Neversink Valley Museum
Cuddebackville, NY - January 10, 2010
The D&H Canal is an artificial waterway built in the 1820s so coal can be efficiently transported from the mines in Pennsylvania to New York City. Being a man-made river, the D&H Canal required a constant source of water to flow through it. As such, aqueducts (used heavily by the ancient Romans to transport water to the city of Rome) were built to deliver water from nearby rivers. One such river was the Neversink River in Cuddebackville, NY. It is about 15 miles away from our home in Middletown or a 27-minute drive.

Coal from Pennsylvania brought energy and industrialization to New York City. And in places that used to be uninhabited wilderness, settlements sprouted along the D&H Canal to form today’s towns and villages.

Industrialization eventually brought the locomotive. And when railroads were completed in the Delaware Valley in the 1850s, the D&H Canal became obsolete. It is now a National Historical Landmark. Museums and parks sprouted along the canal. One such museum is the Neversink Valley Museum beside the Neversink River.

Anyway, to cut a long introduction short, that’s where Vi and I went for our photo-trip this past weekend.

If you drive around our county in what I call "slightly-upstate New York", you'd find many unused old barns and buildings derelict and dilapidated that all belong to another era. From a photography enthusiast's perspective, they are a treasure to capture.

But tempting as they are, we cannot just stop by, walk around, and take pictures. Even though no one seems to be maintaining them, they’re still on private property. We would be guilty of trespassing if we do.

This is why when planning our photo-trips, Vi and I look for parks on the map labeled as "county" or "state". In such places we can freely walk around and take pictures to our hearts' content.

Neversink Valley Museum sits on the D&H Canal County Park. We were not aware of the museum when we decided to go there this weekend. We left home a few minutes past noon, and being that our stomachs were hungry, we decided to locate the park first then find a place to eat. We would do our photography after lunch and with full stomachs.

But when we arrived at the park, we saw the old buildings along the left side of the narrow country road. There was the tourist gift shop which was closed for the season, a barn, a shed, a blacksmith's rough shack, and other wooden structures of odd shapes and sizes. Just opposite and below the road were the slopes of the Neversink riverbank. Large sections of the river's surface were frozen. Where water flowed the current was strong. And the flowing river’s surface was densely covered with small chunks of ice floating downstream.

When we saw all this we decided that, no, we'll postpone lunch and do photography now. Once our gears were ready and we opened our car doors to go outside, we immediately heard the soothing sound of gushing of water and were instantly transported to another place. From our cramped quarters to the open outdoors, Nature can give a liberating feeling.

We wasted no time in going down the river and photographing it. Then we went back up to the museum and took pictures of the "historic canal-era buildings" there. We only stopped photographing not because our stomachs were beginning to grumble again, but because our hearts were by then fully content.

We hope we captured the beauty of the river, the park, and the museum. We hope that the photographs we took will throw you back -- as they did to us -- to a time of as then the untamed frontiers of America.

Thank you for looking.

Click on a picture to enlarge.
Neversink River. Vi took this picture.
Chunks of ice floating, glistening, and flowing downriver.
Tree branch over Neversink River. Vi took this picture.
Bridge crossing Neversink River. Vi took this picture.
Ice on Neversink River. Vi took this picture.
Snow and ice on Neversink River. Aqueduct abutment is in the distance.
This photo is taken with a slow shutter. It does not reveal the chunks of ice floating on the surface.
Vi taking pictures on the riverbank.
Temperature rose just a tad above freezing which is probably the only reason why pieces of ice are being chipped off and carried away by the river. Otherwise, the surface would have stayed solid with the river current running below.
Log in front of aqueduct abutment.
A closer view of aqueduct abutment on the far side (northwest) of the river.
You can walk on top of the frozen river all the way to the other side. We didn't, though.
Aqueduct abutment on our side (southeast) of the river.
A stream shoots off from one side of the river. It is frozen solid.
View of Neversink Valley Museum climbing up from the riverbank.
Neversink Valley Museum. Vi took this picture.
The Blacksmith House. Vi took this picture.
Blacksmith House porch.
The Blacksmith House from another angle.
Vi taking pictures from the road.
A derelict house behind the museum.
Derelict house's front porch.
Peering inside the derelict house's windows we saw wheelbarrows, tarps, gas tanks, and other equipment. It looks like it is being used for storage.
Birdhouse.
A boat-shaped infrastructure with the inscription,
Another boat-shaped museum attraction.
Shed.
A historic canal-era lavatory?
Photo to show backyard layout.
Gift shop facade.
Gift shop entrance.
A tree by the small parking lot.
This looks like a garage although it has the blacksmith sign above the door.
Pine tree cone in the snow. Vi took this picture.
Chopped tree branch. Vi took this picture.
Vi.
Row of Neversink Valley Museum buildings with our car in the distance.
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