Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay
Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling
Its green arms round the bosom of the stream,
But kiss’d it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.”
A Dream of the Unknown by P.B Shelley

Situated in one of the heavily wooded pockets that seem to make up the majority of Eastern Maryland’s state parks lies Daniels Mill (previously Alberton and marked upon the map as Daniels).

Practically the entire state was once covered in forest before the arrival of European settlers and Colonial Lords who found that the oak and white pine were particularly useful for shipbuilding and quickly press-ganged them with saws and nails into a new life on the sea.  Clearance for farming and tobacco was always quite popular as well.  This is not to say that Maryland is now barren of trees.  The state is rife with them.  Only now a thickly braided net of urban development has been cast over their crowns and between their trunks.  At least in the populous DC/Baltimore area the woodland has been cut up into pockets of rich verdure or stark timber and it is in one of these that Daniels Mill sits.

Heading towards the village we drive past petrol stations with their breeze block back walls pushed up against dry winter woods.  We see large manicured lawns separated from the messy forest floor only by fence-posts and finally descend into the tangle of undulating blacktop that carves through the valleys and ridges of the upper Patapsco.

We park the car down by the side of the river and follow a muddy tarmac track (once Alberton Road) that clings to the side of the river.  The river is wide and shallow at this point and separated from the path by a meadow of tangled long grass-strewn with broken branches of the wiry trees that populate it.  On the other side sits the railway on top of a small rise.  The train approaches.  It’s long and takes over fifteen minutes to pass.  Carving through vast tracts of countryside day in and day out glimpsed only occasionally by humanity,its bright coloured lettering a moving billboard for the birds and bears.

Further on we catch site of an overturned van sticking out of the greenish water.  The skeletal struts of its chassis revealed like the exoskeleton of a upturned beetle, burnt umber in places by rust.

The path weaves around to the right and on a highish ridge above us stood rows of winter beech.  Tall and stripped of their leaves, their bark a dry and bright silver like the colour of some volatile metal that must be kept constantly in oil.  From time to time the exposed root structures of these giants crept silently towards the path, coiled round mounds of earth and stone in search of stability and nourishment.

“They look like dead octopi” voiced my companion “Touch its papery skin”.

Suffice to say I declined and we moved on.

The path took another bend and the former riverside meadow was replaced by wide sand banks that fanned out into both the path and the river.  Here and there brightly covered moss draped fallen trunks in Sylvan opulence.  To visit the area at the tail end of a hot Atlantic summer would be pleasant.  The lush greenery of the sloping forest running into warm sand skirted by an opalescent stony river all cast in the mellowing hues of the late sun’s rays.

The body of Daniels Mill is on a slight raise in the land.  A humped wooded knoll lays at its back and the river draws a horseshoe around its feet.  The most striking remnants of the 19th century mill village are a gothic,red tiled spire and a brick smokestack rising up from the main mill complex.  A wooden cupola once crowned the main mill building but this was airlifted to safety to protect against flood in a somewhat ostentatious move of historical preservation.   A small welding firm had apparently appropriated the land where the workers’ houses once stood and had erected some low, tin-roofed huts.

We walked a little further along the path following the curve of the river around the village.  We came upon two stone bridge supports,stranded in the narrows.  The railway or road it once shouldered long removed and transferred to the iron train crossing a little further on.  Passing some stone foundations, the outline of an old white chapel defined itself through the trees.  Only the wood and plaster frontage and parts of walls still stood.  The floor of the nave had fallen in, exposing a old rusting boiler and there was remains of brick chimney work, vibrant with green moss in the vestry.  We took some portraits using the glassless windows as frames and moved on.

Topping a slight incline we came to the terminus of the ephemeral town.  A large stone weir that had obviously been the mill’s power supply.  A fly fisherman flicked his brightly coloured lure at the curtain of water and glanced up at another church on the knoll.  A solid edifice of Victorian revival, built in 1880, that had survived the closure of the mills and dismantling of the town and the hurricane that swiped most of what was left away in 1970’s.

The valley and the village where composed of various layers.  A layer of industrious settlement balanced precariously on the forest floor propped up with numerable places of worship and then torn down by the caprices of man and nature.  The dismal winter forest glistened with glimpses of the approaching spring and summer and was scattered with Arthurian scenes.

A low fog began to ascend from the valley and my companion became talkative as we headed back to the car.

Charles Swain runs Travin Systems.com /Travin Systems Records – providers of rural oddness and spa town lariness through writing, photography and techno.

www.travinsystems.com