“… I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief …
For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
~ “The Peace of Wild Things”
~ Wendell Berry
~ born 1934
~ American novelist, poet, environmental activist, cultural critic & farmer
I came into the peace of wild things when I spotted this honey of a summer sight – a sweet, beautiful white-tailed deer fawn – grazing on a beautiful late June evening along the Ironton Rail Trail, which loops more than nine miles through Whitehall Township, the Borough of Coplay and North Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania.
The Ironton Railroad was a shortline railroad in Lehigh County. Originally built in 1861 to haul iron ore and limestone to blast furnaces along the Lehigh River, traffic later shifted to carrying Portland Cement when local iron mining declined in the early 20th century. Much of the railroad had already been abandoned when it became part of Conrail in 1976, and the last of its trackage was removed in 1984.
In 1996, Whitehall Township purchased 9.2 miles of the right-of-way from Conrail, transforming it into the Ironton Rail Trail.
