Hike #1635: 12/1/24 Lebanon Twp/Newport to Beattystown with Evan "Joe Millionaire" Van Rossum, Alyssa Lidman, Mike Selender, Justin Gurbisz, Brittany Weider, Steve Sanbeg, Diane Reider, Kirk Rohn, Jill Gamble Gupta, Jenny Tull, Ken Zaruni, and Everen
It was time once again for our traditional holiday hikes we do pretty much every year.
This next one would be the "holiday home hike", something I've been doing every year around Christmas time, featuring places that are close to home and where I grew up, and had been the subject of many past hikes.
The Holiday NY City Hike is usually the one that attracts the most people, but I really do like doing the home hike.
The only thing I typically don't care for about this hike is the fact that it usually involves doing so much stuff I've already done in the past. I don't care to repeat stuff as much as we did, but we did change this one up a bit with a few little additions.
Also, there were a couple of little things along the way that ended up making it a bit more interesting as well, good or bad.
The theme of this hike over the years usually always had the one thing in common, that it had to pass by my grandfather's house. In the past, he would join us for a portion of this hike, but now at age 90, he's not getting around as much as he used to.
I had planned this because my son is now three years old, and the hike was going to incorporate part of my first hike I ever did with my grandfather, from his house to Point Mountain Bridge. Unfortunately, my grandfather, Eldon Allen, was sick this time and couldn't even come out to say hello to everyone.
I was hoping he could do the couple of miles down to the bridge with Ev and I, but not only was he sick, Ev was passed out asleep when we got to that point, so it didn't work out.
The other thing I've been adding in on this one was visiting the home of my Aunt Pam and Uncle Ken. They live over at the little settlement of Newport, which was an old mill site and part of the original entrance to Boy Scout Camp Watchung, so I've done hikes by there for years.
We've been stopping by for a visit on the hikes for a long while, and so I've been trying to incorporate that for the past few years as well.
This time, rather than end at their place like we had been doing, we started there. That was so I could incorporate the thing with my grandfather.
We met at the end point, which was the Walmart parking lot in Mansfield Township, and then shuttled with as few cars as we could to the Newport location on "Hoy Lane", also known as Boy Scout Road.
How exactly the hike would take shape from the start I had not fully decided.
When we got there, we decided to go out the old Boy Scout Road. The guy who used to live back there in the past gave us a hard time, but my Aunt Pam and Uncle Ken own the lane to the bridge over the Spruce Run creek back there, so that part they actually need them for.
The previous owner had died, and things have been a bit more neighborly, and so we walked on through with no problems this time, except for the trouble of getting the stroller through.
One other interesting thing was that orange mesh and blockades had been put up on the bridge, which weren't there before.
We continued right on through, and I had help from the group to get Ev's stroller over the fallen trees and such.
We passed the old Newport Mill, which is in ruins, but still contains the water wheel, and the old house that sits vacant along the way.
When we finally reached the county boundary, there was a guy walking by with a giant sack. It looked like he was placing bait for his deer stand up there probably.
He did pause as we were going by, and I figured he might be calling somebody.
I felt better when nothing happened as we walked the bit of the Boy Scout Road to the east. This road used to go through all the way to east, but has been closed off for a very long time.
We continued ahead, skipped the yellow trail to the right, and made our way to the old stone house that has stood abandoned for years on the right.
This historic homestead in Miquin Woods served as the boy scout camp office but was previously a homestead dating back to 1850 or earlier. With only a couple of windows, most of them tiny, one wonders if this was a much older frontier house. In 1873, it was the home of T. Bowman, as per the Atlas of Hunterdon County published that year.
This property is the former Boy Scout Camp Watchung, which was established in 1928 for the Watchung Council, mostly from Union and Somerset Counties.
The camp operated until 1986, and the property was in danger of being developed. Thankfully, it was preserved to protect some of the headwaters of the Spruce Run.
The land holding was for a time known as September Farms.
When it became public park land, the name Watchung was rather inappropriate because that name is applied to those small mountain ridges in the eastern part of the state where the Boy Scout council originated.
It was decided that the property would be named Miquin, a Lenape word for "feather", an homage to both the native people as well as Scouting heritage. The Order of the Arrow Lodge, now gone, had a feather as the symbol.
As we were standing by the building and I was relating some of this history, a car was coming up the road. I was nervous. Cars can't get back there without a key to the gate, so I figured this was someone coming to talk to us.
I pointed everyone to come with me down a side road to the pond along the Spruce Run. When I worked for Hunterdon County, it was being referred to as Arrowhead Lake, and it is sort of shaped like an arrowhead. I was also told that the historic name for this was Craig Pond.
The car reached the site, and then started driving down the path to the pond. When they approached, I stopped to talk to the guy. He asked where we were coming from, because there were no cars in the parking lot. I explained who I was, who my aunt and uncle were, and that we used to go in that way all the time. I also told him that we do a hike through this area every year just before Chrstmas.
I knew this guy. He was caretaker at the property even when I worked there, and he lives at the other side of the property that shares a boundary with the park. He actually keeps it all mowed as well.
He was on his way down, he said, to move some of the debris from the beaver dams, which he checks on regularly. In the past, the beaver activity had nearly inundated and destroyed the pond.
I was glad that this wasn't any kind of a problem, and ended up being a rather nice exchange.
We all looked at the pond, and then headed back up past the house, and returned the way we had come along some of the Boy Scout Road, but then turned right when we got to the access road that crosses the Spruce Run itself.
We headed uphill from here, and then after the main trails on the right, there are some mowed pathways through meadows to the right. We turned into these, and paralleled the road through the grass for a bit. There was one partially down Autumn Olive tree, which was a bit of a chore to go under, but not too bad.
From here, we got back out to the access road, and then continued out to Newport Road to continue. We turned right. We then continued on Newport Road through pleasant back roads, many of which I learned to drive on.
The road took us to Anthony Road near the township road department, and we turned left. This continued to a left again on Symonds Lane, which was originally called Cat Rocks Road from when there were more bobcats in the area.
It's interesting that the road used to be called that, and that the bobcats were eradicated from the area, but then this past year, one was in my grandfather's upper driveway!
At the end of the road, we crossed Hollow Road and continued straight ahead on Mountain Top Road, where my grandfather lives just ahead.
I called him up to see if he wanted to come out and say hello at this point, and that's when I found out he was sick. Fortunately, he made a full recovery, but it was disappointing that he was not able to come out and see us.
We continued straight ahead, past the old Addickes Orchard, and through the wooded area out to the Born to Run Farm where Jay Garish used to live, a good friend of my grandfather's who made his money selling hats. He was always generous to charities.
We continued ahead, around a ninety degree bend, and then skipped past the Point Mountain South trailhead parking area. I didn't want to push the stroller through that anyway, but this time, the idea was to follow that first hike I'd done with my grandfather, which was on the road.
At that time, the road was still dirt at this point. It is the steepest road in Hunterdon County at one point in there.
There were some nice views through the trees to the north as we began descending from the fields at Garish's farm and the former Sheilds/Wattles fields.
We got to the very bottom and turned right on River Road out toward the Point Mountain Bridge where my first hike had ended.
From here, we turned to the right, uphill onto the upper blue trail.
Usually, I follow directly along the river here, but this time I decided we would follow the upper blue trail, which I had not brought a group through on in many years.
We continued on a rather pleasant grade for a bit, and then passed an enormous rock outcrop on the right, which is a nice feature I have rarely showcased in this park.
From here, the trail, still on an old woods road, continues to descend a bit until it joins the main blue trail along one of the most beautiful stretches of the Musconetcong River.
It is said to mean "river of clear water" in the Lenape language. Its course is about fifty miles.
The River finds its headwaters in the Weldon Brook in northern Morris County's Mahlon Dickerson Reservation and Weldon Brook Wildlife Management Area. After a confluence, the River flows beneath Rt 15 and is the main feeder to Lake Hopatcong. It then flows to Lake Musconetcong, and beyond through Waterloo Village, Stephens and Allamuchy Mountain State Parks, then from Hackettstown to here.
It continues as the Warren/Hunterdon boundary to its confluence with the Delaware River in Riegelsville.
We continued walking upstream on the trail, which was still the woods road, and made our way to the point where the trail turns right and ascends a bit toward the farm fields, former Rosen Fields.
I had to get a little help with the stroller through this bit, and we soon emerged in the edges of the fields. We walked ahead to the northeast for a bit, and then reached the parking area at the little settlement of Penwell, with some nice views of the surrounding area.
We descended via the gravel driveway to Penwell Road, and then turned to the left past the historic Penwell Mill and crossed the mill race, then the Musconetcong. We turned right from there on the old Penwell Road abandonment that used to go through to Rt 57.
Penwell is a small community on the boundary between Mansfield and Lebanon Townships, in Warren and Hunterdon Counties.
The location has historically been a milling community since the 1700s. By the 1800s, Homer's Mill was established on the Musconetcong and the Beatty sawmill was established on the nearby Brook.
The deep pool of water behind Penwell Dam was a popular swimming spot for generations of locals, with multiple rope swings and stands. Before old Penwell Road was cut off to traffic, we would rope swing from the top of parked vehicles to get greater height and distance.
The road, once part of the 1811 Washington Turnpike or Easton-Morristown Turnpike, had been bypassed by modern Rt 57, but was still passable to traffic through the late 1990s. The east end was severed from 57 first, then it was scaled back more over the next 20 years.
It remained mostly a local destination attraction until online media reached urban areas and thousands of people descended upon Penwell. The amount of trash left behind regularly could fill dump trucks, and the amount of broken glass made it unsafe to walk let alone swim.
The old road is now gated at the intersection of Penwell Road, and access is granted only for fishing by local permit.
We were able to walk on through without a problem, on the old pavement, and could see the one rope swing still in place just past the picturesque dam.
At this point, Jenny left us. She had been out of commission for a couple of weeks because she had gotten sick. Many of us had this bug that was sort of a middle throat infection that causes a sort of dry cough. It feels like we should be able to hock up all of the congestion crap, but nothing comes up. I had it, and it came and went a couple of times. It was not terrible with the headache like a couple of the times I had covid, but it was a major annoyance.
Jenny made the mistake of taking it easy when she got it, and probably laid down the wrong way for too long. She ended up getting pneumonia, and then ended up in the hospital. On the previous hike, we didn't know what happened to her, and just assumed her family planned something for her that she couldn't get out of.
Things got even worse, because the pneumonia turned into sepsis, and she was stuck in the hospital for even longer. She had only been out for a couple of days when she decided she wanted to hike (it was probably healthy for her). Her daughter gave her a hard time about it, and so she agreed to do only a portion of the hike, and I arranged that we would spot her car along the way at Penwell.
We passed through and got to the end of the road at the galvanized rail to Rt 57, I had to get some help lifting the stroller over. We then had a narrow bit of highway, and crossed to the other side as soon as we had a good shoulder.
I had never really explored the area ahead on the left, but had always wondered about it. I've walked by enough times, and driven by countless times.
This property contains a lime kiln that is extant, and along the road used to be a little one story red structure that I think was used as a fruit stand. It was demolished several years ago after several more years of collapsing.
There were actually two lime kilns, but the one on the right is badly collapsed. These were on the J Anthony Farm on the 1874 Beers Atlas of Warren County. There is also an adjacent former limestone quarry visible in the woods, just behind it.
The Beers Atlas also makes mention of a spring, and so I went in the edge of the woods to look around, and actually found some of the stone work of the spring house is still in place.
We continued ahead from here, and there was more land between us and the river. We passed the entrance to former Columbia II junkyard, and then on the right, the old Tut's Hut house, in poor condition.
Back in the 1940s, this was a food concession and bungalow rental place along the beautiful Musconetcong River, operated by the Tuthil family.
Some of the bungalows are still there and used as private homes today, but the main house has not been used in years and has some holes through the roof. I found out from the owner that he intends to fix this up and start a new campground along the Musconetcong, which would be awesome. We'll have to have a Metrotrails hootenanny there if it happens!
We continued ahead from here to the intersection where Watters Road goes uphill to the left, and Old Turnpike Road crosses the Wydner Farm Bridge, an eighteenth century stone arch, to the right.
The old Turnpike turned right here, and Watters Road went up to the left, but there never used to be a road straight where 57 is until Stephensburg. It was pretty much undeveloped through there. There was an old stone home on the left that had some similarities to the abandoned one in Miquin Woods, and another nineteenth century home ahead on the other corner.
The 1874 Beers Atlas shows both homes here belonging to H. Miller. The tiny windows on the stone portion to the left suggest that this might have been an early frontier home as well. Others have told me that this was once a bar or coach stop. It's quite small, so I feel it might be way older.
We turned right and crossed the stone arch bridge and passed Eddy Baer's farm on the right.
Just ahead, we reached the entrance to the parking lot for Point Mountain North, where there was once another house in the past. There is another collapsed lime kiln and barn site here too. The road known as Hermit's Lane used to go straight through from here. The trail system was one of the ones I worked on heavily during my time at Hunterdon County Parks.
This was an important stop, because even though we were not hiking up this trail, many in the group had to stop to pee and this was the only place we'd have the option!
We continued pleasantly walking the Old Turnpike Road from here to the east. The calm road is so lightly trafficked that it is quite a pleasure. I've walked it so many times but I don't tire of it.
Soon, we reached Stephensburg, a little settlement where the Stephensburg Brook flows into the Musconetcong, and there are some old mills there.
As we walked over the creek, there is an old house on the left side, which is abnormally larger than some of the others.
An older couple were getting out of cars and moving stuff there when we went by, and we ended up chatting with them a bit. It turns out, they know Ev and I from the photos and videos of Metrotrails!
We ended up talking to them for a while, and they explained that the theory was, the house there was built to the specifications of the mills rather than a house, and it might have been from shoving pieces aside and keeping them rather than selling to another mill use over the years.
I got a lot of history, including that there was another mill along Stephensburg Brook just behind us, and that very little remains of it today.
They had signs about open house history tours, which I had thought was going to be Stephensburg, but it was actually in Long Valley. We were in Morris County at this point, and Long Valley is also in Washington Township of Morris County.
While we chatted, the entire group got way ahead of us. We continued on toward the end of the road, and it was interesting to see that there was a new river access cut in a narrow swath of land between farms on the right, before we reached a turn off toward Rt 57.
Ken Zaruni had tried to meet up with us, but assumed we were going up Point Mountain North and missed us.
While we were walking the road, Ken pulled by and offered me some pop tarts and such. I told him he could easily join us there, and that he could park where the tri county fire department originally stood along the Musconetcong, just at the intersection of Rt 57 and Old Turnpike Road.
There is an interesting history here, where Rt 57 was moved a bit, and this involved moving the entire Musconetcong River around a bend. By doing so, the entire county line was moved! Apparently, this resulted in some interesting court case. I discussed some of this with the late Jack Cornish in his Phillipsburg office a couple of years before he passed.
He agreed, and joined us just up ahead at the lot, which is also now used for a new acquisition of Musconetcong Wildlife Management Area.
We had hiked through this property before it was purchased by the state years ago. In fact, at a meeting, I described the property to the head of Green Acres, and the trailer that was out on it. Everyone at the meeting seemed shocked to know that I was aware of such an obscure spot.
The trailer was removed when the state acquired it.
The way I had gone through in the past was close to the river, then to the old woods roads, but I wasn't going to do that with the stroller. That location was near a giant, dead and fallen tree. We had to go up Rt 57 just a bit and then turn right on a mowed down lane.
We headed through the meadows, and it was quite pleasant. We continued all the way back to the river, where there was a steep bit we had to go down to get there. Ev was a little nervous, because it was muddy and I had to hold onto him really tight, but we did fine.
It is a beautiful spot on the river, and I'll have to go back in the Summer. We turned along the river upstream, which was another nice path for a while, and passed through the clearing where the trailer had been. We then made our way along the river to the open field areas where we had to turn back uphill, before the fire department building.
These last fields were the location of the popular tri county fair until the early 2000s, which I used to attend every year.
When we got back to Rt 57, we went directly across on Hazen Road, headed downhill, and then gradually along and across Hances Brook. The old maps show this as Old Hollow Brook.
Joe Millionaire and Alyssa were falling a bit behind. All of the drinks were really catching up to him by this point.
We continued uphill for a bit, and there was a nice farmland view from the top of the hill as we approached Rockport Wildlife Management Area. Straight ahead was the crossing where the famous Rockport train wreck occurred.
This Morris and Essex Railroad line was completed to Phillipsburg in 1866 when the original plan to extend to the Delaware Water Gap fizzled, and the Warren Railroad did so first.
These tracks became the main line of the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western in the 1870s, and the original Main Line south to Hampton Junction from Washington became a secondary.
This served as a double track main line until the completion of the New Jersey Cutoff in 1911.
The June 16, 1925 non-scheduled special train on the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad was carrying German-Americans from Chicago to Hoboken when a washout along the tracks from a recent storm caused a derailment.
The wreck killed 42 passengers, 5 crewmen, and injured 23 others. It has been described as one of the most gruesome train wrecks in American history.
We paused for a few moments at the somewhat new memorial placed on the grass on the south side of the tracks. We then crossed the tracks and turned right on a mowed path that went into more of Rockport Wildlife Management Area.
We followed this pleasant path, which I'd never been on before, as it turned 90 degrees left, and headed up near the house at the main Rockport parking area. I figure it was probably a trail intended to get people to the new memorial site.
When we got out to Rockport Road, we simply turned right to follow it for a while. This would be the worst bit of the hike, but I didn't have a lot of options on what to do to hit my total 15 miles.
As we walked, we crossed a small culvert over a little stream, and Joe Millionaire, still a bit dizzy, tripped and fell face first into the pavement. I didn't see it happen, but I was immediately in front of him and looked the second he hit the ground.
There was blood, and he was at least a little bit of a mess, but he was behaving just fine.
When I finally got to see his face, there was blood all down it and into his beard. He had hit his head above his ear and also had a little cut behind his ear. These head cuts tend to bleed like crazy, so fortunately it looked far worse than it actually was.
Still, at the time, we just had to get him out of there. I grabbed Ev's wipes from the stroller and wiped the blood out of his beard and off of the side of his face, and looked at his head. The bleeding was stopping for the most part pretty quickly, and I figured we were moving off after this little clean off. The others didn't move, and so we waited ahead a bit. I suppose he started bleeding more or something, and so Alyssa and Kirk were back there helping him more. I think Diane also helped wrap him up.
Once we were all good, we were on our way. We had only to make it to Airport Road and turn right to had up to the Walmart. It was a little way, but not bad.
Just as we got to the road, turned, and crossed the tracks at grade again, a guy pulled up alongside us in his truck. It was another person who knew me!
He stopped to talk to us about coal country an Centralia, the areas he had grown up in.
We were there standing and talking to him for a while before heading out, but it was a cool exchange. It just set us behind a bit.
It wasn't too long, and we were back at the Walmart, and we got a ride back to my Aunt Pam and Uncle Ken's where we had some snacks and some drinks to close out the day.
Only my Aunt Pam was around, but it was just fine. Most of the group didn't hang around to come back to it, but having a smaller group isn't a problem. We had a nice time, and Aunt Pam got Ev a little remote conrol car, which he loved. It was his first real remote control toy, and they actually had the room to run the thing around more than we have at home, so he had a great time playing with it.
Joe Millionaire went to the ER, got himself looked at, and fortunately he was okay in short order.
It was really another great and interesting day with a little bit of new stuff, some old familiar stuff, and some old unfamiliar stuff that felt new. All in all, a good time.
