John Fitch: a man with a head of steam

New Jersey was fertile ground for the development of the steamboat industry, whether in Nicholas Roosevelt's side-mounted propulsion wheel or Cornelius Vanderbilt's ferry operations between New York and New Brunswick. And, of course, there was John Stevens, who established the first steam ferry operations between Hoboken and Manhattan.

One man, however, beat the rest of them to the punch, however imperfectly. In 1787 John Fitch proved that a boat could be propelled by steam engine, using a series of interconnected oars to row through the water.

Why, then, do we hear so little about Fitch and much more about Robert Fulton and his steamboat Clermont?

Fitch, as it turns out, is a classic case of a creative mind whose personality appears to have gotten in the way of his success. Born in Connecticut in 1743, he had little formal education but studied astronomy, math and geometry on his own as he tried to forge a work life that suited his interests. He attempted an apprenticeship as a clockmaker without much success before eventually making it to Trenton as a silversmith, losing his business during the British occupation of the city in 1776. He briefly served as a gunsmith to the New Jersey militia after losing his commission in a dispute, and also provided beer and other supplies to troops at Valley Forge. By the end of the war, he was surveying land in the territory that eventually became Ohio, where he was captured by Native Americans and turned over to the British.

Following his release from captivity, Fitch came back east to Pennsylvania to work on his ideas for a steam-powered boat. Collaborating with clockmaker Henry Voigt, he developed a proper steam engine and installed it on a boat outfitted with mechanized oars on port and starboard sides. Hoping to get funding or an endorsement from the federal government, he invited members of the Constitutional Convention to the 1787 demonstration on the Delaware. Many attended and were impressed as the boat moved forward an a slow but respectable three miles an hour. However, no backing was forthcoming.

Why is John Fitch not known as the inventor of the steamboat? There seem to be a few factors at play here. First, his invention came at a particularly inauspicious time in the development of the legal system in the United States. The Federal patent office had yet to be created, leaving intellectual property protection to the individual states. That meant an arduous trek to the capitols of all of the states, or at least those where competition or theft of his idea was most likely. He brought a working model of the boat, hoping to impress the legislatures and the scientific community with the genius of his design.

Perhaps more telling, he doesn't seem to have had the right personality. He was either a bad salesperson, or maybe he just rubbed people the wrong way. During his 1786 tour, he got less than encouraging feedback from Philadelphia's American Philosophical Society, where Benjamin Franklin held sway. The Virginia legislature was unimpressed, favoring the design of its native son inventor James Rumsey, who'd already secured George Washington's endorsement. The only place where he seems to have gained some sway is New Jersey, which granted him an exclusive 14-year franchise to build and operate steamboats. That endorsement in hand, he built the full-sized boat the Constitutional Convention observed in 1787.

Fitch is commemorated not far from
Trenton's minor league ballpark.

By 1788, Fitch had received patents from Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia and had attracted sufficient financing to build a new boat that ran the route between Philadelphia and Burlington. Two years later, a third boat was running between Trenton, Burlington, Bordentown, Wilmington and Philadelphia, a route that appears to have made as little sense to potential customers then as it might today. He may have created mechanically-sound equipment, but he seems not to have had a very strong understanding of market forces or customer demand. Stagecoaches could still reach his destinations faster, despite the steamboats' improved speed of eight miles an hour. Rather than seeing his craft as viable transportation, many viewed it as a curiosity or a stunt. His company was soon out of business.

When Fitch finally received his federal patent in 1791, he was infuriated to learn that Rumsey's design had been recognized by the patent office as well. Rather than getting the patent for the steamboat concept, it was for the particular design, as was Rumsey's, leading Fitch's investors to abandon him for other opportunities. Additional attempts to secure funding -- this time in Europe -- and demonstrate his newly-conceived steamboat innovations met with indifference, further angering him. Giving up hope on the steamboat, he headed west to Kentucky in 1796, apparently hoping for a better reception there.

He got none and died within months of his arrival, some say of poor health, others say of worse. According to some reports, he struck a deal with a tavern operator to provide him with room, board and a pint of whiskey a day in return for a few hundred acres of land. He planned to drink himself to death. When that didn't work, he committed suicide with an overdose of opium. He's buried in Beardstown, Kentucky, his grave marked with a modest military stone that notes his Revolutionary War service. He was moved there from his original pauper's plot through the actions of the John Fitch chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Some sources claim that Fitch endured bipolar disorder, that his emotional extremes fueled both his creativity and the less admirable personality traits that drove away investors. What is known is that inventing is a difficult trade, with people of many temperaments and similar ideas often competing for the ultimate prize. It's possible that if Fitch had possessed Fulton's ability to make steam travel more economically viable, he'd have been better able to capitalize on the technology.

Fitch's onetime hometown of Trenton recognizes what many of his contemporaries may not have: his genius and perseverance. The first of two memorial boulders was placed at the site of the Old Wharf along the Delaware in Fitch's name in 1921, with the nearby highway rechristened John Fitch Way from the site to Assunpink Creek.

Reaching Delaware without the toll: the odd case of Kilcohook

Is it wrong for a loyal Jerseyperson to want to invade Delaware?

I'm not talking about the whole state, just the part you can walk to from New Jersey, toll free.

Yup, you read that correctly: we share a two mile land border with the Blue Hen State. Most maps don't do much to point it out, but a small sliver of land next to Finns Point National Cemetery in Salem County is technically part of Delaware.

To understand how New Jersey got cheated out of the acreage, we have to go back more than 260 years and beyond the peninsula that, by all rights, should be all Garden State.

First off, you'll note that the upper portion of Delaware forms an arc. It was originally drawn in a 12 mile radius from New Castle, as directed in a deed granted by the Duke of York to William Penn in 1682. The arc stopped at the low water mark on the New Jersey shoreline because the Duke had already granted the land beyond to John Berkeley, Lord of Stratton, in 1664. It's kind of an odd situation, as our other nautical borders are determined either by the center of the body of water, or the lowest elevation of the waterway.

So if the arc ends at the low water line where Berkeley's grant starts, then why does a two-mile long stretch of the New Jersey/Delaware boundary sit on dry land?

Sometime in the early 1900s, the Army Corps of Engineers started dredging the Delaware River to improve navigation up to the Port of Philadelphia. They had to put the dredge spoils somewhere, and apparently the remote, undeveloped coastline at Pennsville seemed a good option. The vast majority of human neighbors are already six feet under at Finns Point, and they weren't complaining.

The new land grew over the years, with about 580 acres of it rising above the low-water mark to become defacto Delaware territory. In 1934, President Franklin Roosevelt designated the full 1400+ acres as the Kilcohook Wildlife Refuge, a pitstop for migratory waterfowl like pintail ducks and teal. Eventually, though, continued dumping drove away avian visitors, and the plot was transferred to the Army Corps as a "coordination area" in 1998. Fortunately for the birds, the existing land to the east was designated the "Goose Pond Addition" to Kilcohook in 1961, later becoming Supawna Meadows National Wildlife Refuge.

New Jersey has taken Delaware to court over the boundary issue three times in the past century. In the 2007 dispute, Trenton legislators even light-heartedly considered sending the Battleship New Jersey to defend the territory. All three cases went to the Supreme Court, which ruled against us every time. (The two dissenting justices in the 2007 decision, Scalia and Alito, were born in Trenton, though their provenance seems to have had nothing to do with their opinions.). None of those decisions, however, specifically involved the dredge spoils area, whose jurisdiction remained a local issue.

As you can imagine, policing the area can be problematic. The Army Corps claims no responsibility, and technically, the Pennsville police had no jurisdiction. The spot was a magnet for mischief for partiers and a de-facto chop shop for car thieves. They knew the chances of being arrested and prosecuted were slim. When local law enforcement called the Delaware State Police to handle incidents on the acreage, it took troopers an hour to get there.

Finally, in 1989, the Delaware secretary of state agreed that this small slice of the First State could, indeed, be subject to New Jersey law. Pennsville police can now enter the territory to keep the peace and investigate wrongdoing. But I still wonder if they could get me for crossing the boundary and declaring the land to be the dominion of Nova Caesaria. Not that I would ever actually do it.

Gloucester City: Philadelphia's historic immigrant port of entry

Ask just about anyone where America's "Golden Door" of immigration stood in the late 19th and early 20th century, and they'll bring up Ellis Island. Most Americans, however, don't realize that there were several other, smaller immigration facilities at ports and border crossings around the country. Among them was the port of Philadelphia station at Gloucester City, New Jersey.

The former Gloucester City Immigration Station
is now home to a port-related business.

Standing rather plainly at the city's port, the three-story, white block building lacks the grandeur of its cousin near the Statue of Liberty. In fact, if you didn't know its history, you'd have no idea that it was anything more than a very sturdily-built office building. When I visited to get a lay of the land, I had to do a quick check on the smartphone to compare an old historic photo against the building before me. No plaques or notations give the casual passer-by any indication that within this structure, new arrivals were welcomed into the United States while others were detained before their inevitable deportation.

How did the Philadelphia immigration station end up in New Jersey? It seems to be the confluence of two classic issues: insufficient funding and a well-connected property owner. Immigration officials had long inspected ship passengers at a waterfront facility owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad, expanding the building as the number of incoming vessels and immigrants grew. The city constructed a municipal inspection station at another pier as other shipping lines increased their immigrant transports.

Around the same time, federal officials were looking for ways to relieve overcrowding at Ellis Island, which was regularly seeing thousands more immigrants a day than it was designed to handle. By opening larger facilities at Philadelphia and elsewhere around the country, officials hoped to shunt some of the traffic away from New York. Only problem was, the $250,000 that Congress allocated to open a new facility at Philadelphia was insufficient to buy any of the valuable port property on that side of the Delaware.

In a stroke of dubious luck, an ideal spot was located just on the other side of the river, in (you guessed it) Gloucester City. Politically-connected, headline-grabbing entrepreneur Billy Thompson just happened to own five acres of riverfront property he was willing to sell to the government for $100,000. The self-styled "Duke of Gloucester" was even willing to throw in his own home, an extravagant Victorian mansion which was repurposed as an administration building. The federal government erected the white building to handle the day-to-day tasks of processing new arrivals: inspection, detention, hearings and deportation.

Like its counterpart at Ellis Island, the building was hailed at its 1912 opening as state of the art, with outstanding sanitary conditions and dining facilities that surpassed those in many of the nation's hotels. Detained immigrants, it seemed, would be highly satisfied with their accommodations. On the other hand, no appropriation was made for the construction of a Public Health Service hospital like the one at Ellis; one has to believe that a small infirmary was housed within one of the buildings, with more serious cases sent to local hospitals.

To some degree, the immigration department's plan was a success: at one point, Gloucester City became the second busiest immigration station in the country. However, its prominence was short lived. The start of hostilities in Europe and the onset of World War II dramatically changed the purpose of the nation's immigration stations, and Gloucester's was no exception. Enemy aliens were sent there en route to internment camps in other parts of the country. Others, including crew members of ships bearing German or Italian flags, were held at the station for the duration.

The immigration station closed at the end of the war, and Thompson's old house was torn down in favor of buildings for a new Coast Guard training facility. By 1986, the Coast Guard had moved to newer digs in Philadelphia, leaving the Gloucester City property to stand vacant. Ironically, as Ellis Island was being restored and celebrated, its cousin on the Delaware was being left to rot.

The building's fate improved slightly when the city bought the property for $1 in 1991, as one of the port's larger tenants made the old immigration station its new offices. Nonetheless, plans were soon in the works to demolish the building in favor of a port revitalization program. Alarmed by the possibility of losing a vital landmark, local historians successfully petitioned the state to add the Coast Guard and Immigration Station to the New Jersey Register of Historic Places

It appears that the designation might have actually worked. The rededicated "Freedom Pier" is now home to the schooner North Wind, and if the "Summer 2012" banner I saw is to come true eventually, there will be a restaurant there, too. With any luck, the planned revitalization will get people curious about the history of that big white building and the people who once traversed through it.

Oliver Cromwell in Burlington - fighting the patriot cause

After finding the Bonapartes in Bordentown, I guess it wasn't all that surprising that I'd locate Oliver Cromwell just down the road a piece, in Burlington. And while the South Jersey version wasn't the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, he too fought for freedom from the British Crown.

Oliver Cromwell's late-in-life home.

Burlington's Oliver Cromwell was born in 1752 in nearby Columbus, and he was among several free black men who served in New Jersey regiments during the Revolutionary War. In the earliest days of the conflict, blacks were barred from enlisting on the patriot side, but that rule was changed in late 1775, after the British promised freedom to enslaved Americans in return for military service against the colonies.

Cromwell got into the action as things were heating up in New Jersey. He was among the soldiers who crossed the Delaware with Washington on Christmas 1776, and he fought in the battles that turned the tide of the war: Trenton and Princeton. He may have been a battlefield drummer, relaying orders from officers to soldiers in the field of conflict. Serving a total of six years in the military, Cromwell also saw action at Monmouth, Germantown, Brandywine and Yorktown, ultimately leaving the army with a badge of merit and honorable discharge papers that were signed by General Washington himself.

According to some sources, Cromwell's overall likeability came to his benefit several years later. When he applied for a veterans pension, several notable Burlington residents helped him secure a $96 per year payment from the government. It was with that money that he bought a 100 acre farm just outside town. Much later, he moved into the house that now bears his name, ultimately outliving eight of his 14 children before dying at the age of 100. It's said that several of his descendants still live in town, no doubt proud of their ancestor's contribution to the cause of American independence.

Local residents organized the Oliver Cromwell Black History Society in 1984 to advance public understanding of African American history. Through their efforts, the name of this notable New Jerseyan lives on.

Another Roebling on the Delaware. Whoda thunk?

I feel as if I keep running into Roebling bridges on the Delaware.

Last summer, it was the aqueduct that brought the Delaware and Hudson Canal across the river from Pennsylvania to New York.

The other day it was a cable suspension bridge connecting Riegelsville with Riegelsville. That's two separate towns, one in New Jersey and the other directly across in Pennsylvania, kinda like Kansas City, but not really. I found the bridge as I was wandering along the very narrow and curving River Road in Pohatcong, south from the hamlet of Carpentersville.

As I mentioned in my post about the Carpentersville excursion, I wasn't even sure the river to my right was the Delaware. It's not especially wide in Warren County, there were no signs to tell me, and I didn't have a GPS. The only indication I had was a line painted about 10 feet up on a house to indicate the high-water mark following Hurricane Diane in 1955. I knew the Delaware had severely overstepped its bounds in the 50s, but I wasn't sure that others in the area hadn't, as well.

The Riegelsville Roebling bridge owes its creation to an earlier flood: the 1903 "Pumpkin flood" that not only washed orange gourds down the river but also swept away a wooden span built in 1853. Like other bridges the company built, the 1904 structure has aged well, withstanding a host of floods with minimal damage. It's standing even prouder now, after a 2010 rehab, funded by the bridge's owner, the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission. Travelers pay no tolls there, though there are toll houses on both sides (take that, Dingmans Ferry bridge!).

When there's a bridge, I have to cross it, even if it lands me in another state for a few minutes. I was a little surprised by the challenge the roadway presented. The open grate deck kinda grabs your tires and shunts your car over a little bit, requiring you to steer straight more diligently than you might ordinarily. The Acura approaching from the opposite direction certainly appreciated when I tugged my car to the right a little more to assure I stayed well within my lane.  Overall, though, it's a pleasant though quick ride across the Delaware, just over 500 feet long. Once again, Roebling's work has stood the test of time.

Good old-fashioned New Jersey mudslinging hits the major leagues

I don't care how balmy it gets over the winter. I believe that spring begins when pitchers and catchers report to major league training camps in February. That's happening this week, and it seems it won't be long till we can watch intrasquad play and preseason competition.

I don't know if this ball ever got the mud treatment,
but it's still pretty cool.

No matter where those games are played, they'll all have a little New Jersey in them. Or, more accurately, on the balls the players use. Before each and every major league game, umpires rub a special concoction of Garden State mud into the hides of several dozen baseballs to take the shine off the covering. Reportedly, this makes the ball easier to grip, so it's less likely that a pitcher will lose control and inadvertently hit a batter in the head. Following the beaning death of Cleveland Indians shortstop Ray Chapman in 1920, the urgency for finding a solution to this problem became more acute.

What is it about New Jersey mud that makes the difference? Why can't the umpires just use dirt from the infield of the park where the game is being played? In the early days of baseball, the umps did, in fact, often turn to ballpark dirt, shoe polish and even tobacco juice to effectively dull the ball's surface leather. Only problem was, these methods would either discolor or scratch the balls, making them unsuitable for game play.

After listening to an umpire's complaints on the topic, Philadelphia Athletics third base coach Lena Blackburn decided to find a solution. In the late 1930's, he came upon the perfect mud somewhere near Palmyra, allegedly on a tributary of the Delaware River. Using a proprietary method, he screened the mud and then cured it over the winter before distributing it for use. The pudding-like substance roughs up the balls sufficiently for gripping, without causing any real damage. By the 1950s, every major league team was using Blackburn's mud.

I'm just as curious about the origins of that mud as you probably are, but it's a closely-held secret. It's so secret, in fact, that only four men have known its location: Blackburn, his friend John Haas whom he willed the business to, Haas' son-in-law Burns Bintliff, and the current mud collector, Jim Bintliff. (You have to admit -- those are all really baseball-sounding names.) According to a CNN story, the next person to be admitted to the fraternity of baseball mud collectors may be a woman: Jim's daughter Rebecca, and no doubt she won't tell, either.

In a given year, the business doesn't make much money, but I'm sure it gives a heck of a lot of satisfaction. Imagine watching any major league game and knowing you helped make every pitch happen. That's a feeling you can't buy.

No EZPass on the Dingmans Ferry Bridge

I was one of the EZPass holdouts until October, when I got this while using a staffed tollbooth:

Ridiculous as it is not to be able to use paper money on the Parkway, I finally relented and picked up a transponder. I still keep pocket change in the car, though, as there are places in the region where EZPass has yet to extend its tentacled detectors.

Take, for example, the Dingmans Ferry bridge, which links Layton, Sussex County, to Pennsylvania in the Delaware Water Gap. This privately owned river crossing is decidedly low tech, with not even an automated collection basket. One toll collector stands on the line between the two lanes at the Pennsy side, taking tolls from both directions, protected by an awning. The north side of the awning is held up by a little toll house, while the south side is essentially a trellis with signs posted for the next Kiwanis pancake breakfast or Girl Scout fundraiser. It's been this way pretty much since the bridge was constructed, the fourth in a series that runs back to 1835.

Starting a century before that, Andrew Dingman ran a successful ferry service between Layton and Pike County, PA, until one of his descendants opened the first of the bridges. Seemingly, neither that bridge nor the two that succeeded it were constructed to withstand the elements brought by the Delaware and the occasional flood. Today's bridge was built in 1900 of sturdy steel and is closed for inspection for a few days every year to assure its safety. So far, it's held up in four major floods, and one would surmise that with that kind of record, it'll be around for a long time.

Back to the toll taking, I wonder what do they do overnight? Is there an evening toll collector? What kind of traffic does he or she see? And how do they manage in foul weather?

According to the company website, those traveling to church or funerals don't have to pay the toll, but I do wonder, though, if the Dingmans Choice and Delaware Bridge Company people will eventually succumb to EZPass. Perhaps the toll taker will stand in his usual spot and hold a transponder reader to essentially bar-scan people across the bridge.

When is a National Park not a National Park?

Head down I-295 in South Jersey near Philly and you'll eventually run into a confusing road sign.

Red Bank / National Park

Wait, did I read that right? Red Bank is in Monmouth County, near the shore. And it's not a national park. I'm certain of that. What's the deal with this very confusing nomenclature? Ivan and I decided to find out on our recent southbound jaunt.

Taking the designated exit, it wasn't long before we were greeted by a "Welcome to National Park" sign and a host of businesses named National Park this or that. However, nobody seemed to be wearing the distinctive National Park Service ranger hat or arrowhead. We eventually found our way to the Red Bank Battlefield, but that's another story. Let's get to the bottom of the National Park story first.

Located on the Delaware River across from Philadelphia, this tiny borough was originally part of West Deptford. It became the site of a Methodist Episcopal religious resort community in 1895, and was known as the National Park on the Delaware after the organizing group, the National Park Association. The organizers divided the area into plots of land that were sold to believers who came to the community to worship and learn more about their faith. The summer settlers created an association that incorporated the site as a municipality in 1902.

The community became more popular -- and more diverse -- after the opening of an amusement park and the establishment of ferry service from Philadelphia. Many Irish Catholics came from the city to enjoy National Park's beaches, fishing and amusements, and the original Methodists were no longer the dominant group in town. Eventually, with the onset of World War II and the booming shipbuilding industry on the Delaware, many of the remaining summer cottages were converted to year-round residences. National Park's transformation was complete.

It may not be a national monument, with only about 3200 residents, National Park gives visitors the sense of small town America, despite the proximity of a major interstate and one of the country's largest cities. In an upcoming post, we'll talk a little more about the Revolutionary War connection.

Trying out the Appalachian Trail

Many years ago, I had a secret ambition to walk the full 2175 miles of the Appalachian Trail. It was back when I was hiking a bit more than I have in the past few years, and I'd seen a PBS series on the trail. The producers had given three or four hikers each a camera to record their experiences as they made their way up from Springer Mountain, Georgia up to the northern terminus, Mt. Katahdin in Maine.

My brief enthusiasm for a through-hike went away a bit ago for several reasons, including the fact that my cat would probably resist the prospect of living in a backpack for six months. I always meant, though, to try out the relatively brief portion that jogs across the northernmost corner of New Jersey. At least I could say I was ON it.

This is not the part of the A Trail
that runs along Interstate 80.

I didn't know until recently that Ivan has also felt the tug of the trail. He mentioned it earlier this summer, when we did a short jaunt on the trail off of Route 94 in Sussex County to see some bobolinks. Leaving the car at a marked lot, we traversed a farm field (the only place where the trail actually crosses farmland) and went a few hundred feet into a very rocky portion of the woods. I was surprised at the narrowness of the trail across the field -- really only wide enough to accommodate single-file trekking. Then again, doing the through-hike is largely a solitary experience, each hiker facing his or her own challenges, both physical and mental.

Since then, we've had the chance to taste the trail in three other states and visited the Appalachian Trail Conservancy headquarters in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. Thus, it didn't completely surprise me when, as we were driving along Route 80 recently, Ivan suggested we stop and check out the trail near the Delaware Water Gap National Recreational Area's Kittatinny Ridge Visitor Center. If you're familiar with Route 80, it's the last exit before you get to Pennsylvania, and it circles under the highway to the banks of the Delaware. Actually, if you want, you can grab the trail on the westbound side of 80, but we chose to get a little information from the rangers before heading out. As I guided the car to a parking spot, Ivan noted that it was a novelty to just about be driving on the trail.

Kittatinny Ridge Visitor Center is open seasonally and appears to be a newish building; I recall stopping at another building at or near the same location. In any case, Ivan had the chance to chat with a ranger about the trail in New Jersey and possible camping spots for a trial excursion over a weekend. While he was doing that, I scanned through the displays of flora and fauna of the Water Gap. It's been a long time since I've done any ground-level camping (well, any camping of any stripe, to be honest), and it was interesting to hear that many hikers eschew the ground for a hammock.

With information in hand, we headed outside to look for the A Trail's characteristic rectangular white blazes. Ivan finally found them through his binoculars, and they led... right along the access road we'd driven on just a few minutes before. Apparently his earlier comments were truer than either of us expected they would be. We set off on the paved surface and followed the blazes along the guard rail, observing that this had to be one of the most level portions of the entire trail. No doubt it's even a bit disconcerting to the average through-hiker, considering the number of cars speeding by just yards away.

It was pretty much a certainty that we wouldn't cross the path of any bears during our brief jaunt, but we did have two unexpected encounters. Two large-ish gray snakes slithered away and into some roadside riprap just before we passed one spot, both on our walk out and our return trip a few minutes later. From what we could tell, they weren't the poisonous kind, but nonetheless, it's a bit disquieting to think of them snuggling up to you in your backpack. All of a sudden, that hammock sounds like a good idea.

The Roebling aqueduct - finding New Jersey on the Upper Delaware River

Sometimes Hidden New Jersey spots jump out at us serendipitously, a phenomenon which seems to happen more often out of state. That was the case on an unplanned recent visit to the Upper Delaware River in New York State.

First, though, a little background, starting when I was writing the blog entry on Trenton's Riverview Cemetery. In researching the Roebling family members whose graves we visited, I discovered that one of John Roebling's early spans was an aqueduct crossing the Delaware between New York and Pennsylvania. I didn't read much about it, but the photo looked cool, and I told Ivan we should visit. Not surprisingly (because we'd already grown accustomed to such coincidences), he'd already come upon it in his travels. In fact, he'd discovered it after having his own bit of serendipity: the nearby Minisink Ford hosted a battleground where a commissioned Mohawk named Joseph Brant had led British troops against local colonists in 1779. Ivan had seen the name at another distant stop on his trip, no doubt remembering the name because it's, well, a species of goose. Making stops in two obscure places and seeing the same name? What are the chances?

I'd totally forgotten about the bridge when we got to the area, and thought it would be fun to check out the battlefield, which we did. Taking another road from the site than the one we used to get there, we found ourselves squarely across from the Roebling bridge. This was too good to be true! We had to stop.

What's now a one-lane river crossing was once an active aqueduct for the Delaware and Hudson Canal. Current day pedestrian walkways were once tow paths for the mules who pulled barges along the waterway, making for an interesting stroll across the broad river.

It's kind of funny to think of there being a water bridge across a body of water, but when you look at the history, it makes sense. The canal had to cross the New York/Pennsylvania border, and originally the barges would traverse the river to get to the dug canal on the other side. Problem was, loggers upstream would use the river to transport wood downstream, making collisions almost inevitable. Someone had to yield, and it ended up being the canal traffic.

Enter John Roebling, engineer and wire cable manufacturer. From 1847 to 1851, long before becoming famous for building the Brooklyn Bridge, he built four suspension aqueducts along the canal. The one we visited was the last remaining, and also the oldest wire cable bridge in the United States. He did good work, too. According to the NPS website, nearly all of the bridge's ironwork, from cables to suspenders, are the same materials installed upon the structure's construction. The cables - spun on site under Roebling's direction - were tested in 1983 and found to be still viable. Now, that's craftsmanship!

For a time after the D&H was abandoned, the bridge operated as a private toll road, serving in that capacity until 1979. After many years of disrepair, the National Park Service bought and restored the aqueduct and toll house in 1986. Visitors can enjoy a few interpretive exhibits in the New York-side house, and even drive across the bridge's active roadway.

We decided it would be more fun to stroll the towpath from New York to Pennsy and back again, taking the chance to do a spot of birding. While it was an overcast day, the scenery was beautiful, and we even saw a young bald eagle in the distant sky.

Having found New Jersey striding across the far reaches of the Delaware, I can't help but realize that the water that flowed under the bridge deck beneath our feet eventually glided past Roebling's grave in Riverside Cemetery in Trenton. Hopefully he's resting well, knowing that his works continue to serve the traveling public, over 150 years later.

Visiting the D&R canal at Bull's Island

Alas, Sunday was to be the day of narrow bridges and muddy shoes. After a brief lunch stop in Lambertville, we continued up State Route 29 to Bull's Island, part of the Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park in Stockton.

Essentially connecting the two rivers whose names it bears, the D&R Canal was built in the early 1830s to bring Pennsylvania coal to New York, and manufactured goods back in the opposite direction. And while it was quite busy through the mid part of the 1800's, it, like most every other canal in America eventually lost out to the railroads. Now it's one of New Jersey's most used and picturesque state parks, offering level pathways for cycling, hiking, running and horseback riding. Its 70 mile route is also home to several of the original lock and bridge tender houses, and while they're generally not open for visitation, they add a nice touch of authenticity.

From the Pennsy side.

Our visit, of course, was dedicated primarily to birding, but before we focused on that, Ivan had a nice little treat to share with me: yet another narrow bridge. We'd driven across one to get beyond the feeder canal to the island, but that wasn't remarkable at all when compared to the footbridge over the rushing Delaware. While it was only wide enough to allow maybe three people walking abreast, the bridge was plenty sturdy, with a concrete deck and firm anchors below. It was getting a lot of use while we were there, too: strollers, hikers and cyclists seemed to come out of nowhere to enjoy the trip across.

Later, I read that the bridge isn't the first to cross the Delaware at that point. The original was built in 1835 as a covered structure, but part of it was swept away by flood in 1903 and then replaced by a steel span; the whole thing was taken out of use in 1946. The present footbridge was built in 1949 to allow folks from the Pennsylvania side to get to a now-defunct passenger train on the Jersey side.

It seems that now, the only purpose for the bridge is to bring people between Bull's Island and the unbearably cute hamlet of Lumberville, Pennsylvania, in scenic Bucks County. Of course, there's an adorable inn along the river, with a general store/gourmet deli right across the street. It seems to be a good place to have one of those weekends that feels about a week long.

Once back across the river, we got the birding going. Given all of the recent rains, it wasn't surprising that the towpath along the canal had that special 'give' of mushy ground. I wouldn't say it was muddy; it was more like the consistency of undercooked brownies (mmmmm.... brownies!). Note to self: check boot treads before getting back into the car.

We weren't far down the path when Ivan spotted what, to me, was a fairly remarkable sight: a pileated woodpecker. For the uninitiated, it's best described as a big honkin' woodpecker (not that it honks -- you know what I mean). The photo to the right doesn't quite do it justice -- it's a little blurry and you can't really get a sense of size, but take my word for it when I say this is probably twice the size of the average hairy woodpecker drilling away at a tree in your backyard. We were treated to a few minutes of watching this guy checking out a few limbs, plus the spectacle of him flying away to a distant other tree. That just about made my day. It certainly made all of the brownie-tromping worthwhile.

Farther along, we navigated through and around a nest of fallen limbs to find some other feathered fauna, including a happy little song sparrow just singing away. Spring is the best, isn't it? So much cheerful noise all around.

Eventually, we decided we had enough and made our way back to Route 29 and who knows where. Trusting the Garmin to get us home, we realized there were a few other places we might find along the way. What next?