Batsto and Atsion: A Quick Saturday Adventure

[Ben Ruset]

My wife hasn't been feeling well, so I decided to take Dana out for the day. The destination was Batsto. Gas has gotten cheap enough where I don't feel guilty about making the drive, plus we had done Allaire the previous weekend.

Somehow I always end up on the Parkway on the weekend. I've made a little game of seeing how much I can avoid the parkway to get where I am going. I ended up taking the Parkway down the entire way, but on previous trips I've managed to get from Toms River down to Double Trouble, and then hopping on from there. I'm sure there's other back roads and whatnot that I need to explore.

Anyway, I got to Batsto and paid my $5 to park. The place was pretty busy. Walking through the village was nice. I was disappointed to see that they didn't have any of the chickens out in the coop like they usually do. The mansion was nearly entombed in a web of scaffolding and surrounded by "Rent-A-Fence." One of the windows was removed and boarded up with plywood. Some of the shutters were off the mansion and leaning up on the porch. I think whoever is in charge of the mansion restoration should get the workers to keep the mansion site in better shape. There's just tons of junk, tools, etc. lying all over the place and it looks terrible.

They seemed to have been operating the sawmill at one point as I heard them cutting wood. When we got there there was nobody to be found. What do they run the mill on now? Electricity? I wish they would have left it water powered.

We then made for the nature center. Dana LOVES the turtles there. We had a small picnic on the benches outside, and then headed back to the car.

She got her first taste of off-roading. We headed up Batsto-Washington Rd., hung a left at Washington, rode through Mount, and up along the Quaker Bridge road. I wanted to stop at Quaker Bridge, but there were a ton of cars and some sketchy people hanging out, so we pressed on to Atsion.

I passed two guys pushing some sort of dune buggy thing up Quaker Bridge Rd. They said that they had ran it out of gas. If I had some spare gas I would have given it to them, but I didn't so I suppose they had a long push to get back to 206.

I quickly checked out the work on the Atsion Mansion. I was incredibly disappointed to see the same faux block siding up along the side of the mansion. I was hoping to see them side it in real clapboard (as it probably was sided originally) or something better than the siding they covered it in in the 50's.

I'm also curious -- they've reconstructed the side porch. Are the columns holding it up original? If so, where were they all of these years?

In the end, a nice 5 hour day with my daughter, although seems less enthusiastic for the off-roading part of the journey than I was.

 

[RednekF350]

Nice little trip with the youngster Ben.
I took my two boys on more woods rides than they will ever remember but I will never forget. They do appreciate it now.
I too am amazed at the apparent lack of supervision and motivation for the contractor to complete these restorations.
If it was a small contractor working for a a private entity the work would have been done a year ago.
BTW, when did they start charging to park in Batsto? I puilled in there on the motorcycle a few weeks ago and turned around and left when they told me there was a fee.

 

[Ben Ruset]

I think they've been doing it for some time now. Between Memorial Day and Labor Day they charge to park at Batsto and Allaire. Sometimes they don't charge during the week at Allaire. No idea about Batsto.

 

[LARGO]

There must be in fact some sort of method to the madness of charging. I've gone at some times when you might expect and they have not and others when a certain draw would require a charge and there is none. Seems more oft nowadays there is. Perhaps Gabe knows something of this.
I know the day I went with my littlin' to Tuckerton last month I was gonna stop in for a few. The charge was in effect. I could not justify it so I moved on. If I were going to stay a good bit like an afternoon, I may not mind so much. Anyhoo... forget the days of then, I think we should get used to seeing more of this.

g.

 

[Ben Ruset]

I don't mind paying if I'm going to stay a while. If I was just popping in and then back out I wouldn't pay. You could always park along the access road and walk in.

 

[GermanG]

Ben, I was under the impression the mill was still water powered. Did anything your observed cause you to think otherwise?

 

[Ben Ruset]

Ben, I was under the impression the mill was still water powered. Did anything your observed cause you to think otherwise?

I thought I remembered hearing someone say it had been converted.

 

[LARGO]

I thought I remembered hearing someone say it had been converted.

I also know of no changes. Gosh I hope they didn't or don't convert it.
It's very cool to see in action under water power, amazingly quiet movements until those blades start hitting lumber.

g.

 

[bobpbx]

I must have just missed you Ben. I went from Apple Pie to Basto, all through the woods. I saw Chris (dragoncjo) at the railroad trestle on Carranza. He and a hardy looking crew were looking for reptiles to photograph. I was at Quaker Bridge eating at about 12:30 or so.

It takes a long time to get to Quaker Bridge from Apple Pie Hill. I went down by the Featherbed Branch along Sandy Ridge (not Sandy Ridge road), then along the Tulpehocken.

I did see the trees cut across the tracks. It looks nasty, and the company that did that should have their asses kicked. It is wrong to block established roads like that. And even if its right, its stupid to cut and waste trees like that.

 

[GermanG]

Regardless of the status of the Batsto sawmill, I always found it amazing how easily the machinery could be converted from one source of power to another. Back in the 1940s when Tilden Estlow stopped using the water powered mill at Wells Mills, he sold the planer to Sammy Hunt, who welded on a bracket for an electric motor and used it for planing lumber for his sneakboxes, banjos, furniture, etc. The planer found its way back home when Sammy's daughter donated it to the park a few years before Sam died. It's on display in the nature center now.

 

[Ben Ruset]

I must have just missed you Ben. I went from Apple Pie to Basto, all through the woods. I saw Chris (dragoncjo) at the railroad trestle on Carranza. He and a hardy looking crew were looking for reptiles to photograph. I was at Quaker Bridge eating at about 12:30 or so.

I crossed QB around 5pm or so.

Regardless of the status of the Batsto sawmill, I always found it amazing how easily the machinery could be converted from one source of power to another. Back in the 1940s when Tilden Estlow stopped using the water powered mill at Wells Mills, he sold the planer to Sammy Hunt, who welded on a bracket for an electric motor and used it for planing lumber for his sneakboxes, banjos, furniture, etc. The planer found its way back home when Sammy's daughter donated it to the park a few years before Sam died. It's on display in the nature center now.

I'm home today from work. Maybe I will take Dana to Wells Mills.

 

[pinelandpaddler]

Ben, the sawmill at Batsto is still run by water power.


As for why the State doesn't charge parking for certain crowd-attracting events, I have not figured out the logic. The State is just a complete mess.

 

[Trailhead00]

As someone else stated, the sawmill at Batsto is still water powered. I worked at Batsto for 2 years and had to give the speech and even got a chance to run it now and then. People always thought it was converted to electric but it is still powered the good ol' fashioned way. It is a water turbine, which looks like a water wheel but laid on it's side. The one at Batsto was manufactured in Mt. Holly I believe. They usually use water turbines for slower moving bodies of water, like the Batsto River.

I was just looking at the Atsion Mansion about 2 weeks ago and was also curious of the columns. I got close to them and took some pics which I can post later. Sorry to say but they are not the original ones, these are made out of PVC. If you look at the base and compare them to the originals you can spot the differences. I took close up shots of the base as well.

I'm not sure what the Atsion Mansion originally looked like but I'm pretty sure what the state did in the 50's is not correct. They turned it into a Greek Revival (I think) building but I do not think that is how it originally looked. I really hope they do not put those stupid block tile looking things back on the side of that building! It looked terrible. I guess we should be happy that they are doing something with it instead of letting it fall apart.

I also took some pics of the Wharton era horse barn at Atsion which is in very bad shape. It has massive cracks on the side and looks like it could fall down at any moment. I noticed they did clear the interior out of any overgrown trees and it looked like there was some old farm equipment and some old boats in there.

 

[Ben Ruset]

The mansion was originally a Greek Revival. That was quite the rage in those days.

The state did *something* with the siding in the 50's to stabilize the building. I imagine it was either originally brick or had clapboard siding. What they put on the 50's appears to be a thin faux block veneer over the original sandstone.

Jerseyman mentioned a fire insurance policy that was still in effect for the building from the Richards era. I imagine that has a description of the building. If only I knew where to get at a copy.

 

[Ben Ruset]

Laura, Dana and myself all popped down to Batsto today. We stopped at Buzby's for lunch (decent, but limited menu) and then made our way to Batsto. Again, the hit of the day for Dana was the nature center at Batsto, where her friends the turtles put on quite a show. We also watched the frogs fight over a quite robust grasshopper.

Again, the mansion site was still a mess, but not as bad as last time, I guess.

Finally we headed up to Hawkins Bridge where we all waded in the water. If anybody saw a naked baby running around, that was mine! Took a bit of convincing Laura that the water is supposed to be brown...

 

[Teegate]

Nice to see you all had a good time.


Guy

 

[james ungehajer]

How was the water level at Hawkins ?

How about the bugs, Pine Flies etc. ?

Jim

 

[Ben Ruset]

Water level was perfect. Not too deep.

No bugs or pine flies.