Hike #1316; Swartswood/Paulinskill Loop

Hike #1316; Swartswood/Paulinskill Loop

4/6/20 Swartswood Paulins Kill Loop with Jillane Becker

I had been telling Jillane about the really nice rail trail loop up in Sussex County for a long while at this point, and thought she would enjoy it.

Old cover

I had actually done a variation of it recently with the group when I needed something to do that I figured we would not get in trouble for, but there was a lot more stuff I wanted to have a closer look at, and Jillane hadn’t walked any of it before.
This time, I figured we would start near the site of Swartswood Station. This was on the section where the New York, Susquehanna, and Western Railroad, completed here in 1881, crossed Swartswood Road. It was a very busy spot said to have had as many as seventy trains passing by in a single day, because the Lehigh and New England Railroad had trackage rights over it for some twenty miles west to Hainesburg. The Lehigh and New England had planned to build their own track between those points, but it was smarter for them to have trackage rights.
This is among the most relaxing hikes I can think of to do in New Jersey.

Weird old cut

It’s easy and beautiful. At this time, parks were still open for passive recreation only, but it turned out to be the last day of such.
We climbed up the embankment onto the NYS&W grade, now Paulinskill Valley Trail. The right of way was purchased in conjunction with the Tocks Island Dam project back in the 1960s, when it was obvious that some sort of right of way would be needed to connect the reservoir with the eastern cities. The NYS&W of course went to Jersey City, and even still has occasional mile posts made of concrete reading “JC”.

Three grades

At the miles where posts were stolen or destroyed, new wooden ones have been placed by volunteers with “JC” on them.

Mossy trail

We walked ahead, parallel with Junction Road, and soon reached the former junction site with the Lehigh and New England. There is a bench, a sign, and a heap of rotten wood that is all that remains of the “JU” junction shed to the right.
The demise of these railroads were pretty close together. The Lehigh and New England called it quits while they were still making profit. On October 31st, 1962, they became the second major railroad in US history to completely abandon in a single day, after the New York, Ontario, and Western in 1957.

Rock cut on the PKV Trail

The NYS&W decided to give up the next year, although today there is another rail line operating under the same name and on the same trackage in areas to the east of Sparta Junction.
I found what might have been a boiler box cover or something next to the junction site there, in the piles of dead leaves.
We continued past Swartswood Junction, crossed over a stream on a high fill with a nice little waterfall, and continued gradually climbing over Plotts Road. We could see the Lehigh and New England bridge over the road below us at the intersection with Junction Road.

Halsey Station probably taken by J. E. Bailey, 1910

I also noticed this time that there was a noticeable berm on either side of the brook by the waterfall.

Halsey Station site today

I wonder if that was an earlier railroad alignment, but that they moved or straightened it there. It’s hard to say, but there was definitely something. Maybe another bridge.

Halsey Station, probably taken by J. E. Bailey, 1910

In the area ahead, as we gained elevation, there were three very defined grades in the same view.

Halsey Station site today

Directly below the NYS&W was the very level Spirol Road, which I wonder if it ever may have been part of another rail connection between the two lines.

Garter snake

Below that was the Lehigh and New England, and they come to the same level when they get close to Plotts Road.
We continued through a beautiful mossy section, and then through a deep rock cut heading toward Halsey Station. The old house was still standing to the right of the rail bed off of old Halsey-Myrtle Grove Road.
We continued walking from here out to cross that road, parallel with Halsey Road. The Halsey Station used to stand here, off in the weeds to the north side of the railroad bed. The foundation is still clearly there, and I had to have a closer look at this site to set up some then and now photos.
I had a couple of images showing this station, and it was still the right time of year to try to get a couple of them. Not too many leaves were out quite yet. Only the understory of barberry was really coming up.

Abandoned house

I got some good shots, and we moved on ahead parallel with Halsey Road, and crossed over Rt 519. There were quite a few people out using the trail beyond this point, which kind of surprised me.
There were a large group of kids and one older lady walking together, and I jokingly yelled to them “that’s not social distancing!” and they all laughed. The lady walking behind them assured me they were all family, which I don’t believe for one second, but it also honestly doesn’t bother me at all.

Wetlands along the trail

There were others out walking as well. A fat boy in a Beatles shirt with his girlfriend, and a tall black man who walked back and forth several times.

Pond along the trail

He passed us at least three, maybe more times. Two of those ties I tried greeting him, and was met with no response at all. Quite strange.
There was a nice secluded section ahead away from more of the roads, and I noticed to the left of the trail was a side path and a set of steps going beyond. This led to the Angry Erik Brewing Company. I thought that sounded good, so I figured there might be a chance they sell something to go.
I walked to the front and found a phone number to call for pickup orders. I tried calling it and talked to a clerk on the phone. They do in fact take such orders, but they just happened to be closed that day. I’d have to try them another time.

Rail spur end

I figure this would be a good one to do for a Hootenanny Hike again in the future, and make that a main stopping point along the way. More to consider for the future.
We crossed Rt 206 parallel with Sid Taylor Road, passed behind several homes skirting some woods, and then came out to the crossing of Rt 94, still parallel with Sid Taylor. We crossed, then passed through some very nice woods as well as through a rock cut in this area.

Personalized property

There were a lot of good rock outcroppings on the left side in this section.
When we passed by the largest outcropping, I could see there was a kid that had gotten on top of it. Every time someone passed by, he would start making weird bird sounds. He did it as Jillane and I walked by, and then we heard him do it when others behind us went by.
Eventually, we crossed the Paulins Kill for the first time. At this point, it was a small stream, and it was dredged down to a point because the lands to the south of us were once a sod farm.

Alderny Dair Co....

It was originally named the Paulins Kill Swamp, but it became known as the Hyper-Humus Marsh in later years apparently for the kind of sod they grew there.

A good break...

Just after the bridge, we reached the Warbasse parking lot for the trail. We crossed Warbasse Junction Road, and then approached Warbasse Junction itself, which was where the NYS&W crossed the Sussex Railroad.
The Sussex Railroad originally extended to Branchville in the 1860s, and had a spur to Franklin in the 1870s. It became the Sussex Branch of the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western later. There were plans once to extend it beyond Branchville through Culvers Gap, but that never came to fruition and Branchville was the terminus. This would be the second line of our rail loop.
We turned to the left and passed through some marsh land, more of the head waters of the Paulins Kill.
Soon, we reached and crossed Rt 94 at Lafayette. We were then very close to the Paulins kill, which appeared as a very small creek in this area.
There was a spur railroad right of way to the left that served some sort of a business up ahead. I’m not sure what it was, but I suspect it may have been a creamery called the Alderny Dairy Company.

Historic view of station and mill

I was able to see ties at the end of the spur and a concrete abutment where it may have continued onto a loading bridge.

This might be the old station site...

To the right at this point, the Paulins Kill moved off a little bit and there was a personalized property full of all sorts of metal art projects, which is pretty cool.

Wetland restoration on the Paulins Kill

Just ahead, we crossed over Morris Farm Road. I had a historic photo of the station that used to be in Lafayette I was trying to set up a then and now with, but I can’t quite figure out where it was. I have a good guess, but I’m not totally sure.
The freight depot is still there, and there are several historic mill buildings right there by the crossing, but I cannot quite pinpoint which ones are there and which ones are missing form the historic image.

A turtle floading in the Paulins Kill

I walked around the front of the building and had a look at the old mills. Jillane had to sit still while she had cell service for a by-phone doctors appointment.
I looked at the mill buildings from every angle trying to figure out how the historic photos were oriented, but nothing I saw made me confident of what I was looking at.
I looked at the a lot of the foundations, and when I was seeing old masonry, I figured they must have been there a long time, which just made it more confusing.
I eventually just gave up and walked the trail ahead. I sat down then for a break by a pond.

Paulins Kill restoration

I had bought a sandwich or something I recall earlier. I forget exactly what it was. Some sort of chicken thing or something. I sat and ate, and cracked a bottle of 19 crimes wine. I had picked it up for my friend Conrad for his birthday, but the dinner got canceled.
While I sat, a guy walked up from a lower pond in the municipal park in Lafayette, fishing at various spots. He eventually made his way up onto the rail bed and toward me, trying every spot on the way. I was moved back on the trail as not to be in his way.

Sussex Branch Trail

He stopped and chatted with me a little bit when he went by about how ridiculous a lot of the shut down stuff is. He brought up some points regarding fishing that I’d not considered.

Flood plain restoration sign

I mentioned that I had heard that they wanted to close parks down entirely. It seemed like that for weeks, and his point was that they had opened fishing season two weeks early.

Paulins Kill

While a lot of people were applauding the move, he felt it was bullshit because it was sort of political and it actually caused more of the problems they were trying to prevent.
I brought up that I was told the state department of fish, game, and wildlife had been putting fish out, but because they didn’t have the volunteers they usually have, and weren’t allowed to have them, they were all dumped together in giant pools. In doing so, it put all of the fishermen so much closer together than they otherwise wold have been.

Paulins Kill

He agreed with me, but he went further. I didn’t know the season was early. They might have done so because there would be demands to return fishing license money otherwise.

My new shoes from Dan Trump, holding up well.

I knew that it was something that was being looked at because I was constantly being asked to take photos of people too close together, which we partially caused because we closed all but one or two of the lots in the biggest parks.
The fisherman went on to explain that opening fishing two weeks earlier were also bringing a lot of people from out of state to come to New Jersey to fish earlier, and that they would not have been in the state otherwise. I didn’t consider any of that either until he brought it up, and I remembered my grandfather saying there were sixty cars at Point Mountain. Of course, it was because of not just hikers but fishermen from everywhere.

Paulins Kill

Some of the simple things I had just heard cemented more of what I believed, how we are in a mess of people confusing leadership and management, a struggle I’ve always been close to.

Skunk Cabbage emerges

I sat in the sun, which was really nice, until eventually Jillane came walking down the trail toward me.
We got up and headed along the trail to the north from here, past the pond and across Mudcut Road.
We soon crossed Decker Road, and the Paulins Kill started appearing again to the right.
This was an interesting area with something I had missed previously: the entire wetland used to be open, but was now filled in with countless trees planted along the sides. This was a reforestation project by the Nature Conservancy on the upper Paulins Kill.

Paulins Kill

I figured this must have been the world of TNC under Beth Styler Bary, who went to work for the organization over the past few years specifically regarding their interest in the Paulins Kill. She had done wonderful things on the Musconetcong and was needed on the neglected Paulins Kill. I got involved in some of the dam removal meetings as well.

Lehigh and New England bridge

I was extremely happy to hear they had taken someone on who was as talented and passionate as Beth. In the years prior to her coming on, I had several times been extremely disappointed by performance within that organization, and her results with everything from visible work completed as well as public effort and outreach has been outstanding. I do believe that any organization is only as good as the people involved in it, and I see things improving greatly within that one taking Beth on.

Garter Snake

We crossed the Paulins Kill again just after Decker Road. Jillane pointed out lots of turtles resting on a log to the left, but they all got spooked and jumped off as we walked up. We did watch them swimming adorably for a while after.
We crossed the Paulins Kill again and then crossed over Rt 206. I considered walking a little out of the way to Quik Chek just up the road, but we didn’t really need anything.
We made our way past a business and crossed the Paulins Kill yet again. The Sussex Branch remained very close to it in this next stretch, crossed a state WMA access road, and then crossed the river one more time. To the right, across the field, we could see where the Lehigh and New England crossed as well on a through style girder bridge. We were now coming into the settlement of Augusta, where the Sussex Branch crossed over the L&NE, and where there used to be a station.

Augusta Station historic postcard

The cross point was just barely after we crossed Augusta Hill Road. The Sussex Branch went over the Paulins Kill yet again straight ahead of this point.

Augusta Station site

We took a little break here, and I ran around trying to figure out how my historic postcard image was oriented to get a then and now shot. I soon realized that the road shown in the photo was Augusta Hill Road, and then all I had to do was determine exact track bed.

The Lehigh and New England

Once I’d figured it out, I set up the shot, but there was a young couple unloading stuff from their car that looked around wondering what I was taking a photo of.
That happens somewhat often, when it might seem like I’m creepily taking photos and I’m actually setting up some sort of then and now thing (I actually had a friend text me the other day while I was standing along the highway asking what I was doing, and I responded with the then and now I just set up). I approached the two of them to show them the shot.

Lovely Paulins Kill

I showed Jillane the shot I just set up, and we were soon off along the old Lehigh and New England rail bed, which is now the Great Valley Trail.

Probably an old lime kiln ruin

This section was built in 1886, and is much different than the rest of what we were walking because there is a gas line beneath it from the town of Sussex to Washingtonville. That made a lot of it much brighter.
The Paulins Kill was close by on the right at first, then turned away. We passed what was probably an old lime kiln, and moved off further from the road. A couple was pushing a baby stroller on this bit, which I figure was quite difficut. Jillane thought it was one of her cousin’s friends.

Snake

We next crossed the Morris Turnpike. The Paulins Kill came back closer to the rail bed again at this point.
This was quite a lovely section along the river. We soon crossed over Old Stage Coach Road, which crosses the Paulins Kill and becomes Kinney Road. Balesville is the little settlement directly across the river from here to the right.
After a short distance more, we crossed Halsey Road, in what was once a settlement known as Washingtonville. There was a foundation on the slope to the left, which I think was once a station stop.
My railraod atlas book shows this as a station stop, as “Baleville”, and I had seen another map call it Washingtonville, but I could never find any photo of a station there.
My 1946 atlas shows there being an active station stop there at that time, so there must have been something.
We continued on past the foundation over Halsey Road, and the gas line using the railroad bed ended at this point. It gets much narrower from here.

Likely Washingtonville Station site

The Paulins Kill moved away from the right of way at this point, not to be seen again on this hike.
We passed through a lovely section of woods, and so the last section would be the most secluded of the entire hike. I really like this particular section for that.
Soon, we could see the NYS&W right of way appearing above us on a high shelf, and after that Spirol Road appeared on the mid shelf between us. We passed an old foundation on the left, and some pretty farm land on the right.

Likely Baleville Station site

We eventually came out to cross Parson Road on a concrete arch culvert, which surprisingly has no gate or walkway around the outside of it.

LNE grade

In this area near one of the fields, I noted a second right of way to the right of us. It was definitely some kind of built up berm. I wondered if this was part of the Lehigh and New England planned right of way that was never completed.
I know some sections were graded but never used. There is one bit near Warrington to the Tunnel Field in Knowlton Township, a section near the cemetery in Blairstown, and reportedly a section on golf course and Blair Academy properties I’ve not seen yet.

Alternate grade?

There could have been more than that at one time, but I’m just not sure about any of it.
One of the other rail fans in the groups when I posed the question suggested that this could have been a sort of “pusher track” or waiting track approaching the Swartswood Junction, which is a very logical suggestion.
We soon crossed over Junction Road at grade and reached the NYS&W right of way. The sun was getting ready to go down, because we had gotten a much later start than normally for these.

Lehigh and New England grade

We walked the last mile or so from there back to Swartswood Road to complete the hike.
It was really a beautiful day to be out, and it turned out to be the last “legal” day of hiking we could get in in New Jersey state or county parks for a while.
I was still determined to keep getting out. Pennsylvania and New York were still open for hiking, and everyone is pretty much going there anyway. I have plenty of thoughts on places to go that will be far enough away from the rest of the population, so I’ll just have to keep doing what I’ve been doing and treat each of these circumstances as opportunities to do other things I’ve been wanting to do.

Swartswood Junction

HAM