Hike #1630: 11/2/24 Spruce Run Reservoir with Gerard Schut, Deidre Supple, Lisa F, Mike Selender, Eric Lipper, Shayna Michaels, ?, ?, Sev, ?, Alyssa Valenti and one guest (forgot name)
I had done this particular trip many times before, as many as 13 at least in part that included the perimeter of the reservoir, and whenever the water goes low, I end up hosting a hike through my job at the state.
The reservoir had been dropping quite a lot over the course of the preceding Summer, and at this point we were in a drought, so the water continued to drop even more. It was the perfect time to do this.
Up until the end of October, I had to work every Saturday in order to have coverage for the campgrounds, but that came to an end the week prior. I scheduled this hike the first available Saturday that wasn't a regular work weekend.
I've always enjoyed walking the perimeter of the reservoir, ever since my first time doing it, which was way back in August of 2012, when I hadn't even been working at the site more than a year yet.
At the time, I didn't know how feasible it would be to hike the entire perimeter, but it ended up being fantastic.
I organized this as night hikes several times over the years, and everyone always loved it. Word got out that I had been doing this, and I was asked to formally organize the same hike for the state.
I did this, and it went over very well. I ended up doing it when the water went low over and over, and the last time it happened in 2022, it was so popular that I had to do it twice, both with high attendance.
This time, I was asked to do it again, but it wasn't posted in the same way online, and so it didn't bring the amount of people that the previous ones did, but I was alright with that too.
This would be the first time in quite a while I would do any hiking without my son, Ev. It was the first time I'd even worn a backpack probably since March when Ev's mom didn't want me to bring him with me on the anniversary hike.
We had a really good showing for this still, and there were more folks that I'd never met before. I was most happy to see my friend Deidre, who has become Superintendent of Round Valley Reservoir.
I recognized her as one of the greatest seasonal employees to ever come through the park, and encouraged her to use her passion for good and learn more. She really shined greater than anyone I've ever seen, and she gives me hope that the State Park Service has brighter days ahead.
Further, I feel that she grounds me and shares an articulate perspective that helps me with my critical thinking in times of stress or self doubt. I try to not always let on that I know as much as I do, or that I have as many of the talents that I have, but I know that I'm a step above the rest in many areas, and I bring this up here specifically to say that she is better than me in almost all ways. With encouragement, she can literally be the savior to a very broken system.
I was sad that new coworker but old friend Maria was not able to attend. She recently started working with me, and she also has incredible potential that will certainly grow with encouragement.
We started the hike at the spot I have in the past, the large parking area on Van Syckles Road just off of Rt 31 in Union Township. It's a good spot to start because there's a whole lot to go over from that point and for the first couple of miles into the hike. Things can more along more quickly after that.
Once everyone was together, we began walking out the end of a sort of jetty peninsula to the dry reservoir. At the time we did this hike, it was at around 35% capacity, some of the lowest we'd ever seen it. I'd done this hike when the capacity was down in the thirties before, but this time it would get lower.
Water Authority resources were claiming that this was the lowest the reservoir has ever been since it filled up in the sixties, but I was alerted to the fact that it dropped to I think about 28% in 1993.
The Spruce Run is the main tributary that feeds the reservoir. It finds its old course when the water is this low, and just ahead, we start to see how the roadways used to go prior to being flooded over.
Just ahead, we came to the remnants of the bridge abutments where the Van Syckles Road used to cross over the Spruce Run. To the left of us and across the Spruce Run is the historic route of the Spruce Run Turnpike, which was chartered in 1813. It was the main road for years until present day Rt 31 was developed, parallel but straighter.
When this was developed, it was Rt 30, until it was realized there was already a Rt 30 in south Jersey, and it had to be changed. 69 was the chosen designation, but that lasted only until the state tired of college kids stealing the signage for it, and it was switched to Rt 31.
The original Spruce Run Turnpike alignment, from the car dealership on Van Syckles to a point to the north, is now often under the waters of the reservoir, but it is among the first things to emerge when the waters go down.
The old bridge that carried the road over the Willoughby Brook, the next tributary to the reservoir, still stands although it is usually submerged, and is in sight. It is made of concrete, so of course it is not the original structure.
Just north of that bridge is the original four way intersection where Van Syckles Road met the Spruce Run Turnpike across from Cregar Road. Cregar now ends at Rt 31, but was a through road until about 1963 when the reservoir was filling.
I showed the remnants of the old abutments where a bridge crossed Spruce Run. I think it was probably a pony truss bridge, but I've never seen any photos of it.
Once we reached that spot, our route would take us along the historic route of the road heading to the west. Some of the old pavement is still in place, although it is deteriorating, heading this way.
Looking ahead, we could see where the road came back up out of the reservoir level, and that location is now the state parking area, the second one along Van Syckles Road coming from Rt 31.
We followed the road out and along a very wet area that wasn't as bad as it had been in the past, because we could go through without getting wet, and then crossed a small bridge that went over a spring or flow that seems to come from what would have been the raceway to the Union Furnace.
As we reached where the road started going up to the parking area, we turned to the left and started heading over to the mount of stones that is all that remains of the old Union Furnace.
I walked over to the furnace and stood on it, and waited for the others to come over so that I could explain what we were seeing to the entire group.
The Union Furnace was developed in 1742 by Philadelphia businessmen William Allen and Joseph Turner.
The location was chosen on the wide flood plain near where Spruce Run and Willoughby Brook come together because there was good sand, an important factor in the iron making process.
Robert Taylor was a bookkeeper and teacher, and he rose to the level of ironmaster. All major operations moved from the area of the reservoir around 1760, to nearby High Bridge.
I told the story of how George Washington went fishing with Mr. Taylor on the nearby South Branh of the Raritan River, even though Washington despised fishing. He did so to curry favor with the ironmaster to serve the American cause.
I told everyone about the furnace and the problems we had been having lately. Since the first time it appeared during low water, people have been ripping apart the obvious rounded stones that were part of the furnace.
Some of them, we feel, is because they have been looking for artifacts. That was one of the concerns earlier on. Some of us didn't speak about the location of the furnace for a couple of years because we wanted to protect it.
Now, the furnace has been out of the water for so long that people are discovering it. Most recently, the stones have been pulled apart and situated like chairs around the site.
We are faced with a problem now. For a while, it was best to protect the historic location, but in the digital age, people are bound to find out.
This is a one hundred eighty degree turning point now. Not long ago, keeping it secret was best. Now, it seems we are better off promoting the hell out of it because at least then there will be people to report if they see something underhanded happening at the site. More friendly eyes and ears are all we have because state level enforcement is so grievously short staffed. Only seventy some officers to patrol the entire state park service.
Bill Honachefsky is just about the best historian for this site, and he did show up at the start of the hike to talk to everyone for me, but he had to head off to work unfortunately, and then meet up with us again later.
We made our way off of the furnace, and I pulled up some of my then and now historic compilations of the site to show to everyone.
From here, we continued along the shore line to the south a bit. It was a rather steep slope at this point, down to where the water started, so we went up a bit higher, also because of the next foundation ruins ahead.
I pointed out with the ruins at the furnace, where the one wall used to be, it doesn't really resemble anything but a stone row.
I explained that these old foundations, made of horse hair mortars, did not stand being underwater for so long. That kind of mortar deteriorates, and what might have been walls to buildings is now nothing more than a stone row.
This was the case of the next building site just ahead, at a level spot at the top of the slope that is usually under water.
The building that used to stand at this location was the William Allen House. The home was supposely built about 1720, so it was already standing by the time Allen and Turner bought the Union Ironworks. There may acually have already been a small ironworks on site that they purchased, but much of that information is lost to time by now.
In later years, the William Allen house was added on to, and before the area became the reservoir, the home was being used as a retirement home. The building was demolished for the creation of the reservoir.
In addition, the furnace stack apparently stood taller before it was flooded, but it was bulldozed level in order to protect water craft from hitting it.
We continued on ahead along the waterfront, passed the handicapped dock near the boat launch, and then came to the boat ramp itself.
I let everyone know that this was the site of one of the only restrooms we would be coming across, and that they should go and make use of it if they needed.
We waited over by the ramp for a little while for about half the group to go back and use this.
From here, we headed out to the much longer than usual peninsula at the end of the boat launching area, where we had really splendid views of the open water of the reservoir.
I went all the way out just about to the end, and not everyone went with me. Most actually cut corners throughout the entire hike where I took the longer way.
We wrapped around and started following the water along the other side of the boat launch peninsula, heading back to the north, and soon came to the foundation remnants associated with the barns and silos of the former Exton Farm.
I pointed out what some of these were, and we continued walking along the water to the north, to a very small inlet to the reservoir that comes in near Polktown Road to the north.
As we continued through this section, I steered everyone a bit to the right, because it was in this location back in 2022 that our friend Celeste had found a major sinkhole thing out on the reservoir.
Apparently an old cistern of some sort collapsed, and created about a four foot drop.
This time, as we approached that area, the surface mud was starting to dip down like it was getting ready to collapse in the same area that collapsed last time. I felt was getting ready to give out again. I sent a couple of text messages to coworkers alerting them about it.
We all walked around the spot, and I said I'd come back to put caution tape or something around it.
I recall it looking like a cistern or something when it opened up before.
Just ahead, we reached the site of the former Exton Farm, and the old Union Road.
Union Township is actually named for the union of acreage that was associated with the Union Ironworks. I let everyone know this was nothing to do with the Civil War "Union", but rather this reasoning.
The Union Road traveled from this union of acreage all the way to William Trent's house, Trenton. Before the reservoir, as per the 1873 atlas maps of Hunterdon, to continue west from where we started on roads, one would take Van Syckles Road to the intersection of Polktown Road and Union Road. Where the road goes straight from Polktown today, one would have to turn left, and then right on Van Syckles heading west. The historic route of the road from that point now is present day Boat Launch Road, or at some points, right next to it. That road now goes through the middle of where the toll building is.
The Union Road continued south past the foundation of the Exton Farm house, which is in pretty good shape. There is a well hole in that, and there is a good amount of intact foundation because it had been updated with a more modern mortared foundation.
There was supposedly a small community of prefabricated or mobile homes along the Union Road behind the Exton Farm, as well as trailer homes. The settlement was known as Bakersville as I am told.
We walked aound the foundations and I told everyone what I could about the site, and then we continued across a somewhat wet area and up onto a slope close to the Spruce Run Recreation Area's Picnic Area 4.
We could easily see where the driveway that went off of the Union Road went down over the small stream and to the farm buildings ahead.
The old Union Road dips down and goes into a very wet area just ahead, so we had to go up and into the upper area for just a bit, and then came back down onto the old Union Road again where it is more obvious and still paved.
From here, we were able to walk the old Union Road all the way out to the end of the campgrounds. The road historically followed land contours, and so it is just barely below the normal edge of the water below Picnic Area 4 and lower Picnic Area 3.
Someone had lined the forme edges of the road with sticks, stuck into the ground, which made them look sort of like old gave stones, but were obviously not. This was done since the last time I had walked the perimeter of the reservoir a couple of years back.
We followed the section through to area 3, and then stopped at an old foundation to the left. We could see where the paved apron from the road to the garage for the house was, and the base of the chimney. There is a date on that, I think 1934.
Wil Bullivant, who was the first maintenance supervisor at Spruce Run when it opened in '72, told me that the house that stood there was moved to 1 Van Syckles Road. That building became the Central Region Office for many years, and then was an office used by Fish and Wildlife. It was just demolished the previous year.
I'm not certain if that house actually was the same one; if it was, it certainly had an addition put on it. Either way, it is gone today.
We continued ahead, and the Union Road climbs up into the shore line a bit more as it approaches the boat rental facility.
The docks at the boat rental are all way out of the water, and all of the anchors visible. The boat concession guy, Chaz, left the park early because he couldn't make anything if he was unable to launch. His pontoon boat couldn't be even used at all. With water levels going lower more often, it looks like he'll be pulling out of Spuce Run altogether.
We continued past the rental area, and then around the outside of the campgrounds.
When we got to the end of the campgrounds, there was a long peninsula to the left that I walked out and around a bit, then came back to the shore to head to the east.
The slope from the campground in this area is quite steep, and it's easy to sort of forget where we are when walking this section because it has the illusion of being desolate despite the infrastructure above.
We continued to the north along the edge of the campground peninsula, and then came to the lowe Picnic Area 2 pavilion, which had been recently cleared off of almost all vegetation from around it.
We walked around this spot, and just beyond is the beach and the building complex around that, which looks like a bunch of UFOs from a distance.
We continued along the end of the beach, and then around the jetty on the other side.
Wil Bullivant also to me that the reason the jetty is there is because they decided to line a leaking pipe with tar one year, which was a dumb idea (not his), and it resulted in tar getting into the swimming areas. He told me a woman came up to him and showed him pieces of tar in her bikini.
As a result, the pipe that was causing the tar encroachment into the reservoir was blocked from water flow to the beach area by the construction of the jetty we see today!
We continued from here, and reached one of the rockiest sections of the entire shoreline. Sometimes, I walk up on the walkway above to avoid this, which is the route of the Highlands Trail, but this time I decided to just say on the waterfront and climb along the rocks, which is always fun.
There are a couple of places in that section that require some hand hold climbing to get down, and and after that, it pretty much leveled off again at the approach to the park police dock ahead.
We paused for a few moments when we got to just below the tower and club house buildings, which are the oldest extant structures in the recreation area.
They are supposedly built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. It was part of a group of traditional fox hunt British types with hounds, and the tower was the judge's tower. The club house was obviously their clubhouse. Some new stuff has happened in this area lately, with the repair of one of the docks as an Eagle Scout project, and other scouts working on the clubhouse.
When everyone that needed it got back down from the restroom, which occupies the tower building, we continued on past the dock, and then got to where we could see the remnants of old Van Syckles Road again.
The road emerges from passing through where the toll building is, into a line of trees behind the tower. We could then see the pavement coming out of the water on either side of the cove by the dock.
In this area, we came to a large old tree stump. Treasure seekers had been all around this area, because there were all sorts of old metal implements placed on top of it. Past this, there was also a large round area with no rocks in it, and rocks strewn around the outside. It seems that this was some sort of former structure site as well, but not sure what.
We walked up a bit of this, and then around a peninsula ahead. Once around to the other side, we could see out to where the old road use to continue across the Black Brook, the third of five major tributaries that feed the reservoir.
We got on the old Van Syckles Road route again, with some more pavement showing, and continued ahead to the former bridge site. This required a bit step down and up. The stream itself looked tiny, more so than usual. Drought conditions have brough it down a bit, but it also does concentrate out on the reservoir bed to make any of these streams seem smaller.
We could still make out a bit of the old abutments that carried the bridge.
On the other side, we followed the former road route right up to where it enters the woods on the other side. This was where we would climb out from the reservoir bed and onto the Highlands Trail for a bit.
Every time I do this hike, this spot is always a bit of a sloppy mess.
There has been a lot of weeds growing over where the road used to continue through, but I've always been able to bully on though it. The two times I did this hike the last time the water was low, it had been a bit worse. Probably the toughest spot on the hike because it was so badly grown in.
This time, it was probably even worse. Deidre helped to find a good way, but she went through a slightly different way than me. I had to get down to almost a crawl to get through.
Eventually, we came to one of the mowed paths in Clinton Wildlife Management Area. There used to be a house on old Van Syckles Road in this area, and I did see the barn foundation that went with it. However, I made a slightly wrong turn. We ended up going uphill on a management path that had been somewhat recently mowed, and that brought us a different way to the Highlands Trail route further uphill.
Once we got on the trail, it was much easier, skirting some field edges and such. I did notice that a couple of the posts were missing in the section, which is not good because it's really necessary to follow the trail route.
The trail headed down and through a swath of woods, then passed through a tree line before crossing a private driveway to one of the only privately owned homes along the reservoir. I've heard this was some politician that managed to keep their property when the rest of it was taken.
After the driveway, the trail follows an old farm road to the right, parallel with the driveway, then cuts left into the woods heading downhill.
Soon, we skirted the edge of the nearly dry pond that the trail wraps around below the Joseph Turner House. People used to think this was part of the reservoir, but it is not. It was a private farm pond, and the north side of it is now state owned. Some I understand is still private.
Joseph Turner built his home uphill from this spot, and it is now the museum of the Union Forge Heritage Association. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the museum opened for us this time. I was planning on doing the side trip up to it, but we decided not to this time. We could kind of see it through the trees.
The hous was built in 1760, and had late additions. After Turner, it was owned by John Penn's assistant Benjamin Chew I seem to recall.
We continued on the Highlands Trail around the pond, and could see there was still some water in the lower end of it.
The trail turned off to the right and then climbed a bit along more field edges heading west. This skirted field edges for a bit, and I had to watch the phone GPS closely for where to turn away from the tail diamond blazed route.
At the top of a hill, there were a couple of lines of fields that turn to the south. This would be our route.
We followed one section of fields to the south, and the mowed pathway weaved to the east when it reached the near edge of the reservoir, at a steep slope. This is where we usually climb down.
We made our way onto the dry bed, which in this area had some slight paths down from it. Animals apparently use it, but my past trips through the area.
We made our way slightly to the right toward the edge of the reservoir, and in the middle of this wide inlet where the Mulhockaway Creek flows in.
The 1873 Beers Atlas of Hunterdon County calls this something like "Mohonselaughaway Brook", which is probably closer to the original native word for it. These names often get shortened or changed. For example, "Raritan" was "Naraticong".
The Mulhockaway is a really tough one to figure out crossing when water is higher, but this time it wasn't so bad at all. We were able to head over to the the edge of it, and I just walked down through the middle. It felt pretty good because it wasn't so cold just yet. The others all found good places to hop across. It was a little mucky and some of the spots on the other side were tough to get in.
Once we were across to the other side, the rest of this was extremely easy. We made our way from the south side of the inlet to the east. At a corner where trees jutted out, we looked back to see a multitude of old stumps from before the reservoir lining where the stream course was historically.
We went around a corner, and there was another old road spot going down and over an area of dense mud. This was an easy spot to go down and back up.
After this next cove, we made our way around another corner and started heading south. There is usually a large island out in this area, but it was now totally connected to the land. I usually walk out onto the island section anyway.
Also in this stretch on the southwest side of the reservoir is another area of farm ruins. Much of it is concrete, so it dates to twentieth century, but there were historic farms that go back way farther.
Some of these old foundations are on a slope with stepped sections of them. The Beers Atlas shows that this area was the site of the Conover and Carhardt Farms in the late 1800s. The Muhockaway Farm was in this area at some time as well, but I'm not as familiar with the twentieth century stuff.
The larger of the two farms had a homestead and as many as twelve out buildings.
Just to the east of here, near the deepest spot of the reservoir, was the former site of the small settlement of Cole's Mills, where a couple of mills stood at a bend in the Union Road, where the Spruce Run met the Mulhockaway to form the "Big Brook". Today, there is nothing referred to as "Big Brook" because just about all of it is under the waters of the reservoir.
We continued around to the south, and passed around a steep section to the final inlet on the southwest side. We weaved around in a muddy area, near to a south levee, and then continued around part of another peninsula where the Union Road emerges from the water.
We exited the reservoir bed later than I usually do it, so we had to go to the right and then out and around to where we usually come out.
I had thought that this road we were walking was the old Union Road, out of the water, but it turns out it wasn't! I don't know if this was the first time I noticed it, but as we skirted the edge of the normal water line on our left, I could see the pavement of the old road just barely below the level of the road we were walking, which is always out of the water.
We got out of the reservoir property, around the gate, and into the development where the street is still known as Union Road heading south. We followed this through these neighborhoods to the south past countless campaign signs. It was interesting to see the numbers from each candidate in this area. I suppose it was abundantly clear that Trump was going to win the election, since even this heavily democratic dominated area had so many Trump signs out.
We reached the end of the road near Rt 173 and turned left through some of the business parking lots, as the road became the main street into Clinton. This road was the original Rt 22 alignment, which was moved and superimposed onto Rt 78 through this area.
We continued through town, and I spoke about how this was originally the Easton-New Brunswick Turnpike from the early 1800s, and we passed the Clinton House, which had been a stagecoach stop way back. We also passed Bonnell's Tavern, which was being restored and seemed to have some work going on on it.
I pointed out the old Clinton freight station, which was the end of the Clinton Branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, now Landsdown Trail. I showed them where the passenger station had been, a bit closer.
We continued on to the left at the Clinton House, to the Old Red Mill, which was originally Hunt's Mill when it was built about 1810. Robert Taylor's son, Archibald Taylor, with an associate puchased the mill and other real estate in Clinton, and then renamed the community of Hunt's Mill for New York Govenor DeWitt Clinton, who gained fame for his support of the Erie Canal. Indeed, at the time, it was hoped that Clinton would one day have a canal connecting to it.
We turned to the right at the mill, and crossed the 1870 Lowthorp Truss bridge over the South Branch of the Raritan River, one of only three remaining Lowthorp Trusses in NJ (the other two are nearby in New Hampton and Glen Gardner).
On the othe side of the bridge is the handsome old stone mill, which was built in 1836 to replace an earlier mill on the same site. Since the 1950s, it has been home to the Hunterdon Art Museum.
We tuned left here and headed up the street to Rt 513, then turned left to cross the South Branch of the Raritan again, with another good view of the old red mill.
We headed uphill, and passed the public library where we paused for a moment to let people use the restroom. After that, we continued uphill to the edge of Water Authority property, and then turned left. Here, there are paved roads open to pedestrian and official use only that bring us along the edge of the levee parallel with Rt 31 as well as the main dam, and then weave around to the edge of the reservoir.
Once there, we continued to the south for the home stretch. I let Bill Honachefsky know where we were, and he hurried to catch up with us.
We had a really steep section that I always forget about ahead, which is fun to scramble along. After that, we passed the water authority building and reached Bill at a small cove and spring.
An old farm house that stands on the right side is rather unknown, used as a state office, and it was one of the Exton family houses historically, dating back to the 1700s. I got a video of Bill explaining what it was.
We saw some interesting stuff while walking the edge, including old bottles and such. I grabbed a couple of nice ones, and there was an old Dale Earnhard "8" Budweiser can. I didn't keep that one though.
There is one steep spot remaining from here to the end point alongside the Spruce Run. It was actually a fun scramble to get around before heading back to the cars.
Once we got past the steep section, we turned over to the right, to the old intersection from where we were before, where Van Syckles Road hit the old Spruce Run Turnpike. We walked to that, then turned left on the Spruce Run Turnpike. We crossed over its old bridge over the Willoughby Brook, and then made our way out to where the old office had been demolished recently.
Mike had gone across the creek by wading it further back, but most followed me. I went down at the current Van Syckles Road bridge, which as a little walkway around beneath. I never realized how deep it was under there, but it was pretty nice. I might have to remember that for the future.
We finished with plenty of daylight left.
In the days that followed this hike, I had some trouble with lawyers regarding my posting about the cistern collapsing, and threats below reservoir level.
Destruction of the furnace ruins resulted in a 69 News interview at the furnace. Bill was interviewed for it, and I was asked to contribute, but politely declined because I didn't want to get myself into more trouble. I did however provide still photos for use on the cover of the news story, which is still up.
Soon after that, the state Historic Preservation department showed up at the park and wanted to see the historic sites usually under the water, so I was recruited to interpret the sites for over twenty of them. That was nice as well.
My frustration with how things are managed has left me unwilling to continue participating with any but the required state functions, which is sad, because I felt for a time that things might be getting a bit better. As of now, I'm feeling it's going to get worse, and I hope I'm wrong. I'm just glad that all of my immediate coworkers are great people and I can have a positive relationship with all of them.
All in all, I was happy I did this hike, and it was a really excellent, beautiful day. I hope to walk the thing again in the near futue, I just won't post it prominently.
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