Uncovering the Blue Comet in blueberry country

Near the center of the Pinelands community of Chatsworth, there's a sandy, partially grass-covered clearing on the side of the road. In it, there's a square plot marked off by a decorative black chain, and within the plot, a pair of rails embedded in the ground.

Apologies for the bad framing.
Photo shot from the car.

It's hard to see in the picture, but those rails extend far beyond the clearing, well into the woods in the distance. They mark the remains of Chatsworth's ties to the rise and fall of New Jersey's version of glamorous land travel.

Today, the strongest connection any of us have to passenger rail travel is likely to be with New Jersey Transit commuter trains and light rail, but for our earlier neighbors, that wasn't the case. In the first half of the 20th century, particularly before air travel became the norm, trains could be something very special. Long distance travelers could enjoy luxury accommodations on express lines like the 20th Century Limited, and even local commuter trains sometimes sported cars specifically for the first-class set.

By the 1920s, Central Railroad of New Jersey President R.B. White saw glamour as a way to attract riders to what had become the company's rather pedestrian, unpopular line to the state's southern shore destinations. The Blue Comet would run from New York to Atlantic City, but with style that lived up to its name in appearance and engineering. Capable of traveling up to 100 miles an hour, the train was said to be the first east of the Mississippi River to use roller bearings for smooth starts and stops.

White spared no expense in furnishings and design: passengers enjoyed luxurious upholstery and carpeting, fine dining and windows hand-etched with comets and stars. Each of the cars was named for a comet, including an observation car whose back deck could accommodate six travelers. The train was swathed in blue and cream colors, representing the sea and sand of the Jersey Shore, with nickel-plated accents. Even its whistle was distinctive, with Pinelands residents recalling a foghorn- or steamboat-like tone. When the Blue Comet made its maiden trip in February 1929, it became CRRNJ's flagship train.

Its introduction was ill-timed. Eight months later, the stock market crash plunged the nation into the Great Depression, leaving most potential travelers without the resources for luxury travel. By 1933, the train was making just one run a day, and competition from the Pennsylvania Railroad took additional ridership away. However, the Blue Comet soldiered on, logging an on-time record so reliable that people along the route set their clocks by the train's arrival. Legend has it that the people of Chatsworth counted on the northbound train to slow enough to drop off the New York and Philadelphia newspapers that passengers had read and discarded.

In fact, Chatsworth was little more than a brief blip of scenery to the Blue Comet until August 19, 1939. More than a foot of rain fell during a tremendous storm that day, with cloudbursts delivering the vast majority of it after 2:00 p.m. Poor visibility forced the train's crew to reduce speed to about 40 miles an hour, but restricted sightlines were just part of the danger ahead. 

By 4:30, flooding had washed the sandy Pinelands soil out from beneath the tracks at milepost 86, about a mile west of Chatsworth. The train's crew had no idea of the hazard they were approaching. Though the locomotive and coal tender made it over the now-unsupported track, the five passenger cars separated and came off the rails, resting at angles nearly parallel to the railbed.

Despite crashing in the sparsely-populated Pinelands, help wasn't long in coming. Realizing that the ever-reliable Blue Comet was late to the station, the concerned people of Chatsworth waded to the scene of the crash. Word went out that 100 or more souls could have died in the crash, drawing ambulances and doctors from distant communities. Of the 49 souls on board, 38 suffered mostly minor injuries, though the train's cook was fatally crushed and scalded when the dining car stove fell on him.The crash scene was so flooded that local residents later recalled wading through chest-deep water to help passengers in the train's last two cars.

The track was quickly repaired and service restored after most of the Blue Comet's cars were reconditioned, but the flagship train's days were numbered. Just over two years later, it made its final run, never having made much of a profit, if any, for the Jersey Central.

After finding the brief bit of track commemorated in downtown Chatsworth, we headed east on a road alongside the old railbed. The area may have become more developed over the years, but it wasn't hard to imagine what residents might have faced as they attempted to help the Blue Comet's passengers after the derailment. The track runs pin-straight for what seems like miles, often on berms of that classically-sandy Pinelands soil. Portions of the track were obscured by overgrown weeds and trees that had sprouted between the rails. Other stretches seemed to be clear enough to accept a train on a moment's notice. Someone with a good imagination could stand there at night and will herself to hear the roar of the Blue Comet, its foghorn whistle alerting local residents of its approach.

As seems to be the case with so many legendary trains, bits and pieces of the Blue Comet are still out there for the finding, with four complete cars still in New Jersey. One car, Biela, stands near Route 22 West, having been converted to a dining room at the Clinton Station Diner. Another three are owned by the United Railroad Historical Society of New Jersey, with plans for restoration and eventual return to the tracks.

Sopranos fans might also remember the train's fateful appearance on one of the series' final season installments. Model railroad aficionado (and Tony Soprano's brother in law) Bobby Baccalieri is admiring an antique Lionel Train version of the Blue Comet when he's dispatched by two hitmen from a rival crime family. Perhaps the show's producers didn't resolve the story of the famed Russian of the Pine Barrens episode, but ironically, someone in Tony's crew received a Pinelands-related payback of sorts.

I spy a patriot: the art and espionage of Patience Lovell Wright

Keep your eyes open in the remarkable colonial community of Bordentown, and you'll find the intersection of art and patriotism. Standing directly across the street from the home of composer, poet, satirist and statesman Francis Hopkinson is the former dwelling of America's first native-born sculptor, Patience Lovell Wright. Justifiably admired for her artwork, she's also rumored to have been a spy during the Revolutionary War.

Like Hopkinson, Wright wasn't born in New Jersey, but the then-colony was important to her formative years. A few years after her 1725 birth in Oyster Bay, Long Island, her family settled near the Delaware River in a community that would later be named Bordentown. Strict Quakers, her parents adhered to a rather hard-core lifestyle, demanding that Patience and her sister Rachel wear white in public and conform to a strict vegetarian diet. Nonetheless, the girls found an outlet for their creativity by molding forms from clay they made from flour and water.

Patience is said to have been a headstrong young woman, leaving her parents' home at the age of 16 to live in Philadelphia. Several years later, she married the much older Joseph Wright and returned to Bordentown. Though she later observed that her husband had "nothing but age and money to recommend himself," the couple had four children; a fifth was born not long after Joseph's death in 1769.

Left with the family house but no other allowances from Joseph's estate to support her children, Patience turned to the craft that brought her so much pleasure as a child: sculpting. The fashionable medium of the day was wax, and with the endorsement of her neighbor Hopkinson, she soon became well known for her extraordinarily accurate, life-sized renditions of human subjects.

She and Rachel opened waxworks in New York and Philadelphia, and Patience in particular drew attention for her particularly earthy work practices. One could say that she set the standard early for the quirkier American artists to come. Given the properties of wax, the medium had to be kept warm to be pliable, an especially important detail for Patience's lifelike renditions. She'd cradle the large blocks of wax under a cloth in her lap, engaging in frank conversation with her subjects as they sat for her. When she finished sculpting a bust, she'd unveil it dramatically, as if she were giving birth to it.

Following a fire at her New York studio, Wright left the colonies for London in 1771 at the recommendation of Benjamin Franklin's sister Jane Mecom. The Franklin connection was her entre to the upper classes of English society, who were fascinated by her talent and her plain-spoken, egalitarian ways, as much as they were taken by the flattery she lavished on them. It's said that King George III and his wife Charlotte even allowed her to address them by name rather than honorific. She knew how to work her audience.

All the while, revolutionary sentiment was growing in the colonies, and Wright was an ardent supporter, even going as far as reprimanding the king for refusing to granting independence. She quickly recognized that the warm relationships she'd cultivated with members of Parliament gave her access to information her fellow patriots would find useful. Using sculpted heads and busts as cover, she sent several messages to Franklin, detailing her conjecture on which influential British leaders might be persuaded to take up the patriot cause.

Wright's candor and relentlessness seem to have backfired on her after the events of Lexington and Concord in 1775. While her egalitarian manner of relating to her patrons might have been endearing to nobles and the king in the past, her strident refusal to stop talking about the Revolution made her persona non grata in society. Left without her pipeline of sources, she became less useful as a spy, even as she reportedly pleaded with Franklin to support a British rebellion against the crown.

It's not clear how she made a living during the first years of the Revolution, but a move to Paris in 1780 was largely unsuccessful. Returning to England two years later, she continued beseeching her former patrons in America for opportunities to sculpt the Founding Fathers. Some sources say that only George Washington responded favorably, but Wright died before they could arrange a sitting.

Interestingly, the only work of Patience Lovell Wright's that survives is of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, a supporter of American independence. And despite her reported desire to be buried in her beloved United States, she rests somewhere in London. Rachel had pleaded with both Congress and her sister's former supporters in America for funding to bring her remains back; her requests went unanswered.

Bicycles and bigamy: the colorful life of Hezekiah Smith

New Jersey's 19th century industrial history seems loaded with stories of quirky people who built communities around their factories. Such was the story of Eastampton's Hezekiah Smith.

Part inventor, part manufacturer, Smith came to New Jersey in 1865 from New Hampshire, seeking to start an ideal company town. He found a fertile site at Shreveville, Burlington County, a former cotton spinning and weaving factory town that had gone belly up, its water-powered mills rendered obsolete by the introduction of the steam engine. Seeing a good deal, Smith purchased 45 acres of the property from the Shreve family for $20,000. Within 10 years, he'd incorporated the H.B. Smith Machine Company and created housing and amenities to accommodate 250 people. The new community of Smithville included housing, a school and stores in addition to a foundry and factories to manufacture tools and woodworking machinery. Resident workers could enjoy a number of civic and cultural events and resources around town.

Smith must have been a fair employer and a well-regarded member of the community, albeit a bit unconventional. In 1878 he won a seat in Congress after campaigning on a carriage pulled by a moose.

Wisely seeking to diversify the business, Smith cast about looking for additional industries to tackle. On the advice of Smith Machine board member J.J. White (of cranberry fame), he entered into a licensing agreement with Hammonton native G.W. Pressey, who'd recently patented a revolutionary adaptation to the high-wheel bicycle. It literally turned cycling in the opposite direction, with a ratchet drive that put the larger wheel in the back and delegated the smaller front wheel to steering. The arrangement was said to provide greater stability, a selling point Smith later advertised by paying a demonstrator to ride the bike down the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

Suddenly, cycling was the focus at Smith Machine, where the newly-formed American Star Bicycle Company perfected Pressey's design and modified the factory to make the new product. Smithville became New Jersey's Bicycle Town as orders poured in for the cycles. Meanwhile, employees enjoyed an innovative new way to get to work. Arthur Hotchkiss developed the world's first bicycle railroad between Smithville and Mount Holly, where many Smith workers lived. The 1.8 mile system was essentially a monorail, with the bicycles hanging from a rail suspended about four feet above the ground. Given the lack of paved roads at the time, the system probably gave a much smoother ride than they would have had by traditional means.

Several hundred of the Pressey-inspired bicycles were made before production halted in 1886, but Smith continued to develop new transportation technologies until his death. Besides innovations in standard bicycles, he invented a steam-powered version (motocycle), roller skates and even a helicopter. It's also said that he invented a steam-driven wagon but deemed it too modern for contemporary tastes.

Smith's story, so far, is one of a driven businessman who built a prosperous community and likely helped improve the lives of many. Perhaps the moose and Capitol stunts indicate a bit of showmanship, but not so much as to be quirky, as I described him in the opening words of our story. What, then, could warrant calling him quirky?

Maybe the best way to start is to note the brevity of his Congressional career: just a single two-year term. It seems that as soon as Mr. Smith went to Washington, ghosts of his past came to haunt him, a scandal that would warrant tabloid headlines even today.

Smithville residents knew his wife to be Agnes Gilkerson Smith, the woman who'd moved to New Jersey with him from New England. Some might have even known that Smith had funded Agnes' education at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, but likely very few if any were aware that Smith had also sent her to a finishing school before that, having met her when she worked in a mill in Lowell, Massachusetts.

Agnes was, in fact, Smith's second wife, and he'd never bothered to legally divorce the first one. He'd met Eveline English in Vermont, and it's not clear whether the pair had ever actually married; some accounts say he'd brought up the idea to her parents a few times but never quite got around to arranging a ceremony. When he decided to seek his fortune in New Hampshire, he took Eveline along, and three months later their first child was born. About a year later, Eveline moved back to Vermont, and the couple never lived together again, though they had three more children over the following seven years. In that time, Smith moved to Massachusetts to open a machine shop.

Smith's relationship with the Vermont family eventually deteriorated to the point where it was based mostly on financial dependency; the timing suggests his meeting Agnes played a big role there. When she returned to Lowell from Philadelphia, the pair began living together, much to the disapproval of their neighbors. They were shunned and excluded from social functions, making life in town pretty miserable. The best option, it seemed, was to start a new life elsewhere. Shreveville, in South Jersey, must have looked ideal: it was far enough away that no-one would know Smith's past, and there was sufficient room to build an entire industrial community.

Before leaving for New Jersey, Smith made one last visit to Eveline, this time to demand a divorce. She refused outright. Lacking her permission to take the legal route, he devised his own very creative approach to severing the relationship. If he couldn't get the papers proving they were divorced, he'd expunge all evidence they'd ever been together. He burned every letter she'd ever written him and then went to her sister's house to cut every reference to their marriage and children out of her family's Bible. Whether it was to buy her silence or out of common decency, he signed the family house over to Eveline and opened a bank account for her in her maiden name. Then he was off to New Jersey.

Smith's bigamy might have stayed a secret forever had he not run for national office, but within two weeks of his election, the word was out. Newspapers carried interviews with Eveline and some of their children, and despite the overwhelming evidence, Smith chose to simply deny everything. The hubbub over the discovery eventually dissipated, but his constituents declined to return him to Washington in 1880.

Then again, voters might have been more forgiving than the election results indicate. Some historians have noted that his Democratic party affiliation could have foretold his defeat in a year when the Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives. And three years later, he was elected to a single term in the New Jersey Senate.

All about the Benjamins: Franklin's New Jersey money connection

Benjamin Franklin famously likened New Jersey to a barrel tapped at both ends, referring to its proximity to Philadelphia and New York. Some have decried the statement as an insult, but few realize that the Founding Father actually played an influential role in colonial New Jersey.

Is it just me, or does this painting
of Ben Franklin look like Bob Newhart?

The city of Burlington makes much of its connection to Franklin, beginning with his first visit to the city in 1726. According to a diary entry from his return home after a journey to London, Franklin was briefly delayed in Burlington when he missed a connecting boat across the Delaware. He stopped at the Revell house to buy gingerbread for his trip, and when he discovered his boat had already left, returned for advice on alternate travel options. While serving him a fine dinner of ox cheek in return for a pot of ale, the (unnamed) lady of the house encouraged him to stay in town and open a printing shop. Undeterred from reaching his ultimate destination, he was able to secure passage on another boat later that day. The Revell house still stands and is said to be the oldest house in the county, having been built in 1685.

While he opted not to set up shop in New Jersey, Franklin became a well-known printer and publisher in Philadelphia. Perhaps influenced by the potential benefits to his trade, he became a major proponent of paper money, writing persuasively on the benefit of printed notes versus gold and silver coin. In the late 1600s and early 1700s, paper notes were used largely in times of emergency and were printed with expiration dates. Colonies eventually began issuing permanent paper currency, and Franklin was instrumental in the design of the notes authorized by the New Jersey Legislature in 1728. He returned to Burlington to use Isaac Collins' copperplate press to print what the city's historians say was the colony's first colonial currency. Interestingly, he later chose New Jersey currency as the first to incorporate an ingenious counterfeiting prevention feature: the transfer of a sage leaf pattern to the reverse side.

Beyond his contributions to the financial system, Franklin later became New Jersey's agent in London. Yes, you read that right: Ben Franklin was a lobbyist. Having secured his son William's appointment as Royal Governor in 1763, Franklin returned to London the following year to represent Pennsylvania, New Jersey and a handful of other colonies to the Court. He built and maintained several useful relationships there until 1775, when conditions between the colonies and the Crown had deteriorated badly.

And, of course, we all know what happened after that...

Birding with the spirit of Bonaparte: our visit to Point Breeze

New Jersey has long attracted birders both professional and avocational, all seeking views of the broad variety of our avian residents and visitors. Due to our strategic position on the Atlantic flyway, the state's airspace is a virtual superhighway for hundreds of species of birds as they migrate between their summer and winter habitats. While the names of many of the early ornithologists aren't well known outside of birding circles, you might recognize those like John James Audubon and Charles Bonaparte, both of whom lived in the Garden State for a time in the early 1800s.

Long-time readers might remember our story on Bonaparte's discovery of the female Cape May warbler. We'd originally found the site of his home, Point Breeze, on our visit to Bordentown last summer, though we didn't venture onto the property. Now the home of Divine Word Missionaries' East Coast facility, access to the acreage is restricted to residents and guests who've arranged permission in advance.

Enter noted birder and Hidden New Jersey friend Rick Wright, who invited us to scout out the property with him and his wife Alison. Believe it or not, fall migration is already underway, and what better place to bid warblers a bon voyage than the former home of a man who shaped birding history? Naturally, I was also intrigued by the property's connection to Napoleon's family and their European exile, so I didn't need to be asked twice. Rick had already gained permission from Divine Word; we were set to go.

The weather was overcast and humid on our arrival; we hoped we wouldn't be rained on, at least until we'd had a chance to explore a bit.

The Divine Word grounds are well-manicured, with broad expanses of grass around the few 1950s-era buildings and a driveway. There's only one building left from the 1800s -- a small stone house built for one of Joseph Bonaparte's advisors next to the area which once held a formal garden. Hearing very little in the way of birds, we decided to check out the trees at the perimeter of the property and explore from there.

The view from the Point Breeze property.

Those trees blocked what must have been an extraordinary view at one time. Point Breeze was named for its place on a bluff high above Crosswicks Creek, which we could see in spots through the thick foliage. Fortunately we found a wider view on the southern edge of the manicured area, where trees gave way to lower brush on a steep slope that led down to a marshy valley of sorts. According to the 160 year-old surveyors map Rick had found, that expanse had been the site of a small lake created when the Bonapartes dammed Thornton Creek. The vantage point gave us what would often be an ideal view of a nice resting spot for migrants, but the pickings were rather slim. Alison spotted a distant kingfisher perched above a small expanse of water, and a couple of cormorants were visible in the creek beyond.

"Maybe we should try channeling the spirit of Bonaparte," I suggested to the chuckles of my companions. Who knows? Perhaps he'd take pity on us and help some fellow birders find a productive patch on the property.

Hoping for more success in the woods, we found a barely-noticeable break in some nearby underbrush and headed in. Again, but for the constant whirring of the usual annual cicadas, we were hearing virtually nothing but the occasional mewing of random catbirds or a complaining blue jay.

While I was jazzed about birding in the footsteps of a great ornithologist, my real interest in the woods was the potential for finding evidence of Bonaparte's presence there. Much has been made in certain circles of a tunnel system extending from the family mansion's basement to the creekside, but I was interested in finding other structures. Would we find a brick-paved path or perhaps a well?

This arch probably supported a carriage path through the
woods; it appears that a stream flowed beneath it.

Our path turned into a sandy wash, clearly the route taken by runoff from the higher elevation property. Looking for a vantage point, Ivan scrambled up an embankment that appeared too uniform not to be manmade, and noted that there might have been a path of some sort there. Sure enough, as the rest of us walked further down the wash, we found a brick arch that was built to support what must have been a carriage path.

A look toward the creek exposed some possible aquatic life, but beyond the catbirds, nuthatches and a wren or two, we weren't hearing or seeing much else at all. The day may have been a bust birding-wise, but it was a great scouting expedition and a view into a truly hidden aspect of New Jersey history. Given more favorable conditions, it definitely would be a wonderful place to find a wide variety of songbirds in migration.

And while he apparently couldn't influence the migration, maybe Bonaparte helped us out, after all. Not two minutes after we got into the car to leave, raindrops started falling on the windshield, the start of what became a persistent storm.

Cadwalader crossing the Delaware: hidden Revolutionary history

Everyone knows about Washington's legendary crossing of the Delaware on Christmas night, 1776. This bold move enabled Continental troops to surprise Hessian troops at Trenton, starting a chain of events that reversed the tide of the Revolutionary War.

What's not discussed very often is Washington's plan for a southern landing at an additional location about 20 miles south of Trenton at Dunk's Ferry. About 1500 men under the command of General John Calawalder took to the freezing waters of the Delaware with the goal of attacking the Hessians stationed in Burlington County. Their assault, it was thought, would divert attention from the Trenton invasion, busying Hessian troops who otherwise might be called north for fortification.

The site of Dunk's Ferry is now a park in Beverly, NJ.
Courtesy hmdb.org

Accounts of ice floes and bitter winds at Washington's crossing are echoed in the recollections of soldiers who attempted to reach the Burlington landing site, but what they found closer to the New Jersey shoreline was even more challenging than what their counterparts were experiencing to the north. A solid 150 yard wide sheet of ice prevented the boats from landing on the proper shore, and those carrying the troops' artillery were carried further downstream, mired among floating ice.

At that point, the surprise invasion became a case of "hurry up and wait." The 600 or so troops that had made it as far as the ice sheet were ordered to wait for further orders as Cadwalader contemplated his options. Would it be prudent to follow through on Washington's orders without the benefit of supporting artillery?

After three hours of waiting in the bitter, wind-driven cold, the troops received their orders: retreat to their point of origin at Bristol, Pennsylvania. Many of the troops felt that their efforts to reach the shore should not be wasted, and some even considered moving forward without Cadwalader. However, wiser heads prevailed, noting that they would be able to continue to support the patriot movement if Washington's plan proved unsuccessful. That, fortunately, wasn't an issue, but the ten days to follow were to be among the most crucial to the future of the young nation. Cadwalader and his men eventually made their way to New Jersey and northward, supporting Washington at the Battle of Princeton.

Today, Dunk's Ferry is better known as the town of Beverly, and the only visible sign of the planned landing site is a memorial erected by the town for the Bicentennial in 1776. Even that marker avoids mentioning the aborted landing, mentioning only that Washington and his troops used the site.

Digging up mystery on Province Line Road

My downtown New Egypt exploring done, I had a lead to track down. A few weeks ago, reader Rick Donnelly contacted me about another Province Line Road, this one separating Mercer and Burlington counties from Monmouth a few miles out of Plumsted Township. Not only was it a seeming continuation from the Mercer County Province Line Road outside of Hopewell that I'd written about last year, it runs through the state's most prolific archaeological site, along Crosswicks Creek in Ellisdale.

Crosswicks Creek, near Ellisdale.
Where dinosaurs roamed.

Ivan's the paleontology guy of this partnership, so I didn't plan to go too far into the site without him along. I don't know enough to differentiate a fossil from a weird rock, but it still would be fun to notice something unusual. I did enough research before I left Hidden New Jersey HQ to learn that the Ellisdale site is managed by the New Jersey State Museum, and collecting specimens is prohibited. No way would I pick something up to take away to show Ivan later.

Aside from the fossils, that area of New Jersey is interesting from a county border perspective. Depending on which road you take, you could be in Mercer, Burlington, Monmouth or Ocean County. Or, if you're on Province Line, you're straddling two of 'em. As I tooled around, the pentagonal blue county road markers were switching counties with alarming frequency.

Rick had written that the fossil site is near the one-lane truss bridge where Province Line passes over Crosswicks Creek. Typical for a county road, there was no shoulder to park on, but I was fortunate to find enough of a clearing among the trees and brush to pull my car off the road near the bridge. Monmouth County Parks rules were posted on a nearby sign.

The odd thing was, after I crossed the road, I saw the Monmouth signs on that side, too. Wouldn't it be Mercer -- or Burlington -- there? Maybe my map was a little off? From the road I'd noticed a tall yellow stake in the ground, several yards into the woods. It wasn't until I got closer that I noticed the aggregate concrete block next to it. Looking down, I saw an oxidized metal nub on the top, reminiscent of the tops of the meridian markers we'd first found in Flemington last year. Must be a surveyor's marker, right? I was even more certain when I noticed an M on one side and a B on the other.

Today's Hidden New Jersey story
is brought to you by the letter M.
For Monmouth, or maybe Mercer.

One had to be Burlington, that was easy enough. But does the M stand for Mercer, or Monmouth?

Times like this remind me I need to improve my exploring kit. It would have been really helpful to have a compass with me. Monmouth is northeast of Burlington; Mercer is directly north. My gut says the M is for Mercer, but I think there's a good argument for Monmouth, given the county park signs.

This raises an interesting point about county history. When the United States gained independence, New Jersey had only 13 counties. Over time, the additional eight were carved from the existing ones, until 1855, when the last one, Union, was created from the southern end of Essex. Monmouth was one of the original four counties created in 1683, while Mercer was crafted from portions of Hunterdon and Burlington in 1838. Thus, to be denoting Monmouth for sure, the marker would have to have been planted before 1838. My gut, once again, tells me it's newer than that, but I've been known to be wrong before.

I'd say this mystery was solved pretty quickly, but we still have the matter of the fossils to contend with. We'll definitely be returning with a compass and GPS. And maybe we'll even find out if there's another county marker in the area. That might be a hard one to locate though: a few yards further, the trail is interrupted by a deep wash with no bridge.

Elizabeth White: berry good for the Pinelands

Blueberries and cranberries may be the perfect foods for New Jersey explorers. Known for their deep colors and vibrant flavors, both berries are lauded as containing several chemical compounds that have been credited with blocking cancer and extending life. Factor in that they taste great and are among the state's largest cash crops, and, well, you'd be crazy not to like them.

You might recall we visited the historic Whitesbog Village cranberry farm a few weeks ago in the futile search for tundra swans. That we were going to end up in the cranberry bogs was a foregone conclusion. What we didn't realize was that we were going to the birthplace of the cultivated blueberry, developed by Elizabeth White.

When Elizabeth was born in 1871, the White family was already prominent in Pinelands farming. Her grandfather, Barclay White, had been the first in New Jersey to plant cranberry bushes for commercial harvest, where others had been harvesting from wild plants. Young Elizabeth often accompanied her father on his trips to the family farm, starting a lifelong devotion to agriculture. It's supposed that blueberries were her favorites and that she often searched out wild bushes of them at the edges of the cranberry bogs.

Though she studied at Drexel University during the winters, she spent the harvests on the farm, supervising the cranberry pickers who came to know her as "Miss Lizzie." She inherited the 3000 acre plantation when her father died, and her self-propelled education in horticulture drove her to keep abreast of developments in various crops. When she read that U.S. Department of Agriculture scientist Frederick Coville was researching blueberry cultivation, she invited him to come to Whitesbog to further his work. She and her father had often discussed the commercial possibilities of blueberries, but they knew that to find a market, they'd have to find a way to grow berries that were uniform in all qualities.

Elizabeth White's instructions
to blueberry plant finders.

Drawing on the relationships she'd built with her neighbors over the years, Elizabeth asked Pinelands residents where she could find the best wild blueberries -- or huckleberries -- in the region. Specifically, she asked about flavor, texture, size, resistance to disease and cold, and how quickly each variety ripened, providing very specific instructions for harvesting plant specimens. She and Coville then propagated and cross fertilized the various specimens to develop the optimal highbush blueberry, releasing their first harvest to market in 1916.

By 1986, New Jersey ranked second in the country for annual blueberry production, but even more importantly, many of the berries grown throughout the U.S. and Canada are products of plants whose roots, so to speak, began in Whitesbog. Elizabeth was honored by the New Jersey Department of Agriculture for her achievement, becoming the first woman to be presented a citation by the department.

Elizabeth's horticultural and agricultural achievements are widely known in the industry, but she's not as well recognized for her advocacy of migrant workers and her Pinelands neighbors. When the National Child Labor Committee published a highly critical pamphlet in 1916 about the working conditions in on cranberry farms, she swung into action to refute the organization's claims. Her close relationships with many of the families who worked at Whitesbog gave her a compelling point of view, which she communicated widely at speaking engagements and through letters to newspapers across the country. After a four year campaign, the NCLC retracted its claims and acknowledged Elizabeth's role in setting the record straight.

Interestingly, Miss Lizzie is also linked with another, more controversial Elizabeth: researcher Elizabeth Kite of the Vineland Training School. You might be familiar with Kite's work on behalf of Dr. Henry Goddard, whose studies of families in the Pinelands erroneously attributed intelligence to heredity. (While Goddard later refuted his own work, it was appropriated by proponents of eugenics to rationalize their own dangerous beliefs.) Kite's own study was perceived to infer that the residents of the Pinelands were inbred and thus unintelligent, lending to the then-commonly held belief about this little-understood region of the state. Miss Lizzie again used her prodigious communications skills to defend Kite's work and advocate for the creation of a training school for the region's people. “I am a ‘piney’ myself," she said. "That I am not generally so classed is simply because of the degree of success my forebears have achieved in their struggle for existence in the New Jersey pines.”

Miss Lizzie died in 1954, having extended her work to the propagation of holly and other Pinelands plants as the founder of Holly Haven, Inc. Whitesbog, as we mentioned after our visit, is now being preserved and interpreted by the Whitesbog Preservation Trust, and Suningive, her home, is occasionally open for tours. Given her love of the Pinelands and her family farm, I wouldn't be surprised if her spirit dwells there still.

Sugar sand and tundra swans: exploring Whitesbog

Now that we've both got our year birding lists over 100 species, we're increasing our focus on finding birds that are generally only found in New Jersey in the winter. Last weekend, the big one was the tundra swan, but Forsythe NWR, Ivan's usual no-miss site for them, is mostly out of commission as the impoundment pools are still off limits due to hurricane damage. The good news there is that the government has already started to repair the pockmarked and breached Wildlife Drive, and refuge staff expects the work to be completed by spring migration. The bad news: if tundra swans are there, you can't see 'em from the few areas of the refuge that are accessible to the public.

Still, though, we need to find the swans while they're still somewhere in New Jersey, so I reached out to the good folks at Brig for their suggestions. They recommended we try Whitesbog in Brendan Byrne State Forest. Ah, yes. Makes perfect sense: it's not all that far away, as the swan flies, and Whitesbog Village was once the state's largest cranberry producer. Cranberry growing requires bogs that are flooded over the winter to protect the plants, essentially creating shallow lakes where aquatic birds can gather. And, of course, the whole situation is a perfect Hidden New Jersey adventure, blending birding with a unique industry that many people know little about.

The General Store

Driving around the Pinelands, it's not hard to find cranberry bogs (you might recall I ran into a harvesting crew a few years back) using the industry's latest techniques. What makes Whitesbog different is that it's a step back in time. When you pull into the community, you're greeted by a clutch of small buildings and a general store, all preserved to the early 20th century, when its owner, Joseph White, was already an acknowledged leader in the cranberry industry. His daughter Elizabeth made her own mark on agriculture by successfully developing the first cultivated blueberry at the farm in 1916.

Just our luck, everything is pretty much closed up at Whitesbog during January, so we couldn't get the full experience (the Whitesbog Preservation Trust runs a series of events and tours during the year). Still, we were able to walk around and see the exteriors of some of the restored workers' houses and a few pieces of vintage equipment, and there's also a short bog trail that brings you into a small wooded area across from the general store. It was a bit, uh, soggy during our visit, and some of the boardwalks that would have gotten us over the waterier parts were out of place, so we weren't able to explore the whole thing.

Some of the workers' houses

Most important to our trip, though, the bog roads were also totally open to us. The Preservation Trust warns that visitors are taking the risks on themselves, a wise thing to consider before venturing out. You're going to be driving on berms and sugar sand that make for a sometimes pockmarked and rutted road surface, and the track is mostly only wide enough for one vehicle. These roads were intended to carry the trucks needed to maintain and harvest the crop, not to get people from one place to another. In other words, if you get stuck, you're on your own.  

Somebody in Whitesbog is a Rutgers fan!

If you go, you'll see an intersection in the middle of town with a sign denoting the bog road. Be sure to go to the right, or you'll be driving into an unending pine forest, as we did by mistake. After that detour, we got on the correct road and soon passed Elizabeth White's house, Suningive. Shortly after that, the wooded area opens up to a broad expanse of flooded bogs, which we hoped would yield flocks of tundra swans.

Except they didn't. We drove atop the berms for what felt like miles, with no birds of any kind in sight. This was supposed to be a reliable spot, yet it was completely devoid of avian life. Perhaps a little farther out? Nope. Meanwhile, we were getting farther and farther away from town, and we saw no signs guiding us to the next turn in what we thought would be a loop tour route. In Whitesbog's defense, their website directs visitors to get a map in town before hitting the road, but the visitor center and general store were closed, and the only information at the outdoor kiosk was for past events (and not a map).

You can sense a bit of our confusion in this video. (Well, I was so confused I wasn't talking straight.)

After a while, we began to wonder if we'd somehow missed a turn and ended up trespassing in someone else's bog. Regardless, we weren't seeing any tundra swans, and we'd seen enough bog to satisfy us for quite some time. The GPS would probably be totally useless in these circumstances, so we were totally on our own. "Too bad they don't have live Google Earth," Ivan lamented. Yeah, if that were the case, we'd know where the tundra swans were.

Somehow we made our way back to our starting point, but not without a few bumps and k-turns along the way. We could be extremely thankful that the gods of sugar sand smiled down on us, preventing us from being mired in a soft spot on the berms, but we were still a bit frustrated by the dearth of swans. It's been one of those months: getting some pretty unusual, rarely-seen birds while missing what are traditionally easy species to spot. In any case, I'm sure we'll get to Whitesbog again, when it's a little livelier and things are actually open.

Palmyra Cove? It's a hoot!

We've already established that it's near impossible to find owls, even when you look really hard. Fog doesn't help much. So, then, why did we head to Palmyra Cove Nature Park on an afternoon when it was shrouded in mist so thick we couldn't see the adjacent Delaware River?

To look for owls, of course. The park is a known wintering site for saw-whet owls, which nestle within the honeysuckle canopies in the wooded areas. Given our lack of success seeing short-eared owls at Manahawkin the evening before, I think Ivan was looking for some redemption.

Palmyra Cove is easy enough to find: it's on Route 73, right at the foot of the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge leading to Philadelphia. The Burlington County Bridge Commission has reverted this former dredge-dumping site to a largely natural state, with trails extending through wooded areas, a tidal cove and a couple of small ponds. While some of the foliage consists of invasive species that typically capitalize on disturbed soil, the park attracts a nice variety of bird life, including up to 25 species of warbler during migration.

Our first stop was the visitor center to pick up a trail map and check out the exhibits, which focus on the nearby bridge and community as much as the natural environment. I was rather tickled to see that the display on the town of Palmyra included a photo of local man-who-made-good Lena Blackburn, without explanation of his contributions to baseball (one wonders whether the secret location of his baseball rubbing mud source is somewhere within the Nature Park!). There's also a pair of monitors showing a live feed of the bridge's Falcon Cam: a pair of peregrines has nested on the structure for several years. They were away from the roost while we were in the VC, but visitors are encouraged to log their sightings in a book nearby.

That exploring done, we hit the trails. Given low visibility and our desire to find owls, we chose not to take the riverside Cove Trail, favoring the path system that courses through the woods. After we passed the shallowly-filled dredge retention basin, the trail began to wind and split off at points. It didn't take long until I lost my sense of direction and got all turned around.

"I'd turn back if I were you." Fog in the woods
of Palmyra Cove.

If that wasn't enough to get me disoriented, there was the fog. It wasn't all-enveloping, but it added a certain spookiness to the whole venture. As we both scanned random vine tangles for signs of saw-whets, I couldn't help but think of the haunted forest scene from The Wizard of Oz. You know the one I'm talking about: lions and tigers and bears, oh my! I knew that the worst thing we'd come upon was a deer, but still. It was late afternoon in January, with murky weather and declining daylight.

We wandered for a good half hour, finding very little bird activity, let alone owls. I spotted a flicker high up in a bare tree, but we identified it from shape and behavior because it was little more than a silhouette to us in that light. If there were any saw-whets in the tangles of vines, they weren't letting themselves be seen.

And then... hooo! Ivan found an owl, but it wasn't the species we were looking for. Whatever it was was high up in a distant tree, far higher than a saw-whet would venture. It was something neither of us had expected to see: a great horned owl. A bit of jockeying and guidance got me onto the bird, and I probably wouldn't have noticed it even if I'd been looking that far up the tree. Perched very close to the trunk and further obscured by the fog and waning light, the owl stood motionless. I thought I could make out the pattern of its feathers, but the best identifying points were its size and the ears which stood out from its head.

So, we were zero-for-two on the small and medium-sized owls that weekend, but we scored a big one.

Learning the social graces at Bordentown Female College

As we're closing 2012, I've been thinking about the places we've gone this year and the discoveries we've yet to share. Our summertime visit to Bordentown, for example, yielded a ton of great locations and potential Hidden New Jersey stories. Some were relatively easy to get to the bottom of, while others stayed frustratingly obscure.

The Bordentown Female College is one of the obscure ones. All that's left of it is a plaque and memorial fountain downtown, at the corner of Farnsworth Avenue and Crosswicks Street, a few blocks from Clara Barton's school. There's no other explanation or context nearby, nor is there a structure attached to it, so I had to do a little digging.

Women-only education has an interesting history in America, with some of the earliest examples being "female seminaries" in the early and mid 1800s. Some focused on the type of higher education we're familiar with, while others were basically finishing schools that prepared young women from wealthy families for their entry in polite society. Literature and cultural arts may have been in the curriculum, but the primary purpose seems to have been turning out nice young ladies who were equipped to have a decent conversation at a dinner party.

Bordentown Female College seems to have been more the latter than the former. Founded as a boarding school by Methodist minister Rev. John Brakely in 1850, it was advertised as "an excellent school, in a healthy and accessible locality, under wise administration and reasonable in its charges." An 1880 brochure outlined its purposes as "1st. To make thorough, practical students. 2d. To improve their manners, morals and health. 3d. To provide a pleasant home." Parents were also comforted by the fact that "The young ladies enjoy the personal supervision and maternal care of the wife of the President, whose modest and amiable qualities command the affection of all."

The school was well-regarded among its peers, attracting a student body that drew largely from New York society. A July 1869 New York Times article on that year's commencement noted that "essays read by the young ladies evinced talent and culture, the music was artistic and all of the performances of the occasion were conducted in good taste..."

BFC's tenure was relatively short, as the school fell victim to the financial panic of 1893 and eventually closed altogether. One might also wonder if the gradual growth of nearby women's colleges like Bryn Mawr and its Seven Sisters counterparts might have drawn potential students away, as well. Either way, it appears that its alumnae regarded their Bordentown experience with fond memories, as their lovely 1914-era fountain still graces downtown.

Making reservations: the Lenape at Indian Mills

Post-trip research on one Hidden New Jersey topic sometimes raises questions about other matters. And it sometimes frustrates me - I find out about destinations I'd have liked to check out, had I known they were so close to another place we'd just visited.

Indian Mills is one of those places. Nestled in Shamong Township not far from the Carranza Memorial, it was the site of New Jersey's only Native American reservation, established in 1758. The timing is key here, as it's during the French and Indian War, where, as the name would suggest, the natives sided with the French against the English settlers. Lenape tribesmen in New Jersey sued for peace, agreeing to give up their land rights provided that the legislature provided them a settlement area. The colony purchased 3,000 acres on the Mullica River for the tribe, and by the governor's decree, all natives in New Jersey were required to live within the borders of the reservation. Presbyterian minister John Brainerd joined the community, which he dubbed Brotherton for the brotherhood he hoped it would engender.

Two mills and a house were on the tract when the natives arrived, and ten houses and a meetinghouse were later constructed with Brainerd's guidance. Eventually the community became known as Indian Mills, in recognition of the businesses the natives were striving to run there. Unfortunately, Brainerd became ill and had to leave the settlement, and prospects declined for the natives as the New Jersey government refused their requests for assistance. The reservation never became fully self sufficient, and most of the Lenape left to join the Oneida in upstate New York in 1802, after selling their Indian Mills property back to the state. Whether they did this of their own accord or were essentially forced to, well, that's a matter of whom you choose to believe, but it's been said that New Jersey is one of the few places where natives negotiated the terms of their departure rather than being subjected to violence by white settlers. This would be consistent with the Lenapes' reputation as skilled diplomats who often acted as mediators between warring tribes.

A few Lenape stayed in the Pines, mostly assimilating with their white and African American neighbors. One in particular stands out for her longevity: Indian Ann. Depending on which sources you consult, Ann was born in 1804 or perhaps earlier, possibly to Tamar, the last chief of the local branch of the Lenape. She became known for her basket weaving talents and sold her creations throughout the region.

Besides her status as one of the few left of her tribe in New Jersey, Ann was also known for her three marriages. Her second husband was significantly younger than she and died in service during the Civil War, leaving her with a generous eight dollar per month survivor's pension. According to legend, her third husband was over seven feet tall and tremendously strong.

Ann died in 1890 or 1894 and is buried in the Tabernacle cemetery, where her grave is decorated every Memorial Day to honor her status as the last of the Lenape in New Jersey. However, the tribe has a presence in the state to this day, with several members of the Nanticoke Lenape settled in Cumberland County. That, however, is a story for another day...

Good enough for the elite: Chatsworth Lake

Our salute to Carranza completed, we found our way northward to Tabernacle and then eastward toward Chatsworth. The small town center is known to locals and a small group of Jerseyphiles as the capital of the Pinelands, but a hundred years or more ago, it was the preferred home of royalty.

Royalty? In the Pines? Absolutely, and specifically on Chatsworth Lake, near County Route 532.

Burlington County is no stranger to titled residents -- consider exiled Spanish King Joseph Bonaparte, who established his Point Breeze estate in Bordentown. With all due respect, though, the remote Pinelands doesn't seem to be much of a place for a monarch to settle. Why, of all the places in the world, would an aristocrat choose Chatsworth?

As many New Jersey transplants have experienced, family has a lot to do with it. A New York real estate baron named Joseph D. Beers had bought a substantial amount of land in the Pinelands in the early and 19th century, perhaps on speculation, given the success of the region's glass and iron industries. Once those businesses declined, however, Beers' family was left with about 25,000 acres of land in what was then called Shamong.

In the late 1800s, one of Beers' granddaughters, Palma de Tallyrand Perigold, married Italian Prince Mario Ruspoli, who was then serving his country as an attache in Washington, D.C. Palma had inherited 7000 acres of Beers' land, and with her husband built a Queen Anne style home fashioned after the Chatsworth estate in England. Given their stature in New York and Washington society, they entertained widely, attracting a veritable who's who of late 19th century and early 20th century elites.

As the story goes, Ruspoli and a partner developed the Chatsworth Club, a country club for their well-to-do friends and associates. Located on the lake visible from Route 532, the club grew to over 700 members, including Astors, Vanderbilts, Biddles, Drexels and even J.P. Morgan. The Jersey Central Railroad's Blue Comet ran through Chatsworth on the way to Atlantic City, delivering the famed and wealthy to the club in style from New York.

Just by happenstance, I found a trace of the story in Henry Charlton Beck's classic Forgotten Towns of Southern New Jersey. As he tells it, the club was founded by a coterie of New York capitalists including Levi Morton, who was vice president of the United States under Benjamin Harrison. It's supposed that Morton and his fellow power-brokers wanted a place where they could enjoy hunting, fishing and socializing with whomever they chose, without worrying about inquisitive newspaper reporters. Beck also opines that the Ruspoli/Perigold home served as the Chatsworth Club's main building and conveniently burned to the ground as the club itself was failing financially.

Regardless of which is true -- the Chatsworth community's own account or Beck's tale -- the Club is no more. Today, the only vestige of the venture is the 1860's era White Horse Inn, which once served as a stopping point in town for visitors to the club. A local group called the Chatsworth Club II is working to restore the Inn as a museum, using proceeds from the annual Cranberry Festival to fund their work. When Ivan and I stopped in town, the building looked good indeed. It seems they're well on their way.

Meeting the Lindbergh of Mexico... in Tabernacle

Even as we uncover obscure places, people and facts around New Jersey, I keep a short list of more widely-known destinations in the back of my head for further exploration if we happen to be in the area. I've seen a good number of the old reliables that the guidebooks and other media have featured, but there are a few I haven't gotten to for one reason or another.

The Carranza Memorial is one of them. Deep in the Pinelands, it marks the spot where Mexican Air Force Captain Emilio Carranza's plane crashed on July 12, 1928. Dubbed the Charles Lindbergh of Mexico, the aviator was concluding a goodwill tour in the United States with an attempt to fly from Long Island to Mexico City. If successful, he would have achieved the second longest non-stop airplane flight to date, after Lindbergh's own New York to Paris achievement the year before. Unfortunately, it was not to be. The dashing young pioneer ran into a thunderstorm over southern New Jersey, and his plane plummeted to the ground in dense woods outside Tabernacle.

Carranza may have crashed in an obscure area, but he was not to be forgotten. A few years later, the crash location was marked by a monument erected by the Mexican government and funded by contributions from the country's school children. Constructed of brick stones mined from every state in Mexico, the moderately-sized obelisk is marked with an Aztec eagle and an arrow to represent the flight, plus inscriptions in Spanish and English.

Sounds pretty cool, right? And with a bird on the monument, it's right up Ivan's alley, so why the delay for us? Fact is, we hadn't made it to the general Carranza-politan area because the Pinelands is seldom birded. Yeah, it's an enormous, reasonably pristine stretch of forest, punctuated only occasionally by a town or a county road, but the habitat is much less varied than what you find in other wooded parts of the state. Just about everywhere you look, you see sandy soil and slim conifers, maybe with an oak thrown in for good measure. I could go into a dissertation as to why this is, but the short answer has to do with the porousness of the soil and, to some extent, the burn cycles that favor the existing flora. Bottom line, less variety leads to fewer species of birds. And, of course, birders go where they'll find many species or a sought-after specialty.

In any case, it's been on my 'go to' list for years, and I knew it was accessible because Mexican consular officials and the local American Legion hold a ceremony there every year. "How?" was the question. Every time I noticed the memorial on a map, deep within Wharton State Forest, no decent roads seemed to lead to it. Certainly there had to be a path or trail, but I'd seen enough sand roads off thoroughfares in the larger Pinelands to think twice about taking them. Getting stranded miles from help didn't sound like much fun.

Our recent Brig jaunt brought us near the Pinelands, so I suggested we might make a lengthy detour and attempt to find Carranza. After all, we still hadn't seen our desired cone seed-eating crossbills and evening grosbeaks, we'd be surrounded by conifers, and ... eh, who was I kidding? We were going to scour vast acres of pine trees on the futile search for birds? Let's just dive in and go. We plotted a general route on county roads from the refuge and were on our way.

Thing was, we were basically aiming to get to our desired location from Wharton's southern boundary, when the best route was probably from the north. If I was reading Ivan's ancient New Jersey map properly, we were bound to run into some sandy two-track roads once we were in the forest proper, but they appeared to be unmarked and confusing. Maybe it made some sense to stop and grab a map at Batsto Village, on the southern edge of the forest. Finding that was easy, given all of the directional signs on the road.

Now, the historic community of Batsto deserves an entry all to itself, and we'll definitely get there again for a closer look, but it was too late in the day us to do it justice on this trip. The information desk folks were very friendly and advised us to head north on a county road lining the eastern edge of Wharton, then make a left onto Speedwell-Friendship Road, which would bring us to Carranza Road and the memorial, directly across from the Batona camp. The paved road would turn to gravel, but at least we'd avoid the rutted sand/dirt roads.

We zoomed east and then north on the prescribed county roads, past cranberry bogs I recognized from my past visit to Chatsworth (you mean I'd been that close and didn't realize it???). Now fully harvested, the bogs were dry, the plants a dark red color that made them look berry stained. We went on a bit longer until we arrived at our left turn, Speedwell-Friendship Road.

Now we were truly in the Pines. Thin, scraggled trees lined both sides of the road, many so close together it appeared impossible to hike between them. "A deer could never get a rack through there," I observed as Ivan directed the car down the straight road. About three miles in, the road track turned to gravel -- not as secure as macadam but definitely preferable to sand. Overall, the surface quality was decent, with few potholes or other potential perils. Still, I'd avoid driving it at night; the desolation and lack of streetlights would create quite a challenge, particularly for those who fear old JD.

We made the right turn onto Carranza Road, hoping our destination wasn't that much further ahead. Cars and SUVs became visible through the trees on the side of the road, which meant we'd either reached the Batona camp, the memorial was a lot less hidden away than I'd thought, or we'd totally messed up and were headed into a more populated area we hadn't known about. Then....

There it was! Located in a large clearing, the obelisk is bordered by several hardy plants that reminded me somewhat of agave or aloe vera. The park was bigger than I thought it would be; somehow I'd imagined the memorial was just planted among the pines. Visitors can learn Carranza's story from a bilingual wayside marker, and two holes in the ground appear to be there to receive American and Mexican flags for the annual ceremony.

We were starting to lose sunlight, and we wanted to stop in Chatsworth, so we were on our way after paying our respects to Carranza. As luck would have it, the road turned from gravel to macadam maybe a mile or less north of the memorial. Keep it in mind if you want to make a visit there: the trip is quicker and smoother going south from Tabernacle, but if you want more of a Pinelands experience, come in from the south.

As I've been thinking about Carranza, I'm struck by a couple of things related to the popular comparison of him to Lindbergh. It's interesting to think that just a few years after Carranza's plane, reportedly an exact replica of The Spirit of St. Louis, crashed in the wilderness of the Pinelands, Lindbergh moved his family to a remote location in New Jersey's Sourlands, looking for a respite from unrelenting public attention. Lindbergh was forced to leave the country to find peace after the kidnap of his first child. Carranza is a footnote in world aviation history but is remembered by family, country and a small but dedicated group of New Jerseyans who return to his death site every year. Lindbergh's Sourlands estate is maybe a little less remote, but still obscure and hard to find unless you've found a local who can tell you where it is. That's a Hidden New Jersey jaunt for another time.

Francis Hopkinson: bringing wit to the Revolution

The dry history lessons of our school days often did a disservice to some really cool and interesting people. Without checking out the stories much further than we did in grade school, we often miss the true spirit of some dynamic, clever and even fun people who shaped the world we live in.

Hopkinson's Bordentown residence, where he
presumably wrote his satirical ditties.

Take, for example, Francis Hopkinson, signer of the Declaration of Independence and resident of Bordentown during the Revolution. As we found out during our August visit, he was a bit of a renaissance guy, having also designed the state seal while dabbling in science and the performing arts. He's acknowledged to be the composer of the earliest surviving secular song written in the United States, and he invented a floating lamp.

Interestingly, the plaque on his house also noted that he was a 'great satirist,' a designation you don't often see on historic markers. During the Revolutionary War, he wrote several poems to tweak the British, one of which memorializes an act of harassment on the Delaware River that started in Bordentown and ended in Philadelphia.

It all started on January 6, 1778, when a substantial number of ships in the British fleet were located in the Philadelphia harbor. Working at the behest of several patriots, a cooper in Bordentown constructed several kegs which were then loaded with gunpowder and outfitted with trigger mechanisms. These makeshift mines were then floated down the Delaware, intended to detonate and damage British ships which were assumed to be at anchor in the river.

The scheme didn't go quite as planned. Due to icy conditions in the river, the Redcoats had docked most of their ships at port, leaving little opportunity for the kegs to collide with them along the flow of the river. Only one of the incendiary devices exploded, killing four crew members who'd attempted to haul it up onto a British barge.

In response, British officers ordered their men on shore to fire at any mass floating in the river. Given that it was nighttime, soldiers couldn't differentiate between the kegs and other flotsam, leading them to fire wildly at ice floes and logs as much as the explosive barrels.

While the keg plot itself was a failure, Hopkinson saw the episode as opportunity to promote the hapless British response. When you need fodder for propaganda, nothing bolsters the spirits quite like your opponents' miscues. The Battle of the Kegs is a spirited ditty when sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle, though Hopkinson cheated on the meter a bit by including far too many "sirs." By tweaking the poor judgment of the British on that chilly evening, it demonstrated that the Americans weren't cowed by their opponents' military might.

Had Hopkinson been born 250 years later, he might have used his talents on Saturday Night Live. Instead, his poems and songs traveled by word of mouth, encouraging his fellow patriots to continue the fight and consider independence a wholly realistic possibility.

History at every turn: strolling through Bordentown

Fresh off our Clara Barton discovery, Ivan and I drove to downtown Bordentown to see what other treasures were there for the finding. What we found was a quaint downtown, more of a 19th century feel than Burlington or Mount Holly, but still a throwback. Bank buildings were large and stately, the streets were wide and welcoming, and the architecture is Colonial with a mix of Classical and European influence.

Some of the yards were fenced off with very cool wrought iron.

Oh, and there were some cute shops and eating places, too. It's a nice place to stroll and browse on a summer afternoon.

Important to us, sites of note were clearly marked. Bordentown is clearly proud of its heritage, both as a hub of transportation and as home to a cast of characters who might be considered rabblerousers of the Revolution. Starting in colonial times, the town's location made it a key spot for travelers between New York and Philadelphia, so it was a natural base of operations for revolutionary notables.

Since it's the kind of place where we could reasonably expect that the attractions listed in the WPA Guide to New Jersey still exist, I took it with me after we parked the car. I didn't want us to miss anything important. Within walking distance, we found a wealth of history:

• Thomas Paine, the noted patriot and author of Common Sense, lived in Bordentown when he wasn't in France. You may recall that we first ran into his New Jersey exploits at New Bridge Landing, where Washington's 1776 retreat inspired Paine's classic, The American Crisis.



Francis Hopkinson's house.

• Lawyer and artist Francis Hopkinson stayed in town after marrying the daughter of the man for whom Bordentown is named. Hopkinson not only signed the Declaration of Independence, but was a talented satirist and is credited with designing the New Jersey state seal. He's definitely a subject for a future Hidden New Jersey post, but for now we'll say that his poems and jingles inspired patriots both to fight for independence and to have a good laugh at British military.
• The tracks of New Jersey's first railroad, the Camden and Amboy run on the bed of a sub-surface cut through downtown. Just a mile away, the state's first steam locomotive, the John Bull, was built and tested in 1831.
• The Delaware and Raritan Canal's western end is at the base of a steep embankment just outside the business district.
• The home of Patience Wright, who was America's first sculptress of note, well, when she wasn't spying for the colonists in London.

We also found a bit of fun in the shops around town. Crammed with all kinds of pop culture musts, Randy's Man Cave lacks for floor space to walk on, but more than makes up for it with Beavis and Butthead bobbleheads, loud music and Quisp cereal (really!). There was a bit too much Phillies memorabilia, but given the location, I guess that can be forgiven.

Apparently the entrance to Bonaparte's estate.
We heeded the sign's direction.

The marquee explorer's site in Bordentown, of course, is Point Breeze, home of the exiled Joseph Bonaparte, King of Spain and Naples. Much of the site is overgrown and foreboding, with the remainder taken over by the Divine Word Seminary, so we left it unexplored, regrettably. Given the dense vegetation and the connection to noted ornithologist Charles Bonaparte, it would have been a kick to do some birding there.

A one-room revolution: Clara Barton in Bordentown

Having checked out the wonders of Mount Holly and done some reconnaissance on potential nearby birding sites, we decided that maybe it was time to head back home. That, however, was a short-lived plan. We'd just made it onto the Turnpike from the Pennsy Pike extension when we ran into a massive traffic jam. Rather than sitting there, we decided to exit at Interchange 7 and take our chances with Route 206.

"I have a feeling we'll run into something really good," Ivan said, confidently. If past experience could be our guide, he'd be completely correct. Exit 7, of course, serves Bordentown, a place I'd long wanted to check out. The closest I'd gotten was finding out the Bonaparte connection... but never knew quite why the town would hold any interest for an exiled 'royal' family. 

Per Ivan's prediction, it didn't take long for us to find something interesting. As we drove down Crosswicks Street, we came upon a small building with one of those glorious blue historic markers. "Clara Barton School."

Many don't know this, but before she became known as a leading health advocate and founded the American Red Cross, Barton was a schoolteacher. She was a Massachusetts native but came to teach in Bordentown after a visit to a friend in Hightstown. At the time, the custom was for teachers to bill students at the end of each term, a practice she sought to change in favor of a free public school supported by funding from the town. In her estimation, far too many children weren't getting an education because they couldn't afford private school tuition.

Her popularity with students and parents helped to push the idea forward, and in 1852 the town allowed her to start her new school in a one-room building that predated the Revolution. As more and more children learned about the availability of free education, the school quickly swelled to a student body of 600. More teachers and more buildings were pressed into service to manage the demand.

Unfortunately, it appears that Barton's success planted the seeds of her undoing in Bordentown. According to the Bordentown Historical Society website, a lengthy bout with laryngitis caused her to miss a few months of school, and in that time, local officials replaced her with a male principal at a salary reported to be twice what she was being paid. She was also deemed to be his assistant, a position she found distasteful. She resigned her position and moved to Washington D.C. for higher-paid employment.

Barton made an indelible impact on Bordentown and New Jersey in just over two years. She'd founded one of the first free schools in the state at a time when free education, while provided by statute, was rarely provided to any but the indigent. Children all over the state joined forces in the early 1920s to honor her work by restoring the one-room schoolhouse, and today it stands as a picturesque reminder of the dynamic woman who brought knowledge to those who might not ordinarily have had the chance to study.                                                      

Stopping by the Mill Street Hotel and Tavern

Our stroll through Mount Holly brought us to a classic part of virtually any colonial town: the inn. The Mill Street Hotel and Tavern looked the part, even without the sign hanging on the porch, stating the founding date as 1723.

The WPA Guide to New Jersey describes the place as “the last remnant of the Three Tun Tavern,” with “original brick walls, revealed in places by a crumbling coat of stucco.” During Colonial times, inns were classified by size, with the ‘tun,’ or hogshead, used as a measure of the amount of liquor there. The Guide goes on to describe a covered cobblestone drive where stagecoaches would stop before heading to the carriage yard around back.

Both the stucco and the drive are gone, the former leaving a brickface and the latter being replaced by a garage door and transom windows. While it appears that the hotel may have evolved into a rooming house, a neon Coors Light sign indicates that the bar is still in business. It was a bit too early in the day for us to check on that personally.

Initial research on the place doesn’t reveal much else, except conjecture that the British Court of Admiralty met there in the last year of the Revolution. Mount Holly was occupied from time to time during the war, and while I can’t find any information on specific judicial action there, patriots generally found Court actions objectionable. Admiralty judges were paid based on the fines they levied, so their decisions could be, well, somewhat influenced by factors other than the law.

One last thing about the Mill Street Hotel and Tavern: there was something about it that drew the focused attention of some interesting raptors. In my experience, it’s fairly unusual to see a pair of black vultures peering into a chimney, but that’s what we saw. Perhaps an errant squirrel or raccoon had made its way up the roof and into the flue, expiring there when it couldn’t get out. We couldn’t quite tell, and the vultures weren’t saying a word. Maybe they're the returned spirits of the Admiralty judges?