Bucolic path spanning 5 miles, 300 years to open

Friday, April 23, 2004
By BARBARA WILLIAMS
STAFF WRITER


RINGWOOD - It was a healthy trek through sun-dappled woods or snow-covered hills, depending on the season. But the 5-mile road from the boss's house to his place of business was still the most direct route.

On Saturday, the path once used during the 1700s by everyone and everything from billing clerks to oxen laden with iron ore will be open for the first time to walkers participating in a borough-sponsored Earth Day Hike. Although the entire Hasenclever Iron Trail is still not open, a good portion of it will be used as part of the 5-mile moderate hike.

"We still have some brush to clear and markers to put up," said John Mack, a member of the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference. "But the rest of it will be open very soon."

The trail, which winds over land owned by the borough, county, and two states, is being blazed by the trail conference and the Friends of Long Pond Ironworks. It is marked with red and yellow ribbons, and is the culmination of years of work by historians and trail conference members.

Named after Peter Hasenclever, an ironmaster during Colonial times who built the original road, the trail stretches from Ringwood Manor to Long Pond Ironworks. Hasenclever lived in a house near where the present-day manor stands, and he and his employees traveled on a regular basis from his home to the furnaces where iron was made.

An independent village existed near the furnaces for the workers and their families, and supplies as well as the iron ore and finished product were carried back and forth on this well-used route. The trail saw continued use through the next century until nearby roads were created.

"This trail was one of many used to bring iron ore from all the mines in the area - there were about 50 - to the furnaces," said Rob Sparkes, president of the Friends of Long Pond Ironworks. "We'd love to be able to open a lot of the trails."

Martin Deeks, a local historian and one of the leaders of the group, discovered the trail a few years before his death in 2003 when he and Sparkes studied old maps and surveys. They took their idea to convert the old road into a hiking trail to the trail conference.

That group creates between 20 and 50 miles of trails annually. The organization also maintains 1,600 miles of trails. Mack said he has already put in 80 hours clearing this route, and it needs about another 20 to be ready for the public, but he said the work is worth it.

"This trail is great - not only does it have historical significance, but it's an interesting hike," Mack said. "It also has good parking on either end - Ringwood Manor or in the parking lot on Route 511 for the Sterling Ridge Trail or the Highlands Trail."

Saturday's event begins at Long Pond Ironworks on Route 511 in West Milford at 1 p.m. The hike will go about an hour, when it will stop for a short presentation by Ringwood Mayor Wenke Taule about Earth Day. Those unable to walk the entire route will be led back out, while a tour guide will take the hikers the rest of the way. A rain date has been set for Sunday.
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