If you have read the chapter in More Forgotten Towns called "Shinplasters: Chew Town's Money" you will remember Beck visiting Iron Mills. The information in the book is slightly different than his newspaper writings so I will add some info that you may not know. You can follow along in the book if interested.
Beck writes (edited)
One of our traveling followers, Mr. H. K. Bodine, of Pennsauken (I posted photo previously of his grave stone), made out the way to Iron Mills, but said there was only a sluice-way to identify it. We found beside the broken gate and the canal that cuts through a patch of bramble-choked woods, a mound that may have been the site of the mill itself. (Coming up not in the book) If so, the Jersey Central seems to have cut directly through it.
A car can be driven through to the railroad, at the edge of a field where some industrious soul has planted raspberries and other canes, but from here the expeditioner must go ahead on foot.
There are one or two overgrown but distinguishable trails through the woods on the other side of the tracks where the sluice-way meanders on. We tried to find the place where the canal might join the Albertson branch of the river, a wide expanse of cedar water sloshing under the railroad bridge nearby, but we were compelled to turn back after a walk of perhaps two miles in the direction of the Hammonton-Atsion highway (206).
I have been there on quite a few occasions but had not read about his thoughts that the Jersey Central may have ran right through the mill. So Jessica and I pulled up there early this morning to check it out. Getting out of our vehicle by the bridge at Fleming Pike and Wharton State Forest Road, I started hearing voices and looked up to see three young men in gym shorts jogging towards us exiting Wharton State Forest Road. Then one minute later a man and his daughter jogging by from the same location.
Anyway, if you go to the Iron Mill bridge and stand on the SE side of it you can actually see the canal at it's beginning. The below link should be right on it.
You can see where the stream turns at the bridge and heads away from the canal.
So we go to the Jersey Central walking past the massive amount of vegetation someone dumped there, and passing the cut rails, we walked down the tracks to here where you can see on the map the canal crossed at that point in the past.
Looking around along the tracks on the eastern side it does appear that the mill may have been there but I am uncertain. On the western side you can make out some sort of canal or open area. However, Beck said he walked maybe two miles along the canal to find where it meets the Albertson branch, but it looks to me he missed the spot right at the beginning. I say it is here. I will have to go back in the winter to look more.
I suspect this is the mound Beck mentions.
Also, it does appear that this area may have been the lake formed by the mill but again I am uncertain. If you go look at this area from the tracks.
Also, the field Beck mentioned that had raspberries had to have been this one and/or the much larger one that is still there today. BTW, I was also there yesterday and the owner appeared to have just finished cutting that big field.
On a different subject, if you go there look where someone has cut down a huge tree in the past. I am wondering if the cut the rails there to get a vehicle to the tree? I can tell you the rails were cut in 2004 when I was there with Ben, so I may be wrong.
Ben and I were there in January of 2004 so I took that photo and added one from today to make a "Then And Now." FYI, Jessica made me alter today's photo, so extra points if you can figure that out if you go there. Take the photo with you and post back the difference, if you really want to
And the bridge in the photo is either not the same one or they repaired it. I can tell that from the photo I took looking under the bridge in 2004. This is not showing there today. Could the stones have been from the workings at the mill????
Beck writes (edited)
One of our traveling followers, Mr. H. K. Bodine, of Pennsauken (I posted photo previously of his grave stone), made out the way to Iron Mills, but said there was only a sluice-way to identify it. We found beside the broken gate and the canal that cuts through a patch of bramble-choked woods, a mound that may have been the site of the mill itself. (Coming up not in the book) If so, the Jersey Central seems to have cut directly through it.
A car can be driven through to the railroad, at the edge of a field where some industrious soul has planted raspberries and other canes, but from here the expeditioner must go ahead on foot.
There are one or two overgrown but distinguishable trails through the woods on the other side of the tracks where the sluice-way meanders on. We tried to find the place where the canal might join the Albertson branch of the river, a wide expanse of cedar water sloshing under the railroad bridge nearby, but we were compelled to turn back after a walk of perhaps two miles in the direction of the Hammonton-Atsion highway (206).
I have been there on quite a few occasions but had not read about his thoughts that the Jersey Central may have ran right through the mill. So Jessica and I pulled up there early this morning to check it out. Getting out of our vehicle by the bridge at Fleming Pike and Wharton State Forest Road, I started hearing voices and looked up to see three young men in gym shorts jogging towards us exiting Wharton State Forest Road. Then one minute later a man and his daughter jogging by from the same location.
Anyway, if you go to the Iron Mill bridge and stand on the SE side of it you can actually see the canal at it's beginning. The below link should be right on it.
You can see where the stream turns at the bridge and heads away from the canal.
So we go to the Jersey Central walking past the massive amount of vegetation someone dumped there, and passing the cut rails, we walked down the tracks to here where you can see on the map the canal crossed at that point in the past.
Looking around along the tracks on the eastern side it does appear that the mill may have been there but I am uncertain. On the western side you can make out some sort of canal or open area. However, Beck said he walked maybe two miles along the canal to find where it meets the Albertson branch, but it looks to me he missed the spot right at the beginning. I say it is here. I will have to go back in the winter to look more.
I suspect this is the mound Beck mentions.
Also, it does appear that this area may have been the lake formed by the mill but again I am uncertain. If you go look at this area from the tracks.
Also, the field Beck mentioned that had raspberries had to have been this one and/or the much larger one that is still there today. BTW, I was also there yesterday and the owner appeared to have just finished cutting that big field.
On a different subject, if you go there look where someone has cut down a huge tree in the past. I am wondering if the cut the rails there to get a vehicle to the tree? I can tell you the rails were cut in 2004 when I was there with Ben, so I may be wrong.
Ben and I were there in January of 2004 so I took that photo and added one from today to make a "Then And Now." FYI, Jessica made me alter today's photo, so extra points if you can figure that out if you go there. Take the photo with you and post back the difference, if you really want to
And the bridge in the photo is either not the same one or they repaired it. I can tell that from the photo I took looking under the bridge in 2004. This is not showing there today. Could the stones have been from the workings at the mill????
