Reaching Delaware without the toll: the odd case of Kilcohook

Is it wrong for a loyal Jerseyperson to want to invade Delaware?

I'm not talking about the whole state, just the part you can walk to from New Jersey, toll free.

Yup, you read that correctly: we share a two mile land border with the Blue Hen State. Most maps don't do much to point it out, but a small sliver of land next to Finns Point National Cemetery in Salem County is technically part of Delaware.

To understand how New Jersey got cheated out of the acreage, we have to go back more than 260 years and beyond the peninsula that, by all rights, should be all Garden State.

First off, you'll note that the upper portion of Delaware forms an arc. It was originally drawn in a 12 mile radius from New Castle, as directed in a deed granted by the Duke of York to William Penn in 1682. The arc stopped at the low water mark on the New Jersey shoreline because the Duke had already granted the land beyond to John Berkeley, Lord of Stratton, in 1664. It's kind of an odd situation, as our other nautical borders are determined either by the center of the body of water, or the lowest elevation of the waterway.

So if the arc ends at the low water line where Berkeley's grant starts, then why does a two-mile long stretch of the New Jersey/Delaware boundary sit on dry land?

Sometime in the early 1900s, the Army Corps of Engineers started dredging the Delaware River to improve navigation up to the Port of Philadelphia. They had to put the dredge spoils somewhere, and apparently the remote, undeveloped coastline at Pennsville seemed a good option. The vast majority of human neighbors are already six feet under at Finns Point, and they weren't complaining.

The new land grew over the years, with about 580 acres of it rising above the low-water mark to become defacto Delaware territory. In 1934, President Franklin Roosevelt designated the full 1400+ acres as the Kilcohook Wildlife Refuge, a pitstop for migratory waterfowl like pintail ducks and teal. Eventually, though, continued dumping drove away avian visitors, and the plot was transferred to the Army Corps as a "coordination area" in 1998. Fortunately for the birds, the existing land to the east was designated the "Goose Pond Addition" to Kilcohook in 1961, later becoming Supawna Meadows National Wildlife Refuge.

New Jersey has taken Delaware to court over the boundary issue three times in the past century. In the 2007 dispute, Trenton legislators even light-heartedly considered sending the Battleship New Jersey to defend the territory. All three cases went to the Supreme Court, which ruled against us every time. (The two dissenting justices in the 2007 decision, Scalia and Alito, were born in Trenton, though their provenance seems to have had nothing to do with their opinions.). None of those decisions, however, specifically involved the dredge spoils area, whose jurisdiction remained a local issue.

As you can imagine, policing the area can be problematic. The Army Corps claims no responsibility, and technically, the Pennsville police had no jurisdiction. The spot was a magnet for mischief for partiers and a de-facto chop shop for car thieves. They knew the chances of being arrested and prosecuted were slim. When local law enforcement called the Delaware State Police to handle incidents on the acreage, it took troopers an hour to get there.

Finally, in 1989, the Delaware secretary of state agreed that this small slice of the First State could, indeed, be subject to New Jersey law. Pennsville police can now enter the territory to keep the peace and investigate wrongdoing. But I still wonder if they could get me for crossing the boundary and declaring the land to be the dominion of Nova Caesaria. Not that I would ever actually do it.

Exploring Fort Mott

Stop two on the refuge/fort/cemetery tour was Fort Mott State Park in lovely Pennsville, NJ.

Located on the shore of the Delaware River, Fort Mott was one of three Endicott-era installations built during the mid- and late 19th century to protect the mouth of the river, and the only one located in New Jersey. Just across, on Pea Patch Island, is Fort Delaware, and Fort du Pont is at Reedy Point, just east of Delaware City.  During the summer, a ferry shuttles visitors between Mott and Pea Patch Island, but in the winter, you're pretty much on your own.

Fort Mott once had more than 30 buildings, including offices, barracks, housing and a hospital, but many structures were taken down after the property was transferred to the State of New Jersey following World War II. Just about all that's left now are the gun batteries, a few buildings, a magazine and some observation towers. Given New Jersey's budget issues, the buildings were closed, but we could still roam around and read the wayside signs to learn more.

To start, we found out a bit about the man who lent his name to the fort, Major General Gershom Mott, a native of Lamberton, near Trenton. Serving with distinction in the Civil War, he was wounded several times and eventually elevated to the rank of Major General. Following the war, he was offered a commission in the regular army, but chose instead to return to civilian life. Even then, he continued in public service as New Jersey state treasurer, major general and commander of the state's national guard. Turns out there's also a legend of questionable authenticity that his grandfather guided Washington's troops on the Delaware before the decisive Battle of Trenton. In any case, he's quite an impressive guy.

The batteries lining the shore side of the fort are impressive in length: a 700 foot expanse that's a 35 feet thick mound of earth and concrete. They once housed disappearing guns -- three 10-inch and three 12-inch -- that could fire ammo weighing up to 1000 pounds to a distance of eight miles. Several smaller, rapid-fire guns were also installed in the batteries.

Per custom, each of the batteries was named for a military veteran who had distinguished himself in service, and one has a distinctly New Jersey connection. Brigadier General Charles Harker was a local boy, born in nearby Swedesboro, and was killed in action in the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia, in 1864. Ivan looked him up later and found that Harker had been orphaned at a young age and commissioned to West Point on the recommendation of his boyhood employer, who eventually became a member of Congress.

I thought I had a pretty decent knowledge of battery construction and technology from all of the wandering I've done around Fort Hancock at Sandy Hook. However, there was one thing that totally threw me at Fort Mott: the latrine system. A very informative sign explained that the toilets at the batteries worked on a gravity system, with the, uh, deposits running down into the moat in front of the batteries as an added deterrent for those who'd attempt to overtake the fort.  It worked for castles in the middle ages, why not forts in the 1800s? (Still, though -- if you're hell bent on invading, is a little poop gonna stop you? Can you imagine telling your commanding officer you didn't complete your mission because you didn't want to muck up your boots?)

Beyond the fort itself, the park is a relaxing place to have a picnic, play some ball or toss a frisbee on the expansive parade grounds. You can also enjoy a scenic view of Fort Delaware or the distant Salem Nuclear Power Station from the ferry dock. On the unusually warm February day when we visited, several families and couples were capitalizing on the sunny weather to get some fresh air into their lungs.