Yep that's it. In your video the water is even lower then it is now. I was thinking I read it here before but couldn't remember.
Lock's Bridge
- Thread starter BEHR655
- Start date
Yes, the kids had a great time today. Turns out our sons are a week apart in age. We are lucky none of them fell in today. 
I don't know how I've never seen that spring before...
I don't know how I've never seen that spring before...
Did you notice the piling where the "spring" is? That is part of the lock built by the Atsion Co. Pretty cool stuff.
At this time the water may be low enough to expose any remaining remnants of the original 1766 lock/dam. However, that piling may be from the bridge that the state built across the river, probably in the late 1950s. If it is from the 50s bridge you may still be able to smell and see the creosote, don't tough it. There was no Lock's Bridge until the state built one and named the road Lock's Bridge road. You couldn't have had a lock and a bridge at the same site.
The thinking today, and none of it is hard fact, is that this is the site that in 1766 John Estell built a dam across the Mullica for his Saw Mill that required a lock. By the time the Atsion Company bought the property the saw mill was gone and Henry Drinker, one of the Atsion owners, mentions that the mill seat would make a good site for a forge. We don't know for sure, but we don't think anything was ever built at the site since the original saw mill. That is, until the state bought the Wharton tract (let us not forget the good old state you know the one that is going to preserve and protected all the historic sites in Wharton by closing off the roads), and dumped tons of gravel, built abutments and a bridge right on top of one of the most valuable historic sites in the area, a LOCK ON THE MULLICA the only one we know of. Then later decided they didn't want the bridge anymore and knocked it down, leaving the lock/dam site destroyed and the mess you see today.
So if someone wants to smell the piling then some of the timbers laying around we may know something,
Don
P.S. Is there any signs of something down stream?
The thinking today, and none of it is hard fact, is that this is the site that in 1766 John Estell built a dam across the Mullica for his Saw Mill that required a lock. By the time the Atsion Company bought the property the saw mill was gone and Henry Drinker, one of the Atsion owners, mentions that the mill seat would make a good site for a forge. We don't know for sure, but we don't think anything was ever built at the site since the original saw mill. That is, until the state bought the Wharton tract (let us not forget the good old state you know the one that is going to preserve and protected all the historic sites in Wharton by closing off the roads), and dumped tons of gravel, built abutments and a bridge right on top of one of the most valuable historic sites in the area, a LOCK ON THE MULLICA the only one we know of. Then later decided they didn't want the bridge anymore and knocked it down, leaving the lock/dam site destroyed and the mess you see today.
So if someone wants to smell the piling then some of the timbers laying around we may know something,
Don
P.S. Is there any signs of something down stream?
That's good news maybe they just filled over the dam and there is a lot more buried under the gravel.
Don
Don,
I did search downstream a bit with the kids but we had to cut it short since the Mrs was starting to feel under the weather and had to sit it out in the jeep. There seems to be a lot of slag exposed there and I'm assuming it was used as fill. There seems to be a race way through it but it's dammed up in several places by some old beaver dams. I plan to go back. Also it might be hard to simply smell for the creosote. The entire pond on both sides of the bridge has a sheen on it presumably from the creosote.
Looking upstream at the bridge
What looked to me like a raceway
I did search downstream a bit with the kids but we had to cut it short since the Mrs was starting to feel under the weather and had to sit it out in the jeep. There seems to be a lot of slag exposed there and I'm assuming it was used as fill. There seems to be a race way through it but it's dammed up in several places by some old beaver dams. I plan to go back. Also it might be hard to simply smell for the creosote. The entire pond on both sides of the bridge has a sheen on it presumably from the creosote.
Looking upstream at the bridge
What looked to me like a raceway
Yea, it does look like a race. I guess if there was a mill it had to have a tail race
Probably the best way to check the banks of the river would be by canoe or kayak.
Probably the best way to check the banks of the river would be by canoe or kayak.
Smoke jumper wrote: "There seems to be a lot of slag exposed there and I'm assuming it was used as fill."
It is actually ironstone, and I agree it was used for fill. Tracker Jim and I poked around there a few weeks ago and we both think this was a likely spot for Estelle's Mill.
It is actually ironstone, and I agree it was used for fill. Tracker Jim and I poked around there a few weeks ago and we both think this was a likely spot for Estelle's Mill.
Don, do you have any details about the State's construction of the bridge at the lock? I wonder what the place looked like and if there are any pictures of it hidden in someone's attic.
I was thinking it had a lot of sand in it to be slag. I assume ironstone is also a byproduct from the manufacturing process. I picked up a piece that definitely had straight parallel lines that surely weren't natural. To me it almost looks like sand was added as it cooled to make it easier to chip out of the furnace when it was cold.
Ironstone is formed naturally. Are these straight parallel lines grooved into the stone, or are you talking about dark layers in the rock?
They are raised about an 1/8th inch almost as if it cooled and settled in between bricks
I believe this is what is called "fluted ironstone". Spung-Man can offer a more detailed explanation.