Back to school in Montague: the Nelden-Roberts Stonehouse

Delaware Water Gap National Recreational Area is loaded with them: old houses and buildings that largely stand empty, the silent tribute to faulty government planning and successful public outcry. Many had been in the same family for generations before the Army Corps of Engineers set out to flood much of the Water Gap as part of the Tocks Island Dam project. In preparation, the federal government purchased acres of farmland and forest plus the structures that stood on them.

Public opinion ultimately trumped the dubious need for the project, but the impact on the area was profound, nonetheless. While the National Park Service assumed ownership and management of the land from the Army Corps, the families were not allowed to return to their ancestral homes. What's left in many cases is the puzzling sight we discovered at the Westbrook-Bell House: a nicely maintained but tightly shut colonial-era stone house with a decidedly 21st century satellite dish. If you're like me, you salivate a little as you drive past buildings like that, wondering how much of the average stuff of daily life is left in them and whether you'll ever get to find out.

More rarely than most of us wish, you may drive past one of the old houses to find it's open. That was our luck as we approached a small stone structure not far from the Milford-Montague Bridge on Route 206. The Nelden-Roberts Stonehouse was accepting visitors, as it does, two Sundays a month in warm weather.

As we discovered from our friendly volunteer docent, farmer George Nelden held the property as early as 1817. It was a schoolhouse until about 1865, one of a handful located in the area in a time before free public education. The Roberts portion of the house's name came from a family who owned a farm across the road; tenant farmers were among the many families that used it as a dwelling until the federal government acquired the property. One gets the feeling that rather than being a beloved homestead, the stonehouse was more like an accommodation that came along with local employment. Still, or maybe because of that status, it has a valuable story to tell.

It's likely that when it was originally built, the building was a lot like others in Montague and surrounding communities, but circumstances have a way of making the ordinary truly special. Vandalism and the loss of nearby Brick House village to the Tocks Island project encouraged concerned citizens to form the Montague Association for the Restoration of Community History (MARCH) in 1979 to save some of the remaining historic properties. A federal grant paid for adaptive restoration, which led to the building's reopening in 1982. MARCH now has an longstanding agreement with the National Park Service to maintain and interpret the Nelden-Roberts Stonehouse and the nearby Foster-Armstrong House, a wooden homestead first built in the late 18th century and enlarged in 1820.

They've done an admirable job. Walking into the stonehouse, we discovered a one-room schoolhouse, complete with some of the primers, slates and other items rural students would have brought for a day of study. A small side room was set up like an early 20th century general store that was, no doubt, a very welcome amenity for the rural community.

Upstairs was an attic room for the teacher, large though the walls were slanted. In addition to curating it with spartan bedroom furniture, MARCH uses the space to exhibit other artifacts representing community history. When we were there, it held a World War display saluting local veterans, as well as a number of Native American objects reflecting the area's Lenape past.

With the coming of colder weather, the unheated Nelden-Roberts Stonehouse will be closed for a few months, but it's well worth putting on the to-see list for the spring. Just as important as any "Washington Slept Here" attraction in the state, the stonehouse is a refreshing look into a community's past, lovingly perpetuated by neighbors who see the importance of preserving local history.

Bullets, bluster and arrogance: the ambitious Hugh Judson Kilpatrick

The 210th anniversary of the Alexander Hamilton/Aaron Burr duel on July 11 got me thinking about other controversial and politically ambitious figures in New Jersey history, which led me to Hugh Judson Kilpatrick.

You might remember him. A few years ago we stumbled on a sign marking his old Sussex County farm, the site of the first Civil War reenactment. Well, he didn’t see it quite that way. For him, it was the big party he held pretty much to burnish his reputation.

In the time since we ran a brief story on the reenactment, I’ve done more reading on Kilpatrick and the event, and what I’ve learned only makes him more interesting. He didn't shoot the Secretary of the Treasury as Burr did, or allegedly plot to take over the western territory of the U.S. (yup, Burr again), but he was a, well, interesting guy.

The Deckertown-native Kilpatrick seems to have been born with political motivations already intact. After successfully lobbying his district’s Congressional representative for an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy, he entered West Point as the first step on a planned path to the presidency, with interim stops at the governorship of New Jersey and both houses of Congress. But rather than channeling his energy toward achievements that would benefit his future constituents, he chose to maneuver his way up via the proverbial smoke-filled room.

The ever ambitious Hugh Judson Kilpatrick.

His timing couldn’t have been better. Graduating from West Point just after the start of the Civil War, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant but was quickly promoted to captain in the 5th New York Infantry. He somehow managed to become the first United States Army officer to be wounded in the war, getting hit in the leg during the Battle of Big Bethel. As the war continued, he continued to maneuver up the ranks, becoming lieutenant colonel of the 2nd New York Cavalry and eventually rising to major general.

He might have had friends in the right places looking out for him, but he neglected to earn much respect from his colleagues or subordinates. In fact, many historians note that his ambition severely outweighed his skill and good sense. He was widely reviled for his role in a botched raid on Confederate prisons in which Union prisoners of war were being held; as a result General Ulysses Grant relieved him of a portion of his command duties, leading to a long-term grudge. His men called him “Kill Cavalry” for the recklessness in which he led them into near-suicidal battle maneuvers, leading to unnecessarily high casualty counts.

Strategy and tactical deployment were one thing. Personal conduct was another, and Kilpatrick distinguished himself there, too. He was actually tossed into jail a couple of times during the war for soliciting bribes and illegally selling confiscated property. And his poorly-run camps attracted prostitutes whom Kilpatrick himself was reported to have visited with some regularity. He’s described by Civil War historians as egocentric, arrogant, untruthful, unreliable, disloyal to presumed friends – all in the service of ambition. Shakespeare couldn’t have written a better villain.

Required military service in hand, Kilpatrick returned to New Jersey after the war, unsuccessfully ran for governor and maneuvered the loss into an ambassadorship to Chile under President Andrew Johnson. He was recalled five years later under President Grant and, on his return to the U.S. took to the lecture circuit to defame Grant as an alcoholic and worse. Rumors to that effect had long been swirling around Grant, but you have to wonder if anyone but the most ardent supporter of the president gave much credence to Kilpatrick’s gripes, given his own rather sullied reputation.

Political ambitions still burning, Kilpatrick dreamed up a grand scheme to raise a groundswell of support while surrounding himself with adoring luminaries. What better way than with patriotic fervor? In June 1878 he announced that he’d invited 40 New Jersey posts of the Grand Army of the Republic to his Sussex County farm for a three day celebration of veterans’ service to the nation. The GAR was the American Legion of its day for Union veterans of the Civil War and a powerful force in national politics.

The announcement in the New York Times said the event would include an encampment with strict military discipline and sham battles, with visits from luminaries including President Rutherford B. Hayes, New Jersey Governor (and former Union General) George McClellan, and Generals William T. Sherman and Phil Sheridan. Veterans’ family members would be entertained with games of chance, fireworks and a play written by Kilpatrick himself. He strongly emphasized that he was charging no admission fee and that he was building an aqueduct system to provide an ample supply of water to a camp area where visitors could pitch their own tents at no charge.

And to quell the fears of anyone who might be concerned about crime, Kilpatrick promised that sheriff’s deputies and detectives would patrol the camp to ensure that pickpockets and ‘base women’ would be discouraged from plying their respective trades.

While some sources state that Kilpatrick “treated” his guests to a grand event, the opposite is true. Despite being one of the wealthiest men in the area, he sought and got the support of his neighbors in running the event, even soliciting donations as he arranged for New York vendors to sell food (negotiating a cut of the profits for himself).

From an attendance perspective, the event was a great success from the moment it began on August 25, 1878. Five trains a day brought 400 passengers each to Deckertown, and many more came by foot or on horse. An estimated 4000 were actual veterans, with the remaining 36,000 visitors being a combination of family members, curiosity seekers and, despite Kilpatrick’s assertions, the criminal element. On the positive side, they got the fireworks, sham battles, food vendors and games of chance they’d been promised. On the other hand, carpenters were still working on the grandstands when the guests arrived, and the promised water supply broke down early in the encampment, forcing thirsty vets to purchase beer from the 10,000 kegs on hand. And despite the promise of a family environment, a tent pitched in a distant yet accessible area was reportedly doing a fair amount of business as a brothel.

Kilpatrick had overpromised on the dignitaries, too. President Hayes skipped the event, as did General Sherman, though Major General Dan Sickles, a colorful personality in his own right, came to show his support.

Did the campaign stunt work for Kilpatrick? Folks might have had a great time, but it didn’t help their host’s political standing. He took his name out of consideration for the Republican nomination for the district’s House seat in 1878 and subsequently lost his bid for the seat in the 1880 election. As consolation, President James Garfield reappointed him envoy to Chile, where Kilpatrick died of nephritis in 1881. His remains were returned to the United States six years later for reinterment at West Point.

Arrogant, overconfident and blindly ambitious as he was, Kilpatrick inadvertently introduced New Jersey and perhaps the nation to a new tradition that persists today. The military re-enactment has evolved from a political stunt and carnival to an opportunity for those with no war experience to get a firsthand view into the lives of everyday foot soldiers in the field (sometimes incredibly accurate, sometimes not so much). Does that make up for his litany of shortcomings, blunders and unnecessary sacrifice of subordinates? No, but as they say, it’s a truly ill wind that blows no good.

At war with the natives... or was it the New Yorkers? A mystery in Montague.

Sure, it's lightly populated now, at least by New Jersey standards, but it's hard to imagine a time when Sussex County was truly wilderness, with European settlers mixed with Minisink Indians of the Lenape tribe. It was an era when settlers built forts along the Delaware River and folks were still debating whether the land was actually in New Jersey, or in New York.

Ivan and I found vestiges of the time in question, the early 1700s, during a recent drive along Old Mine Road in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. It might have been Montague, or maybe Sandyston where we pulled off the road and onto a dirt drive to read the historic marker for the Westbrook-Bell House, the oldest surviving dwelling in Sussex County. Take a look:

An adjacent plaque from the local Daughters of the American Revolution stated that two forts had been built in the area during the French and Indian War: one about a mile to the south, and another behind the barn on the Westbrook property.

So which story was true? Had fortifications been built to protect the inhabitants during the conflict with natives and the French in the late 1750s, as the DAR claimed, or to fend off land-grabbing flintlock-toting New Yorkers, as the Sussex County Historical Commission stated?  I was more inclined to go with the French and Indian War. Sure, there were disagreements about the placement of the boundary, but I'd never heard about things getting so contentious that weapons were required to defend one's property and provenance. When it comes to borders, New Jerseyans are more likely to go to court than to battle, but I couldn't be sure. We were talking about the early days and sparsely-populated territory.

Either way, there was a house to be seen. We walked down the picturesque road, shaded by a row of stately trees, until we found the small stone Dutch Colonial house, looking very closed up but still somewhat cared for. The doors and ground-floor windows were boarded up, but a TV satellite dish stood on a pole next to the home, leaving me to wonder whether someone lives there. The DAR marker had noted that nine generations of the Bell family had made the tiny house their home. Had descendants still been there when the Federal government cleared inhabitants from the land in the 1960s, when plans were underway to build the Tocks Island Dam? (For a little more perspective on that, check out this story about neighboring Montague.) Could someone have moved back in, even if only a National Park Service employee?

Back at Hidden New Jersey headquarters, we hit the books and the internet for more information. Turns out that what's now known as the Minisink Historic District has been studied fairly extensively by the U.S. government: by the Historic American Buildings Survey in 1941 and again in 1970, and then by archaeologists before the planned flooding of the area with the dam project.

HABS dates the house circa 1725, based on documentation from the Westbrook descendants who lived there at the time of the first survey. However, the Historical Commission sign may be right about the date that Johannes Westbrook originally gained possession of the land. There's some conjecture that he might have made a deal with the natives as early as 1701 but arranged for a deed decades later in an attempt to thwart possible claims or intercession by the Jersey Proprietors. In any case, the property stayed with the family until 1959, when it was finally sold to an unrelated party.

As for the fortifications and their origin, I can't find any reference to organized disputes between the colonies that rose to the level of building defensive structures. Sure, there were violent conflicts among landowners with conflicting claims to property, and New York aggressively granted ownership of land that was actually New Jersey, but were militias raised as a result? I don't see where.

Citations pointing to the need for forts to defend Northwestern New Jersey against foes in the French and Indian Wars, however, is abundant. Blockhouse forts were built along the Delaware in 1756 as a far-forward defense against possible invasion of population centers in Newark, Elizabeth and Perth Amboy. Once the local Minisink changed their alliance to the British, the forts were largely unneeded, and were reportedly abandoned.

Old Mine Road is dotted with old structures like the Westbrook-Bell House, stone and brick laid by folks who truly set out for adventure. Our earliest history of European settlement, little-known to most New Jerseyans, stands waiting for exploration and study within the boundaries of the Water Gap. It's hard to imagine that the lot of it could have been lost to the deluge of an ill-planned dam.

Owl be seeing you in all the old, familiar places...

Our recent report on duck spotting at Barnegat Light indicated that winter birding is not for the faint of heart. Persistent (and well-insulated) explorers should discover, though, that hanging around in the cold and wind (and even snow) can have its reward in the sighting of species that reliably return to certain spots, year after year.

Take, for example, the Short-eared owl. Habitues of open grasslands, some of these moderate sized raptors spend their winters at the Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge in Sussex County. A viewing deck at the state border with New York provides a good spot to gather with other hearty souls late on a January afternoon, waiting for the sun to drop below the surrounding hills so the show can begin.

My first visit to Wallkill a few years ago set an unrealistic expectation of the relative difficulty of spotting owls. Ivan took me to see the owls just after we'd met, telling me that the odds were good that we'd see at least one in the field, and I came away thinking that either it was pretty easy, or he was some sort of bird conjurer. Basically, we drove up, he set up a viewing scope on the platform, and within 10 minutes, he found the owl in question perched on a slim stump about 50 yards away. He invited me to take a look, and not only was the bird there, but as if on cue, it turned to look directly at me. If I didn't know better, I'd have thought Ivan had stopped by earlier to plant a mechanical decoy in the field.

Most of the time, spotting the birds isn't as easy as that. It takes time, patience and a touch of fortitude.

• Time and patience: like most members of its taxonomic family, the short-eared owl hunts largely in darkness. The key is to get to the appropriate viewing site just before dusk, wait and hope they decide to show.
• Fortitude: well, try standing in an open grassland field at dusk in January. It's windy, and you're often left to stand on snow pack whose chill permeates the thickest of boot soles. Before long, no matter how many layers you're already wearing, you start regretting not having the forethought for electric socks and that extra set of thermal underwear.

The Short-eared owl.

This time around, it was plenty cold, but the inevitable wait was tempered by the pre-game show. A sole adult Bald eagle scared up a massive flock of grounded Canada geese in the field across the road, the geese apparently not realizing that the chances of one eagle killing them all was rather remote.

Not long afterward, the show started on our side of the road as a host of Northern harriers glided effortlessly above the tall grass. A little longer yet less bulky than the Short-eared owl, the harrier's face is somewhat disc-shaped like an owl's, though the two aren't related. Among the many brown females we witnessed skimming and diving around the field, a striking "gray ghost" male harrier flew around the territory like a mysterious spectre.

As we stomped our feet to keep warm, local birders told us that during the week, when fewer people are there to observe, up to a dozen Short-eared owls were known to come out to hunt. They had good reason, too: according to management at Wallkill, conditions over the summer resulted in what's described as a bumper crop of rodents, the prey of choice for owls and harriers alike.

The evening we were there, they started a little later than their customary 4:45 flight time. Suddenly, as light was draining from the sky, we noticed other forms among the many harriers patrolling the field. The new visitors had stiffer wingbeats and bulkier wings. It took a few minutes, but I started to be able to differentiate the two types of birds from their flight patterns and relative size. I didn't get a firm count of owls, but it was clear that several had felt comfortable enough to fly within view of us humans. The show was definitely on!

Chilled to the bone and satisfied we'd met our goal for the trip, we started toward the car to warm up, but one owl seemed not quite ready for us to leave. It approached, soaring higher as if to get a view of us from above, and maybe to confirm to us that we had, indeed, seen what we thought we'd seen. Even in the waning light, we could see its distinctive under-wing pattern as it flew directly overhead. With that parting adieu, we left, happy that our frigid vigil had paid off.

Hamburg's castle made of wheat: the milling history on Wheatsworth Road

Most Northern New Jersey explorers know about the Gingerbread Castle in Hamburg. Some even remember visiting the whimsical structure during its heyday as the centerpiece of an amusement park between 1930 and 1978. It's one of those places that tends to stick in your mind -- a fanciful fairy-tale castle replete with characters like Humpty-Dumpty and arch-backed black cat, among others.

The Wheatsworth factory, as seen from a HiddenNJMobile.

In near total contradiction to the whimsy of the castle, a large, forbidding concrete building casts a shadow over the abandoned property. A few small turrets and balcony-like structures break up the monotony of the facade, but it's not a pleasant looking place. The windows that aren't boarded up are mostly broken, evidence of a lengthy abandonment. A posted sign informs visitors that an environmental cleanup is in process, not surprising after you notice the traces of painted lettering atop the building which seem to spell the word "synthetic."

Why in heck would someone put something so ugly next to something so adorable ... or was it the other way around? Unfortunately, New Jersey has more than its share of juxtaposition of beauty and industry, but why, when there's so much room in Sussex County, would these two be so close?

A first clue can be found on the old stone gateposts nearby. They're adorned with Arts and Crafts-style Flint Faience tiles depicting idyllic scenes of fields and mills. One even features a steaming bowl of hot cereal, a comforting start for a chilly Sussex County morning, and a millstone is embedded in a nearby wall. Each scene is labeled "Wheatsworth Mills."

Wheatsworth? Like Nabisco Wheatsworth crackers? Absolutely.

Turns out that the Gingerbread Castle's less-than-attractive industrial neighbor was just the last of the wheat-related ventures operated on that spot in Hamburg.

Today, the Wallkill River flows unimpeded past the building and under Wheatsworth Road, but in the day it was harnessed to power a waterwheel for the industry of the day. Joseph Sharp, Jr. built a stone grist mill there in 1808, replacing an ironworks that had made cannonballs surreptitiously for the British during the Revolutionary War. Sharp's mill, by contrast, ground local wheat into flour for American troops during the War of 1812 and no doubt benefited from its location just off the Hamburg Turnpike (now Route 23) after it opened in 1795. That mill was lost to fire in 1834 but was partially rebuilt.

Moving forward to the 20th century, New York-based F.H. Bennett Biscuit Company purchased the site in 1921 to supply flour for its bakeries across the Hudson. Six years later, the company changed its name to Wheatsworth to capitalize on the popularity of the brand name under which it sold biscuits, flour and other bakery goods. Around the same time, the company substantially enlarged the mill building, erecting a taller concrete structure that basically swallowed up the old Sharp mill.

An old sign with a valuable message.

As the story is told, F.H. himself was inspired to add the Gingerbread Castle to the factory campus after seeing a production of Hansel and Gretel at New York's Metropolitan Opera. He hired the opera's set designer, Austrian architect Joseph Urban, to create what became the centerpiece of a children's amusement park where Grimm's fairy tales came to life. Reflecting Bennett's business, the castle appeared to be constructed of cookies and crackers, and after its opening in 1930, visiting children were told that if they touched the building, the appealing treats would turn to stone. 

The National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) purchased Wheatsworth in 1931, taking ownership of the factory/mill building but not the castle. After operating there for six years, Nabisco sold the plant to Canterbury Mills, the last operator to use the building for baking-related purposes. The final owner, a wire coatings manufacturer called Plastoid Corporation, took possession in 1943. While they eventually moved production to another location, Plastoid's corporate offices remained in the building until sometime in the 1980s.

Together, the mill building and Gingerbread Castle were listed on Preservation New Jersey's Most Endangered Historic Places list in 2012. Not surprisingly, the castle attracts the greatest interest and has benefitted from partial restoration and a brief reopening in 1989. The far less photogenic mill/factory building seems ignored by all but adventure seekers despite its arguably more historic past. Reportedly suffering from a collapsed roof and internal deterioration, it would no doubt take a lot of effort to make it habitable again, but who knows? And with the Gingerbread Castle and Wallkill River on either side, the view from any of the factory's windows would be a welcome site for anyone who chose to work or live there.

It's a thought...

Three states, one step: setting the New Jersey/New York border

North and South Carolina have Pedro and South of the Border.

New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania have a cemetery. Well, kind of. A few weeks ago, intrepid Hidden New Jersey reader Craig Walenta contacted us to share the location of the marker that shows the point where the boundaries of the three states converge, at the confluence of the Delaware and Neversink Rivers.

Naturally, we were intrigued. Longtime readers are aware of our interest in boundaries, whether they be the ones that separate East and West Jerseys, or the several disputes over our northern border with New York. Considering that of the 487 mile borderline of New Jersey, only 48 miles is on land, the state has had a remarkable amount of squabbling with our northern neighbor about acreage. (Click on the "NJ/NY border dispute" tag by the timestamp on this entry to get to a few of the stories we've written on this.) The battle over Ellis Island became so contentious that the U.S. Supreme Court was compelled to settle the longstanding disagreement, and that's actually a Federal property! Every fight is worth it: being the fourth smallest state in the Union in terms of land mass, we can use all the acreage we can get.

Ivan and I agreed we'd investigate the northwestern marker next time we were near Montague, and luckily we found ourselves at Sunrise Mountain in Stokes State Forest this past weekend. We were in pursuit of a golden eagle or two; they're not incredibly easy to find in New Jersey, so the best bet is often to head to a hawk watching site at the right time of the fall, and wait. After about 90 minutes of vultures and other assorted raptors, we were pretty well assured there'd be no goldens flying by in the near future. That's when I remembered the boundary marker. We were in the neighborhood; why not stop by?

Craig warned us that unless we wanted to take a swim, we'd have to dip into New York State to get to the destination. That, to me, made it all the more interesting. The directions were basic enough: cross into Port Jervis from Montague, make a left, cross a bridge and head into a cemetery. We soon found ourselves passing through the gates of Laurel Grove Cemetery and admiring many 19th century gravestones. How would we know a boundary marker from all of these other granite monuments?

Then, looming before us, high above, we saw two broad highway overpasses. Craig had helpfully noted that Interstate 84 skirts just north of the border between New Jersey and New York, never actually touching the Garden State. We saw a small parking area and a rectangular granite marker. This had to be the place. I jumped out of the car to inspect the stone. Yup, this is it.

Inscribed on both of the broad sides, the six-foot high marker is actually a witness stone that directs the explorer to another, smaller stone down the hill on a peninsula between the Delaware and the Neversink. That stone is meant to show the actual border and the point at which New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania meet. We scrambled down to check it out and take the obligatory photos of each other standing on the boundary as the two rivers flowed below us. After all, how many chances does one get to stand in three states at once? (Especially without paying a toll!)

A similar inscription on the other
side notes the New York
commissioners and directions to
the true border marker.

As if that wasn't enough, the visit got even better. A half mile or so up the cemetery road, our path back into Port Jervis was blocked by a small truck, a handful of people and a dog. One of the people walked over and told us an eagle was in a tree not 20 feet away, overlooking the Delaware. Sure enough, we looked, and there it was, perched and patiently tolerating our admiration. While it didn't make up for the lack of golden eagles at Sunrise, it was definitely a welcome sight.

Once back at Hidden New Jersey headquarters, I checked into the history of the marker and discovered, for one thing, that the boundary it shows isn't quite accurate. We hadn't actually made it into Pennsylvania. Had we really stepped on the point where the three states meet, we would have been several feet to the west, wading in the waters of the Delaware. Eh, close enough.

More interesting is the story why the boundary marker was placed in 1882. The original stones had been set in 1774, over a century after the Duke of York had granted New Jersey lands to Lord John Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. Many of those markers had disappeared over the years, prompting State Geologist George H. Cook to seek permission to resurvey the boundary in 1872. With the blessing of the state Geological Survey Board of Managers, he sent surveyors out to find the markers and map the true line described within the Berkeley/Carteret/York agreement.

What they found was disturbing to any good Jerseyman or Jerseywoman. The straight, diagonal border line was, in fact, bowed slightly in New York's favor, presumably because the original surveyors' instruments were affected by the heavy iron ore content of the Sussex and Passaic Highlands. In all, New York was enjoying about 10 acres of what was supposed to be New Jersey. Cook dutifully recommended to the Survey Board and Governor Joel Parker, "Some joint action should be had... by which the line could be straightened, and made to accord with its original definitions and descriptions."

It was time to bring in the lawyers. Prominent Newark attorney Thomas McCarter and former Attorney General Abraham Browning joined Cook as border commissioners for New Jersey; their New York counterparts included Congressman Elias Leavenworth, former State Senator Henry Pierson and New York Central Railroad counsel Chauncey Depew. Though the New Jerseyans strongly recommended redrawing the line according to the Duke of York's original decree, New York balked, and the two states' legislatures agreed to maintain the 1774 boundary markers. Accordingly, in 1882 terminal markers were placed at Port Jervis to the west and at the Palisades near the Hudson to the east, with additional markers placed at one mile intervals in between.

One could say that New Jersey got more than its 10 acres back when about 24 acres of Ellis Island was deemed part of the Garden State in 1998, but there's still something vaguely dissatisfying about the whole thing. What do you say, folks? Wanna go for a land grab?

Finding the forgotten: the Sussex County welfare cemetery

It couldn't have been any more poetic. As we drove through Frankford to our recent speaking engagement at the Sussex County Library, we found hidden history we didn't expect. Across County Road 655 and a few hundred feet up was a wooden gate with a large sign that denoted the Sussex County Welfare Home Cemetery. A field just beyond was hilly and covered mostly in tall grass, though one section appeared to be a bit better kept.

Having already stumbled on the largely unmarked Warren County poorhouse cemetery, we were glad to see that at the very least, Sussex had seen fit to make the presence of its potters field clear to passers-by. Also unlike its counterpart in Pequest, this graveyard was in proximity to the almshouse where the buried once lived. The large old white building has been converted to government offices, but those familiar with poorhouse architecture can easily determine its previous use.

Finding grave markers in the Sussex cemetery was as difficult as it was in Pequest, but for another reason. Rather than laying stones with name and date of death atop the surface above each grave, the Sussex authorities used simple numbered stone stakes. Perhaps it was less expensive that way -- markers could be ordered in bulk and engraving costs were much lower than they would have been had the names been inscribed. Or maybe it just didn't occur to management that someone might someday want to pay respects to a loved one. Traditionally, people end up in almshouses because they have no other options, no loved ones or friends to turn to, or perhaps they've alienated everyone who can help them. Many Sussex Alms House residents were probably as forgotten in life as they are now, in death.

We did find that one of the graves was decorated with two U.S. flags and a marker denoting the deceased as a World War veteran. Obviously, someone knew who was buried there and regarded him enough to have the designation placed. Other visitors, unfortunately, would have to do some investigative work. The county must have a list that matches grave number to the buried person's name, but the veteran's marker -- and those around it -- was too weathered to yield even that small bit of information.

The unnamed veteran, however, made out a bit better than many who died at the alms house before him. Turns out that the history behind the internment of the deceased is a little more involved than we anticipated. According to The Sussex County Alms House by Phyllis and John Stanaback, another cemetery "attached to the Institution" received unclaimed bodies of the indigent dead in unmarked graves from 1833 until 1900. The cemetery we'd found was opened in 1900 with the burial of Charles Bird under the stone marked 1. At least 140 graves are documented, though some have estimated that there may have been as many as 300 people buried there by the time the cemetery closed in 1955.

Judging by the state of the markers we were able to discern in the field, it's easy to accept that there are more hiding in the grass beyond the three or four visible rows. Perhaps a careful scything of the tall growth will yield signs of more graves. What's most unfortunate is that somewhere in the area is a field where the earlier deceased lie, unmarked and unremembered. Finding them sounds like a good project for an enterprising student of history.

Many thanks to Sussex County Senior Librarian Michelle Aluotto for her assistance in uncovering the history of the cemetery!

Wiped off the map: Montague's Brick House Village

Just a couple of days after visiting the Sussex County Library to share the story of the Cat Swamp hijacking and murder, we found ourselves pretty much as far north in the state as you can get. We were wandering around looking for the Deckertown Turnpike and the scene of Kilpatrick's Reenactment when we came upon the Milford-Montague Toll Bridge where 206 crosses the Delaware River.

Today, there's a somewhat awkward five point intersection where County Road 521 branches off from 206 and heads northward while the Deckertown Pike and Old Mine Road start and radiate outward. It all looks oddly sanitized and overly engineered, much different than most of the more natural-looking crossroads in Sussex County. Instead of the usual church, general store or gas station, there's just about nothing, save one of those wonderful county historical markers.

The former site of the Brick House Hotel, near the Milford-
Montague Toll Bridge on Route 206.

We stopped to discover we'd found the site of the village of Brick House, once the commercial center of Montague. The WPA Guide to 1930's New Jersey described the community as "scattered along the two-lane macadam highway with a few worn houses, a gas station before the old country store, and the old Brick House Hotel (open)."

The Hotel had indeed been old, even during the Great Depression. Built sometime between 1721 and 1780 along a former Indian trail, it had been a key stop on the Buffalo-Hoboken stagecoach route. Over the years, the brick, wood and stone structure was enlarged to include a barroom, sitting room, dance floor and nine sleeping rooms. A village grew around it, with sufficient commerce, a school and two churches to serve the local population, mostly farmers and their families.

The first strike against Brick House came in 1943 with a devastating fire that took the general store. Less than 10 years later, when Route 206 was realigned to meet the new Milford-Montague Bridge, the Brick House Hotel was taken by eminent domain, condemned and demolished.

The final and most lethal blow to the community was dealt in the early 1960s, with the introduction of plans for the Tocks Island Dam. Conceived to manage downstream flooding and generate hydroelectric power, the project was designed to create a 37-mile long recreational lake by flooding property surrounding the Delaware and designating thousands of acres of land as a park. Depending on which reports you read, the Federal government either declared eminent domain or strong-armed residents off their property, leaving virtual ghost towns to be torn down before the river was dammed and the area was flooded. Brick House sat within the borders of the proposed project, and its remaining buildings were either demolished or displaced.

Ultimately, a combination of factors stopped the project, which was deemed both geologically unwise and unfair to the families who'd lived there, in many cases for generations. The land, already out of the hands of its original owners, was transferred to the National Park Service in 1965, creating the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. However, it was already too late for Brick House village, whose crossroads location is commemorated now only by the blue historic marker and what might be considered a gravestone for the hotel that lent the community its name.

The question of the Newton silk mill -- maybe an answer?

A few weeks ago, our discovery of the Cat Swamp Hijacking revealed a bit of a mystery: why was there a silk factory in Newton?

I think I might have found a viable answer during my visit to the Botto House. It may not be the complete reason Thomas Bentley moved his Paterson operations 45 miles away to Sussex County, but hey, it's a possibility.

As the silk industry became increasingly mechanized, mill owners started looking toward women and children to work the looms. The theory was that their smaller fingers and hands were better suited to the delicate silk work. Some enterprising manufacturers realized that they potentially had a ready workforce in communities where men were already at work in factories making other things. Paterson may still have been the capital of the American silk industry, but mills began rising in new towns.

Newton in the early 1900s would have fit the bill quite nicely. Hay forks, shoes and boxes were already being manufactured there, drawing male workers who inevitably would have wives and children. Bentley must have felt that with a bit of training from Paterson silk workers, the locals would be able to catch on to the trade fairly easily.

Cat Swamp and silk: big crime in Byram reveals a mystery

If I were to teach kids anything about history, it's that we should never make assumptions. Take historic markers, for example. Admittedly, they're often pretty dry, and usually they're really predictable. But then there are those like the Hunterdon County sign for the birthplace of Liver Eating Johnson, which are the catnip that keep you checking in the hopes of finding something unexpected.

Case in point: the marker for the Cat Swamp Hijacking and Murder. Blink and you'll miss the sign as you travel south on Route 206 in Byram. It's on the shoulder of the highway, next to a narrow road that leads into the woods. Ivan and I had driven past it a bunch of times without stopping, but this time, I kept an eye out for it when I was traveling north, just so I could slow down and pull over to read it on my return trip. I'm glad I did, too, because it raised a new question that has nothing to do with the crime itself.

Before I get ahead of myself, here's the sign:

A couple of things here: first off, the name Cat Swamp is pretty atmospheric and cool, especially when you consider how hydrophobic cats usually are. Second, it's not often you see a sign announcing a crime. I'd say that given the remoteness of the area and the size of the take, this was probably huge news in Sussex County in 1921.

The sign itself is pretty self-explanatory, but a little extra digging revealed that six masked hijackers came upon the silk truck so quickly that the drivers didn't have a chance to pull out the guns they carried. Apparently silk transport was a dangerous business. While the drivers were merely marched into the woods, tied up, robbed of their money and the truck, unfortunate motorcyclist Albert Koster was killed for simply riding by the scene. He might have been mistaken for a police officer since it seems that at the time, the majority of people who rode motorcycles were law enforcement. However, the state police hadn't yet been organized or trained at the time of the incident. Either way, the hijackers took Koster as a threat. After shooting him, the criminals threw him into the swamp face down, to ensure he would die before being found.

The sign also somewhat minimizes the police work done to bring the killer hijackers to justice. Not only were they captured, but Franklin Police Chief Herbert Irons engaged in a dramatic gunfight with one of them before the criminal's capture. And besides the two who were executed for murder, the four other hijackers were sentenced to life imprisonment, later commuted to twenty to thirty years of hard labor.

All in all, the story would make a good movie plot, but I was left wondering about the origin of the hijacked vehicle and its owner, Sussex Print Silk. Why was it so far from Paterson, the much better known Silk City?

It seems that Sussex Print Silk had its roots in Paterson, having been started by English immigrant Thomas Bentley. He and his parents settled in the city on their arrival to the United States, and by the time young Bentley was 25, he'd gotten sufficient training to go into business for himself. His eponymously named company grew over the years and changed names as he took on different partners.

For reasons that aren't clear, Bentley moved the company to the newly built Sterling Silk Mill in Newton in 1895. His manufacturing had previously been housed in a Paterson mill destroyed by fire in 1891, but the loss still doesn't explain why he'd rebuild a sizable distance away from a large city and skilled workforce. The Sussex County seat was already home to manufacturers of shoes, forks and boxes, but unlike Paterson, there was no reliable source of hydropower for cheap energy. Instead, coal was brought in by railroad to power steam engines.

Perhaps Bentley moved his operations to avoid the perpetual labor unrest in Paterson, but he brought several of his skilled employees up to Newton to train workers at the newly built mill. And as it turned out, the 45 miles between Paterson and Newton weren't enough to render Bentley immune from labor action: weavers at the Sterling Mill went on strike for close to a month in early 1900.

Bentley himself moved to a newly-built mansion at 93 Main Street in Newton in 1899 and was actively involved in the community. By 1923, however, he was living in New York to be closer to business interests, and at retirement he moved back to Paterson, living there until his death in 1932.

As for the silk mill, it continued under various owners until about 1950, with periodic work stoppages caused by labor unrest. The building itself was demolished in 1993. The only overt sign of Bentley still in Newton appears to be his mansion, which has been converted to offices after having served as an Elks Lodge.

So... we're left with yet another mystery: what made Newton so attractive to Bentley that he moved his silk business there? Or perhaps the question is what made Paterson so unattractive to him? The answer could be somewhere in another Hidden New Jersey adventure... or perhaps you might know?

The pen is mightier than the developer: the story of Fred Ferber

This weekend's search for winter finches brought us into Passaic County's more wooded spots, particularly the Pequannock watershed. Crossbills and evening grosbeaks look to coniferous trees for food, so the evergreen groves surrounding the Newark reservoir seemed the logical place for us to get a good look. The plan was to stop, look and listen: stop at a given stand of appropriate trees, walk a little along the road and into the forest, look for activity, and listen for the calls of our target species.

Our luck wasn't really holding as we seemed to be hitting our second consecutive weekend of dry birding, but we couldn't complain about the terrain or the scenery. Walking about five feet into a grove of towering pines, I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of trees as much as I was by their size. I've been to redwood forests in Northern California, and these weren't the same, yet they were more impressive in their own way. Because they're smaller in girth, I guess, they can grow more densely packed together, leaving the visitor with a feeling of walking among the legs of a crowd of very tall people. We heard little to no bird chatter, only the slight creaking of an older tree whose top was swaying in the breeze above. Underbrush was sparse, but several young Charlie Brown-type pines stood knee or waist high, waiting for their time in the sun.

Still, no birds of note. Maybe the finches just weren't buying what these evergreens had to offer. After several stops, Ivan suggested we could try something a little different. He knew of an area nearby that had once been the estate of Fred Ferber, the inventor of the ballpoint pen. It's unoccupied and overgrown now, but there might be traces of human habitation on the property, which is now part of Wawayanda State Park. Wait: the guy who invented the ballpoint lived in New Jersey? This was a new one on me. We had to check it out.

A few twists and turns brought us past a few houses and up an incline to a small, rustic parking lot. Another path the width of a road was off to one side and blocked to traffic by a gate. Old utility poles ran alongside the broad path for as far as I could see from the lot. That was our route to the site of Ferber's house, Ivan told me, toeing the ground in front of us to show me the remnants of macadam that must have been part of the driveway.

We walked along the path a bit, musing over whether the utility lines were still in service. Then we came upon a point where they'd fallen to the ground, perhaps in the most recent storm. A little farther along, the lines terminated at a final pole – either that or they were buried underground.

Reaching the top of a gentle hill, we found a clearing large enough for a house, but alas, nothing that could be construed as having been part of a dwelling. Ivan saw what looked to be a slab of molded concrete in a ravine below, but on further inspection we determined it was just a large rock.

What else could have been here? We saw a parting in a stand of rhododendrons nearby, so that seemed to be just as good a place as any to explore. What we found was pretty cool: a little bit of marshy area, fed by small streams that were crossed with stepping stones to ease a hiker's passage. Surely someone had put a lot of thought into this layout.

On getting home, I took to the internet to discover more of the story. Ferber emigrated from Austria in 1931, marrying Hedwig, a German immigrant, a few years later. Described by his wife as a dreamer, Ferber bounced from job to job but eventually found success as the inventor of a low-cost ballpoint pen. His Englewood-based Ferber Pen Company earned him a fortune that allowed him to take a run at his ultimate dream: preserving nature in the increasingly urbanizing Northeast corridor.

Buying a large expanse in West Milford, he later gave half his land to the state for the creation of Wawayanda State Park. Stories vary on how Fred and Hedwig ended up running an animal sanctuary, but it seems that they started feeding the wildlife, likely attracting more deer, bears and other creatures to the property than normally would have stopped by on their own.

According to a 1969 article in Life magazine, Ferber created a non-profit organization called Sussex Woodlands, which bought 3000 acres of land near Bearfort Mountain. National Audubon reportedly endorsed his plans for hiking trails and a conservation center, giving further weight to his presentations to universities and foundations he hoped would buy into his vision.

Apparently none did. Two years later, The New York Times reported that Ferber was attempting to sell the property to the state for $1.5 million to cover his back mortgage and property tax payments. Developers had offered him $4 million, but he stood firm on his dream, even when foreclosure and a sheriff’s auction were imminent. The state had insufficient Green Acres funding to purchase the land, but the bank and towns of Vernon and West Milford were reportedly willing to work with the state to ensure the tract’s preservation. However, a later Times article reports that a group of unnamed Bergen County preservationists stepped forward to pay the back taxes when foreclosure appeared unavoidable.

Anyone familiar with land battles, particularly those involving environmentally sensitive areas, can guess that this took quite some time to work out. Eventually the state secured the land, minus 212 acres where the Ferbers continued to live until their deaths in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The most recent development I can find is that a widowed Hedwig was trying to figure out a way to keep their animal sanctuary running after her death.

I’m certain there’s a lot more to the story of Fred Ferber. For one thing, after selling his land to the state, he staked a claim to mine gold and silver on the property, though metallurgists confirmed he’d have to process over 6000 tons of local stone to garner one ounce of gold. Why would an environmentalist want to despoil pristine land with a mining operation? And I haven’t seen anything about the fate of the Ferber house itself. Could it be that we didn’t see signs of it because we were looking in the wrong place? Perhaps it’s still standing and occupied somewhere nearby. You have to love a good mystery.

Driving down Old Rudetown Road

There are some Hidden New Jersey discoveries that seem to resist an easy explanation. I’ll run into something interesting or unusual, make note of it, maybe take a photo, but my follow-up research draws a complete blank on first examination. I don’t usually share those instances with you because, well, I feel responsible for giving you at least some of the story of the things Ivan and I discover.

But then there are sometimes things that are more fun in the conjecturing than they probably are in fact. Things like Old Rudetown Road.

I was bopping around Sussex County when I veered off Route 23 and onto Route 94 into the Vernon/McAfee area. It’s pretty country with the leaves starting to turn fall colors, but I wasn’t finding a lot of unusualness to prompt me to stop. What I needed was something compelling to get me to head off the highway.

There it was: a street sign for Old Rudetown Road.

Rudetown? That needed some examination. There doesn’t appear to be any actual community called Rudetown on the map, but who knew? Maybe there was some sort of historic marker. Sussex County is good at marking stuff like that, so it was worth checking out.

If you have any experience wandering the roads of this state (or probably most any other), you’re accustomed to seeing the “-town” suffix on street signs. Taylortown, Pumptown, you name it. They’re usually vestiges of tiny communities that were swallowed up long ago by larger townships, and noted now only possibly by a gathering of buildings at an intersection that once served as a village center.

Rudetown, however, doesn’t appear to be one of them. If it ever existed, there’s no convincing sign of it left. After passing a few businesses, I traveled by the occasional house, but for the most part, Old Rudetown Road was just a back road thoroughfare, one lane each way, with very few intersecting streets. I’d have turned around before I reached its end at County Road 517. It didn't seem very rude at all, unless you counted the driver following a bit closely behind me. Because I didn't have much room to stop, I couldn't get quick photo of the street sign or pull over to do so, not unless I wanted to be rude, myself. And who knew? If my stopping caused a delay for the driver behind me, would he flip me the bird?

As I drove back to Hidden New Jersey HQ, I mused over the mystery of Rudetown. Why would a town have such an unpleasant name? And why did it (apparently) disappear off the map? Perhaps the people there were so rude that they couldn’t find spouses, so they eventually died out, their homes rotting to the ground and their property reverted to the county for non-payment of taxes.

It appears the answer is a bit less dramatic. An detailed internet search revealed genealogical data indicating that a family named Rude lived in the larger town of Hardyston in the 1700s, likely lending their name to the area. It makes sense, and I should have figured that, but, well, I let my sense of fun get away from me. You've gotta admit: it's more fun to consider that there was once a time where all of the unpleasant people in the state could find refuge in one small town named in their honor.

Ever find a great name in your travels?

Milling around in Stillwater, generally speaking

Our visit to White Lake built up a thirst, so we found ourselves wandering in search of liquid refreshment. We found it at the general store in Stillwater.

Stillwater General Store always
seems to have someone parked
directly in front of it. 

If you've done any wandering through the less built-up areas of the state, you've probably run into a historic general store building or two. I say 'historic' because many of them don't serve the 'general' purpose anymore. Instead of selling various groceries and housing the community post office, they've been converted into gourmet sandwich shops or coffee houses. There's nothing patently wrong with that -- repurposing buildings is often the best way to preserve them -- but they lack a certain authenticity. They often sell fair-trade coffee by the pound instead of penny nails, and if you need toilet paper or soap you'd better be prepared to drive a distance to a big-box store.

The minute we pulled up to the Stillwater General Store, it was clear which category it falls into. An out-of-service Texaco Fire Chief gas pump stood in front of the porch, paired with one of those vintage advertising signs. Both came by their weathered appearance honestly, as did the screen door that had clearly welcomed generations of local residents. Once inside, we passed a wall of post office boxes on the way to the beverage cooler. To be honest, I was so focused on getting something to drink that I didn't study the groceries on the shelves, but it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that they probably focus on the bare necessities someone might need when a trip to a distant supermarket was out of the question. Oh, and when we made our purchase, the proprietor said something about pie. I'm still regretting passing that up. I mean, Sussex County pie must be really good.

Our thirst issue resolved, we noticed that the general store wasn't the only interesting building in town. A short walk brought us to the home of Casper Shafer, the German immigrant who'd settled the area in the early 1740s. While the Vass family was growing grain in Hardwick, Shafer ran a successful grist mill that was paired with a sawmill just before the Revolution. In addition to counting on the nearby Paulins Kill to power his mills, he used the waterway as means to get his product to the Delaware and eventually to customers as far away as Philadelphia.

The Stillwater Mill, looking a lot like one of those
cute figurines people collect. 

Shafer's wooden mill was destroyed by a fire in 1844, but its replacement still stands nearby, looking as if it could be transplanted to an old village in the Alps. In fact, it looks a little too good, as if it shut down just a few years ago. Actually, in the continuum of milling in New Jersey, that's the case. Its continuous operation ended in 1954, but new owners reopened it in the early 1970s, running it as a milling business during the week and an educational establishment on the weekends.

It's not clear when the Stillwater shut down for good, but when it did, it was the last of New Jersey's operating grist mills. The industry had fallen victim to development, as more grain farms were sold and converted to residential communities.

Somehow, Stillwater seems to have avoided overdevelopment, or at least the area around Main Street has. On our Sunday visit it was quiet, except for the steady flow of visitors to the general store. There were an assortment of other buildings we didn't check out... the church on the hill and the historical society, to name two. Maybe another time, when we'll be sure to stop for the pie.

Way too big to misplace (but we did): hunting for the Paulinskill Viaduct

Sometimes it pays to keep old stuff in the car. You never know when you'll need it.

Longtime Hidden New Jersey readers know that we count on a few key reference materials during and after our forays into the field. Ivan's got his birding manuals, and my bible, of sorts, is the WPA Guide to 1930s New Jersey. You know there's potential for a good story if you locate something that was listed in a travel guide more than 70 years ago.

That's especially true in Northwestern New Jersey, where a lot of stuff is still where it was back then. We were counting on that when we stopped near Andover-Aeroflex Airport the other day to get our bearings. While Ivan did some light birding, I checked the WPA Guide for the next destination.

Bingo. I found "the Lackawanna RR Cutoff, 110 feet high and stretching for three miles across Pequest Valley. Built just prior to the World War, it helped to reduce the main line distance by 11 miles."

That, I was pretty sure, referred to a portion of the Paulinskill Viaduct, a well-known but well-hidden engineering marvel of its day. With soaring arches supporting the rail line between Hoboken and Scranton, it was, at its construction in 1911, the largest structure built using cast concrete. It hasn't supported train traffic since 1984, but it's gained a fan base among urban explorers. And, well, it's historic. I'd been there before, but Ivan hadn't, so it was worth a look. The thing is massive, and it comes out of nowhere, like a mirage in the woods.

My recollection was that it was just off one of the north-south roads north of Route 80, but I couldn't remember if it was 206 (which we were on) or 94. We decided to find out. The Guide said there was something there, so what the heck.

Only thing was, we couldn't find it. Somewhere around the prescribed mileage, we found a side road that turned and paralleled 206, so we took that. Nothing approaching the magnitude of the Viaduct appeared. Frustrated, Ivan did some backroads driving until the road took a tunnel through what appeared to be a very large hill. This is what we saw on the other side:

Be sure to click on this photo for the full story. 

I have to admit that my favorite part of the whole story is where the school got buried during construction and the kids cheered.

The sign confirmed what the Guide had told us, but it indicated nothing about the viaduct. It wasn't easy to see where the cutoff headed, or where the track had been, because the whole embankment was overgrown.

If you didn't know better, you'd have no idea
there'd ever been a train line atop that embankment.

Like a bloodhound hot on the trail, Ivan was focused on getting to the Viaduct, come hell or high water. I would have been content to let it go, but he was a man on a mission. Figuring I'd try to help somehow, I remembered the one document in the car that might help: his 1976 Bicentennial New Jersey roadmap. Surely it would show rail routes on it. Even if they weren't precise, the markings would give us an idea of where to go.

Yes, indeed, the map showed the route of the Lackawanna Railroad, so yes, I had to apologize for all of the times I've made jokes about keeping 35 year-old maps in the car.

The map also made me realize the best thing might be to get additional help from something a little more modern: my smartphone. A few taps later, and the ugly truth came out: the viaduct is off of Route 94 outside of Knowlton, just a few miles north of Route 80. Mea culpa. I relayed the unfortunate news and we headed along back roads to get there. After reaching 94, we drove a bit until I saw a familiar-looking one-lane bridge off the northbound side.

"There it is," I exclaimed. The bridge takes you to a narrow road and through the woods until... there it is, towering high above.

Now, summer isn't really the best time to see the viaduct, hidden as it is among the trees. My last trip had been during springtime, and even then the foliage obscured the full majesty of the thing. Still, though, you have to admit it's pretty amazing, sitting out there like Brigadoon in the mist.

According to some sources, New Jersey Transit plans to use the Viaduct for passenger travel between Hoboken and Scranton, starting as early as 2014. For now, though, the structure is the dominion of urban explorers and graffiti artists.

After we found the viaduct, I couldn't help but wonder why it wasn't mentioned in the WPA Guide. The reinforced concrete arches are infinitely more impressive than the big berm that crushed the schoolhouse outside of Andover, so what gives?

A little bit of research revealed what's probably the answer: 94 didn't exist yet. According to Wikipedia, that state highway wasn't commissioned until the 1950s, well after the Guide was published. Perhaps the arches weren't as easy to find as they are now (and I say that with tongue planted firmly in cheek), simply because the road wasn't built yet. It's really kind of a shame. I'd think that the New Jersey explorers of the 30s and 40s would have enjoyed seeing it as much as we did, and even more with a train on top!

Iron Mike and the CCC

Ever have one of those weekends where you run into the same person in two different places, even though you didn't share your agenda with him, or, for that matter, even have plans set beforehand?

Memorial Day weekend was that way for us. Granted, it was three days instead of two, but still, it was kind of wild, especially considering the guy we ran into was Iron Mike.

We first met Mike on the grounds of the Montclair State School of Conservation, deep within Stokes State Forest. As you'll see, he really lives up to his nickname.

Mike in Stokes State Forest

Considering how firmly planted he seemed to be in Sussex County, we were surprised to run into him two days later at Roosevelt Park in Edison.

Mike in Edison

Both statues were accompanied by a plaque marking the statue as a representative of the thousands of Americans who participated in the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression. From 1933 to 1942, the CCC employed young urban men to plant millions of trees to restore the nation's depleted forests and prevent soil erosion. Besides providing good jobs to reduce the unemployment rate, the program enabled participants to help support their families, many of whom were living in poverty. Eventually, every state in the nation hosted at least one CCC camp, and the Corps' work extended to other wilderness activities like building roads, stocking rivers and lakes, and creating drainage systems to preserve valuable farmland. Many of their projects, including a litany of county, state and national parks, continue to make a positive impact to this day.

As I discovered through a little research, Iron Mike is the product of the effort of CCC alumni to increase awareness of the Corps and its impact. They're aiming to place at least one Mike in every state, and remarkably, Ivan and I found both New Jersey Mikes without knowing anything about the statue project. Stokes Mike has been there since 1996, while Edison Mike has gazed over Route 1 since 2003.

Not to quibble, but I found slight differences between the two iterations, explained perhaps by the seven year gap between their respective births. The Edison Mike is, shall we say, a bit more sinewy than his Stokes brother. Maybe they're cast from different molds, or perhaps the Middlesex County incarnation spent a little more time at the gym, but the variations make for a fun little game of observation. Go check them out and let me know what you think.

Where Edison concentrated: iron ore processing at Ogdensburg

A little over a year ago, we made a trip out to Thomas Edison's concrete mile on Route 57 in Stewartsville/New Village, the site of his famed Portland cement factory. What I didn't mention in that account was the earlier use of the equipment that ground stone into fine enough particles to make a durable concrete.

You see, the Wizard of Menlo Park didn't originally set out to make concrete. He was looking to capitalize on the high iron content of the northwestern reaches of New Jersey, to supply concentrated iron ore bricks manufactured from the raw material of Sussex Mountain. And to do it, he built the first Edison, New Jersey: a veritable city of workers and innovative rock crushing machinery that used magnetic force to separate iron from pulverized stone. While mines in western Morris County and beyond were starting to peter out of useful material, he somehow thought that his experience would be different. No matter what, you've got to give the guy credit for optimism.

Finding the Edison mining property wasn't all that easy for me -- this is a trip I took before Ivan and I met, so I didn't have the benefit of his knowledge of the area. After some internet research, I discovered that my target was just off Sussex County Road 620 in Ogdensburg. More specifically, it's on Edison Road. For some reason, the Garmin people hadn't included 620 on their GPS maps, so I was left to do a little automobile bushwacking once I got into the Sussex area.

I arrived to find a stone and brass marker erected by Sussex County not too long ago, and a sign with topographic mapping of several trails that ramble through the woods. Noticing a New Jersey Audubon logo on the topo sign, I realized that I'd come upon one of the organization's unstaffed areas, and that if I'd bothered to look at my Audubon trails guide, I'd have known exactly where to go.

If you check the area out for yourself, be sure to stop at the county marker and check out the photos embedded in it. They show an environment that differs substantially from the woods and open fields currently on the property. More than 500 men and several huge pieces of processing machinery were working furiously during Edison's time there, and there's little to show for it now. Yes, as you walk around, you'll find the remnants of rustic looking stone walls, and a fair number of steel reinforcing rods poking up from the ground, but besides that, there's little to indicate the industry that existed there from 1891 to 1900. Still, though, random rocks on the ground show the telltale reddish-brown shade of oxidized iron. And fittingly, the area is now traversed by a set of high-voltage transmission lines.

Edison spent much of his time at Ogdensburg during the eleven years his iron ore business operated, ultimately spending about $2 million of his personal wealth on the unsuccessful venture. Characteristically unaffected by the cost of yet another experiment that didn't work out, he said, "Well, it's all gone, but we had a hell of a good time spending it!"

Where does the cement come in? Like any great inventor and entrepreneur, Edison studied the failed venture to determine lessons learned. He noted that the crushing machinery was especially good at manufacturing finely-ground material that could be used in high-quality cement. The machinery was moved about 45 miles southwest to New Village, and in 1903, a new business was born: Edison Portland Cement. From roads and houses to Yankee Stadium, this durable material showed up all over the place as Edison strived to find markets for the product. Once again, he'd managed to make some pretty tasty lemonade from the lemons he'd been served.

Sue and Ivan versus the Volcano

The folks at Lusscroft Farm have been tapping the property's maple trees in preparation for a maple sugaring event held on St. Patrick's Day weekend. I only became aware of it a day or two beforehand, and I insisted that we had to make a return visit to see whether New Jersey maple syrup is better than the Vermont variety.

We'd just stumbled on the place the first time we visited, so this time I made sure we had the address plugged into the GPS. Rather than bringing us to the front gate, it took us around the side, past a surprising street sign:

Sorry for the blurriness of the photo. I guess I was so excited
that my hand was shaking, plus I was using a phone camera.

A volcano? This was a new one on me. The last time I ran into a sign like this on the road, I was in Hawaii, where you're driving on literal volcanoes all the time. New Jersey, it need not be said, is not exactly known for its volcanic activity. Then again, the hill we were driving on did seem kind of different from the others we'd traversed in Sussex County.

A little bit of research revealed a little bit of information. Rutan Hill, as it's called, is, indeed, a 440 million year-old extinct volcano. Not only is it the only one in New Jersey, it's one of the two spots in the state where one can see the natural occurrence of nepheline syenite, a very rare igneous rock with origins in magma. The volcanic action also essentially baked the surrounding sedimentary rock, which we saw as we hiked around Lusscroft. A lot of the stones seemed a little grayer than what you usually see, and maybe a little more crumbly, but that might have just been my perspective.

Given the title of this entry, you're probably wondering if we went to the peak of the volcano to make a symbolic sacrifice. Well, in true Jersey fashion, the road was marked "PRIVATE -- DO NOT ENTER," and while we surmised that residents had put the sign up illegally to deter curiosity seekers, we didn't want to take any chances. And sadly, builders had already made a sacrifice we'd never dream of: they covered the apex of the hill with a house. Those attempting to get a view of a geologic wonder are left trying to imagine the volcano untouched by the hand of man.

The maple syrup quest was both interesting and disappointing. They'd sold out of syrup by the time we got there, but we got a little taste along with an education on the maple syrup process. For one thing, we learned that a grouping of tapped maple trees is called a sugarbush. And the sap gathering process isn't what we expected. Instead of gallon buckets hanging from individual taps, they use a vacuum-sealed system of flexible tubing that collects the sap and delivers it, by gravity, to a central receptacle downhill. Pretty cool!

I guess you could say that for the day, the state-by-state comparisons were a mixed bag. On volcanoes, New Jersey definitely pales in comparison to Hawaii, but to this taste tester, our maple syrup is definitely on a par with Vermont's!

Voting 'em up or down in Newton

Wandering around Sussex County this weekend, we found ourselves driving into the center of Newton, the county seat. We didn't expect to drive almost smack dab into a relic of colonial history: the town green. Now adorned with a massive Civil War memorial and an old county office building, it's bordered on all sides by what passes for city roads in the quieter parts of the state.

When you talk about a colonial town green, New England will come to mind for a lot of people. Bring up the topic in Northern New Jersey, and many will think of Morristown, which continues to maintain its park-like green in the middle of the business district. Newton's holds a special distinction: it's the only colonial county seat in the state where a courthouse on its original site fronts a town square or public green. That's a lot of qualifiers, but it basically means that when you drive into town, you can't miss seeing the Classic Revival-style courthouse. The circa 1847 structure stands on the same site as the original courthouse which was built shortly after Newton was named Sussex County seat in 1761.

We stopped to get more information from the informative Sussex County historical marker nearby. Turns out that in addition to the usual public square uses (political discourse, corporal punishment, common pasture), the Newton square was also the public polling site.

Rather than having an anonymous balloting process for municipal contests on Election Day, Newton residents voted by where they stood, physically. Sides of the green would be designated for particular candidates, voters would stand in the area that corresponded to their choice, and a headcount would be taken. And given that the green is on a hill, you'd literally be voting up or voting down, depending on where your candidate's spot was.

Newton's population grew rapidly with the construction of factories in the area, and I gather that's what put the headcount voting practice to an end in 1858. It's hard enough keeping a few dozen people standing in a single spot. Imagine how difficult it would be to keep hundreds from milling around before the official talliers lost count.

While I personally prefer the confidentiality of the voting booth, there's value in casting one's ballots publicly, in the center of town. Everyone could see who had shown up to vote, and peer pressure could encourage the tardy or reluctant to come out and participate. Those who didn't vote yet still complained about the state of affairs could easily be identified and told to hold their peace. I can imagine that the practice was the basis for many lively discussions around town in the hours and days after Election Day.