Going to church: the amazingly well-preserved Old Broad Street Presbyterian

I've long been of the mind that keeping a historic building in continuous use is the best way to keep it from deteriorating. An impressive structure on West Broad Street in Bridgeton proves that sometimes, the direct opposite is true.

Standing on a full city block along the main road, surrounded by scattered gravestones from the late 18th century to the present, the Old Broad Street Church owes a good part of its fine condition to the fact that it was largely abandoned in 1836, just over 40 years after it was built. According to the church's website, it may be the most pristine example of Georgian high ecclesiastical architecture surviving in the thirteen original states.

We visited on a recent Sunday afternoon, when the congregation generously opened the doors to a curious public. From the outside, the two-story brick building appears both stately and simple, designed in the manner of the Philadelphia churches of the day. Doors on three sides of the rectangular church welcome visitors; curiously, the only side without a door is the one that faces the road. One of the side doors was open, and as we walked past, I noticed what appeared to be a metal beam running from a metal box diagonally up to the ceiling. Was this some sort of reinforcement, added during a restoration attempt? Hopefully we'd find out.

A bit of neck strain for the folks in the expensive
seats? Photo courtesy Library of Congress. 

Walking inside, we were welcomed by a member of the friends organization, who gave us a brief history of the church, the first Christian congregation organized in Bridgeton. Its original members had been worshiping at far-flung churches and wanted their own meeting place in the growing town. By 1795, they had their own church, complete with box-style pews. The more prosperous congregants usually purchased pews closest to the front of the church, but as our hostess observed, prominence may have come with a cost. Sitting so close to the elevated pulpit, the rich folk had to strain their necks to see the minister in his elevated pulpit. Meanwhile, the view from the back pews was just fine.
 
The building's simplicity reminded me of a lot of Colonial-era Presbyterian churches I've visited, but unlike those, I could easily imagine early Americans sitting in Old Broad's pews to worship. Instead of wood floors, this church had brick, and the white paint on the pews both looked and felt sturdier -- more durable -- than what you usually see in a building that's been converted to central heating. The only concession to weather extremes is that curious metal contraption I'd noticed earlier, a two-stove and piping system constructed at nearby Atsion and installed in 1809. No other modernization has been done to the building since then: no plumbing, no electrical work, no mechanical systems.

This plaster medallion adorns the center of the ceiling.

It's a wonder the ornate plaster ceiling details have lasted so long, given the lack of climate control. That said, the absence of complications like plumbing and a constantly-working furnace may be what saved it. Uneven heating and leaky pipes have been the downfall of countless neglected historic structures.

As our hostess shared the history of the congregation, another docent told us we absolutely had to check out the balcony level, especially the east side. Religion had been part of the curriculum at the local school in the early 1800s, so students were brought to the church for instruction. Separated by gender, the girls sat in the western balcony, the boys opposite. How can we know for sure? The wood of the western pews is pristine, while those on the east are marked with carved initials and names. Come to your own conclusion.

So why was the church abandoned so early in its history? The growing city's population shifted eastward in the early 19th century, and Presbyterians understandably wanted to worship closer to home. They built a new church on the east side of town and left Old Broad Street. As will happen over time, the congregation has seen splits and mergers over its 230 plus year history, but they haven't forgotten their roots. Family plots in Old Broad Street's sizeable churchyard still take in new burials, adding to more than 10,000 graves that include resting spots of several members of Congress, New Jersey Governor Elias Seeley and a good number of veterans of the American Revolution and the Civil War.

The living are welcome, too, just a little less often. The doors of Old Broad Street open for worship during August and a special service on Thanksgiving Day. And if you're lucky, as we were, you'll happen by when they're having an open house. Between the truly striking architecture and the welcoming spirit of the church's friends and congregants, you'll be glad you stopped by.

A tankard of liberty at Potter's Tavern in Bridgeton

If we've learned anything in our travels, it's that the terms "first" and "oldest" are often up for debate when it comes to historic places and events. Sometimes the claims have to be qualified (as in "oldest existing governor's mansion still at its original site") while other times, the boast is the well-meaning exaggeration of a proud community. Either way, there's usually a good story to be found, making our visit well worth the time.

A first was what led us to Potter's Tavern in Bridgeton: some contend that New Jersey's first Patriot newspaper was published there. Since we'd already told a similar story about the New Jersey Journal, the Continental Army-endorsed paper founded by Essex County printer Shepard Kollock in 1779, I knew we had to get the scoop.

On our first Hidden New Jersey visit to Bridgeton last year, we discovered the city holds the state's largest historic district, an impressive array of 18th and 19th century structures. Potter's Tavern stands prominently on West Broad Street, across from the latest of several successive courthouses to stand in town. While several taverns operated locally in the late 1700s, Potter's was especially popular with lawyers, who would would stop in before or after conducting their business at the courthouse, engaging in discussion of current events.

The tavern's contribution to history starts in 1775, several months after the initial battles of the American Revolution were fought in New England. New Jersey soil was untouched by bloodshed at that point, but a small group of Greenwich men had already acted on their displeasure with British rule by conducting their own version of a tea party, burning a shipment of the English import in the community's market square. Others were actively debating the various options of an evolving relationship with Great Britain: maintaining status quo, negotiating with the Crown on issues where colonists had grievances, or continuing the armed battle for independence.

Sometime before Christmas of 1775, one of those tea burners and other patrons of Potter's Tavern decided to issue their thoughts in a handwritten document on a weekly basis. Several wrote essays that were then collected and given to a scribe to be penned into one long document that was posted at the tavern. None of the essays was signed; the fact that they were transcribed by one person assured that no particular man's handwriting would betray him for advocating treason and rebellion. Tavern owner Matthew Potter wasn't one of the authors, but he could have been arrested just for allowing his customers to work on the newspaper on his property.

More than a dozen issues of the Plain Dealer were published from late 1775 to early 1776, helping to galvanize support for independence from British rule. Though Cumberland County's Loyalists attempted to find the writers and hold them legally accountable for their rebellious words, no-one was ever identified. After the war, several authors came forward, including two future New Jersey governors -- Richard Howell and Joseph Bloomfield -- as well as local physicians Jonathan Elmer and Lewis Howell. Copies of the Plain Dealer are housed in Rutgers University's Special Collections in New Brunswick.

The Cumberland County Historical Society opens the tavern to the public a few times a year,* including the day we visited. The smallness of the place seemed about right; you could see how the intimate setting would encourage the regulars to share dangerous ideas. We learned that the Potter family not only operated a food and drink establishment in the building, but lived there, too. The seating area on the first floor was about the size of a small living room, with a cozy fireplace and a barred-in counter where the alcohol was locked up. An authentic colonial kitchen in the back brings visitors back to colonial days. One of the restored rooms upstairs is interpreted as a bedroom, while the other exhibits historic maps of Bridgeton and Cumberland County and a collection of military swords used by Potter men from the Revolution through World War I.

All of this brings us back to the original claim and a question: was the Plain Dealer, indeed, New Jersey's first newspaper? The state's now-deceased de facto historian, John Cunningham, felt its regular publication schedule was enough to qualify it as a newspaper, while others say no. I contend that the label we put on it doesn't matter nearly as much as the impact of its existence. Unless another example can be found, it marked the first time New Jerseyans regularly put pen to paper to debate and promote the merits of independence from the British Empire. That's clearly enough to recommend it, and to place Potter's Tavern on the list where Americans risked their freedom to express their heartfelt beliefs.

* Those who'd like to arrange a private tour can make arrangements through the Historical Society.

For Halloween, some of our favorite haunts

It's Halloween, and New Jersey-based websites are having a field day with posts citing the state's top scary and haunted places. If you're into old graveyards or things that go bump in the night, there are plenty of places where you can satisfy your itch to get a good fright.

At Hidden New Jersey, we generally don't cover the mysterious, spooky and altogether ooky places that are well known to many explorers, but the spirit of the day got me thinking. Of all the places we've been, which ones do I wish were haunted? Or perhaps more accurately, which ones have stories so interesting I'd like the chance to commune with the people who once lived or worked there?

Here are a few I'd like to revisit, this time with a Ouija board or trusty medium:

Site of the explosion

The site of the Kingsland explosion: It was 1917. The United States was on the brink of entering World War I, and Lyndhurst's Canadian Car and Foundry plant was manufacturing munitions for American allies. Saboteurs were afoot, and Tessie McNamara's quick actions were the factor between life and death for her 1700 coworkers as explosions tore the factory apart. Everyone got out safely, but the saboteurs were reportedly never found. Did they go up with the blast?

The seafaring community of Mauricetown: This now-quiet town once was home to what was probably the largest number of sea captains per square acre. I'd love to hear what one of those captains saw on his many journeys to foreign lands, long before airplanes made the world much smaller. What exotic places did he see? What did he think of the native people he met?

Along the Morris Canal

The Morris Canal: whether it's the excavated remains of an ingenious inclined plane, landlocked port towns in Warren County or the canal bed that's been repurposed as the Newark City Subway, this long-dormant technological marvel has tons of stories to tell. A cooperative spirit, say of a mule tender or barge captain, might have a few words to spout about the canal's now derelict state.

The Delaware Bay lighthouses: More than one old lighthouse has a tragic story of a lonely, suicidal keeper living a solitary life miles from shore. To my knowledge, none of the Delaware Bay lights in New Jersey waters have such a tale to tell, but I'd still like to chat with one of the early keepers at Ship John Shoal, Miah Maull or Cross Ledge Light.

Gloucester City's Immigration Station

The Gloucester City Immigration Station: It was first Philadelphia's Ellis Island, then part of a Coast Guard base, then abandoned and now an office building. What were the hopes, dreams and fears of those who were detained here? Where did they ultimately end up?

Earl R. Erdner's warehouses in Woodstown: Simple, sage wisdom is right there on the outside walls, ripe for the reading. I'd love to know if the long-dead Mr. Erdner has any more advice for us from the great beyond.

Alexander Hamilton's room at Liberty Hall: While still a young student, America's first Treasury Secretary was the guest of Governor William Livingston's family in what's now Union Township. He already held ambitions for greater things and was building friendships that would serve him well throughout his career. What was going on in his teenaged mind?

Whatever you end up doing to commemorate All Hallows Eve, have fun! And if you happen to run into the Jersey Devil, give him our regards.

Stranded real estate: Delaware Bay's water-based lighthouses

A few months ago, we made a virtual visit to one of New Jersey's most obscure historic sites, the Ship John Shoal Lighthouse in Delaware Bay. This time, the imaginary cruise takes us to two other locations out of sight along the coast of Cumberland County, the Ship John Shoal's neighbors, the Miah Maull Shoal Light and the Cross Ledge Light. Together, they've helped guide vessels around the shoals, or submerged sandbanks, that create moguls of sorts, where ships could go aground if not for some skillful maneuvering and clear warning.

Starting in the mid 1800s, the United States Lighthouse Board erected several lighthouses on shoals in the bay, using the screwpile method first and then the more advanced caisson style in later construction. Aside from their isolation, what made them fascinating to me, when I saw photos of them, was their diversity. Unlike the Great Beds Light in Raritan Bay, which is shaped more like a spark plug, the Delaware Bay lights were built in many different styles. Some even looked like houses of their day, albeit swept to sea and landed on firm platforms.

Miah Maull Shoal Lighthouse.
Photo courtesy US Coast Guard.

The squat red Miah Maull Shoal Light gets its somewhat unusual name from a tragic event in the rich Down Jersey nautical history. Nehemiah Maull was a second-generation Delaware River pilot, son of an Englishman who'd immigrated to the New World in 1725. Despite his presumed navigational skills, Maull perished in a 1780 shipwreck in Delaware Bay, not due to his own miscalculations but someone else's. As the story goes, he was a passenger on his way to Great Britain to gather his share of family wealth when the ship went aground on the shoal that became known by his name.

It took more than 120 years before the Federal government saw fit to mark the shoal with an aid to navigation. At the recommendation of the Lighthouse Board, Congress allocated funding in 1906 and 1907 for the construction of the circular, three-story caisson-style light, topped with a lantern room and anchored in a 400-foot diameter plot of submerged land on the New Jersey side of Delaware Bay. Foundation work was stalled by the original contractor's financial issues but was finished in time to host a temporary light by September 1909. Meanwhile, the cast-iron body of the lighthouse itself was being completed in Pennsylvania, finally being installed on the foundation, fitted out and entered into service in 1913. Oddly, the structure was painted brown at the start, which doesn't seem like the best choice for a lighthouse day mark, though it might contrast well enough in foggy weather.

The Miah Maull's service history seems to have been rather mundane -- no big collisions, a lens upgrade, and the exterior paint change to red. After automating the light in 1973, the Coast Guard transferred the three-man crew to other duties, finally declaring the lighthouse as surplus in 2011. Like several other lights, including the Ship John Shoal and Great Beds, Miah Maull was first offered to non-profits for historic preservation, and then transferred to the General Services Administration for auction. It appears that despite two auctions, it's still hanging out there, claimed by no one but the cormorants and gulls that congregate there.

As Miah Maull awaits its fate, it's still been faring better than one of its former neighbors. The stone platform of the Cross Ledge Lighthouse off Fortescue was once the foundation for a two-story wood-frame house topped with a lantern room. Built in 1875, its light was extinguished in 1907 with the opening of the Elbow of Cross Ledge Lighthouse. During World War II, pilots on bombing practice from NAS Wildwood used the retired light for target practice, dropping flour sacks on it to hone their aim. The house met its sad destiny in 1962 with a fire intentionally set by the Coast Guard, presumably to avoid vandalism to the abandoned building. Ironically, the replacement Elbow of Cross Ledge light had already been virtually destroyed during a 1951 hurricane and succeeded by an unstaffed beacon atop a skeleton tower.

Getting out to the Delaware Bay lights is possible, but not an everyday opportunity unless you have a friend with a boat. A couple of boat operators run the occasional scheduled tour to a variety of the lighthouses, but if you're going to take that option, be sure to ask which locations they'll take you to. Not all will stop at the Miah Maull, Cross Ledge or Ship John Shoal, and there are others out there, some in Delaware waters.

Nailing it down in Bridgeton

Like many of New Jersey's county seats, Bridgeton walks the thin line between historic and kind of rough around the edges. Some of the buildings downtown are well cared for and restored, while others just look old and a bit rickety, reminding me of what we saw during our visit to Mount Holly. There's a lot of potential in the Cumberland County city, maybe just not enough funding or consistent momentum to follow through quite yet.

To their credit, interested Bridgetonians worked to have portions of the city placed on the National Register of Historic Places, creating the state's largest historic district. More than 2000 buildings stand within the district's boundaries, with notable samples of Colonial, Federalist and Victorian architecture among them. Though they don't have the attention-grabbing quality of having been homes or workplaces of famous Americans, they're remarkable in that they represent the history of an early southern New Jersey industrial town. And with so much history having been torn down in other places in the name of progress, it's remarkable to be able to visit a place where so many older structures remain without being substantially updated, at least on the outside.

After my stop at the Garton Road Shul, I decided to make a pass through Bridgeton and explore whatever caught my eye first. That turned out to be City Park, a 1100-acre tract running along the historic Cohansey River. Though, like the rest of town, it appears to have seen better days, it's a nice spread, with pleasant walking trails, basketball courts, fishing lakes and the Cohanzick Zoo, the state's first municipally-owned zoo. It just needs a bit of the TLC that it seems many municipal budgets can't accommodate these days.

Just beyond the old-fashioned welcome sign on Mayor Aitkin Drive, I came upon an tan clapboard building that looked as if it might be an old park office or clubhouse. A marker notes that the property was the site of the Cumberland Nail and Iron Works, once one of the city's largest employers. The building was the company's office and the last structure remaining from the business.

The glass industry was a dominant force in 19th century Cumberland County, but foundries and other iron-producing ventures found a home in the region, too. Following the establishment of a similar venture in Millville, David and Benjamin Reeves founded the Nail and Iron Works along the shores of the Cohansey in 1815, capitalizing on power from a nearby dam and the availability of Pinelands bog iron.

Over the years and through several changes in ownership, the business grew to line both banks of the river, with nail cutting machinery on one side and a rolling apparatus on the other. In the late 1800s, the foundry employed up to 400 men, with an annual production of 40,000 kegs of nails and 4 million feet of piping. A 1902 directory of iron and steel works says the Cumberland Nail and Iron Works was operating 14 coal and oil-fired furnaces, along with 90 nail machines with an output of 140,000 kegs. By then, its pipeworks had been sold to another company for the production of gas tubing.

It's a challenge to imagine how the site looked when the operation was in full swing, but it must have had some attraction to non-employees, as Bridgeton residents often came onto the Nail and Iron Works property for recreation on the river and the rolling hills above. Ultimately, the city purchased the land and the office building in the 1901-1902 timeframe for use as a public park.

What ultimately happened to the company, it's hard to determine. Was it sold and moved to another location? Did it go out of business? I got no answers from the old building. Tourist guides for the area will describe it as the Nail Mill Museum, reported to hold fascinating artifacts ranging from nails manufactured on site and samples of Bridgeton glass to a model railroad setup. Unfortunately I couldn't check it out because it's been closed for the past few years, with a 2011 county notice to vacate the property still tacked to the front door.

The building may not be accepting visitors, but one of its relics remain fully visible to passers by: what's said to be South Jersey's oldest public clock. Installed in 1830, the large timepiece is embedded in the front wall of the building. It has dials both inside and outside so that company management could see it as easily as the employees hustling past to get to work before starting time. And its two faces reportedly bear the names of two different men: John Whitehead and J.C. Harris, though the Haddonfield-based Whitehead is generally acknowledged as the craftsman who built the clock. As the story goes, Harris, a Bridgeton clock repairman affixed his own name to the inner clock face when he fixed the timepiece.

My sources tell me that the clock is a longcase or grandfather-style, meaning that somewhere within the works, a pendulum helps it keep accurate time. It may have just been a coincidence, but when I was there, it was showing the correct time, taking away the extra hour we leaped forward for daylight saving in March. Even though workers are no longer checking their arrival and supervisors aren't docking for a late arrival, it seems that the spirits of Whitehead and Harris may just be keeping that timepiece running accurately.

Back to shul on Garton Road: vestiges of South Jersey's Jewish agricultural past

Drive around rural Cumberland, Gloucester and Salem counties, and you'll be struck with the number of small yet vibrant churches you'll pass on the road. One I saw on a recent visit actually had "garden angels" in its front yard: scarecrows of a sort that were dressed in pretty, almost angelic garb.

If you drive slowly enough down one particular two-lane road in Deerfield Township, you'll see another small house of worship. This tiny white box of a sanctuary is different from the others: instead of a cross, its simple facade is adorned with a blue Mogen David, or Star of David. Its official name is Beth Israel, but it's better known as the Garton Road Shul.

I first heard about the shul during a search for information on several Jewish agricultural communities that had been settled in the region in the early 1880s. Prompted by the pogroms of the time, Russian Jews fled Europe for America to avoid persecution and possible death. In a situation that's still often experienced by immigrants today, many of the refugees were educated professionals but arrived to find themselves relegated to sub-par living conditions and jobs far below their capabilities. Some took up the call to return to the soil and moved to rural areas to become farmers, aided by charitable organizations like the Alliance Israelite Universelle. (We've seen similar back-to-basics approaches taken, for different reasons, in communities like Roosevelt and Fellowship Farm.)

Unlike many similar colonies in other parts of the United States, the South Jersey Jewish farming collectives met with a degree of success. Decent soil and rail access to Philadelphia and New York meant the farmers could easily get their products to market while attracting funding and visits from benefactors from the cities. Urban "pleasurenikers" flocked to the farms during the summer to escape city heat, boarding at the farms and bringing additional income to the settlers.

The names of these once-flourishing colonies still dot maps of the region today - Alliance, Brotmanville, Norma, Zion, Mizpah, Rosenhayn - though the villages themselves have become more secular in nature, if they still exist at all. I drove through Norma to find it's pretty much a cluster of homes and a post office, and I suspect that I passed through Brotmanville and Rosenhayn though I didn't notice any real signs of towns.

If the communities are hard to locate and generally mentioned in history books as a collective group, Garton Road is both the easiest and most difficult to find. The road itself is shown on maps, but there's very little written about the colony that shared its name. Fortunately, the Cumberland County Cultural and Heritage Commission has posted a small sign at the location, with a link to more information. Between that and a few other sources, the story started to come together.

What I discovered was this: a handful of immigrant Jewish men settled on 20 acres along the road in 1888, naming their community Garton Road for local lumber merchant Henry Garton. After clearing sites for small houses and a farm, the men sent for their families, and together the community learned how to grow vegetables like corn, strawberries and beans. One of the defining characteristics of the group was their devotion to agriculture, continuing to work the farm when many in the neighboring communities turned to other ways of making a living.

Religion, of course, was an important factor of life at Garton Road, and the devout Orthodox residents walked to the Rosenhayn synagogue to attend sabbath and holiday services. The arrangement lasted only a few years; older members found the three mile trek taxing, leading the group to form its own congregation in 1890.

According to the Jewish Federation of Cumberland, Gloucester and Salem Counties, Garton Road's Beth Israel congregation met in a member's home as they saved funds to build a shul of their own. The owner of New York's Yiddish Theatre loaned them the rest of the necessary money and the building was erected. Still, though, the congregation had no rabbi of its own, counting on the wisdom of some of its more learned members for guidance.

When I stopped by to see the shul, I was awed by the fact that an entire community of devout worshipers could make do with such a small synagogue. It's hard to believe there's a balcony in there, where women attended services hidden from view by a curtain, per the Orthodox tradition. As many as 20 children at a time crowded into the building's entryway for religious instruction, and attendance swelled when the pleasurenikers stayed for the summer. Somehow, more than 150 congregants were able to worship in the structure each Sabbath.

The small building has seen highs and lows along with the community it serves, with farm foreclosures and the Great Depression reducing the population in the 30s and the influx of German Jews fleeing for the safety of New Jersey enlarging the group during World War II. By the 1970's, however, the early congregants had died and their children had moved away to build lives in more developed areas. Better road systems and transportation made it easier for those who remained to attend services in larger temples in Bridgeton and elsewhere. The little shul opened only during the High Holidays.

Today, the Garton Road Shul is cared for by members of the Ostroff family, descendants of a family that came to the community from Russia in 1898. While I was only able to see the outside of the building when I visited, I can safely say they're doing a wonderful job. The white doors and clapboard walls look fresh, clean and unweathered, as if they were recently painted, and I could easily imagine that congregants had been there just hours before for Shabbat services. Surely, if the community's founders could see it, they'd be kvelling.

From exhibition to obscurity: Ship John Shoal Lighthouse

You've got to get into a boat to find the Ship John Shoal Lighthouse, making it one of our most remote and hardest-to-access Hidden New Jersey subjects. However, it was once so easy to find that thousands of people saw it every day.

No, nothing's really changed with the shipping lanes, and no, it's not that a beach has been closed down somewhere. It's the beacon that's moved. The Ship John Shoal Lighthouse holds the rare distinction of having been shown at an 1876 Philadelphia exhibition before settling down in Delaware Bay, beyond view off Cumberland County shores.

This lighthouse is among several in the middle of the bay, marking shoals within the shipping channel that are hazards to navigation. Starting in the mid 1800s, the United States Lighthouse Board erected several beacons of varying styles, all standing on platforms anchored to the bay's sandy bottom. The Ship John Shoal light was to be the first to use a circular base designed to protect its foundation from the blows of winter ice floes.

A few years ago, I took a bay cruise to get a closer look. Unfortunately, we weren't going to be able to land at any of the lighthouses, since they're still mostly Coast Guard aids to navigation. Nonetheless, we'd get close enough to imagine what it must have been like for lighthouse personnel to be stationed there, in the elements and prone to being crashed into by misplaced ships. Some crew members, we were told, slept in life jackets in case a nighttime collision dislodged their house from its base.

Most, if not all of the lights on Delaware Bay deserve a good Hidden New Jersey story, but when I found the Philadelphia connection to the Ship John Shoal, well, I couldn't resist telling it. It's not often you find a photo of an offshore, caisson-style lighthouse nicely landscaped with an access road, as in the stereoscope card I found illustrated in my online research.

The story goes like this:

Congress approved funding for the Ship John Shoal Lighthouse in 1873, allowing the U.S. Lighthouse Board to survey its proposed site and begin preparing it to accept the base of the light. A year later, the Board had constructed the caisson base and erected a temporary structure for the winter, expecting the permanent lighthouse to have been fabricated offsite in time for installation in 1875. It was to be one of two identical lights put into service that year, the first of which was sent to Connecticut as the Southwest Ledge when the foundation there was completed first.

Enter our nation's centennial, celebrated in Philadelphia through the first world's fair, known popularly as the Centennial International Exhibition. From the arm and torch of the yet-to-be-built Statue of Liberty to the telephone and even a working model of Morristown's Ford Mansion, exhibits demonstrated the best of what America offered to the world. The Lighthouse Board, wanting to impress with its own latest technology, sent a lighthouse: the one meant for Ship John Shoal.

Photo via lighthousefrields.com . The platform
to the left once held fuel and now hosts solar panels.

With sloped, octagonal mansard-style roof, dormer windows and lantern house surrounded by a widow's walk, the 45-foot high lighthouse must have looked like an odd Second-Empire style home, perched, as it was, on a circular platform. Every night, the resident keeper lit its light, seemingly providing a warning to any ships on the Schuylkill River that might otherwise make a wrong turn into Fairmount Park.

More than ten million people visited the Exhibition over six months in 1876, enjoying the offerings of a dozen nations. It's not clear how many might have visited the Ship John Shoal Light during its Philadelphia summer, but I think it's safe to say that in the nearly 140 years since, nowhere near that number of people have stopped by for a chat.

Moved to its final home a few months after the Exhibition closed, the lighthouse was lit for the first time on August 10, 1877. Crews kept it running until 1973 when an automated system was installed. It continues to operate as an aid to navigation today, though it was sold to private owners as excess government property in 2012.

As for Fairmount Park, it appears to be doing quite well without a lighthouse. Last I checked, vessels are navigating the Schuylkill just fine on their own.

The Vineland wine that wasn't: the evolution of Welch's Grape Juice

With increasing frequency, a drive around New Jersey countryside will have you riding past a vineyard or two, particularly in the southern part of the state. We're not talking big, Napa Valley-sized productions, but several viniculturalists are making a decent living producing and selling wine here.

Historically, though, the most famous product of our vineyards isn't wine at all.

It's hard to think of a time when unfermented grape juice didn't exist, but 160 years ago, it didn't. Sure, you could make the juice, but you couldn't store it very long without ending up with, well, wine. This was a problem for the many 19th century churches that advocated temperance: it was difficult to promote a life free from alcohol when your own ministers were providing wine at each Communion service.

The father of grape juice that doesn't ferment:
Thomas Bramwell Welch

It was especially problematic in Vineland, which had been founded as a utopian, dry community by Charles Landis in 1861. In an apparent contradiction, after discovering that the region's sandy soil was ideal for vineyards, he promoted the community as a worthy spot for Italian grape growers.

While not a viniculturalist by profession, dentist and ardent Methodist Thomas Bramwell Welch cultivated grapes in his Vineland backyard. He and his church's minister, Rev. A.K. Street, were both troubled by the presence of wine during services, and in 1869 they agreed that Welch would produce enough juice from his grapes to supply an alcohol-free Communion.

Welch harvested grapes from his own vines, squeezing them by hand to get the juice. The near-term issue was solved, but what would they do when the grape growing season was over? Even if he were able to bottle enough juice to supply the church for the winter months, they'd eventually end up with wine.

Ever the experimenter, Welch turned to new developments in science for an answer. He'd read about Louis Pasteur's experiments with wine, in which the liquid was briefly heated to about 140 degrees to kill the microbes that cause unwanted acidity. Perhaps modifying the process would eliminate the alcohol-creating organisms entirely, thus allowing pasteurized juice to be bottled and stored for long periods without the danger of it turning to wine.

After more experimentation, Welch hit upon the ideal process, and a new industry was born. Word of the "unfermented wine" quickly spread through the Methodist community, and Welch soon found himself struggling to keep up with the demand. He'd had no intention of starting a business but soon found himself building a small factory, purchasing machinery and incorporating the Welch Fruit Juice Company.

Welch himself didn't seem too impressed with the prospect of growing the business much further, but his son Charles saw possibilities beyond dry Communion. Buying his father out in 1873, he started on an ambitious promotional campaign that encouraged people to buy the drink for home use ("unfermented wine: it's not just for church anymore"?). He even exhibited at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, where thousands of people got their first taste of New Jersey grape juice that wasn't fermented. Welch's Grape Juice was a big hit.

Though its "dry" beginnings and sandy soil were fertile ground for the start of the business, Vineland was the victim in Welch's success. When the demand for grape juice exceeded the ability of the surrounding farms to produce enough fruit, Charles moved the business to upstate New York, which was better able to supply the crop. It's since expanded its product line and become a staple of the American household. The company dutifully outlines its New Jersey roots in its website, but I'll bet few people actually realize where this quintessentially American beverage got its start.

Well preserved: the birth of the Mason jar

Few realize it, but New Jersey's southern counties could take a legitimate place among the pantheon of influential sites in preserved food technology. As we learned this summer from our visit to Upper Deerfield Township, Seabrook Farms was a pioneer in flash freezing vegetables and became America's largest frozen food processor. However, the groundbreaking work of Clarence Birdseye and C.F. Seabrook was preceded by another technology that helped millions of homemakers preserve the bounty of their farms and gardens without refrigeration.

Yup, the Mason jar was born in New Jersey, invented in 1858 by a Vineland native named John Landis Mason. To be fair, he was already established as a metalsmith in New York City when he came up with a practical way to extend the shelf life of preserved produce, but he returned to his native state to bring the concept to reality. It wasn't loyalty, just practicality that brought him back: he needed a good jar, and South Jersey's glass industry was in its heyday, with several factories using the local sand to turn out a superior product.

Mason was building on the work of Frenchman Nicolas Appert, who, nearly 50 years earlier, had theorized that the act of heating food would sterilize it to prevent spoilage. It wasn't known why -- Louis Pasteur wouldn't perform his groundbreaking work in germ theory until the 1860s -- but inventors quickly sought ways to capitalize on Appert's findings. The tin can was introduced as a storage option a few years later, but the technology wasn't practical for those who wanted to preserve their own food, nor was the food inside the cans visible. Others had come up with canning methods using cork and wax, both of which proved problematic.

Going a step farther, Mason designed a porcelain-lined zinc lid that would form a protective seal as the food cooled within the glass container. That, however, required a jar that could receive the lid effectively. Mason chose to work with Samuel Crowley, whose glassworks were on the Mullica River not far from Batsto. Outlining his concept, Mason asked if Crowley could make a jar with a threaded mouth that could accept a screw-top lid. Not long after, master glassblower Clayton Parker produced the prototype jar, and a month later, Mason received the patent for the jar that bears his name.

Having proven that the practicality of his concept, Mason returned to New York and went into business with partners there to manufacture his new invention. He eventually returned to New Jersey, moving his family to New Brunswick and working with the Consolidated Fruit Jar Company, which gained rights to his invention. According to the Encyclopedia of New Jersey, he later patented a soap dish and a life raft, but to my knowledge, those have fallen into oblivion.

Today, "Mason jar" is one of those iconic names that has stuck to a group of products, despite the fact that other manufacturers have become far more prevalent. Some still use them for canning, others as beverage glasses. However you come upon them next, take a moment to raise a drink -- or some preserves -- to the man from Vineland who made them possible.

Seabrook Farms: history and diversity through vegetables

Sometimes in our travels we drive through places that just feel as if they have a history but don't give it up with historic markers or preserved buildings. Their stories are so obscure that even if they've been documented and presented somewhere nearby, that place is hidden from casual view.

Such is the case with Seabrook, deep in Cumberland County. Despite the countless hours I've spent banging around back roads and farmland, I'd never found a single sign of its fascinating history. In fact, without knowledge that the community is part of the larger Upper Deerfield Township, it's hard to find Seabrook at all. I knew that somewhere in that flat expanse had been a unique place that had made agricultural history and achieved a level of cultural diversity few rural communities could boast.

After some investigation, I found the story in the basement of the Upper Deerfield Township Municipal Building. The volunteer-run Seabrook Educational and Cultural Center does an amazing job of telling the community's story, from the technological advances made by the Seabrook Farms company to the factors that brought workers of many ethnicities to a remote part of the state to work together.

Photo ID badges 

First, the business of the Seabrook Farms company. Started by Albert P. Seabrook in 1870, the farm really hit its stride under the leadership of A.P.'s son Charles F. (also known as C.F.). Among the agricultural firsts at Seabrook was the use of overhead irrigation and gasoline-powered tractors. In the early '30s, C.F. partnered with Clarence Birdseye and General Foods to quick-freeze vegetables, which subsequently enabled Seabrook to become the first major produce supplier for the U.S. military. At one point, the company operated the largest processing plant of its kind, supplying 20 percent of the nation's packaged frozen food.

Providing that kind of output requires a sizeable workforce, and the need became especially acute during World War II. Migrant laborers, Caribbeans and college students traditionally worked the fields during the summer, but many were called to war, leaving a severe labor shortage. Japanese-Americans who'd been placed in internment camps at the start of the war were eventually permitted to move to other parts of the country for work, and many chose to try Seabrook. German prisoners of war, held in nearby Centerton, were sent as additional labor. Displaced Europeans from Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Hungary and Germany also found their way to Cumberland County and the farm. During the 1940s and 50s, 32 ethnicities were represented within Seabrook's workforce, with more than 20 languages being spoken around the farm. By 1947, the community had the highest concentration of Japanese Americans in the country, representing the largest ethnic group to work for a single U.S. employer at the time.

A representation of part of Hoover Village

With so many new people coming to the community for work, C.F. also realized it was necessary to provide living accommodations. The Japanese named the housing Hoover Village, and exhibits recall the crowded and drafty buildings, with communal bathroom facilities.Whether the housing was better than that at the internment camps isn't said, but it most likely fell far short of the homes they had originally been forced to leave. On the other hand, workers' spiritual needs were addressed with new Japanese Christian and Lutheran churches, as well as what was probably Southern New Jersey's first Buddhist temple.

Many of the WWII-era arrivees chose to stay in Seabrook after the war's end, and the Educational and Cultural Center highlights their contributions to community life. Displayed next to the scout uniforms and sports trophies are various traditional ethnic crafts and artifacts, demonstrating how residents retained their cultural identities even as they became more Americanized. For those who want to learn more, the center maintains scrapbooks of newspaper and magazine articles about Seabrook, dating back to the 40's.

C.F. sold Seabrook Farms to another operator in 1959, and though it remained as a subsidiary for several years, the company name eventually left store shelves. However, if you drive down State Route 77 today, you'll see a small sign pointing to Seabrook Brothers and Sons Company. C.F.'s grandsons have brought the family back to the frozen vegetable business, right in the community where their great-grandfather started it all in 1870.

And the Seabrook Educational and Cultural Center? Its friendly volunteers continue to collect artifacts and oral histories as they work to establish a permanent home for the collection. The museum may be a bit off the beaten track (and hidden, at that), but it's well worth the trip.

Bivalve: not quite a shell of its past

A trip to the Delaware Bayshore isn't complete without a visit to Bivalve and Shellpile, and I wanted to share both locations with Ivan, who hadn't been there before.

On my last visit, most of the Bayshore Discovery Project museum wasn't open, so I was very happy to see that the exhibit rooms were unlocked and prime for wandering this time. We were there about two minutes before a bunch of people showed up with a guide leading the way. Oops... I guess we were supposed to check in before we wandered around.

Housed in an old packing shed, the Delaware Bay Museum Folk Life Center's exhibits focus on the lives, work and tools of the people who once called the community home. It's chock full of artifacts, including a long-handled oyster rake, shucking implements, a big old captains wheel and a section of post office boxes where residents could pick up their mail when they were in town. A set of shelves held oyster cans in a variety of sizes from household to institutional, labeled with different brand names. Our fellow visitors pored over the old photos arrayed in the exhibit, recognizing some of the people in them as parents and grandparents of friends.

Old vessels on the Bivalve docks lend authenticity
to the legends of this fascinating and historic place.

When we'd seen what the museum had to offer, we walked out back, to a covered dock area with three or four bays. One still held a sunken vessel whose bow and exhaust stack barely breached the water's surface. A hundred yards or so across the gentle waters of the Maurice River, we could see a few geese wading about on a spit of land.

We were there around 3 p.m., after the small restaurant had closed up for the day, but from the menu accessible from the Bayshore Discovery homepage it looks like a good place to get a seafood snack on the weekends. It's good to see life coming back to the waterfront there, even a tiny bit.

As we walked back out to the car, we ran into the guide who'd staffed the museum earlier. We got to chatting with him about life there and the potential for decent birding nearby. Mentioning the boardwalks and platforms PSE&G had built in the nearby estuary area, he advised us to drive past the big shell pile and the shellfish processing facilities, which would bring us within an easy stroll of the walkways. I had my doubts, based on prior experience, but okay.

Here's why I had my doubts: I know something about that shell pile. Four years ago, almost to the day, I visited Bivalve and made the video below. Check it out to see what I mean:

What this video doesn't mention is the souvenir I brought home: the rank stench that ended up on my vehicle. The drive to the shell pile was paved with crushed shell and pockmarked with potholes brimming with shellfish leachate. Even at a crawl, my tires kicked up some of the stench-laden water and transferred it to the undercarriage of my car. It tracked me all the way home, forcing me to make an unplanned visit to the car wash.

Despite having had that experience, I was willing to check it out for the sake of finding a few shorebirds. I was set to draw the line if I saw a lot of standing water in our path, but it appeared that the owners had worked on the road a bit in the four years since I took that video. We drove through a few thready puddles, but I wasn't overly concerned. 

I parked near the end of the road, and Ivan and I simultaneously opened our doors to step outside. Almost immediately, and absolutely simultaneously, we shut them again. UUUUUUGGGGGGG!!!!!!!! In those few seconds, the foul odor of decaying bivalves had invaded the cabin and our olfactory organs. We had to leave the area immediately to air out the car and our noses.

Well, maybe not immediately, because the shell pile was rife with birds. Gulls and shorebirds of various extractions... even a few snowy egrets were picking around the clam carcasses. Where else in heck do you see snowy egrets doing that? Where was my video camera this time around? 

The sheer volume of birds was impressive, but alas there were no remarkable finds, and we were soon on our way to find sweeter air. I'm disappointed, because the potential stories would have been great. Imagine the post to the bird boards: "XYZ Tern at Bivalve shell pile, foraging with several other terns and gulls. Drive carefully and do not open your doors or windows."

Exploring the spartina at Gandy's Beach and Thompson's Beach

My Cumberland County jaunts always bring me to Bivalve and Shellpile, a phenomenon I explained in a post last December. This time, with Ivan on the trip, there were plenty more stops beyond my usuals.

After we finally escaped the local roads around Greenwich and got a quick lunch in Bridgeton, we headed east on 49 and then took Buckshutem Road southeast. In the past, I'd had variable results with that approach: sometimes I'd reach my intended destination, other times I'd get hopelessly lost. Ivan was navigating, and we were headed to his target birding areas, so I figured we were set. The worst thing that could happen is that we'd stay on Buckshutem and end up near Mauricetown. I could find my way to familiar roads from there, easy.

Signage was excellent, guiding us off Buckshutem and onto roads that would lead us to Gandy's Beach, Fortescue and, eventually, Port Norris. After a stop in Bivalve, it was then on to Thompson's Beach by the Heislerville WMA.

The self-proclaimed weakfish capital of the world, Fortescue deserves its own entry someday. It's Gandy's Beach and the farther-east Thompson's Beach that totally blew my mind. Both are protected natural areas and truly a sight to behold. Imagine acres and acres of spartina in various shades of green, interrupted only by the occasional cedar. I'm not much of an artist, but had I had oils and a canvas in the car, I would have stopped and attempted to capture the landscape. Even with an overcast sky, I felt a strong feeling of rightness, of being in the right place at the right time.

Our visit unfortunately came near high tide, so beaches (at Gandy's) were slim strips of sand, trails (at Thompson's) were impassable and the shorebirds Ivan wanted to see had nowhere to land, but we got other treats instead. Easily a dozen osprey were visible at both beaches, as were a large number of egrets of various ilk. At Gandy's Beach, two harriers glided playfully over a clump of cedars; Ivan supposed they were a parent and a juvenile still in the training phase.

On the more frustrating side at Thompson's Beach, secretive clapper rails called noisily, as close as the spartina surrounding the elevated observation platform. These guys, like the ever-elusive yet vocal marsh wren, obviously believe in being heard but not seen, which in the wren's case, had me cursing out random birds for well over a year before laying eyes on one. Had I not already lifed a rather brave rail that had walked onto a mud flat at Brig, I'd probably have held the same grudge with the clappers, too.

The rails at Thompson's sounded so close that I was tempted to wade into the sogginess and part the grass to find them. Instead, I silently listened to their cacophonous calls, smiling at the thought of the sheer numbers of them in the surrounding marsh. Clapping was a suitable reaction to the natural beauty of both sights, and a tribute to the happenstance that prevented the Delaware Bayshore from being developed. It's hard not to look at these broad expanses without wondering if this is how even a small part of the Meadowlands looked before the hand of man interfered.

Green(wich) tea: tasting a litte burnt

One of the best things about visiting Down Jersey is also one of the most challenging. Unlike the Atlantic shore that most state residents are familiar with, the Delaware bayshore has no highway or main road that approximates the curve of the land near the water. The broad network of marshes, creeks and streams, combined with the lack of aggressive real estate development, create a situation where the only state thoroughfares in the region are well inland. Thus, if you want to get from one waterside community to another, you have two choices: either go north to Route 47 or 49, travel a little and then head south on a county or local road, or patch together a route using 'name' roads that may or may not have county designations.

The first option sounds safer, but you end up seeing a lot of the same stuff as you retrace your steps, which is dull from an exploring perspective. The second option can be a bit disorienting, but you see more interesting things, and you likely save time in the long run.

I chose the second option when we left Hancocks Bridge for Greenwich. I'd been to the small, well preserved town via the Route 49 route in the past, so taking the back roads would be as much an adventure for me as it would be for Ivan on his first visit. We were in my car, so I grabbed my laminated flip-fold Southern New Jersey map, discerned an almost-straight shot route and then handed off to Ivan for navigation duties. Directional markers are really very good on these roads, too, so I was confident we'd make our way just fine.

Our route took us through territory that was bucolic even by Down Jersey standards. Lots of cultivated acreage rolled past us, interspersed occasionally by a few buildings marking the center of towns like Othello which don't even make it onto Google Maps. I was taking it on faith that our path would lead us directly to Ye Greate Street, the historic main thoroughfare of Greenwich and the place I knew from earlier visits.

Eventually we started seeing the distinctive well-tended and old-looking buildings as well as things marked "Greenwich." Okay, we've made it to the town limits, but where's Ye Greate Street? Ivan didn't see it on the map, but the Tea Burning Memorial was clearly marked. The big problem was that the map didn't list county road numbers, just street names, and I was all turned around because we hadn't come from 49. No worries: we had plenty of gas in the tank, lots of daylight left and no deadline to get there.

Finally Ye Greate Street made itself known and things started looking familiar. Though the streets are paved and cars are parked here and there, Greenwich always gets me thinking about Colonial Williamsburg. The houses, both brick and wood-sided, big and small, are narrow and tall for the most part, but there are also a couple that are a bit more squat and wider. There's also a building that doubles as a general store/cafe with a separate post office. Despite our hopes for someplace to eat, the store was closed for the summer.

A little farther down, we came upon the Greenwich Tea Burners memorial, ringed by a decorative metal fence. Erected in 1908, it commemorates the December 1774 uprising that echoed the Boston party a year earlier.

Interestingly, the tea was in this busy port on the Cohansey River distinctly for safekeeping. Philadelphia was deemed too dangerous for the cargo because patriots were both boycotting British tea and destroying what they could find of it. The captain of the tea ship Greyhound was told that Dan Bowen, a friendly loyalist in Greenwich, would hide the controversial shipment in his basement until it could safely be brought to market.

It didn't take long for news of the newly-arrived tea to get around Greenwich, and a small committee formed to determine what was to become of the tea. A more spirited group had a different idea. Before the committee came to consensus, a group of 23 patriots costumed themselves as Indians and broke into Bowen's cellar to steal the tea. They brought it to the market square and ignited it in a huge and rather fragrant bonfire.

Spurred by frustrated local Tories, the loyalist government twice attempted to prosecute the tea burners but failed to gain a conviction. According to some accounts, the tea burner who suffered the most was a man named Stacks, whose love of a good brew apparently compelled him to stuff his pockets with purloined tea before joining his compatriots in setting the rest ablaze. It's not clear whether he took it to sell or for his own consumption, but he was known as "Tea" Stacks until his dying day.

Our tea fix gotten, our next stop was for lunch. A number of options awaited us in Bridgeton, not far away as long as we could find our way back to Route 49.  No GPS, no compass, and a map that Ivan described as "a bunch of lines, laminated." This was going to be fun. Any wonder why I stocked up on snack bars and water before we left home?

East Point Lighthouse: at the end of New Jersey

To many people, the 'end' of New Jersey is Cape May Point, punctuated by the lighthouse.

To me, it's East Point, in Heislerville, also punctuated by a lighthouse.

Cape May is nice and all, but there are way too many people for it to be the 'end.' The end, to me, is a place where everything stops, and it's just you, nature and a broad expanse of water with no indication of land on the other side.

I first found East Point during a New Jersey Lighthouse Society Lighthouse Challenge Weekend. Held every October, these events encourage people to visit all of the open lighthouses in the state. The year I did it, that meant 11 structures that ring the coast starting at Paulsboro at the Delaware River and curving around the lower contours of the state and upward till you get to Sandy Hook at the mouth of the Raritan Bay. Starting on the river side, I visited two sites and was debating the third, which was a good 90 minute drive away near the mouth of the Maurice River.

That third lighthouse was East Point, a bit of coastal New England on the shores of Delaware Bay.

I was absolutely transfixed on that first visit, even with dozens of people present. East Point is the true middle of nowhere, and it's very easy to stand among the surrounding reeds and the wind, and consider this the edge of the earth. Imagine being the lighthouse keeper there, back in the day when Down Jersey was even more remote than it is today.

East Point began service in 1849 and is the second only to Sandy Hook in age among New Jersey lighthouses. Unlike most of the state's navigational beacons, it's a true house with a light on top, rather than a tower and lantern. It operated until the start of World War II, when it was extinguished for defensive purposes. Rather than relighting after the war, the Coast Guard deeded the building to the state, whose neglect doomed East Point to damage from the elements and vandalism.

Fast forward to the early 1970s, and a group of local residents banded together to save and restore the lighthouse. The Maurice River Historical Society has been working to bring East Point back to life, slowly but surely, first replacing the roof and lantern room and then successfully petitioning the Coast Guard to reinstate it as an active navigational aid.

I've visited the lantern room a handful of times during open houses, which generally are held on the third Saturday of each month during the spring, summer and early fall. It's been a while so I'm not certain how far the interior restoration has gotten, but on my most recent visit I was happy to see they'd gotten matching grants to continue their work.

In a way, though, it doesn't matter that much to me. Don't get me wrong: I'm all for bringing East Point back to its former glory. I just don't go there to see a perfect lighthouse. I go there for the atmosphere. It's the perfect place to contemplate life.

The more populated places in New Jersey don't offer a lot of opportunity for introspection. Before you can even start an interior dialogue, you have to block out all of the distractions, and that can be a mammoth challenge. At East Point, you're left with your thoughts, or perhaps with a close friend if you'd like. There's nothing getting in the way, except maybe a fisherman who's just as intent on solitude as you are. I didn't check, but I wouldn't be surprised if cellular service didn't reach that far.

Sunsets are beautiful there, as I'm sure sunrises are, too. Horseshoe crabs clamor next to the small boat launch in the spring to lay their eggs, and Monarch butterflies stop by for sustenance and a rest in the fall. The phragmites turn with the season, and the tide goes in and out. The rhythms of the natural world take over, and bring you with them.

Only slightly clammy: the towns of Bivalve and Shellpile

If you're sick of congestion and crowds and noise, have I got the place for you!

Years ago I found Shellpile and Bivalve, twin communities in the larger community of Port Norris, which is, in turn, part of the even bigger Commercial Township. These mollusk-themed places share a common link to the fortunes and downfall of New Jersey's oystering heritage.

It just looks as if these boats are sailing on shells.

You read that right: New Jersey and oysters. It's not widely known now, but in the first half of the 20th century, Delaware Bay was home to an abundant oyster population and a significant fishing industry to capitalize on it. A vibrant business community settled in Shellpile and Bivalve to harvest and process oysters, shipping them in long freight trains to markets in New York and Philadelphia. The name Shellpile, in fact, refers to the vast mountains of oyster shells dumped outside the processors' factories. Thousands of people lived nearby, mostly in sub-standard housing, filling the demand for labor at all stages of the oystering process.

A lethal parasite called MSX (Multinucleated Sphere Unknown) decimated the region's oyster population in the late 1950s, taking the fates of Shellpile and Bivalve with it. Today, a few companies continue to process clams and oysters brought in from other areas, but for the most part, the community has taken on a ghost town-like aura. The only time it livens up is for the annual Bay Day in June.

To get to Shellpile or Bivalve, you first need to drive through Port Norris, an experience straight out of a Twilight Zone episode. The streets are lined with homes and the occasional business or government building, but rarely is there a soul to be seen. The place doesn't look especially well-off, though it's definitely liveable. Where is everyone?

I wasn't sure what to expect when I visited recently. It had been a while since I was down there, so I didn't know if some of the structures I knew would be gone, but I was pretty well assured nothing would have improved. I'm still hurting from the time I visited to find that the fabled Shellpile Restaurant had been sold. I didn't have the heart to go inside and find out whether the owner had sold his out-of-this-world crabcake recipe along with the building.

On this visit, I was pleasantly surprised to see a big red, white and blue banner flapping in the breeze near the waterfront, welcoming visitors. The Bayshore Discovery Project had restored one of the historic shipping sheds, and it was actually open for visitation. When I went inside, two women were engaged in a meeting, busily talking about an upcoming event to be held there.

The Bayshore Project people have been in Bivalve for years, as it's the home port for the official New Jersey state schooner, A.J. Meerwald. Formed in the late 80's, the Project organization is responsible for the restoration and upkeep of the Meerwald and use it for a variety of educational purposes. Their larger goal is to motivate people to take care of the environment, the history and culture of New Jersey's Bayshore Region through education, preservation and example. During the summer, the Meerwald offers sailing excursions and summer camps to give kids and adults alike the opportunity to see what life was like on an oyster schooner in years past.

Unfortunately, the museum exhibit was closed during my visit, but I wandered through the building and outside a bit to find signs that it's probably pretty active during the warmer months. They even have a raw bar set up, which is enough to get me to return.

Outside of the immediate wharf area, Bivalve was very very quiet, looking, as always, like a painting Edward Hopper might have done during a period of severe depression. Old boats up on blocks had obviously not felt salt water lapping their hulls in many a year, and the church building was as shut-up and abandoned as it had been when I first saw it over a decade ago.

I took the narrow road through fields of phragmites to check out the Shellpile waterfront and found the same, if not more so. Summertime near the old Shellpile Restaurant is often more active, given the boat launch nearby, but on a Saturday in December, there wasn't much more than a few turkey vultures and a flock of gulls picking through a small pile of clam shells. When I first started visiting the area, I found it eerie. Now I find it curiously calming. Yeah, there's the possibility of a random visitor or resident driving by, but I've never been questioned or confronted by anyone when I was there. Somebody would actually have to be around for that to happen, and it often feels as if I'm the only human being within miles.

Mauricetown: a Victorian seafaring town

I was once at an event in Cumberland County where a woman complained to a local that it had been a long trip from, as she pronounced it, "Moooorstown." What ensued was the New Jersey version of "Who's on First," with one person thinking what she said was perfectly logical, but others getting a totally different meaning from her words.

It took some time to determine that she was, indeed, from Morristown (Morris County) rather than Moorestown (Burlington County) or Mauricetown (Cumberland County). Depending on who you talk to and where you are geographically, they can all sound the same, but they're distinctly different. 

I stopped in Mauricetown on my recent Down Jersey jaunt because I'd heard its streets were lined with vintage homes, many of them meticulously restored. According to The WPA Guide to 1930's New Jersey, Mauricetown was home to nearly 90 seafaring captains between 1846 and 1915. That's still quite evident today, as many of the Victorian, Georgian and saltbox style houses boast signs stating their original owners' names. The town is nestled against the banks of the Maurice River, a convenience the sailors must have appreciated after long voyages away from family and friends.

At its peak, the community hosted major shipbuilding activity and contributed significantly to the region's oystering industry. Schooners were a regular sight along the river, but today, all signs of commercial activity on the Maurice appear to be gone. Even a bridge at the end of one of the main streets no longer stands, replaced, instead, by a picturesque park with a couple of benches.

There's not a lot going on in town these days, beyond the normal comings and goings and a few antique stores, so I just took a drive around to snap a few photos. I parked the car to take some pictures of a beautiful white church, and a man across the street suggested I come into his yard for a better shot. He introduced himself as the pastor and asked if I was in town for that evening's Christmas house tour. Residents decorate their homes and some of the other vintage buildings for the holidays every year as a fundraiser for the town's historical society. I was planning to be back on the road home by the time it started, but I'll definitely keep it in mind for next year.

Some of the homes are less well-kept than the others, and one, in particular caught my eye. More accurately, the realtor sign in the yard caught my eye. It needs some work, but it's a nice size, four bedrooms, two baths with a little bit of land to boot. When I got home, I checked to find it's on the market for less than $180,000.

I have to say: it's tempting. 

Step back to World War II at Millville Army Air Field

Given the choice of where to wander in New Jersey, I'll always go for the Delaware Bayshore region. Miles and miles of mostly flat surface brings farmland, small towns and sparsely populated marshlands. Driving is effortless, and it's easy to get lost if you don't know where you're going. Usually I go by instinct, and while I get lost from time to time, I've always found my way back home.

I've been itching to head back down to Cumberland County, but our southern jaunts tend to be dominated by birding at Cape May or Brigantine. With Ivan out of state on a chase, this past weekend was the perfect opportunity for me to get up early and hit the road before the rest of the world had wiped the sleep from its eyes. My goal: reach the end of the Turnpike by 9 a.m. and wander for the bulk of the day.

I was headed for the nether-reaches of the state: the area you really can't reach quickly from the Parkway or the Turnpike. Look at the map and you'll see what I mean. You'll spend a good hour on secondary state highways and then you'll end up in the middle of nowhere. "What exit?" means nothing there. The area is rife with long county roads with hyphenated names that refer to the end points.

Having been there so many times, I was stuck with the dilemma of exactly which spots to highlight. I have a few old favorites I've visited repeatedly. There are other places I've yet to find, though I have a good idea where they might be. In the end, I chose to stick with the familiar and leave the new places to future jaunts.

And, true to fashion, I got lost. I saw a familiar road name and made the turn, only to recall five miles later that it was the same wrong turn I always make. (Note to self: Buckshutem Road = stay on the other road.) While it didn't get me to my intended first stop, it got me someplace equally as interesting.

Millville is known for a bunch of interesting things: glassmaking, a historic village, and the Millville Army Air Field Museum. Contained within a commercial airfield that's still in use, the museum commemorates and celebrates the nation's first defense airport, opened in 1941. More than 10,000 soldiers and civilians, men and women, were stationed at Millville at some point during World War II, and 1500 of them were trained there for advanced air fighting. The museum tells their story while also relating military air history from the later conflicts in Korea and Vietnam.

For such a quiet and out-of-the-way place, the Air Field Museum has a surprising wealth of artifacts and research materials. I first visited about ten years ago and was impressed by the collection of World War II memorabilia, but the collection has grown substantially since then. Students of 20th and 21st century American military engagements can research their interests at the Henry Wyble Historic Research Library and Education Center. Seaplane enthusiasts will be especially interested in the Philadelphia Seaplane Base Museum, which includes artifacts from the early days of flight to the present.

Outside, you're welcome to walk right up to a collection of unrestored mid-century military equipment and aircraft, including a C-23 Sherpa that served the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Once a year, the museum also hosts the Wheels & Wings Airshow that includes other vintage aircraft and often hosts premier U.S. armed forces aerobatic teams like the Navy Blue Angels and Air Force Thunderbirds. The skies over Millville may no longer buzz with the traffic of military pilots in training, but it still holds an important place in aviation history.