Hike #846; Bacon's Neck to Bridgeton

Hike #846; Bacon's Neck to Bridgeton

4/26/15 Wheaton Island/Bacon's Neck to Bridgeton with Gregg Hudis, Jen Berndt, Dan Asnis, John Huber, Linda Gavrielov, and Judy Moncrief

The group on Bacon's Neck

This would be the next full hike in our NJ Perimeter Series, this time connecting the Wheaton Island area on the Delaware Bay, on a swath of land known as Bacon's Neck with the town of Bridgeton where we'd left off the previous month.

Like the previous hike to Bridgeton, this one too would turn out to be far longer than anticipated: 25.8 miles.

People make a lot of jokes about how I scale off hikes, it always runs longer, etc. But I'm actually usually very close to the planned mileage, which is a feat since most all of my hikes are places I've never been. Bay area and estuary hikes are far different from my regular ones though. We can almost never tell what will be accessible and what will not. We just have to do our best and make our way through.

NJ Perimeter completed so far

There were far more accessible fields than originally anticipated on this hike, and we almost covered an entire normal hike's worth before even exiting the field sections.

I truly needed the long walk. My situation at work was not improving at all. In fact, my boss had said to me "You are not a real volunteer...rescue squad and fire fighters are volunteers, not  you", and he went on to say "The woods would be better off without you". I'd never felt so insulted by a supervisor in my life. My situation didn't involve any shouting and such, but just a horrible put down. Since getting my promotion, I'd been under the gun more than anyone for stupid and trivial things, and anyone else could do the same or worse and never hear anything about it.

Every day I have been getting up for work feeling sick. One day I was too dizzy to even walk and had to call in sick. A never ending string of written reprimands has been pushed my way detailing conflicting orders such as "Always follow your last order first" and "Always finish one job before you move onto the next". I'm feeling damned if I do, damned if I don't, and negative is found in all that I do. I had just been charged with the task of building two saw horses alone in an otherwise unoccupied park, which I did and with relative quickness. I was then given a written reprimand for using two pieces of wood, no good for anything else, that were not intended for me to use for that project.

For the second time in my life I had another panic attack. Due to the outcome of a recent stress test, my doctor had prescribed me to take two xanax a day, which I of course won't do, but I need to do something to take control of the horrible feelings I've been having. I was off the day before this hike, though I'd wished I was working because I'd rather have had the day after the hike off to recover a bit. I spent the entire day pretty much at home sulking around until Jillane got home from work. I cannot force myself to do any trail work unless I post it as a group thing, which would make me obligated to be there.

At first, I was not even looking forward to this hike at all. As the time approached, I was almost dreading doing this section because it appeared to be the most boring of the remaining NJ Perimeter trips, with mostly all road walk. On Saturday, sometime later in the day, I started looking at the Rutgers maps of public land in the area and discovered that this hike had far more public accessible land than I had previously anticipated. Much of the road walking was something I could eliminate. There was also a bit of an abandoned railroad I was interested in, and the Colonial town of Greenwich that I'd also been looking forward to.

We met at the Bridgeton Wendy's about where we parked for the previous hike in the area, then shuttled in two cars to the start point. Newcomer Judy had thought the hike would only be about three hours, so we planned it so that she would drive to the start but turn back at the appropriate time for prior engagements.

My plan had been to park at Flax Point on a land formation to the Delaware Bay known as Bacon's Neck. Flax Point Road was inaccessible to vehicles, so instead we parked at a PSE&G parking lot on Wheaton Island Road. The next hike in this series that I'd planned would be to start at the end of Wheaton Island Road and head north to Stow Neck, so we didn't need to go all the way to the end of that this time.

We began walking to the right, down Wheaton Island Road to the west, then cut into fields to the south. These fields were all owned by PSE&G, and open to public access. We skirted the south side of them.

Wheaton Island area

We skirted the thing and came almost out to Wheaton Island Road, only to return to fields immediately, then back out to the road yet again. We then turned right to follow Wheaton island Road to the east. John and I walked ahead and discussed how I go about putting the hikes together, and how much work particularly it is to do the perimeter ones. I'm glad to know that he understands what we go through and how literally impossible it is to scale off mileage for how far we'll have to go.

We turned right at a fork with White Clay Road to continue on Wheaton Island Road. After crossing a small tributary along the road, a tiny foot path headed into the woods to the right. We headed onto the path into a nicer, more open woods with limited undergrowth and were able to head west for a good while. There was a beautiful stand of American Holly trees, and we eventually made our way parallel with wetlands out to the cultivated fields of more PSE&G lands. We followed long drawn out routes around these field edges, and eventually came to "no trespassing" signs to the south. That was fine, because that wasn't the way we were going anyway. We kept to the field edges, and then got to a farm road cut through a section of woods to reach yet another field. We went all the way out to the west and around this next one, then on the south side found the connection to the next field to get us to the next road. There were some more fields to the right of us before we reached that, but they were well posted with "no trespassing" signs, so we kept straight out to Goodwin Road. Judy had to cut back to her car at this time, so I directed her to follow the paved roads rather than get lost in the fields we were just in, and she made it back quickly and safely.

Goodwin Road had a gate to the right of us and "no trespassing" signs. We went to cross the road directly and continue on a tree line separating fields on PSE&G public land, but I noticed the house beyond the gate. It looked abandoned.

Old house

I had the others wait behind while I went over to check it out. It was a beautiful old brick house with boarded up windows. Obviously no one lived here, but the immediate grounds were kept up somewhat by some caretaker. I didn't dare get too close because I saw a boat parked out there and what might have been a trailer. There could be someone living back there. The bricks on the house were deteriorating and crumbling. We headed to the gate and then continued south to Weatherill Road. From this road, I could see there was a smaller building that might be occupied to the west of the house, as well as the trailer. I was glad I didn't explore too far. We've found out that there are people living in some of the most run down of homes we've come across in these parts.

We cut across a corner past a ground up pile of shells, then continued on Weatherill Road to the south. The road was very narrow, but it had yellow lines painted in the middle. On the bends, one lane of the two lane road was nearly covered over completely with leaf litter and pin needles. We followed the road to Bay Side Road and went to the west.

Bay Side Road was another very narrow road. Some sections of it were narrower than some paved trails we often follow. We also passed a warning siren that goes with the Salem Nuclear Power Plant, visible from this road to the north. The road split, and one of them was apparently known as Goslin Road. Both reach the bay very close to one another.

Old CNJ line/NJ Southern

We took the southern fork, which soon picked up an old railroad right of way. This was originally part of the New Jersey Southern Railroad, completed to this point on the near Delaware Bay in 1871. It became part of the Central Railroad of NJ system in 1879. The line serviced a fishing community originally known as "Caviar". Some four hundred fishermen lived in cabins or house boats out in this area.

The product they caught could be carried by train from this area, which has since come to be known as "Bay Side", to Bridgeton and beyond to NY City, or hauled by boat to Philadelphia or other ports.

By 1925, pollution and over fishing had killed off a lot of the fish that were caught. The railroad had been built during the height of the Oyster industry as well, and they too were killed off in about 1950 by the MSX virus, aparasitic attack that weakens or kills an oyster. This virus has virtuallyended all oystering on the Delaware Bay.

Old NJ Southern line/CNJ

I am not sure the year this railroad line was abandoned, but it was probably very early on, and I'm rather certain it did not last longer than 1950.

Historic view of Caviar/Bay Side and the train dock

It was very interesting to see the tracks were still in place out to the water, with docks having built over them probably after the railroad's abandonment. The rails were rusted away completely at some points, the result of years of salt water eating away at them. There were also once two sets of tracks side by side. Today, only one set still has ties in place and is walkable. A guy we met out there told us that if it had not been low tied we wouldn't even see the rails at all, they go completely under water. There was also a lot of plants growing over top of much of it. At some points the vegetation growing over the rails was two feet thick!

Old CNJ line at Bay Side

The second set of tracks had only the rails remaining for the most part. They were dangling in the air and almost no railroad ties were visible to identify what this was, but we knew. We also found a dead Terrapin in the ties of the railroad tracks, apparently stuck from the tide going out at some point. I wondered what this place must have been like when it was operational. It's amazing that any of it still remains today.

To the north of us, we could see the Salem Nuclear Power Plant cooling tower. John had photos he showed us from working on the tower, taken from the top or on the way up with was cool.

View north of Salem Nuclear facility

We made our way back out the road, and the railroad bed continued straight where the road turned. I wanted to follow that, but it looked as though it was not possible to follow it. We simply stayed on the road heading east. We backtracked the way we had already gone and passed the farm on the right side where we turned onto Bay Side Road. There was a friendly dog here that came out to greet us both times.

We reached a farm road to the right and walked down that for a bit. It's shown on maps as "7th Day Lane". We simply went down and turned back. I  had found where the railroad used to cross the road, which truly didn't look like anything. I had to look at my GPS to be sure, for aerial imagery on google maps made it so I could line up exactly where the tracks would have gone. We headed back to Bayside Road and continued east to a PSE&G parking area, and I headed into the woods to find that I was correct in my assumption about the railroad. The grade was recognizable entering the woods.

Ruins on lower Bacon's Neck

We followed the road for a bit more, as a swamp land separated it from the rail bed. When it got less wet, we headed into the woods to follow it. It was very weedy and difficult to follow. I forged ahead as best I could and some of the group started to fall behind. I waited up then to let everyone catch up.

Once together, I decided it would be smart to head back out to the road. The rail bed was getting far too overgrown and there was just no easy way to follow it. We continued on the road only a short bit until we found a cut through and another farm field to the right. The railroad bed continued as the north edge of the farm field, but in order to follow the perimeter we had to simply  head south along the edges of the fields. This turned out to be another long, drawn out stretch of field on Bacon's Neck.

We went out and around the edges of many fields heading to the south, and took a break in a nice shady swath for a bit. It was very warm and only the occasional breeze helped us along. I wouldn't be able to handle wearing my blazers after this one. It was just too warm by this point.

We wandered along the edges of fields and cut through swath of woods with an abandoned, collapsing building, and another extant out building. I'm not sure what it was, but probably just a barn. It looked like it was probably mid to late nineteenth century construction.

Ruins on Bacon's Neck

There are certainly some buildings in this area that could date much further back. Bacon's Neck was founded by Samuel Bacon in 1682. We turned right in the next fields and continued further to the south. Before leaving this section of fields, we would have already covered about fifteen miles I believe. The amount of ground we covered was far beyond what I'd figured we would be able to do. All of the PSE&G land gave us access to properties I had not anticipated.

Field and diverse tree views on lower Bacon's Neck toward Tindall's Island

Near the southern ends of the fields, there were very tightly knit trees in wetlands contrasting beautifully with the larger trees out on the other sides. It looked unlike anywhere I'd seen in NJ in the past. We made our way from the southern portions of the fields out to Tindall's Island Road. We turned right to follow that to the south. It only went on out to a spot on the Cohansey River and there was no where else to go. We turned back and headed up to Hancock Harbor Road and turned right. There was a lovely old 18th century home on the right side at the turn. We continued down the road and there was another lovely old building on the left that seemed to have two unequal sized additions on it, with big Sycamores out front.

Along Hancock Harbor Rd

The central section of the house appeared to be made of stone and was probably the oldest section of the three.

This was an odd road too. We headed out toward the end, with it's speed limit signs of only 5 MPH. We moved on along and soon reached a small community, and then an old house boat left on the lawn to the left of the intersection. At first, it looked like it was just some cutesy little thing just put there to look good.

Old house boat at Hancock Harbor

It turns out this boat was an actual restored house boat, one of the countless ones that used to sit on the Cohansey River. The two room boats would serve as homes for the fishermen back in the heyday of that commerce in the area. This particular boat was restored by PSE&G and given to the township to put on display. Next to the boat also was an old metal tower, upon which now sat a large bird's nest, probably a hawk of some kind.

UFO?

Just past this, the next weird thing we came across was a strange light blue UFO thing, just sitting on the shore of the Cohansey River. I'd no clue what this thing was doing there. It turns out it was some sort of former UFO themed attraction called the "Futuro", featured in a past Weird NJ issue. I remembered seeing it. Facts about the thing differ depending on the source, but most have it that it used to be on an old pier in Seaside Heights or Wildwood, and that it somehow made it's way around until being sold (To Matt Damon?) and eventually ended up at this point.

Our goal at Hancock Harbor was to stop by the Bait Box restaurant,but sadly it was not opened for the season yet. We sat down and took a nice break on a bench eating whatever junk food we could find in our packs. I wandered by myself out along the water's edge to take some photos before moving on.

From here, we had to head back the same direction we had come, out the road to Tindall's Island Road.

Historic Red House on Hancock Harbor Rd

James H. Bacon Bayview cottage, built 1862

At the corner, a guy came out doing work around his 18th century red farm house. I told him it was a lovely house, and he made a comment about how bad it is to maintain it. I replied with something to the effect of them being built to last. We turned right on Tindall's Island Road, and then passed another old house to the right, with a marker on it. This was the James  H. Bacon Bayview Cottage. I couldn't find any history on it, but certainly this Mr. Bacon was descended from the original Bacon who founded Bacon's Neck. We continued north on the road, and there was another abandoned house on the right side. I went to check it out, but there was nothing really to see.

We continued on along the road, and yet another abandoned house appeared on the left. I figured this one was probably PSE&G owned as well, but it's possible that it could be one that the town of Greenwich simply seized. I had read an article the night before where the town had set it up that they could seize properties that were left in dilapidated condition. We'd see several more of them, but unfortunately none that we could get into to look around because there were always people around.

Abandoned

We reached an intersection and turned right on Bacon's Neck Road. This road continued out to cross over the Pine Mount Creek, a large body of water at this point. It had some nice views in both directions. We continued into a lightly developed area ahead. I didn't realize it at the time, but we were entering the little colonial town of Greenwich. Greate Street in Greenwich was laid out in 1683 by British Major John Fenwick, a veteran of Oliver Cromwell's army and a Quaker. The land here was conveyed to Fenwich by Lord Berkeley, and Fenwick conveyed all but a tenth of this land to his creditors, allowing Quakers including William Penn control over other lands. Fenwick designated his portion "Salem".

We walked down Bacon's Neck Road and turned right on Pier Road. Before the turn we passed the 1835 Cook House, and at least two other lovely old abandoned houses. Pier Road had some nice occupied houses no it, and the scent of flowers made it very pleasant to walk. At the south end of the road, we turned left at Greenwich Boat Works on Market Lane. Some of the boats looked to be in some bad shape.

Tea Burner's Monument

We continued on the street into the old downtown of Greenwich, where on the left side of the corner was the Tea Burner's Monument.

Everyone seems to remember the Boston Tea Party of 1773. Over taxation of imports by England had been the catalyst for the act of civil disobedience in Boston, and spurred the first meeting of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. It was recommended by this congress that no one should purchase items such as tea and other imports from the mother country. The people of the town of Greenwich demonstrated their agreement with this resolution on December 22nd, 1774 by removing tea from a known Loyalist's house and burning in Market Square of Greenwich.

1771 Friend Meeting House

Directly across from the monument was another abandoned house. I wanted to see more of the town and the well known abandoned houses. Most of the group hung out at the monument while Gregg, John, and I headed down the street to have a look around.

There were a lot of abandoned houses. One of the more notable ones was the Friends Meeting house built in 1771. The house was of brick construction and in very good shape, though vacant. Most houses did not look so good.

View of Cohansey River at the end of Greate Road.

The problem was that on the left side of the road, most houses looked abandoned, but on the right most were not. Not only were they not abandoned, there were people outside, children playing, doing yard work, being loud. There was no chance of going into any of the abandoned buildings in this neighborhood. At the end of the road, we went out across the yard of one lovely old stone house that appeared to have a few additions on it. There was a fantastic view of the Cohansey River from the back of it.

Old house in Greenwich

This one had been abandoned for some time. It's a wonder why such a beautiful house with a remarkable view could be abandoned. It must be because of the lack of jobs in that part of the state. There is literally nothing going on down there, and like so many of the Delaware Bay places we visited, there is nowhere to go except Cape May where the Cape May-Lewes Ferry can be used, and Delaware Memorial Bridges to the north. Getting anywhere would certainly be a commute from here.

Abandoned in Greenwich

We turned back and passed more abandoned houses. Two of them that I thought were still occupied but just run down most certainly must be abandoned. There was a mini van in the driveway, and I noticed large weeds growing immediately behind the tires. The van had not moved in quite some time. We returned to the Tea Burner's Monument, then continued north past an old store building with a sign saying it was built in 1893.

After Independence, the town was an important spot during the "Underground Railroad" moving slaves to free states, and a favorite route to reach across the Delaware for famed abolitionist Harriet Tubman. After that, it was a ship building and fishing center, like many of the other area towns, which explains the growth and many buildings from the 1800s.

We turned right on Greenwich Road and began heading sort of northeast out of town. I wanted to turn off to the right through fields to cross a causeway to the south, but there were private property signs, so we didn't bother. We kept to the road and crossed a long causeway over the Mill Creek outlet to the Cohansey. We could see the old CNJ Railroad spur causeway to the north, though I wasn't sure what it was at the time. We continued on this rather busy road and turned right on the much smaller and more pleasant Mosley Road. This took us across the Mounce Creek and to a ninety degree bend where it became Cemetery Road.

There was a house on the corner and part of Cohansey Wildlife Management Area. We were finally able to cut off the road again and follow the perimeters of more fields.

Lovely fields of Cohansey Wildlife Management Area

We got a little shade through this section, which was nice. The fields were well mowed down; had we done this hike later in the season it probably wouldn't have worked out. We continued through the fields until we hit Perry Road and turned right. We descended a bit and crossed another little wetland creek, then ascended along a pretty section of narrow road heading to the north.

Along Perry Road

We headed further along the road and passed another small abandoned house to the right. There was nothing of interest in it. We then continued on to the north to Sheppards Mill Road. On the road I began spotting four leaf clovers again. This was the first week I'd spotted them of the year.

When we got to a nice shady spot with a little pond along Brown's Run (Where the road apparently changes names to Lower Hopewell Road), we took a little break.

Jen and the duck

The pond had two little ducks in it, one of them with a reddish area around his head. He looked sort of like a Muscovy, but not nearly as hideous. This duck was pretty cute. It walked up from the pond, out to the road, and started making soundless babbling motions with it's beak, as if it was talking to us. Jen went up to it and it just stayed right up in her face flapping it's beak. It was the strangest thing, I'd never seen a duck so forthcoming with people. We figured it wanted some food, but we really didn't have anything of interest for it.

Dan had been offering  us red velvet oreos all day, which were alright. I gave a few crumbs of the crunchy parts to the duck, and it ate them up.

We continued on the road to the fork where River Road went to the right. We turned here, and at the intersection was a family having some sort of a party. There was an off leash dog there running across the road to greet us, and the people said it wasn't theirs. It had just showed up and started hanging out with them. When we left, the dog started following us.

We continued down River Road to the east, and the dog stayed right with us. We passed the strangely named "Percy Blew Road", several lovely orchards, and a pretty pond on the left.

Lovely view along River Road

The dog just kept with us for a long ways. It ran far ahead, chased deer out across one of the orchard fields, but always came back to the group. Eventually, the people from the party further back the intersection showed up in a car to pick the dog up and bring it back. We continued on down River Road to a ninety degree turn to the left.

Here, I had seen on maps that public land extended into the woods straight, and that we could follow it to Marimac Road.

Farm view with Cohansey River

We were now on a section of the river plains known as Dutch Neck. We cut off River Road into the woods straight ahead, on a good path. The path seemed to peter out rather quickly, and it was getting close to a property to the right where a guy in the yard was operating a chain saw. I didn't want to have any conflicts of any kind, so we cut to the north a bit and reached a field edge. From here, we turned right and skirted a fence of a large estate property. The fenced land was shown on maps as public, but may have been in error. We headed out to Marimac Road and turned left, heading north.

The road straight ahead became Dutch Neck Road, and we followed it straight on.

Sunset over Dutch Neck

The sun was beginning to set to the west, as we walked north. We were all getting really tired from all of the extra miles, and we still had a few left. We continued walking to the north, and we crossed the former Central Railroad of NJ right of way which turned off to the right. I'm not sure if we could have gotten through on it, so we stuck to the development to the right up ahead off of Harvard Ave. The development was all named for famous schools. We kept to the outside of it and took University Ave to Water Street, which was also where the railroad went. We took this route north, and passed an abandoned gas station and some sort of building on the left. I went inside to have a look around, but it was nothing near as interesting as the other side of Bridgeton where we'd gone the last time.

Old CNJ right of way

More industry was along the river to the right of the road ahead. Nothing was really abandoned here. We continued to the north to reach Rt 49, the first place we'd be able to cross the Cohansey River. We were parked a short distance on the other side of it. My camera died just as we were crossing the bridge, and so I started using my phone for the remainder because I didn't feel like digging for a battery at this point. If Bridgeton is indeed the crime capital of NJ, I didn't want to be sitting around for too long.

Cohansey River in Bridgeton

The views up and down the river from the bridge were amazing. We crossed, and then went off to the right where there were lovely little docks out onto the river. The ambient light from the surrounding buildings shone well on the water and I think I preferred seeing it this way. There was a statue of some sort in a plexiglass casing at the dock area, probably so that no one would vandalize it. I'm not sure what it was for. A right on Laurel Street to a left on Glass Street to Pearl Street was all I needed to connect and fill in this gap of the NJ Perimeter. Glass Street had old railroad rails still in it, buffed to being shiny by cars driving over but long unused. The left on Pearl Street led us back to the shopping center and the Wendy's.

We were all starving after going such a long way without food. There was supposed to be two food stops but the Bait Box Restaurant was closed, and the other one that came up on google seemed not to exist at all. We chose a pizza place just at the other end of the plaza as the place to get some food.

Everything seems a blur to me. I don't even recall what I ate at the place, probably some sort of pizza. I can't believe everyone was willing to walk to the pizza place, actually a good distance from the cars, after walking all day, but we managed it.

Unfortunately, the great feeling that often lasts for days after a hike is over was not enough to push me past the negativity of work this time. I dreaded getting up and going in, working indoors on plumbing rather than the outside things I signed on for parks to do. My life was feeling like it had been in the time before my first parks job, living only for Sundays and the oasis they represented in my life. I wouldn't be able to get myself to do any trail work, or even take a walk. I couldn't show up for my doctor's appointment, and couldn't even answer the phone.

The hike was a help, but I was going to need a bigger jolt to get me going again.