The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1903-08-28
TRIP TO
CULVER'SLAKE
Being a Description Of an Out
ing Spent There. Beauty
Spots Described.
NORTHERN JERSEYS BEAUTY
some Interesting Facts in Connection
with the History of this section. Pee
culiar Physical and Geographical
Formation. A Spot Nesting Amid
the Hills of Sussex Comparatively I'm
known In Morristown.

known In Morristown.
The Lake is on the western side of
the great agricultural valley Of the
Appalachian system which extends
from Canada through New York,
through the top of New Jersey, the
fertile southeast of Pennsylvania,
Cumberland valley of Maryland, the
Shenandoah of Virginia and into East
Tennessee. This extent and direction
was, in our Civil War; a source of
alarm to farmers of Sussex and War
rem counties; for they knew when the
battle of Gettysburg was being fought
that, in case of Union defeat, General
Lees horsemen and foragers would
soon be riding among their farms and
homesteads. Sussex scenery has large
features; the incloSing barriers are
visible from almost every part of the
valley and the surface OF the floor
heaves in big swells. A large field is so
tilted on the side of one Of these
rounded elevations thatof forty cows
feeding as one, every animal is dis
tinct unit Of form and color or again
the distance in looking down from the
top of a swell is enough to diminish
the dairymans herd in a meadow to
Lilliputian cattle. Springs and brooks
are numerous and delightful. | have
seen some of its streams and stream
lets that slip and slide, that gloom
and glance, and that practice s'the
sharps and trebles' of Tennyson's S
brook No one of these, however,
flows by twenty thorps or half hun
dred bridges, as it might in more
populous England.
A branch of the d.. L. & w. carries
US to Branchville in this great valley.
Our Lake is two miles further west
and in the top of foot hill Of the
Blue Ridge. The road thither is mac
adamized, winds most pleasantly, and
follows nearly the course of this branch
of the Paulins kill descending from
its source in the Lake. This stream
in its downward course drives several
mills, and on its bank in the village
stands substantial brick chimney
which marks the site of vanished
woolen mill and so indirectly indicates
that in this region sheep culture pre-
ceded dairy farms. Though the road
is easy, our rate of ascent must be in
contrast with the speed in an ice
chute through the same distance. In
the month of January, 10000 cakes of
ice went down this chute to a cream
cry ice-house. All this was accom-
plished in two days and each block of
ice made the transit in about thirty
five seconds
While climbing up, we may remark
that our macadamized road was, be-
fore railroad days, part of thorough
fare from the sea-board into the inte-
rior of the continent. On it used to
goheayy wagons and coaches for freight
and passengers. On a parallel thor
oughfare further north, | once saw in
a heap by the road side, a messy mile
stone on which could be dimly read
"Fifty-four miles to Jersey City" 1t
seemed a tombstone of buried travel.
To reach tillfurther back historically,
before this old thoroughfare became a
white mans wagon road, it had been
an Indian trail leading from the Min
nisink land on the Delaware through
the Gap in the Mountain into the ex-
cellent Kittatinny hunting ground.
Tradition adds that the trail crossed
the valley, continued by Hopatcong,
over the Passaic at Chatham and down
to the New Jersey seacoast.
Another contrast with the long-ago
is that, although the lands on the
Delaware are still resort for the
hunter in the proper season, farm
clearings have so diminished the area
OF the 'goodly company Of trees" that
there is a beginning of the English
custom OF artificial game preserves.
Such a preserve are the fields and
woods adjoining tributary Of the
Delaware called Flatbrook.
AS we ascend from the village, there
is on the left, first a ravine, then a
gorge with rapids and cascade but con-
cealed by trees whose tops are below
the roadway. high Mt. Pisgah imme-
diately on the other side of the gorge.
And in this ascent, one sensation was
like that we felt when approaching the
" l11bC 41Oulitdillc liOul tliC Gust. AU
Freyburg, it seemed as if the giant
SUBMITS were peering in at the car
windows. So here, several times, at a
turn in the road the Blue Ridge stand
ing as a horizontal straight line in the
sky, seemed to be looking at us in
sober majesty from beyond the un-
reached heights. Passing on and up,
we twice cross the rushing brook and
finally drive over the rim into the
longitudinal bowl in which comes first
the forest slope down to the water,
then the Lake itself about two miles
from north to south and half as wide,
and next, separated by a road or a road
and farm, the Blue Ridge, but called
in this part OF its course the Kitta-
tlnny Mountain; moreover the New
Jersey part Of the great valley is also
called the Kittatinny valley. From
our road, which continues around the
southern end OF the Lake, we deYiate
into the woods to the right, and where
the brook begins ais The outlet, there
come into view the beautiful sheet Of
water the majestic mountain, the
great horseshoe cleft called fhe Gan