Hike #1448; Lambertville/Washington Crossing Loop

Hike #1448: 10/28/21 Lambertville/New Hope/Washington Crossing Loop with Shane Blische and Everen

This next one would be another week day thing with my son, Everen. This time, Shane would join me as well. I began setting a precedent for trying to do stroller hikes with the baby as soon as he was able.

This would be the 7th numbered hike with Ev, one of which was two days, and the tenth full day overall because I had attempted to do two other hikes with his mother, but she quit part way through.

While I love spending the solo time with my son, which I have plenty of anyway, I feel much more comfortable taking him out for longer hikes if there is someone else there, just in case of emergency. His mother disagrees with me on that one, but I assert that it is much safer.

When the last two times I'd attempted to hike with her and the baby fell through, and other days I'd taken with the idea we would do this never came to pass, I decided I had to do more of them on my own. I was nearing the end of my paternity leave granted through my work, which was a stressful thing itself. I'd had my identity stolen, and unemployment claims were twice made in my name fraudulently.

I spent hours on the phone trying to straighten all of this stuff out. I'd also gotten far less sleep because I was so often waking up through the night to feed the baby. 

My way of relaxing is rarely rest however. I needed to get out and walk. I couldn't party like I did before I was a father, but I used this opportunity to set up tons of then and now photo compilations which filled a much bigger void instead.

For this one, I repeated the last hike I had tried to do with Jillane, only with Shane, and backwards from the way we originally went for it. On that first one I was exhausted and drank some gin and coca cola and ended up passing out at Jillane's car, for which she was rightfully upset. 

But she called the police and had them check me over. I did pass a cognitive test there, but that wasn't really enough to correct it.

I had already hiked Morristown area and this with the baby solo, and I promised both Jillane and myself that I would not drink at all with the baby unless there was someone else present. With Shane I could, but I still didn't want to push anything because I'm so worried about the safety of my son.

I parked at the lot behind the Lambertville Station and Shane would walk over from his house in New Hope. While I waited for him to make his way over, I started getting then and now history compilations of the old Lambertville Station, which is quite beautiful.

When Shane arrived, we began hiking the old Bel Del Railroad bed, now the Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park route, to the south. Many call this the towpath, but it really wasn't at all. It was likely the towpath for maybe 15 years during the earliest years of the canal, but the Bel Del Railroad was built in the 1850s and took over that side. The towpath was then placed on the opposite side of the canal, and so that was the towpath for most of the service years. The trail is almost always the railroad bed.
The Belvidere Delaware Railroad began independent, and later became a branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad. It traveled from Trenton and was over time extended north from Phillipsburg to Belvidere and Manunka Chunk on the Lackawanna old main line.

I'd hiked this countless times over the years, but I never get tired of it, and now it was perfect to do with Ev in the jogger stroller, so I'd plan on doing it over and over.

As we made our way south through where the train yard used to be, and then where the canal came in closer, on the right was the outlet lock to the Delaware River. There are wing dams in the river down below Lambertville and New Hope that provided for enough slack water that boats could be ferried over the Delaware, then lock into a connecting canal to the Delaware Canal on the other side. The lock walls are still in good shape on both sides of the river.

As we continued south of town and below the wing dams, we checked out where the next railroad spur used to cut off to the left over to the first quarr south of town, long abandoned. I had historic shots of this, but to emulate them would have required me to climb up onto the structure and I honestly just didn't feel like doing it. I just wanted to walk and relax at this point.

We continued below here and could see the old mill facilities on the other side of the river. About a mile beyond Lambertville is Fireman's Eddy, where there is a bridge across the canal, a former grade crossing, and an access to the Delaware River for boaters. I had another then and now compilation to set up here, and then we continued to the south further. We were across from the Golden Nugget flea market and continued without much shade for a while to the south.

1970s, Bob Wittmaier

The next point of interest was going by the Mercer County Correctional Center across from us on the opposite side of Rt 29. 

Shane said something about how the train used to serve the site where prisoners would work in the fields, which are apparently now Fireman's Eddy Meadows, a preserve.

There was one abandoned quarry building along the road and across the canal still standing.

We continued along the rail bed to the south a bit more, and then came to an abandoned quarry spur bridge. It has sunk quite a bit over the years and looks to be in pretty bad condition. Shane explained that this bridge was installed as a sort of swinging structure when the canal was still being used actively, but later was fixed in place.

We continued south from here a little further, and then there was another old quarry spur bridge, at a higher elevation. This one had only one of apparently two or maybe three spans still there.

Shane explained that this was actually a rather forgotten station stop. Where the rail bridge went across the canal, just a little past there also used to be a road bridge, and at that point there was a station.
The station was a rather short lived one, associated with the trap rock quarry industry like the previous spurs. 
I don't know when the Moore Station closed down, but I understand the quarry outlived its associated station stop by many years.

We continued along the rail bed and canal downstream, and eventually came to where River Road broke off to the right down into Titusville.

The tracks to the south of Lambertville were in a little later than some of the other ones. The Black River and Western Railroad still had tracks passable down from Flemington to Lambertville until the very early 2000s, but the used to go even further.

From 1976 through 1980, they operated excursions to Fireman's Eddy to access the Golden Nugget Flea Market. Those tracks, however, were removed by 1981.

The next station stop, Titusville, was where Church Road crosses over the canal and across the railroad bed at grade.

This was an early station stop along the Bel Del. The original station was a rather grand structure built in 1853. That building was dismantled during World War I when there was a lumber shortage, and the wood could be used elsewhere along the Pennsylvania Railroad system.

The wood from the station was apparently used elsewhere on the system, and the station was replaced by a small shelter building, like those bus stops we see alongside the road in many places.

Passenger service continued to the site until 1960, and regular through freight rail service until 1979.

We turned right on Church Road rather than stay on the railroad bed at this point.

I had some historic photos in Titusville itself, most notably an old one of the former post office taken in 1912 by A. L. Opdyke of Trenton. I had figured out which building it was and still needed to get the shot.

I got the photo I wanted, and we continued further into town where there was a nice classic car passing through.

In a short distance, we returned to the railroad bed a short distance away on Trimmer Ave I think, and continued a bit more to the south.

We crossed the grade crossing at Grant Ave, and then reached the parking area and restroom at Washington's Crossing State Park.
I had worked at this site for several months after some issues at work, so I knew the area pretty well at this point.

We took a little break, and I pushed Ev down a walkway to the parking lot. 

Quite a few people were parked for a weekday, and lots walking around. Shane took a little break and I walked Ev to the restroom to change his diaper.

One of the things about fatherhood is that I can appreciate all of these restroom facilities that make life so much easier. The baby changing stations on the walls all of a sudden were a great thing. Even the larger stalls in case I need to use a restroom, I can just pull him in with the stroller and not have to worry about having no room because there's always a handicapped stall that will fit it.

I headed back out from here, and we went by the remainder ot he Nelson House on the right of the railroad bed. Only a kitchen section still stands of what had been a huge mansion house. Apparently a derailment on the railroad damaged the building and the state had to tear down all but the smaller section of it. We continued past here across the road near the bridge to the former site of the Washington Crossing Station.

The station was established here in 1850, but in a larger configuration, just like in Titusville. A derailment damaged the structure, just like the Nelson House, which led to this smaller renovation in 1929.

Like with the Titusville Station, passenger service ended to Washington's Crossing in 1960 and freight service in 1979.

The station site is now just the top of a stone wall on the south side of the crossing next to the bridge. I set up several then and now compilations at this site as well. I had gotten most of them on past visits that included the original station, and I had to get ones that included the smaller one.
After this, we headed over to the bridge to cross to the Pennsylvania side. The Delaware River was flowing very high at this time, almost flood stage, so there would be no swimming going on this time for sure.
The Washington Crossing Bridge is an interesting narrow one, and built more to the specifications of a railroad bridge than a regular road bridge. 

The third bridge on this site, it opened in 1904 to replace the 1841 covered bridge that washed away in the Pumpkin Flood of October 1903. The first bridge was completed in 1834, and also destroyed by flood.
The bridge is built in the area where are General George Washington and his army crossed the Delaware on Christmas Day 1776. The army actually crossed at various locations up and down the Delaware River from this point, but this was the main area.
We got to the Pennsylvania side, where the settlement has several nice structures.

The first one on the right was the McConkey's Ferry Inn, and before being known as Washington's Crossing PA, it was Taylorsville.

The site was originally Baker's Ferry, and the oldest section of the building is the basement kitchen built in 1752. This section was rebuilt using the original kitchen in 1790. Further additions were made in the early 1800s.

The Bakers sold the inn to the McConkeys, who owned it in 1776, and so it became McConkey's Ferry.

Today the structure is a centerpiece of the Washington Crossing Historic Park, which is the park name on the Pennsylvania side. The NJ side is state park.

It was discussed years ago that the two parks be combined as a national historic site, but it never came to pass. We continued up the road to the west until we got to the crossing of the Delaware Canal where we had another little break next to some nice giant trees. We then got on the Delaware Canal towpath and started heading north.

We passed beneath Collingswood Ave in a long section where we were inland and along fields and such, and then passed beneath River Road and started to follow the Delaware River upstream.

The time flew by pretty quickly and the scenery was just awesome. The Fall foliage was perfect along the canal, and the air was clear.

There are barely any crossings heading to the north in this great section, with constant views of the Delaware River. We only started going inland when we were parallel with the Washington Crossing Historic Park section below Bowmans Hill. There, we crossed the Pidcock Creek spillway.

We were actually really lucky that it wasn't overflowing the spillway. I found out on a later occasion that this happens to the point that I would not have been able to get the stroller across. That would have meant using an Uber or having to go all the way back nearly doubling the distance of my hike. This time was easy. We continued to the north across the access to the park, and then the next access point wasn't until we got to the old paper mill site where there are now condos on the south side of Lambertville.

I learned some stuff in this section I hadn't known previously, including the fact that there were not just the four numbered locks on the Delaware Canal through Lambertville, but a fifth unnumbered lock known as the Paper Mill Lock.

This lock was built a little later than the others up in New Hope, and only had a lift of about 3 ft. It was added to provide a little extra slack water necessary for the paper mills on the south side of town. 

We continued past that lock, and then past the condos to reach the spot where the side canal went to the Delaware River for its connection with the Delaware and Raritan Canal on the other side. The new inn building had just been built at the site where there was a historic stone house moved further up and out of the way of flood waters. We turned and followed the canal upstream, next past lock 8. Lock 9 was also in good shape and recognizable, and Lock 10 is buried under Rt 32 where it crosses over the canal. We continued from here I think on the street through New Hope and out to the bridge. 

We had finished the hike overall pretty fast, and Ev seemed very happy through so much of it. As time has gone by, I'm watching him grow into a reacting little human, and he smiled a lot this day. It's great when I can see that he's entertained or contented by the places I'm bringing him. I knew I needed to keep getting him out as much as I could before it got to be too cold.