Papakating Creek is a tributary of the Wallkill River located in Frankford and Wantage townships in Sussex County, New Jersey in the United States. The creek rises in a small swamp located beneath the eastern face of Kittatinny Mountain in Frankford and its waters join the Wallkill to the east of Sussex borough.
Papakating Creek and its three major tributaries drain the northern portion of New Jersey's Kittatinny Valley a fertile valley underlain by shale and limestone of the Ordovician Martinsburg Formation and soils deposited by retreating glaciers in the last ice age. The region which the Papakating Creek and its tributaries drain is largely rural farmland and forests with a few low-density residential communities. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection reports that phosphorus and fecal coliform from agricultural or residential runoff as well as arsenic from agricultural pesticide applications or regional mineralogy impair the creek. Within the watershed are lands belonging to two state parks, one federal wildlife refuge, and preserves managed by the New Jersey Natural Lands Trust which set aside tracts for wildlife habitats that protect unique ecosystems and some threatened species.
History and toponymy
On June 29, 1897, the United States Geological Surveys Board of Geographic Names approved the toponym Papakating for a creek in northwestern New Jersey.United States Geological Survey, Geographic Names Information System, Decision Card for Papakating (June 29, 1897). Retrieved July 25, 2015. Papakating is derived from the language spoken by the Munsee (the northern branch of the Lenape or Delaware Indians) who inhabited northern New Jersey, northeastern Pennsylvania, and southern New York and western Long Island at the time of European settlement of eastern seaboard of the United States.
The name Papakating, and several variant spellings, had been recorded for the creek consistently since the American colonial period. Maps and documents at the time of the American Revolution often render the name as Pepocottin or Pepper-Cotton. The name was used for both the creek and its valley, and subsequently during the nineteenth century for a small hamlet that later gave its name to a post office and train depot. The post office was authorized as "Pepokating" on August 26, 1851 and the name revised to the more common spelling of Papakating in 1862. Service to this post office was discontinued in 1923.
Today, the site of a confluence between an unnamed tributary and the Papakating Creek is known as Pellettown and the Board of Geographic Names lists Pellet Creek and Pellettown Creek as historical names that have been used for the creek in the past. These alternate names for the creek, which were used briefly in the nineteenth century, are associated with William Pellet, Jr. (1771–1806) and Obadiah Pellet (1775–1849), who settled along the Papakating after purchasing 600 acres of farmland in Frankford Township in 1801. Obadiah eventually acquired "twelve valuable farms comprising twenty-five hundred acres of land".Biographical and Genealogical History of Morris and Sussex Counties, New Jersey, Illustrated, Volume II (New York: Lewis Publishing Company, 1899), 877. Pellet established house, grist mill, blacksmith shop and store by 1812, and "the site of these activities was known as Pepocotting (became Papakating), after the stream on which they had located, but gradually adopted the name Pellettown". His son Stephen J. Pellet (1820–1886), a local farmer, merchant, and Justice of the Peace who was appointed the first postmaster of the Papakating post office operating in his store.
Today, the Papakating Creek and its watershed is rural in character; consisting of farmland, forests, and wetlands. There are a few low-density communities.New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, State Development & Redevelopment Plan. Plan Endorsement Opportunities & Constraints: Analysis for Township of Frankford, Sussex County (2009), 14, 16. Retrieved June 26, 2015.New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Division of Watershed Management, Amendment to the Sussex County Water Quality Management Plan: Total Maximum Daily Load to Address Phosphorus in the Clove Acres Lake and Papakating Creek Northwest Water Region (also found here) (2004). Retrieved June 26, 2015. Several of the tributaries of the Papakating Creek have been dammed to create man-made lakes that were the centre of residential developments. in 1926, a dam was erected on Clove Creek in Sussex Borough to create Clove Acres Lake at the site of a former horse racing track and picnic spot. The lake was developed into a lakeside community in that straddles the border between Sussex and Wantage Township.Greg Watry, "Rehabilitation of Clove Lake under way", The New Jersey Herald, April 6, 2015. Retrieved October 17, 2015. In the 1950s, Lake Neepaulin in Wantage Township was created by damming an unnamed mountain stream.Eric Oberhauer, "Wantage resident suing over costs of Lake Neepaulin dam", The New Jersey Herald, April 22, 2012. In 2002, local residents of the Lake Neepaulin community decided to name the unnamed tributary Neepaulakating Creek from a combination of elements of the names Neepaulin and Papakating. Despite its seemingly Native American appearance, Neepaulin is not derived from Munsee or any other Native American language. Lake Neepaulin was named after a combination of the original developers children's names.Friends of Lake Neepaulin, Nathaniel Sajdak, Jennifer E. Runyon (USGS), United States Board of Geographic Names, Case Brief: Neepaulakating Creek (2002). Retrieved June 26, 2015.E-mail corresponsdence Jim Rementer (Lenape Language Project) to Jennifer E. Runyon, USGS BGN (March 24, 2004). Retrieved June 26, 2015. The Board of Geographic Names approved the name on April 8, 2004.Letter from Roger L. Payne (USGS) to James L. Doherty (Wantage Township Administrator Clerk) (April 30, 2004). Retrieved June 26, 2015. Quote: "U.S. Board on Geographic Names, at its April 8, 2004, meeting, approved the proposal to name an unnamed stream in Sussex County, Neepaulakating Creek. This decision was made in agreement with the findings and recommendations of your office, the government of Sussex County, and the New Jersey Board on Geographic Names."
Course
The headwaters of Papakating Creek are located at above sea level in Frankford Township, New Jersey. The stream begins in a small swamp at the foot of Kittatinny Mountain, immediately beneath a prominence along that ridge known as Sunrise Mountain, elevation .United States Geological Survey, Branchville, NJ Quadrangle USGS 1:24K Topographic Map 41074B6. Retrieved July 31, 2015. This source is located in the northernmost corner of Frankford Township, approximately west of the hamlet of Beemerville in Wantage Township.Rollin D. Salisbury, The Glacial Geology of New Jersey: Volume V of the Final Report of the State Geologist (Trenton, NJ: MacCrellish & Quigley, 1902), 375ff. Retrieved October 17, 2015.
From the source, the Papakating flows southeast through Frankford Township north of the borough of Branchville. In this region, the Papakating is separated from the watershed of the southward-flowing Dry Brook, a tributary of the Paulins Kill, by approximately 500 feet. The two watersheds are divided by a small rise in elevation of 20–30 feet between the drainages the two streams. Immediately to the north of Frankford Plains, a high flat-topped deposit of sand and gravel, the Papakating turns southeast. It generally weaves along the path of George Hill Road in Frankford where it reaches the bottom of Kittatinny Valley and turns to the northeast.
Flowing northeast, the Papakating passes through a series of named crossroads or small hamlets, including Armstrong and Pellettown in Frankford. The stream meanders through several miles of farmland along the floor of Kittatinny Valley. At Pellettown, formerly known as Papakating, the creek is joined by an unnamed tributary and passes under the path of County Route 565. Route 565 is a north–south county highway connecting Sussex borough and New Jersey Route 23 with Ross's Corner (its terminus) where it meets New Jersey Route 15 and U.S. Route 206. From Pelletown, the road runs roughly parallel to the west of the creek's course. A railbed constructed in the 1870s and 1880s by the Pennsylvania, Poughkeepsie & Boston Railroad (PP&B) for a line connecting Slatington, Pennsylvania to Pine Island, New York parallels the creek's east bank through Frankford and Wantage.Randolph L. Kulp, History of Lehigh and New England Railroad Company. (Lehigh Valley Chapter, National Railway Historical Society, Inc., 1989).George H. Drury, The Historical Guide to North American Railroads: Histories, Figures, and Features of more than 160 Railroads Abandoned or Merged since 1930 (Waukesha, Wisconsin: Kalmbach Publishing, 1994), 171–172. This line was later operated by the Lehigh and New England Railroad until 1961.
At McCoy's Corner in Wantage, an intersection south of Sussex borough, the waters of the Papakating Creek merge with its tributary West Branch Papakating Creek. The creek continues to flow northeast on the east side of Sussex Airport. To the immediate north of Sussex Airport, at the hamlet of Lewisburg in Wantage, the waters of both Neepaulakating Creek and Clove Brook join the creek. The Papakating begins to turn eastward and is crossed by bridge carrying New Jersey Route 23. The creek enters a dense marsh terrain, historically known as the "Drowned Lands of the Wallkill", before flowing into the Wallkill River east of Sussex borough and north of Hamburg borough.United States Geological Survey, Hamburg, NJ Quadrangle USGS 1:24K Topographic Map 41074B5. Retrieved July 31, 2015.
Watershed
Geology and topography
Papakting Creek drains a watershed of or in area. It includes portions of Frankford, Lafayette, Montague, and Wantage Townships, as well as all of Sussex Borough.Wallkill River Watershed Management Group, Papakating Creek & Clove Acres Lake/Clove Brook Watershed Restoration Plan. Retrieved July 26, 2015. According to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP), the watershed consists of gently sloping agricultural farm fields, wooded forests, wetlands, low-density residential development and older individually built homes. Its topography ranges from gently rolling in the east to strongly sloping in the west. Its watershed contributes to the Wallkill River which flows north and joins the waters of Rondout Creek at Esopus, New York, a short distance before the Rondout flows into the Hudson River near Kingston, New York.
Of the Papakating's watershed's acreage, or 27.7% of agricultural land, or 0.8% is barren land, or 42.4% is forested, or 12.4% is urban development, or 15.4% is wetlands, and or 1.3% is water.Ernest Hofer, Nathaniel Sajdak, Wallkill River Watershed Management Group, Papakating Creek Watershed Restoration Plan: NJDEP Project RP05-088 (2008). Retrieved July 26, 2015. According to 2002 figures, the watershed was estimated to be home to approximately 11,602 residents of Sussex County.