Local Stories

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehigh_Valley_Railroad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Easton_and_Amboy_Railroad.svg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinhooa/2101626001/sizes/o/in/set-72157603869976680/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinhooa/2101625049/sizes/l/in/set-72157603869976680/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinhooa/4161455739/sizes/l/in/set-72157603869976680/ - nothing left but fog
http://westjerseyhistory.org/images/hunterdon/bellwoodpark/ - historic pictures of Bellwood Park

tunnel GPS coordinates for Bing.com/maps or Google Maps:
East side 40.641711, -75.021476, 3/4m NW of Pattenburg Rd
West side 40.65266,-75.031883 100 yards W of where Tunnel Rd meets Ridge Rd
Pull up a map and notice the discontinuity on Bellwood Park Rd: the road is closed across the peak because the ground is broken.

RR history in the USA. Look where it started up big: coal to Philly and NYC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_railway_history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camden_and_Amboy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belvidere_Delaware_Railroad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delaware_and_Hudson
a map: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/1886_D%26H.jpg yes, there really is a place called Manunka Chunk NJ, but Mauch Chunk is in PA.
http://www.switchbackgravityrr.org/
http://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId=1-A-1C7
http://www.portjervisny.com/fr-dhcanal.htm

1. Words do fail Drew.
   One of the best posts I’ve seen. But then, I’m a sucker for this kind of history.

   You should have pinned it to the top for 24 hours.

   Very well written needless to say.

   One little niggly thing.  Re Pattenburg tunnel, should that line about a fight and five deaths be dated 1872? 

   Curious, what made you land on this subject?  I take it you’ve always been aware of it.
   Is that right?
   Hell of a good post and thanks.

   Posted by peiper       09/28/2012  at  05:01 AM  



2. Yes it should. I fixed it. I had just snagged the text from that page on Flickr.

   Like I wrote, I go over that mountain all the time, as do hundreds of thousands of others.

   You can Bing or Google “jugtown mountain tunnel” “bellwood tunnel” “bellewood tunnel” “musconetcong mountain tunnel” and get back piles of images. People have been getting a thrill there for ages now.

   I’ve only recently “discovered” the area myself; the northwestern corner of Hunterdon County and it’s neighbor the southwestern corner of Warren County are more than just a little off the beaten track, and that’s relative to the rural-ity around here. Yet they have their own rich history, which peaked in the Colonial to Victorian periods, and then the area went back to sleep.

   Sure, it pales compared to your neighborhood, Mr. Bronze Age Ruins At The End Of My Street, but nearly everything including those Johnny-Come-Lately pikers in Cairo Egypt. But for the USA, to have mills still standing - still functional even - that ground flour for George Washington’s troops, to have the iron forges that made him cannonballs, and to have buildings and bridges from that era to the immediate post-Civil War era is pretty amazing. Most of early American was made out of wood, and wood doesn’t last. Plus we have the seeds of the Industrial Revolution here, and also those of nascent capitalism, with the canals of the 1830s (can you imagine Jim Fink, King of the Raritan River in NJ??) and the coal trade, plus the loggers before that- Paul Bunyan, not somewhere far up north, but on the wild Indian frontier ... of the Delaware River.

   And we do have some seriously funky bridges here too.

   Posted by Drew458       09/28/2012  at  07:52 AM  



3. I used to live a stone’s throw away in Washington. It was a great place to be a kid, circa 1964.

   Posted by Steve_in_CA       09/28/2012  at  08:32 AM  



4. You should see Washington today! ... hasn’t changed a bit really, except the gas station on the corner of Rt 57 is now a LukOil.

   Posted by Drew458       09/28/2012  at  02:56 PM  



5. The last time I visited there was in 1986. The “downtown” seemed pretty run down from what I remember. But when you’re a kid, everything seems to be fresh and new. From google maps, my old house on W. Warren St. was still there, but boy what a build up of houses. The farms I vandalized roamed through are all gone.

   Posted by Steve_in_CA       09/28/2012  at  03:07 PM  

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