On Friday it rained and today it is going to rain again. We decided to make the most of the rising temps and sun on Saturday to go exploring. I had heard of this trail to the west of Baltimore in an area called Milford Mills / Windsor Mills where one could hike into an old ghost town named Daniels. Daniels had been a thriving mill town on the Patapsco River until Hurricane Agnes flooded it in 1972. Today, you can take the old Alberton Rd into what is left of the town. The one hitch to doing this hike is the tiny parking lot. There is no street parking at all and the lot holds maybe ten cars. There are no bathrooms or port a johns. We arrived early, 9:30am, and there were already 4-5 cars in the lot. FYI, to find this lot, go on google maps and search for Alberton Road. The lot is off of Dogwood Road, just past Hollofield Road.
At the far end of the lot, you zig around a chain, and start following the road. You will pass a private residence, and then walk around another gate. The trail is semi-paved as you are walking on an old road. I say partially paved because there are lots of chunks that are long gone! With the rain yesterday, there was a lot of mud and tons of puddles! Pebble needed to be airlifted multiple times over the worst of it, as did Rainbow. Both Stormy and Rainbow also made use of logs as balance beans over some of the mucky spots. This only works, though, if you can keep your balance. Fortunately for Rainbow, I had spare clothes she could put on once we were done hiking.
Stormy had a lot of questions about the town and the hurricane that had flooded it. She was very excited about seeing what ruins were left! All three girls were fascinated with the giant boulders left by glaciers a millennia ago.
As we walked, we saw more evidence of the old town of Daniels. There were foundations and crumbling buildings. The girls even spotted an upside down car in a stream left behind by Hurricane Agnes.
As we hiked around a bend in the river, we spotted the remains of the mill. It had been a huge building, three and a half stories high, and a long chunk of foundation was still visible. Stormy and Rainbow both asked to leave the trail to see what was left of the mill up close.
After we finished exploring the ruins, we left the mill behind and continued on. That is when we started to hear a low roar. Rainbow was excited, she knew that sound meant we were close to the dam! We passed under a railroad bridge and spotted what was left of Pentecostal Holiness Church. It had been tagged heavily with graffiti.
Just beyond the church, we saw Daniels Dam. Due to the rain yesterday, the water was moving quickly, and the waterfall was very loud! We didn’t linger long…
The trail did continue on past the dam, but we turned around at this point. We were 1.5 miles from the car. Pebble has little legs, but she was gamely leading our little pack and a 3 mile round trip hike for her was more than enough!
I had done research on this hike in advance, and I knew there were ruins we could see if we left the main trail. We passed back by the old church and then the mill. As we came around a curve in the river, we saw an old fire road on our left leading up and away from the river. We turned onto it…
The road led us uphill and around a curve in the ridge. Across a ravine, we saw St. Stanislaus Kostka Roman Catholic Church. It wasn’t destroyed by Hurricane Agnes, but rather was struck by lightning in 1927 and burned to the ground.
Look for the rock piles and you will see a narrow path leading down into the ravine and up to the church. We walked around the church to what was once the front of the building, climbed the massive slabs of stone that were once steps and entered the ruins.
The girls had a lot of fun exploring the church, and Stormy was amazed at the size of the trees that had grown up inside what had once been a building. Pebble was just happy for a stop that included gummy bears. She was shoving them in by the fistful! Behind the church, we discovered an old graveyard. The headstones were from the late 1800’s to early 1900’s. Stormy tried to read each one, but some were broken or just worn away.
As we left the church to head back to the main trail, we stopped briefly to look at a few wrecked cars courtesy of Hurricane Agnes in the ravine outside the church.
The girls were ready for lunch, and the walk back to the car didn’t take long. The girls ran, pretended their hiking sticks were horses or magic wands, and both Stormy and Rainbow tried to scale the giant boulder we had seen on our way in.
Was the trail busy? Not as busy as we feared. The small parking lot kept the numbers down. Many of the hikers we saw were wearing masks and all tried to maintain a six foot distance. We had a great time and Stormy now wants to learn more about Hurricane Agnes. No big surprise there as hurricanes, volcanoes and tornadoes are a big interest of hers! If you’d like more information on this hike, you can check out the AllTrails app as well as the website: Urban Historians
Happy New Year everyone and happy trails!