WEST MILFORD — A village created, supported and abandoned by the region’s once-thriving iron mining industry is crumbling.

Four of the six buildings flanking Greenwood Lake Turnpike in the historic Long Pond Ironworks district are boarded up or falling down. A fifth, the old Hewitt Methodist Church, is on the brink of collapse, said Paul Frost, president of the Friends of Long Pond Ironworks.

“Right now, the steeple’s in really bad shape. It’s actually off its foundation," Frost said. "It’s tipping over very slowly.”

The cream-colored church dates to about 1900. A late addition to a village formed around the construction of an iron furnace in 1766, the building is suffering water damage as the steeple separates from the main building, Frost said.

Frost and the “Friends” group are hoping a grant from the New Jersey Historic Trust can get them a slice of the $26,000 required to stabilize the steeple.

From there, the plan is to renovate and revamp the building for use during community events, said Kerry O’Brien, who volunteers as a grant writer for the group. Without reuse as a cultural center or tourism office, it is hard for many to see the sense of saving an old building, he said.

“As the years pass, and they get more and more sad, it gets harder and harder to keep them going,” O’Brien said.

Which buildings to save?

Limited resources in Passaic County coupled with the amount of infrastructure at Long Pond Ironworks makes it impossible to spread the money around, O’Brien said. Decisions must be made on which of the dozen buildings should be prioritized for preservation and which will slip into disrepair, Frost added.

“Unfortunately, money is tight,” O’Brien said. “They can only do so much as a ‘Friends’ group.”

In addition to seeking money for property maintenance, the volunteer group advocates for the preservation of local history. It hosts community events to draw attention to the site and runs the roadside museum on weekends.

That museum started life as a smaller two-story, two-family home for workers around the time of the Civil War, when Long Pond's iron mines and blast furnaces were producing as much as 300 tons of iron a week for the Union Army.

The museum today stands out as the most well-maintained of the village’s roadside structures. Converted into a company store in the 1920s to take advantage of passersby on Greenwood Lake Turnpike and restored through a Historic Trust grant in 1992 to serve as a visitor's center, the building has been able to transition with the times.

Two nearby homes have not fared as well. Both are collapsing. The green Stephens House, dating to about 1815, is the worse off.

Two others, the pink-hued Stites House and the neighboring Laird-West House, are mere shells. Wood framing, shingles and plywood windows painted to appear paned and draped hide severe water damage in uninhabitable homes.

All four are likely to be torn down, Frost said.

Mining:Hidden underground danger: North Jersey's 600 abandoned mines

NJ Highlands:Posh North Jersey lake communities evolved from weekend getaway cabins

History:The History of Beer in New Jersey: From colonial days to the rise of the micropubs

Mining beginnings

The village started as many in New Jersey’s Northern Highlands did in the 1700s, as a mining town. Founded in 1766 by German ironmaster Peter Hasenclever, it was built around a small but relatively advanced forge that could produce 20 to 25 tons of iron a day.

Hasenclever had vast experience and plans, said Hans Niederstrasser, a local historian. Hasenclever's British backers, unimpressed by his overspending and possibly his opposition to the Stamp Act, nonetheless replaced him as head of the ironworks in 1767.

A 1768 report commissioned by New Jersey Governor William Franklin requested by an affronted Hasenclever applauded the German's use of local ponds and rivers to create reservoirs that could power his mills all year.

Story continues after map.

During his brief stint in the states, Hasenclever prospected more than 50 area mines from New Jersey to Nova Scotia. He brought in skilled German laborers and their families to work furnaces first in Ringwood, then at Cortland and Crown Point in New York and Charlotteburg and Long Pond in New Jersey. Dozens of stamping mills, horse stables, canal systems and slate-lined blast furnaces were built.

“His major accomplishment in America was the establishment in the provinces of New Jersey and New York of a complete iron industry based on the latest technology available,” Niederstrasser said.

George Washington connection

The succession of Long Pond ironmasters included Johann Jacob Faesch, Hasenclever’s subordinate who went on to establish Mt. Hope Ironworks in Morris County, Robert Erskine, who served as George Washington’s surveyor-general, and Martin J. Ryerson, who ran the Pompton Ironworks.

The last to buy the works as part of the larger Ringwood Company was industrialist Peter Cooper, whose son Edward Cooper managed the works with Abram S. Hewitt.

Erskine supplied iron for the revolution, Ryerson for the War of 1812 and Hewitt for the Civil War.

By 1882, the iron works had closed. While plenty of ore remained, cheaper and more productive mining operations had been established elsewhere. The village, like many others, then had to rely on the ice harvesting and tourism industries that capitalized on area reservoirs initially created to feed forges and canals.

The company store

The company store, today’s museum, in the 1920s served as headquarters for a fish and game preserve. A dining room opened in the 1940s, when the store became the center of a picnic area.

By the end of 1954, the store closed. Long Pond was dead.

The Ringwood Company had become a real estate company. The Highlands’ lakes became popular for city-dwellers seeking weekend cabins in the country.

The Ringwood Company preserved the Long Pond area for its historical value, however, and in 1957 donated to the site to the state. In 1987, the roughly 170-acre Long Pond Ironworks Historic District became a state park.

The trails open daily to hikers who pass by what remains of three iron blast furnaces, built between 1766 and 1865. The original could make about 20 to 25 tons of iron a week. The latter two produced about 25 tons of iron per day, benefiting from water wheels fed by the damming of the Wanaque River, stone raceways and underground piping.

Also in the interior of the site lie the ruins of the original company store, an ice house and a casting house. There too are better-preserved homes, including the Whritenour (circa 1810), Patterson (1780) and Harty-Milligan (1860) houses.

The Whritenour House underwent repairs and repainting after the “Friends” group was able to obtain a $6,000 grant through the New Jersey Historic Trust in 2015. The unaffiliated “double stone” house, thought to be the oldest intact building on site, had its roof destroyed in a 1983 fire. It was repaired following a 1995 grant.

Email: Zimmer@northjersey.com