7/22/17 Warren Glen, Holland, and Rieglesville with Scott Helbing (Tea Biscuit), Amanda Lance, Tom Vorrius, John Kosar, Karl Franz (Red Sean) Reardon, ?, and Sarah Jones.
Some photos found through Holland Twp. History Page.
Our next hike would be a point to point with an effort to cover some new ground in the northwestern portion of Hunterdon County.
I’d not revisited this area a whole lot because there wasn’t much to the Highlands Trail in the area. It is mostly road walk because there wasn’t enough public land in place to eliminate it all, and the short sections where the trail could be put in would require a lot of extra work that can’t be kept up with.
Nature Trail
My thoughts this time were to cover some of the properties that have changes since I first explored the area. Among the new acquisitions and developments were the new Holland Highlands tract, the new trail system in Musconetcong Mountain Preserve, and some back road stuff around the Sweet Hollow area I’d wanted to have a better look at. I had done two other hikes beginning out of Musconetcong Gorge very recently, and I suppose I’m a bit enamored with it again, even though it has it’s problems.
We met at our end point, which was in Riegelsville along the Delaware near the free bridge. We then shuttled to the east for a nice and easy commute to the gorge to start our hike.
Gorge branch
We parked on the edge of Dennis Road where the Highlands Trail cuts into the woods, but we didn’t follow that one yet this time. Instead, we headed down hill on the blue blazed Nature Trail.
The trail blazing in Musconetcong Gorge has been driving me crazy for years, dating back to my time working for Hunterdon County Parks. In some areas, a single trail is blazed with three different colors, and what is reflected on the maps is not really what is found out there. The Nature Trail is blazed sporadically both blue and orange.
Slack water in Musconetcong Gorge
When I worked for Huntedon Parks, we got an e mail from someone who had gotten lost in the gorge. It’s a very large park, and so it’s somewhat understandable that someone could get disoriented. The e mail basically said they got lost on the white trail near where it meets Highlands Trail. The Highlands Trail leaves the property and goes out to Staats Road, while the white trail turns off to the left and heads down to the former Lehigh Valley Railroad’s branch to the gorge, and some of this would be our route for this hike. One of the employees of the parks completely misinterpreted the e mail, and decided the best thing to do was the re-blaze ALL of the trails.
Current map of Musconetcong Gorge
Changing all of the trail colors was among the most foolish things I’ve ever seen done in parks. I argued when it was done that by doing so, we have made the New Jersey Walk Book, AMC Guide to the Highlands, and several other publications that are still the latest available versions in print today inaccurate. The argument I got back was that it was not our responsibility to deal with anyone else’s publications. This response was irresponsible and and disgustingly elitist. Hunterdon created a much worse liability through their actions and people continue to get lost in the gorge to this day.
When I asked why they left all of the old blazes up instead of properly re-marking the trails, I was told “I’m NOT going to try to take down Pete Buell’s old metal blazes!”. Pete Buell was the employee who originally marked the trail system when it opened.
Even worse, the teal diamond blazed Highlands Trail was co-blazed with Hunterdon’s yellow plastic markers, which made it look like Hunterdon was trying to take credit for the work of the HT volunteers, not to mention having a second set of blazes on the ridge was completely unnecessary and made it look like vandalism more than anything else. Originally, the ridge section was co-blazed with paint, in white as well as teal, but the white blazes turnded down to the rail bed and made a good loop back to the main lot. The white trail was never given new colors, left in place, and removed from the Hunterdon map we see here altogether (it runs down along Pine Run), and a new trail was developed with white blazes further to the west.
When that new trail was put in, the Hunterdon employee flagged off two routes up the mountain, and Student Conservation Association wasted countless hours building trail on both sites only to realize one was redundant. Fortunately, I caught them before they got too far and was authorized to tell them to only build one route, and let them pick which was best.
Gorge dam
It’s really an outstanding preserve, but it represents frustration for me, because I had no say in how the trail system was set up in the area. The same person who made these mistakes also routed the Highlands Trail onto private land despite arguments from myself and volunteers that it was wrong, and he then blamed the volunteers when we were found to be right all along. I also wrote a column for “Park Beat” in a local paper about the Highlands Trail, and he changed my wording around so that it made no sense, then went to the boss and said “Look what he wrote, I can’t publish this!”. Fortunately, my boss had already received my draft copy before he did, and could tell that he sabotaged my writing.
Except for a bit in the previous journal entry on this area, I’ve never written about this until now. I’ve been through so much garbage this past year, and I’ve sort of decided I’m not letting anyone push me around or hold me back as much as I once did.
We followed the Nature Trail down hill to a beautiful section along Pine Run. The steep section of trail led across the tributary twice, then to a gas line before descending to the former Lehigh Valley Railroad spur that served the paper mill in Warren Glen, last run by Fibermark.
Since abandonment, most of the water does not run through the raceway that served the mill. We followed the old rail bed parallel with it, and then turned left when we got to the Gorge Dam, which is the largest dam on the entire Musconetcong River. There are hopes to remove the dam, which would restore the Musconetcong River to a beautiful, natural state deep in the gorge. We climbed on down and walked the earthen part of it past the raceway entrance, and I wanted to get a photo of the base of the dam to compare with an historic photo of the same I had found.
Historic image of the paper mill dam
There was a bicycle at the edge of the dam, so someone was down there. I turned down a side path to the base of the dam for the perspective I wanted for the photo.
Paper mill dam today
I found the kid that had the bike soon; he was down there fishing. I chatted with him briefly before I made my way out onto the river to take a few photos. When I was satisfied, I came back up by way of the narrow path to the top of the dam, and we all climbed back up to the railroad bed to head east.
Slack water
We continued along with the slack water from the dam stretching well up the gorge. We got to a nice little spot where Pine Run flows under the rail bed, and there is a little water fall up the hill from it. This is where the original white trail comes down. We would be going up that route, but first we had a stop to make for swimming in the gorge. We walked ahead a bit more, and then took a side path to the left which led down to the former Lehigh Valley Railroad main line culverts for the river. The lovely spot is a deep one on the Musconetcong.
I took my shirt off and got right into the river on the near side, but there was a ton of disgusting, smelly silt in there. I had to try to skim along the top of the water out to where it was deeper as not to get too deep into it. Some of the group went over top of the railroad culvert to get in from the other side. Once we were in though, it was far better.
We hung out at the culvert for a while, and the water felt great. When it came time to get out, I went out the easy way and went up and over the culvert.
We climbed back up to the railroad bed and headed back the way we came until we got to the white blazed old ridge trail, and took that up hill toward the Highlands Trail.
The gorge spur line
I think Tea Biscuit and Amanda got into a yellow jacket’s nest or something and got stung as I recall.
Once we got to the Highlands Trail, we turned left and climbed out of the gorge from Pine Run, then continued through what used to be successional fields, now young forest, and headed on out to Staats Road.
Once at the road, we caught up with Red Sean, who had parked along nearby Shaaf Road on the Highlands Trail route. I considered going this way down to Sweet Hollow, but then figured extra mileage was probably not a good idea when we already stopped a lot.
Sweet Hollow Road
While waiting for everyone to catch up at Schaaf Road, it started to rain pretty badly. I had brought my unbrella, so it wasn’t too terrible. With a relatively easy road walk ahead, we didn’t let it bother us. We followed Staats Road past Schaaf Road where it changes names to Myler Road, passed Hawks Schoolhouse Road, and then continued straight on Sweet Hollow Road when it came in from the left. We laughed and carried on and really made a good time of this section.
Hawks Schoolhouse Road is named for a former school house that was at the east end, right where we walked. I’m not sure if it’s still there as private residence or not.
Tea Biscuit had his music playing off of his cell phone, and I recall him playing some weird numbers by The Four Tops or something I think, and then an 1975 album “A Night At The Opera” by Queen, which is absolutely outstanding.
Sweet Hollow Road
The Hakihokake Creek followed closely to the road as we walked to the south. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the creek to the south seemed to have the same name until I read into it a bit more. The creek that connects to the Delaware south of Milford NJ is the Harihokake, and the one out of Sweet Hollow is Hakihokake. In years past, the creek was once known as the Wissahawken.
We continued south along the road and passed several old historic homes, and some that were either mills or barns that had been re-purposed as private homes. The road remained barely used until we got down to the intersection with Goritz Road. After that it got a bit busier.
Group mirror shot in Sweet Hollow
I noticed a lot of public land along the sides of the road I had not been aware of. It was all sections of Sweet Hollow Preserve, owned by NJ Natural Lands Trust. It seems I have a whole lot more in the area to come back and explore another time.
Historic image in Little York
We continued down the road to the little hamlet of Little York.
The town area was first settled back in the 1700s, but it grew to what it is today in the mid 1800s from what I can find. I’ve always loved the little settlement, because it still has relevance as a place to visit, as a place to pass through to travel to parks and such, but not so much a main road as to detract from it’s ambiance.
The most famous person to ever come out of Little York was “Liver Eating Johnston”, who’s real name was John Garrison, born in town in 1824. He deserted the Navy during the Mexican-American War, and moved out to Montana where he developed a taste for human flesh, and allegedly ate his Native American victims.
Allegedly in Little York...
We made our way into the center of the settlement where The Little York, a bar and pizza place is located on the corner of the southwest side. We decided to stop.
The Little York
I found an interesting photo which is allegedly the tavern, but it looks much different than the one we went into. It has more of a federal style roof. I checked with the Holland Township History facebook page, which I follow, and they assured it was in fact the same building! The third floor had been removed in favor of the peaked roof, among other things.
Historic postcard of Little York from the Holland History page
At first, I didn’t go into the bar. We hung out on the porch, and some of the group wanted to get some food. While waiting, I just decided to have a look inside and Tea Biscuit was sitting at the bar. I decided to go on over and sit with him.
Historic postcard image of a mill in Little York
He ordered drinks, and I tried an Edmund Fitzgerald, which was quite tasty. It was made by Great Lakes Brewing Company, which I’d seen around many times but never tasted. They make a Burning River IPA, Elliot Ness lager I think, and others.
Historic image of Little York, postcard
It was actually quite tasty and I was glad to have tried it. We hung out for a while, and I think some of the group got some food. Most of the others came in at one point or another before we finally decided to head on out.
Historic postcard image of Little York
I don’t remember eating anything while I was there, but it’s possible. We headed out and turned to the left, heading to the west on Ellis Road. There were some guys hanging out by their cars out back, and they said something derogatory to us that I don’t remember.
Historic fold postcard of Little York
It came across insulting at first, but they they were complimentary. I can’t remember exactly what they said, but I think it was something like calling us hipsters or transients or something. They changed tune though, and said what we were doing was awesome, but didn’t decide to join us despite our inviting them to come.
1860 Hughes map image of the Eckel Mill in Little York
To the right of us was the historic Eckel Mill complex. Beautiful old buildings and signs said they were now for sale. The mill building appears much the same as in the 1860 etching, and a house next to it was probably a miller’s house.
Historic Eckel Mil
We continued up hill, and a sign let us know we were entering Holland Township. There was a lovely big, stately house to the right of us as we moved on away from Little York.
Heading out of Little York
The views out over the fields we could see to the south of the road revealed cumulonimbus clouds on the horizon. It looked like we might get rained on pretty bad, so we’d best keep moving.
We headed up hill for a while on the road, which was a bit more taxing after eating than it was before. We passed by the intersection of Stonehedge Road and continued on Ellis after a sharp bend. To the left on the bend was a weird personalized property with all sorts of odd decorations sitting or hanging from the trees like ornaments.
Holland!
There was a goat, an angel, and all sorts of other stuff. We stopped for a group photo at the intersection where we could see it all, and we noticed after we continued on from this point, the owner of the personalized property was creepily peering at us from behind the trees along his property line.
We continued on Ellis Road just a little ways further before coming to the intersection with the access road to the Musconetcong Mountain Preserve. This was a new access that didn’t exist when I worked for Hunterdon Parks. We had permission from one of the co workers’ friends to get through on a private drive, otherwise we had to take another route down to the property from above on an old roadway.
Pond
The property had some of the best Japanese Wine Berries I’ve seen anywhere as well.
This time, we followed the access road into it, and then continued into the woods on the new trail system that Hunterdon County had finally just opened this year.
The trail heading in was red blazed. We followed it for a ways, and it soon hit the old woods road that we used to use from private land to get into the property to work. The trail turned left to follow the road, but there was a short side trail that went ot a small old farm pond and dead ended there. We of course checked this out too.
Musconetcong Mountain farm house in 2010
The trail followed the woods road to where the farm house used to be. It was my first time back to the site since the demolition of the historic stone house, which probably dated back to the 1830s at least I am told. It was quite a cool building.
Farm house site today
The structure had masonry frame and masonry foundation, some dry laid, with very wide floor boards as I recall in the kitchen, hand hewn beams holding the base, and wooden paneling added later around the main portion. It was heartbreaking to learn that Hunterdon County not only had this building demolished, they also did not even attempt to put any of it’s components out for salvage.
Township fields
I had been wanting to run a hike through the property again since just after the house was demolished, because in order to reach the site a road had to be punched through from the east side. I think it was an historic farm road that was simply rehabilitated to get the equipment there.
Still, it connected with municipal land and seemed like it would be an interesting route. Unfortunately, my home burned down soon after the last time I visited the site, and I ended up moving to White Lake for two years, then Great Meadows for a year after that. I wasn’t close by enough to do it.
Following fields
Since getting to Spruce Run, for one reason or another I never ended up doing the hike through it, so it was about time to go.
I’d heard the road was to be abandoned when demolition was done, but it was still totally clear, and made up a portion of the new trail system anyway. We followed it through grown over old fields, then down over a small tributary before ascending a bit to the edge of some large cultivated fields. There were pink ribbons hanging from brush and branches along the way, all off to the right, so we opted to follow that way.
We went through two lines of trees separating two more sections of fields, and skirted both to the north until we got to a corner where we’d have to turn south again. There was a mowed path going in there, and so John went in to scout it out while the rest of us waited. When he returned, he assured us there was a clear path with three alternatives. One led near to a house, but another was leading more to the west.
We went out this way, followed the power line to the north briefly, then turned left on a path that went under it to Abrams Road. It’s a dead end road that goes out to a couple of houses, so I didn’t want to get questioned on why we were coming out it, just wanted to get out to a more main road as soon as possible.
We were soon on a better section of the road heading through a development. My original plan was to head south and skirt some of the Holland Community Center, but that was out of the way to continue, and we’d already been wandering to the north more than anticipated.
Andersen Road
It was about to pour again, and so I made the executive decision to change the hike a bit. My original plan was to go south to Shire Road, and then cut through the new Holland Highlands Trail section, but it was getting far too dark to be following something that could potentially be very messy. The back roads are lightly used and a lovely walking route, so we opted to instead go directly across and continue to the west on Andersen Road. It started raining rather heavily, and I recall I had an umbrella with me, not that we really needed it. It wasn’t very cold out for this stretch.
We turned left from Andersen Road on Shire Road briefly, then turned to the right on Adamic Hill Road to continue to the west. This too was a beautiful back road with very light traffic. It was totally dark by the time we were on this, but it was still pleasant.
Historic image of Volendam windmill
The best feature of the Adamic Hill Road section is the iconic Volendam Windmill. Built by Paul Jorgensen in 1965, it has become a signature to Holland Township, as it is on all of the signs for town.
The builder designed the mill and turned it into a museum that was open until I think at least the nineties. I had toured the mill with my grandfather when I was very small, and I seem to recall Mr. Jorgensen had passed away, and his wife was old and running the tours. If not his wife, it was another older woman either way.
In more recent years, it has fallen into terrible disrepair. In 2007, a wind storme came and knocked off two of the sail arms. From then, it would not function to grind grain as intended. The museum closed some time just before or after this, and has remained so ever since. In 2008, the non profit that oversees the mill approached Holland Township with the idea of selling it to them, and having them relocate it to another place within the township. If the township agreed, the museum artifacts would come along with the purchase. While township board members all agreed it was a centerpiece to the township, they disagreed that the purchse of the mill was an appropriate expenditure for the township. They did seek estimates for repair and such, but nothing came of it.
When I last went by in the daylight, with Jillane on a road trip back home from dinner along the Delaware, I wanted to drive up Adamic Hill Road to have a look at the wind mill. It was terribly sad to see that now, in addition to the sail arms, the walkway around the second story had completely collapsed from the front and was laying on the ground around it. I fear that the structure might be demolished before it’s ever rebuilt.
Historic postcard scene of Finesville
We continued west on Adamic Hill Road, which descended from Musconetcong Mountain into the valley near the village of Finesville. On the way down, we stopped for a break at an intersection, and Amanda was feeling kind of sick. She was in bad shape all of a sudden as she simply leaned up against a sign post. Very concerned, Tea Biscuit called for an Uber to get her out even though we only had a couple of miles left. I don’t know what dumb way the driver took them, because the quickest way would have been driving right by us, and we saw just about no cars the entire rest of the trip.
Mt. Joy historic image
We got to the bottom of the hill and turned left on Mt. Joy Road. This is actually the designated route of the Highlands Trail heading west. We continued on the road out to the intersection, which was the main part of the settlement of Mount Joy.
Holland Station on the Bel Del. Lefevre family photo collection from Holland Twp. History
I think we cut to the right and then to the left over the Bel Del Railroad tracks to head north. I’m not sure if there was ever a Mt. Joy Station on the Bel Del, but I don’t think there was. Shane Blische would know better. I do know that there was a Holland Station, which was small and rather short lived, and it would have been just south of where we emerged in Mt. Joy.
Holland Station on the Bel Del. Lefevre family photo collection from Holland Twp. History.
We got on old River Road from here, and didn’t follow directly on the tracks as I recall. I think we just stayed on the road for this stretch, which is narrow and like a trail anyway.
The Bel Del Railroad reached this area I think in the early 1850s. The main area industry was the Riegel Paper Mill just to the north.
Cora Rapp Severs hanging a post bag for pickup on the Bel Del, Holland Station
Riegelsville is within Pohatcong Township, taken from a Native American word allegedly meaning “Split Hills Stream Outlet”. This could be attributed to the Musconetcong, but more likely to the Pohatcong Creek to the north a bit.
Historic image of Riegelsville
The main paper mill was located along the Delaware, not far from the original location on the Musconetcong River just to the east, I think in Hughsville. The later plants associated with Riegel at Hughsville and Warren Glen are both abandoned, but still standing.
Riegelsville paper mill historic image
The mill at Riegelsville itself is long gone. Today, the parking lot for the boat launch on the Hunterdon County side partially takes over where the buildings once stood.
We got to the lot, and went on down to the boat launch just as it stopped raining. Timing seemed to be perfect.
Riegelsville Station historic image
There was a boat coming in with some guys trying to get it pulled onto a trailer, but having some difficulty. I jumped in the water and got behind the boat, then helped to secure it onto the trailer. When the boaters had left, we had a great swim in the river at the launch spot. It’s really a perfect place for a dip as long as you don’t swim out too far into the current.
After our break, we got out and headed across the lot to the north corner, near the entrance. There, there is a hole in the fence toward the Musconetcong where it’s very easy to ascend to the old Bel Del Railroad bridge over the Musconetcong. We crossed, which took us out by the old store, and across from the parking lot where we met, at the site of the Riegelsville Station.
This was really a fantastic little hike; proof that regardless of weather and adversity, a great time can still be had. It’s amazing that there is still so much to see, even in this area. We didn’t even get to Holland Highlands, we didn’t finish exploring the township land nor did we finish the new trails at Musconetcong Mountain. There is certainly more good to come.
No comments:
Post a Comment