Rich Men and their Folly
In 1929 the Stock Market crashed and the Great Depression began. But while most Americans struggled, some forced to sell apples on the street for whatever few cents they could muster, a few wealthy elite barely felt a ripple of economic discomfort.
One such man was Charles Wilson Derwent, a wealthy, if not quite eccentric, Pennsylvanian financier and oil man with a fondness for roosters, one of which he delighted in holding in the crook of his arm regardless of business or social situation. He had made his fortune alongside ruthless men, among them John D. and William Rockefeller, Henry Flagler, and Stephen V. Harkness of Standard Oil. But while other industrialists relentlessly hammered out their legacy, Derwent was quite content to sit atop his fortune and entertain his rooster collection at his mansion nestled in the Pocono Mountains in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Derwent ’s eldest son and heir apparent, Charles Wilson Thaddeus “Tad” Derwent II, had other plans for his father’s stagnant millions. Aside from squandering much of it on a lavish playboy lifestyle, he also managed to convince his father to invest in a good many half-baked schemes. Tad fancied himself a “modernist” and to his credit, it was indeed the dawn of the modern scientific age; what with radio all the rage, it seemed that there was nothing science could not overcome with proper application. So it was that Tad opened more than a few holiday resorts (if not for his own indulgences) in the Poconos and the very popular Delaware Water Gap area on the New Jersey border. Although these destinations were popular with the American gentry, it proved difficult for most to find convenient travel there.
This quandary was the germ for Tad’s next, albeit ill-fated, endeavor The Derwent Airship Company and the 1932 maiden voyage of it’s first zeppelin The Derwent 32A. Famous German scientist Dr. Hugo Eckener was cajoled (bribed) into contributing both his name and some expertise to the undertaking, which was to ferry the well-to-do from New York City’s Empire State Building airship dock to the “secret” Derwent airship tower atop scenic High Point New Jersey, and then a quick jaunt via private rail to Derwent ’s resorts.
Just after its second test flight back from Lakehurst, NJ, the Derwent 32A took a nosedive in a strong wind and crashed to the ground at High Point, taking down part of the tower with it. The second prototype, the Derwent 36 was years in the making, but after the Hindenburg crashed and burned in 1937, the Derwent 36 languished in its hanger, forgotten until the Navy purchased it for scrap and parts in 1949.
Tad Derwent was not dismayed in the least. He was growing as eccentric as his father and at least half as attentive. His next scheme revolved around a personal fondness for ground beef served Hamburg style on a bun with pickles, onions and mustard. He reasoned that if these “Hamburgs” were cut with inexpensive bread crumbs and onions, a cheap and fast hot meal could be made and sold to local mine workers and thereby fortify their lifestyle that they may someday afford, with diligent saving, to attend one of Derwent ’s resorts as patrons—all while turning a tidy profit from these small “Hamburg stands.” Tad thought this brilliant, and had all the win-win markings of Henry Ford’s style of “own your own customer” company stores.
Needless to say, Derwent ’s Hamburg style beef sandwiches never caught on, being that the cost of beef was prohibitive in 1932 and the taste of 100% breadcrumb and onion did not sit well with the hard working coal miners of the Lehigh Valley and Northeast, Pa. Not to mention the name “Hamburg” still evoked anti-German resentment from ex-doughboys of The Great War of 1914. Worse, the stands themselves were simply labeled “Eats” because in Tad Derwent ’s own words “Those who toil, that is their pleasure.” Mr. Derwent was not a savvy marketing maven.
In spite of Tad’s clueless and failed efforts to elevate depression burdened Americans and populate his resorts in a time when most folks were thankful for some hard cheese and a heel of bread, let alone unimaginable caviar and Champaign. One side project flourished, if not for dumb luck, then for the fact that Tad had lost interest and the continued operation escaped his notice while he pursued his playboy lifestyle; the little private railroad that was originally designed to ferry folks from the High Point Derwent airship tower to resorts between the Delaware water Gap and the Pocono Mountains. The DF&D.
In 1931 the Dingmans Falls & Delaware Railroad Company was incorporated and run for Derwent by executive directors Dwight Hobbes and Seamus MacGregor, both formerly of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad. With some sixty miles of proprietary track laid, twelve tunnels, and track rights garnered (some say strong-armed) from the Belvidere Delaware Railroad, the Pennsylvania Railroad, and the DL&W, this little “private” short line railroad sat idle for three years, waiting for wealthy zeppelin passengers that would never come.
In 1933, Hobbes and MacGregor grew tired of waiting for Tad Derwent and took matters into their own hands, much to the shareholder’s delight. The little short line began to work for its keep, and while larger railroad lines struggled, the DF&D turned a profit in two years.
The northern terminus of the line was Port Jervis, New York, where the state lines of New Jersey and Pennsylvania also meet.
Its western terminus is in Schuylkill County, just north of Pottsville in St. Clair Pennsylvania. The DF&D winds through Northeast PA's Coal Regions with quite a few Derwent inspired (if not unnecessary) mountain tunnels along the way to its southern reaches through the Lehigh Valley to Easton, and, then across the Delaware to Phillipsburg, New Jersey.
The DF&F then follows the contour of the Delaware River to the Delaware Water Gap to the Stroudsburg stations. Further north is the line’s main station in a nondescript junction of Apple Valley (another inexplicable creation of Tad Derwent ) to which he gave no satisfactory explanation other than “It seems that trains should like to stop here.” There is speculation that there is a connection to the Derwent ’s fondness for the nearby natural wonder of Dingmans Falls, the line’s namesake.
The line spurs here to High Point and the abandoned Air Ship Tower. From Phillipsburg the line follows the Delaware River to Lambertville to pick up passengers arriving from Trenton.
Hauling anthracite coal tonnage pays the meat and potatoes of the bills, as well as the odd loads of iron ore or heating oil. Freights of perishables to small tri-state towns are on regular local runs. There is also the Red-Eye West, passenger runs to all points after 8 p.m. to connect with the Pennsylvania railroad and all points west to Chicago.
In 1955 the DF&D was liquidated as a corporation and its assets sold off to The Pennsylvania Railroad. Only the abandoned Apple Valley station house still stands amid weeds and tall grass when last we checked in 2002.
In 1971 A reporter from the Asbury Park Evening Press located the rusting skeleton of Derwent 's second High Point airship tower (left.) As of 2007, only the concrete footing remains.
But the DF&D Railroad lives on in the memory of those that can still hear its whistle echoing in the Delaware River valley.
