Hike #1486; Columbia to Falmouth

Hike #1486; 5/22/22 Columbia to Falmouth with Daniel Trump, Diane Reider, Robin Deitz, David Adams, James Kohan, Professor John DiFiore, and Kirk Rohn

This next one would be a great point to point trip, the next in the “Highlands Trail” series.

The Highlands Trail was a favorite trail that had been close to me since the earliest days of my trail relations. The original plan was for it to extend from the Hudson River to the Delaware River along the spine of the Geological Province known as the Highlands.

A lot of attention had come to the area in the 1990s when the Water Protection Act of the same name was a controversial issue.

I first discovered the teal diamond blazes in Stephens State Park walking the trails, and it wasn’t on the map. I asked at the office about it, and they gave me a paper guide book to the route, which at the time was about 130 miles long. Inside was an insert with the phone number of Bob Moss, trail supervisor for New York/New Jersey Trail Conference.

I was already leading the hikes by that time, and wanted to try to do a series on the Highlands Trail, but I didn’t know quite where to go. Some sections in the guide called it “proposed”. I decided to give Bob Moss a call.

To my surprise, Bob offered to join me on the hike I planned, and take me through where it wasn’t built yet. It would serve as a bit of a scouting hike, and would be the start of my volunteer trail work. That work eventually led to my employment with parks.

The Highlands Trail was sort of officially finished to the Delaware River in 2009, and my friend Jen Heisey was working for Appalachian Mountain Club in Pennsylvania charged with the task of continuing the trail west to the Susquehanna River and beyond. I organized several scouting hikes for the first sections, which she attended. It was a pretty exciting thing.

We had a lot of opportunities to extend the trail through, but then I was booted out of AMC leadership in 2009, and they took on the project without me. No blazing took place for a number of years, where NJ basically designated a route and had volunteers out there getting it done in short order.

Eventually bits of it came together, and there is now an officially designated route across Pennsylvania piggybacked on other trails.

Since I am doing all of the major trails that connect inside of the 911 National Memorial Trail, it only makes sense to reboot the Highlands Trail series as well. The first bit from the Appalachian Trail was piggybacked on the Mason-Dixon Trail, and I’d done the first four in that series. Mason-Dixon Trail continues south from Wrightsville, but the Highlands Trail route goes across into Columbia where we’d left off previously.

The route it uses from Columbia is the North Lancaster River Greenway along the Susquehanna River.

This trail really excited me to do. It was fully multi-use, and stretched from Columbia to the Falmouth Boat Launch just below Three Mile Island. Right along the river, I figured this would be perfect for all of the swimming opportunities, so that would be a good one to do on the hot days coming up.

I was also excited for this because almost the entire thing is on or along the old Pennsylvania Canal, part of the Main Line of Public Works system of canals and rails from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh completed in 1834. We had already hiked all of this route from the mouth of the Juniata River west to Johnstown, and so I might as well do that as a series as well. 

With that, I’d just have to hike another way from Johnstown to Pittsburgh, do the section I was missing from Clark’s Ferry to Harrisburg, the Columbia and Wrightsville Railroad to Philadelphia, and this particular section.

Things were perfect for this hike. Not only did it hit so many points I wanted to hit, Dan Trump was with us to give us the lowdown on everything. This was his neck of the woods. He grew up in the area, he knew the area, and he loved the area. There were things he could rattle off the top of his head the same way I can the lines from where I live.

This hike would turn out to be something I quickly realized I would have to do again. There is literally so much to see and do, so much to go over, variations of the route, that it would not fit into the context of just this hike.
After meeting at the Falmouth boat launch, where I tried to determine where exactly the Pennsylvania Canal went, we shuttled to the starting point, which was a parking area down along the Susquehanna below the Columbia-Wrightsville bridge.
Dan and I were discussing all of the future stuff we could do around Columbia, and it really is quite exciting.

The spot we parked was about where the Pennsylvania Canal terminated. Dan pointed out where the Columbia and Wrightsville Railroad came down to town, and switched over to the canal.
We parallel parked on the side road adjacent to the former Pennsylvania Railroad tracks to begin walking, and Dan pointed out the old 1859 Columbia water company building, and then the old Pennsylvania Railroad station, a handsome square structure, probably from the early days, now serving as a restaurant. I wish I’d known about this the last time to Columbia, because we ate at the Union Station Grill which was never a railroad station at all, and meant going way farther.

There were good views of the bridge from the little river center there to our left.

 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, so that boats on the Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal on the west side of the Susquehanna could continue over to the Pennsylvania Canal.

 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 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. Ittoo has a 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 turned right and crossed the tracks, then left at the station. There were murals here with depictions of a steam locomotive, a canal boat, the downtown, and the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge. 

We continued north, and there was soon a dedicated trail below and to the left of Rt 441. 

I did some more research into the area where the more recent of the two covered bridges had crossed the river, and found that it was the exact terminus of the canal, and that the railroad came up along the river to join it here.
Locks 1 and 2 on the Eastern Division were consecutive, right next to one another, which raised boats to just higher than the river level right off the bat. There was a basin, which is basically a parking lot for boat, right where some of the railroad yard is today.

1875 Frederick Gutekunst collection

On the course of this hike, we would pass by the remnants of locks 1 through 6.

I had hoped that it would be on the other side of the tracks from the start so I could get some then and now compilation photos at the old bridge site, but that would require going into the rail yard. I may never get those ones.
For this trip, I brought with me some Gravity Road Imperial Stout by Forgotten Boardwalk Brewing Company. It told a bit of the story of the Switchback Gravity railroad in present day Jim Thorpe on it, which was pretty cool.

The trail took us away from the highway and beneath the Wright’s Ferry Bridge. Off to the left in the present day rail yard would have been the location of the Pennsylvania Canal, now covered over by more track.

We went under the bridge, and the rail yard was still going on. This is apparently a very major yard area.

The next point of interest was something really cool and unexpected; we came upon an amazing old furnace stack on the right side of the paved trail. This was a tall structure with openings on the sides, triangular in peak. It was an iron ore roaster built in 1863 to serve the St. Charles Furnace, which was built adjacent to it in 1852 by Clemente Brooke Grubb.

1875 Frederick Gutekunst

This was a familiar name, and it turns out C. B. Grubb was four generations from the great Peter Grubb, who had founded Cornwall PA after discovering the Cornwall Ore Banks in 1737. That ore bank is still the largest in domestic United States east of Lake Superior.

1907

Clement Brooke Grubb entered the iron industry with his brother Edward in 1832, and found great success, moving about and building businesses. 

1909

He named the St. Charles Furnace for King Charles I of England. He went into business with his son, Charles, and formed C. B. Grubb and Son, then purchased the Henry Clay Furnace and renamed it St Charles #2 furnace. 

When C. B. Grubb died, he was said to be the richest man in Lancaster County.

The St Charles Furnace was remodeled in 1889-80, but only lasted six more years before it went out of blast. The furnace was dismantled in 1897. The mines remained in use only until the 1880s when the more accessible Masabi iron ores were discovered in Minnesota.

The trail came closer to the active railroads again; it seems that the trail probably follows a spur of the former Pennsylvania Railroad from this point, which would have served the furnace at some point and then served as a sort of bypass later.

Some of the woods to the right through this area had more foundations and remnants, which we probably could have spent days exploring.

The next point of interest was the Point Rock Tunnel, formerly a double track rail tunnel built in 1851. It remained in service until 1906 when it was bypassed. This would have been shortly after the Eastern Division Pennsylvania Canal went out of service, which would have been about 1900, and the former canal bed was filled and another track laid on it.

The canal through this section went right around the Point Rock, and was completed in 1833. The Eastern Division would have been done earlier, because it was originally intended to connect from the Union Canal in Middletown up to Clark’s Ferry only, but a later decision had it that the canal would be extended almost twenty more miles to the south to connect with the Columbia and Wrightsville Railroad at Wright’s Ferry. 

Probably 1907

The eastern division had only 14 locks, amazingly, to bring boats up to the mouth of the Juniata River.

The travel time prior to the creation of the Main Line of Public Works between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh was 23 days. The new system cut that down to only four.

The Main Line of Public Works was to a great degree acquired by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1857, and within a year the company developed an all-rail route from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh and was soon able to cut travel time between those cities nearly in half.

Everyone paused inside the tunnel for a bit, while I ran around getting then and now photo compilations at the tunnel site. 

Gregory Pawelski has the best collection of photos from the entire site, and so I was able to set up many of these with thanks to him for pulling them together to one site.

L M Williams pre 1900

I had more photos I wanted to get on the west portal of the tunnel, but there were too many trees in place to really emulate the remainder of the ones I wanted to get.

Late 1800s John D. Denney Jr collection

1860-1880 William L Gill

We continued along the trail, which seemed to stay along the railroad bed, and at times we could see remnants of the Pennsylvania Canal to the left of us.

To the right, we reached a spot that might have once been part of an iron mine. There was a spring with freezing cold water, as well as freezing cold air coming right at us from the right. It was a really hot and humid day, and so standing next to this for a bit of time was definitely a welcome thing.

Just after the spring, we could see some of the Pennsylvania Canal was still holding some water just to the left of us.

Just a little bit more walking to the west led us to some ruins on the right side. This was some of the works associated with the Henry Clay Furnace, the aforementioned and later named St. Charles #2 furnace. 

One prominent wall belonged to the casting house, and right behind it was the liner for the old furnace stack.
This particular furnace was once a major producer of railroad rails, and was one of eight iron furnaces on the Susquehanna River between Columbia and Marietta PA.

The furnace was built in 1854 by Columbia merchant Peter Haldeman, and later sold to Grubb. Grubb operated the former Henry Clay Furnace until 1889.
The site used to have several more buildings adjacent to the railroad bed including tenements where workers would have lived.

The furnace was first served by the canal, and after 1854 by the Pennsylvania Railroad.

We continued on, crossed a small creek that went over lots of rocks, and then saw more ruins off to the right. There were both stone and concrete, leading us to believe that it must have had some sort of use after the furnace was abandoned as well.

We continued ahead from here, and interesting stuff just kept coming up. The spectacular Chickies Rock, a sheer cliff face to the right, was the next point of interest. Dan had mentioned to us a trail to the top, and pointed out where it was, but I chose not to go up that this time because we had so much ground to cover, and we had so much more to see. 

I’m glad I made the decision, but I really need to get back up there as well because the views look to be amazing. 

I ran around trying to set up more then and now posts using historic photos around the area of Chickies Rock. There was a young man and woman gearing up with ropes to climb the thing, which looked a little crazy. There were also some interesting looking salamanders standing on the side of the cliffs.
Ahead from here, the original Columbia Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad continued to the right away from the river more, while the 1906-7 alignment moved closer to the river.

Same as at the tunnel, the later Pennsylvania Railroad alignment was built over top of the canal shortly after abandonment. However, as we continued upstream, the canal emerged from beneath the tracks and was well recognizable to the left of us. It was even holding a bit of water.

This area was also home to a very large lake at one time, known as Kerbaugh Lake. It took over part of where the canal used to be, so it must have been built after 1900. The Pennsylvania Railroad cut rigth across the river basin in a straight line on fill, beside which the lake was. The Pennsylvania Railroad started filling in the former lake after a major flood in 1936.

The rock formation moved off to the right, and we soon reached the former location of the Haldeman Mansion, which was back off of the tracks to the right in what is now just weeds.

1905 Richards and Eckman Collection

The Haldemans came to the area when the patriarch, Henry Haldeman, purchased a saw mill, chopping mill, and hemp mill on the Chiques Creek in 1828.

 He set up businesses here for his two sons. The elder of the two, Samuel, designed a greek revival mansion house, which his father built for him in 1833, the same year the canal came through.

1939 US Geological Survey image, George W Stose

From our previous Mason Dixon Trail hike

Samuel Haldeman lived in the mansion until his death in 1880, and had gained worldwide notoriety as a naturalist and scientific linguist. 

Haldeman was highly influential as a professor at institutions and for his writings. Among those who have cited him as influences are none other than Charles Darwin in his "The Origin of Species", and Noah Webster, of the Webster's Dictionary fame. 

With the Pennsylvania Canal came industry.

1907

The first of the previously mentioned local iron furnaces was established adjacent to the mansion, and was known as the Chickies #1 furnace. 

It was served by the canal, and then later by both the Pennsylvania Railroad, and then the Reading Railroad that built the Marietta Branch to the site. 

1906

The Chickies #2 furnace was built further out across the canal in the Susquehanna flood plain, and was served by the Reading. The Pennsylvania Railroad eventually utilized some of the former Reading grade for its upgrades.

The iron industry continued in the area until the 1930s. Sadly, the mansion house did not do so well after Haldeman's death. It fell into disrepair, and was being used by hoboes, thieves, and tramps, and so it was demolished around 1911.

We continued along the trail ahead to the Chickies Creek crossing. The pedestrian bridge across the creek was a new structure on the original piers and abutments. Just to the right, upstream on the creek, was the former site of the Hiestand Mill Dam could be seen. 
Chickies or Chiques Creek is an abbreviation for the original native name, the Chiquesalunka Creek.

The site was home to the B. F. Hiestand & Sons saw mills from the mid 1800s through the 1940s. The original dam, which was probably stone and wood crib work, was replaced by the concrete one in 1902.
In recent years, this dam was considered top priority for removal in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Removal took place in 2015.

On the downstream side from the bridge, some of the stone remnants of the Chiques Creek Aqueduct on the Pennsylvania Canal could still be seen. Just before the aqueduct was also the location of the first lock on the canal above Columbia after the guard locks there. There was also a railroad station and a hotel on what would have been the right side of the bridge.

1900 Steve Bailey Collection

I didn't even think to go over and look for the lock remnants, because there probably would have been something there. I was overwhelmed with all of the stuff there was to take in through this area, and all of the stuff there was to see. Just downstream from the aqueduct site was the still active former Pennsylvania Railroad stone arch bridge over Chiques Creek (Pennsylvania Railroad probably used more stone after 1900 than other railroads because it did not have the access so directly to concrete that the Reading, Lehigh Valley, or Lackawanna had directly on its lines).

I got down the edge of the dam remnant by sliding a bit, went under the railroad bridge, and then lounged in the water in a nice deep spot. John soon joined me at this very nice and relaxing point while the others patiently waited for us above.

John and I felt well rejuvenated after this dip, and we climbed back up to the railroad bridge. It was quite a sight; the structure had been very seriously overhauled for pedestrian purposes and looked to be a completely new bridge on the old piers, raised a bit for flooding.

 We continued ahead a little bit, and there was a nice old stone house on the right. Dan said he remember when the thing was totally abandoned, and now it had been beautifully restored, with well-kept property.

Just up ahead from there, there was a BN Excavating business which appeared to be occupying one of the old furnace property sites, I think Dan said associated with Vesta Furnace, but based on Greg P's work, it looks like it was originally part of the Eagle Furnace, and that this was the one that was eventually renamed Chickies #2 furnace. It was built in 1854 by Stephen Eagle, and in 1869 it was purchased by the Grubb heirs who worked with the Haldemans.

Rivertowns PA image

The trail followed along lightly used Furnace Road for a bit, and then there was a paved trail off to the right of it out in the grass, a dedicated pedestrian route. 

Dan said not that long ago that this was not even built yet, and that the trail was still on the road at this point.

Steve Bailey Collection

We soon reached the Musselman-Vesta Iron Furnace Center, a sort of old office building that was part of the iron furnace complex established in 1868 by Henry Musselman and H. M. Watts. The nearby Pennsylvania Railroad station was known as Watts Station.

The furnace was first known as Musselman Furnace, then underwent an upgrade and in 1886, under Watts, Twells, and Company, it became Vesta Furnace.
In 1917, the furnace was bought by E. J. Lavino who used it to burn scrap and create ferromanganese, which was used in high quality steel production during World War I.
The furnace ceased operations in the 1920s and was dismantled soon after, with only certain remnants left.

There were a series of concrete piers that trains would move along and dump either coal or raw material to be picked up by buggies and brought to the furnace.

1920s Hagley Museum

I was quite impressed with what they had done around the furnace and industrial site. There were little signs all through the woods talking about what everything was, from the railroad piers to the bases for stacks, out to the former Pennsylvania Canal.

I walked back to the former canal edge where there was a shell of a concrete building on the edge, certainly from after canal day. There were some rip rap remnants, and we could kind of see where materials would have been loaded and unloaded to and from canal boats. The site was still used after the canal was gone for something, because there were concrete stanchion bases down into the canal in the area.
The canal was not clear westbound from here, but we got a reasonable look at it.

I climbed back up from the canal to the others, who mostly stayed above in the rest of the industrial site.

We headed back past the old furnace office building and onto the former Pennsylvania Railroad again. The Watts Station still stands there, built in 1871 in a Romanesque style.
The piers of the former railroad trestle to the site were still visible to the left of us, and some of them had some building remnants with a doorway between. To the right was Donegal Place, which were once company owned housing for furnace workers. In those days, it was known as Brick Row.

The homes were originally two rooms up and two rooms downstairs, but two were combined to one in the 1950s. Another adjacent building was originally mule and/or horse stables that also served the furnace.
This was another spot that Dan said was also much changed over the year. He said they didn’t look nearly this good before, and that now they were all very upscale.

Dave was also saying that he and his wife at one time were looking around the area for homes when they were looking to settle down, but decided against Marietta and surrounding areas. 

I forget what the final reason why was, but we were discussing flood insurance, as well as the Three Mile Island disaster.

From Donegal Place, a short bit of trail took us to East Front Street. The street was the original railroad grade through Marietta, and Dan wanted us to walk on that, but I was anxious to get over on the greenway to the south along the river.

There was just so much stuff to do. Dan seemed disappointed because there was so much stuff to see in town that was related to the railroad, but the problem is there is just too much. I remember trying to remember so much of the information I had taken in, I remember taking photographs of all of the different interpretive signs telling myself I would just read them all later, and then there was already Greg’s vast collection of stuff, which gave pertinent information that is unfavorably missing from so many of these signs along the trail.

I really just needed to get into the woods and come back to see more of this area another time. The town is just loaded with stuff from railroads to other industries, and even trolley history.

We passed by an old brick re-purposed building to the right, and then turned left on the Northwest Lancaster County River Trail, which went under the active former PRR tracks and out toward the Susquehanna. Directly on the other side of the tracks, the trail started to meander left and right a lot. 

The trail would not have occupied the former canal at this point. The canal was pretty much always between the pre and post 1906 right of way of the railroad as per the old USGS maps.

Dan stayed down on the street while the rest of us took to the meandering route along the river. We stayed on that until we got to the Marietta Boat Club, and then there was an access back into town. Just a short distance away was the River Trail Brewery, and so we stopped there for a lunch stop.
It wasn’t bad. I forget what I had to eat there, and I think I had some sort of IPA they had. 

There was nothing particularly strong at the place which is what I like. The guy serving us was really nice, but Dan mentioned that we should have gone to another bar with more character.

There are apparently a whole lot of places to try all around town. It was just another realization that we need to do more hiking in the area.

We spent a lot of time waiting for lunch because they were pretty short staffed, and then headed back the way we had come to the trail to the south. Dan and Dave stayed down on the original right of way to visit the original Marietta Station, which is another Romanesque brick station similar to Watts, only a bit bigger.
We got back together at a boat launch access to the west.

I took some extra time in this area to go down to the river and take a dip. I really needed to cool off a bit at this point. The others got super far ahead of me at this point, but then some were behind me.

I ended up walking by myself for quite a while. The trail went from closely following the former Pennsylvania Railroad to the right, which was probably built over parts of the Pennsylvania Canal due to the proximity to town, to farther away from it. I think I saw spot where former canal remnant might have appeared below the railroad fill.
There was a long island along the edge of the Susquehanna that I understand had amusements or something on it back in the day, known as Susquehanna Beach Island.

At this point, the trail was its own separate thing. Through the woods, and then out to a long section of fields.

The canal in this section was a long level between the Chickies Creek and a point to the north above Bainbridge.

We continued through the woods, and then onto the field edge, through a line of trees and over a foot bridge. I started catching up with some of the group that was ahead at this point. A very long section of wide open daylight was just ahead. The trail went literally through the middle of a field area with no shade to speak of.

We reached Vinigar Ferry Road next, which is the access to East Donegal Township Park where there was parking and a lot more people around.

The site is named for Christian Winikar, who established a ferry over the Susquehanna at this point prior to the American Revolution. Due to local dialects, it was pronounced “vinegar”. There had already been an established trading post at the site by early settler James LeTort, who took ownership of land along the river here in 1719. His cabin was somewhere near where we were walking.

Christian Winiker died in 1800 and left the ferry to his son David, but he too died in 1802. It is said the ferry was used by locals through the Civil War, but little information is available on it.

At the road, there was an enormous rock and a giant Silver Maple tree where Dave and Jim and I waited for the others to catch up. They were coming across the super wide field, so we could see them when they were off in the far distance approaching.

When they finally caught up, the trail took us under some shade parallel with the access road, then through a line of trees and along more field edge heading west. It was pretty nice when we finally got into the shade after this.

When we finally did start to descend a bit into the shade, it brought us down right next to the Susquehanna River, then out to the Shocks Mill Bridge, formerly of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Walter Schopp photo

The bridge was completed in January 1905 for the Atglen and Susquehanna Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad, which was the freight line intended to bypass downtown Lancaster where the original route went.

 The 2209 foot bridge originally encompassed 28 stone arches. It is often referred to as the Enola Low Grade Line informally, and so the section farther to the east is now the Enola Low Grade Trail, which I have hiked to some extent in the past, and I intend to hike as part of another connecting series to this one in the near future.

In 1972, flooding from Hurricane Agnes destroyed 9 of the arches, which were replaced by 9 deck girder spans on concrete piers.

The bridge is still actively used by Norfolk Southern today, although South of Columbia, much of the branch is abandoned, and ran concurrently with the still active line until the aforementioned trail section.

We went down to the river’s edge, where John and I took the opportunity to go or a dip in the Susquehanna. It was a very refreshing little stop at a beautiful spot.
The location is known as Shocks Mill for a settlement just to the east along the fields we had just been in. There was also a Shocks Station on the Pennsylvania Railroad.

The bridge looked amazing, and we admired it as we continued along the trail and walked beneath it. Dan wanted to climb up to the top, but there was really no good easy way up, and we had a long way to go. We had taken a lot of extra time at lunch, and more time to goof off along the way, so we did need to move along.

There was a spot just to the west of the bridge site that according to maps was known as Billmeyer. We passed by some foundations along the way made of concrete, and what might have been a spillway or something on the canal to the left. The trail seemed to take on the former canal route from this point onward. We saw a black snake pass over the trail here.
The Billmeyer area was first quarried by John Haldeman, the same family as the aforementioned Haldemans, in 1847. Lime was quarried for fertilizer, white washing, and plaster. The business started with just four lime kilns, but grew in necessity when the need for dolomite, which was mined from the quarry, grew with the steel industry. Dolomite was used to extract impurities from steel during smelting. The business grew through World War I.

Billmeyer had been established as a company town for workers when John E. Baker assumed control of the quarry in 1894. The village had a general store, a church, and a school on the river side of the tracks along the canal route. Pretty much nothing exists of Billmeyer today, except a pavilion sits off the trail a bit to the left.

We continued ahead, and the next point of interest was the White Cliffs of Conoy. The moonscape feature along the left side of the trail is from excess lime and dolomite that was piled up along where the canal used to be for many years. 

It grows no vegetation, and has the odd white surface. From the top of the hills, wonderful views of the Susquehanna River and lands across are seen, toward Ely Island and the Codorus Creek confluence. 

I was surprised the area was not closed off near the edge, because it is a rather steep drop off, and one would think the white formations are brittle at these cliffs. A few other people were there wandering around as well.

We continued ahead, and there were ruins of old buildings that served the quarry industry directly across the railroad tracks. The trail came up very close to the tracks on the old canal route, but there were no canal remnants at all in this particular area.

We went by one more segment of old building ruins, and then the canal became more pronounced again. The trail descended into the empty canal prism, and we were in a cut below the railroad tracks, with the former towpath above on the left.

There was soon a nice spot on the left where the towpath was cleared, and we were afforded some nice Susquehanna River views by climbing up that way. Across from us, and across the tracks, was the settlement of Locust Grove, and there was a nice old stone farm house in view.

The farm house was the Haldeman Mansion. This Haldeman Mansion was built by John and Maria Brenneman Haldeman. 

This home was the birthplace of Samuel Steman Haldeman, the same internationally known scientist, educator, and linguist who lived in the 1833 Haldeman Mansion we passed back at Chickies in the morning.
Some sources note the year of construction as 1767, and others 1811.
Because Samuel Haldeman was grandson of original builders and was born in 1812, it was obviously built at an earlier date. The home had additions built in various stages culminating at the current size around 1811. It now serves as a local history museum, yet another point of interest we have to return to at a later date.

Locust Grove is also the point of the crossing of Conoy Creek. We reached the bridge, and there was the handsome stone arch bridge of the Pennsylvania Railroad to the right.

What I took notice of immediately (and was quite annoyed there was no historic interpretation on) was the fact that our foot bridge sat on the abutments of the Pennsylvania Canal aqueduct. Some of the upstream wall was still in excellent shape, and the downstream side, though deteriorating, was still clearly recognizable as the former canal aqueduct.

The trail continued straight ahead, still in the prism of the old canal. It kept us from viewing the river, but was still cool to be following the historic route. We had a nice long stretch toward the settlement of Bainbridge, but not a single sign about the canal on the way.

The previous interpretive sign mentioned nine different historic or other points of interest along the way, but not a single sign mentioned that we were walking directly IN the Main Line of Public Works, the most important piece of transportation infrastructure in Pennsylvania for the middle of the 1800s.

As we walked the trail ahead, there was a guy walking toward us with one of those Cockatiel birds, similar to the one we encountered while hiking the Great Allegheny Passage in 2020. The owner was holding her and paused to give us a little show. The bird was kind of old as I recall, but I can’t remember how old. Not too old for a bird because they live a long time.
The bird’s name was Maggie Bird, and he pointed out how she gives hugs, lays on her back in hands and likes getting thrown into the air and caught, and talks a bit.
He put the bird on almost all of us, and demonstrated how she hugs and will lay calmly.

The bird got passed around to everyone, and then got to John last.
John, probably the most soft spoken of all of us, ended up getting bitten by the bird! Maggie must have decided that was enough being passed around, and she flew off down the trail straight ahead. 

Her wings are not clipped, so she can fly off wherever she wants! The owner didn’t seem all too concerned, and he took off down the trail in the direction we had come from after her!

We came out to Koser Park at the end of Race Street in the town of Bainbridge.
When the area was first settled, it was the native settlement of Conoy, or rather Conejoholo, named for one of the tribes of people. The Conoys and the Nanticokes came up from closer to Baltimore and along the Chesapeake Bay when settlers pushed them out. Their tribes shrank in numbers from 2,500 to only 300 mostly because of diseases for which they had no immunity. The town as once a major “exchange place” when it came to early wagon traffic, where people would exchange horses and such, and then grew further with the development of the canal and then the railroad.
Once again, there was not a single sign about the canal here. The trail continued across on a road to a public boat launch, and there was another dirt road along the left, closer to the river. 

We walked that way and checked out the rip rap rocks left from the canal construction. They were very obviously signature style canal construction. We headed down to the boat launch area and had a look at the river. The views were really nice, and we could see some of the stacks of the Brunner Island Steam Electric Plant across on the other side. We had walked along some of the river over there on the Mason-Dixon Trail, along the area known as Black Gut.

We headed back up to the trail, which was still following the canal, and it got to be much more rewarding, although still almost no mention of the canal on signage.

The section from Bainbridge to Falmouth was apparently a trail for a very long time, but it wasn’t this paved thing. It was maintained as just a foot path on the towpath. When the paved trail was developed, it undermined some of the older trail, and I think we lost some really nice infrastructure when they did so.

The trail was directly on the towpath for a little bit, and there was a beautiful stone retaining wall that held up the canal visible to our left. Just ahead, the trail turned to the right and descended back into the canal prism, but there was a foot bridge over what appeared to be a former spillway. I didn’t understand what I was looking at when I first saw it, but further on I would see more of this infrastructure and realize that there was a trail here earlier.

There were outstanding views of the Susquehanna River in through this section, with homes on the opposite side of the canal and tracks.

We headed further north, and there were a couple of small streams that passed beneath the former canal site from the right. We could see piles of wood near one, and an overgrown foot bridge to our right at another one. This was what was left of the pre-existing foot path that no one maintains any more. We continued ahead and reached Prescot Lane, with another parking access.
This was apparently once a small settlement known as Collins.  

The trail had taken us under several power lines in a row, and at the parking area there were more good views of the power plant at Brunner Island.

Somewhere around this area, there was a bit of a clearing, and I think a sign that directed us, but there was a side trail to the right when the paved trail went left away from the canal a bit. When we moved to the right, I was very happy to find a beautifully preserved old lock.
This was Lock #4, although at the time I could not figure out which one. The historic 1873 atlas map of Lancaster County confirmed this.

I looked closely at the stone work, and then we were able to continue following right on the towpath for a good ways ahead. It was totally clear and pretty nice, as well as unpaved.

It only took us to the next road, which I guess was the Collins site, and then we were back on the paved trail again heading west.

Pretty soon, there was a nice wooden wildlife observation blind off to the left looking over wetlands. We opted to go over and check it out for a bit.
When we got to the thing and were looking out the narrow windows, someone pointed out that there was a snake up in the upper ceiling corner staring at us, looking like it was poised to strike. 

I don’t think it was any kind of dangerous snake, but it was just crazy that we walk into a small building like this only to find a snake dangling from above us, clearly on defense. Kirk went on about the craziness of this for the remainder of the day and into other hikes.

The next thing Kirk went on about for hours was Snitz Creek, which we crossed next. He had seen the signs while shuttled between start and end points, and found it deeply amusing. What I found most interesting was that we were directly beside the former Snitz Creek Aqueduct. Some of the stone work from the structure was extant, but other sections had badly collapsed. 

I would suspect that the full two abutments might still have been intact not so many years ago. One of them, the western upstream side, looked like it had only recently toppled.

We crossed Kings Road ahead, and the trail meandered a bit more. I wasn’t sure where exactly the canal had been, but we were always really close to it. We passed by the Falmouth Forest Garden, and then soon after the trail crossed over a private driveway. The house to the left looked as though it could have been a nice historic old one, but I’m not sure what the history was. 

To the right, there was a well-manicured lawn with handsome stone walls along the side of it. This was in all likelihood the remnants of the Pennsylvania Canal through this area. The trail did not follow it off to the right at this point, but I think the foot path section used to, now overgrown.

We continued on the trail ahead more, and soon we emerged at the north end of the Falmouth Boat Launch. I noted that the dip in the lower end of the parking lot that I thought might be the canal earlier was not it at all. It was in fact above us the entire time.

We walked down to the waterfront and had a look at the York Haven Dam, which spans the Susquehanna at a weird angle. Completed in 1904, it is considered to be a national engineering landmark. Dan noted that it was amazing that this plant and power facility were still in operation today considering its age.

This finished the hike for this time, but we didn’t realize that just above the parking area in the woods was the double lock #5. We’d realize and explore more of that the next time.

This was just such a great route, and so much of it would be worth doing another time. There’s just too much to do in a lifetime.

As my understanding of the history of this area has grown, so has my wish to do a variation of the hike again.