History of Sussex and Warren counties, New Jersey, with Illustration and Biographical Sketches of its Prominent Men and Pioneers, Part 60

Author: Snell, James P; Clayton, W. W. (W. Woodford)
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1140

USA > New Jersey > Sussex County > History of Sussex and Warren counties, New Jersey, with Illustration and Biographical Sketches of its Prominent Men and Pioneers > Part 60
USA > New Jersey > Warren County > History of Sussex and Warren counties, New Jersey, with Illustration and Biographical Sketches of its Prominent Men and Pioneers > Part 60

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In Sussex County this rock outerops in the valley of the Wallkill between Franklin Furnace and the head of the hill southwest of Sparta. The rock forms little knolls and irregular ridges of considerable height, separated by the smooth meadows or flats of the val- ley. It is therefore a series of outcrops rather than a continuous exposure, occupying an area, bounded by the Wallkill and Hamburg Mountains on the east, and Briar Ridge and the Pimple Hills range on the west. On the latter border the white or crystalline . limestone constitutes the bounding rock.

The eastern portion of Vernon valley, beginning near West Vernon, is underlaid by the blue limestone, which extends north to the State line, and beyond it into the Warwick valley. The Hamburg and Wa- wayanda Mountains limit it towards the east ; on the west it joins the crystalline limestone. The boundary along the mountains on the east runs nearly in the same direction as the road from West Vernon to Ver- non and New Milford. South of Vernon it is at most points a short distance above the road, the limestone showing itself at intervals above it. It is over an eighth of a mile east of Vernon on the side hill, and continues about that distance from the Warwick road

for two miles. Gradually approaching, it crosses this road near a large spring, and then for half a mile northeastward keeps on that side of it. Again cross- ing to the east side, it runs to the State line a short distance southeast of New Milford. Throughout most of the area embraced within these bounds the surface consists of meadow and drift hills and ridges. The actual limestone surface is considerably less than that of a more recent age.

The southeastern portion of the Kittatinny valley is occupied by a belt of limestone bounded on the south- east by the Azoic formation, and on the west by the slate. The latter rock is also found within this belt, forming a narrow ridge east of Lafayette and Newton, and a shorter range of outerop in Green township, terminating near Johnsonsburg. This limestone belt crosses the State line and terminates near Mapes Corners, south of the New York and Erie Railroad, in Orange County. In New Jersey its length from the New York line to the southwest end of Jenny Jump Mountain is thirty-eight miles. Its breadth varies from a scant half-mile to nearly five miles, in- cluding the slate ridge. The outcrops of the rock are very frequent, excepting in those portions occupied by wet meadows and the alluvial district known as German Flats; these comprise a large proportion of the whole area. The remainder of the surface shows many ledges and upturned edges of the limestone; so that the determination of its boundaries is compara- tively easy. The marked contrast between the rough and uneven limestone surface and the smooth, rounded slate hills assists very materially in tracing the lines of their separation.

The valley of the Paulinskill is a long anticlinal limestone valley, extending from near Branchville to the Delaware River at Columbia,-a distance of twenty- five miles. Its breadth varies from one to two and a half miles, and it is bounded on all sides by the slate formation. The limestone of this valley dips from a central axis each way towards the slate, the latter forming the higher grounds which border the valley.

FOSSILIFEROUS LIMESTONE.

This is known in the New York system as the Trenton limestone. It lies between the magnesian limestone and the Hudson River slate. It is found only in one particular belt in New Jersey, which stretches across the counties of Warren and Sussex from near Belvidere to the New York State line. There is no one place known where its meeting with the limestone below or the slate above it can be plainly shown, and it probably shades into them gradually. The rock is thin and rough-bedded, and readily breaks into small pieces ; so that it is difficult to obtain it in large masses. The stone is dark-colored, crystalline in fracture, and full of indistinct fossils.

West of Stillwater, near the slate, there is a hill of this fossiliferous limestone. The outerop is crossed by the road from Stillwater to Millbrook. The stone

241

PHYSICAL FEATURES OF SUSSEX COUNTY.

here is grayish blue in color and thin-bedded in its upper portion. About a mile north-northeast of this locality oceurs another area of this rock, very similar in character and position ; and it is also seen on the farm of Col. William Babbitt, southwest of Newton, and on that of Jesse G. Roe, half a mile northeast of Branchville.

HUDSON RIVER SLATE.

This rock occupies the northwestern half of the Kittatinny valley, and also the middle part of some of the limestone valleys farther southeast. It is seen very close to the magnesian limestone and overlying it at Columbia, on the Delaware, at Newton, and at many other places, though no locality has been ob- served where they were in actual contact. The most perfect of the slate rock is soft and free from grit, and possesses in a wonderful degree the property of cleavage, or of splitting up into slates. When in a moist state, as first taken from the quarry, the rock can be split into sheets so thin as scarcely to bear handling, but this capability disappears with the evaporation of the moisture. It is remarkable that this cleavage does not follow the lines of stratification as they appear in the bed or quarry, but passes directly across them. There are some beds in this slate forma- tion which show no lines of stratification. Such is the one at the quarries of Asa Carr, north of Decker- town, where the formation is remarkably even and lins yielded flags of enormous size. The area of the great slate belt of the Kittatinny valley is thus des- cribed :

The slate constitutes the rock of all that portion of this valley bordering the Blue or Kittatinny Moun- tain, and, excepting the Paulinskill limestone, all of the central portion also, in addition to the ranges which lie in the southeastern portions of this great valley. The belt now to be described embraces all that part of the valley lying west of a line drawn from Belvidere through Sarepta, Hope, Johnsonsburg, Newton, Lower Lafayette, and east of Deckertown to the State line, near the Wallkill. The western boundary of this great slate helt follows the general trend of the Kittatinny Mountain, running on its southeast slope from the Delaware River its whole length in this State. Through Warren County and in Sussex to Culver's Gap this limit of the slate and overlying conglomerate is at a moderate elevation above the valley, while north of this gap the bound- ary is near the top of the mountain. At the State line and in Orange County to Otisville the slate forms the main ridge or erest of the mountain, and the con- glomerate occupies its western slope. The southeast- ern slope of the mountain is characterized throughout much of its length across New Jersey by a boll escarp- ment of conglomerate, with its talus or fallen débris below resting on the more gradual deelivity of the lower portion of the mountain. The line of demar- cation between the conglomerate and the slate is very distinet und decided.

ONEIDA CONGLOMERATE.

This rock, incidentally referred to above, has its position directly on the Hudson River state. It is a conglomerate or sandstone, the lower part being made up of quartz pebbles from a fourth to three-fourths of an inch in diameter, cemented by a light-colored quartzose paste. The well-known Esopus millstones are made of this variety of the rock ; but near the top of the formation the pebbly composition disappears, and it becomes a firm, compact quartzose, easily dis- tinguished from the Green Pond Mountain rock by its lighter color.

This rock has furnished no fossils, but portions of it are pyritous and have been worked for gold, yielding about eleven dollars to the ton, though some sanguine miners have estimated it much higher. The occurrence of iron pyrites is so common in it that lo- calities need not be specified. Galena or lead ore was found in it at an early day, and the Ellenville and other mines in New York were at one time ex- tensively worked, but are now abandoned. The thickness of the conglomerate, by measurement at Otisville and northwest of Newton, on the Walpack road, was found to be between eight hundred and nine hundred feet.

MEDINA SANDSTONE.

This rock is named from Medina, in New York, where it first attracted the attention of geologists and practical quarrymen. In this county it lies upon the western slope of the Kittatinny and its subordinate ridges, apparently not extending west of the Dela- ware or of Flatbrook, Little Flatbrook, or Millbrook. These streams follow the valley, which lies between the outerop of the sandstone and the ridges of water- lime and Lower Heklerberg rocks west of it. The thickness of this sandstone can be only approximately measured, being estimated at eighteen hundred feet at Walpack Bend.

The more shaly members of this formation are traversed by cleavage planes, which give the rock in some places the appearance of red slate. These planes of cleavage dip generally at a steep angle to the southeast. They can be seen along the road at the bank of the Delaware between the Pahaquarry copper-mine and Brotzmansville; also west of Mill- brook, near Flatbrookville, and wherever the rock is argillaceous. At the Pahaquarry copper-mine the rock is of a grayish shade. The texture varies greatly near the bottom ; the rock is generally an arenaceons sandstone, made up of quartz grains, with some beds containing small pebbles of white quartz, the upper members being nearly all a reddish shale very much split up by the cleavage. The rock is not properly a freestone, and has never been much used for build- ing. Copper and iron pyrites have been found in it at different places.

WATER-LIME.

The rocks of this formation are well exposed a mile north of Walpaek Centre ; on the Peters' Valley road;

242

SUSSEX COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

at Walpack Centre; on the road towards the Dela- ware; at Stoll's limestone-quarry, half a mile south of Walpack Centre ; and along the brook below Flat- brookville. Its thickness is estimated at from forty to sixty feet. Fossils are rarely found in this forma- tion, although in this State it has not been very ther- oughly examined. Professor Cook says, in his work of 1868,-

" It would be of much scientific interest to have the place of the water-lime examined in our State, and there are locations where the examination could be made at moderate expense."

LOWER HELDERBERG LIMESTONE.

This limestone is well developed in Sussex County. It forms the middle and upper part of the eastern face of the entire range of hills along the Delaware from Carpenter's Point to Walpack Bend. In this group is included the fire-stone, a thick-bedded and solid limestone full of indistinct fossils of a crystalline substance, which is seen three-fourths of a mile south of Peters' Valley, half a mile north of Walpack Cen- tre, at Walpack Centre, at Flatbrookville, and in many other places. This rock, on account of its capability for standing a high degree of heat, is used for building lime-kilns. Its color is a dark blue, sometimes streaked with red. When burned it makes a dark-colored but very strong lime.

ORISKANY SANDSTONE.

This group lies between the Lower Helderberg and the canda-galli, and is quite extensive in the Dela- ware valley. It can be seen almost everywhere from the State line to Walpack Bend.

"A fine locality for examining rocks and included fossils is along Chambers' mill-brook, northwest of Isaac Bunnell's residence. Here the rock forms a perpendicular wall along the brook for some distance. At an old quarry on the south or left bank a large number of casts were found. Half a mile west of Centreville, on the Dingman's Ferry road, at the corner, calcareous and shaly beds are seen. Some layers close under the grit rock are crowded with casts of Spirifers, Platyostoma, etc. West of Wal- pack Centre the same shaly beds are seen. . . . West of Flatbrookville it forms the face of the ridge, look- ing towards the village."

CAUDA-GALLI GRIT.

The rocks of this epoch are quite largely developed in Sussex County between the State line and Walpack Bend. They occupy the top and part of the western slope of the hills west of Millbrook and Flatbrook, being bounded by the Oriskany sandstone on the east and by the Onondaga limestone on the west.

" It is the most persistent member of the series of rocks which compose this range of hills or ridges. The outerops are very numerous, and the intervals where it does not appear are not of great length. This frequency of exposure and its superior hardness

make the dividing line between it and the shales of the Oriskany period very distinct ; the latter rapidly crumble to a soil and are mostly tilled, while the sur- face of the former is broken by projecting knebs and ridges of hard rock."

This rock is remarkably uniform in character throughout its outerop. It is a compact, hard, gritty slate, fine grained and dark gray, verging to black. It is split up nearly everywhere by cleavage planes, its dip being towards the southeast,-in some places nearly vertical.

ONONDAGA AND CORNIFEROUS LIMESTONE.

These limestones belong to the Upper Helderberg series. In this county they are exposed along the Delaware River, occupying a breadth of about two hundred yards west of the grit formation, and be- tween that and the Delaware, with the exception of one point near Shabacong Island. At Milford and at Dingman's Ferry the breadth is not more than one hundred yards.

" The dip is uniformly towards the northwest. The rock may be seen with this dip in Laurel-Grove Cem- etery, near Carpenter's Point ; at Montague (ferry to Milford), and intermediate points along the river ; at Dingman's Ferry ; and so on to Walpack Bend. ... This limestone is of a light bluish color, very fine grained, and in beds remarkably uniform in thickness. The chert occurs in certain beds, sometimes composing half of the rock.

"The Onondaga limestone is barely recognized by an encrinite and a cyatho-phylloid coral, and two other fossil specimens found in a road about one and a half miles northwest of Dingman's, and about four hundred yards south of Dusenbury's distillery."

This rock has been used for lime, and to some ex- tent for building purposes.

MARCELLUS SIIALE.

The only place where this rock occurs in New Jersey is in this county, and that in a very small area oppo- site the south end of Shabacong Island, on lands of Abram Van Noy. It is seen for about three hun- dred yards along a bank about twenty feet above the water, and forms the bottom of the river for some distance out from the shore. It contains iron pyrites, the fossils in it are quite abundant, it is colored by hydrous oxide of iron, and it is very dark,-almost a jet black.

SURFACE GEOLOGY.

Drift .- According to Professor Cook, the drift in the Kittatinny valley belongs more to the Champlain than to the glacial epoch. The glacial drift, however, is found undisturbed on the higher grounds. On the slate ridges it is thin, and in many places there are but few widely-scattered, small bowlders. This is particularly the case in many of the high slate hills of Sussex County. On the western side of the valley, near the Kittatinny Mountain, the drift increases in thickness, and this, together with the circumstance of

243

PHYSICAL FEATURES OF SUSSEX COUNTY.

the not unfrequent appearance of fossiliferous rocks from the Delaware valley, makes it evident that the movement of the materials was towards the southeast. At the northeast, along the Wallkill, the drift and other formations are covered by the Drowned Lands.

On the summits of the Kittatinny Mountain the glacier for the most part simply ground down and polished the more prominent ledges, without leaving much deposit of materials. Indeed, much of the ma- terials carried to the lower portions of the country consist of the débris of these summits, ground down and carried along by the ice. At Culver's Gap the elevation of the drift is about one thousand feet, and at the Water Gap it is from seven hundred to nine hundred feet, above tide-level.

Many of the smaller lakes and ponds of Sussex County were formed by the glacial débris choking the outlets and making basins, which were not subse- quently filled in the distribution of materials by the waters of the Champlain epoch. The okl glacial dams were not disturbed beyond a leveling of their surface and a sorting of the materials at the top.

In the valley of the Delaware and those of Flat- brook and Millbrook the drift is so thick that there are no outerops within a breadth of one-seventh of a mile from the New York line to Walpack Bend.

" In the Kittatinny and Wallkill valleys deposits of marl are numerous. They are found, several feet in thickness, at the bottom of the lakes and ponds, marshes and meadow-lands, so abundant in these dis- triets. A very common name for these collections of water is 'White Pond,' of which several are so called in the district. This name is given to them on ac- count of the deposit of shells distinctly visible at their bottom."

MINES AND ORES.

Zinc Ores .- The only zine ores which have been found in workable quantities in the State are in Sus- sex County. One of the mines is at Stirling Hill, near Ogdensburg, in the township of Sparta; the other is on Mine Hill, at Franklin Furnace, Hardys- ton township. The Stirling Hill ore has its outerop at a height of ono hundred feet above the valley of the Wallkill. The largest proportion of mineral mat- ter in the vein is a variety of caleite, in which the carbonato of lime is replaced by the carbonate of manganese. Disseminated through this rock are the minerals which contain the zinc. The most impor- tant of those uro franklinito, red oxide of zine, and willemite.

"Franklinite is a mineral of iron-black color, me- tallic Instre, and about as hard as feldspar. It is slightly magnetic, and might easily be mistaken for magnetic iron ore. . . . Its crystals aro regular octa- hedrons." The following analysis of this mineral is from Professor Cook's " Goology of New Jersey :"

Sesquioxide of iron ..

21.8

Oxplo of zhe.

Rod oxide of mangunose. 10.3

103,0

Red Oxide of Zine .- "This mineral is of a deep red color, varying in some specimens to orange-yellow." Its lustre is not metallic. Occasionally specimens are found which are partially transparent, but generally the substance is quite opaque."

Willemite, troostite, or anhydrous silicate of zinc is a name given to a mineral found in abundance at both Stirling Hill and Mine Hill. "It is of various colors, from an apple-green to flesh-red and to grayish white, and when weathered it is of a manganese-brown color. It is not quite as hard as feldspar, but very nearly so."

IRON MINES .*

The iron mines in Sussex County are :

1. The Franklin Mines, in Hardyston township, near Franklin Furnace.

2. Andover Mine, in Andover township, three and a half miles from the Roseville mines.

3. Wawayanda Mine, in Vernon township.

4. Green Mine, in Vernon township.

5. Ogden Mine, in the township of Sparta.

6. Roseville Mine, at Roseville, in Byram township.

7. Glendon or Chapin Mine, in Green township.

1 .- DItOWNED LANDS OF THE WALLKILL.

" The valley of the Wallkill from Hamburg, Sussex Co., N. J., to Denton, Orange Co., N. Y., is unlike that of any other stream in the State. The Wallkill River rises in Sussex County and has a somewhat rapid flow until it reaches Hamburg. Then for twenty miles the bed of the stream is a succession of limestone reef's from five to ten feet high.

"The Wallkill is one of the crookedest streams in the State, and its fall from Hamburg to Denton is only eleven feet. For twelve miles west of Denton the valley of the Wallkill is four miles wide and on a level with the river. The northern extremity of the Pochunk Mountain protrudes into the valley there, and divides the low-lying country into two strips. The portion on the eastern base of the mountain is six miles long and about a mile wide. It is drained by the Pochunk and Wawayanda Creeks. The west- ern strip is eight miles long and nearly two wide, and coursed by the Wallkill. Pochunk Creek enters the Wallkill from the southwest, Rutgers Creek flows into it from the northwest, and Quaker Creek enters the river from the east, between Denton and Hamburg. The beds of these tributaries are of the same jagged character as that of the main stream, but their fall is heavier and their currents rapid. They enter the Wallkill at abrupt angles, and their waters are forced both up and down the river, the current of the latter being insufficient to carry them off. Besides the ob- struction to the flow of the Wallkill caused by its ir- regular bed and almost imperceptible fall, a high wall of granite bowlders and drift stretches across the val-

· Accounts of these mines will be found in the histories of the several townships in which they are located.

t Fruin the New York Sun, Oct. 10, 1870. Map changed andl ro-en. graved by tho publisher of this work.

244

SUSSEX COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

ley at Denton and forms an impregnable dam. This deposit must have been carried here on glaciers from the Shawangunk Mountains, twenty-five miles dis- tant, in the ages of which only geology furnishes any record. Of insufficient force to cut a passage through this rocky impediment,-as the Delaware River did through the opposing wall of the Kittatinny Mountain at the Water Gap,-the accumulated waters of the Wallkill were forced back over the low country bor- dering its course and that of its tributaries, the sur- plus water pouring over the crest of the wall and con- tinuing then in uninterrupted flow to the Hudson at Kingston. Thirty thousand acres of land in Orange County and ten thousand in Sussex were thus con- verted into an impenetrable marsh covered with rank vegetation. In time of freshets the entire valley from Denton to Hamburg became a lake from eight to twenty feet deep. The following outline of the im- mediate country will explain, it being understood that the shaded lines indicate the condition of the ' Drowned Lands' prior to the construction of the canal :

GOSHEN

HAMPTON

DRY BED OF

WALLKILL

DENTON

FLORIDA

BIGISLAND

QUAKER

NTS.ADAM & EVE.

RIVER

COUNTY.

STATELINE.

SUSSEX

POCHUNKMT

COUNTY

HAMOURG

"The country surrounding this great swamp was settled at a very early day. The settlers called the submerged tract 'The Drowned Lands of the Wall- kill.' The tract was all taken up in the course of a few years. During the dry season the islands were reached without great difficulty, and the wild grass that grew on the marshy meadows afforded excellent pasturage for cattle. Owners of drowned land derived considerable revenue by letting out pasturage to the cows of neighboring farmers. Through the summer season thousands of cows were turned upon the waste acres. Sudden freshets frequently came, and the water rose so rapidly that many cattle were annually lost before the herdsmen, in boats, could drive them to the uplands. The cows that reached the islands were kept there until the water had subsided. The main duty of the farmers' boys in the early days was to watch the cattle feeding among the treacherous meadows of the Drowned Lands.

" As early as 1804 the Drowned Lands proprietors in Orange County, believing that by altering the course of the Wallkill River, and removing certain of the obstructions in its bed, the lands could be drained to a great extent and large portions of them made tillable, began the laying of plaus to accom- plish the work. In 1807 they secured the passage of an act of the Legislature authorizing the raising of money 'to drain the Drowned Lands of the Wallkill.' The expenses of the work were to be defrayed by as- sessing the owners of the lands. A board of commis- sioners was named in the act to apportion assessments. From that year up to 1826 forty thousand dollars had been expended by the proprietors in efforts to drain the lands, but with little success. Ditches were dug along the bed of the stream. About the only result of the work was the starting of eels down the stream in unusual quantities. The fall of 1807 was remark- able for the numbers of eels that came down the ditches. Eel-weirs were plenty, but there was hardly a night that season in which every one was not filled to overflowing with eels, some of which weighed eight pounds apiece. One weir in Hampton milldam captured over two thousand in one night. George Phillips salted down twenty barrels. He bought the first four-wheeled wagon ever seen in this region for the express purpose of peddling eels in the surround- ing country. The wagon was the wonder of western Orange County, and made a sale for thousands of eels. The Wallkill yielded abundantly of eels until 1826, when a law prohibited the placing of weirs in the stream.

"In April, 1826, the Legislature again came to the aid of the Drowned Lands owners by authorizing the construction of a canal to be dug from the river at Horse Island around the great obstruction at Denton, and to enter the river again below New Hampton,-a distance of three miles. The water of the Wallkill that found its way over the rocky dam at Denton had a fall of twenty-four feet in about two miles. This

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History of Sussex and Warren counties, New Jersey, with Illustration and Biographical Sketches of its Prominent Men and Pioneers, Part 60

Author: Snell, James P; Clayton, W. W. (W. Woodford) Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Philadelphia : Everts & Peck Number of Pages: 1140

Author: Snell, James P; Clayton, W. W. (W. Woodford)
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1140