Hike #1052; Freeland to Rockport

Hike #1052; Freeland to Rockport

6/30/17 Freeland to Rockport PA with Pete G. Wilcox, Amy Davis, Dan Asnis, and Sarah Jones

Our next hike would be another Thursday adventure, a day hike posted because I’d had it off from my weird every other weekend schedule. I have to make the best of how it messes things up, and one of the ways of doing this would be to post some hikes that maybe I wouldn’t necessarily post through a large group.

Historic map of "Foster" showing our route to the north

I wanted to do another Lehigh Gorge hike for a while, but I wanted more than just that. There are so many other rail lines up there in coal country, so to keep it more interesting we’d attach one of those. Pete and I were in touch weeks before, and over the past several months have looked at other lines in the area. I spotted that the easiest option without having a lot of recon work would likely be what the old map shows as the “Nescopeck Branch of the L&S Division of the Central Railroad of New Jersey”. The line went to White Haven where it had it’s junction, and that’s where we wanted to head south. 1894 maps call this the Upper Lehigh Branch.

Historic postcard image of Freeland PA

We met in Rockport in Lehigh Gorge, and I screwed up the timing. I guess I posted the meeting time much later than I had thought so I’d have time to sleep in, then forgot that I did so. When the group was all there, we shuttled to the east side of Freeland PA, at a little field off of Schwabe Street in the town of Freeland.

ATV path

The part of Freeland we started in was at one time known as South Heberton, but what remains of what was considered a separate settlement is today much smaller and just annexed into the rest of Freeland.
We found a spot where there was a little ball field off of Schwabe Street to start there. The scrubby woods at former coal mining areas just to the east looked rather easily passable, and we’d head through there in order to get to the railroad bed we planned to walk.
We crossed an open area past a building, and then entered some woods through some light weeds, which soon opened into a more obvious worn down ATV trail.

Pond Creek

We cut to the north when there was a more obvious path, and soon we crossed over the main flow of Pond Creek. This creek was very obviously channelized and moved away from the main area of coal mining that occurred in this area, which was just to the north. We headed south some more and reached some level areas that could easily have been former railroad grades, but it’s hard to say where all the lines were associated with the mining. I could find nothing to support this through the historic USGS maps, but it’s likely short narrow gauge or whatever lines must have existed through the area.

Pond

We descended to a point with a stunning pond that filled in one of the former coal mines. It was a strip mine, open cut probably for bituminous coal or a mix. A drainage, dry at this time, went from the pond along a former road or something to the right, and was covered in orange acid mine runoff taint. It was brutally hot already, and so I used the opportunity to get right in for a dip, which wasn’t bad at all.

Acid Mine Path

After a nice little refreshing swim, surprisingly early in the hike, we headed out and started walking the drainage sort of down stream to the east. It got kind of muddy in the low areas and we found ourselves walking around some rather huge puddles.
After a short bit, we were able to get up onto a wider right of way to the south of the runoff, which was fast turning into a wetland and another pond. This time, it was a very blue colored water, unlike the previous pond which looked pretty normal. The path we were following was a level cinder base which looked like a railroad bed, but none were shown on the maps.

We kept to the left on the path, and it sort of crossed the body of water by way of a causeway, which led me further to believe that this was once a railroad bed. I kind of wanted to head further to the east, because aerial images show ruins of old buildings associated with the mines out that way, but we also had a very long way to go, and this was a less questionable route and further away from people’s private homes. We had to cross a few more puddle areas, and at one point found something was moving fast under the mud in front of us, but we got to the north side of the pond with no problem and continued up into the woods.

Pond

We soon crossed over a very obvious railroad grade. It was a deeper cut, left to right from us, but the clear path went straight on through. We continued ahead, then paralleled the thing, which seemed to come into the right of way we were looking for, the CNJ line the maps called the Upper Lehigh Branch. We turned right to begin following it east.

Upper Lehigh Branch

The rail bed was perfect for walking. Almost begging to be a trail. ATVs had kept it very clear but didn’t go off to the sides too much. It was relaxing and well shaded for such a hot day. It was actually quite a bit nicer than most of the Lehigh Gorge Trail, which is these days overdone.

CNJ grade

We continued to the east for a while, and the path remained just as nice.
Before we reached Oley Valley Road, we came upon a junction, which I think was Pond Creek Junction, where the Sandy Run Branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad joined from the right. The 1940s maps call this area Pond Creek, but the late 1800s maps of the area designate the location as “Zehner”. Just after the junction, we crossed over Oley Valley Road and continued through woods. The section ahead a tiny bit narrower than the one we had just walked, but still totally clear at this point.

The junction

There was a house just below the right of way, but we were soon past it, and there was no other sign of a home anywhere for a few miles. This was a really nice back woods area.
The right of way passed along a very steep hillside, which seemed like an even more dramatic shelf the further we went to the west.
As we walked, we spotted small stone squares in the ground, rather well cut. Pete noticed the first one, and I noticed several more after that. None of us were really sure what they would have been, but they were older, so they probably date back to the days of the railroad without much doubt.

The rail bed at Picton

The things looked like they probably were between each of the railroad ties. They had holes in the center like they were for something specifically, but can’t be sure what that would have been.
We continued onward further, and we came across signs along the rail bed reading the North Branch Land Trust. I’d not heard of the organization before, but it turns out they started out as the Back Mountain Land Trust, associated with lands along the former Bowmans Creek Branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, which we had walked, and they even own the old Noxen Station on that same line!

Weird markers we kept seeing.

This particular property we were now in was known as the George and Lillian Picton Wildlife Sanctuary. The couple had over three hundred acres of land, and worried of what would happen to it after they were gone, so they worked with North Branch Land Trust to preserve it by way of a Conservation Easement.
We continued to walk through this section heading to the east, and the sound of Interstate 80 became much more audible. Were were much closer to it, in fact right above the rest area where Jillane had lost her cell phone about a year earlier just past White Haven.

Picton Sanctuary

We continued on across a power line clearing which afforded us some nice views across the valley to the north. Just past here, the rail bed made a turn to the south to pass over a creek, so we went through cuts and fills brieftly.

View at a clearing

There was what appeared to be another right of way going off to the left at one point, and the historic maps show that there was once a spur (from the east of this point though) to a steam powered saw mill down in this valley.
After a cut and fill, we came to a prominent driveway we had to cross. While in the woods, a very fast and loud truck went down the road and whipped around the sharp corner below us. It was a good thing that we didn’t have to cross the road at this time or we’d have had a problem! We hurried over and continued east again, over more cut and fill.

The rail bed

The railroad bed after the driveway got continuously more overgrown as we continued. It wasn’t all that bad at first, but it was very obvious that ATVs did not venture this far very often any more. The further we went, the more the hay ferns were growing over the right of way. We were probably spared some of the more obnoxious invasive vegetation because we were on the north facing slope for this entire stretch. We were always pretty close, but not really within sight of the service road along Rt 80 at this point.

Getting weedier

We continued along, and there were soon what appeared to be EPA test wells placed in the rail bed. Not sure what was going on in the area to merit this, and we were pretty far east of the main coal mining activity at this point.

Ruins

We soon passed by ruins on the left side, with masonry walls and some remaining wooden superstructure. I couldn’t find any particular info on it, but it was pretty cool looking.

I started getting ahead of the others a bit. I noted that there was a woods road parallel with us, and just up hill from the rail bed as we walked, so I got up on that for a bit. I thought for a time that one of the woods roads going off was another rail bed, but there were no maps I could find to support this either. I think it’s possible that the old Tuberculosis quarantine station, now the Holy Protection Monastery, up hill from the rail bed, might at one time had some sort of a spur leading up to it via a switchback or something.

Historic map approaching White Haven

The entire area is sort of a mystery in here, but I was enjoying the exploration. Ahead, I made my way back onto the rail bed, which was what some might consider impenetrable weeds, but I thought it looked amazing with the old ties back in place. I managed to bushwhack on it all the way out to the Powerhouse Eatery.

Ties

I regrouped everyone by the wood line, and the rail bed came right out into the parking lot of the Powerhouse Eatery. This makes perfect sense, because the powerhouse would have had to have coal delivered by rail for it to work. We met up with Sarah here, right in time for her to join us for lunch.

Historic view of the sanitorium

The sanitorium on the hill first began operations about 1907. At the time, tuberculosis was referred to as “consumption”. It was believed cold, dry air would help fight the TB, and this site served that purpose as well as to keep victims somewhat quarantined from the rest of the world.

Historic image of the clinic

The Powerhouse, where the bar and grill is today, was the power source for the facility (many erroneously think the power house was that of the town of White Haven’s).
The Powerhouse was expanded upon in 1938 with a donation by Industrialist Pierre DuPont, when his personal secretary became ill with TB. Prior to this time, the Powerhouse included only what are today the lounge and bar.
When Tuberculosis was on the decline, the facility found new life as a sanitorium for a time. It was deemed inefficient after a time and completely abandoned by 1976, and so with it was the power house.

Powerhouse Eatery

In 1989, work began to renovate the power house as a themed restaurant. Many of the original components of the powerhouse were kept for ambiance, and it’s become the success it is today for this unique re-purposing of history.

Powerhouse Eatery

They really had delicious food too. We had a nice long lunch stop that was quite outstanding. I’d been wanting to visit the place for quite some time, so this was a real treat to see around.
We laughed and carried on for a while, and I was feeling pretty stuffed. After a few drinks and some excellent Pee Wee Herman impersonations, we continued on out to the east. The railroad bed is totally obscured because the access road was built over part, and Rt 940 and Interstate 80 appear to have wrecked even more of it.

Flowaz

We wandered old 940 to the south a bit, and started climbing up the mountain, because we wanted to see the old sanitarium, but we found that there were now difficult to climb fences around the entire property, so after the hard climb we had to go all the way back down.

Caboose in White Haven

We headed from here out to Rt 437, Church Street, and followed it north across Interstate 80. We then turned right on Lehigh Street to a left on Towanda Street to get to the business part of town, and to where the Central Railroad of New Jersey used to pass through.
This was another one of those “connection” spots for me. Not for one of my formal hikes, but because I had done a hike starting here with Conrad Blease in 1997, where we did the entire Lehigh Gorge in a day. His mom dropped us off and we hiked back; for some reason I never got around to finishing the entire section of trail to White Haven through the group hikes until this one.

One of the most incredible photos of CNJ steam at work, White Haven Pa. CNJ doubleheader climbing upgrade at White Haven, Pa. 2-8-2 928 leading.

Where we stopped used to be the freight yard for White Haven. I recall stopping in the wine and spirits place but I can’t remember exactly what I got! We had a nice little break here before moving on to the south, back toward Rockport and the cars.

Rail yard in White Haven, with Lehigh Canal close by.

We passed by an outfitter that apparently does both bikes and boats at the left side of the trail. The trail was really just a wide road at this point until we got to the parking area a little further up. We went under 80, and came to a gate with the underpass below active rail.

CNJ rail bed passing under 80

White Haven was named so for industrialist Josiah White, who was one of the business men behind the original Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company.
The Lower Division of the Lehigh Canal was completed in the early 1830s, but when coal was king and the railroad was not yet realized, a canal through the gorge was seen as a necessity to reach these lands. It was thought impossible to make the deep and narrow Lehigh Gorge navigable, and yet somehow they made it happen between 1835 and 1836. The locks on this canal were the largest the world had ever seen. Canal sections were short, with canalized river sections between, with 20 dams and 29 locks!

LV Railroad underpass

The Upper Division Canal traveled from the end of the Lower Division in Jim Thorpe, then known as Mauch Chunk, to Port Jenkins just above White Haven. Downstream only navigation was possible by way of a couple of “Bear Trap Locks” above that point. These types of locks were used on the Lehigh prior to the completion of the much more complicated canal as well. The canal only lasted until 1862, when it was destroyed by flooding and never rebuilt. The railroads were a better option by that time. The Lower Division remained in some degree of service until as late as 1942.
We walked south beyond the underpass, and the Lehigh Valley Railroad remained on the far side of the river from this point. In White Haven, both are on the west side.

Lock #28 ruins

We took a side path after not too long and made our way down to the ruins of Lehigh Canal Lock #28. The stone work is in amazingly good shape. The grooves where the wood would have been through to hold together the facing were all in place and recognizable. Cut stone was used at the down stream side and held on very well, while the interior lock was more rough cut and used no mortar, making it all the more amazing that it’s still standing. The lock lifted boats a remarkable twenty two feet.

1908 dam repair at White Haven

The dam that spanned the Lehigh River at this point was Dam #19. This dam was once 27 feet high; it was more important in later years because even though the canal was abandoned, these dams also served industrial needs, and so they were repaired when purged out due to flooding.

Amazing lock 28

Pete and I were particularly blown away by the construction and condition of the lock. We absolutely had to go down below and stand in it to get the feeling of what the lift was on this structure. It was absolutely amazing to stand in, and easy to picture a boat working it’s way into place for lift.

Dam 19 and Lock 28 on Lehigh Canal, with Lehigh Valley Railroad bridge

It’s possible that some of this lock might have been maintained to a degree because of it’s upstream industrial necessity after 1862, but certainly little would have been done to it’s aesthetics, which means it’s simply good construction that left it in the condition we find.

1862 dam destruction

After the Upper Division was destroyed, the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad was built to the north to replace the canal, and in some places covered over some of it. It was the Lehigh and Susquehanna that extended to Easton and was leased to become part of the Central Railroad of NJ system.

Pete and the culvert

From the lock, Pete and I turned to check out the beautifully angled stone work on the river side.
I was sure at this point I wanted to see all of the lock remnants we had time for on the way back, which would take a lot more time, but it was worth it.
Pete and I climbed up and got into a masonry culvert below the old CNJ grade, and then walked through it to the other side rather than go back the way we had come up. This too was holding up very well for 1862. We returned to the rail bed and headed to the south.

Rhododendron blooms in the gorge

Back on the rail bed, we passed some sort of concrete structure to the right which had some sort of wood up on it, but not sure what it was at all.
This section of the trail is not as secluded as the rest of the gorge. We still would have a few houses up to the right of us, and we had to cross the road at the Lehigh Tannery Bridge. Before that, Pete and I had a mission to find whatever was left of the canal’s Lock #27 and dam #18.
We headed down hill, looking for just about anything that could be unnatural looking rock.

Remnants of Lock #27

I first saw a bit of a berm that I thought could be the towpath, followed by some odd looking stone piling. Pete assured me that I had found it, and we headed toward where the lock should have been.
Sadly, the lock is almost completely destroyed at this point, probably owing to the fact that it’s right above a narrower section of the river.

Lock #27 remnant

Lock #27 was the largest on the entire Lehigh Canal, which raised boats an unprecedented thirty feet at one time. The dam that served this section of the canal was a whopping 37 feet tall.
We walked through where the lock once was, and on the other side we noticed was obviously some remaining rip rap rock in place.
Rip rap rock is what we usually see on the old canals in slack water sections that held the towpath in place. It was pretty obviously the towpath as I walked along a little portion of it. Dan even came down and explored a little of it with us before we climbed back up to the road.

Rip rap rock on the old canal

I was also surprised to see that the existing bridge over the Lehigh at Lehigh Tannery still used the original stone abutments rather than some new concrete stuff.
Sarah waited up top for us at the road crossing.
The tannery for which the settlement took it’s name used to be on the other side of the river. Native Hemlock trees were taken and the land was nearly denuded of trees in the process. The Lehigh River ran black from the pollution caused, and the area looked quite sickly. The tannery came to an end in 1875 when an uncontrollable fire ravaged the area and took it down.

Tannery industry denuded the forest near Lehigh Tannery; mid 1800s

Once we got below Lehigh Tannery, we were in the middle of nowhere. No more road crossings until we got to Rockport. Development parallel with us soon dwindled to nothing.

Possibly Lehigh Tannery, Dam 18

We walked on through the gorge, and passed a lovely waterfall on the right side of the trail. It wasn’t long after that where we reached a path that went down hill to the river to the left. We all wanted a good swim, and there was an old bridge site I wanted to see.

Falls in the gorge

We reached the concrete piers of the Lehigh Valley Railroad Hays Creek branch that spanned the Lehigh River at this point. Despite trying, I cannot find a single historic photo of what this bridge used to look like.
We had a really nice dip here for a while, but it wasn’t all that deep unfortunatly.

Gorge bridge site

We climbed back up from the former bridge site and continued to walk the Lehigh Gorge/D&L Trail on the CNJ grade to the south. The Lehigh Valley Valley Railroad grade was high above the CNJ trail grade at this point, and went near the last of the homes above the gorge. It then turns inland a bit.

Former CNJ line

This first section dates back earlier than much of the line. It made a connection with the Sandy Run Branch of the CNJ, which broke away further to the south.
The Sandy Run line was abandoned eariler on, and the main Lehigh Valley Railroad Hay’s Creek Branch opened on December 26th, 1911.
That line was short lived, and abandoned rather early, around 1965. The Hays Creek Branch may have overtaken an earlier line known as the Buck Mountain Railroad. I’ve not explored anything out there to be certain. It’s possible that the Buck Mountain line is almost entirely different, because it looks to be so based on USGS maps, but it may in fact be the same one. Perhaps we’ll explore it one day soon and find out for sure.

Upper Division dam, likely Dam #18 at Lehigh Tannery

While walking, we missed the site of former Lock #26 and Dam #17. These were reportedly near a rock cut, and there is very little remnant of the lock to find below. It would certainly have been a fun little excursion to find remnants of stone work. The remains of the abutment to the dam on the far side of the river are reportedly the only giveaway of it’s location.
Pete had mentioned climbing up to look at the old LV rail grade above us, but I figured we’ll walk that another day, and we should really continue on if we were to see more in our trajectory. There were many more lock and dam remnants coming.

Remains of Lock #25

The next lock was Lock #25. This one was a bit further away from the railroad bed, but I recall there being a path we were able to take to get down to it. It wasn’t as tall as some others, with a lift of 20 feet (Lock 26 was 25 feet, but would not have looked like anything). The lock was again in really nice shape overall, with only a bit of the inland rough cut wall having collapsed into the chamber. Some of the bed of the canal was holding water.
There was no dam at this site, because it was a sort of longer canal piece to Lock 26. The base of Lock 25 was the slack water pool from Dam #16 downstream.

Former junction site with the branch that went up Sandy Run, PA

The Hays Creek Branch remained parallel with us up the hill for a good while, then it turns inland. Not long after that, we crossed over Sandy Run.
Just on the other side was where the Central Railroad of New Jersey’s Drifton Branch broke away to the right. The site is rather obscure, but the right of way gets obviously wider just before we got to it, and then there’s a widening where it’s rather obvious, when facing north, that another line might have broken off there. Initially, it looks like it’s an impenetrable mess and not worth at all trying to walk.

Historic image of the Hays Creek Branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad crossing the Lehigh

Just then, Pete took off running like a crazy person and slammed right into the thick Rhododendrons. This looked quite fun so I ran after him. Sure enough, there was a clear enough to walk right of way there, just somewhat grown in with the thick Rhodies down along Sandy Run.

This line was apparently called the Drifton Branch, although I have found things on line referring to a Sandy Run Branch as well, and an old article out of a Hazelton newspaper where Central Railroad of New Jersey was seeking to abandoned two branches, Sandy Run and Upper Lehigh (which we were on earlier).

Lock #24

We continued south on the rail bed for a while through the gorge until we came to where Lock #24 and Dam #16 should be. We managed to find an easy side trail to get to it with no problem. At 28 feet lift, this was the second highest on the entire Lehigh Coal and Navigation System.

Stone work at Lock #24

The dam that was at this site was one of the biggest too, with a height of forty five feet above the water. We could see where the dam was, but the river runs uninhibited past the former site. Pete and I made our way over the lock and through the branches to the incredible stone work on the river side of the lock, which had sloped, beautiful stone work. It felt like we were coming upon some sort of old Incan ruins or something. Such amazing structures were hidden away from a prominent trail, and despite being much without mortar, the walls stand strong today and have been tested by countless floods that have inundated their walls.
We also found what we believe to be the foundation of the lock tender’s house for the site, much closer to the railroad bed on the inland side of the lock.

Lock #23

We made our way back to the rail trail and continued to the south. There was another side area that looked like it could have been a railroad bed at Leslie Run, but all information I have on it shows that it was only ever a woods road. I never know with all of these weird logging and tannery railroads however.

Likely lock tender's house foundation

Our next point of interest was Lock #23. This was a pretty interesting one to find, because it’s got no pathway leading to it or anything. Pete told me he had gone looking for it, and when he found where it was he had just piled up a couple of stones next to the trail in order to locate it.
The stones weren’t anything special, maybe three high and very easy to miss, but despite the fact it was getting dark, I was able to see them. Pete and I crept through the tangled mess of weeds until we could see the protruding masonry of the inland lock wall. The river side wall and all remnants of Dam #15 are gone, but the near wall was in remarkably good shape. The rough cut masonry was still very recognizable from where we were looking from right on top of the wall. The rest of this one must have completely washed away. The lock had a lift of twenty feet.

Lock #22

It was starting to get dark, and everyone was in all likelihood annoyed with Pete and I like giddy little kids on an adventure, enamored by any little masonry remnant we could find. We moved on, and found one more easily accessible lock, #22 which had a nice side trail to it. They even had an interpretive sign for this one. Like some of the others, it was amazingly in nice shape with only a few collapsing wall bits. It had a lift of twenty feet also.

LV Mud Run Bridge

We took another side trip on a path that led to a great outlook of the Lehigh Valley Railroad’s bridge over Mud Run on the opposite side. It was a beautiful spot, and as it got darker the Wip Poor Wills were calling. It was a surreal little place to be at that time.
We returned to the railroad bed and headed to the south. It was getting too dark to continue to explore for lock remnants at this time. There are reportedly remnants of Lock #21, damaged but still impressive with a lift of 25 feet, but it was too dark for us to meander down to it. It was close to the rail bed, but too dark to appreciate the site.
The last lock site we passed was Lock #20 and Dam #13. Even in the guide books, the site of this one is calculated because there are no apparent remnants to be found. There is something in the river on the opposite side near Rockport Tunnel, but not so sure it’s the dam. For all I know, it could be completely covered over by the railroad. This one sadly may be lost to time and flooding.
We passed by Buttermilk Falls, a beautiful waterfall before getting back to Rockport. Despite the darkness, it was quite stunning. We regrouped there. Dan was falling behind a bit, so we tried to let him catch up a little.
Rockport was just beyond there. At this point we had connected the hike to the last point we reached on my previous Lehigh Gorge trips. Once we got to Rockport, we headed down to where the outfitters drop off the boaters and took a final dip. Here, the water was freezing cold because the strong running Buck Mountain Creek flows in from the west.
From in the river, we could see Dan’s head lamp on the trail way out in the distance, slowly making his way along the trail. At some point, he lost his ear buds or something and had to go back to get them, so we waited in the water till he came back.
Once he had returned, we walked up the road a short bit toward the parking area. I tried to get everyone to go into the old railroad tunnel for the Buck Mountain Gravity Railroad. I think only Dan came to check it out; it had been a long day.
The tunnel was for a line that started out as a gravity railroad but later upgraded to locomotive, to bring coal from Buck Mountain down to the Lehigh Canal. After the tunnel, the rail line went immediately onto an inclined plane down to the canal where ore could be loaded onto canal boats. After the flood of 1862, this railroad ceased operations along with the Upper Division of the Lehigh Canal, and the coal interests it served received service from other lines.
We talked about all going out to eat, but I still felt kind of stuffed from the great dinner at the Powerhouse Eatery, and we all had quite a long commute back home. I’m pretty sure it was after 9pm at this point, and we’d had a very full day of exploring.
With all of the recon work Pete has been doing out in the area, and the prospects of exploring the Drifton Branch of the CNJ, Hays Creek Branch of the Lehigh Valley, and countless other connectors to what we had explored, we’ll have to do something else in the area before Summer’s end. It’s far too fascinating to stay away for very long.
It’s days like this that I am truly making the best of odd weekdays off, having the time to explore places I might not try with a larger group. A very, very good day.