IIn 1760 the British Loyalists William Allen and Joseph Turner purchased a large tract of land belonging to William Penn. They then founded the Andover Iron Works in Waterloo village, now Andover NJ. The company mined magnetite and hematite ore along a ridge a north of where the town is today. The ore they produced from the mine was revered as being excellent to produce steel.

Early in the Revolutionary War, William and Allen fled to behind British lines. On January 15, 1778, the Continental Congress ordered the confiscation of the Andover Mine and Iron Works. During the war Andover’s high-quality iron was made into steel for military firearms. George Washington’s Encampment in Morristown NJ was in part to protect this mine and Iron works from falling into British control.

The ore deposit was nearly a quarter mile long, and the mine involved a deep 300-yard-long cut, and a couple of hundred feet underground. Mike Sandone and I hiked out to the mine to send the ROV into the now flooded portion of the underground workings.

About 30 or more feet into the adit, you come to the flooded winze we placed the ROV into. About 45 feet down we soon found a strange wooden structure that looked like several wooden ramparts blocking more than half of the passage. They were only a little over a foot apart, and each was higher than the other. In between each was what looked like tailings from the mine. This is something we have never seen before, and are still investigating what their purpose might be.