I'd be remiss if I did not thank Ian in Society Hill up front for initiating this post. Ian sent me an email last week asking if I'd ever been to the Nature Walk on the Jersey
side of the Delaware River. I had not, and knowing there was a nature reserve over there, I'd kept it on the Summer of the Delaware short list. Yesterday seemed like a perfect
day to finally
check it out . . . thing is, I didn't realize there were two nature reserves.
The 250 acre Palmyra Cove Nature Park, which was officially dedicated in 2003 with the opening of its interpretive center, has been in the news a good deal this year as the
recipient of some of the spoils from dredging the River downstream. We'll come back to Palmyra later another day . . . right now, we look at a place even more
under the radar (and with a closer, if not better, view of the Philly Skyline), the Nature Walk at Fish House Cove.
Pennsauken, like most of the tidal Delaware River, saw its riverfront occupied by industry from its earliest days. It incorporated in 1892 in part to manage the industrial
development. For about a mile, Pettys Island splits the Delaware River in two: the main channel lining the Port Richmond side (where Cramp's shipyard and freight/coal loading
piers occupied the riverfront) and the back channel snaking behind Camden and East Camden toward Pennsauken. Where the two meet back up, a cove is formed by the tide, making
for some of the best fishing on the River. (MAP.) At least six shad
fisheries operated on these banks in 1892. (Jeffery M. Dorwart, Camden County New Jersey, 2001.)
Prior to that, in the mid-1800s, a social club of Philadelphians called the Tammany Pea Shore Company went fishing and swimming and drinking at the cove. Their clubhouse was
called the Fish House, and the name was adapted to the cove.
The club changed hands a number of times, but the recreation attraction and industrial development around it led to
a railroad station and post office. The only remaining building from these times is the Vennell Tavern (left), now reimagined as a historical center and art space. Its web
site, HERE, has a nice history of the area. The railroad tracks are now owned by New Jersey Transit, who
helped
finance the Nature Walk. NJT's Riverline passes through on the tracks, though unfortunately it does not stop at the Cove. (It has a stop at 36th Street, about a half-mile
south.)
The Nature Walk itself is a 400 foot boardwalk, made of timber and recycled plastic, which starts at the railroad tracks and ends at an observation platform in the middle of
the reclaimed marshland. The vantage point at the back end of the cove makes the river view over a mile wide to the Philly side; from here, one can see the Zooballoon, the 36th
Street bridge (owned by Citgo) onto Pettys Island, the skyline and the flora and fauna inhabiting the cove.
To launch a mini-gallery (13 photos) of the Nature Walk at Fish House Cove in Pennsauken, please click
HERE.
–B Love
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