Walpack, NJ

Beyond the Black wrote: Whats the address there? I'll go there and check it out for myself this week. When you going back there? I'll come. Doesn't look like much, what 2 houses there? I'm free tomorrow if you wanna go..

Not sure what my plans are for tomorrow. If you look on Google maps and find the center of Walpack. Go through the town, don't blink, its very small. Go over the 1 lane bridge and continue up to the graveyard. At that intersection, make a left. The yellow house is about 1/4 mile on the right.

There are other houses located throughout the park, but that would be an entire day trip to find them.

Let me know if you wanna go this week, doesn't have to be tomorrow. I just brought up tomorrow just to let you know I was free.

So when you getting an ATV? I want to check out those trails by you.

Pat is this the place in Walpack you went to?

www.lostinjersey.com/abandon/walpack.html

Do all these buildings at this site, still stand today?

Beyond the Black wrote: Pat is this the place in Walpack you went to?

www.lostinjersey.com/abandon/walpack.html

Do all these buildings at this site, still stand today?

All the buildings in the center of Walpack are still standing, but like the article said, they are occupied by rangers and craft shops. There are a bunch of abandoned houses still standing around the park like the article said. It would take all day to find them all.

Old mine road is cool too. I have sat at that 3 minute light. There are old copper mines off that road that Ruthven13 and I want to explore some time. Supposedly they go in for a few hundred yards and branch off into other tunnels.

That light stays red for 3 minutes? Whats the deal with that light? from looking at the picture, it looks as if there is no reason why a light should be there, I don't see any intersection. That road looks like the road near me that runs along side the river and the mountain.

Beyond the Black wrote: That light stays red for 3 minutes? Whats the deal with that light? from looking at the picture, it looks as if there is no reason why a light should be there, I don't see any intersection. That road looks like the road near me that runs along side the river and the mountain.

It's a one way road for several miles - controlled by the traffic light. You can see it from Route 80 West - it's the last exit in NJ before going over the bridge to PA.

It's a neat ride.

By Glen Lewis

In many places along the Old Mine Road within the state of New Jersey, neglect and the sharp edge of the budget axe have scraped the pavement off the surface, and revealed the powdery and pocked dirt origins of this ancient trail, said by some to be the oldest commercial road on the North American continent. It stretched from the Pahaquarry area to the New York village of Esopus (Kingston) on the Hudson- about 100 miles. Today, within Warren and Sussex Counties, it retains much of its pre-Revolutionary War charm and remoteness, although many of its historic structures have vanished, following the the federal government's plan to construct a dam across the Delaware River at Tocks Island. Many of the homes in the region were either demolished, left to decay or to become targets of vandals' torches.

The dam was never built, but some say that eventually, it will be. Were the area ever flooded, much of the road would be lost. Mystery has always surrounded the memory of the Old Mine Road. No one has ever said with clear authority who built it and when, although most attribute its origins to the Dutch in the 1600's. One who wrote about the road, and interviewed some of the local inhabitants of the area in the 1950's was Henry Charlton Beck in his book, The Roads of Home, published in 1956. He quotes freely from earlier books by Amelia Stickney Decker (That Ancient Trail), and John Barber and Henry Howe who compiled Historical Collections of the State of New Jersey. Some of the references to the road are quite revealing as to its origin and early users. Barber and Howe's 1844 publication included even older information from a source entitled Hazard's Register. According to Beck's sources, the road was "said to have been in order fifty years before William Penn set foot on American soil in 1682." Beck also states that "as early as 1641 the Journal of the Netherlands was telling tales of 'high mountains exhibiting strong indications of minerals.'"


When you are aware of the antiquity of the road, and its use by people and horse or ox- drawn wagons loaded with ore possibly more than 350 years ago, and then by such well known figures as John Adams, Count Pulaski, and General Horatio Gates, who all are said to have been guests at the Van Campen Inn, you experience a sense of history not found in many places in our country. I have stood before the Van Campen Inn and tried to envision its early inhabitants and their guests, some of whom may have taken refuge from attacking native Americans. But the road was already old when the Inn was built. It's route has been largely undisturbed within the state, so when you travel along it, you share the footsteps of those people from so long ago, who had no concept of what America was, or that some of their unborn relatives would be New Jerseyans or Americans. Some of their names linger today in the area. Beck mentions the names Rosencrans, Westbrook, Spangenburg, Hull, Decker, Losey, Depue, and even Smith. I know people with these names whose families trace their heritage to the area. Some may have sipped a glass of ale with General Gates as they sat behind the thick, safe stone walls of the Van Campen Inn or some other structure along the Old Mine Road.

To the relative newcomers to the area, like me, it is easy to feel that these modern descendants of the old folks we read about in books have a certain elevated status. Their ancestors found something that was worth keeping- a place, a way of life, a tradition, and their offspring were smart enough to stay. Of course, not everyone did. That's easy to see as you travel west into Pennsylvania, or north into New York State, and you find these same names again and again on headstones or street signs or in telephone directories.

As the mines in the area closed, and men and women took to farming or working for canals or railroads or the other companies which began to prosper in the skylands and neighboring localities, the Old Mine Road remained a country lane in New Jersey, and became Route 209 in New York. But the history is rich and those houses and barns which still stand have an address that anyone could be proud of. A visit to the Old Mine Road is very enjoyable, and worth the time it takes to get there. And if you're lucky, you just might come across a person who can share some stories about life along the old road.


[url:3royxbpz]www.njskylands.com/hsoldmine.htm[/url]

By Bob Koppenhaver

In the 1600s Dutch miners discovered copper ore in a beautiful ravine located about seven miles north of the Delaware Water Gap. To access the ore and to transport it to Kingston, New York, they constructed a road, now known as the Old Mine Road. Primitive by present standards, it was a major undertaking in its day, and legends of the road and its Dutch miners have persisted for over two centuries.

Old Mine Road runs about 40 miles through the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area (DWGNRA), along the northwestern edges of Warren and Sussex Counties on its way to Kingston. The Recreation Area was established after the abandonment of the proposed Tocks Island Dam project in the late 1960s. The entire district was condemned, and most of the structures razed, in preparation for a vast reservoir that was to cover the communities and farms that once stood along the old road. The dam was never constructed, and the pristine atmosphere that permeates the park today is ironic compensation for the havoc wreaked by the plan.

Recent flood damage has closed part of the road that closely follows the river's contour. Yet again there are whispers about damming the Delaware. Still, the road's natural beauty and solitude make for a perfect autumn drive along its accessible portions. And knowing what was once along the route gives a better appreciation of the character of the old road and the people who have lived along its edges.

Interstate Route 80 west provides easy access to the southern portion of Old Mine Road and leads past some interesting sites on the way. After driving west past the Columbia exit (#4), the Interstate passes under a huge former railroad bridge that crosses the Delaware River. When it was built in the early 1900s, this viaduct was the world's longest poured concrete bridge. As you enter the Water Gap beyond the bridge, on the right are about a dozen old cellar holes, all that remains of the forgotten hamlet of Browning or Browntown. The folks residing here were associated with an old slate quarry farther back in the mountain, and one of the first volunteers for duty in the Civil War lived here.


The former site of Dunnfield, another hamlet consisting of a few houses, a post office, train station, and a thriving slate business, is now a parking area for the Dunnfield Creek Trail and others.

Past the parking areas you'll see the sign for "Last Exit in NJ ­ Flatbrookville." Turn right at the bottom of the ramp and proceed to the 3-minute traffic light that accommodates a one-way stretch ahead. On your left, the New York-Susquehanna & Western once ran along the river, carrying passengers, freight and milk from local farms. It passed through Dunnfield and crossed the river about a mile ahead. Today the old railbed is used as the Karamac hiking trail.

Past the light, the single-lane road seems to hang from the edge of the cliff, indicating how difficult travel once was around the mountain. The narrowest portion of the Water Gap has been known as "Indian Ladder" for centuries. Before blasting for the railroad and the highway that later followed cleared the way, travelers needed to use a notched log or rope to assist them up and over the projecting rocky outcropping that came straight down to the river.

Ground Hog Hollow rises into the mountain on your right. This area was once peppered with estates used as vacation getaways by prominent New Yorkers. Today only large cellar holes up on the mountain above the hollow remain to mark where these large homes were located. More recent tenants live in an active bear's den farther up the hollow and a fox den down toward the river.

About a mile beyond, Karamac Trail heads toward the river where it merges with the old railbed. The Farview Trail, an antique mountain road, heads up and over the mountain, passes by an old home site or two and eventually meets the Appalachian Trail. The trail names recall the former Camp Karamac, a large resort, popular in its day, and its predecessor, the Far View House. Karamac boasted a large lodge, tennis courts, archery range, waterfront swimming and boating areas, dances amd bands, and other activities befitting the agendas of young socialites. Wandering along these trails you can still find traces of the old camp, including the tennis courts.


Another mile and the ruins of a very old dam can be seen in a small ravine in the mountainside on the right. Following the watercourse up the mountain for a quarter-mile or so will lead you to the Paint Springs. These two small pools are surrounded by rich rusty orange "mud" deposits, the pigments of which could be used to make paint­ or, mixed with bear grease, maybe even war paint!! The "Paint Spring Lot" was surveyed a couple of hundred years ago, indicating early interest in these pigments. Or perhaps the rusty deposits pointed to iron ore in the mountain.

A small riverside hamlet called Brotzmansville once sat below the old dam. Over the years the hamlet had a few mills, houses, a school, and a post office. Nearly all traces were washed away in 1955 when the Delaware River rose to a level eclipsing even the recent floods.

From the Interstate exit to here, the road has passed mostly through Worthington State Forest, named after C. C. Worthington, a wealthy late nineteenth century industrialist who once owned all 8,000 acres contained within the park, and hundreds more across the river. While developing resort property in Pennsylvania, Worthington maintained a relatively natural character in Buckwood Park, his domain that extended from the river to the top of the mountain, including Sunfish Pond. The road passes the State Forest headquarters on the left, located in a former farmhouse that was, during Worthington's tenure, called Buckwood Inn Farm, probably supplying fresh farm goods for the resort across the river. An old ferry ramp below the farmhouse predates the farm, providing interstate transport for early Americans. Long before that, this spot was a major crossing for Minnisink Indians fording the river.

Across the road from the headquarters, a beautiful waterfall cascades down the mountain. Farther up the steep mountainside an ancient stone bridge spans the watercourse above the waterfall. Near this old bridge are the remnants of a terracotta pipeline that once ran from Sunfish Pond at the top of the mountain to the ferry farm below. The pipeline used gravity to carry the cold fresh waters of Sunfish Pond down the mountain to serve Worthington's farm and guests. It has been suggested that the pipeline crossed under the Delaware River to bring the water to Worthington's guests at his PA mansion near Shawnee.

A mile up the road from the State Park headquarters is the parking lot for the Douglas Trail, a 2.5-mile long path that leads up to Sunfish Pond on the top of the mountain, named in honor of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas for his part in helping to save the pond's natural character. Less than a mile beyond the Douglas Trail the road follows very closely to the river's edge. Along here is a tiny parking lot from which you can see Tocks Island upriver. Had the dam project been completed, there would now be an earthen barrier across the river rising 150 feet over the island. The New Jersey mountainside would have been deeply gouged out to provide fill for the dam and to make room for a large spillway.

Not far from this parking area, the Army Corps of Engineers cut a tunnel 600 feet into the mountain above the roadway. In order to test the stability of the strata surrounding the proposed dam, 1,200 rock-core borings were extracted to determine what rock layers lay beneath. The Rock Cores Trail zigzags up the mountainside, roughly covering the area where the borings were done. Some of the borings, as large as 2 or 3 feet in diameter, are still up there, awaiting your inspection. Upon first seeing them you will think you have discovered the pillars of an ancient temple.


Less than a mile upstream from Tocks, a few old overgrown lanes lead up from the bottomlands along the river, one of which once served a 1930s country resort called Harry's Farm, where the Rutgers College football team trained in the summer, and Jersey Joe Walcott prepared for battle with Joe Louis. Another of the lanes led down to the Coppermine Inn, frequented by tourists and locals for many years. In the 1700s one of the Shoemaker ferries was established here as a lodging for guests, including raftsmen guiding huge timber rafts to markets downstream. In the 1800s this inn was under the proprietorship of another Shoemaker, and was known as the Union Hotel.

Less than two miles beyond Tocks Island is the parking area for the Coppermines Trail, which passes near the mines for which Old Mine Road is named. Although many people refer to the portion of the road from the Gap to this point as Old Mine Road, it really begins here at the copper mines. Although there is no substantial proof, legend says the Dutch started these mines as early as the 1600s. Mining was attempted a few times from at least the 1700s until the early 1900s. After the last attempt to mine copper failed, the land was taken over by the Boy Scouts of America and converted into Camp Pahaquarra, a popular summer camp that incorporated some of the mining company's buildings for its own use.


The copper mines and associated workings are across the road from the parking area. There are 18 mines or diggings existing today, mostly small in scope, remnants from the late 1800s and early 1900s. No one really knows what the earliest mines looked like or where they were. Legend states that the Dutch covered their mines or blew them shut to stop the English from taking them over in the late 1600s. Some still visible small openings may be a result of early "pick and wedge" explorations.

To see the lower mine, follow the trail a few hundred feet until the trail forks to the left along Mine Brook. Follow the brook and trail a few hundred yards until you suddenly come upon the mine adit. The mine is gated and locked, but just seeing this old mine in this beautiful ravine is worth the walk back there.

Moving on a short distance beyond Camp Pahaquarra, the Old Mine Road passes former Camp Cowaw, another BSA camp used until this area was taken over for the Tocks Island project. About a quarter-mile beyond former Camp Pahaquarra, the road passes the Poxono Island Boat launch, once Camp Cowaw waterfront.

A mile beyond the boat launch, the Calno School still sits along the road, a lonely reminder of a different time when families lived here. Behind the school is a large bottomland once known as Pahaquarry Flats. Nearly a mile long and half a mile wide, Native American villages of various time periods occupied this vicinity. A short distance beyond, the road passes a small cluster of houses and farm buildings once owned by VanCampens and Depues, both long-established family names throughout the valley. These structures are some of the few that survived the razing done in preparation for the never-to-be-built reservoir's rising waters. In the late 1800s, these and other homes located here were shown on maps as Calno Post Office.

About 250 years ago, during the era of the French & Indian War, as many as eight forts were built along the NJ portion of Old Mine Road. Some of these forts were fortified houses; others might have been more conventional stockaded forts. One of these forts, designated on old documents as "Van Camp's", was located somewhere here near the VanCampen and Depue homesteads.

Just beyond the buildings, a lane on the left crosses Van Campen's brook and once led into a farm or two. More recently the area along the river back there was used for the Depue Recreation Area. This area is now closed, again due to recent flood damage.

Continuing on, Old Mine Road parallels the beautiful Van Campen's Glen. The first trailhead is reached by turning right at the sign where a short dirt lane leads to a picnic area from which hikers can follow the naturally sculpted streambed of Van Campen's Brook into the Glen. Or continue to a small marked roadside parking area a little further up to hike down the glen. Either way will yield beautiful views along one of the nicest paths in New Jersey.



Just before the hamlet of Millbrook lies the entrance to the Watergate area, acres of groomed grassy lawns on which to picnic, a pond or two, and public restrooms! Soon you'll come to Millbrook Village. Although it appears quite different from when it was a functioning, viable town a hundred or more years ago, this assemblage of structures is meant to resemble the old towns of the period. Millbrook is the site of a popular fall festival sponsored by the National Park Service in October.

Leaving Millbrook, Old Mine Road continues into Walpack Township in Sussex County. About a half mile from Millbrook is the northern trailhead for the Hamilton Ridge Trail, which leads to another trail steeply downhill toward the river, along the slides of Sambo Falls. Follow it until you finally reach another ancient path along the edge of the river. It has been claimed that this old trail is actually the original Old Mine Road.

About a mile beyond the trailhead, the Delaware View House is located on a T-intersection of Old Mine Road and the former Flatbrookville-Stillwater Road, which heads up the hill to the right (a fascinating trip in itself.) The original Greek Revival farmhouse­two rooms up, two rooms down­was built in 1837. In 1892 a multi-storey addition was built around the house to become a lodge called the Flatbrook Hotel. Sometime in the early 1900s it became known as the Delaware View House until 1926, when the building became known as Salamovka, a resort for Russian émigrés. Today the building serves as a general store for park visitors, part of the Historic Leasing Program invented in the 1980s to attract private investors to occupy and rehabilitate historic structures. Stop in for a hot dog, a chat with proprietor George Kately, and a beautiful view over the river valley from the front porch.

From the Delaware View House, the Old Mine Road descends for about a half-mile before crossing the Flatbrook and reaching a stop sign at a T-intersection. Turn left to stay on Old Mine Road through the former town of Flatbrookville. Years ago you would now be passing the Flatbrookville School, Flatbrookville church, various dwellings, even a post office. Today only a few buildings remain.

Here the road twists through the Walpack Bend, so named for the large S-curve in the Delaware. Walpack, the historical name for this general area and for the surrounding township, is the corrupted form of a more complex Indian term meaning "whirlpool". Sources from long ago referred to a circular eddy in the Delaware at the mouth of the Flatbrook. It is said that this circular current becomes pronounced during times of high water, so strong that it can suck down large trees.

About 3/4-mile from the stop sign by the Flatbrook and along the last curve of the "S", you will see a lane coming up from the left to meet Old Mine Road. This was the way down to old Decker's Ferry, one of the oldest ferries on the Delaware, dating from the 1770s. Due to the large S-curve in the river, this was the only place on the river where you could cross into PA by heading east! Also near this lane is a marker commemorating Old Mine Road, one of only two that still exist.

Fort Walpack, another French & Indian War bastion that may have been located in this area, is depicted on a couple of mid-1700s maps and described in a 1758 letter as a "wooden church, a small blockhouse, palisaded", an interesting combination of structures for a fort. Just beyond the Old Mine Road marker and just before reaching the Rosenkrans Ferry lane, there once stood the Lower Dutch Walpack church, built in 1747. Traces of this ancient church are difficult to locate, if they exist at all.

The private lane leading to the former Rosenkrans Ferry is on the left about a quarter-mile from Decker's Ferry lane. Like most ferries of the era, it was little more than a large flat-bottomed boat capable of carrying one car, or a horse and wagon, guided across the river by an overhead cable. To get the ferryman's attention from the Pennsylvania shore, customers rang a bell.

Just beyond the Rosenkrans Ferry lane, along the sharp drop-off on the left, is the site of a little known local legend called Ruthern Jump. The legend says that a man named Ruthern jumped down this steep incline for a quart of rum and broke his neck. No one knows whether he survived long enough to take a sip.

For a mile and a half beyond the Rosenkrans ferry lane, Old Mine Road passes a few houses and another lane known as Smith's Ferry. Just beyond, a gate terminates your journey until the road is repaired. Hopefully that will occur soon, because there are many more interesting sites of interest along Old Mine Road before it exits New Jersey at Port Jervis, New York.

[url:t39khxz6]www.njskylands.com/hsoldmine2.htm[/url]

Roadside Attractions
Story and photos by Robert Koppenhaver

The Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area (DWGNRA) covers a 40-mile stretch from the Delaware Water Gap to Port Jervis, NY. Interesting and scenic old roads can be found throughout the area, but none possess more mystery and legend than New Jersey’s Old Mine Road. Excursions along the road reveal layer upon layer of historical intrigue, cloaked among nature’s advancing shroud. Other roads along the way have regressed to little more than footpaths; hiking trails for those who want to explore this region that has reverted to a state more "pristine” than it was 30 years ago. The reason for this reversion is the deauthorized Tocks Island Dam project that forced most land owners in the area to sell out and move away. The resulting reservoir would have eradicated all traces from a millennium of human experience in these valleys through which the Old Mine Road travels. The stories remain for us to uncover. A glance down a lane entices our imagination; a peek up the hill rouses the explorer in us. You could spend years sorting out an endless trail of impossibly intricate clues chronicling a thousand tales along the road. Better to begin, perhaps, with some time just understanding the road’s appeal and the nature of those complexities.

A good place to start? A casual stop at the Isaac Van Campen House (or Van Campen Inn) blossoms effortlessly into a full day of exploration and discovery. The Inn is among the most prominent "official” destinations along the Old Mine Road, but it is not at all apparent how many features actually wait here for discovery. Van Campen Inn sits on the unpaved portion of Old Mine Road at the lower end of Shapanack Flats directly west and over the ridge from Walpack Center. From Millbrook Village drive north to the bridge over the Big Flatbrook, turn left and follow the road along the river’s "S” curve known as Walpack Bend. At the intersection with Pompey Road, bear left onto the gravel road, crossing a small stream and continuing beside Walpack Mountain to your right. To explore the inn and the area around it, pull off Old Mine Road into the parking field across from the inn.



Despite its name, the Van Campen Inn was never really used as an inn, at least not as we know them today. This "inn” was actually a "Yaugh house”, a rural house in a remote area that was required by early colonial law to provide shelter and food to travelers.

The Rosenkrans family began farming in this area around 1730. After acquiring the property around 1742, Harmon Rosenkrans, son of one of these earliest Dutch immigrants, constructed the house’s first section, later called the "kitchen wing”. In 1754, Harmon sold the property and house to his brother in law, Isaac Van Campen, who probably then built the larger main house that we see today. In 1917, the kitchen wing was torn down but its outline is still visible on the end wall. There remains some disagreement, however, about which wing was actually built first and by whom.

About 1811 Abraham Van Campen sold the house to Henry DeWitt of Rochester, N.Y., for his son John H. DeWitt, who then moved in. He built a "peculiar long-roofed barn” that stood, along with other outbuildings, in the grassy area across the road from the inn. The barn was destroyed by fire in 1971.


Over the years the inn has suffered various problems with its structure. In the 1980s, most of the front wall and one end wall were completely dismantled, a new foundation constructed and the walls rebuilt with the original stones. Today the Walpack Historical Society uses the inn as a museum and conducts tours on certain weekends during the year.

Until the 1970s another house stood on the knoll behind the Van Campen house. In the 1700s John Rosenkrans’ home apparently stood there. In 1850 a second house, the Hull house, was built on that site, possibly using the original foundation. Some years later a third home, later called the Schnure house, replaced the Hull house.

In 1755, at the beginning of the French & Indian War, Indian hostilities threatened the area’s settlers. New Jersey’s legislature responded by authorizing construction of a string of forts along its western border, roughly following the Delaware River, manned by local militias rather than British soldiers.

Except for traditional local stories, very little is known about these forts. However, an existing 1750s letter and map by Jonathan Hampton indicated a fort here, by the Van Campen house. Designated "Johns” or "Fort Johns” presumably because John Rosenkrans’ house would be part of the fortification, it served as the frontier distribution point for military supplies arriving from Elizabeth Town on the nearby "Military Supply Road”. A 1756 newspaper described "Fort Johns” as the place to meet for those men wishing to enlist in the provincial army. By 1757, a county report mentioned six existing forts, and, in 1758, a militia captain headed an official letter "Headquarters, on the Frontier of New Jersey”. A plan of the fort was drawn on Hampton’s map, illustrating a stone dwelling house and two small log buildings surrounded by a 120-foot-square palisade or stockade with a blockhouse projecting outward, but showing no indication of its orientation.

Known locally as Fort Shapanack, traditional accounts claimed that the fort’s stone blockhouse was on the knoll behind the inn, either beside the former farmhouse on the knoll or as part of a small cow barn overlooking the Van Campen house. In 1974, in preparation for the Tocks Island dam project, the Corps of Engineers obliterated most of the site on the knoll. In 1975, an archaeological study seemed to uncover a series of post moulds indicating a stockade, but later digs failed to uncover artifacts that would prove any 1700s activity on the site. Although the house is gone, ruins of the cow barn foundation can still be seen today. There is other evidence that a headquarters fort existed at this place, but since there is no proof the fort was ever built as sketched on the map, there remains the possibility that the fort was the Van Campen house itself.
fort stonework

Wherever its exact location was, Fort Johns saw military activity in both the French & Indian and Revolutionary Wars. In 1763, during the French and Indian War, the Van Campen house sheltered 150 people from the threat of Indian attack. In December 1776, General Gates stayed here with his colonial troops enroute to the upcoming Battle of Trenton. In 1778 Brig. Gen. Casimir Pulaski, a Polish count assisting America in its fight for independence, brought his 250 brightly uniformed cavalrymen down the Old Mine Road and wintered here for two months. In 1779 General Edward Hand & staff and Colonel Phillip Van Cortlandt were here. John Adams, while traveling from his home in Massachusetts to attend the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, stayed here at Isaac Van Campen’s.


To begin a walking tour of this area, walk northerly along Old Mine Road past the Van Campen house. About 200 yards or so from the house you will see a marker for Old Mine Road on the right and you will pass by a lane leading up the hill also to your right. (You will return here shortly.) Continue walking another few hundred yards to the Rosenkrans monument on your right. Col. John Rosenkrans owned a large tract of land here that extended over the mountain from Walpack Center to the Delaware River. He donated a tract of land near this monument for church use. During the French and Indian War he was a captain in the local militia and was a colonel during the Revolutionary War. It was his house that was probably fortified as part of Fort Johns.


Near the Rosenkrans monument is an ancient cemetery that was used for burials prior to the Revolution. Referred to as the "old Shapanack burying-ground” and the "Shapanack Dutch Reformed Church Cemetery", it consists of an upper and lower lot. An 1881 local history book, referring to a third lot, says there was an "adjoining lot that is occasionally used for the burial of colored people”. The deed for this 7.6-acre cemetery was filed in Burlington in 1754, but the property was actually conveyed in 1742. The upper lot is now commonly referred to as the Symmes Burying Ground, the lower lot is now called the Clark Burial Ground, and the third lot, which is some distance from here, has been called the Black/Slave Burial Ground.

To the left of the Rosenkrans monument is a trail leading up the knoll. Follow that to the cemetery on the top. This is the Symmes Burying Ground, best known of these old cemetery lots and containing mostly small, unmarked gravestones. Among others, members of the Rosenkrans and Van Campen families are interred here. Although it is claimed there are older undated stones here, the oldest dated stone is the carefully lettered gravestone of Mrs. Anna Symmes, which has been referred to for decades. She died July 25, 1776; the same month America declared its independence from England. Her presence here is noteworthy for two reasons: she was the wife of John Cleves Symmes, a man prominent in the affairs of both this area and the state during the 1700s; and she was the mother-in-law of William Henry Harrison who married one of her two daughters prior to his presidency.

Return down the knoll to the Rosenkrans monument and head back down Old Mine Road the way you came for a hundred yards or so to the small Clark cemetery on your left. This smaller burial lot is easily missed, and one wonders why it was isolated from the main cemetery on the knoll. Only a few crude fieldstone markers seem to be here, the burials being those of William Clark, some DeWitts, and Caroline Rosenkrans, ranging from 1795 to 1827.

An 1881 local history book places the old Shapanack church somewhere here in the lower cemetery lot. The old church was erected before the Revolution and was built of logs in the shape of an octagon. In the early 1800s there were still large congregations attending the old Shapanack church but the organization was abandoned about 1821, part of the congregation going to the Walpack church, and part to the Peters’ Valley Church. The church was in ruins by 1881.


Continue walking back toward the Old Mine Road marker, to the lane leading up the hill on the left and then head up that lane which is now called the Military Trail. This old road was little more than a wagon trail 250 years ago when it was used as a colonial military supply route from Elizabeth Town to the Fort Johns headquarters. Eventually this old road was called Walpack Center Road and was used until it was closed in the 1960s. Now it is just a wide trail, another example of how this area is slowly reverting back to its more natural state, resembling what it must have looked like to our ancestors.

Continue walking up the Military Trail a few hundred feet past the farmstead site of Rosenkrans, Hull, & Schneur; and the old stone wall on the left. The farmhouse site was on the flat area to the right and overlooked the Van Campen house below. Somewhere over there is where Fort Johns might have once stood.

As the trail flattens out, about 150 yards from the beginning, stop at the two gravestones on your left. A field will be to your right. There are no bodies buried under these gravestones. Oddly, the stones were found along the river near here in the 1950s, but the location of the graves they were meant to mark is unknown. The stones were placed here because Moses Hull, one of the names on the stones, once owned this property. The accompanying stone was for his son, Victor. Various members of the Hull family owned this farm from at least the 1840s until the 1920s.

Retrace your route back to the Military Trail and turn right. Walk about 150 yards toward the mountain; a meadow will be on your left. Over a small rise and near the edge of the meadow look for a low stone wall on the left about 10 yards before a steep streambed. Follow the path about 60 yards into the woods where it will turn right and head up a low flat-topped rise. Look for low, unmarked stones placed on edge in the ground, indicating the third cemetery lot referred to earlier as a "Slave/Black cemetery”, about 600 yards across the fields from the old Shapanack cemetery.

A Park Service brochure refers to this "slave cemetery” along the Military Trail but states that additional research is necessary to substantiate this claim. Possibly buried here are slaves and later free African Americans. The burial of an African American woman was witnessed here in the 1890s by a white diarist.

John Rosenkrans’ 1773 tax records show he owned a slave. Van Campen farm owners Isaac and the DeWitts also had slaves, so it makes sense that this cemetery might have been used for slave burials. Since New Jersey abolished slavery in 1846, freeing any remaining slaves, it is more than likely that freed African Americans who stayed in the area could also be buried here.

It is claimed that somewhere deep in the woods across the trail from the cemetery are the ruins of a cabin that might have been used by a few slaves. Whether these were still slaves or freed people is uncertain. Very likely there were African Americans living around here long after the slaves were freed by law.

At this point you can continue hiking another mile over the mountain to Walpack Center or return to your vehicle to continue along the ever-fascinating Old Mine Road.


[url:yjkunq6n]www.njskylands.com/hsoldmine072.htm[/url]

Did you ever go to the lost village in Watching reservation? They have these really old cabins there, people live in them though. Anyway, one time I was up there rising around, i found some old tomb stones "like that one in the picture you posted".

Back in the 80's, the county police raided the area to get rid of the satanic cult people that were perfroming animal sacrafice back there. Then in the 90's, some hiker discovered a feild of marijuanna growing wild in the woods, and the cops plucked out all the plants. I think there was hundreds of pounds collected.