Leaving the Delaware’s superintendents house behind, we cut through the adjacent woods for a short spell before emerging on the edge of a large poor rock pile. The pile had been largely bulldozed flat, leaving a carpet of ragged red colored rock along the ground. The old rock pile sat at the crest of a hill, and provided some spectacular views out across the adjacent countryside. At first we were perplexed by this particular pile, considering its position to the east of the Delaware fissure. While this meant its identity could be that of the Stoughtenburgh, the red color of the rock meant that we were looking at a conglomerate vein and not a fissure. These rocks belonged to the Delaware’s successor – the Conglomerate Mine.

While the red color helped us identify the rock’s source, it did little to explain why it was here. The actual conglomerate lode that this rock emerged from sits further up the hill, a good distance away from the rocky field at our feet. In fact there already exists a rather large rock pile up alongside the cliffs, which today serves as a rock pile for the Delaware Mine tours. But there’s a perfectly good explanation for the presence of both piles, as each represented a separate stage in the Conglomerate Mine’s surface operation.

The anser to this mystery lies in this structure – the Conglomerate’s centralized Rock House. This massive wood framed building was built to process all the copper-bearing rock emanating from the Conglomerate’s trio of shaft houses – an approach generally practiced in the Conglomerate’s day. In contrast to several independent rock houses built at each shaft, this centralized structure meant reduced start-up costs and a more efficient operation all around. In this configuration rock brought up to the surface from the underground was initially sorted at each shaft house, based on its copper content. Copper-less rock was dumped immediately at the shafts, which resulted in that rock pile on which the current Delaware Mine tour’s parking lot is located. Those rocks containing copper were sent via tramcar down to the centralized rock house where it was crushed down into smaller pieces and sorted a second time. Those pieces still containined bits of copper were dumped into waiting rock cars for transportation to the mill, while those pieces of rock without copper were simply dumped next door. It was this secondary rock pile that we were exploring today.

While strolling across that very same rock pile we spotted what looked to be a collection of ruins sitting up alongside the pile’s backside. After walking over to investigate we could make out what looked to be a base to an old smoke stack, along with the partial walls of an adjacent structure which in all likelihood was the complimenting boiler house. Knowing the source of the poor rock pile that surrounded us we were sure that we had come across a structure once related to the old rock house. Turns out we were right.

Here’s a diagram of the Conglomerate Mine’s centralized rock house and its complimenting structures. Besides the massive wood framed rock house itself, the complex also featured an engine house where mechanical energy was produced to run the rock houses’s collection of rock crushers. Powering that engine was a nearby boiler house, complete with water tank and smoke stack. These were the same structures we were looking at today more then a century later. Now for a quick tour:

Here’s a closer look at the smoke stack, which apparently originally consisted of a 40 foot iron chimney set atop a 15 foot rock base.

Next door sits the remains of the old boiler house, which originally housed a pair of boilers. It stood only a story in height, with a gabled roof.

Finally we come to the reason for those boilers – the engine house. This single stone foundation would have originally supported a small steam engine used to power the neighboring rock house’s machinery. I would guess that the engine sported a pair of giant flywheels – one on each side – that would have supplied the actually power to run an overhead belt and pulley system.

Here’s another look at that foundation. While we couldn’t find any sign of bolts or other attachment hardware, the size and bulk of the foundation would seem to make sense considering its supposed role. If not a engine foundation I’m not sure what it was for.

Down along the base and tucked up under the engine foundation we found this line of red bricks. I would have expected those bricks to be sitting on top, so this configuration is a bit odd.

Interestingly those same bricks are missing from the foundation’s opposite side. I would suspect they were removed by some sort of scavenger, one that was looking for old bricks for some reason. Why they only got one side and not the other I’m not sure. Maybe they were caught halfway through the job and had to vacate the premises quickly.

Those scrappers must of got everything else of value from the ruins as well, as there was nothing else left to see. It was time to move on…

To Be Continued…