Hike #1288; Stony Brook to Port Jefferson
1/11/20 Stony Brook and Port Jefferson Area Long Island with Jennifer Berndt, Kirk Rohn, Serious Sean Dougherty, Jennifer Tull, Stephen Argentina, Alex Gisser, and Anne M.
Sphere fun
This next hike would be the next in the excellent Long Island series, which continues to surprise us with what it offers.
SUNY Stony Brook
We’ve been doing them for quite some time now, and the premise of these has been to simply do the most interesting thing we can to get from where we started physically on the island in Brooklyn to the end at Montauk Point.
There are great extensive trails throughout the island, and then tons of other ones that don’t really connect with anything any other way, but are worth visiting. Series like this one keep me entertained by having to piece together these odd hikes using whatever I have to work with.
Painted rocks at Stony Brook University
Sometimes, it gets easier because I’ll be following long distance trails like the Nassau-Suffolk Greenbelt or the Long Island Greenbelt, but there is a lot of other stuff that has required me to be much more creative. By adding in sections of beaches and old railroad routes, it’s taken us through 13 previous hikes, and this one is the 14th.
This one certainly holds true with the tradition of all sorts of crazy interesting little spots unlike what we might expect of these areas.
A trail at Stony Brook University
Last time, we finished the hike in Stony Brook at the Long Island Railroad station adjacent to the Stony Brook College. We had plans of stopping at a winery that ended up having some special event going on, and so we weren’t able to visit it. I figured I would plan this one so we could do that as well as a lot of other stuff.
The route I came up with is not something you can just find looking at a google map. I was really happy with this plan because it was pretty involved.
Long Island Railroad bridge and steps
The meeting point was the Long Island Railroad Station, where we left off last time, and I figured that we would just use the train to get back at the end. We could then start walking immediately, and I scaled a route off through the Stony Brook University campus.
When we arrived, there was literally nowhere to park where I had told people. The parking lot we came to first was completely full. People were everywhere. There was some kind of running event going on that attracted tons of people.
Steps by the tracks
We went down the road a bit, and there was another lot, but it too was almost completely full, and not really as close to the station.
We headed around to the lot on the college side of the station, and found everyone waiting there.
I was very happy to hear Stephen’s voice when we got there, before even seeing him.
Half the group had to run and look for a restroom, but the only places were back on the other side of the station where we couldn’t park before. Some went to one restroom, and there was no way in because so many of this running group were waiting in line already.
After a while of waiting, we were ready to move on. I got my maps ready on my phone and started intently following them out into the campus.
Someone asked me if this was one of the SUNY campuses and I said “no”, but I was wrong. It was actually one of the four state owned universities. Officially, the name is State University of New York at Stony Brook. It’s also known as simply Stony Brook University, or as SUNY Stony Brook.
Trail at Avalon Preserve
The college started out on Oyster Bay originally, from 1957 through 1961. The land for the current university, over 400 acres, was donated by businessman and philanthropist Ward Melville of the local Three Village area of Long Island. The first year in Oyster Bay had an inaugural class of 148. By 1969, enrollment surpassed 8,000.
It’s interesting to note that when the college started out, it was tuition free. Today, we have all of these cries for free education, but it wasn’t all that uncommon that long ago.
Avalon Preserve
Further, a lot of money was being thrown into college funding in the early 1960s, so higher education at one time used to be far easier to attain than it is today.
We walked along the northeast side of the campus on a paved path. We passed the soccer fields on our left, and headed to the Center for Leadership and Service section, then turned right to head south through the Mendelsohn Quad. A lot of the places through this college were named some sort of “Quad”, which of course made me think of Weyerbacher.
Meditation area?
We continued on a path that turned to the southwest a bit, and passed lots of odd painted rocks done up by past classes. Eventually, we came to a line of trees where a paved trail led in, and then a gravel one went to the right parallel with Circle Road. We turned left after some trees and crossed into Roosevelt Quad, another campus area.
We headed into the middle of that where there was a large parking area, then turned to the left. I was originally planning to head sort of directly through it out to Mt Road.
A nice big oak I saw
As we were walking Jen pointed out a foot path that could be seen across the lot into the woods. It showed up on the google maps on her phone, but not on mine, and showed that it led to another campus to the south. I was disappointed, because had I known that was there, we would have gone through the main university a different way, and come out at this point, then gone down to Mount Road.
I looked over the map, and found another connection to the development to the south, and came up with a quick way we could make it work. I didn’t want to miss such an inviting looking trail if we didn’t have to.
Avalon Preserve
We headed to the trail and then up slope into the woods. There was no one around except a girl sitting alone in an opening on cut logs. It looks like it’s some sort of solitude prayer area or something.
This area with the nearby “Mount Road” was not because of the term “mountain”. Rather, it was the former estate of William Sidney Mount, who was an artist well known genre artist known best for his paintings depicting country life.
I had intended to walk by his former home, for which the earliest section was built by his grandfather, Eleazer Hawkins in 1725. The house was extended upon in 1810 and used apparently as a tavern at some point. It was sold out of the Mount family in 1918.
Letters to the dead
Once we came to the parking lot, we turned right down an access road, which took us to a gate on Dairy Farm Road. We followed the road down hill to Stony Brook Road where we turned right.
Soon, we came to the deck girder trestle that carries the Long Island Railroad over the road. I was ready to continue ahead, as the Mount homestead was just up on the right, but I forgot about it when I saw a captivating pair of wooden steps leading up under the railroad trestle.
I had to climb them, even if it went nowhere. There seemed to be informal trails going in here, and there was another set of wooden steps on the other side of the trestle as well, so I figured it must be something. Maybe even some long distance trail.
Sphere mirror
When we got to the top, it didn’t look like it really went anywhere, but we climbed up to the tracks anyway. We started to follow them to the southwest a bit, until I saw a hole in a chain link fence to the left side, onto a bit of a hillside.
Sphere mirror
I didn’t know where it went, if we could get through, or if it would stay clear, but I figured it was worth a try this early on.
There was a good trail for a while. In fact, it had been cleared with chain saw at some point to get through blow downs, but not that recently. The further we went, the worse it got to pass through. I caught a branch and ripped the inside of my nice blue jacket. We bullied through as best we could until I found another hole cut through the chain link fence. We then climbed through and returned to closer to the tracks.
We turned left, and eventually I saw another hole through the fence on the opposite side, which led out to the property of the International Baptist Church. Serious Sean found a soccer ball in this area somewhere and started kicking it around.
!!!!
The came out to the top of a slope above a wide mowed yard associated with the church property. We made our way down and across toward N Country Road, and Serious Sean and I kicked the soccer ball back and forth to one another while we moved on.
Avalon Preserve
We turned left on N Country Road and headed gradually up hill a bit until we reached Shep Jones Road. We turned to the right here.
On the last hike, I figured all of this road walking would suck, and so we all cut through an open field and bushwhacked a bit to get to the trails in the Avalon Park and Preserve. This time, I knew that Shep Jones Road is actually a nice one, and so we walked its length to where the trail came in.
From here, it was still early, but I wanted to make sure that we used up enough time before trying to go to the winery. I decided we would do most of the other trails we didn’t finish the last time first.
Serious Sean's note
We first turned left into the preserve, onto the red trail that goes straight along field edges. There was a young deer to the left, right next to us, which probably would have allowed us to pet him, but Stephen and I were talking loudly and spooked him.
East Farm Preserve
Avalon Park to the east is a more manicured garden setting, while the preserve to the west is more woodsy as well as open field. It was set up as a memorial to Paul Simons, an avid hiker, cyclist and skier from the “three village” area of Smithtown (St. James, Village of the Branch, Head of Harbor, which the preserve is in). The Paul Simons Foundation was set up to preserve the natural character of the area. The main park is an eight acre tract that was a farm abandoned probably in the early 1900s.
Avalon Preserve
Andropogon Associates, an ecological landscape architectural firm was engaged to design a series of paths and natural plantings of native species to Long Island.
A very pedestrian friendly setting with bridges, steps, viewing areas, and a labyrinth were created.
Avalon Preserve, across from it, is a 76 acre undeveloped track. All together, it’s about 140 acres of public open space. The East Farm Preserve also shares the same trail system.
We headed into the woods at the end of the field onto a part of the yellow trail we had never done before, and turned right through more woods. When we got to another field edge, we turned left up a steep slope and into another field heading north on I think it was an orange trail.
This trail came out to and crossed Shep Jones Road. We did so, and then turned left through more fields. There was a barn building that is apparently open to yoga and such on occasion, but is closed the rest of the time.
The old winery building
We continued through, and passed a clearing on the right with some large rocks in a mowed area for meditation or something.
We turned right at the end of the fields, and two trails left to our left into the woods further into Avalon Park, where we would be later. We continued around to the east side of the fields, and then headed back to the south again on its perimeter.
We ended up passing a cool little side trail that led us to a large mirrored sphere with a mail slot in the side. At the entrance, there was a kiosk of envelopes and pencils. Visitors were encouraged to write a letter to their deceased loved ones and put it into the sphere for them.
Harmony Vineyards
I’m fortunate that I feel I’ve pretty well communicated my feelings to loved ones who have passed. So rather, I wrote on a postcard “We are sad because we don’t have what we want, but we’ll be sad anyway because we cannot keep what we attain”.
Serious Sean wrote “If I was granted 3 wishes, I would combine all 3 into one: The wish that we will all have a happy, comfortable afterlife”.
The mirrored sphere was perfect for us to get our group shot before moving on.
The Labyrinth at Avalon Park
Other people were starting to show up, so we continued along the trail on the field edges heading back to the south.
Serious Climb pose
We turned right at the south side of the field, and continued east and around one more bend before crossing Shep Jones Road again. We turned left, south again, on the other side, passed through a parking lot, and continued on the yellow blazed trail into the East Farm Preserve.
There was a map showing that I’d missed several other area preserves on the last hikes. I suppose I’ll have to do more in the area to cover all of those in the future. For now, I want to focus on either pushing forward through Long Island to Montauk, or otherwise return and do where we left off with Jones Beach or the Long Island Greenbelt south.
We reached the part of the yellow trail we had done before, and then weaved back around to head north again. We stayed on yellow until we got to a green trail to the right.
Avalon Park
That took us down a slope and weaved back and forth a lot until we got to the white trail, where we turned to the left. This one took us through more woods briefly to the intersection with the blue trail. We turned right here.
View in Avalon Park
We stayed on the blue when other trails intersected on the way heading north again. Near where we turned off, there is something on the map that reads “gym”, but I didn’t see anything except for a log bench out there.
We turned left on blue to an overlook toward the Harmony Vineyards house.
The house where the tasting room is reportedly was built in 1690. I had much wanted to see the inside, more so than I wanted to taste the wine, but unfortunately it did not open until 1 pm.
That's a really cool fountain
I was under the impression that it opened at maybe 11, or 12 at the latest. It probably did the last time we were there, because there were new taped hours put over the ones on the front of it from recently. We weren’t going to be waiting around until 1 am for a wine tasting.
We continued up the road past he place, but stopped to take in the lovely view of the Long Island Sound from the back of the vineyard.
We came back to the north end of Shep Jones Road, and turned right on it heading slightly up hill. The road was unpaved at this point, and quite nice.
Avalon Park
Soon, we got to where the red trail crossed the road, and we turned left to follow it.
We had done this section before, and I warned Sean that it gets really almost overdone with the trails, and insanely busy. There were soon very nice steps going up and down over slopes as we headed west. We then crossed over Rhododendron Drive, and we had to open a wooden gate to enter the Avalon Park section.
The trail was crushed stone, which was kept in place by logs and such delineating the routes. We crossed over a paved trail, and then weaved through the woods to a wooden cat walk that leads to a sitting area for viewing the Rhododendrons. We had a nice break here.
The Mill Pond
When we moved on, we took the unpaved trail that leads around through the preserve and to the labyrinth in the middle.
Avalon Park
Serious Sean went up to the sculpture of the man on the wall to emulate his same position.
Kirk and I literally walked the entire labyrinth route to the center, which I really don’t know why we did it, but it was another nice moment.
From here, we headed down hill through the preserve and past some lovely little ponds and over some stone steps. There were nice wooden board walks out along the Mill Pond below.
The Mill Pond
The trail went by a house, which was probably once where the farm house for the original property before 1900 stood, and then left the park section alongside Harbor Road.
There was a really cool water fountain with both dog and human consumption spots, made our of a dead tree. That was really a pretty cool little thing.
We continued on the walkway across the outflow of the pond, which I think is called Mill Creek, and is part of T. Bayles Minuse Mill Pond Park.
The old church designed by Stanford White
To the left was the historic site of a grist mill built in 1699, and there is a current mill structure on the site now.
We didn’t turn right into the park this time, which was what we did previously. We turned left along Main Street for a bit, and then turned right to cross it adjacent to the All Souls Episcopal Church, which sat handsomely on a little hill.
The church was originally built in 1889 from plans and under the direction of renowned architect Stanford White. We had visited White’s grave on the previous Long Island hike!
A nice quote at Head of Harbor
The church congregation has been held in the Stony Brook area since 1857 when they used a local school house (which is still standing as a private residence).
This church was originally known as the St. James Chapel, and it served as a mission for the St. James Church in nearby St. James. The name was changed in 1952.
The church reportedly has its original organ inside dating back to 1889, and built 1855!
We skirted the church and headed into the strip mall where we had to decide on what to get for lunch. The choice was between a couple of Italian places, and we went with the closest one: Fratelli’s Italian Eatery.
This was a good choice. They had a good selection of slices for those of us not wanting to buy a big meal. I grabbed two of them, as well as a coca cola to mix the gin Kat had given me the previous week down in south Jersey.
MMMMM
I had a slice of grandma style pizza, as well as an interesting looking brochette slice. It actually had a bit of a hot kick to it that I wasn’t expecting, and it was quite good. Kirk liked the look of what I got, and so he got the same thing for himself. He took notice that it had jalapenos in it, which would explain the heat!
The guy at the counter asked if we were hiking. I was surprised he would make such an assumption, based on the blazer and wide collared seventies shirt I was wearing. It turns out he asked because he saw some sort of sticks or vegetation stuck to my pack and my shirt!
My attire for this hike...
The service was very friendly and the food was quite good. I would definitely recommend the place.
When we were all done, we headed to the north on Main Street a bit more, and there was soon a circle, and to the left a little pavilion down on the waterfront for the harbor.
We walked over to it, and inside was a large boat, and then a Greek looking figure head.
I didn’t have a clue what it was supposed to be at first. I didn’t see a damned sign anywhere for it. Then, somone said “It’s Hercules!”. I responded that it looked nothing like Kevin Sorbo, not realizing that there was a historic dissertation under the building roof edge.
This figure head was once on the U.S.S. Ohio, which was the first ship ever launched from the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1820. There is an anchor in front of it which also came from the ship.
Kevin Sorbo Hercules...
Amazingly, the figure head was carved from a single piece of cedar!
Toward the end of the 19th century, the ship was decommissioned, destroyed, and sunk off the coast of Greenport, Long Island.
It turns out, Ward Melville, the same guy who donated the land for the aforementioned Stony Brook college, saved the Hercules figure head and deeded it to the Ward Melville Organization for preservation.
Hercules from USS Ohio?
The boat in the pavilion is the Polaris Whaleboat. This is believed to be the only surviving artifact of the Charles Hall expedition at the Arctic in 1870.
The boat
Hall’s rival, Commander Robert Peary, recovered the boat during his 1905 Arctic expedition and donated it to the American Museum of Natural History in New York (I hiked by the Peary statue in Cresson PA, his original home town, in 2019, and hiked much of the Admiral Peary highway). The boat was later gifted to Ward Melville and was made property of the Ward Melville Heritage Organization also.
We continued on from here across a parking lot to the east, and then along Christian Ave. We passed a historic home, which seems to have a wall leaning inward pretty badly, and soon turned to the right on Hollow Road.
We passed by three houses on the right, and then came to a section of unmarked, vacant woods. I had gone over the maps ahead of time, and found out this was county property.
The anchor from USS Ohio
There aren’t many maps that show a lot of the property, but this is part of the Forsythe Meadow County Park.
I started heading up hill through the woods, and just after the crest of the rise we reached a white blazed trail. We turned right here. The white trail makes a loop through this preserve, and is accessed by way of a yellow trail on the other side.
The 34 acre preserve was one of the last bits of unspoiled forest in the area, and it came close to being subdivided into more home property before it was preserved. It is also referred to as the Nora Bredes Sanctuary in honor of a former Suffolk County Legislature who fought for environmental concerns.
View in Head of Harbor
We continued through the woods on this well marked and well worn path. We passed a guy walking his dog, who seemed surprised to see anyone up there at all.
We weaved around along the south side of the preserve and came to the intersection with the yellow trail where we turned right.
The trail led us out to an open field, where I couldn’t quite tell where we were supposed to go. A couple of people came walking ahead from the other end of the field, so I assumed correctly it was over there.
Reading some stuff
The trail went by a warning sign about ticks with the plexiglass broken out, and then reached the parking area. It’s no wonder hardly anyone was in there. I don’t think more than three people could park there.We headed down hill on a private driveway that also provides access to the park, and then bushwhacked straight ahead, across Hollow Road and up to the Oak Hill Cemetery. We turned left and followed around the perimeter of this.
The cemetery was quite old, and quite pretty up on the knoll. I’m not sure the oldest interment there.
We came down out of the cemetery at the main entrance and ended up back on Hollow Road. We turned left and followed this out to a school property on the right, along Suffolk Ave. We turned right as soon as a chain link fence ended there, and headed across the fields singing songs from and talking about the songs that were used in the play “Hair”.
When we got around the outside of the school, I had intended to cut down hill through woods to some of the retail establishments below on Rt 25A, but I got so caught up in conversation that I’d forgotten where we were going and ended up walking out to Maple Ave.
Forsythe Meadow Preserve
We reached Cedar Street and turned right, then reached 25A where we could cross and pass by where we had started at Stony Brook Station.
We passed the old station building this time, which I don’t think I had seen before. I figured one either didn’t exist, or that it was just a new station stop associated with the college, and would only have a platform.
The historic station was originally built for the Smithtown and Port Jefferson Station in 1873, although some claim 1888, and rebuilt in 1917. It used to be at grade with everything, but the elevated platforms and such were added in the 1980s.
Forsythe Meadow Preserve
It is interesting that this little station, once something rather insignificant compared to others, became the more major one because of the development of the college on the adjacent tract. The next station to the west, Flowerfield, closed in 1957, and the next to the east, Setauket, was closed as a stop in 1980 after the station building was demolished about 1960.
We continued on along the road past the station, and we stopped for a break at a little store in this area.
AAA TICKS BROKE OUT
Whilst looking for beverages and such, I told Alex he shold get the 14% Four Loco Gold if he wanted something strong. He said okay, but after he drank some he said he hated it and that it was too sweet. He then charged me with the job of finishing it for him. Some of the others helped me to make it go away faster, but we didn’t spill any.
We headed through a strip mall parking lot along 25A as we moved ahead, just past the intersection with Nicolls Road. Fortunately we had a lot of parking lot to walk through rather than just the road. This bit was the crappiest part of the hike.
We turned right on the next turn, Bennetts Road, and headed toward the Long Island Railroad bridge over it. We turned left before the bridge and headed up hill to what looks like an apartment building. We kept to the right on a mowed slope and went around the building, but there was no way into the woods to the north.
Forsythe Meadows
My thought was that we could cut through these woods and into the lots of Renaissance Technologies just beyond, which would lead us to the Setauket Greenway at it’s western terminus.
Forsythe Meadows
We had no good way, so we backtracked and found a faint path going in next to a pole with a security camera on it. We went in there, and came to a high slope above the Long Island Railroad, but to the north there was a sloped road going up from the railroad level to the buildings I was attempting to get to.
The thorns were just too bad to push through to get directly to the sloped access, so I pushed a couple of them out of the way and just climbed down to the point that I could jump into the sloped road.
Cemetery
We followed this up hill to the complex, and then there was a path into the woods to the left. It wasn’t at all far from the one we had just been following. I can’t help but wonder if this is going to be an extension of the Setauket Greenway. It was just perfect.
We followed this trail into woods through the property of Renaissance Technologies, and it only occasionally opened up to where we could see buildings. Otherwise, we were in the woods. This awesome foot path, totally clear, led us right out Limroy Lane directly across from the parking area for the Setauket Greenway.
The cemetery
As soon as I set foot on that trail and went into the woods, I found an enormous deer antler just sitting in the middle of it. It must have somewhat recently fallen off.
From here, it was pretty much trail all the way to the end.
The Setauket-Port Jefferson Greenway was actually purchased for the purpose of a greenway as I have read. It’s a paved, two lane trail for multi use. I was surprised not to see a single bicycle on it as I recall. Everyone I saw using it was just walking it.
The trail took us through some nice woods and across Allyson Place, then out to Gnarled Hollow Road. Here, the trail turned right on the road to get under the Long Island Railroad. It was just up from this point where the Setauket Station used to stand.
Historic view of Stony Brook Station in 1905
Just a little bit ahead on the road, we turned right onto dedicated trail again, slightly up hill, and down again over Gnarled Hollow Road.
Setauket Greenway with antlers!
At each of thee crossings except for one, there were sensors that went off and made the crossing lights in the road light up to signal cars to stop and allow pedestrians to go by. In the case of the unworking one, the button crossing actually worked. Someone seriously put a ton of money into this trail project.
We headed down hill a bit and crossed over a power line clearing, and then crossed Old Town Road. The trail then passed over tons of roads, named Lynx, Ferret, Badger, and then Sheep Pature, followed by Possum. Someone had spray painted “To Sheep Pasture” on the start of the trail, which I didn’t realize what they meant until now.
On the weird Renaissance trail we found...
We passed through a huge wide, sandy place that Serious Sean said reminded him of down in Camden County end of the Pine Barrens where we had walked through a few years ago. He was right, it was reminiscent of the NJ pine barrens quite a lot, especially there.
The area here is also a haven for ATVs obviously. We moved ahead, crossed another power line, and then saw a giant abandoned complex on the left.
We had no idea what it was, but we had to have a closer look at it. There was a fence around most of it, but there was a wide opening.
Long Island Railroad view
Alex, Kirk, Jen, and I all walked in to the nearest open building. It was pretty interesting. Jen didn’t see us after we went into the second room and turned back, but the three of us continued on.
Setauket Port Jeff Greenway
We walked all the way through the end of the first building, turned left, and then weaved back through the second one. We pretty much went into every building in the entire place. I was blown away by what I was seeing, but still unsure of what it was.
When we exited one of the buildings, there was a kid riding a quad through. Alex flagged him down to ask him what it was, and he didn’t know. Later, we asked just about everyone we saw on the trail what it was, and none of them had a clue. Some of them said it was their first time out there.
When I followed up on research on this, I found out that everyone really SHOULD know, as we were walking through what is considered to be the most contaminated site in all of Long Island.
This was the former Lawrence Aviation Industries Inc. site. The outfit was a manufacturer of titanium military aircraft parts including the Grumman F-14 Fighter Jet.
The company started when it’s predecessor, Ledkote Products moved from New York City to Port Jefferson in 1951. The company changed names to Lawrence Aviation in 1959.
Abandoned
Going back to around 1979, the site was under investigation for volatile organic compounds based on well tests around the 127 acre industrial site.
Toiletry
The first site visit by the Suffolk County Department of Health Services was conducted in 1980.
It was found that tanks of toxic material were found throughout the site. The ground water in the area was found to be well above the level to be safe to drink, and contained tetrachloroethene and trichloroethene to name just a couple things.
Non-lined cesspools were found with contaminants on the property.
The wells in the area had to be taken out of service, the residents supplied with bottled water until they could be connected to a public water supply.
The owner of the company, Gerald Cohen, was sentenced to one year and one day in prison and ordered to pay $105,816 in restitution for illegal storage of more than twelve tons of hazardous waste on company grounds.
Insulated
As of 2019, Cohen and his company have been ordered to pay 48.1 million dollars for cleanup of the site.
Comfy
The last buildings we went through had a lift truck in it, and some collapsing ceilings. The site has been abandoned now since 2003. There are certainly still contaminents on the property. We saw recesses in the floors that are certainly full of the crap. Reportedly there are drums in another building further up that was some sort of a hangar, but we didn’t get to that end of the property. I think there are supposed to be about ten buildings. We did get to go throgh most everything.
Now THAT is a cutting wheel...
It was amazing that we saw not a single “no trespassing” sign on this where we came in, or on any of these buildings. It was just as amazing that there was no sign reading “superfund site” or anything of that sort.
Abandoned
Here’s the news story on the latest about the site:
When the three of us left the complex, no one was still waiting for us at the edge of the trail. Serious Sean texted me that he left my deer antler on a bench, which I was sure someone would steal because it was so big (actually, Jen lefter later than the others, and she found it and took it).
We made our way down the path and asked others along the way about what we had seen.
The trail ended just after crossing Clinton Place at Patchogue Road. No one was to be found.
I got a call from Stephen that he had taken the previous train to get back to Stony Brook Station. Jen had made a wrong turn and was heading to the settlement of Port Jefferson Station, which was to the south, but the physical station was to the north by a few blocks.
Abandoned
Jenny, Anne, and Serious Sean had ubered back to the cars because the next train was two hours before it arrived.
Abandoned
I had figured we would get dinner somewhere waiting for the train (I knew they were every two hours), but I guess everyone wanted to be finished earlier. Fortunately, Serious Sean was coming back to pick us up after getting his car.
Jen caught up with Alex, Kirk, and I at the Port Jefferson Station building and parking lot.
The handsome Port Jefferson Station is another structure designed by Stanford White. The original 1873 station burned down and was replaced in 1875, and the current station replaced that one after the branch was extended to Wading River in 1895.
The extension to Wading River was abandoned in 1938, and Port Jeff became the terminus of the line once again.
Sunset at Port Jeff
Serious Sean showed up pretty soon, and we were on our way back to the Stony Brook Station.
Stony Brook Station at the end
I really loved this hike, and I’ve begun planning out the route for the next one in the series, which will the last one before we reach the 125 mile long Paumanok Path (a link to a large map of it below).
A map showing Paumanok Path
HAM
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