November 2014 Stats for membership.

Looking at our social media, Metrotrails has been performing better in the past couple of months than ever through Meetup.com, with October seeing the largest rise in membership since I began using that service for the group in 2011. Additionally, Metrotrails' stats on the Facebook page have been seeing 95% more views than anything we've ever posted.

Many theories on psychology and management  exist regarding the kinds of job details that are intrinsically satisfying to employees and which, in turn, should minimize external voluntary turnover. I've found that these seem to apply to some degree with the hikes as well. The "Two Factor Theory" simply breaks it down to "Satisfaction" vs. "Dissatisfaction".

People tend to be satisfied if they feel reasonably safe, are respected, and have a sense of accomplishment, noted not only by others but for personal satisfaction. People also tend to be more satisfied when they are engaged and offer something special to the group. Most everyone who comes out regularly has a personality that blends well, and talents that compliment the group as a whole.

People are dissatisfied by unfavorable assessments; if someone is too slow and just can't handle what we do, if they offend someone and are told about it, or if they want some higher level of control (It's usually others who work in a leadership capacity that tend to be the greatest critics. It was pointed out that I was cryptically the focus of some defamation by another leader during the hike). Negativity has been overall very minimal and this hike made it quite apparent that both new and long time members of the group are meshing together beautifully, and I am very grateful for what they bring to the experience.

I was thankful for the group especially this morning; I slept right through my alarm, and fortunately Gregg was good enough to come to my house and scoop me up. I'd have been over an hour late! I suppose the medications I'd been taking are getting the best of me.

Jersey Perimeter completed so far

On our last NJ perimeter hike, we had reached East Point, at the historic light house, just after passing through the village of Heislerville. On that hike, we skipped a side road that led to Thompson's Beach; my plan was to overlap the last hike by just a little bit, and hike from Thompson's Beach to Port Norris.

We met in the morning at Newcomb's Market in Port Norris, to shuttle to Thompson's Beach. We went into the market for snacks and such before heading out. I made jokes saying we were going to get blasted in Duke Newcomb's Market. Jack and Gregg headed to the beginning, and Susie and Lance met us there having spotted a car at an early out near Maurice River. Cathy V met us late and walked to catch up with us.

The parking lot was located down Thompson's Beach Road, where there was a wooden viewing platform. We checked out the view of the estuaries all around us from there. Thompson's Beach Road used to continue out to a bay front beach years ago, but the latest Google Earth images showed that it had been pretty much washed out, and was no longer accessible. When we arrived, there was a metal cattle gate and the road had rock on it making the area accessible again, so this would be the surprise start to our trip.

Thompson's Beach Road

The road was quite nice, although the rocks were a little bit annoying to walk on. It was a surprisingly warm day; the high was going to be in the upper fifties. I wore one of my grey suits, and Gregg and Jack both wore the blazers they had gotten at a Metrotrails thrift excursion trip to Easton. Jack had forgotten to bring his guitar this time around, and so Serious Sean had an acoustic in his car to bring! He forgot to bring a strap, and so he found a bungee with which to string it around his neck!

We followed the roadway directly out to the beach itself. When we arrived, we immediately saw remnants of piers and such sticking out of the water, lining up and down the beach.

Thompson's Beach

Thompson's Beach was once quite a resort community, which had in it's heyday reportedly over 200 structures. Now, there was next to nothing remaining of this. We could see the pilings in the water from where docks would have stuck off of homes. There were bricks and other masonry things along the water's edge. A lot of wood was laying around. I turned to the left, to follow the beach down stream. There were the most vertical wood poles that way, and an obvious foundation surrounded by wooden pilings.

Ruins on Thompson's Beach

I climbed over the pilings and made my way to the former house site. It was obvious that this was quite a grandiose structure. It would have had some major decking on it. Out in the water there was the remains of vertical pilings that would have held up a substantial dock. This must have been the premier residence at Thompson's Beach. I found a date on a block in the area as I recall that said 1950 something. Lyz found one in one of the ruin areas that was from 1913. The most prominent remnant of this home was the fireplace. The top was taken off, but it was still an obvious stone fire place. I was able to climb up on top of it for a view.

Historic view of Thompson's Beach

I am not sure when Thompson's Beach was initially founded. The area reportedly takes it's name from Edward H. Thompson, who owned 350 acres of meadowland including Thompson's Beach, sold the property to a cousin who subdivided it into beachfront lots for development. It remained a thriving bay side community until November 25th, 1950, when a tidal wave came in and destroyed much of the settlement. One couple tied themselves to the roof of their garage and were swept away, but amazingly survived. Many were not so lucky, and at least 14 died as a result of the wave (I would guess the 1950s construction was rebuilding from this storm).

Historic Thompson's Beach

Thompson's Beach after 1950 flood.

Many residents did not rebuilt as a result of the deadly storm, but some did remain. In 1980, another storm destroyed much of the remaining Thompson's Beach community. Still, a handful of people held on and the community continued to exist until 1998. At that time, there were two year round residences and 12 other seasonal residences. Once Maurice River Township secured the last properties from holdout residents, they began to demolish the remaining structures and closed the old road. Not long before our trip, the road was nothing more than a wetland. We'd have had to trudge through muck to get there, but it had been improved for access very recently, apparently part of the PSE&G Estuary Enhancement Project which is apparently involved in management.

We continued along the beach to the east, to where it ends at Riggin Ditch. There was a lovely view back down the beach, including the old house site on the section jutting out. I could see the old roadway, now covered in weeds, higher above the wetlands on the north side. Zip Line (Susie's dog) ran off into the muck and such, and we could only see him by the reeds moving around.

We turned around and headed back out to the main access road we had come in on, and Zip Line was stuck out in the muck somewhere. Lance and Susie went looking for him, and Cathy joined us, having run a bit late. We then headed down the beach in the other direction. There was some sort of outcropping area of rocks to the left apparently where another house had stood. I wanted to have a look around it. The beach had a mess of blocks and black stuff on it.

We made our way around the corner and through a break in the weeds heading out to the ruin site. It was now growing over with Atlantic White Cedar. We pass through the trees, and I doubled back to get up on the ruins. There were several slabs of long concrete on this area that stood higher than the rest of the beach. I assume this was one of the two most prominent buildings on the coast as well. We got to where we could see the very end of the beach, and turned on back to the main road again.

We followed the old road back to the north, away from the beach and to the parking lot again. I was glad we took the time to explore this place, it was very beautiful and so secluded. We walked further up the road, and there was a spot where there was probably another house on the right. There was really nothing left through the area. We passed through more estuary lands, and there was one inhabited house off to the right as we got closer to the larger tree line. The road entered a wooded area, and then there was a pathway on the left through part of Heislerville Wildlife Management Area when we got within sight of the main street in town. I opted to turn here and see if we could get through. It led us past a path that headed back to the south in a former field, and continued through some nice woods with a high canopy but nice understory of American Holly.

Heislerville WMA

The path had started like a woods road, but then became a path through the roads, apparently kept up through ATV use. The path led us out to another road called Sadie's Lane, at a sharp bend across from a busted up looking shed. The road goes to a dead end to the left, but it apparently used to be another through route to Thompson's Beach back in the day. Thompson's Beach is now purged out just to the west of where we turned back on it, but it used to go on through and have further development. One of the estuary creeks broke through the formerly extant beach some time in the early 1990s. We turned right on Sadies Lane and it led us to the East Point Road, just a block from the historic, rustic looking Heislerville House we had passed on the previous NJ Perimeter Hike. We turned left on East Point Road and continued, re-tracing the steps from the previous hike.

While we walked, Sean strummed his guitar. It was neat to hear him playing as we went, but with Jack right there, harmonizing along and such. Jack has a huge repertoire of songs we do, and he always brings something new up. Sean is very similar, but he knows several different songs I don't think I've ever in my life sung before. He also randomly begins playing Super Mario Bros. songs that I'd never have imagined hearing on the guitar. Somewhere on the way we ended up singing Grand Funk Railroad's "Some Kind of Wonderful", as well as some of Steve Miller's "Rock'n Me", and "Serendade".

When East Point Road made the hard left turn where we'd gone at the end of our previous trip, we continued sort of straight on a sand road further out into Heislerville Wildlife Management Area.

Former rail spur, Heislerville WMA

We soon reached a hard right turn on the road. At this point, we gained the abandoned right of way of the former West Jersey Railroad's Maurice River Branch.

Cumberland and Maurice River Br CNJ. Originally, I had thought these sand roads simply followed levees, but I decided to look up historic USGS maps and discovered in the 1890 quad that it was in fact the railroad line. Later, it was part of the Pennsylvania Reading Seashore Line. It was still shown as active railroad on the maps as late as the 1940s.

The section we were now walking was just a spur, coming off of a wye in the track. We followed it to the north with some nice estuary views along the Maurice River to the left, and a large lake on the right. Most of this hike would focus on the route up and back along the Maurice River. Like so many of the perimeter hikes, they require heading far in land to the nearest bridges to cross these long tidal rivers.

We reached the wye site, and we could see where a track would have gone straight ahead, thought it's been very long unused. The road turned left and joined at another former junction site to the main line of the Maurice River Branch. There was a parking lot and another trail heading into woods just to the right of us, but we continued straight ahead on the former railway. We followed it out onto a long causeway to Matt's Landing Road. A short side road connected to Matt's Landing Road to the right. Ahead would be a dead end, knew, but I wanted to have a look anyway. We followed the railroad ahead.

Maurice River historic photo after a fire destroyed an oyster plant

The Maurice River Railroad, originally completed on November 1, 1887, was constructed to obtain a share of the lucrative Delaware Bay oyster business. The spur was only 9.76 miles long, and terminated at a building out on the Maurice River, who's foundation still stands. I wanted to try to get to the site, but it was too tough to walk out  there.

We came to a point where the roadway turned right to reach an access point on the Maurice River. There were several Atlantic White Cedars, which I thought might have hid some ruins, but I found nothing. The railroad bed continued high and dry, but too difficult to bully on through at this time to get to the foundations of the old Oyster Plant that was at the end. Along the berm, I could see occasional railroad ties pushed off to the side.

Oyster plant on the Maurice River

Across the river from us was the village of Bivalve. This too was a huge oyster town. It looked rather dead now, with a few buildings, some docks, and boats. We could see the path that was one of the next things I wanted to explore, beside the other shore of the river. We headed back up to the road/railroad bed and returned the way we came, and then went left when we reached the intersection with Matt's Landing Road.

There were a couple of buildings here, ports with boats and such, but it was looking pretty dead too. Someone peered out their front door at us as we walked by. We must have looked like a crazy bunch; with me up in the front wearing a grey suit and tie, some of us in blazers, and Sean strumming away at his acoustic with a bright blue-green bungee around it.

Historic view of Maurice River at Bivalve

The Maurice River area was once the Oyster Capital of the world. I had no clue of this at the time, but I didn't think it through completely, that it was important enough to have railroad lines on both sides of the river servicing this industry. We continued past a few buildings to where the highway got much bigger, heading east. We turned left here onto a paved trail, the Earth Dike trail, heading north. This area looked quite a bit different than any of the other places we'd come across on the NJ perimeter.

We soon reached a dock along the edge of a body of water to the right. We re-grouped, and watched Loons out on the water, as well as a couple of swans. We then headed north beyond a couple of bollards blocking off vehicular traffic ahead. The paved path led along a long levee, and soon went from an open area to some tree covered woodsy stuff. Serious Sean and I sang some Neil Diamond songs here. I had had the his "Song Sung Blue" stuck in my head all week, and Diamond's low and sometimes scratchy vocal style was something I could easily handle with my condition.

Coming off the earth dike trail

Earth dike trail

I had had a serious congestion problem since the middle of the Summer; my chest was always congested, throat always scratchy. I was getting headaches, and becoming very dizzy. I also cannot stay awake after eating and hiking. When the dizziness nearly had me collapsing at work, I decided to see a doctor about it. After X rays, a cardiogram, and regular physical, my doctor ordered a CAT scan of my lungs, and put me on an oral steroid to stop the inflammation in my lungs. I took it for several days, and the side effects ended up being far worse than the problems I had before. The pills made me totally hyper, and I was only sleeping two to three hours a night. My body would feel awake while my mind would be making no sense. I'd be up late trying to type these journal entries and none of it would make sense when I read it back. My mind was shutting down, but my body wanted to keep going. Worst of all, I began getting horrible stomach pains. It was getting to the point where I could not even sit in a vehicle straight because of the excruciating pain. I took the steroid for a week, and although I was supposed to taper off and not quit them cold turkey, I quit anyway for this day. It had helped the raspiness in my voice a bit, but not completely.

And so, we were singing "Song Sung Blue", as well as "Cracklin' Rosie" and "Cherry Cherry". We followed the trail to the north, and came out on River Road.

Maurice River

We turned left on River Road, following it north, parallel with the Maurice River. After passing a port, there was a small sand road leading off to the left. We followed this to the shore of the river, which we followed both on foot path as well as sand road for a little bit. It was a nice, pleasant break from the road walking with some really nice views of the river.

As we reached Leesburg, there were two ninety degree bends in the road, with chain link fenced buildings. We went around them to the right, then turned left on Olive Street. We passed an abandoned house on the corner posted with 'no trespassing' signs, and it was all boarded up. This seemed like quite a weird area. We turned hard right on Olive Street and followed it out through town.  We continued to Broad Street where we turned right back out to Main Street and turned left. Some of the girls went to use the restroom at a pizza place while we continued on. We took a break to wait at a small concrete wall. Sean gave me some sort of white cheddar puffs to eat, as I didn't bring anything.

When we all came back together, we continued up Main Street to the intersection with Church Street in Dorchester, just north of Leesburg. Jen met us here to finish the rest of the hike. Every so many houses we passed from here seemed abandoned. We followed Church Street to a right hand turn on Front Street. We continued to Carlisle Place Road, and followed it back to Main and turned left. We crossed a tributary known as Chowder Run, and continued north on the road to the intersection with Hunter's Mill Road.

Abandoned Maurice River Railroad.

This intersection was where the Maurice River Railroad used to cross the road. There was a disturbance in the pavement where the rails obviously are covered. I could see the rails still in place before we even got to the crossing through the trees.

We crossed the road and made our way into the woods trying to follow the old railroad line. It was a bit confusing at first because it appeared there might have been a sand quarry or something to the right. There was a spur or siding going off to the right, which I was pretty sure was not the main line we wanted to take. I kept everyone following the one straight ahead, which soon split into two parallel tracks. It was badly overgrown with trees right through the rails, but little undergrowth making it more navigable. The two lines came back together after a time, and the single track continued out of the forest of Virginia Pines and onto sort of a causeway above the wetlands. Several trees had fallen over the tracks as we headed north, and we had to either go over them or around them. We eventually reached the old rail bridge over Little Mill Creek, a tributary to the Maurice River.

Little Mill Creek Bridge, Maurice River RR.

The bridge was in fine shape, and was no problem to cross. I held up for everyone at this point so we could do a group shot on the bridge before moving on. Beyond the bridge, it remained quite a bit clearer. Apparently people must fish from the bridge and use the tracks as a walking route to get there, because it was quite easy this way.

We reached Mauricetown Crossway Road, and Susie and Lance had a car spotted there for an early out. I asked the group if they just wanted to continue, or if they wanted to turn right to the intersection with Rt 47 and get a bite to eat. It seemed like everyone voted on food, so we headed to the convenience store and pizza place for a late lunch.

I had two pretty good slices of pizza, and Cathy had one she couldn't finish, so I got a third. As soon as I stood up from eating, my stomach felt awful. This has seemed to happen to me every day at work immediately after eating lunch, even when it's something healthy or small. A simple turkey sandwich caused awful pain just the Friday before. I had to finish the hike feeling horribly bloated.

Susie and Lance left, and the rest of us continued on along Mauricetown Crossway Road. The road took us across the railroad tracks, then out onto the estuaries of the Maurice River again. There was a pretty new bridge over the river itself we had to cross, which gave us some nice views of the river both up and down stream. We could see the former bridge site just down stream, with one small section of original truss in place for a fishing pier on the Mauricetown side. A masonry abutment was all that remained of the eat pier.

Remains of Mauricetown Bridge

We crossed the bridge, then turned left on Rt 744, entering historic Mauricetown, settled in 1780, and later an important oyster trade town itself. We soon turned left on Highland Street to check out the little community park and the small remaining piece of the old Mauricetown Bridge, which was constructed in 1888. Carla said something about it having a relation to Phoenixville PA (we had hiked some of the steel mill ruins there before it was obliterated).

Historic view of Mauricetown Bridge

The bridge was an interesting design. It had some sort of key in the middle that would be manually unlocked when boats would come to pass through. The center section would apparently turn while some sections remained fixed. This too ended up leading to accidents and such, as there are reports of tugboats hitting and wrecking it, as well as rum runners during Prohibition.

Damaged Mauricetown Bridge

I went to read some of the historic markers and take some photos of the river, which was quite lovely here. While doing that, Sean decided to make up for Justin's absense by climbing up the truss to the piece of the old truss bridge. He got a ways up it, but it was really slippery and he ended up swinging around. Not really a good one for grip.

Former Mauricetown Bridge

Historic view of Mauricetown Bridge

We made our way away from the park, back to Front Street and turned left. The town was full of beautiful historic houses. Many of them had dates of construction and prominent past resident's names on wooden markers on their fronts. There was a lovely old house that now housed the local historical society along the way as well. We turned right from Front Street onto South Street for two blocks, then a right and left on 2nd Street and Noble Street. Someone had an old fire tower erected in their back yard which was sort of interesting. I wondered where it used to stand, and why it was put there. To save it?

Mauricetown Station?

The town apparently did not have a station right in it, but there was one just west out of town on the Central Railroad of NJ's Cumberland and Maurice River Branch. We followed the road west out of town, and there was some sort of a quarry lake on the right side of the road. There was a large industry on the left side we continued past it, and when we reached the intersection with Rt 649 there was a cutoff through a swath of woods on a probable older road route to that highway. We just continued on 649 south all the way in to Port Norris. There were several abandoned buildings along the way, and protected properties of NJ Conservation Foundation, but with no noticeable trails.

Santa's washboard abs

My stomach was bothering me something horrible for most the entire final road walk. I tried to make light of the situation going on about how Santa is a horrible role model and I want to see a Santa with washboard abs.

As we entered the more inhabited portion of town, people seemed puzzled by the group as usual. One guy leaning against his truck in his front yard asked what this was all about. I told him we were just walking. "Y'all are just...walkin'?" he asked. It's always funny how little people can relate to us.

I was fully prepared to extend the hike and do a section of the Maurice River waterfront, but only Lyz, Ric, and Jen were up for the extra challenge, and Gregg was pretty beat too, so we decided to just save that for the next hike. It was getting pretty dark anyway. We re-grouped at the north end of the cemetery and I directed everyone to where they needed to go to get to their cars. We turned right on Brown Street to head back to the high school near Newcomb's Market.

On the last couple of blocks, some guy pulled over and asked Lyz what we were up to. Apparently his response is "YOU'RE JUST FUCKIN WALKIN???", and the woman who accompanied him tried to mellow him out. I was up front, so I missed the comedy of this. The hike finished pretty quickly from here, and even my feet were beginning to hurt a bit from my loafers.

In the end, we had covered about twenty miles on the dot. As much as everyone likes to pick on me for having the hikes go over in mileage, I was quite surprised it came out to that much more. Apparently the opening section of the hike at Thompson's Beach, which I had thought would be completely inaccessible, added a very significant distance. The rest of the hike route went overall as originally planned and scaled off.

Despite having a lot of negative things going on, I'm so happy to have such positive experiences to counter them. In December, we'll head out to tackle the next section between Port Norris and Turkey Point, which should be a very different hike including wetland restoration areas, berms, and sand roads. I can't wait to see what we might find.