Lock's Bridge

SuperChooch

Explorer
Aug 26, 2011
391
428
47
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...
 
  • Like
Reactions: smoke_jumper

Teegate

Administrator
Site Administrator
Sep 17, 2002
25,602
8,180
There is a chance it is not a spring. The water may be coming from the other side when the level of the river gets low. Just a guess. I have not viewed a spring in the pines that pumped water up that high. They usually seep.
 

smoke_jumper

Piney
Mar 5, 2012
1,518
1,048
Atco, NJ
There is a chance it is not a spring. The water may be coming from the other side when the level of the river gets low. Just a guess. I have not viewed a spring in the pines that pumped water up that high. They usually seep.
That could be. I'd like to check if I could feel a flow when the water high.
 
Apr 6, 2004
3,607
551
Galloway
We spent a few hours today at Locks today. The beavers are very active out there. We ran into the Superchooches and the kids had a great time together. With the low water there seems to be a natural spring right at the bridge I'd love to take credit in finding it but Mrs Superhooch was the first to notice it. Like John described it's very iron rich. This explains the orange coating over the entire pond downstream. If the water level was higher it would never be seen.

Did you notice the piling where the "spring" is? That is part of the lock built by the Atsion Co. Pretty cool stuff.
 

smoke_jumper

Piney
Mar 5, 2012
1,518
1,048
Atco, NJ
Did you notice the piling where the "spring" is? That is part of the lock built by the Atsion Co. Pretty cool stuff.
Yes I did take notice of it.
image.jpg
image.jpg
And we explored downstream a bit too.
 

Don Catts

Explorer
Aug 5, 2012
461
261
84
Indian Mills
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?
 
Apr 6, 2004
3,607
551
Galloway
Don, the piling I speak of is certainly much older than the bridge built by the State. I said it was part of the Atsion Co. lock because I would hazard a guess that Estelle's original lock may have been replaced.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Don Catts

Don Catts

Explorer
Aug 5, 2012
461
261
84
Indian Mills
Don, the piling I speak of is certainly much older than the bridge built by the State. I said it was part of the Atsion Co. lock because I would hazard a guess that Estelle's original lock may have been replaced.

That's good news maybe they just filled over the dam and there is a lot more buried under the gravel.
Don
 

smoke_jumper

Piney
Mar 5, 2012
1,518
1,048
Atco, NJ
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
image.jpg
What looked to me like a raceway
image.jpg
 

Don Catts

Explorer
Aug 5, 2012
461
261
84
Indian Mills
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.
 
Apr 6, 2004
3,607
551
Galloway
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.
 
Apr 6, 2004
3,607
551
Galloway
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.
 

smoke_jumper

Piney
Mar 5, 2012
1,518
1,048
Atco, NJ
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.

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.
 
Apr 6, 2004
3,607
551
Galloway
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?
 
Top