I visited the site this morning and spent almost 45 minutes there and here is my opinion on what I saw.
First I parked my car at the intersection just before the bridge, exited my car and faced the bridge. I then proceeded to walk left as was mentioned in jokermans letter. BTW I had printed them out and had them with me. My daughter and I walked the complete area to the left from Glossy Sprung Road to the water and we walked all the way to the opposite side of the turn around area mentioned in a previous post. So basically we covered all of the area to just past the turn around.
I took photo's along the way as I came to depressions in the ground and found nothing out of the ordinary. We then crossed the bridge following the road to the left and walked a short distance down there before returning. After doing this my daughter and I came to the same conclusion as follows.
This area as we all know was a cranberry area in the time leading up to and during Beck's visits. They were bogs which were flooded and worked to remove cranberries. If you look at the bridge on the right side you will notice the remains of the lock that was used to flood the bogs.
The dirt road that goes across the bridge was between the bogs and over time has wore away from erosion. But when in use someone would raise the lock and the water would flow into the area on the left flooding it. That area would flood up to and maybe across the road and having a building there seems like something not likely because of that. The reason why the road is wore out there is that sometime in the past the lock was damaged by a flood and the water rushing through during heavy storms and rainfall washed the dirt of the road away. That is why the road is now only intact on the sides where there was vegetation on the top to keep the complete hill from washing away.
Also, we did not find any evidence of rubble except pieces of fence piled up with a small amount of trash with it. There was no evidence of brick or cement to be found.
We did find the depression that was mentioned and looked it over closely.
The second photo shows the hill on the side of the depression that is closest to the water. Some may find this hard to believe, but I believe this was dug out by the state to make sure that the water in the river after rainy seasons did not flood the road. If you were in that area in the 70's it is completely different than it is today and the water would flood that complete area. The state routinely digs out area's like that for water to run off the road and have a place to go. We do not have the rainfall and the water table today we did years ago, so the water seems tame and normal to be that low, but it wasn't in the past. The depression goes right up to the road which would have allowed the road to drain. There is little need for that anymore so it has grown over. The side of the depression is also built up along the waters edge to keep it from overflowing. You can see that in the second depression photo.
So basically I don't believe they were foundations, just area's where water laid or was drained to in the past. Some of the little depressions near the bridge could have been formed as the water rushed into that area when the locks were opened. Can you picture the water level rising and the swirling water moving along the edges of the hill and moving the dirt along?
If anyone has a different point of view I would welcome and appreciate it, but until then I would have to conclude the area in question is void of foundation remains.
Guy
