Ironton, New York

I am now officially a resident of the north country and won't be driving between Albany and the farm any more. One of my first acts as a new resident was to take a swing through the tiny settlement of Ironton on my way home from Massena:

Ironton is quite close to Brasher Iron Works, another settlement I recently toured, so both of them were likely once in the mining and smelting business. These days they are both quiet, rural communities with attractive, comfortable homes like this one:

Ironton is even smaller than Brasher Iron Works, but it certainly has great beauty:

With giant farm fields, extensive forests and big skies, this is fine country living:

With a big old tree on the front lawn, this home was almost hidden:

This smaller home sat more out in the open, soaking up the sunshine:

Another home which seemed to be hiding coyly behind the trees:

And this gingerbread type home could have come directly out of fairy tale:

A tire swing for the kids:

And a trailer tucked attractively in the woods:

Ironton was bordered on several sides by the Brasher State Forest and the homes there were carefully tended and looked happy:

There weren't a lot of homes in Ironton, but I enjoyed my driving tour and was once again impressed with the high quality of life available in the north country:

The Rural Settlement Of Brasher Iron Works - Part 2

I was taking a driving tour of the tiny settlement of Brasher Iron Works, once a mining and iron processing center for local bog iron. These days it's just a nice, rural community surrounded by state forest lands:

I passed by nice homes beneath big White Pines:

And old barns:

This house looked modern and comfortable:

The wooden seat on this front porch looked mighty inviting - but in the summertime, not in this weather:

I loved the ornate trim on this home - and there, once again, where the sinewy trees I suspected were Locusts:

A nice, compact home with a double garage:

An attached garage for avoiding the worst of winter's weather plus an old hand pump which, I suspected, might be functioning:

I passed by the Brasher Iron Works Cemetery:

And an old barn built of stone and rough cut lumber:

I was almost out of town when I passed this home:

 

I considered this bridge over the St. Regis River to be the end of Brasher Iron Works. I stopped on the bridge to watched the freight train passing by on an adjacent bridge and once again a few hundred feet later when I found the Railroad Crossing Warning barriers down and flashing:

The Rural Settlement Of Brasher Iron Works - Part 1

I arrived at the farm midday on Sunday and had already taken a driving tour of Madrid and Sanfordville (see previous posts). I spent Sunday night in the comfortable farm house and then decided to leave the dogs at home and take the back roads into Massena to buy a few things. On the way I passed through the tiny settlement of Brasher Iron Works:

There was once a bog iron mining operation in this town and a blast furnace produced in one year (1836 - 1837) 250 tons of pig iron and castings. Today, it's just the site of a small settlement of farms and homes such as this one:

There were older homes:

And more modern homes, especially trailers and modular homes:

This home had it all - attached garage, metal roof, two porches,  a flag pole and a windmill whose blades were a giant sunflower:

There were very large homes:

And smaller homes:

And very old homes:

And lots of trailers. Many of the older trees had the sinewy branches you see here and I wondered if they might have been Locusts. Alas, I'll probably never know unless I go back in the summertime and remember to look:

This lovely old farm was one of my favorites, again with the sinewy trees:

Some of the front windows of this very tiny house were covered with plywood and I thought it was abandoned. But when I turned onto the side road, I saw a dog tied out behind the back door and a young woman came out to let him inside:

A well kept, green home and garage marked the midpoint of my driving tour. I'll post part 2 of Brasher Iron Works tomorrow: