Hike #1477; 4/10/22 York to Columbia with Eric Pace, Thomas McNamee, Maria ?, Justin Gurbisz, Brittany Weider, Jim "Mr. Buckett" Mathews, Professor John DiFiore, "Major Tom" Conroy, Jenny Tull, Diane Reider, Jim Kohan, Gregory Andres, and Jennifer Berndt
This next one would be the third hike in both the fourth in both the Mason-Dixon Trail and Highlands Trail series starting from the west. We’d started earlier in the year and done the sections east from Whiskey Springs, and this one was partially a repeat of what I’d done before, but there was also a repeat I had not done.
Either way, Mason-Dixon Trail is one of my all time favorite trails, so I am not in the least bit concerned about repeating some of this. Enough was new though that I was quite happy with it.
A lot of what I’d figured out was a variation of what I’d done backpacking with Jillane several years ago. I had come up with a route to connect York PA and the Northern Central Railroad with the Mason-Dixon Trail, which would come out quite well. I tweaked that route a bit, and came up with what I thought was a winner.
The meeting point would be along the Susquehanna River front in Columbia PA. There is good parking with views of the bridges there. It would put us on the trajectory for the split in this series. The Highlands Trail designated route crosses over the Susquehanna to Columbia while the Mason-Dixon Trail continues south. I would spend time on seasonally appropriate hikes from here for each in the series, taking swimming into consideration.
We shuttled with as few vehicles as possible to the start point, which would be the York Galleria Mall. I had considered going into the mall, because it would be cool to hike through, but then I reconsidered and figured we would add this on to a future hike out in the area. This time we had to stay on our trajectory.
We
headed east from the mall, across Mt Zion Road into Springettsbury Park. We
headed directly east across the park, up some stairs, and some of the group ran
and played on the playground there.
We headed across Williams Road on the other side, and there was Wellspan
Education Center. We headed to the left along this property and up behind it on
top of a grassy slope. Behind the first building, a path was mowed between
trees and around some Spring blossoms out beyond the YTI Career Institute.
It was a nice route atop the hill, probably where we weren’t supposed to be, but clearly no one cares and it wasn’t harming anyone. We descended to a sort of service road at the end of one of the buildings, and then turned to the left to skirt the edge of a retention pond heading somewhat to the north.
We
came to the corner of Pleasant Valley Town Homes, and to the right of the end
of the parking lot was a foot bridge that took us over a small tributary to a
path on the other side in what is known as Springetts Oaks Park. We turned to
the right there and passed a little pond, then continued to the east behind
town houses.
When the delineated trail turned to loop back, we all went straight out to the
next tree line, and then turned to the left past a ball court, and to Pleasant
Valley Road, which is closed off to the right. We went straight ahead on
Springetts Drive, up a rather steep hill. After a corner, we turned right on
Shulton Drive. We continued further up hill, and then reached Ridgewood Road.
We let everyone regroup there. There was a yard that had some sort of fountain pump thing that we were mesmerized with for some reason before moving on.
It wasn’t a very far walk to the east on Ridgewood Road, and we came to the Rocky Ridge Park trail head to the left.
This obscure little entrance was the one I used while walking through with
Jillane, but we didn’t follow any of the other good stuff we had just done when
we went before.
We headed gradually up hill along a pretty little stream, and across some pleasant little board walk bits heading up. We eventually came to the southern trail intersection. I’m not sure the names of any of these trails because they’re just numbered on the trail maps instead of named. I think we kept to the right when we got to this intersection, and some of it had been rerouted since the last time I was there. There were some closed off trails, and the main ones sometimes had switchbacks that brought us around badly washed out spots.
I remember hiking through with Jillane and skirted what almost seemed to be old farms and coming closer to backs of homes. These segments of trail were all very clear and easy to follow.
As we headed up, we made a left at some point. My plan had been to head west
just slightly, and then to the north side of the park to do some of the trails
I had never done there before, but I got somehow disoriented with which way we
were supposed to be going. I thought we were going west, but then we ended up
heading east. There was a good trail near the top that seemed to carry us along
forever, and then we ended up reaching the power line clearing on the south side
of Rocky Ridge. I recall a couple of trails there, and one of them isn’t shown
quite right on the map.
No matter, we headed across the power line and paused for a break at the overlook platform where we could see out toward York.
This was a nice little break, and the trail took us east from here easily. We skirted the edge of the ridge for quite a while, with seasonal views always there to the south of us. We were on a brief section of crushed stone path, but the rest of it was just foot path.
Near
the east end of the park, we started to cut to the north, and I held everyone
up when we got to the trail designated 2A, which descends from Rocky Ridge and
exits the park.
This
was a rougher trail, not well marked, and much narrower than anything else in
the park. It leads to a spot with no parking and must basically be used by
locals.
It brought us out to Fahringer Road, where we turned to the left. It was only a
short distance on this road to reach Druck Valley Road where we turned to the
right.
This was the worst part of the entire hike. It was only 1.8 miles to the designated Mason-Dixon Trail route, and the first bit of Druck Valley was pretty, but I found myself just anxious to get to the trail and continue on.
The road went down for a bit, then back up again, and at an intersection changed names to Tower Road. We continued on this to Furnace Road, where straight across was River Drive. The Mason-Dixon Trail joins Furnace Road here from River Drive.
This
was also where the reroute into the Hellam Hills Nature Preserve was supposed
to start. There are also other future relocations being discussed through the
area, but I’m not sure when they will take place.
The trail used to just stay on River Drive, but now passes through all of this other land. We headed straight on River Drive, and then found the trail head on the right.
The trail was an easy route at first, just a foot path through the woods, and we meandered past what used to be some sort of old mine or quarry to our left. The trail then came out to a utility clearing, followed an old access road for a bit, and descended to Wildcat Run. The pretty section took us along the stream and past an old concrete dam remnant.
The
trail turned from the road and started following along Dugan Run. As we
continued parallel with Dugan Run in the Hellam Hills Conservation Area, the
gap created by the stream became deeper, and we were walking on a more
pronounced shelf. This got to be very beautiful as views toward the Susquehanna
River began to open up.
The trail began to descend a bit, and Dugan Run wound back and forth further down in the gully. A group of people were sitting down there enjoying the weather as we continued down.
The path came near to a home, and then to the right from Dugan Run, then emerged on River Drive near a tree that was stained with the mold of spotted lanternflies. We regrouped here.
Just to the left of where we came out, where Dugan Run joins the Susquehanna, is the Unknown Soldier Grave.
A
tomb stone, erected in 1988, was placed on an earlier marker site of an unknown
Confederate soldier who was found washed up on the shore of the Susquehanna
near here in June of 1863.
There are several theories as to how this rebel soldier, the farthest such
interment east from the Gettysburg Campaign, ended up along the river.
One theory is that he was a deserter who drowned trying to escape across the
Susquehanna.
Another theory is that he was on order from General Early or Gordon to test the depth of the Susquehanna for a safe crossing site, as Early was ordered to cross the Susquehanna to destroy the Pennsylvania Railroad. He may have been a scout of other sorts, who died at the hands of locals.
Yet another possibility was that he was involved in the Confederate bridge destruction in York Haven. No casualties were reported, but there were some reported “missing”.
Whatever the case, the lonely grave sits right on the shore of the Susquehanna, and the previous marker and at least some of the bones are thought to have been washed out in the 1972 flood from Hurricane Agnes.
I don’t think anyone else in the group noticed it. I was the only one to capture a photo of it, and I foolishly didn’t look into it further until this writing. There are so many interesting things we find.
We
turned right and started following the trail route along River Drive to the
southeast.
The road walk was just awesome. Views of the Susquehanna River were constant. I
watched the other side of the river quite a lot, because the Highlands Trail
designated route follows the North Lancaster River Trail, which is often right
along the river and follows on or in the old Pennsylvania Canal.
I also appreciated all of the buildings we came across. Many were modern homes, but some of them had very interesting stone foundations, like they were modern buildings erected on century old foundations of other buildings that probably got washed away or destroyed otherwise.
As we reached the settlement of Accomac, where Accomac Road comes in on the right, there was another house that appeared to have been built atop a very old stone mill foundation. Some of the foundation didn’t match up with the modern building, which gave it away as having been historic.
A short distance ahead, we came to the old Accomac Inn, built in 1771 at Anderson's Ferry, now known as. The ferry had previously been established in 1742. The ferry later became Keesey's Ferry, then Coyle's Ferry.
The old Inn was a popular restaurant until about 2019 and has been shuttered. Hopefully, post-pandemic it will become an open establishment again. It’s still quite an impressive looking place.
In keeping with the oddball grave stories,
there is reportedly an odd grave along the back of the Inn of John Coyle Jr,
son of the later ferry operator.
In 1881, J. C. Jr proposed to servant Emily Myers, who refused after previous repeated attempts. Coyle shot and killed Myers, then turned the gun on himself. However, he survived the suicide attempt, and faced trial for murder. An insanity plea was given, he was retried, found guilty, and then hanged in Gettysburg. He was then buried on the family property when the town of Marietta, where he grew up, refused to allow him to be buried there.
The ferry landing had once been almost across
from the old inn, from what I can tell from the historic photos of it. Quite an
amazing little spot.
We continue walking downstream from here, and
River Drive became much narrower. It was in some ways narrower than many of the
rail trails and such we hike.
There were many old home sites to the right on the slope that still had stairs
and foundations, but the buildings were long gone. We chatted with one guy who
had a particularly beautiful and well landscaped piece of property along the
way. I was kind of expecting that we might have some sort o trouble with people
who didn’t know there was a trail marked along the route, but this guy was
great.
After a little bit longer, the road became abandoned for a short bit. This used to be a through road, but has been closed since before the previous time I walked this. It was a very nice section of old road beside some rock outcroppings. We did our group photo in this stretch.
We
soon emerged onto River Drive on the other side, past a private home next to
some more cliff face. The road on the other side was super narrow again and
great for walking.
The rock outcrops were nice on our side of the river, but the other side we had
a great view of Chickies Rock, which we would also explore to some degree when
we hike the other side.
There
were more homes up ahead, and the road remained very narrow. A few side roads
intersected from the left, and we continued straight out toward Wrightsville.
There was an old lady and a slightly younger one boarding a car that apparently yelled at someone in the group, then got in their car and followed us.
They accosted members of the group saying we were on private property, to which everyone asserted it was a public trail. She continued to holler about it, and said she’s going to talk to the home owners association president about it.
I reported it immediately to the Mason Dixon Trail page, and the responded rather quickly. I’m hoping that my reporting it probably faster than the angry lady might help them to do damage control and not cause a problem for the trail going through there.
The trail emerged to North Front Street, where we’d no longer have any problem with crazy locals so much, and continued south to pass beneath the Wright’s Ferry Bridge.
Just ahead of this, we could see the old Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge coming into view. We soon entered the community of Wrightsville itself. The early ferry town founded by John Wright was said to have been in consideration for the nation’s capital by George Washington at one time.
Soon, we approached the old kilns and furnace site to the right.
The kilns were first established by the Kerr
family in 1848 and became well known for producing high quality lime. This was
also the home of the Aurora iron furnace. I don’t know much about the
furnace and couldn’t find much mention of it when looking it up.
The kilns went out of service in 1909. They were
purchased by the town for preservation in 2000.
Just ahead on the right was the historic
Wrightsville House, or John Wright House.
The building served as a ferry House, tavern, and
lodging for westward travelers across the Susquehanna River. Today it is a
private residence.
To the left was a restaurant that was
unfortunately just closed as we went by, that occupied old foundry buildings
that would have been a wonderful dinner spot. Also along that side of the road
were old giant metal slag pots on display. Rails used to go right to this spot
from the earlier bridges over the river, and went right up along the furnace
and kilns.
The bridge was just ahead of us, but the area has an interesting previous
history of bridges.
The first bridge to cross here was a covered bridge completed in 1817, just downstream from the current bridge. The 5,690 ft bridge amazingly had 54 piers. This was destroyed by high water and ice in 1832.
The second bridge was completed in 1834 just upstream from the current one, and utilized only 27 piers. It was fitted with 2 towpaths for mule traffic towing canal boats. The Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal terminated in Wrightsville, and boats could be towed across the river by way of the bridge, and then lock in to the Pennsylvania Canal on the other side to continue.
After 1856, it also
became a railroad bridge. Because of the fear of fire, trains were towed across
the bridge by horses rather than locomotive.
The second bridge was
burned by Union forces during the Civil War to thwart Confederate advances, and
the bridge company was never reimbursed for damages. All interests in the
bridge were sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1864.
The third bridge was also a covered structure, built by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1868. It carried the railroad, carriageway, and walkways. This bridge was destroyed in 1896 as a result of the Cedar Keys Hurricane.
The 4th bridge to cross the river at this site, also on the same piers, was completed in 1897. It was of steel construction, and also carried railroad, carriages, walkways, and eventually automobiles.
It was also planned to have a second level that was
never completed. The Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal was taken over by the
Reading Railroad in the 1870s, and abandoned in 1894, so towpath use was no
longer needed.
The opening of the
Lincoln Highway in 1925 caused major traffic issues, and so the current bridge
(Veterans Memorial Bridge after 1980), was opened in 1930. It too has great
pedestrian walkways.
The steel bridge
carried passenger trains until 1954, and freight until 1958. The bridge was
dismantled in 1963 and 64.
The current bridge carried US Rt 30 until the opening of the Wright's Ferry Bridge just upstream in 1972.
We went under the bridge, and then turned to the right a bit to head uphill and reach the former Lincoln Highway. There is also a very nice American Legion building right near the bridge.
We continued onto the
bridge right after I got one more then and now compilation, and headed across.
We could see ruins of Lock 1 on the old canal just below to the right, and at
times the piers of the preceding bridge just upstream.
The bridge seemed to
go on over the river forever, but provided some really nice views. Downstream,
we could see the wind mill atop Turkey Hill, home to the famous dairy.
This establishment was founded in 1869 to bring the farmers of Lancaster County to larger population, markets, and transportation.
Some of the group didn’t want to go there, so they wandered some other place that was kind of nearby, but we found it kind of good as I recall.
It was a bit farther walking to it, but not all that bad. We then had to wander on back the way we’d come to get back to where we were parked along the river.
It had been another really great day, and not too difficult at all. At this point we had three series to look forward to; the Mason-Dixon Trail, the Highlands Trail, and also heading south along the eastern bank of the Susquehanna as a third series to eventually follow the Enola Low Grade Line. We’ll also do one tracing the original Columbia and Wrightsville Railroad to Philadelphia. A lot of great stuff to look forward to!
