Hike #1266; Frenchtown Loop

Hike #1266; Frenchtown Loop

10/23/19 Frenchtown Loop with Justin Gurbisz, Sue Bennett, Shane Blische, and Dan Asnis

This next hike would be a loop focusing around the Frenchtown area and a bunch of things I’d been wanting to do that we just hadn’t gotten to, as well as some other older stuff.

Nice through truss bridge on Nishisackawick

I had done a few different hikes in this area somewhat recently utilizing the trails in both the Frenchtown Preserve as well as the Horseshoe Bend Preserve, and there were many more I’d not done yet. I almost thought it might be too soon to post yet another one in there, but there are still other variations of this hike to do even at this point.
There are just a whole lot of trails squeezed into a tight area and there could probably easily be two other versions of this hike. I’ll probably hold off for Summer for swimming though.

Weird solitary Kubler tombstone

I wanted to cover some of the trails I’d not done in those two preserves, as well as walk some of the old Bel Del Railroad to the north, back up in to Milford, and loop back from there.

Yellow trail up into Frenchtown Preserve

This route would give us some good trail mileage during the lighter hours, and as it started to get darker, we’d be either on the Bel Del Railroad bed, or we’d be on the Delaware Canal towpath, both of which should be mostly clear, or so I thought.
We mat at the long lot adjacen to the Station Cafe, the one that occupies the old Frenchtown railroad station. The loop was actually more of a figure eight.
We’d walk to the south a bit and loop using the Bel Del and the trails, and then pass the cars before getting to the northern loop where it would be mostly flat.

Yellow trail at Frenchtown Preserve

Only Justin and Sue showed up at the start point, and while we waited a bit I walked around to try to get more of my then and now compilations.
When we finally got moving, we started following the old Bel Del grade south a little bit.
We stopped to admire the nice little through style pony truss bridge over the Nishisackawick Creek, which I don’t recall ever paying much attention to before.
I really like those little bridges. They were the common thing over creeks for years, but they are slowly disappearing. The Musconetcong only has two original ones left.

Green trail at Frenchtown Preserve

We headed just a bit further ahead, and there is a second bridge, this one over the Little Nishisackawick. The first one was a sort of deck one I think, but Little Nishisackawick has a concrete arch. It’s much smaller than the other one.
The two creeks barely join at all. They hit the Delaware River at about the same point, but they are not really different branches of the same creek.
I had never noticed before that there was an odd grave stone along the Little Nishisackawick off to the left. It was of Jonathan Kugler and his wife Anna, who died in 1891 and 1910.

Green Trail at Frenchtown Preserve

I found it odd that such a thing could have been sitting there all along and I’d never seen it. I was pretty interested in who this was and why they’d be along the creek.

Green trail in Frenchtown Preserve

The real story behind it is not quite as interesting as we’d have liked it to be.
The couple are in fact buried in the Frenchtown Cemetery up hill from there, where they have a more modern looking tomb stone. Maybe from the 1940s.
This particular tomb stone was found on by a local when he purchased a house in town, out in the weeds, and in three or four pieces.
It’s a nice tomb stone, and so he decided that rather than leave it there, he would reassemble it and erect it along the trail beside the creek further down in town.

Green trail in Frenchtown Preserve

Why there would be two tomb stones for the same person, and the less attractive one is erected on the plot, I do not know. Some speculate it’s because maybe they ordered to have the stone made, and never paid for it. Maybe someone stole the stone and the one there was a replacement, only to have the original found years later. Who knows?
We continued down the rail bed just a little bit further to the crossing of Washington Street and turned to the left. This took us out to Rt 29 where we turned right for just a short distance. State park signs started appearing to the left.

We continued with a field parallel for a bit, and then turned to the left at an opening. There was barely even a sign for us to follow. As we walked slightly into the field, we soon saw one of the metal yellow arrow blazes that guided our way into the park property ahead.
The Frenchtown Preserve is a 150 acre tracked that includes both woods and fields, preserved by the Hunterdon Land Trust in 2006 and turned over to the state park service. There are eight miles of trails in this preserve alone, so there’s STILL plenty to do even after this one. We followed yellow blazes up hill.

Interestingly done stone arch bridge on Horseshoe Bend Rd

The trail paralleled the upper end of the field, then cut left into the woods as a wide mowed route until it started climbing up hill again. Yellow blazes soon broke off to the left, and the up hill route became the green trail, which was a farm access road.
We continued up to another open field with some nice pastoral views.
We continued through the field up hill a bit, and a lady rode by us on a white horse. We soon reached a tree line, and a red blazed trail went left and right, while the green trail went straight ahead. This goes almost all the way through the park.

Horseshoe Bend Park

The trail meandered through very young successional forest. There were a lot of Eastern Red Cedar growing through it in the first part, and lots of other trails went back and forth across it. I’ll have to do these another time when I plan for plenty of time in this preserve. They’re very circuitous.
We continued on green until it started turning left at more dense forest, and headed down hill a bit. It then joined with another trail, I think red blazed, and turned to the right along a small brook, a tributary to the Little Nishisackawick. We crossed the brook, and soon an orange blazed trail went to the left.

Osage Oranges

This trail went up hill and hit Horseshoe Bend Road quickly. We turned to the right on that road to continue to the south.
Horseshoe Bend Road is a beautiful road for walking. I’ve now done it a couple of times. There was no other good way of getting around this spot without doubling back on what we’ve already done on previous ones, and it wasn’t a bad route anyway.
While we were walking, we passed under some Osage Orange trees, where the brain like fruits had been falling into the road.
To my surprise, Justin had never seen one of these before. The trees, also known as “Hedge Apples” are more native to the southern states, but we have a lot of them in tree lines.

Horseshoe Bend Preserve

Native Americans also liked to use the wood of the Osage Orange to make their bows. Despite the name, they are actually not edible. Rather, they’re poisonous to ingest.

Field Edge Trail in Cooley Preserve

We continued down the road to the crossing of the Copper Creek, which as a very interesting stone arch bridge over it.
Hunterdon is of course home to more little stone arch bridges than anywhere in America, but this one had been rehabilitated in such a way to allow better turning of larger trucks, with overhanging edge walls.
We walked across, and then continued up hill on the other side. A guy in a truck pulled out of the Horseshoe Bend Park driveway in the distance and pulled up to us asking if we were okay. I told him we were just out for a walk, and he looked shocked. Not sure why.

Cooley Preserve

I waited for him to get out of sight, because he pulled up to us just as I was about to head off of the road onto the trail.
The mowed trail that goes off to the right is around the boundary of the Horseshoe Bend Park, and the main trail being used is on the opposite side of the fence. There are no signs here, and it’s so close to the private land, so I try not to draw a lot of attention in this area. We continued on the mowed path to the west, and then turned to the south at the field end. Just as we reached the tree line, we turned to the right through it and to the official trail on the other side.

Cooley Preserve view

More Osage Oranges lines this entire field edge, so Justin had to stop to admire them.
We actually probably cut across a corner of private land here, because we had to get around a fence rather than go further into the preserve.
Once on the trail, we continued to the west again. I had intended to take the southern leg of this loop past the farm house that is still lived in, but I wasn’t thinking at the time, so we ended up doing a section of the trails that I’d already done before.

Cooley Preserve

The trail took us down hill, and then around a low end of fields in a half loops before it headed into a line of trees and down a dip to the right. We climbed up the other side, and then emerged on more fields to turn to the west again.
When we got to the end of the field, we turned to the left again, which was south. This took us slightly up hill, and past a couple of cut throughs to Field Edge Trail, the trail that goes through the state owned Cooley Preserve, which has a cojoined trail system with Horseshoe Bend Park.

Cooley Preserve

When we got to the last cut through directly along the fields, we turned to the left, and then followed the edge of the field to the south side. There, we turned right and continued west.

An interesting gate concept

The sun was starting to go down, which was particularly beautifully in this area. We had a good view out over the fields to the forests on the Pennsylvania side, and the way the shadow was cast it made it much more obvious how steep the cliffs were along the Delaware over there.
Justin almost missed the turn, probably enamored with more Osage Oranges.
We headed down hill gradually, and around field corners on the south side of the Cooley Preserve. It’s amazing how huge these properties are.
The Horseshoe Bend Park, with it’s contiguous Copper Creek Preserve and Cooley Preserve, is a combined 736 acre land area with over 11 miles of trails. There have probably been more recent acquisitions to make it even larger at this point.
The property had been a point of interest for many years by NJ Conservation Foundation, but they were unable to come to an agreement with a land owner who was planning to develop it. Around 2004 or so, efforts to preserve it started, and eventually, through acquisition of private tracks including a church property, it grew to it’s current size.

Justin on the trail, Cooley Preserve

We eventually reached the west end of the fields, and there was a farm lane heading down hill and to a gate where there was parking for the state park.
I thought it was an interesting gate design, in that it was simply a chain secured to a post that was flush with the ground.
The parking area appeared to be where there was some kind of house. I’d only driven in there at night once before to drop Elizabeth back off at her car when she had met up late form one of the hikes. Other than that, I’d not seen it.

Cooley Preserve

The access road was lined with the Copper variety of Norway Maples all looking pretty healthy. There was one guy in the parking area with his door open. He must have been surprised to see someone come out of the woods but with no car parking in the lot.
We continued down the long paed driveway to Rt 29, and there was a new connecting foot path directly across and down to the old Belvidere Delaware Railroad bed.
We turned right and started following the railroad bed to the north. It was looking particularly beautiful with all of the foliage near it’s peak for the season.

Cooley Preserve

We walked to the north for a bit, to where there was a utility crossing. I think it was fiber optics or something. There, I set up a then and now photo compilation.

Bel Del line

We moved on ahead on the rail bed, and there was a concrete octagonal shaped railroad phone booth to the right of the grade in the distance in the historic photo.
Soon enough, we also got to the booth itself, which is far into the weeds compared to how it was in the historic photo taken by Don Dorflinger.
I finally heard from Shane and Dan in this section, and Dan was picking him up to come out. It looked like they would be right about on time to meet up with us before doing the second loop up to Milford, which was good because I’d not done it at all recently.

Old Bel Del line

The sun was going down pretty quickly. We passed through an open area and then closer to town again. We crossed back over Washington Street, then over the creeks again.

The rail bed

I got a call from Shane giving a time estimate of about fifteen minutes until they could make it to town, so rather than just sit and wait in one spot, we headed up a few blocks to the right.
There is construction going on along Lott Street, and at all of the fences, there are canvas banners, each with a picture of a person holding a shovel in their hands, but covering over all of their facial features. It seemed pretty weird.
Just to have that much canvas made up must have cost a fortune. There must be some art group somehow involved.
We headed back out to Rt 29 and made a pit stop in Frenchtown Wine and Liquor for some sustenance. They didn’t have a very big selection, so I just had a Four Loco.
We continued back on Lott Street to the railroad bed, and then walked it to the north toward the Station Cafe again. Shane and Dan pulled in, and they were calling me but couldn’t see.

Delaware River from the Bel Del

Once we were all together, we continued past the station and across the bridge street.
The trail continues on the other side, first past the recently demolished old industries, and then into some deeper woods along the dramatic drop down to the Delaware River.
12th Street was the last official access to the trail for a long while, but it continues to the north, to a sort of farm access to the right.
We stopped a couple of times and let Dan catch up, especially when the trail ended.
Once together, we headed onto the narrow foot path that follows the abandonment.

Old telephone shelter

Just before this, Shane hit one of the old mile markers with his walking stick and it made a gonging sound unlike they usually make.
It’s never been as obvious a route through that section. The path weaves back and forth from directly on the rail bed, to lower onto an old spur of the railroad which still has some rails in place.
It’s obviously still used by cyclists attempting to continue on to the north.
The last couple of times I went through this area, we could still walk through the paper mill area without a problem. Now, the paper mill was undergoing major demolition.

Old phone shelter

Big chain link fences block off the site from anyone walking on through.
We paused for Dan to catch up, when a car out in the complex pulled up with it’s lights flashing strongly toward us. We got off the open road type area to the left, and Dan was still behind with his light on. I ran back to catch him and let him know to turn it off.
Once we were all together, there was a path that went down hill to the left. This took us down to along the Delaware in the flood plane. The trail seemed to peter out a bit, but we continued to the right along the slope and went down and up across a trench or stream of some sort.
Once on the other side, there was a large fence blocking off the old paper mill property.

The Bel Del

We continued up slope on the other side of the fence, and there was a sort of berm that was on the other side, which kept us out of sight from anyone back there working.
We continued along the edge of the fence heading to the north. At one point, there was a spot where the lights from in the facility could be seen, but I don’t think anyone could see us.
There was also one vehicle passing by while we were in there. It was kind of surprising to find out that there are people out there working on the site twenty four hours.
We eventually got toward the other side of the work site. Another fence blocked the way.

Bridge over Little Nishisackawick

We swung around the outside of this next one, and then moved a bit further along. I think we went down and up the slope once more, and there was some path type of thing. We climbed back up and soon reached the Bel Del tracks, which are still in place on the north side of the old paper mill property.
The tracks were pretty overgrown, but we managed to push through them okay. It soon took us to the bridge over the Hackihokake Creek. It was a trip to see this so overgrown, because I think the last time I walked through on it, it was still completely clear.

Shovel banners in Frenchtown

The original bridge to cross at this site was a stone arch, but it was wrecked by a major cyclone that hit on October 4th, 1877. A train crashed into the creek and the Delaware at that time.
We continued across the bridge, and Shane pointed out that the metal railings installed by Pennsylvania Railroad had been damaged in more recent stormes like Sandy or Irene.
We were able to stay right on the tracks from here to the north, which kind of surprised me, because they were a bit overgrown the last time I saw this section, which was only a couple months before.

Weird shovel art in Frenchtown

I had traveled just to the bridge and back on that occasion, and there is a good path a bit further down along the Delaware we used.
This time, we managed to stay on the tracks for a bit, and then cut off to the right to follow the closely parallel Railroad Avenue.
We passe by the old station, a handsome stone structure recently turned into an eatery and store.
They named the place “Canal House Station” apparently because they have a brand called “Canal House”, but it just bothers me because it feeds into the myth that there was a canal this far north.

Dark Shane

The Delaware and Raritan Canal feeder section actually never traveled any farther north than Bull’s Island, but because the state purchased the old Bel Del, and it’s Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park, people tend to think it was just a filled in canal, when in fact it was only ever just the railroad.
I cringe every time someone refers to the trail through there as the tow path.
We soon reached Bridge Street, and turned to the right to cross it into Pennsylvania. The through truss style Milford-Upper Black Eddy Bridge was built in 1842, shortly after a great flood had wrecked a lot of the area ferries the businesses relied on so much.

Milford Upper Black Eddy Bridge

It was a wood timber covered bridge that lasted much until the Pumpkin Flood of 1903. The flood took out one of the three covered bridge spans.
As the story goes, the flood also wiped out the Riegelsville covered bridge just upstream from there, and the spans ended up floating down to this point. Oddly, parts of the Riegelsville bridge were re-installed for the missing parts of the Milford-Upper Black Eddy bridge! A covered bridge remained here until the current bridge replaced it in 1933.

ON the bridge

I think once we were on the other side, we followed Bridge Lane directly to the canal towpath of the Delaware Canal.
Actually the Pennsylvania Canal Delaware Division, this 1830s canal connected the Lehigh Canal in Easton PA with Bristol, sixty miles to the south. When the state canal stopped working, it was sold to the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company who kept it going until the 1930s.
We headed south and went under a couple of bridges that passed over the canal. I had to watch my head at these, especially with it being in the dark.

Toilet room yay

We continued to Lodi Hill Road and took a break where there was a restroom there. Lock #19 an the lock house are still standing at this point. My buddy Bruce at work told me that he knew an old timer from when he worked at Delaware Canal State Park who locked the last boat through at that site, and said he always had young girls coming and going from where he lived there, or something to that effect.
We continued from here on a long expanse. It was a really peaceful walk from here out to Uhlerstown.
Justin and I were laughing about something really stupid in this section, but I can’t remember for the life of me what it was.
When we got to Uhlerstown, there is a lock there, and then a private home with a driveway right back out to Uhlerstown Hill Road. I tried walking it but forgot that they have a huge gate over it, so we had to walk back out, and then back under the covered bridge.

On the bridge

The 1850s covered bridge is still in really nice shape, and is I think town lattice style.
We turned to the left after getting under the bridge, and used a driveway access from the other side.
From there, we simply followed Uhlertown Hill Road back out to Rt 32, and then crossed onto the Frenchtown-Uhlerstown Bridge, another through truss style structure.
The original Uhlerstown-Frenchtown Bridge was constructed in 1844, with long spans. It surprisingly lasted a good long time, sustaining only some damage in floods of the 1800s.

Frenchtown Uhlerstown Bridge

The bridge was not so lucky, however, with the Pumpkin Flood of 1903. Two spans of the covered bridge were swept away in the flood, but the remaining ones were kept in service, and the missing spans were replaced with through trusses. The bridge remained in service with four wooden spans, two metal, until it was dismantled and replaced with the current one in 1931.
We turned right past the Station Cafe, and Dan opened up his trunk. I climbed into it, and then fell out his side door being all silly. We actually had finished a bit ahead of schedule despite waiting for a little bit, and things going a little unexpectedly around the paper mill property into Milford.

At the paper mill, 2001

We will likely have to do this same hike over again in a different order as soon as the property around the paper mill is open again. With the buildings gone, it will look very different than anything I’d seen on the property on my previous hikes.

The paper mill property, 2002

We have no shortage of stuff to do around Frenchtown, so we’ll make it work in the somewhat near future.

HAM