Hike #973; Northern Delaware
10/2/16 North Delaware with Cupcake (Chris Kroschinski), Darlene Perez, Jennifer Berndt,
Our next hike would be another point to point, this time building off of our great past Brandywine series.
The Brandywine Trail is a long distance trail which breaks away from the Horse-Shoe Trail at Ludwig’s Corner area of Pennsylvania, and travels near to the Brandywine Creek south to Brandywine Creek State Park. The trail currently ends there, but it used to continue on along the creek further into Wilmington. There are still some great parks down along the original route, and I’d long wanted to come back and follow them.
Old house in Bellevue State Park DE
I had done many Horse-Shoe Trail hikes, and had first found out about the Brandywine Trail from my friend Jason Kumpas at AMC training back in 2004. I was intrigued by this long trail concept, but already then I knew I wanted to connect it before I’d do it. I finally did connect it and started hiking that as a series in Spring of 2010. I finished Brandywine Trail some time after, and planned that I’d come back and hike the remaining southern end that was no longer part of the official trail as well as the Northern Delaware Greenway, which heads east to the Delaware River.
I posted what I thought looked to be an amazing hike, but was really disappointed that hardly anyone in Metrotrails on Meetup.com had RSVP’d for it.
Fortunately, redemption came and we did end up having a total of 12 participants, although I think only two or three of us had signed up via meetup.
Map of part of the route
When I got to the meeting point, no one was there. Jen showed up first, followed very shortly by Conrad and T. Oscar and Tom soon showed up, and Cupcake and Darlene were running late. Jess ran slightly late, but still got there before Cupcake.
Cauffiel House
The shuttle for this was easy as could be, but the planned start was not. We headed to Fox Point State Park, but then found that there was some high price fee to enter the park. All the park is is some tiny thing along the Delaware with paved trails. It’s amazing that they charge for it, and worse, they close early, which meant if we were late getting back, we’d have a problem.
I had a sort of alternate plan to head to the north and park on street instead of doing Fox Point. I wasn’t sure if we’d be able to get through the undeveloped section of trail anyway. Instead, we’d head toward the Bellevue State Park’s Cauffiel House.
We parked on Sunset Drive to the north, then walked south to the Northern Delaware Greenway. We headed to the west slightly first, passed an old and closed off house, then went up the road to the Cauffiel House.
Cauffiel was apparently Dupont’s head of real estate acquisition, and so he had this very nice house on this hill overlooking the lower Delaware River, which is now a museum. Like everywhere else, the park had this box to pay to be there, so we headed out of there down hill through a field to get to Northern Delaware Greenway.
Northern Delaware Greenway
We headed along the trail to the west, headed past the same old house we passed before, then crossed Philadelphia Pike at a crosswalk where we entered. The trail turned left on the sidewalk briefly, then turned right at a building called Black Rock. There was an old church and cemetery in view off the trail to the left which looked pretty cool.
We must have looked particularly nutty because I posted this as a “Bath Robe Hike”. Cupcake and I were wearing matching bath robes given to us by Kralc Leahcim (Lerch), Oscar had a crazy loud robe that was just awesome, Thomas had a fluffy looking one, and Jen wore a another classy one.
The trail soon had other side trails coming in often. I didn’t know where to go, and Northern Delaware Greenway wasn’t always marked all that clearly. This was also the route of East Coast Greenway; I end up on more sections of this trail without realizing it all the time!
We continued out through Bellevue State Park, which was pretty, through mixed woods as well as through open areas and parallel with a running track. We crossed Marsh Road, and then the trail crossed Shellpot Creek and entered Bringhurst Woods.
We passed by an old stone structure that was probably built by the CCC in the thirties or something, complete with a built in chimney. Typically, I see these types of old buildings closed off, but this was cool to see open. We crossed an access road known as Carr Road, then crossed Shipley Road, then soon skirted the Rockwood Museum and park. We stopped for a break here because there was a good open restroom off to the right.
Sort of group shot
Jason met up with us somewhere in this area to complete the remainder of the hike with us. I’d have liked to visit the museum, but we wouldn’t have enough time for everything. There’s just so much to see in the area, not enough time in a day to see it all. We soon reached Rockwood Road, then turned right. It changes names to Talley Road to cross Rt 95.
We turned left at Weldin Ridge Road, and then to the left the trail headed down and onto a very impressive and long boardwalk section. It was far more extensive a structure than I’d have ever thought we’d find. With the weather and autumn stuff coming down, it was quite slippery. We started running and sliding on it, which was entertaining for it’s duration.
Boardwalk
We continued west, and then north. The trail skirted the property of a large golf course to the south and west, and the development to the north and east. The trail emerged into an open area with ball fields and such.
The trail wasn’t all that well marked in these areas of uncertainty. Paved paths as well as unpaved paths went off in other directions, but there wasn’t always a sign to say which way whatever turned. I don’t know what happened to the East Coast Greenway either, as there was no obvious sign of where it exited, if it exited at all yet.
Funny.
The trail headed to the south and crossed over Rt 202 on a shared road bridge, and then we passed the rather funny entrance to the “Blue Ball Barn”. It had a circle or roundabout sign with the arrow pointing to the right, which almost looked like the male symbol. That combined with the name alluding that it might be the most frustrating barn on Earth made it all that much more funny.
I wondered if there was a connection to the town of Blue Ball, PA. That town is named for a tavern that was called the Blue Ball Inn, which had a blue ball hanging out front. That tavern was demolished in 1997, and this was far from it, though I understand it is named for a similarly named Blue Ball Tavern which stood nearby.
Winner: best robe of the day
There were a lot of people around when we got to the other side. There were more ball fields, a playground, a picnic pavilion; we walked on through heading to the west sort of following my GPS bicycle map on Google to get to where we needed to be. We left the paved paths and went for a more direct route around. If I didn’t have that map app on my phone we’d have certainly ended up making several wrong turns.
The trail soon entered the woods into Alapocas Run State Park, named for the main tributary in the middle heading to the Brandywine River.
There were a lot of trails here, but we stuck with the main route heading down hill. It was tempting to add mileage by exploring more of the inviting foot paths, but that would have to be saved for another day.
Bancroft Mills
The trail emerged on another wide paved path across from an old mill property. I went right down to the Brandywine to check out the amazing old dam and absolutely huge old mill complex.
Bancroft Mills
I knew based on some of my research of the area that there were a lot of old mills, but I had no idea it would be such a huge abandoned structure. Jason and I went down along the river and found what appeared to be an abandoned former fish ladder. It looked like it had sections to allow for fish to bypass the large dam on the Brandywine to get up stream, but this structure had been intentionally filled in from the top sections for some reason. It may be the earliest example of a fish ladder I’ve seen.
Some of the group remained above the dam on the trail, which it turned out was actually an abandoned railroad bed, though at this point I’m still not sure what line it was.
It was pretty hot out, and the Alapocas Run was looking pretty inviting where it beautifully cascaded down from the hillside through a picturesque glen and narrow masonry underpass of the former railroad line. The few little waterfalls had in the center of them a deeper pool that I was able to lay down in and cool off. No one other than me wanted to jump into it, even though it appeared to be quite clean.
Oscar made his way past me to climb up over the rocks. It was a narrow and slippery area on the rocks beneath the culvert. He still managed to get on past me and climb up to the top.
Alapocas Run
We made our way up from the dam, and my plan was to turn away from the Northern Delaware Greenway, which follows the Brandywine down stream, and continue up the Brandywine, but there was a framed metal building I couldn’t resist having a closer look at.
It was an entranceway to the former Bancroft Mills, with a framed bridge and old rails and such for moving product.
The door was still in place on the thing, and the rest of the framework had been taken off, probably because it posed a liability threat. The main part of the building had a new walkway on it with interpretive signs about the history of the mill.
Bancroft Mills
It was a globally known textile mill, with a history in milling dating back to 1787 when it was the first paper mill known as Gilpin’s Mill. The property was acquired by Joseph Bancroft, an English immigrant in 1831 where he began his family textile industry.
The mill was rebuilt and renovated several times, and the nearby Riddle mill, built in 1845 was consolidated as part of Bancroft. By 1880, it was considered among the largest textile manufacturers in the world, even before the most significant renovation of which occurred in 1895, doubling it’s size.
Bancroft Mills bridge
By 1930, Bancroft was named the largest cotton finishing industry in the United States, and one of the largest in the world.
Bancroft owed much of it’s success to the treatment of it’s employees. From the beginning, workers were treated as family, with true Quaker ideals of philanthropy. Long before the days of workers’ rights and Unions, Joseph Bancroft and his sons provided decent wages and benefits to their employees not found in other companies. It is for that reason many families continued to work for Bancroft Mills for generations.
Textile mills moved mostly from to the southeast US, and so Bancroft closed it’s doors in 1961. Wilmington Piece Dye owned the site and operated to some degree until going bankrupt in 2003.
Old bridge
I have friends who have seen the inside of the place, and describe it as amazing. It’s currently being demolished to some extent, with some of the buildings being re-purposed as luxury condos and such to be called Rockford Falls.
After checking out the ruins of the bridge, we got on the trail following the railroad bed and followed it to the north through more of the state park lands. Most of this land was donated for use as a state park by members of the Bancroft Family over the years. Some of it appeared to be former quarry lands, because of the steep rock walls on the sides.
Bancroft Mills
We continued on the side of the river to a foot bridge over it, with yet another metal framework of a building at the entrance. This was rather obviously a re-purposed bridge for plant workers. It was really cool that they used the historic bridge rather than build something new.
Looking up and down the Brandywine, we could see both the old buildings, some of which probably date back to the 1895 renovation judging by the masonry, as well as the sections that were already opened as new condos. Some of the buildings could likely not be saved or were in poor condition, but some looked obviously to be the old mill property.
Bancroft Mills
We headed across the bridge, then onto a narrower covered bridge to the back of the apartment complex accesses. To the right was the stuff now rented to people, and to the left were the abandoned factory buildings. We turned right through the lots, and soon came to some of the older looking buildings. Fine cut old masonry was integrated with some modern looking overhangs and such. I was impressed to see that such lengths were gone to to preserve these beautiful old buildings.
The group got split in this area; I was admiring the buildings and moving ahead, while more of the group was behind me looking at the abandoned structures. They ended up taking a lower route.
Re-purposed old mills
Some of the group got ahead of me and stayed on the upper level vehicle access, but I climbed down to the way the other group was coming through, through some arborviteas or something to reach the back of more buildings that had rather obviously been re-purposed. We all got back together when we reached the other side of the apartment area.
I didn’t know where to go from this point. There were obvious gates and stuff inhibiting us, but then I noted a small footbridge and a lovely little path on the north side of the apartments, down from the entrance road a bit. One went up to another building to the north, and another path followed the tributary down toward the Brandywine.
Happy plants
I headed down hill on the nice path to find what appeared to be an old mill race heading into the apartments/former mill site. It was amazing to me that there were no signs to keep out of this area or any barricades. Obviously a building that stood here had long ago been demolished.
Old cat walks
I was able to go right through a doorway and find an old tank, then lots of catwalks under which water certainly would have flowed.They probably had valves or something to open and close the flood gates for water flow. I can’t be sure really.
The rest of the group followed me down, and we tried to follow the old mill race down stream. It looked as though there would be no way through, but then I spotted an opening in the chain link fence to the right. I stepped through and found that it led to a very nice and manicured lawn section. We were able to pass right on through.
Old mill race
The lawn section had “no trespassing” signs facing from the direction we were coming. It seemed like the only thing to do would be to continue along the mill race.
It was like many of the canal trails we’ve hiked; there were apartment buildings on the inland side, the still watered mill race, giant old trees, and the beautiful and rocky Brandywine River to the right.
We continued on the swath of land between the two water bodies to the north, then got to where it must have had the mechanism to bring the water in. There were metal things we had to walk over just above a lovely dam over the Brandywine.
Old mill race
Although we didn’t see signs going this way, we probably weren’t supposed to be in that area. We continued from the end of the apartment area, then made our way through a grassy spot along the river to a chain link fence blocking property to the north. Rockford Park was just up hill from us, but we didn’t see how we were supposed to get into it.
I found a way I could go over the fence, and threw my pack over, but then I think it was Oscar found a spot where he could pull the chain link fence up and we could all get underneath. I went through that way, retrieved my bag, then we continued bushwhacking up along the Brandywine.
Rockford Park old roads
This was another very scenic section, with good views of two more tiers of dams, and a gauging station for depth. I climbed the tower at the guaging station, which was pretty cool.
We headed up stream from here a bit, and while I was bushwhacking down below, the others found a good route above on an old roadway route.
I climbed up to join them, and it appeared it could have been an old railroad, but then it changed elevation too much to be so. There were also some nice old masonry walls holding back what appeared to be more old roads above, but the treadway for it had long since been covered over by years of erosion.
There was a railroad, because when we got to the next road crossing, the right of way was very obvious. The rail beds on this side of the Brandywine were probably part of the Philadelphia and Reading system, from which the line here spurred out and went south along the Brandywine to Bancroft, and north up stream to the Dupont lands. The other line we first reached on the opposite side from Bancroft was a spur off of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad from the south in Wilmington. That side of the Brandywine was known as the Henry Clay Factory, which might explain the quarrying there.
1814 Breck's Mill
Another former Dupont facility was across the river, and the group walked across a bridge to get to it when we emerged on the road from the park. Serious Sean and Cindy joined up with us here, after parking a car somewhere in a neighborhood.
I walked across the bridge too, but then we all continued back to walk the road along the Brandywine heading up stream to Breck’s Mill.
The old mill, built in 1814, is now some sort of an art museum. The grounds around it are beautiful, with the old stone dam still spanning the Brandywine. We walked around the mill grounds and then down stream along Stone Block Road.
Breck's Mill
One of the things that surprised me here was that there were white blazes for the Brandywine Trail on the utility poles. A turn blaze pointed across the bridge we had walked across. I knew the Brandywine Trail had once continued south below Brandywine Creek State Park, but I had never heard that it was still in place. We started following the blazes along the road to the north. I wondered if maybe the trail now went all the way through again somehow. It was looking like we might get through.
It turns out the trail sort of goes through. It’s only open one day per hear for a special event of the Wilmington Trail Club. We came to a triple blaze right at the entrance to the Hagley Museum.
Brandywine end of trail blaze
We walked straight when we got to the triple blaze. I figured the museum probably would not allow for the trail to pass through the property officially. There were giant metal gates at the front with Dupont name on it.
I had never heard of this museum before, but it looked interesting enough. There were some old raceways and such, and it looked to be just an old mill building, three or so stories tall. There was a gift shop, and we thought to head on in, but with limited time I figured we’d visit here another time.
After a break at the restrooms, we continued beyond the building. I didn’t know which way to go, but there was a path just above a dumpster when we couldn’t get down to the right.
Once on the path, we continued to the north. The road below was probably the old rail bed.
Historic view at Hagley
There were some awesome interpretive signs through this park like area, and a few people walking around here and there. The first big site we found was the “Big Mary” Glaze Mill ruins.
Present view at Hagley
We didn’t realize it at first, but this was the actual museum: the grounds themselves were a paid museum area and we were just walking through as if we had sneaked in.
When we got down to the edge of the Brandywine, we walked through some old mill ruins with many more interpretive signs.
Hagley Museum ruins
At a catwalk area around more mill buildings, I walked by a guy and a tour group, well ahead of the rest of the group who were following me in segments. When they caught up with me, they told me that the guy, who both looked and sounded like Morgan Freeman, had told them they needed to get out of there. Since we were more than half way through, and wanted to continue on the other side of the museum, we hurried along, taking paths above the road where possible.
There was an old box car and section of track in place, which I wished I’d had more time to read about. This was in fact an awesome museum.
Historic box car
The land was the very first of the Dupont industrial lands. Eleuthère Irénée du Pont of France first set up his powder mills on the shore of the Brandywine Creek here in 1802.
The name “Hagley” was a named associated with the property well before it was ever purchased by the Duponts. It was thought to be named after the West Midlands section of England southwest of Birmingham, which was the subject of an English narrative poem popular in Philadelphia in the late 1700s when the property was owned by English Quaker merchant Rumford Dawes. The Brandwyine bears resemblance to the English lands in the writings.
Dawes acquired the land in 1783, and Hagley was applied to it when he applied for insurance there in 1797. The name carried over has the Hagley yards under Dupont, but collectively the area was known as Eleutherian Mills. Dupont purchased the Jacob Broom Cotton Mill site, built in 1795 but burned in 1797, complete with it’s working dam and mill race.
The area was perfect for Dupont, because it utilized the falls of the Brandyine for water power but was also close enough to the Delaware to ship other needed goods to the site.
The Dupont industry on the Brandywine here ended in 1921, and in 1952 the Hagley Museum opened to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Dupont industry.
Old bridge
We came to a point where it said no pedestrians beyond, so we went up hill a bit and continued on the Brandywine up stream. I figured we’d be alright because we were almost away from the site. We passed a scenic truss bridge over, which we should have taken I suppose, I really don’t know.
We followed a parallel road to the main one, and I was up ahead. A tour bus was coming by, and someone said I might want to go up hill, but I didn’t want to run and look all suspicious, I just wanted us to get out the quickest way possible without a problem.
The bus stopped and we were all ordered to get on.
Conrad had some hilarious quips including “unlawful restraint” or something, which were among his favorite legal whatevers. I wish I could remember the terminology. When you have a genius attorney who is also a caustically sarcastic, with a towering 6’5” frame trained for over twenty years of Isshin-Ryū to match his intellect and wit, one can’t blame him for some arrogant jabs.
I decided to keep things positive and explained truthfully what we were doing, where we were trying to go, and the guy wasn’t too unreasonable. He did tell us there was no way to go through, but when I mentioned the Wilmington Trail Club and their Brandywine Trail annual hike, he said “You know...come to think of it, they do come through here once a year...early, before we open....”.
We most certainly could have found a way through tracing the Brandywine Trail route, but no matter, we could make it around the outside without too much extra mileage.
The group in Montchanin Village
I took a brochure, and I do expect to run a trip through there again, officially passing through the museum grounds, hopefully with a tour, and maybe with the guy who ejected us! We were let off at the entrance, and then had to walk along Rt 141 heading west for a bit. We then turned to the right to follow Route 100, dubbed the Brandywine Scenic Byway.
The road was quite boring actually, especially when compared to where we were just walking the rest of the day along the Brandywine.
We were able to walk atop a stone wall for a bit, which was alright, then cut into a golf course property through a line of evergreens to stay off of the road. That was fine.
Rockland Road
We reached Montchanin Village and turned right onto a road into an apartment complex and took a break at a wooden fence with a grassy edge. Conrad had messed up his knee or something recently, and was limping pretty badly. He decided to call for a ride to pick him up, and the rest of us descended by way of a spot where golf course or whoever were dropping their grass trimmings down to the railroad tracks.
We turned right on the tracks and soon passed an historic station, which apparently are re-purposed into something else. The buildings to the right of us were where the spur track ran to the Brandywine further to the east at one time.
Cupcake and I with our matching Lerch robes
We followed Rockland Road, wich was lined in some very nice stone walls for a while. It was a narrow road, so it kind of sucked trying to walk it. It’s far too busy for pedestrians, so I would never recommend it for a route to connect the north and south branches of the Brandywine Trail for sure.
We passed some nice giant trees on the way, and soon reached the intersection with Adams Dam Road. It was here that the current route of the Brandywine Trail heads across the creek at the state park. We turned right and crossed the creek here, then left on the Brandywine Trail, following an old roadway into Brandywine State Park.
At this point, the hike was connected with every previous hike I’ve done. It always feels like a great achievement when I connect even more of these trail systems with all else I’ve done, and this one was a pretty substantial new one I felt.
Old bridge site
We followed the trail to the north for a while until we got to the Rocky Run, a tributary that flows into the Brandywine. The old bridge that spanned the creek here had washed away since my last visit. Only the masonry abutments to it were still standing, and a new prefabricated bridge had been erected parallel with the old one. It’s kind of sad that the old piers will now just sit there, but I suppose it is much cheaper to do it this way than to repair the old bridge.
We took a nice break and followed a side path down to the Brandywine where I took a nice dip. A lot of the rest of the group also got in; it was quite warmer this day than anticipated.
Hurracane Run
From here, we made our way up the Rocky Run Trail opposite the bridge. This foot path led us up hill parallel with the tributary. It was at first on a rather steep slope, then turned off to the left a bit. The Rocky Run went to the east more, and the trail we were following, now unblazed, started to follow the smaller Hurricane Run.
It was a stunningly beautiful section with little cascades. We crossed Hurracane Run and took another trail which went up hill to become a mowed path.
I followed trails as shown on my google maps on my phone, which led us through more fields and out to an area of some construction at the backs of buildings.
Trail near Woodland Road
We stayed barely in the woods behind where the construction was going on, if not right along the trees to where there was another building. Where a side trail was shown going north, it was now set up with some plastic fencing about two feet high around construction, but I could see where mountain bikes had been passing through. We simply followed where the trail showed which took us up to Woodland Road and across.
We passed right by a vegetative buffer along someone’s back yard where people were out grilling. I said hello as I walked by, and must have looked like some nut in a bath robe just walking by.
Field section
The trail continued on a path along a sort of retention pond berm with rocks lining the sides. I waited for the others to catch up on the other side of this, where the trail descended on a woods road through woods somewhere out behind the Kohls off of Rt 202, and they told me that the guy in the back yard said to them “What is this, a bath robe hike???”, to which they responded “Yeah!”. Sean said to me “nawww, it’s just a loooong walk to the shower!” We had a laugh and continued on through the woods, up and down hill on a sort of woods road route. It emerged at the edge of a corn field where we turned right, although it looked mowed as a trail to the left too.
Spreading out
The rest of the group went ahead of me, not knowing where the turn would be. I told them it was on the right, but there were no signs on any of this route, or blazes. I found them at an open field area that had an access from the edge of the corn fields.
If I hadn’t had my phone, again this would have been one of those places I’d have gotten lost. The “trail” went into an open area, then was a very large open berm heading to the east again. The entire group spread out and seemed to take up as much of the width of the route as possible when we got onto it. It’s kind of funny how that happens that people all spread out so much when it’s an option.
No straight allowed
The trail emerged in the back parking lot of a shopping center known as “Brandywine Commons II”. We walked along the back of the back of the parking lot heading to the east.
In retrospect, I should have made the meeting point the shopping center on the east side rather than the west, because we’d have literally emerged from the trail at the cars, but I suppose then I’d have eliminated our last chance to be seen out in the open looking like robed lunatics.
We headed along the access road to Route 202/Concord Pike to use the crosswalk, where there was a sign saying not to go straight. I don’t think I’ve ever come across a sign with a cross over the arrow straight ahead. I was thinking this would be a funny photo some of my gay friends might get a kick out of. We crossed over the highway to reach the shopping center and close of the hike. The sun was setting as we made it out.
Robes at the crosswalk
Darlene hadn’t done this much mileage in forever, but made it with seemingly no problem, which was great. I had started to get worried that we’d be making it back well after dark with our detour and such, but it ended up being alright.
This was really an outstanding hike. I thought there would only be a few of us, and I was initially disappointed that this hike that I’d posted to look so interesting drew so little interest, but in the end there were twelve participants over the course of the day, and we had an absolutely fabulous time. It was a sort of restoration of faith in what I’m doing.
The route felt almost like a blast from the past, wandering into so much unknown territory, constantly exciting and with the underlying theme of silliness.
The route we took opens the door for at least three more hikes coming up, whenever I get around to posting them. I still have reservations currently about posting stuff that’s a bit farther from home with the worry that no one will want to travel that far, but this hike restored a bit more faith. I want to continue to do some hikes closer to home, and branch out on at least one hike per month into other new and exciting areas.
If the lull in participation is only 12 hikers, I’ll gladly take it. The trips seem to be more fun and positive as time goes by.
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