If Batman had a subway, it would be in Rockaway

We've visited our share of old mine sites over the past few years. We've also stumbled on some lesser-known aspects of New Jersey's rich railroad history. We've even focused on railroads that overcame major obstacles to create a shorter path from mine to market.

But bats in a mine? Okay, that makes sense. I'm cool with bats and the great work they do in keeping the insect population down. If they're happy hanging out in an old mine, more power to 'em.

Bats in what could be considered New Jersey's first subway? Now we're talking!

Calling the Hibernia hibernaculum a subway might be stretching it a little, but not by much. I first caught wind of the Hibernia Underground Railroad when I was researching another story on Morris County's mining industry. Just on the name alone, one could be distracted into wondering it might have something to do with the abolitionist movement of the 18th and 19th centuries, but this was, literally a railroad that operated underground.

The history of mining in Morris County, of course, dates back to colonial times, with the area's iron-rich hills prompting New Jersey's status as the arsenal of the Revolution. Starting in 1722, a series of independent mines operating off the same rich iron source became known collectively as the Hibernia mines. It appears that there was enough ore for everyone to profit, and that the owners of the mines pretty much worked in harmony.

As technology improved, mining practices evolved, making it a no-brainer for companies to take advantage of steam-driven transportation to shuttle ore from the mine to the smelter and perhaps beyond. Some of the mine owners banded together in 1864 to incorporate the Hibernia Mine Railroad to transport ore from the source to the Morris Canal. We'd found evidence of this railroad in Somerset County, of all places, where its former trestle bridge was relocated first to Hillsborough and now to Raritan, where it's a footbridge in a county park.

Other mine owners at Hibernia took the idea further in 1873, digging an adit (or horizontal tunnel) through the mountainous terrain to connect all of the mines with a railroad. The new Hibernia Underground Railroad shuttled ore from about 300 feet below the peak the mountain itself, with tracks that stretched about a mile from mine to the mouth of the adit. From there, the Mine Railroad took over, making the transfer to the canal or, in later years, farther to other railroads.

By the early 1900s, some of the mines were exhausted, while iron magnate Joseph Wharton consolidated the rest under his own holdings, connecting his own railroad and effectively putting the Hibernia Mine Railroad out of business. The Underground Railroad continued to operate until about 1907, when it lost its connection to the canal. In reality, its years were numbered anyway, as the last ore was mined from Hibernia in 1916.

Disused or abandoned mines tend to be magnets for adventure seekers of all kinds, and Hibernia was no exception. Probably from the moment the mine went belly-up, locals started poking around the adit and mine shafts, eager to search the bowels of the earth or maybe just to get away from naggy parents.

Thing was, though: people weren't the only ones to satisfy their fascination with these holes in the ground. Perhaps due to human disturbance in the caves they'd normally seek out, bats found Hibernia mine, particularly the horizontal path of the railroad, to be irresistible. It's not known exactly when they started staking the tunnel out, but the first report of bat habitation was filed in 1939, with several thousand little brown bats and a smattering of eastern long-eared bats observed. In subsequent decades, researchers observed as many as 20,000 bats, leading many to declare the underground railroad tunnel and the mine as one of the largest bat hibernacula (or hibernation spot) in the nation. A bat enthusiast named John Hall studied the mine and tunnel extensively in the '60s and '70s, banding several and maintaining population counts.

Trouble was, vandals and mischief makers continued to invade the mine, despite landowners' efforts to block the entrance with haphazard barriers. For many years, advocates suggested installing a grate-style gate which would allow bats to travel freely while deterring humans, but to little effect. The land above the mine was slated for development, with large homes and a golf course planned, and the mine was seen as a huge liability. In 1989 the landowner installed an impenetrable foot-thick concrete wall at the mouth of the adit.

The Hibernia Underground Railroad: all aboard for bats,
not so much for humans. Courtesy NJ DEP.

Their usual entry point blocked, the Hibernia bats were essentially buried alive, with just a few very small openings to the outside world. Local human friends of the bats reached out to Bat Conservation International and the New Jersey Division of Fish Game and Wildlife for help, ultimately negotiating with the property owner to create a mine opening sufficient for the bats' easy transit. Through a long and winding process that persisted through successive owners and a few years, advocates finally succeeded in getting the much needed gate installed.

Even after this monumental success, the future for the Hibernia bats is uncertain. The 2010 mine census indicated that, fewer than 2000 bats hibernated there, due to the white-nose syndrome fungus that has decimated the population in several states around the country. Two years later, the wintering bat population was down to 537. Subsequent counts show somewhat of a leveling-off of the decline statewide, so perhaps there's hope that the worst of it is over. Scientists are still working to better understand the fungus, its causes and impact on bat reproduction, with hope that positive human intervention can help.

Here's hoping that the bats' prospects turn around soon. How cool would it be to watch hundreds - thousands - of bats emerging from this old mine train tunnel in the spring?

From copper mine to steamboat, the New Jersey ventures of Nicholas Roosevelt

When inclement weather forces us Hidden New Jerseyans to curtail travel, we often turn to other means of exploration. The reference books and histories we've picked up over the years aren't quite those roadside markers we stop to check out on county roads, but they've got some unexpected gems, nonetheless.

One of my new favorites is the New Jersey Almanac Tercentenary Edition published by the Trenton Evening Times in 1964 to commemorate the state's 300th anniversary. Besides giving an illuminating look at life in the Garden State 50 years ago, it contains lists upon lists of interesting tidbits like two-sentence bios of notable New Jerseyans, brief descriptions of towns and cities, and a year-by-year guide to events of importance.

It's an entry in that last category that caught my eye during a recent snowstorm. The big event for the year 1794 is: "Nicholas Roosevelt made first steam engine ever built entirely in America at his shop "Soho" in Belleville."

Roosevelt? As in Teddy Roosevelt and FDR? The New York Roosevelts?

Absolutely. Nicholas Roosevelt was not only the cousin (several generations back) of both Presidents Roosevelt, you could say he was one of New Jersey's first industrialists.

Born in New York in 1767, Roosevelt's first foray into New Jersey was in the early 1790s, when he became linked to what, even then, was thought of as the old Schuyler Mine in North Arlington. Originating in 1719 when an enslaved worker on Arent Schuyler's farm found a copper nugget on the property, the mine closed in 1772 after a disastrous fire. Roosevelt and partners formed the New Jersey Copper Mine Association in 1793 to restart mining operations at the site, a venture that ultimately failed.

Though the mine was a disappointment, it was the stepping stone into New Jersey that led to Roosevelt's greater acclaim. Purchasing land in Second River (now Belleville), he built a foundry, smelter and machine shop to build steam engines. Dubbed Soho after a similar enterprise in Birmingham, England, the shop became known as one of the nation's top foundries, supplying engines for notable clients like the Philadelphia Waterworks. The business took a severe financial hit, however, when a government contract to supply rolled copper for warships was cancelled.

Among those taking note of the quality of Soho's engines was transportation engineer John Stevens. Already experimenting with steam-driven boats, he and his partner Robert Livingston commissioned Soho in 1797 to build an engine for the Polacca, a craft with a stern-mounted propeller. Roosevelt was already familiar with self-propelled boats, having experimented with spring-driven paddleboat technology as a youth. When the Polacca proved to be much slower than anticipated, Roosevelt advocated the use of a side-mounted wheel, but Livingston refused to consider the concept.

Roosevelt had, indeed, come up with a solution so workable that it was later adopted by Robert Fulton. You might recognize that name: he's the engineer who's usually linked most directly with the successful development of the steamboat. I've seen a few different accounts of how this came to be, but the most interesting one is that Livingston suggested the side-mounted wheel to Fulton without telling him where the idea had originated. And according to a website citing sources at the FDR Library and Museum, some Roosevelt family members continue to claim that Nicholas was the true inventor of the steamboat.

It's not clear exactly when Roosevelt left New Jersey for good, but by 1810 he'd entered into a partnership with Fulton and Livingston to run a steamboat down the Mississippi River. He died in Skaneateles, NY in 1854, his contributions to steam powered technology now largely forgotten while other inventors continue to enjoy acclaim.

I just wonder what other gems are hiding in the Tercentenary Almanac, just waiting to be unearthed.

Gone fission: Discovering uranium near the D&R Canal

Over the years, we've found a lot of old mines in our travels around the state, so much so that they barely seem worthy of mention anymore. Iron, zinc and copper, especially in the northwestern portion of the state, were fairly commonly found and mined extensively until cheaper sources were found in the Midwest.

But uranium? That was a new one on me.

Ivan and I were departing Bulls Island after a warbler-finding excursion the other day when he spied a sign on the opposite side of Route 29 from the park entrance. "Uranium ore," it said. "Found here in 1956 near Raven Rock. Mining company formed by prospectors responding to the cold war craze was never commercially viable."

We've come to expect that two sentences on a Hunterdon County historical marker will lead to a much more involved story (see Liver Eating Johnson), and it appears that the uranium mention follows suit. According to a 1956 United Press story, brothers Alvin and Vernon Gatling claimed to have found a rich supply of the mineral element near Route 29, stating that samples from their 400 acre claim contained at least 2 percent and as high as 7 percent raw uranium. Their lawyer, a former federal prosecutor, said that the brothers were licensed by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, which had confirmed the uranium content.

So... if that's the case, what happened to the mine? Why is the historical marker the only sign of anything to do with uranium? Had locals protested the inevitable scarring of the beautiful landscape? Did the brothers dissolve their business after a dispute? And why, when I checked all my usual sources, could I find no mention of uranium mining in New Jersey, the Gatling brothers, or, for the most part, Raven Rock?

I had to do a bit of digging to get the answer, and it turns out that timing worked in my favor. Local historian Bill Saja tells the story in the recently published anthology Stories from Raven Rock New Jersey.

Actually, the first sign I found that something was off was the description of the Gatlings in the newspaper story, in which Vernon claimed they were "graduates of the New York Public Library school of geology" and had spent six months working in Colorado uranium mines. I'm obviously a big fan of personal study, but when radioactive elements are concerned, I'll stick with the traditionally trained scientists, thank you. Saja's account led more credence to the gut feeling that things were not completely legit with the Gatlings. They were college educated --Vernon a law student and Alvin having two years undergraduate study -- but not in the sciences. Rather, they seemed to want to cash in on the uranium craze that had hit the U.S. with the advent of nuclear fission as a clean, viable power source.

It all started when the brothers stopped by the old Raven Rock stone quarry and asked its owner, Anton Schuck, if they could check it out with their Geiger counter. Figuring they were just harmlessly exploring as so many other hobbyists were at the time, he gave them permission to go on the property. When they came back a few months later to ask if they could do some test borings, he allowed them in again. He even let them use his garage to store the results, which they said indicated the property held little uranium.

Thing was, they weren't entirely truthful with Schuck, which he discovered when they returned to the quarry and began drilling an access shaft without his permission. The brothers had been busy during the intervening weeks, filing a lease for the property at the Hunterdon County courthouse. Despite the fact they hadn't gotten Schuck's signature or permission to use the land, they felt they had standing, based, probably, on their find.

While Schuck fought to get the aspiring miners off his property, Raven Rock and its environs became the center of attention for the media and curiosity seekers. The aspiring tycoons were busy selling stock in the Gatling Brothers Mining and Development Company, based on the growing estimation of the value of the uranium they'd extract. Some of their contractors and attorneys agreed to take payment in the form of equity; family and friends were eager to buy in at 25 cents per share. Apparently the brothers themselves were as taken in by their dreams as their other investors were, spending their anticipated riches before seeing any marketable product from the mine.

Inevitably, the entire situation ended up in the courts for a variety of reasons, the Gatlings' claim on Schuck's land being just one. With limited funds and no income from the mine, the brothers simply couldn't pay their bills, leading to accusations they were intentionally writing bad checks. The federal Securities and Exchange Commission was investigating them for improperly issuing stock to investors. And several lawyers refused to represent them, claiming that the brothers wouldn't listen to sound counsel. Meanwhile, the mine site lay fallow, nature taking back what man had disturbed.

The whole thing was finished for good in 1963, after the Gatlings filed a suit against Schuck for damages and mineral rights. As a compromise, the brothers agreed to secure an expert who could confirm the presence of valuable uranium on the land, but they never followed through. In his judgement to dismiss the case with prejudice against the brothers, the presiding judge said, "this matter has been adjourned six times, four times at the request of counsel of the plaintiffs, and two times when counsel for the plaintiffs did not appear." I'd say the courts saw the whole thing as a nuisance instigated by two very misguided men.

It's that lack of sense that makes it all so puzzling. The brothers clearly weren't con men: they ended up just as damaged as the people who'd invested time and treasure in their scheme. Saja raises a possible clue in his account: less than a month before the brothers filed incorporation papers for their mining venture, Alvin had been released from a six-week stay at Marlboro State Psychiatric Hospital. Whether Alvin's mental state played a role in their poor business decisions or not is up for conjecture. From what I can gather, they'd formed an enterprise in search of a mine, and the Raven Rock quarry appeared as good a place as any.

You'll never take it alive: Copper in Watchung Reservation*

Union County's Watchung Reservation is well known among New Jersey adventurers as home of the Deserted Village, but it holds other surprises that aren't as evident, even when you practically trip over them.

If you take a right turn after the trail head near the Trailside Nature and Science Center, you'll eventually come upon a bunch of ravines. They look entirely natural, but one isn't quite what it appears to be. In fact, it's the last remnants of a very old copper mine. You'll know you found it when you come upon the interpretive marker (if it's still there) or a four-by-four post with a pink stripe around it (if it's not). Oh, and you might notice some rocks with a slight greenish tinge on them, that being the traces of very low-quality copper.

The area isn't as well known for mining today as other parts of the state are, but its history goes far back. Park literature theorizes that the First Watchung Mountain ridge may have been scouted for copper by the Lenape as far back as 500 years ago. Another source noted that the area was first settled by English miners in the 1600s. Either there was really something there, or speculators were highly motivated to take a chance at making a big strike in the New World. I'm betting on the latter more than the former.

The more interesting story, in my book, is what may have happened there during the Revolutionary War. It's believed that Hessian prisoners of war were held in what's now Mountainside, and brought to the mine site to dig for copper for military use. The famed Schuyler Mine in the North Arlington area was closed at the time, and perhaps the Continentals thought they could hit pay dirt farther south along the ridge. In any case, the Hessians only got about fifteen feet in before digging was halted; the ore they found was deemed not to be worth the time to extract, transport and process. If there were any other mining attempts within the current reservation borders, they're not evident today.

As I was researching the Reservation's mining history, I found the usual apocryphal mine stories: deep underground rooms haunted by a kid who got lost and trapped by a cave-in, you name it. All that tends to go out the window when you see the actual location. If there's someone stuck in there, he's been there for an awfully long time.

*Apologies to Jimmy Cagney for mangling his quote from Public Enemy.

Where Edison concentrated: iron ore processing at Ogdensburg

A little over a year ago, we made a trip out to Thomas Edison's concrete mile on Route 57 in Stewartsville/New Village, the site of his famed Portland cement factory. What I didn't mention in that account was the earlier use of the equipment that ground stone into fine enough particles to make a durable concrete.

You see, the Wizard of Menlo Park didn't originally set out to make concrete. He was looking to capitalize on the high iron content of the northwestern reaches of New Jersey, to supply concentrated iron ore bricks manufactured from the raw material of Sussex Mountain. And to do it, he built the first Edison, New Jersey: a veritable city of workers and innovative rock crushing machinery that used magnetic force to separate iron from pulverized stone. While mines in western Morris County and beyond were starting to peter out of useful material, he somehow thought that his experience would be different. No matter what, you've got to give the guy credit for optimism.

Finding the Edison mining property wasn't all that easy for me -- this is a trip I took before Ivan and I met, so I didn't have the benefit of his knowledge of the area. After some internet research, I discovered that my target was just off Sussex County Road 620 in Ogdensburg. More specifically, it's on Edison Road. For some reason, the Garmin people hadn't included 620 on their GPS maps, so I was left to do a little automobile bushwacking once I got into the Sussex area.

I arrived to find a stone and brass marker erected by Sussex County not too long ago, and a sign with topographic mapping of several trails that ramble through the woods. Noticing a New Jersey Audubon logo on the topo sign, I realized that I'd come upon one of the organization's unstaffed areas, and that if I'd bothered to look at my Audubon trails guide, I'd have known exactly where to go.

If you check the area out for yourself, be sure to stop at the county marker and check out the photos embedded in it. They show an environment that differs substantially from the woods and open fields currently on the property. More than 500 men and several huge pieces of processing machinery were working furiously during Edison's time there, and there's little to show for it now. Yes, as you walk around, you'll find the remnants of rustic looking stone walls, and a fair number of steel reinforcing rods poking up from the ground, but besides that, there's little to indicate the industry that existed there from 1891 to 1900. Still, though, random rocks on the ground show the telltale reddish-brown shade of oxidized iron. And fittingly, the area is now traversed by a set of high-voltage transmission lines.

Edison spent much of his time at Ogdensburg during the eleven years his iron ore business operated, ultimately spending about $2 million of his personal wealth on the unsuccessful venture. Characteristically unaffected by the cost of yet another experiment that didn't work out, he said, "Well, it's all gone, but we had a hell of a good time spending it!"

Where does the cement come in? Like any great inventor and entrepreneur, Edison studied the failed venture to determine lessons learned. He noted that the crushing machinery was especially good at manufacturing finely-ground material that could be used in high-quality cement. The machinery was moved about 45 miles southwest to New Village, and in 1903, a new business was born: Edison Portland Cement. From roads and houses to Yankee Stadium, this durable material showed up all over the place as Edison strived to find markets for the product. Once again, he'd managed to make some pretty tasty lemonade from the lemons he'd been served.

A Hidden Trifecta in Raritan

Fresh from our greater white-fronted goose sighting, Ivan and I spotted a small truss bridge and historical marker on the side of the road. Wait! Stop! Turn back! Tiny bridges have always brought interesting stories, and I didn't want to pass this one up.

A Hibernia Mine bridge in Raritan? Isn't that Morris County territory? Had we stumbled on a Hidden New Jersey gem linking two non-contiguous counties? Ivan started reading the marker through his binoculars, but I couldn't help myself. I got out of the car to find out.

Talk about a span with a history! Not only is this an old bridge, it's survived its own obsolescence twice. Originally, it was part of a railroad started in 1863 to move ore from the Hibernia iron mines in Morris County to the Morris Canal and later to the Central Railroad of New Jersey (CRRNJ) at Wharton. The mines were pretty much tapped out by 1916 and closed in 1930, the same year CRRNJ bought the line to serve the area's industries.

By then, though, the bridge had gone on to its second use as a vehicular passageway across a railroad right of way in Hillsborough. It served that purpose for more than 100 years before being dismantled and stored. For the past four years, it's been exclusively a footbridge within the Somerset County Park System, enabling pedestrians to easily cross the Raritan Water Power Canal.

The what canal? When we were in Duke Island Park, we'd wondered if the canal we crossed was simply a portion of the Delaware and Raritan Canal, or maybe a feeder, given the proximity of the Raritan River. I didn't know of any other canal in central New Jersey, so when I read the Hibernia bridge marker, I was stumped. Logic and lessons learned from my many visits to Paterson's Great Falls led me to reason that water had been shunted for industrial purposes, but that's as far as I could figure when we were standing at the bridge. I doubt the Raritan ever supplied the mighty wattage of the falling Passaic River waters, but heck, I could be wrong.

Further research cemented the link: Alexander Hamilton. According to the Raritan Borough website, Hamilton visited the community after the Revolutionary War and thought the river's power could be harnessed to bring industry to the community. Local leaders were less than convinced, but the idea stayed alive and the three-mile long Raritan Water Power Canal was constructed in 1840. Predictably, factories started springing up along the river, taking advantage of cheap power and the proximity of the railroad. That's our link to Passaic County, courtesy of our first Secretary of the Treasury.

Raritan hosted one of the country's largest textile manufacturers, the Raritan Woolen Mills, which supplied the army during the Civil War and World War I. I can't find a direct source confirming the mill used water power, but it was located close to the Raritan, making it likely the Water Power Canal was a factor in its operation. Today, the property is site of a condominium complex. I wonder how many of its residents know their tenuous connection to Alexander Hamilton?

Four thousand holes in Mount Hope...

If New Jersey was the crossroads of the Revolutionary War (or the cockpit, as others have said), Morris County was the arsenal. It was no coincidence that Washington spent a fair amount of his time here: the hills were full of iron which were used to make guns and ammunition, making the area well worthy of defending.

Ivan and I braved the mosquitoes on Memorial Day to check out the Mount Hope mining area in Rockaway. I'd remembered that several years ago, a developer wanted to build a pumped storage hydro power plant in the area, capitalizing on the long shafts of a huge iron mine that had been tapped out and abandoned many years ago. Essentially, pumped storage uses two reservoir areas, one higher than the other, and connected by shafts with turbines in them. Power is created when water is released from the upper reservoir into the shafts, turning the turbines as the water flows downward. Gravity does the work. As part of the plan, the company was to restore several historic buildings, including a Revolutionary-era house and church.

Move ahead several years, and the project has yet to move forward. Approvals from several agencies, including the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, were needed to enable the hydro plant to connect to the electricity grid to contribute power, and, well, you know how that kind of thing goes.

I had an address for the house on Mount Hope Road, but barely an idea of what to look for. When we saw signs for the Mount Hope Historical Park, we thought we'd found it, but instead we'd found a new adventure: a series of paths leading to a string of smallish but often deep mine holes.

After parking the car, we were on our trek into the woods. Appropriate to the humidity of the day, we ran into tons of mosquitoes along the rocky path. It didn't take long for us to find the first mine pits, also known as subsidence pits that once led to mines developed by John Jacob Faesch just before the Revolutionary war. The property had been mined for about 50 years before he'd come to it, but he's considered to be the first true developer of large-scale iron mining in the Mount Hope area. The trail map showed we weren't far from the Picatinny Arsenal run by the U.S. Government.

You can still see evidence of the stone paths that were probably used to cart the iron ore out of the mine area,  and there's some sign of a few building foundations well into the woods. That said, it's still hard to believe that the tract was mined until the late 1950's. It's amazing how quickly nature will reclaim land that man leaves fallow. While we were there, Ivan heard a host of songbirds and even spotted a neat little reddish-orange Eastern Newt eft dashing through the underbrush of leaves.

And as for the house and church, they clearly weren't to be found on this stop, at least not unless we wanted to take along walk along the power line cut. Onward...