Hike #1344; Tulpehocken and Blue Marsh Loop
8/7/20 Blue Marsh Lake Loop with Jillane Becker
This next one would be a loop hike with just Jillane and I. I didn’t have a night hike, and I needed to get out, so I looked at some stuff that would make good Summer trips.
Tulpehocken Creek
I had very much enjoyed my own version of the 911 Memorial Trail series where we followed the route of the Union Canal west out toward Blue Marsh Lake PA. That preserve is quite outstanding and gave us a lot of great swimming spots during the Summer of 2019. Jillane had never been there, and I wanted to have a closer look at some things again.
The main thing I was looking at was one of the old Union Canal locks, Lock #46 West, which I had somehow missed the last time I was out there. I walked by it twice and didn’t see it.
Ruins at Red Bridge park area
I had watched a video by The Wandering Woodsman, who does some really great stuff all over PA, where he located Lock 46. He also walked a good stretch of the canal that I had not from where the trail breaks away from it to go uphill before the main dam.
I wanted to get out there and do that section, and figured it’d be a good day for it. It was hot out enough, and if it got too tough, we could always go for a dip in the Tulpehocken Creek.
We got a late start driving out, and started late morning. We parked near the Barnes and Noble on the west side of Reading, and we started by walking Broadcasting Road.
Inside Wertz's Red Bridge
This was along the Penn State Berks Campus. I was planning to turn to the left from the road and along the edges of the fields through Penn State Berks, but it looked like there were a lot of people around in the area and decided against the field thing.
House Boat Mildred
We instead headed downhill a bit more to Tulpehocken Road, which I’d not done before, and walked it upstream along the creek which was to our right. There were some nice views through here.
We soon came to the Wertz’s Red Bridge Recreation Area on the right. The wide grassy area with picnic benches and such was a nice spot to walk through.
When I had walked this area before, we had not walked through the recreation area. There were some stone ruins including stairs to where a building once stood, and a section of paved road that had been slightly rerouted.
Historic marker at the house boat
We walked along the Tulpehocken here, and then ascended slightly to the mouth of Wertz’s Red Bridge. This is the longest single span covered bridge in Pennsylvania.
Wertz's Red Bridge
The 220 foot long Burr Arch Truss span was first built in 1867, and spanned Tulpehocken Creek, as well as the Union Canal on a secondary bridge on the other side.
We walked through the bridge, which has been closed to all but pedestrian traffic since October 1959.
On the other side, we walked down and then over to the museum building. There was a beautiful stone home to the right, the Abreham Reeser farmhouse built in 1774. The museum occupies a former barn.
Union Canal
Also on the property behind are the Gruber Wagon Works, which were originally on the farm lands inundated with the waters of Blue Marsh Lake. The works was moved to this site rather than be demolished for the reservoir.
At the edge of the museum, I had forgotten that the authentic canal house boat “Mildred” was on display.
This house boat was built in 1887 for the Schuylkill Navigation, not the Union Canal, as the Union Canal was about done at the time of its construction.
Turtles in Union Canal
It’s awesome that such an artifact still exists. Of course the roof must have been switched out on it. I don’t recall the historic marker being in front of it that told the story the last time I was there so it might have had some new info.
We headed from here down to the Union Canal towpath and the canal was watered here.
The Union Canal was one of the first canals in the country to begin construction. Actually, George Washington turned the first shovel of dirt during its construction during his presidency, an he personally inspected the first three locks during a trip out toward Lebanon in 1793.
Lock #48 West and lock house built 1830.
The Union Canal of course was not completed until the 1820s, and it only remained in service until 1887 due to several issues with flooding, and with the railroads taking its customers.
This was a good one!
It is quite remarkable considering that passage of time that as much of the Union Canal remains recognizable today, let alone still holding water so well.
We saw some turtles basking on a log in the canal, and then reached Lock #48 West.
The lock is barely recognizable if you don’t know what you’re looking at, but fortunately there is a sign there about it as well. The lock tender’s house is also still standing here, up on the hill. It was built in 1830.
We continued along on the towpath, and I watched the tent caterpillars that were inundating the trees.
It seemed like we didn’t have as many of them in recent years, but this year is bad.
Tent Caterpillars
It is not an invasive species, but it can completely kill a tree if it defoliates year after year on the same tree.
We soon crossed beneath Route 222 bridge, which was the way we had driven in.
Next, we came to a crossing of an abandoned road called Van Reed Road. This was originally the road that led to a bridge over the Tulpehocken Creek known as Van Reed’s Covered Bridge. I had found a photo of the bridge, which was built in 1837, the last time I was out, but I didn’t get a then and now photo of it because I didn’t know how it was oriented. This time, I wanted to try to emulate the photo.
Site of Van Reed Covered Bridge
We walked up Van Reed Road to the bridge site, and went down a little path toward the creek to the left.
The creek was flowing somewhat brown after some of the recent floods, but was getting clearer the further we went upstream. There was a stream directly across from the former bridge site. This was the Cacoosing Creek.
The historic photo I had showed the confluence of a smaller creek in it, which was how I was able to identify the location of the original shot. I had to wade across the Tulpehocken to get over to it.
The water was moving pretty quickly, but I stayed in the shallow to make it easier.
Cacoosing Creek and old bridge beyond new bridge
Paper Mill Road crossed over the creek just ahead of this point, and beyond was an older concrete arch bridge that also spanned the creek. I figure that was probably the older road bridge.
I pretty accurately set up where the historic photo was taken, and then headed back across the creek.
Jillane was waiting on the shore where I had gotten in the water, and we headed out from here back up to the canal towpath.
We continued out along the route and soon reached Lock #47.
Historic view of Van Reed Covered Bridge
This lock was refurbished in the 1970s, but the new wooden locks are now falling apart again. Still the stone work on this one is in fabulous shape. Some of the metal hardware is also in place, though much of that has been rebuilt and placed in the old walls.
Site of Van Reed's Covered Bridge now
As we approached the lock, Jillane spotted a large snake basking on the east wall. This was a big Eastern Water Snake, which looked really cool.
Old covered bridge site
The snake just looked at us cautiously as we both took photos of it. It slowly started moving off down through the crack between the stones after we’d gawked at it for long enough.
We moved on past the lock and then soon came to the area of parking near Leinbachs PA where Reber’s Bridge Road crosses the Tulpehocken Creek.
There is a lot of stuff going on in this area, and the first thing we came across was the foot bridge over the Plum Creek. My first time here, I didn’t think much of it.
Snake on the lock
The bridge was originally called Rush’s Iron Truss Bridge which was built in 1905 on the Oley Valley of PA. It was moved to the present site for use as a trail bridge, placed directly on the site of the original Union Canal aqueduct that spanned the Plum Creek.
Looking at the creek bottom I could see the base of the aqueduct abutment on the west side still somewhat in place. Many years of major floods along the Tulpehocken have washed away most of what was left of this structure.
Snake on the lock
Rebers Bridge Road was also named for a covered bridge that no longer exists. The current road bridge replaced the older covered bridge in 1951.
I had an historic photo of this bridge as well, and I needed to determine from which angle it was taken.
I walked out across the road bridge and looked at the land on both sides of the Tulpehocken. I did not see any sign of the mil. I watched closely where it could have been, and determined that it was on the north side of the creek.
Snake on the lock
The 1951 bridge was an open grate decking, which is getting to be less and less common. I wonder if that’s one of these things that one day I’ll be saying “back in my day” about.
Snake on the lock
After I’d determined the location of the mill, I realized I needed to wae to the other side of the creek again to get the shot. I had already been across Rebers Bridge and back, so this time I just got in the creek.
I made my way to a stony beach on the far shore, and lined up what I felt to be the old bridge abutment, which is a stone wall area next to the current bridge, as well as where I believed the mill to have been on that shore. I think I pretty much got it dead on, except there was a tree washed into the creek.
Lock #47
The mill was originally Hiester's Mill, built by Gabriel and Jonathan Hiester in 1760. Hiesters and Rebers intermarried in the mid 1800s, and Joseph Reber enlarged the mill.
Union Canal
By the early 1900s, the old mill was already in ruins. Only the stone frame of it remained intact.
Reber’s Covered Bridge had been built in 1850 and apparently lasted just over a century. I’m not sure if it was ever replaced in there at any time.
When I had my then and now shots, I wandered back over to where I had climbed down. I noted where I believed the mill wheel had been, because there was a good amount of masonry in the creek itself, and obvious large stones that formed a base.
Rushs Iron Truss Bridge
Jillane had started to go ahead of me here. I hurried across Rebers Bridge Road and continued on the canal route to the west.
This was entering the Army Corps of Engineers property below Blue Marsh Lake, so the character of the greenway changed a bit.
I was hoping in this area to find Lock #46, the one I had been missing, but it started raining rather heavily while I was catching up. I caught up to Jillane and pulled my umbrella out, and figured the rain wouldn’t last for all that long.
We walked along on the trail which went down slope from the canal to the left a bit.
Plum Creek aqueduct site
It was in this section that Lock 46 was just above. I went up through weeds and peered through looking for the lock, but couldn’t see it. I checked a second time when the trail shifted over to the right side of the canal. I think I might have actually found the site of it correctly, but it was so overgrown with weeds that I could not see a lock wall.
I had wanted to go off of the trail and follow the towpath down through the woods and closer to the Tulpehocken, but the rain just kept getting heavier and I didn’t feel like it.
Rush's bridge
We just remained on the trail, which soon started gaining elevation and left the edge of the Union Canal.
We headed uphill, and came to a parking area where we paused under a kiosk sign for a bit.
I had remembered that it wasn’t all that far to some cover from here, and we both continued to the west.
Unfortunately, I was somewhat wrong about the distance, and we ended up walking a longer stretch of trail without really any shade in the rain. Jillane at least stopped and picked some blackberries, so it wasn’t all that bad.
Tree washed down
We headed toward the next road crossing, where to the left it leads downhill to the base of the main dam for Blue Marsh Lake. Here, there was an old barn to the left, so we opted to head over to the awning on that and wait out some of the rain.
We passed through a little section of woods on the way, and in it were a lot of what appeared to be built up mountain biking jumps. They were rather obviously constructed with large equipment, which leads me to believe they are actually completing an official bmx track.
Reber's Bridge
We waited a good while under the barn awning, and eventually realized we couldn’t hang out there all day.
We headed out into the rain again turned left, and followed the road downhill toward the main dam.
There was a sign at the top saying that the trail was closed and that there was no access due to some kind of construction.
I decided we would take our chances and see if there was some kind of way we could get through to the trail. I didn’t want to do some kind of out and back thing here.
Historic early 1900s view of Reber's Covered Bridge
When we got to the bottom of the hill, there were cones and such keeping people from approaching the main dam. I don’t know exactly what they were doing, but we wenty by.
Reber's Bridge site today
We crossed over below the main dam, and then the trail was nice heading down the Tulpehocken, then switched back uphill to the right.
Old mill wheel site likely
The trail ascended to an area near the main dam, and there was a very nice swim spot to the right of the trail.
I had considered going in, but it was raining, and Jillane didn’t feel like going so I figured I wouldn’t.
Near a power line crossing, we went from behind another barrier saying that the trail was closed beyond, and we had an easy time moving forward from here. We continued over a spillway for the reservoir, and picked up an abandoned road route, which I think might have been part of Water Road.
At Blue Marsh Lake
After the spillway, the trail picked up another section of old paved road. The pavement was broken up but we could still make out where the lines had been.
The reservoir was authorized through the Flood Control Act of 1962. Construction began in 1974 and was completed in 1979, so most of the roads were abandoned prior to the ground breaking.
I thought to get in the water, but we were already pretty wet. I had the umbrella out, but was still rather soaked from it anyway.
We continued on the trail for a bit and eventually came to Old State Hill Road.
Blue Marsh Lake trails
The paved old road is part of the trail to the right, but to the left it leads up to Reber’s Bridge Road up on the hill, across from Ganly’s Irish Pub.
I had stopped in here when we did the first hike through Blue Marsh Lake, and really loved it. The food was good and the drink menu was impressive for a place sort of in the middle of nowhere.
Jillane and I hadn’t really dined in at a place since the start of the covid19 crap, so I figured this would have been a really nice time. The rain put a bit of a damper on the hike though.
Having some berries
We made our way up the hill and there was a good view toward the reservoir to the left. The rain was starting to let up just a bit at this point.
At the top of the hill is I think the fire department, and the best view was from the back lot at the place. I had set up my then and now photo compilation from this point the last time I was out.
We walked from there over to Ganly’s, and I went in to check and see if they were certainly having inside dining. They were, and so we had a nice spot against the wall.
There was a great drink menu as always, and so I tried one of the enticing Belgian styles which was really good. I had a great burger with some great seasoned fries.
At Blue Marsh Lake trails
The rain calmed down while we were inside, and it was barely even a drizzle when we finally left the place. I got a bottle of Fegley’s bourbon barrel aged Scottish Ale to go.
Bike jumps being built
From this point, my plan was to walk back down Rebers Bridge Road. I had had an idea of a few different routes we could have taken for this hike, but we ended up not doing the one lock, and then the rain came. So, at this point the plan was to return to the canal and start to head back. We could then head uphill by way of the Berks campus.
We walked the road to the east, and there were some more fantastic views out over the reservoir lands. Some of the houses along the hill top have epic views.
Blue Marsh Lake
By the time we reached the intersection with Paper Mill Road, there was a beautiful rainbow forming. It was among the prettiest I remember ever seeing in my life.
Old road route
I climbed up into the edge of a yard near the intersection of the road to get some pictures of the scene.
We then continued further down Rebers Bridge Road. There was a steep drop off to the left down to the Tulpehocken, and then a field owned by Army Corps of Engineers we might have been able to cross, but everything was muddy. An estate on the right side of the road had a handsome line of trees along it. There was a parking lot before we got to Rebers Bridge, and I went looking to see about trails.
Old road at Blue Marsh Lake
There were no other trails that went in there not included on the map save for a really crummy looking herd path, probably just used by fishermen for a short distance.
We headed from there across the open grate Reber’s Bridge I had seen before, and then got back to the Union Canal towpath.
We turned right on the towpath and crossed Rush’s Truss Bridge again, passed the mill side, and continued on the towpath back past Lock #47.
Spillway at Blue Marsh Lake
We passed by the Van Reed Bridge site again, and then went by Lock #48. Pretty soon, we were back at the Reeser Farmhouse and the museum, followed by Wertz’s Red Bridge.
From here, I wanted to continue under the bridge along the towpath to the east a bit more.
There was a great view of the farmstead as well as a couple of other buildings uphill to our left. The edge of the towpath was a manicured lawn area, and it seemed that the canal itself was somewhat bulldozed in through this area.
We went through another section of woods ahead, with nice bends in the Tulpehocken Creek.
The Union Canal follows this creek all the way from the Schuylkill River to almost the town of Lebanon, which made it a good route in the Summer since there are usually places to jump in for a dip.
In the next nice wooded section, we came across the old Lock #49. This one was far less recognizable because it was overgrown and not so easy to see.
Blue Marsh Lake view
This lock has barely any signage at all, but it was actually the site of a gruesome murder-suicide way back in 1875.
Louisa Bissinger, wife of Philip Bissinger, the most powerful man in Reading by some accounts and at some point owner of the Reading Brewing Company, took her own life and the lives of their children by throwing them into the lock. Her husband was a popular man, and rumors of his infidelity led her to this act.
View of Blue Marsh Lake
Mrs. Bissinger had been seen with her three children, Mollie, Lillie, and Philip, leaving Reading and walking along the towpath of the Union Canal, which was still in service at this time.
She was carrying a basket and gathering rocks in it as they walked.
Just above Gring’s Mill, they reached Lock 49, and Mrs. Bissinger threw herself and her three children, whom she had under each arm, into the lock. The mother, weighed down by the rocks she had been carrying, quickly sank.
View of Blue Marsh Lake
People nearby heard the cries of the children struggling in the lock, and crossed the Tulpehocken in a boat to get to them more quickly, but they had disappeared.
Blue Marsh Lake view
One eyewitness claimed the children were still floundering in the seven foot deep lock waters, but he could not swim, and so went for help instead.
The bodies of the mother and three children were removed from the lock, and an autopsy revealed that the mother was expecting a fourth child in a few months.
The funeral for the mother and children was attended by over five thousand in the Reading area, and news of the murder-suicide spread. It appeared in papers as far as the New York Tribune.
Lunch time.
Now, people go by the site every day, and there is no marker denoting the site of the incident. There are of course ghost stories surrounding the site, where people claim to see ghosts of children wearing home made clothing.
The section of trail is quite busy, and it’s a trip to think that hardly anyone knows about this.
We continued on from the lock site, and came to another open area beyond where there was a house on the hill, and a collection of historic buildings across the Tulpehocken.
YUM
This was the David Gring grist mill constructed in 1811, the homestead built in 1831, and barn built in 1896. They are now Berks County Parks and Recreation department offices.
View of Blue Marsh Lake
The Gring’s Mill Recreation Area is on the other side of the creek from here as well. The canal at this point is filled in, but the area is well manicured.
Yummy
There is still a dam on the Tulpehocken and a bridge across. Jillane was ready to cross back over to the other side, but I wanted to continue on just a bit more. I figured it would be easy to get to Penn State Berks, and there was a bridge over the Tulpehocken up there I had not yet crossed as well.
The distance was not really that much more, and I wanted to try to cover about fifteen miles exactly, so she agreed to do it.
Rainbow
We continued along the towpath through a very pleasant area, where there are steeper rocks on the left side of the towpath. It was getting darker fast, but still very easy to walk this section.
There were surprisingly still quite a few people on the trail as well at this point.
We continued to a foot bridge that spans the Tulpehocken at an angle just ahead, before the Stonecliff Recreation Area parking and more underpasses.
Rainbow over Rebers Bridge Road
At this point, the Union Canal remained to the left, and my understanding is the trail that remains on the north side of the Tulpehocken goes directly through Lock #50
Rainbow!
There is a rather deep cut there, and the trail emerges from it just beyond. I think the Union Canal shifted to the south side of the Tulpehocken just beyond here and must have used a slack water crossing, but I’m not sure. The maps are a bit unclear in this area, and I couldn’t find any with lock numbers beyond Lock 50.
We crossed over the bridge, still with a little bit of sunlight left, and then followed the south side of the Tulpehocken to a handsome old stone hows that I think is used by county rangers today.
Rainbow!
This is near the Nicholas Stoltzfuz farmstead, but I don’t think this stone house is the Stoltzfus house itself. I think that’s a little further down the trail.
Rainbow
We walked toward the house, and it was pretty dark at this point. There was a set of stairs going up to the right, but they were gated off. We had to go around the house to the left, and then climb stairs there to the access lane on the other side.
Lock 47
We headed uphill from here to Tulpehocken Road. This took us up to Kissinger Lane, which is a dead end directly across parallel with Berkshire Blvd.
Lock 48, Murder/Suicide site
We went past I think it was a church, then turned right across Berkshire into the Penn State Berks Campus. There was a parking area and then a paved trail that went into the campus. We walked along this, which was rather well lit.
The paved trail split off and there was another access road. Residential areas were ahead in this part.
We walked on through, and kept toward the left, to an area where there was a ball field.
At Penn State Berks
We came across a guy who was also walking through, and he started making some excuse or something. He asked if I was some other guy’s name, I forget what, and then if I worked there. I said we were just out for a stroll. The guy wasn’t supposed to be there, and probably neither were we, but we didn’t have a problem. There was no way of getting through on the paved trail I was intending to, because there was construction going on, and chain link fences around the entire area. We turned to the right through more campus building area, and then on the sidewalks. We cut to the left around a large building, and then on more pathways that led out ot the parking areas beyond the buildings.
We turned left on Broadcasting Road and passed beneath Rt 222 to get back to the car.
It was overall a pretty good day, although wet at times.
HAM
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