Historical Sketches of Cranberry Lake, New Jersey

The Railroads

The first railroad which ran by our Lake was built in very early times to carry iron ore from the Andover and other Sussex county mines to the Morris Canal at Waterloo. It was equipped with flat cars pulled up the grades by mules and sent down hill by gravity. Some of the embankment of this old mule road is still visible south of Cranberry and north of Andover where the present highway cuts through it. The original steam road under the name of "The Sussex Mine Railroad Company" was incorporated by a special act of the Legislature of New Jersey approved on March 9th, 1848. The name was changed to the present designation by act approved Feb. 5th, 1853. The first line constructed from about may 1850 to August 1851, running from the Morris Canal at Waterloo to the Andover Mines, was re-constructed from March, 1853, to March 1855, and extended to a junction with the Morris and Essex Railroad at Waterloo station and to Newton. By lease in perpetuity, dated Jan. 1st, 1924, the line was demised to the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western R. R. Co., which has ever since operated it.

The first locomotives serving the Lake were woodburners with great
flaring stacks and giant cow-catchers, and bore individual names, as ships do--"John I. Blair" (the founder of Blairstown), "A.S. Hewitt" and "Mount Holly", No definite information as to when these old engines were replaced can be obtained, as the records relating to them were destroyed by fire some years ago in the offices of the company at Scranton.

Until the business of the Morris Canal was taken by the railroads in a rate war, Waterloo was an important center and the junction of the Morris and Essex Railroad and the Sussex Line was located there until 1901. In that year the present cut-off from Stanhope-Netcong shortened the road to Cranberry and spelled at the same time a change for the town of Waterloo. Mr. Frenche, the father of Mrs. Susan Calkins, was the original owner of all the Development Company land at the Lake and also had extensive holdings at Waterloo, consisting of timber and water rights, tan bark mills, etc. He built a mansion there in the woods which can still be seen in ruins, on an eminence close by the remains of one of his factories. Across from Sutton's he also had a sawmill, which was supplied with oak, chestnut and birch logs from his wide wood lands, and he manufactured tug and barge fenders and mine props there for many years.

 

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