Adams Mill Trail

An abandoned mill, crazy eroded boardwalks along a cliff. a huge railroad bridge and a rusty 12 cylinder engine - not bad for a quick hike in the woods!

The first section was a little overgrown...

...but it became more navigable after a short while.

There are ruins of an old mill across the river. I will need to check that out from the trail across the river next time!

Scattered large brownstones indicates there probably was a sandstone dam here at one time...

Interesting -  fallen tree with mushrooms

The trail got pretty crazy - suspended on eroding boardwalks. This went on for quite a while!

Yikes!

But its was very rugged and scenic

A tight squeeze!

Finally no more catwalks along the cliff...

I came to a railroad bridge

There is a catwalk parallel to the tracks - so next time I will cross it (sadly it does look a bit old and rusty - the track is no longer being used)

Had a curious friend :-)

I took the water line trail out - it was nicely maintained

And what fun is a trek in the woods without finding some mysterious rusted relics. This looked like it was an old 12 cylinder diesel truck!

I'll be back!

Historical Info

There's very little information on the small mill next to the river. This is not the Adams Mill which is much bigger and is now the home of Ellicit Brewing (although it might have been an outbuilding of that complex at one point).

Interestingly, the sandstone dam once created a large pond that's illustrated on the 1892 map.

1849

1892

A much more famous mill nearby was the Hilliard Mills located southwest of the former pond. What I gathered from online info on Hilliard Mills stated that:

"Hilliard Mills also used hydro-electric power from a plant on the Hockanum River off Adams Street. The ruins of the power plant remain, although it was heavily damaged in the hurricane of 1938."

So I believe that the small ruins I saw were the former power plant mentioned above...