Paddock Mines - Exploring Shaft #2

If anything can stir my imagination more than a hole in the earth, high up on a desolate mountain and disappearing into darkness and the unknown, I don't know of it. Whether it's a forgotten cave, a hundred year old mineshaft, or even a mile long abandoned tunnel if you ever find yourself in southern Pennsylvania, to walk underground in one of these places it to step out of one world and into another. And in the case of the Paddock Mineshafts, you're stepping into a world of men who dug through rock for twelve hours a day with nothing more than a pickax and grit, men who were oblivious to such modern luxuries as OSHA safety and mid-morning coffee breaks, and men who would have laughed me right off the mountain with my daily multi-vitamins and two puffs of a inhaler every morning.

Our follow-up expedition to the Paddock Mineshafts has been my most anticipated adventure in the short history of this blog. After learning there was a second and equally long tunnel in those treasured woods, we planned a group excursion with the WeRmudfun gang to go back and explore everything in one shot - both the tunnel our group found during our initial search, and this existing one they knew of that we'd been looking for but never came across.

The morning actually started on a down note, as we left the house with only two of the four people who were committed to going from our group, me and Barry. Feeling bad for the two that couldn't make it, but not bad enough to consider rescheduling, we drove the two and a half hours to our designated meeting spot, roughly a mile's distance further along an old dirt road from the first time we made this trip.

Because we were now running off GPS there would be no bushwhacking through thickets and thorns like our previous search, and it couldn't have been more than half an hour of enjoyable hiking and chatting until we reached the mine. This was the first hike on this trail for our group, and the first hike in over two years for our new friends, who were navigating the way. My only flub-up was when I struggled to make small talk and asked them if the random section of trail they we were leading us through looked familiar. You know, from their last trip here over two years ago.

We arrived at the mine and one of the first things we noticed was that unlike the previous shaft, which had quicksand disguised as a puddle and would swallow you whole at the entrance, this one's method of attack was a slow and more tortuous one. Soon after entering the mine, a foot-deep river of cold water stood throughout much of the tunnel, and there was no way to avoid walking through it. A problem for some people perhaps, but no match against the Walmart waders I'd picked up just that morning.

But similar to the previous shaft, this one's entrance is guarded by some nasty spiders that seem to be breeding an army of their own.

Once about halfway into the mine the water eases up and the shaft becomes pretty smooth sailing. It runs mostly in a straight line, but has just enough waviness to close you off from any last glimpse of daylight and give you a real sense of twisting through the mountain.

Unlike shaft #1, this one doesn't abruptly end at a wall that makes it obvious you're not going any further, and instead splits into two directions that are almost immediately caved in on both sides. Purposely or not we don't know. And although I gave it my best shot to crawl over one of the piles of rubble, there just wasn't any continuing. On a related note, I'm one of those guys who will stop to say cheese for the camera under any circumstances.

Now it was on to the second part of this adventure, the Paddock Pit, and what turned out to be my biggest surprise of the day.

When I was considering that we would be climbing down into a vertical mineshaft, I mistakenly assumed it would be a shaft with a steep decline, and that we'd just need some rope to guide the way and help steady us down. Nope. A pit means a pit, and in this case it means a hole wide enough my wife could have driven our car into it. You can imagine how silly I felt standing at the edge of this thing holding not much more than a clothesline, but I threw it down anyway because if nothing else it would give us a measurement of how deep this hole went. We heard the plastic spool smack the bottom just before we ran out of slack at the top. That was a fifty-foot stretch of rope we'd just heaved in there, and this pit had swallowed almost every last foot of it.

It was time to head home for us as we knew we wouldn't be getting into the pit on this day, but at least I knew exactly what we were challenged with now - finding a way to climb straight down into a fifty-foot hole in the earth. Off to the drawing board I would be going.

And you know what that meant ... another trip to the Paddock Mines would soon be in the works.


Links:
Searching For The Paddock Mineshaft - Part 1
WeRmudfun - Abandoned Paddock Mines Shaft 1 and 2

Bannerman Castle on Pollepel Island

Sitting in the Hudson River of New York is a 6.5 acre island only accessible by boat. We set out one weekend to visit the island on a guided ferry tour to walk among the ruins where "Bannerman Castle" once stood. I'm sure I don't need to fill you in on what our two teenagers were thinking when we told them we were going to NY for the weekend to tour ruins on an island.  We had seen many pictures of the ruins in our internet searches, but once the ferry brought us closer to the island we realized the pictures didn't do it justice.

Even though part of the castle had been burned by a fire years ago, what remained was still a perfect piece of history with much detail on the castle walls helping your imagination piece together what it once was.

As a young teenager, Frank Bannerman started out his career owning a scrap metal business in Brooklyn. Over the years his business grew into selling munitions and eventually full ships, and is considered founder of the modern day army-navy store. But owning such large amounts of inventory, city laws forced him to find storage elsewhere. Needing a secure and large enough location for his business could have proven to be difficult, but fortunately his son came across Pollepel Island while out canoeing the Hudson. Frank purchased the island in 1900, and over a 17 year period designed all the islands buildings, moats, and garden walls without the help of professionals. When I first saw this castle, I assumed this was his home. This amazing place was actually used for his business and as you come closer to the island "Bannerman's Island Arsenal" is still very clearly stated on the side of the building that survived the fire.

Fortunately, the fire happened many years later in 1969, far after Frank's family no longer owned the island, but unfortunately the suspicious fire ruined a piece of history. The island today still shows beautiful flower beds, paths and remaining statues that Frank's wife once cared for. Today, NY Parks and Recreation now own the island and the "Bannerman Castle Trust" helps maintain it. The family home which is located at the top of the island is currently being renovated to allow the public in and tour someday. The Bannerman family used this smaller castle as their summer home.

Unfortunately, not much has been done to restore the castle that once held the family business. The walls that remain are braced to keep the rest of the castle from crumbling.

Ironically with the type of business Frank owned, he once described himself as a man of peace. In fact he once stated in one of his business catalogs that he hoped his collection of arms would someday be known as "The Museum of the Lost Arts." I for one would love to see his "hope" become a reality. It may not have happened in his lifetime or perhaps won't become one in mine, but like Frank, I also hope this becomes a lost art someday myself.

Related Links:
Bannerman Castle Tours
Part Two of our New York Adventure

Ruins Of The Cornish Estate Mansion

At least once a year our family takes a trip outside our usual sphere of travel, far enough away that an overnight stay is required. It's fun to break away from our everyday lives for a weekend of exploring someplace new, and as teenagers our kids are still good enough sports not to complain about spending a night in the same hotel room as their parents. This year's getaway brought us to the state of New York, for a ferry ride up the Hudson River and a tour of the Bannerman Castle ruins on Pollepel Island.

That tour was everything we'd hoped it would be, and when it ended that Saturday afternoon our kids would have been perfectly happy returning to our hotel room for a night of Snapchat selfies and Minecraft. But they aren't the ones who paid for this trip, my wife and I are, and in my bag of tricks I had several nearby interesting places I'd scouted just for such an opportunity of having some free time. So we did what any mean parents would do in this situation, we dragged the kids on a short hike into the woods to explore the ruins of a burned down mansion.

Sometime around 1910 a wealthy merchant named Sigmund Stern and his wife built the Northgate mansion on a 650 acre plot of land in the Hudson Valley. Unfortunately, they only got a couple years use of the place before Stern's wife passed away, prompting him to sell the estate to Edward and Selina Cornish. The Cornishes lived at the property until they both died in 1938, and the mansion remained in the family until burning down in 1958. Today, what remains of this property is commonly referred to as the Cornish Estate ruins.

The popular directions to the ruins involves a four mile hike through the Hudson Highlands, but what most websites don't mention is that you can park along the side of Route 9D, and by climbing uphill through the woods reach the site within fifteen minutes. Maybe they don't mention this because it takes away from the spirit of finding the place, but come at me with that argument when you're accompanied by two teenagers who that day you've already put through a five-hour car ride, an hour of boat riding, and a two hour walking tour under some unseasonably warm June sun. Even the prospect of this fifteen minute hike led to a spirited conversation in the car, one that only ended when my wife threw up her hands and told the kids "well, you know your dad!"

Once we found the ruins everyone agreed the short hike was worthwhile though, as these were some of the grandest remains we've come across. Much of the mansion was constructed of stone, which after the fire left many walls and arches still standing for us to wander among and pose with.

Another thing this mansion had no shortage of were fireplaces. Several chimneys still stand at their full height with fireplaces jutting out at crazy angles, and I've played enough games of Jenga to know better than fool around with any of them.

Other sections were much sturdier and made for some good climbing, prompting Logan to turn the entire complex into his own personal jungle gym.

The Cornish family were also well known cattle farmers, and if you walk a little ways further up the hillside you'll come across what remains of their barn. If you're up for a bonus challenge, go into the basement of the barn and look for a crevice behind a wooden post, I hid one of my foreign coins in that wall.

We also found a few random structures we couldn't identify, such as this small platform that Barry is making himself comfortable on. On a side note, whenever we talk about going places with our family, Barry is more often than not a part of that group.

Although the Cornish Estate Ruins aren't comfortably within the range of a single day's drive, I introduce them to you not only in the hopes that a few of you find your way out to them someday, but also as a reminder. Never pass up an opportunity to see something new and unusual in life, and always be on the lookout for ways to create these opportunities for yourself.

Links:
Historic Photographs of the Cornish Estate (aka Northgate Mansion)
Location of Cornish Estate Ruins

Curious Graves - God Aimed The Tree That Crushed Him Dead

Sunday drives with our family are not your typical afternoon ride, and if you ever find yourself in our car during one of these trips your apt to see something like this as the destination on our GPS.

This day we were on the hunt for the gravestone of David Moors, buried in the town of Hancock New Hampshire and with a tombstone that has been mentioned in a graveyard oddity book I found at the library. David met his untimely death while chopping down a tree, which is unique enough, but on the grave's eulogy was a poem that described how "God aimed the tree that crushed him dead". This seemed a bit accusatory to us, or else reflected a weird sense of humor by his widow, and although we couldn't find pictures of the grave the transcript was listed in the cemetery's burial records so we knew it existed. Our plan to find this tombstone was, in terms of computer hacking, what is called a brute force attack. That is, to systematically try every combination possible until you find the right one, or in our case, read every single headstone until we located the one we were looking for.

One thing about reading every headstone in a cemetery is you're bound to find a few gems, and this day did not disappoint. First there was the wife of Hiram Whittemore, a lady I'm guessing didn't win any lifetime achievement awards in her day. She is described on her tombstone simply as someone who "Hath Done What She Could".

People weren't shy 200 years ago about informing us of how their loved ones died, either. Meet George Edward Sheldon, a man whose life was cut short the day he was "shot by a ruffian".

This is actually a pretty good life-hack to try yourself someday. Pick a cemetery - older ones work best for this - and spend an afternoon reading every single one of the headstones. You'll never be at a loss for small talk again. The flip side of this is you may find yourself at a loss for people who want to keep hanging out with you, but fortunately that's never been an issue for me. I was lucky enough to find someone who enjoys these jaunts as much as I do, and even after scouring the cemetery and not finding David's grave the first time through, my wife was eager to swap sides and give it another go.

It was on the return sweep that I spotted the grave, and with writing that has somewhat faded over time it was easy to see how we'd missed it the first time through. But the words were still plenty legible once you zero'd in on them, and they matched the transcript exactly.

David Moors

Died Sept. 15 1811

AE.29.

Here peacefully lies the once happy father

The joy of his beloved wife & daughter

But whilst in health the woodsman's ax he sped

God aimed the tree that crushed him dead

It was another successful expedition, and we did our usual high-fiving and posing for pictures before packing it in and calling it a day. In our scavenger-hunt battle for who can find the most curious headstones, I am now in the lead 3-0 against my wife Tina.

Related Links:
Curious Graves - Persecuted For Wearing The Beard
Curious Graves - Grave For A Leg