When we were looking for the Ginger Bread Castle we saw this giant smoke stack sticking out of the woods from a distance. I remember exactly saying "Bobby we should go! that probably has an interesting story." We set out through a new housing development and into the woods on the side. We were only a little into the woods and we had to find a way down the side of this steep cliff with loose rocks. As we got down we came upon the first part of a structure.
After walking along side the cliff we got down to notice down more graffiti.
This building structure was the old remembrances of the Hamburg Paper Mill. The Mill was from the late 19th century and offered many locals full time employment and farmers money during the winter giving them straw to keep the mill running. However the Mill had its problems having multiple fires and flooded from the dam and creek nearby.
To get across the river running through we tight roped walked across a beam that ran above it. About halfway through I stopped to snap that picture of the river running down underneath us, it was kind of scary looking down as it was about a twenty foot drop onto sharp rocks!
As we crossed the river we had to jump over some little gap in the foundation then we came across the smoke stack I original spotted and what we set out to find!
Sorry there was not much historical facts about the old paper mill I could not seem to find them. This was a hard one, to be honest we had no idea what it was when we first found it!
Prior to World War II America was in one of the worst depressions and unemployment crisis they have ever faced. In the little state of NJ there was a massive amount of German Immigrants living there, over 100,000, and they needed a way to express there anger toward the government. There were many bloody fights between plant workers and the people who owned the plants, the Germans looked back to their home land and saw Hitler had turned around the poverty stricken economy and turned it around. Only a certain portion of the immigrants accepted the Nazi ideals that Hitler was using, they soon became known as the Bund having over 10,000 members just from NJ, the Nazi party back in Germany actually gave the Bund funding. The leader of the Bund was a man by the name of Fritz Kuhn, he was a WWI vet and hand picked by Hitler himself to lead this radical movement in America. Camp Nordland which was opened in a little town, also my hometown of Andover NJ drew a ton of people to the little area. Over 10,000 people turned out to the opening of this camp, the people of Andover which only had a population of a little under 500 people at that point accepted the Bund because they brought a ton of revenue to the small town. However they did not like them per say as they walked around saluting Hitler, wearing swastikas, and military uniforms. As time went on people would start to protest the camp and claim that they were doing wrong things, the leader Fritz Kuhn was being looked at the FBI and IRS for embezzlement of money, DWI charges, and many more. The camp would hold weekend get aways at the camp for children, they would learn to march, learn the ranks of Hitler's army, and that the only perfect man is a white Christan German. Soon the deputy of Andover started to set up a personal crusade to kick them out he would attend meetings and take down every one's licence plate and watch all the activities going on and tell the FBI. I remember when I was a little kid going to Hillside, which is now a children's park. Kinda creepy when you think about this dark party of history there. 
