Friday, April 5, 2019

Weekend Wanderings (Part 1) ... Harrisville

This past Sunday I joined a group* for a photography hike in the Harrisville and Martha Furnace area of the Pine Barrens.


We met at Harrisville lake on an overcast afternoon. It had been raining in the morning and the forecast had been varying throughout the day. But for a bit of 'spitting' from the clouds we stayed dry.


One of the attractions for me was that James Pullaro, a Pine Barrens historian, was leading the hike and would be pointing out and discussing points of historical significance. I had been to the Harrisville ruins before, but on my own.

Some ruins are obvious, even if I didn't know what they were.


Clearly this was a human built structure. The foundation of a building.

But this one, which was the school house:


Or this, the owner's "mansion" (mansions were much smaller a couple of centuries ago):


Were not obviously the imprint of structures to me. But thanks to James I now have a search image for such "structure fossils".


The structure in front of the fence is an artisan well which is still functional. It was dug in 1866 because the water then being used contained to high a level of iron. The well hit good water approximately 180 feet down. But they didn't stop drilling, and further down the iron content increased, ruining the well.


Behind the fence are the ruins of the paper mill.


Another non-obvious to me site is the canal above, dug by hand, for the mill.


This is another part of the canal.


And this is the road not taken, which has more 'fossils' of the buildings of the town of Harrisville. A destination for another day.


🚶‍♂️  ðŸ“¸  ðŸš¶‍♂️  ðŸ“¸  ðŸš¶‍♂️

* The group is "Bog Iron Outdoors", or "BIO", which is a Facebook group dedicated to high quality photography of the Pinelands National Reserve and adjoining areas. And what is nice about this group is that it is a politics free zone. It was started by the fellow shown wandering into my image below, Robert Barnes Laucks.


The group has outings on a regular basis but I've only been able to enjoy one other, which I blogged about here and here.

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