Long Pond Ironworks Traditional Geocache

If you come in the way I suggested you'll pass the remains of the ironworks and many of the support buildings. Some buildings are in the process of being restored. For more info, visit The Friends of Long Pond Ironworks website.

Be sure to check out the original site of Team Magsters cache, which is about 100 yards downstream from this cache at 41.08.876, 74.18.592. It's a beautiful gorge with a scenic set of waterfalls that shouldn't be missed.

Park at 41.08.472, 74.18.931, and take the blue blazed Highlands Trail to the cache. You can catch it at the guardrail just across the road from the parking area. There is some PI right by the guard rail, so be careful in the summer.

The cache is in a small Lock n Lock (about 1 pint) so don't bring anything large to exchange. It should be an easy find, but I added an extra half star because of the lousy GPS reception in the area.

Long Pond Ironworks is a microcosm of our industrial and cultural heritage. The site takes its name from the nearby "Long Pond," a translation of the Native American name for Greenwood Lake. Set alongside the swiftly flowing Wanaque, or "Long Pond" River, the site offered a perfect combination of natural resources -- water power, woods and nearby ore -- for making iron. Long Pond Ironworks was founded in 1766 by the German ironmaster Peter Hasenclever. With financial backing from British investors, Hasenclever purchased the existing Ringwood Ironworks as well as huge parcels of land, including the 55,000-acre Long Pond Tract. He also imported more than 500 European workers and their families to build ironmaking plantations at Ringwood, Long Pond and Charlottenburg in New Jersey and at Cortland in New York. From the wilderness they carved roads; built forges, furnaces and homes; and created supporting farms. At Long Pond, they dammed the river in order to provide water power to operate the air blast for a furnace and a large forge. After a few short years, Hasenclever's investors began to view his plans as too grandiose and expensive. He was replaced as ironmaster in 1769 by the Swiss ironworks manager Johann Jacob Faesch, who later established the Mt. Hope Ironworks in Morris County, and later by the Scottish scientist and inventor Robert Erskine. At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, Erskine took up the American cause, serving as surveyor-general to General George Washington. He also kept the ironworks in operation, and they became important suppliers of armaments and goods to the Continental Army. After Erskine's death in 1781 the ironworks changed hands until they were acquired in 1807 by the Ryersons, owners of the Pompton Ironworks. The family retained ownership until 1853, and the Ryerson Steel Company continues to operate from Chicago to this day. In 1853, the American industrialists Peter Cooper and Abram S. Hewitt purchased the Long Pond works and operated it as part of their vast, Trenton-based iron empire for the next 30 years. During the Civil War, Cooper and Hewitt built two new furnaces, waterwheels and a casting house at Long Pond, whose iron was found to be especially well suited to making gun barrels for the Union Army. By the 1870s, the Pennsylvania coal fields and iron mines of the Great Lakes region had become a more cost-effective source of fuel and ore. Although Hewitt planned cost-saving improvements to keep his northern New Jersey ironworks in operation, on April 30, 1882, the last fires were blown at Long Pond Ironworks, ending more than 120 years of ironmaking history.

Dogs Allowed Available year-round Bicycles not permitted on paths No restrooms available More than Half a Mile from Trailhead Off-trail Hiking Required Accessible in Winter Scenic View No Offroad Vehicles Historic Site

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