The Hunt for Calico

Calico. Most elusive and frustrating of the Lost Towns. I tried, and partly succeeded in finding it.

I stopped at Harrisville along the way to get some new photos. I managed to slip in through the fence and took some photos of the ruins up close. Hopefully they will serve as a memorial for the site while the state lets the ruins erode away. Harrisville was famed for it’s use of iron within the architecture of the city, from it’s iron fences to the street lamps that lined it’s now forgotten boulevards. Vandals spirited away most of the iron decorations, although I have a picture of some ironwork still on the wall of the factory.

Using the directions that Barry posted on my discussion boards, I tried to find the house site at Calico, and the Ellis Adams farmhouse site. Passing Martha’s Furnace , which was photographed by the state then covered in dirt and fenced in with barbed wire, I managed to get near where Barry said the turn off for the house site is. However I walked down a private road that looked like it led to some cranberry bogs. I didn’t go further.

Going back, I managed to find Tom Neigel’s Calico geocache which I signed and plugged this website in. I then soldiered on to try to find the Ellis Adams farmhouse site. Going by Barry’s odometer readings, I was in the right spot, although all I found was were some people had a campfire. Continuing down Oswego Rd., I found the foundations of three cement buildings. What they were used for, I have no idea. If anyone knows, email me.

Not wanting to call it a day so early, I tried my GPS’s autoroute feature and told it to direct me to Nash’s Cabin which it did, although I wish it had found a wider, drier trail, and one that didn’t go near a bombing range! With all of the rain we’ve been getting in the last month or so, the puddles are back in full force in the Pine Barrens. Fortunately, slow driving, careful navigation, and luck got me through to Nash’s Cabin, where it’s thought that author Ogden Nash stayed. The beavers dens seem to be gone, although you can see their handiwork in the images in that gallery.

Finally, I decided to get some better pictures of the Cranberry Pumping Station ruins. You can see that there probably once was a structure at the top of the station. Looking at the way the structure is designed, and the fact that it probably didn’t pump water anywhere, it looks like it’s a harvesting station where Cranberries were floated up to, and then pulled somehow to the top of the structure, where they came down the sluiceway to people who would load them onto trucks.

On my way home I stopped at Buzby’s General Store in Chatsworth and finally met Marilyn Schmidt, and picked up a signed copy of Heart of the Pines by John Pearce, a fellow Yahoo group member!