Yeah, yeah, another ‘sinkhole’ has opened up on Rte.80 (technically though, it is NOT a sinkhole, seeing as the definition of a sinkhole is “a depression in the ground that has no natural external surface drainage. Basically, this means that when it rains, all of the water stays inside the sinkhole and typically drains into the subsurface”), so more accurately, this new hole in Rte. 80 Eastbound in Wharton is a collapsed abandoned mineshaft from the Mount Hope Mine.
But is it, really?
We all know what’s going on in Wharton. Let’s admit it. This thing is one of the many Earthly entrances to hell, or a Hellmouth, popular in mythic folklore and surely what our great Garden State is built over.
Look, I’ve read the history. A bunch o’ mines were mined across Morris and Warren Counties, where iron was found in abundant quantities. More than 400 operated at one time around the Revolutionary War, but the business saw a decline in the early 20th century when that iron was pretty much all mined up, leaving many mines abandoned, and their shafts unsealed.
And as any teenage boy will tell you, you can get in a whole hell of a lot of trouble leaving your shaft unsealed.
The Huff Mine, active between 1855 and 1910, is thought to be what is collapsing at Exit 34.
As I say, this is the official story.
Which is fine. No one wants a panicked populace. We have enough to worry about in NJ with a reported new season of Jersey Shore on the way, the tussle over should ‘we bag or not bag,’ and my constant personal worry of how do I get out of a store without tipping a clerk and not look like a jerk.
But as I said way up above, these ARE NOT really ancient mine shafts collapsing but rather those Hellmouths opening up again, something we had all hoped long buried, but are always seething for renewed power and dominance in our suburban environs.
Look, I’m right in line with our state’s most vociferous critics here. Those holes opening up on Rte. 80, right in the Wharton area, a well-known hotbed of Satanic activity if there ever was one, proves the old adage that NJ is indeed hell on Earth.
We’ll be fine though, we always have been. We’ve lived over the influence of the nether world just below us for years (Jersey Shore’s proliferation a case in point) So, don’t worry more holes will come and will cover them, make our historic excuses. I just thought it was time we called this out for what it really was.
Rock on my droogies.
Really, Can’t We Admit It Already, Wharton Covers A Hellmouth?
