Hike #1382; Wallkill NWR/Liberty Loop to Goshen

 

Hike #1382: 12/27/20 Wallkill NWR/Liberty Loop to Goshen with Justin Gurbisz, Jennifer Berndt, Dan Lurie, Serious Sean Dougherty, Professor John DiFiore, Diane Reider, Jack Lowry, Sarah Jones, Jennifer Tull, Kirk Rohn, Daniel Trump, and Sunni ?

This next one would be another point to point, this time looking to tie up some loose ends that I'd had for a very long time.

I keep going back to saying that there are so many things we leave unfinished in life and just continue to let them go. The curiosity is there just burning, but there's always something else. Distractions like butterflies, mesmerizing, captivating, and lead me to forget past initiatives.

In this case, the Lehigh and New England Railroad.

I had been following this right of way since before Metrotrails. When I was a young teenager, something about the name "New England" sounded so foreign and exciting to me. Like I could follow this line all the way to New England.

Of course, the line only went to New York, and by way of other lines I could get to New England, but I still wanted to follow all of this.

I started trying to cover the branch with my grandfather using old maps, and continued after I started the group following it farther into Pennsylvania. I'd followed it and all branches all the way out way beyond the Lehigh River by 2008, and then basically stopped with it. Then, I returned to it just a couple of years ago and followed it all the way to Tamaqua.

In New Jersey, I only ever followed it to the NY state line, and never bothered trying to do any more.

I felt it was probably time to get up there and finally do it. 

It would involve a whole lot of road walking because so much of it is now inaccessible in the black dirt country, so that made it a perfect winter hike in case there was snow cover. 

So I resolved to finish the northbound Lehigh and New England by the end of the year, and this would be the last hike of the year.

I learned a little more about the line this time as well. I had thought that the Lehigh and New England continued up farther than it does, but the last LNE trackage was to Pine Island NY. Beyond that, the Erie Railroad owned the trackage on which the LNE had trackage rights to the north through to Goshen, where this hike would end.

Of course, meeting point would be in Goshen as well. I chose the commuter parking lot on Matthew Street, old Rt 6 adjacent to new Rt 6, near the Burger King. We shuttled in a few cars from that point down to the Liberty Loop Trail parking lot in Wallkill National Wildlife Refuge off of Oil City Road, close to the NY/NJ state line. From there, the old railroad bed is just a bit to the east. The NJ side is part of the Liberty Loop Trail, and even part of the Appalachian Trail a bit to the south, but it goes along a private yard to the north of Oil City Road.

Because of this, we went straight across on Liberty Lane into the sod farms, parallel with the railroad bed at first. We then cut to the right out in the middle of the sod farms, past a pond, along berms, and then right back out to the railroad bed where we turned left to head north.

It was odd being out in the middle of everything. The black cinder dirt looked obviously like railroad bed, but the land all has black soil, so the side roads don't look that much different. There is just no tree cover whatsoever. Usually, when a railraod is abandoned, it ends up in a line of trees that helps to make it discernible.

We walked along the grade and no one approached us. We passed by a beat up red truck sitting out along the right of way, which resembled a less cared for version of our friend Craig Fredon's truck.

Soon, we came to the intersection with Bierstine Lane on the right followed by Murray Street on the left. 

These were hardly streets. They were just gravel lanes that happened to bisect the onion and sod farms. 

The railroad bed went straight across, and an old concrete bridge was still in place that had carried it. Parallel with it was Mission Lanes Road. These were regular roads with street signs so apparently we could be out there, and I was less concerned about it at that point.

There were various other side roads that broke off on both sides, but mostly to the right as we followed Mission Lands Road northeast, but the substantial one to point out was Junction Road.

There was once a branch from the Lehigh and New England called the Glenwood Branch that broke off and headed back over the NJ line adjacent to Pochuck Mountain. It had a branch that went east a bit to some sort of quarry, and south on the east side of Pochuck to terminate at the little settlement of Glenwood. I had hiked a little of this along the edge of Pochuck, but never looked it it more closely.

The line is mostly farmed away now, but can be seen to the keen eye. I spotted the junction site and pointed it out to everyone as we went by.

We continued ahead to the intersection with Pine Island Turnpike. It was just before reaching this intersection that the railroad turned slightly to the right and crossed the turnpike at a rather obvious spot. 

Ahead, the railroad skirted a farm, but then crossed the Pochuck Creek. There is no longer a bridge spanning the creek, so we weren't going to be going that way anyway. It was probably a wooden structure like the ones a bit to the south, or if it was metal, it was scrapped. 

We turned right on Pine Island Turnpike, and that highway went hard left at the intersection with Liberty Corners Road. The road took us across the Pochuck Creek, and Kirk walked over on the railing. We went by a cemetery and then into town where we reached the intersection of Pulaski Highway on the left and Glenwood Road on the right. We went ahead just a bit, to reach Kids Club House, a sort of nursery school on the left, built into the old Pine Island Station. 

One wouldn't know it was the station by the front, which has had a much wider building built around it, but the rear section still has awnings and is very obviously the old station house. 

I had saved a series of photos of this station and others taken by J. E. Bailey taken in 1910, from the Jim Hutzler Collection of the Steamtown National Historic Park archives to make comparison shots with.

I went around and tried to get all of the angles of the station, and we did our group shot.

Apparently Mr. Bailey was out on a trip to photograph affiliated stations with the Erie or something. There are photos of all of the stations along this branch, but also heading all the way down the Lehigh and New England and New York, Susquehanna, and Western taken by him. I've done comparison shots using his photos of Swartzwood and other things as well.

Just to be more silly, Serious Sean made this a "masks required" hike, and carried with him a bunch of mask cutouts of various celebrities that we all did a variation of the group shot with.

I thought it was a cute and funny way of trying to make light of a heavy situation, but amazingly people were kind of attacking when I posted the photo online. I'd dealt with it from the start of all this; "that's damned irresponsible" and "that's not funny" I would hear. 
Well, I thought it was funny. To quote my friend Jason Briggs, "History plus time equals comedy".

I screwed up, and one of my best photos of the old station didn't save to have the final Bailey comparison, so I'll eventually have to get back up there to get it from that angle.

I think we stopped in one of the little stores for a snack or drink or something in this area.

The station was the southern terminus of the Erie Railroad Pine Island Branch. The junction with the Lehigh and New England, and actually its track terminus, is just a little bit to the north. We didn't go to the junction site which is on private property or I would have gotten several more comparison shots. It was also well out of the way for the way we would have to walk. Most of the right of way beyond this point is inaccessible unfortunately. I had to plan accordingly with a parallel road walk.
I had checked out some of the spots by street view online, and then by driving by them on my way up to see if there was any way we could get away with going through.

I selected the route around the problem spots that would be most fun, scenic, and rewarding.
This would of course have to include a visit to Warwick Valley Winery.
I try to incorporate visits to whatever interesting thing is along the way on the hikes I plan, and over the years we've tried to hit every winery and brewery in these areas, so it was a must. It would have to be back roads, because there's just too much visibility and most of the off road areas save for Pine Island itself, are wet.

The upland on which the settlement of Pine Island was built, was originally an island in the Wallkill River every spring. Waters of the river would back up and create a massive lake. The river was rerouted by the early nineteen hundreds, and deep ditches were dug by local farmers to drain the wetland. The work made this the onion production capital of the country.

We had good views out over the Drowned Lands of Mt Adam and Mt Eve in the distance as we walked Pine Island Turnpike south, past Trouble Trail, which I thought was a funny road name, and then over the Eurich Ditch.

We continued over to a left turn on Little Brooklyn Road.
This was another settlement of Pine Island, which I assume must have been Brooklyn transplants to the area.
We went by a house barn here that had a depiction of a Trojan Horse on the side of it, and then turned left on Little York Road.
There were some nice views from here out over the expansive muck lands, which made the walk that much nicer. We could see to about where the railroad should have been, but it would be hard to see anything because so much has been farmed away.

We made our way along the road and uphill a bit, and soon reached the Warwick Valley Winery and Distillery. They were open, and they had outdoor seating since everything was still too crazy to have people inside.

I forget what the stuff was that I got there, but it was a sweet one.
Once we left the winery, the road became more scenic than before.

On the right side of the road, on a slope, there was a tiny model of a church on a knoll. I'm not sure if this was some sort of cemetery or if it was private property, but it was different.

Ahead of us, the rocky outcrop of Mount Adam stood in plain view. It's much larger close up than when looking at it from afar. I'm not sure of the status of the land on it, but I'd sure like to climb it.

We moved further on down the road after passing by Mt Adam, and there was an old family cemetery on the left side of the road. I think it was associated with the Kerr and Wisner Families.

We had a look around at the cemetery for a little bit, and then continued out along the road to the northeast.
We continued on Little York Road to the intersection with Mt Eve Road on the left. The road straight ahead continued as Mt Eve Road from there. Further down the road to the left, we could see where the old Erie Railroad's Pine Island Branch used to cross.
We continued ahead on the road, and a private road called Mick's Lane was built on the parallel railroad bed. We came to the intersection with Big Island Road, turned left, and then right on Round Hill Road.

This road came much closer to the railroad bed than we had been before, but we'd never have known it without just knowing it. It was completely farmed out of existence on this parallel route.

Eventually, the road turned hard left, and then again hard right, and closely paralleled the railroad bed which was much more obvious. A black dirt ATV path followed the railroad bed parallel with the road ahead of this point, so of course we walked it.

Round Hill Road eventually turned slightly left while the railroad bed veered off to the right. 

We had to stay on the road because it was built over badly, but then turned right on Roe Street. I walked on down to where the tracks used to cross to have a look, but the rest of us had to turn to the left on Jayne Street in the settlement of Florida, NY.

The street was a residential one, and the railroad was just in back of the homes on the right. As we walked, I watched and noticed that the old station sign for the Florida Station was hanging on the garage of a white house on the road.

Prior to the hike, I had accumulated quite a lot of images of the old Florida NY station. 
The first one I had to do was a photo by John H. Riley, Peter Brill Collection, from the book "The Lehigh and New England Railroad Company: Operations on the East End."

I also had another old postcard image, but then I had two that, like the Pine Island Station, were taken by J. E. Bailey, from the Jim Hutzler Collection/Steamtown National Historic Park archives.

The station used to stand in what is now a chain link fenced area near where Jayne Street met Maple Ave. I got several photos of the site, and I tried to use what appeared to be the same building off to the left while looking north that appears in old photos as an "anchor point" to present. I think I got them pretty close, but it's hard to say.

The current settlement of Florida was part of the Wawayanda Patent known as the Florida Tract early on. It was originally called "Brookville" and then took on the name Florida in 1760.
The name itself means simply "covered in flowers". The state of Florida was named "La Florida" when Ponce De Leon claimed it for Spain, due to the flower cover. We can logically assume the same of this area.

We walked up Maple Ave and went straight across onto the railroad bed into a gated area that is apparently municipal public land. There was a sign that said "not a thru street" and "road closed" beyond at a gate that really looked like a trail gate.

The access road led to behind the Orange County Sports Club and there were ball fields on the left. The road on the railroad bed ended, and an ATV path continued on the right of way straight ahead into a line of trees.

The rail bed skirted an industrial area where Shepherd's Eye Brewing Company is. It was starting to get late, so we didn't try to stop at this or nearby Glenmere Brewing Company. I recall looking at the menus and they didn't have really any particularly interesting strong stuff anyway.

We continued on the grade to the north, and it got a little muddy with a lot o standing water. There was one tree that had fallen pretty badly over the right of way. We soon skirted the backs of homes to the left, and the grade remained pretty clear, then passed through a section in a line of trees through fields until it came to a clearing where the rail bed was no longer obvious. We followed where it should have been 

We skirted a bit of a field, and then came out to where the railroad crossed Jessup Switch Road at an angle. This was the former site of the Orange Farm Station adjacent to an old folks home.

I had several photos of this site to do compilations with. Like before, these were 1910 images by J E Bailey from the Jim Hutzler/Steamtown National Historic Park Collection.

There was a building close to the former station site, unrelated to the railroad, and situated at a somewhat difficult angle making it easier to miss what I was looking for.

The original station served many farming interests, but also the Orange County Poor House, which opened in what is now the Valley View Care Center (nursing home) in the 1830s. The poor, mentally ill, and discarded were brought here for about a century.

I think there may have also once been a quarry spur from the railroad, because I'm not sure what the "Jessup Switch" would have been for other than as a siding for the station and poor house.

We continued on the rail bed ahead, which went through pretty wide open fields, then skirted a segment of woodlands on our right. It was starting to get dark, and I was glad to have reached this area first.

To our right, I was surprised to find  the Potters Field Cemetery that was associated with the nearby poor house, directly to the right of the rail bed. The nearly forgotten cemetery had earliest interments back in 1850, and the last burial was in 1941.
The cemetery was slightly overgrown, but serious efforts to try to restore it have been taken on, most significantly in 1998 and 2007.

Soon, we reached Quarry Road where we turned left. The right of way ahead goes by some sort of loud shooting range site. We soon turned right on Pulaski Highway, and then the railroad bed came in parallel to the right of us.
Pretty soon, the rail bed crossed under Pulaski, which was not even built as we see it today during the railroad's existence.

The Lehigh and New England was mostly all abandoned on October 31, 1961. The Erie Pine Island Branch was predominantly used by that line, so when they abandoned, there was really no use for the Erie branch either and it too was abandoned.

We turned left and continued along Rt 17A after a left turn ahead, and we had to walk that the remainer of the way back because it was almost dark.
I think we could have gotten through more of the Pine Island Branch, especially between Houston Road and Gibson Road, but it was too dark to take the chance, and we wouldn't see anything anyway. Maybe one day it'll officially be made a trail and we'll be able to use it better, but for now, I was happy enough to have covered what we did. 

It was getting pretty dark, and the highway didn't have as good a shoulder on it as I would have liked.

We continued to carefully make our way to the north, and we had a pretty nice sunset behind us, but it was a little sketchy.

It was not nearly the most dangerous road walk we had ever done before, but this time it did catch the attention of one of the local police officers.

I think it was somewhere near Gibson Road that the officer saw us, and then intercepted us where there was more room at the intersection.
He told us that he could give a couple of us a ride back at a time, but I really wanted to finish doing the hike. He respected that, and thought what we were doing was cool, so instead he loaned me an official police high visibility vest to wear up in front of the group for the remainder of the time we were walking along Rt 17A. He asked us where we were going to be finishing up, and I told him the lot near the Burger King. He told us he would meet us there at the end.
We carefully made our way north across Rt 6 and back into the parking area where he was waiting for us.
I thanked him again and returned his vest, and we were back to the cars to conclude the hike.

I was really pretty happy with how this turned out. It was actually one of those hikes that in some ways I dreaded doing. It was one that I wasn't quite as excited about doing. But it still turned out pretty great.

This would also sort of signal my push to the Maybrook Connections. I'd already done other Erie stuff up around the area, but there were all of those lines that sort of converged on Maybrook New York, which until the Poughkeepsie Bridge burned in 1974, was a major rail center.

Pushing north on this was sort of the opposite side of the Hudson River from what we'd been working on along the old Maybrook Line.
I once looked at the Orange County NY railroad connections like they were alien and rather inaccessible, too much to take on, and I had now covered a whole lot. Goshen, which was a pretty big railroad center, had tracks coming together four ways, and at this point I'd pretty much hit three of them. It was also the very last hike of 2020, and the last hike before big changes....