No pita with this Gyro: Earle Eckel's hidden airport

State Route 57 in Warren County seems like some sort of supernatural entity. No matter how well I think I get to know it, no matter how many times Ivan and I travel its length, subsequent trips always seem to reveal something new.

Or, more accurately, something old.

Just the other day, we were driving the road west of downtown Washington when I looked to the left and saw this:

How could we have missed Eckel's Autogiro Port near the corner of Route 57 and Mill Pond Road? Look a little closer at this seemingly freshly-painted sign, and you can see a claim that this is the first exclusive autogiro airport in America. THAT I would have remembered; we're always happy to find new airfields.

As I discovered with a little research, we'd stumbled upon one of Washington's more accomplished citizens, Earle S. Eckel. Born in 1891, he showed a remarkable combination of entrepreneurship and ingenuity from a very young age. By the time he turned 20, he'd already fulfilled a contract to string telephone wires from Philipsburg to Washington, built a steam engine that both powered his mom's washing machine and heated the wash water, and operated his own mobile movie theater enterprise, among other ventures.

Detailing all of Eckel's enterprises will make for a good future Hidden New Jersey entry, but for now we'll stick with the autogiro port. Long story short, an interest in motorcycles eventually got Eckel into automobile sales and repairs in Washington, and then to gasoline and fuel oil. Petroleum was good to him: in partnership with his brother, he opened a chain of nine service stations, which they sold to the Tidewater Oil Company in 1930. The windfall was substantial, and he used a portion of it to buy his own airplane. Predictably, that led to another business: Eckel Air Service, which offered flying lessons and charter flights from Easton Airport.

Eckel eventually left the airline business when it proved to be less than profitable, but the venture whetted his interest in aviation, particularly when it came to a craft that he could keep on his Mill Pond Road property. He didn't have enough room for an airplane, so he selected the recently-developed Pitcairn autogiro. Sporting both a nose-mounted propeller and a helicopter-type rotor above, it offered the joy of flying at slow speeds with the convenience of shorter takeoffs.

Reflecting his usual enthusiasm for new ventures, Eckel built a well-equipped airfield on his property in 1931, clearing a runway, installing floodlights and erecting a hangar. Two years later he bought a second craft, building another hangar to store it.

Eckel with Tidewater's autogiro Miss Vedol.

According to some accounts, Eckel held the nation's first transport autogiro pilot's license and flew the first airmail from Washington NJ to Newark during National Air Week in 1938. Locally, the autogiro made Eckel a few bucks in towing advertising banners and offering flying lessons, while he often traveled to out-of-state air shows to fly stunts competitively. He found his real success as a pilot for the Tidewater Oil Company, which hired him to fly two multi-state promotional tours for their Veedol motor oil. Estimating that he flew a total of more than 4000 passengers in the autogiro, he told the Schenectady Gazette that "safety is the keynote of the autogiro, these ships being able to land in small patches of level ground far too small for conventional type planes."

Eckel continued to keep his autogiros at the port even after selling the property in 1942, but as his interests turned to other pursuits, the field reverted to its former use as farm fields. Meanwhile, improvements in helicopter technology and the relative costliness of autogiros pretty much sealed their fate in the commercial market. Improved versions of the technology are still available today and are occasionally used for surveillance

As for Eckel, he died in 1978, having lived an interesting and varied life. Today, his former home and gyro port are the basis of the Pleasant Valley Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Only a small wooden sign and the bright side of the one remaining hangar indicate anything remarkable about the placid little area where once an adventurous mind took flight.

Finding the monoliths of Changewater

The opening day of fishing season in New Jersey was a great day to take a good wander around the countryside, and I found myself once again traipsing through Warren County, partially on Route 46, some on Route 31 and finally on Route 57. This time I was off to find a concrete house built by an employee of Edison's Portland cement company, and I actually found it, though not without a bit of discovery along the way.

I mention fishing season because it seemed I couldn't go very far without seeing anglers casting their luck for the first time in 2015. Both the Pequest and the Musconetcong Rivers were popular, with clutches of waders-wearing fishermen standing midstream or on the banks.

After taking a turn off Route 57 south of Port Colden, I found myself on Changewater Road, driving along fields, past a few McMansion enclaves and finally to the small community of Changewater. The road bends and quickly descends to the level of the Musconetcong River, which splits into upper and lower branches there, giving the hamlet its name.

An old one-lane bridge crosses the river at that point, and when I arrived, a few vehicles were parked in a small gravel-covered lot on the Warren County side. Yup -- more anglers capitalizing on a nice day for fishing. However, that's not why I stopped.

I stopped for the monoliths.

A couple of dark old cut-stone columns stood on either side of the river, and when I got out of the car to check them out, I noticed they lined up with stone structures farther up the hills on either side of the road. If you drew a straight line along the top of the several columns, you could imagine train tracks stretching across what's basically a ravine. It put me in the mind of the better known Paulinskill Viaduct, which, though made from cast concrete rather than quarried stone, is similar in that it just kind of jumps up on you when you least expect it, in a seemingly unspoiled environment.

The trestle, back in the day.

I'd found the remains of the Changewater Trestle, which predates the Paulinskill Viaduct by nearly 50 years. The Changewater was part of John Blair's Warren Railroad, which connected the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western's (DL&W) terminal point on the Delaware River with the Hampton station of the Central Railroad of New Jersey, primarily to get coal from Pennsylvania to the New York markets. (We briefly covered the technical challenges of building the Warren in an earlier Hidden New Jersey story on another discovery behind Shippen Manor.)

As it seems with so many other discoveries we make, the age of the trestle depends on who you ask. Even the twin markers on the Hunterdon County side disagree -- an older sign saying the railroad ran there in 1856 while the newer placard says 1862. Both agree, however, that the railroad, owned by the DL&W by that point, stopped running there by 1960. The rails were removed, presumably along with the track bed, at that point. I'd have to find an old railroad map to be sure, but I'd venture to guess that this stretch was connected with the length that once ran behind Shippen Manor, which was pretty much rendered secondary, and less profitable, when the Paulinskill Viaduct shortened the route to Scranton.

On its own, Changewater has a neat little story once you do a little digging. Originally home to a colonial-era iron furnace, it was apparently a productive hamlet during the 19th century. The Washington Township website notes that at various points, the village had hosted a snuff factory, a flour mill, distillery, tannery and a picture frame factory, as well as a railroad station. Locals could grab the train there until passenger service ended in 1926.

Nowadays, Changewater still has a post office, but the community is mostly residential in nature, offering the type of village living many think is impossible to find in New Jersey. Whether the fishing is any good on that stretch of the Musconetcong, I couldn't tell you, but I'd venture there are a lot worse places to be on a sunny spring morning.

And as for that concrete house I mentioned? That's a story for another day.

Caveat emptor and labor struggles: the odd history of Consumers Research

Wander around long enough, and you're bound to find some real ironies revealed not by commemorative plaques or statues, but in conversations you have along the way. For instance, our visit to the Bread Lock Museum led to a local resident who told us about a 1935 labor strike that grew violent in the outskirts of Washington, Warren County. Rather than the typical manual labor action against factory management, it pitted a consumer advocacy watchdog against researchers and scientists devoted to product safety.

When I checked further, I discovered that management who had previously voiced, in the words of the WPA Guide to 1930s New Jersey, "caustic criticism of employers who showed hostility to organized labor," was all too willing to halt the creation of a union when it got in the way of his own goals.

Who was this union-resistant business entity, why had its leaders made the about-face, and why did all of this happen in the foothills of Warren County? To find out, we need to go back to nine years before the strike, and the birth of the consumer advocacy movement.

New York resident Frederick J. Schlink had worked at the U.S. Bureau of Standards, the federal agency charged with testing products to help government procurement entities get the best buys and most effective products. Frustrated by the dubious claims advertisers made to the public, Schlink, with a coauthor, wrote the book Your Money's Worth in 1926 to raise public awareness of false advertising and inferior manufacturing processes, and to call for the creation of an independent testing organization to protect and educate consumers.

Finding a receptive audience, Schlink founded the Consumers' Club and published the Consumers' Club Commodity List, which ranked products by quality and value. Rather than testing the products themselves, Schlink and his colleagues drew their information from assessments made by trusted sources like the Bureau of Standards and the American Medical Association.

By 1929, the renamed Consumers Research was nearly 100 employees strong, publishing three different periodicals from its New York City offices. They'd begun testing some of the products they reported on, but many reviews were still based on the work of outside laboratories. The publications drew a small but ardent subscriber base, prompting Schlink to dream that the movement could take on enough momentum to spawn a political party and even a federal Department of the Consumer.

Growth, however, would depend on the organization's ability to test products on its own, free of any financial indebtedness to advertisers or others who might attempt to influence product ratings. Unable to attract a major donor for the consumer foundation he sought to endow, Schlink relied on donations from club members and the dramatic expansion of subscribers to the list. With money an issue as the Depression hit and wore on, he came up with an idea that's been conceived by countless business leaders since: move the entire operation out of the city. Not only would a rural location be less expensive, it would offer more space for research labs, and a lower cost of living would justify lower salaries.

The Consumers Research board of directors considered several locations before Schlink purchased the former Florey Piano factory in Washington. He felt that the town, with its all-American culture, was the ideal example of the community that the average consumer called home.

Employees and board members, many of them city natives, were aghast. Considering the relative isolation of life outside cities at the time, it's not surprising: '30's era transportation and communications were far from the standard we enjoy today, and while Washington was a well-developed town, it lacked the amenities of Manhattan. One Consumers Research board member is said to have noted that he'd prefer suicide to living in a small town.

Nonetheless, many of the workers, committed to the consumer advocacy movement, made the move with Schlink and his management team. Many didn't last long in the rural environment and returned to New York, but others continued with the organization as it moved to larger quarters just outside town.

Over the years that followed, several of those who stayed grew increasingly discontented over pay, job security and working conditions. Finding Schlink to be less than open to their input, they organize a union to negotiate with management. It wasn't a surprising move, considering that many Consumers Research employees were activists, drawn to the company by its principled stand on behalf of the average American and its reputation as a haven for progressives.

When they approached the board for a meeting to discuss their concerns, the newly formed union was turned away, its three organizers fired. Board members who'd agreed to talk with the union were dismissed from their duties, too. Seeing no other way, more than 40 employees walked off the job on September 4, 1935, seeking protection against being fired on management's whim, the dismissal of two labor-unfriendly board members, reinstatement of the fired union members and a minimum weekly wage of $15.

Hostilities grew quickly, as a bus carrying replacement workers was stoned by strikers on September 10 and one of the opposing board members was assaulted. Violence escalated over the following days until a riot started on October 15. As The WPA Guide described it:

"Armed guards patrolled the acreage about the main building... a constable mounted on a farm horse rode into a crowd of several hundred strikers and sympathizers from local unions assembled on the road. His act provoked a riot that lasted for hours. The crowd surged through the ropes, showering the buildings with stones; automobiles were overturned and wrecked. By nightfall the guards were reinforced by hastily deputized farmers, armed with shotguns and rifles. ... Guns blazed as the deputized farmhands chased university graduates up and down the country lane... Strikebreakers barricaded within the building were evacuated in moving vans, with an escort of farmers. Miraculously, no one was killed or seriously injured."

The strikers' efforts became a cause celebre in New York, with more than 1000 people attending a meeting led by sympathetic Consumers Research board members and journalist Heywood Broun. Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, American Civil Liberties Union co-founder Roger Baldwin and others attempted to talk with management on behalf of the strikers but were unsuccessful. It seems that some CR board members could not be dissuaded, as they believed the union was under Communist Party influence. And others couldn't reconcile the fact that the very people they needed to make the consumer movement succeed -- independent thinking professionals with integrity -- would want to have some say in their own working conditions.

Ultimately, the National Labor Relations Board heard from both sides, ruling for the workers. Consumers Research appealed the ruling and lost again but ignored the NLRB's decision. The strike ended on January 13, 1936. Many of the dissenting workers, along with two former board members, started Consumers Union, the testing and research organization that publishes the influential and highly-respected Consumer Reports.

The two organizations continue to provide useful and timely information to their subscribers, but their fates differ sharply. While Consumer Reports' subscriptions and testing labs grew, Consumers Research lost both paying supporters and influence. Schlink continued to operate the labs on Bowerstown Road in Washington until 1981, when he sold the operation to a conservative radio personality. The laboratories closed two years later as the organization moved from testing to focusing on the impact of legislation and regulation on consumers.

I tried to find the building on a recent trip to Washington but found no evidence of it on Bowerstown Road. The only evidence you'll find of a labor dispute, or of the useful work of Consumers Research, that you'll find in locally is in the memories of old timers and local historians.

Making beautiful music in Washington, the Organ Capital of the World

A hundred years or more ago, beautiful music came from a Northwestern New Jersey community in such abundance that the area was said to be the Organ Capital of the World.

Words from an 1897 catalog paint the picture: "Nestled among the green hills of Warren County... lies the beautiful little city of Washington, where for more than a half century, Cornish Pianos and Organs have been built. [...] Here is no great rush, but an infinite care and painstaking labor are exercised in a quiet co-operative way."

There's no sign of the company or the factory at its old location on the corner of State Route 57 and South Lincoln Avenue today; we learned about it from a docent during our visit to the Bread Lock Museum a few months ago. Astoria, Queens may be the birthplace of the more famous and fabled Steinway and Sons piano dynasty, but one could say the impact of Washington, Warren County on the world of music appreciation for the common person was greater. If the manufacturers in this town had their way, every American family would a piano or organ of their own. According to its own promotional materials, Cornish put out 40 complete instruments every working day, producing up to 12,000 a year in its factory.

Unlike Steinway and its luxurious Manhattan showroom, the Cornish Company eschewed retail. Rather, it sold direct to consumer via catalogs and advertisements that emphasized both the quality and relative affordability of the instruments. Potential customers could pick from several ornately-carved cabinets to accent their home decor, and "every responsible person in the land" was encouraged to purchase an organ or piano on credit. Cornish promised that purchasers could return their instrument within a year and get back the payments they'd made plus six percent interest. As an added inducement, the company made arrangements with a correspondence school to provide piano lessons to customers who may not have already known how to play a keyboard instrument.

The factory itself started as a much smaller structure built by a furniture manufacturer in 1858. After purchasing the building in 1880, the Cornish family and built several additions until it took up most of a city block. Nearly two dozen smaller keyboard instrument manufacturers followed, earning Washington its title as Organ Capital of the World.

The ultimate end of the Cornish company and its factory aren't quite clear. Local historians feel that the rise of the phonograph may have led to the company's demise, a good theory considering one didn't need to invest time in lessons to learn to play a record. Some reports say that the company never recovered from a 1922 factory fire, and a 1926 New York Times article states that the building was to be converted to a hotel, with 40 rooms on the second and third floors. Fifty years later, The Star Gazette of Hackettstown and Washington reports that after the company went into receivership in 1921, a former baseball player named Socks Farrell purchased the property, renovating a portion of the old factory to become the Farrell Arms.

Ultimately, the structure appears to have been destroyed in a 1934 fire, replaced over time by a gas station and then the Krauszers food store that stands today. Cornish organs and pianos, however, still stand beautifully in living rooms and parlors around the world, handed down over the generations to their original purchasers' offspring.

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.

Barges, Edison and local history at the Bread Lock

After our visit to the incredible restoration of Morris Canal Inclined Plane 9W, I wondered whether we had enough energy left for a stop at a related site, Bread Lock Park and the museum that's on the grounds. It's open but once a month, like the Inclined Plane, so it only seemed right to check it out while we were in the neighborhood. It's just down Route 57, in the town of New Village, and I'd originally found it during my quest to find Edison's Portland cement factory.

One end of the life-sized model of a Morris Canal barge.

The park itself is part of the growing Morris Canal Greenway that's being developed under the auspices of the Warren County Morris Canal Committee. Appropriately, the canal prism (the trench the barges traveled in) and tow path curl their way through the property, which also includes a fitness path and picnic area. You can't visit the lock itself -- it's still buried -- but the park has its own delight. A full-sized replica of a canal barge sits near the foundation of the lock-tender's house, accessible enough that you can climb aboard and take the tiller to guide the boat on an imaginary trip. A store that once stood nearby was well known for its baked goods, to the point where canal workers renamed Lock 7 West for the aroma of delicious bread that welcomed them as they approached.

Then there's the museum. Officially the Warren County Historical Learning Center, it's in a ranch-style house, which gives the visitor a little bit of a surreal feeling upon arrival. Signs clearly state the building's purpose, but you still can't help but wonder if you'll be interrupting someone's afternoon by walking in. Frankly, I couldn't help but look for a doorbell.

When you walk in, it's abundantly clear you're either in a museum or someone's ambitious history project. The first room is lined with vintage photos of various historic sites around the county, but the most arresting sight is a linear representation of the canal and the community that surrounds its remnants today. A topographical map of the route through Warren County is posted above a diorama that takes up all of one wall of the room, along with photos of key locations. All of a sudden, the twists and turns of the canal made sense to me. What looks like a drunken cow path on a road map becomes a logical route when elevation changes are included in the equation. In other words, when most of the terrain you have to cover is blocked by hills and valleys, sometimes the most direct route has plenty of curves.

The big map also helped put a lot of things from my earlier visit to Warren County into perspective. For instance, the oddly-named Halfway House Road marks a halfway point along a seven-mile long level stretch of the canal that skims along the side of Scott's Mountain.

Visitors to the Bread Lock Museum can learn a lot about the canal, but there's plenty else about Warren County's history, too. Other rooms tell the story of Shippen Manor and Oxford Furnace (to be covered in a future Hidden New Jersey road trip), but a large photo of Thomas Edison grabbed my attention and pulled me forward, much like the aroma of fresh bread.

Through the use of several panels that lift and retract, the Edison exhibit tells the story of the Portland cement factory at New Village, including the origins of the crushing technology at the Ogdensburg iron mine and the large limestone mining pits nearby that provided crucial ingredients for the cement. Our museum guide also shared the story of a factory employee who ingeniously built his own concrete house near the corner of Route 57 and Edison Road. Rather than employing one of Edison's house molds (as was used to build the Valley View development in Phillipsburg), the man cast blocks from concrete dust he swept up around the plant. He and his family made about 2000 bricks, enough to construct a nice little home at an even lower cost than Edison boasted for the poured concrete homes.

Honestly, we got so caught up in the Edison exhibit (our guide really knew his stuff) that we didn't get the chance to see the rest of the museum rooms before we had to be on our way. We left, though, with the realization that there's a lot more to check out in Warren County than we realized.

Inclined to love the Morris Canal: technology and archaeology at the Jim and Mary Lee Museum

It's not often my mind gets blown on a Hidden New Jersey jaunt. We see a lot of wonderful things and meet many interesting people in our travels, but it's rare that a visit to one place gets me so excited that I don't know where to start the story. This is one of those instances.

It started a couple of weeks ago, when I traveled Route 57 through Warren County to find remnants of the old Morris Canal. Once-busy port towns revealed small pieces of their past, while a wrong turn outside of Montana brought me to a lonely stretch of the canal hidden in the woods of Scott's Mountain. As interesting as it all was, something was missing: the actual mechanical workings of the canal. Without that, you're just looking at a series of long ditches. Yeah, they're historical, but they show no indication of why the Morris Canal was such a big deal.

And it was a big deal, and still is now, 90 years after it went out of business. You see, to traverse its 102 mile run across north-central New Jersey, the Morris Canal had to surmount a total altitude change of 1674 feet (760 feet up from Phillipsburg to Lake Hopatcong, and then down 914 feet from the Lake to Jersey City). Canals generally use locks to float watercraft to a higher altitude or down to a lower one, as the Delaware and Raritan Canal did to overcome its 55 foot altitude change.

Having to manage a lot of height in a relatively short range, the engineers designing the Morris had to come up with something much different. Sure, they built locks to handle the smaller elevation rises, but the really pronounced peaks and valleys were addressed with a system of inclined planes that made the Morris a technological marvel for its time.

Plane 9W is just 4.5 miles from the canal's start in Phillipsburg.

The inclined plane is essentially a big ramp with machinery that pulls the canal boat up or down a ramp and deposits it back in the canal at the other end. To start, the boat would be floated onto a cradle car that acted as a little train, hauled on tracks by steel cable wound through a pulley system. The whole thing was powered by water shunted from the canal, through an elevated flume, into a powerhouse and down a 47-foot tall chute to a large turbine. Leaving by way of an underground tail race, the water would be returned to the canal, so nothing was lost.

Each inclined plane (and there were 23 of them over the route of the canal) did the work of the many locks that would be needed to make up for that degree of altitude change. The vast majority are gone now, some having been paved over as roads like Plane Street in Boonton.

Plane 9W's reaction-type or "Scotch" turbine was designated
a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark in 1979.

The technology would have been left for history texts had it not been for a man named Jim Lee. Just after World War II, he bought the Stewartsville property on which plane 9W had stood, including the plane tender's house and remnants of the sleeper stones and cable which had been part of the site's apparatus. While the 100 foot tall incline was still there, the wooden flume and powerhouse had been demolished by the State, and much of the debris was tossed into the underground shafts, burying the turbine.

Jim, his family and friends set to work excavating the workings over the course of many years, clearing out the turbine chamber and finding scores of artifacts. In the process, Jim became the foremost expert on the Morris Canal, welcoming visitors to check out the old plane and turbine room. Though he died in 2007, his family continues to share the story on the property, which is now a Warren County park. They make special arrangements for school groups and the like, but it's open to the general public only seven times a year, on the second Sunday of the month, from April to October.

The 5.5 foot circumference tailrace took water from the turbine
back out to the canal at the lower end of the plane.

There's so much that makes the site cool that I barely know where to start. First off, it's absolutely mind blowing to consider the love and dedication behind Jim's work to unearth and share the story of Plane 9W and the Morris Canal. It's a huge testament to what a motivated history lover can do if he or she puts energy and persistence into gear. For someone to rescue a historic site on his own initiative, and then open it to others -- well, that takes a special person.

Next, there's the interpretation of the site. We were fortunate to get a tour from Jim's grandson, Jim Lee III, who's an industrial archaeologist when he's not educating people about the canal. First sharing the history and rationale for building the canal (a story for a future Hidden New Jersey entry), he led us through the technology behind the inclined plane in a way that revealed the ingenuity behind the designers' solution to a tough problem. Even if you're mechanically challenged, you'll come away with a clear understanding and a huge respect for the canal's builders.

A portion of the steel tow cable.

And finally, there's the ground you cover during the tour. Jim brought us through the stone-lined tailrace tunnel to see the turbine underground that powered the plane's tow rope, and then to the top of the plane to inspect the sleeper stones that once acted as a bed for the cradle car rails. Remnants of the steel tow cable snake through the grass, rusted but still looking very strong. At every stop along the way, Jim gave us insights about life on the canal and its impact on the communities it traveled through.

The last stop on the tour is the Jim and Mary Lee Museum, a room within the plane tender's house. While plenty of artifacts and photos are on display, I have to say my favorite was the conch that once belonged to Mary Lee's grandfather, who was one of her many relatives to work on the canal. Sea snail shells may seem out of place in western New Jersey, but they were a common sight along the Morris. Barge crew would sound the conch's trombone-like note to alert lock and plane tenders of their imminent arrival. As Jim demonstrated, they make quite a commanding sound when you blow into one end.

As an appreciator of all things innovative in New Jersey, I found it heartening to see how many people stopped by to visit Plane 9 and the museum during the hour or so that we were there. Such an important site, interpreted so well, deserves a large audience. If you'd like to visit or arrange a tour for a group, check out the Morris Canal website for more information.

A truly Revolutionary doctor: Warren County's Peggy Warne

World War II brought us Rosie the Riveter, the fictional female defense worker who represented hundreds of thousands of real women who took jobs in industry to replace men who were called to war. "Rosies" around the country not only relieved a critical labor shortage, they proved that women were capable of taking on what had been considered "men's" work.

While Rosie is a lasting icon of the mid 20th century, there's no similar character to represent the women who ably filled the labor gap during earlier conflicts. Sure, Mary Ludwig Hays became known as Molly Pitcher when she took up the cannon in place of her injured husband at the Battle of Monmouth, but what of the women who didn't serve in combat? For the most part, one has to dig into history books, study roadside markers or scour graveyards to find them.

Warren County's Peggy Warne is a classic example.

A member of one of New Jersey's oldest families, Margrietje Vliet was born sometime between 1746 and 1751 in Six Mile Run (now part of Franklin Township), Somerset County. The Vliet family had already been in the New World for nearly a century by then, having emigrated from Holland to Flatbush, Long Island when the territory was still in the hands of the Dutch.

In her mid twenties, Peggy married Joseph Warne, grandson of one of the original proprietors of East Jersey (for a quick primer on the proprietors, check out this story. Suffice to say, the Warnes had lived in New Jersey for quite some time.). Joseph's father George gave the young couple 130 acres of farmland in what was then Mansfield-Woodhouse, Sussex County, now Broadway, Warren County.

The Warnes had a total of nine children -- six daughters and three sons -- but Peggy still had time to serve as midwife for the community. At the time, helping mothers through childbirth was the exclusive domain of women; doctors didn't handle pregnancies or deliveries, and few physicians lived in the sparsely-populated area, anyway.

When colonists began rebelling against British rule, both the Vliet and Warne families took up the cause. Peggy's father served as a captain under General William "Scotch Willie" Maxwell during the Revolution, while five of her brothers served in various ranks of the New Jersey Militia. While it's not clear whether Joseph Warnes fought in the war, three of his brothers did, leaving little doubt that he supported the patriot cause one way or another.

Peggy couldn't take up arms with so many children at home, but she could do the next best thing. Expanding her existing medical practice, she assumed the role of country doctor, caring for neighbors with ailments well beyond her usual obstetrical duties. According to Hunterdon County historian James Snell, "she not only practiced in her own neighborhood, but kept a horse ready night and day and rode into the surrounding country, through Warren and Hunterdon Counties, undeterred by rain, hail or drifting snow." Some accounts even credit her with tending to soldiers injured in battle, perhaps after they'd returned home.

Whether she did or didn't handle combat wounds, Peggy Warne definitely was an able replacement for doctors who'd left their local practices to join the Continental Army or New Jersey Militia. She's credited as being the first physician at the community now known as Broadway, and she continued her obstetrical practice well into the 1800s. The Phillipsburg chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution is named in her honor.

Edison's New Village cement plant -- finally found!

I really should have known.

I've driven on Thomas Edison's Concrete Mile many times over the past few years, knowing his Portland cement plant wasn't far away. The inventor laid this stretch of State Highway 57 in 1912 to test the effectiveness of concrete as a paving material, yet another of the experiments he was constantly performing to perfect his products.

For as many Edison sites as I’ve tracked down, and for as many concrete houses as I’ve found over the years, I’d never located the exact site of the factory. I’d always left it for another day, passing through the community on my way to check out a lead on another story.

On the recent Route 57 trip, I decided to take a gander. A good practice in directed exploring is to look for the right names, as streets were often named for the people who lived there or the businesses that were located along them. Thus, once I saw Edison Road in Stewartsville, I took the turn. Couldn't hurt.

Older buildings and homes near the intersection with 57 soon gave way to side streets lined with houses of more recent vintage, and eventually farm fields. The road coursed under an aged railroad overpass, and as it curved, a large concrete building stood almost directly in front of me. The company sign in front of it is of recent vintage, but the factory definitely looked as if it could be over a century old. Driving further, I saw evidence of other structures that had once stood nearby but were now pretty much in ruins.

Yup, I'd found the last used and perhaps best-preserved portion of the Edison Portland Cement plant. The business was, to use a well-known bromide, the lemonade to the lemon which had been his iron ore concentrating business in Ogdensburg. Though he lost about $2 million trying to manufacture high-quality iron, he’d recouped some money by selling the byproduct - pulverized rock – to cement companies as an ingredient in their product. Seeing an opportunity, he moved the rock crushing equipment from Sussex Mountain to lime-rich Warren County and started his own Portland cement company.

The 1600 acre, 60-building facility grew to include the existing factory, lime crushers and a large rail yard to transport finished product out to market. Per his practice of innovating within whatever industry he focused on, Edison introduced a long rotary kiln at Stewartsville that he soon licensed to other manufacturers. Ironically, the design made cement production so economical that it was difficult to make a profit.

Back in the day, the Edison Portland Cement plant
was considerably bigger than today's remains would suggest

Contrary to popular belief, Edison didn't do very much of his own construction through his cement business, aside from some test pourings of a garage and potting shed at his Llewellen Park home and a couple of houses in Essex County. He was more interested in selling molds and cement to others to build the pre-fab homes. Charles Ingersoll, for one, constructed several houses in Phillipsburg and Union for working class laborers.

The most notable use of Edison Portland cement, however, stood on 161st Street in the Bronx. Yankee Stadium may have been the House that Ruth Built, but it was actually poured thanks to the Wizard of Menlo Park. It's said that during the stadium's renovation in the early 1970s, the concrete stubbornly refused to budge, and was left intact.

A concrete ruin aside Edison Road. What was it? We don't know.

At its peak, the plant employed over 600 workers, some of whom commuted from as far away as Easton. Eventually, though, it and the nearby Vulcanite Company had pretty much depleted what limestone in the area that could be economically accessed. The plant shut down in 1935 and went out of business for good in 1942.

The present occupant of the plant building has been there since 1975, operating profitably among ruins of the other structures that once served the Edison operation. What those concrete slabs were intended for isn't clear, but those visible from the road stand as testament to Edison's tenacity. They may not be as perfect as they were when first poured a hundred years ago, but I'd venture they'd be pretty hard to demolish.

The Montana mystery of Warren County... part two

Our visit to the Belvidere cemetery last summer revealed a surprising discovery: the existence of a community in New Jersey called Montana. Coincidentally, in the same trip we found the monument for a Warren County soldier who'd died in Montana Territory, which only added to the confusion. My follow-up research led to more information on the soldier than the community, leaving me hungry for a trip to this absolutely obscure place.

The Encyclopedia of New Jersey puts Montana on Scott's Mountain in Harmony Township, Warren County, describing it as a Revolutionary-era refuge for Tories and a nesting place for bootleggers during Prohibition. Nothing in the encyclopedia entry provides insights on local people, institutions or commerce. I can usually count on the WPA Guide to 1930's New Jersey for interesting tidbits on remote places, but the writers apparently didn't venture far enough off of State Highway S24 to get the flavor of the place.

My best option, I figured, was to keep my eyes open as I drove between Morris Canal ports. Maybe I'd find a directional sign for Montana on S24's successor, Route 57.

Some distance outside downtown Washington Township (the Warren County one, naturally), I found it: a sign pointing left for Asbury and right for Montana. Away we go, up Scott's Mountain on Millbrook Road. My quarry: a town center of some sort... if not a community hall, library or post office, maybe a cluster of homes. I hoped that even if most of the buildings were unoccupied, there would be some sign of a past population cluster.

Montana, New Jersey: wide open country.

I didn't find it. After driving past farm fields, woods and a number of widely-spaced homes along Millbrook Road, I reached its intersection with Montana Road. Well-tended acreage stood ready for seeding on my left, a sign denoting it as both preserved farmland and a grasslands in progress. A good-sized set of farm buildings and a house stood across the way, but I didn’t see anything even approximating a town center, past or present. No post office, no old general store.

The one thing I did find was a very small church, complete with a small graveyard. Very tidy and well-kept, the Montana United Methodist Church reminded me of a similar structure I once saw in a remote Hawaiian town, just a little bigger. Next door, a building with a modified bell tower is apparently now a house, though I’d put my money on it having been a school at one time. Neither building had very much room in the way of parking, leading me to wonder exactly how many people worship there. I’d guess that whoever does is well accustomed to walking to church. It just seems like that kind of place.

Yup, that's a two-way road.

Believing I'd seen all there is to see, I turned right from Montana Road onto Harmony-Brass Castle Road. A mile or two down, a wrong turn landed me on Halfway House Road. Fortunately I’d seen a sign for the road before I made the turn off the highway, so I was confident I'd make it back to Route 57 eventually. I’d retrace maybe about half a mile of my highway driving to get to unexplored area. Pretty efficient.

I soon saw what might have dissuaded the WPA Guide writers from exploring Scott’s Mountain. Not that it was scary or dangerous, but the road soon turned a bit roughshod and very narrow, a faint remnant of a yellow line hinting it was meant to be a two-way road. Rather than going by matter of fact inclines and level stretches like Millbrook Road, Halfway House tended toward hillocks, its descent marked by only brief level portions. It reminded me of a kiddie roller coaster, with some turns thrown in for good measure. Houses were few and far between, leaving woods where it was very easy to imagine moonshiners setting up stills back in the 20s, or even earlier. I was happy that the season's snow and ice had already melted from the road, as it must have been quite an adventure to traverse, even after the plows got to it.

Wherever you go, there it is: the Morris Canal.

And characteristically, in the middle of nowhere, I came upon a Morris Canal sign, askew and worse for wear. Sure enough, I spied the telltale ditch, lined with fallen leaves and underbrush. You just can’t get away from it.

You have to tip your hat to the Morris Canal enthusiasts for their perseverance and dedication to promoting its history. Sure, it makes a lot of sense to erect signage along a state or federal highway. But to be so driven as to post a marker where fewer than a hundred people a year might see it? That's passion.

The landlocked ports of Warren County

If you've driven along Route 57 in Warren County, you may have noticed some curious names on road signs. Within the larger towns are a few hamlets whose names start with the word "Port": Port Colden, Port Warren, Port Murray. While the Musconetcong River flows not far away on the border with Hunterdon County, it's not nearly sizable enough to support heavy traffic, and certainly not three ports, let alone one.

And, well, none of these communities are actually on the Musconetcong. So why the name?

Each of the communities owes its existence to the Morris Canal, the engineering marvel built in 1824 to connect Phillipsburg and Jersey City to transport Pennsylvania coal east and New York merchandise west. The canal itself should be the subject of a future Hidden New Jersey account (which Ivan keeps threatening to write), but for the sake of today's story, let's just say that since its abandonment in 1924, much of the route of the Morris has been obliterated. Portions in Newark and Jersey City have been transformed to other transportation uses, but as for the rest, with the exception of small portions here and there, you'd need a map.

Not pentagonal, but a Morris Canal
marker, nonetheless.

In certain parts of Morris and Warren Counties, you can't miss the occasional brown pentagonal sign marking the route. It seems to cross some roads so often you question the sobriety of the original planners. Without the signs, though, only a trained eye would be able to identify the brush-lined depressions as the bed of the old canal.

“Port” towns grew at some of the canal locks or planes where mechanical devices helped barges adjust to the inevitable ups and downs of the North Jersey terrain. Named for executives of the Morris Canal & Banking Company, Ports Colden and Murray were founded in the hopes they’d become boom towns as barge traffic increased.

Today, they’re not much more than enclaves of homes, some older than others. Streets named "Canal," "Lock," "Towpath" or "Plane" hint at what drove the creation of the communities, but when I visited recently, I found little left to indicate any prosperity the canal might have brought.

You’d be forgiven for missing Port Colden from Route 57. Though a sign points to the appropriate turn-off from the westbound lane, it’s easy to overlook, and the elevation of the highway obscures the most obvious structure from the road, the Port Colden Manor. Both stately and in need of some TLC, the building makes an impressive introduction to town.

Port Colden Manor, a shadow of its former grandeur.

Port Colden had apparently already suffered from the loss of the canal by the time the Federal Writers Project folks got around to visiting in the depths of the Great Depression. The WPA Guide to 1930s New Jersey describes it as "a ghost town; its few old homes and yellow hotel are a faint echo of the days when the community was a port on the now abandoned Morris Canal."

I didn’t see anyone outside as I drove around, but to call Port Colden a ghost town is a bit of a stretch. Yes, some of the older properties could use some attention, but the grade school and a newly restored community church clearly indicate that there’s life there, despite the long-ago loss of the canal. A sign just off the highway notes that the enclave is a historic district; hopefully that’s giving some impetus to bringing some attention.

Along the canal in Port Murray.

To the west, Port Murray was once considered to be the most important village in the area since it hosted both the canal and the only railroad station for miles. Today, the community seems a bit more lively than Port Colden, if just a little. Main Street boasts a couple of specialty stores as well as a post office and the municipal offices for Mansfield Township. An older building at the corner of Main Street and Towpath Road looks as if its storefront has been unused for a while but could have been a great general store and supply stop for barge crews. It was once, in fact, Perry's Store, where cargo was loaded onto and removed from barges directly from a second floor bay.

The thing that struck me about both communities was the lack of daily commerce -- places you could walk to for a gallon of milk, a dozen bagels or maybe a morning coffee. I guess it's just a matter of progress. Warren County isn't exactly McMansion central, but housing developments have sprung up over recent years, bringing big box stores and strip malls with them. Maybe the corner stores and delis have disappeared as the big Shop Rites and Walmarts have moved in and people would rather drive than walk to do their shopping. Either way, it's kind of a shame. How cool would it be to get your morning paper in the same place where canal mule tenders once bought their provisions?

The Montana mystery of Warren County... part one

We like to say that Hidden New Jersey is often a scavenger hunt. Sometimes we know the quarry when we set out on our journey, as when we're seeking out a rare bird reported at a certain location. Other times, we find history along the way and end up discovering much more during the follow-up research days or even months later. Sometimes we unearth interesting coincidences, other times mysteries.

This story is a little of both.

It all started on a trip to the cemetery in Belvidere in late summer. Ivan and I were wandering around when I noticed interesting inscriptions on two stones, one a family marker and another for one of the family members, erected nearby.

Given the detailed description, the place and circumstances of Lieutenant Loder's death appeared clear. He'd taken part in the U.S. Army's repeated battles with the Sioux Indians, served gallantly and apparently perished in one of the skirmishes, his remains returned to his birthplace in New Jersey. It also appeared that his family called him Howard, perhaps to differentiate him from another Samuel, maybe his grandfather, buried nearby.

Then I found this grave marker, not far away, noting another individual's birthplace in Montana, NJ.

I was left with two stories to work out. First, how did Lieutenant Loder die, and second, where in heck is Montana in New Jersey? Was this just an odd coincidence, or do the two have anything to do with each other?

Finding cursory information on Loder proved to be reasonably easy. After graduating near the bottom of his class at the U.S. Military Academy in 1877, he was sent west and eventually assigned to Fort Logan in frontier Montana. At the time, clashes with Native Americans were regular occurrences in the area, with opportunities for injury and death. Several sources note the April 1879 conflict with a small group of Lakota Sioux at Careless Creek near Ryegate, Montana. According to government records, Loder, 18 men under his command and two Gros Ventre Indians confronted eight natives who were said to be connected to Sitting Bull. A 90 minute battle ensued, in which all of the Lakota were killed.

None of the accounts of ensuing conflicts in the area make mention of Loder, which seemed rather strange. If he'd performed so heroically at Careless Creek that the local white settlers presented him with a gift, wouldn't he have led other battles? Had he died some way other than through combat? The 1880 U.S. Army Register notes simply that he died at Fort Benton, Montana on June 30, 1879, with no further explanation. Could it have been illness that did him in? It's well known that in many wars, disease killed more soldiers than weapons did. Did frontier outposts suffer the same issues? Could there have been an outbreak of some sort that led to Loder's demise?

Unfortunately the circumstances of his death were tragic in another way. A July 6, 1879 New York Times article reported Loder's suicide as the lead in a story chronicling several people around the country who had died by their own hands. He'd shot himself in the head while in his tent at Fort Benton; the Times noted that "It is asserted that he had been drinking freely of late." It could have been an accident or intentional, we don't know. The details remain a mystery, perhaps buried somewhere in a report deep in old Army records, if not only with Loder himself.

The grateful people of the Smith River Valley in Montana territory didn't have the opportunity to show their full appreciation to the lieutenant before his death, but they made sure his family knew what he'd meant to them. A year later, they presented a ceremonial sword to the Loders, along with a letter eulogizing the young lieutenant. The sword was inscribed, "Presented to Lieut. Samuel Loder, Seventh United States Infantry, by the citizens of Smith River Valley, for especial gallantry in his fight with the Sioux Indians on Careless Creek, Montana Territory April 17, 1879." Hopefully their regard brought some measure of comfort to the Loder family, who clearly wanted their son's achievement to be known for perpetuity.

As for the mystery of Montana, New Jersey? I'm still working on that one... story to come.

Nearly running the gauntlet in Oxford

In our travels, we've sometimes been fortunate to find hidden history in pairs, like the Warren County Alms House and its cemetery, separated by a few miles. Other times, we don't find the proximity until we're knee-deep in research, miles away from what was once so close it's surprising we hadn't tripped on it.

We found ourselves roaming the back roads of Warren County again recently, and made a quick stop in Oxford, the site of a historic iron furnace and its' founder's home, Shippen Manor. When you set off on a wandering mission, you always take the chance that a historic home or museum won't be open, and that always seems to be the case when I happen to be in the greater Oxford-politan area. Nonetheless, because Ivan hadn't been there before, I pulled onto the property and slowly drove the road that traverses behind the manor and wraps around the front.

Good thing I did, too, because we discovered something I hadn't noticed on my other visits. Embedded in the stone retaining wall between the home and the drive was this:

The Warren Railroad was a new one on me, but I wasn't surprised to discover that there had been yet another company operating what I assumed was freight transport in the area. After all, Oxford Furnace was just down the hill, and Warren County's own John Blair was the nation's most active builder of railroads in the 19th century.

Back at Hidden New Jersey headquarters, I did some digging to find out where this plaque originally sat and why it was at Shippen Manor. And once again, I discovered that we'd been very close to more of the story without realizing it. The plaque had capped the top of the western portal of a now-abandoned tunnel built by an ambitious railroad executive.

Railroad history in New Jersey is long and convoluted, to the point where it would probably make for a good miniseries for someone who had the patience to work through it all. For the purpose of the Oxford story, it's only really necessary to know that the Warren Railroad was chartered in 1851 to connect the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western's terminal point on the Delaware with the Central Railroad of New Jersey's Hampton station. The goal: to further connect the coal mines of Pennsylvania with markets in New York City. The fact that the Oxford Furnace was nearby probably didn't hurt, either.

Construction began in 1854, and it was an ambitious task, pitting mid-19th century technology against the very stubborn gneiss rock of northwestern New Jersey. Most frustrating, it seems, was Oxford Mountain (now known as Scott's Mountain) at Van Nest Gap, where the path of the railroad called for a 3002-foot long tunnel to avoid laying track at a steep incline with difficult curves. In the words of the New York Times account of the tunnel construction, "The rock is of a syenitic formation, and during the progress of the job almost every form of underground operations proved necessary. From the hard, seamless rock, offering the most stubborn resistance to construction, every degree of formation was encountered, to quicksand, with an unusual quantity of water."

Understanding that the tunnel would take some time to build, Blair's engineers devised an alternate path around the mountain, enabling the railroad to commence operations in 1856. In fact, my research reveals that without realizing it, Ivan and I had driven along the interim right-of-way when we passed behind Shippen Manor. He'd noticed that beyond the current driveway, the trees directly ahead -- ones that would have been in the road if it had continued on a straight path -- were younger than those to the side. We'd surmised that it might have been a carriage path, not considering the possibility of a railroad running so close to the house.

The Van Nest Gap tunnel opened to train traffic in 1862, paralleling present-day Route 31 and shortening the trip between Scranton and the Hudson River by six miles. While it originally had two tracks to simultaneously accommodate traffic in both directions, changes in railroad gauge and an increase in the size of rolling stock forced a change to gauntlet tracks in 1900. Basically, another set of closely overlapping tracks was built parallel to an existing set, with traffic headed eastward using one track and the westward another. (You can find a more technical description here.) This allowed larger trains to pass through the tunnel but also caused delays, as only one train could pass through the tunnel at a time.

Meanwhile, the Warren Railroad had come under the control of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western, which undertook yet another ambitious project to eliminate the Oxford bottleneck. The Lackawanna Cut-off reduced the length of the railroad's main line by another 11 miles and included the famed Paulinskill Viaduct, an impressive 110-foot high concrete bridge over the Paulinskill Valley. The Warren Railroad route was relegated to second-banana status, starting a decline from which it never recovered. By 1970, even the tracks were gone, leaving just memories, a partially flooded tunnel and a capstone that shares a hint of a story to the few people who might notice it behind a historic house.

Choo choo... moo moo: the railroad at Becker Farm

A few weeks ago we were knocking around Phillipsburg when we came upon the curious sight of several weathered old train cars sitting along what looked to be an old railroad siding. We'd come upon the property of the Phillipsburg Railroad Historians, who have been working for more than 20 years to establish a rail museum for the state on land that had once been owned by the Central Railroad of New Jersey.

Tiny tracks, as laid out
in Phillipsburg

Among the rolling stock, we noticed a curious thing -- very narrow gauge track, some of which had been laid down, other portions of which were stacked neatly. The whole thing reminded me of the old Lionel track lengths I used in my dad's model railroad layout as a kid, only there were no rail cars of proper size to run on it.

As I later discovered, this was a case where not just a few cars, but an entire railroad is in the process of being relocated, to be enjoyed by a whole new generation. We'd found vestiges of the Centerville and Southwestern Railroad, the line that once operated on Becker Farm in Roseland.

Say "Becker Farm" to many North Jersey residents, and it conjures the image of an office park where scores of Newark businesses settled after leaving the city for suburbia. Close by Route 280, the land is home to law firms, accounting offices and other white collar businesses. You could say that cubicle farms now stand where cows once grazed.

And on that dairy farm, it seems, was a real, operating train, not for transporting freight but for fun. Farmer Eugene Becker apparently was a bit of a rail fan, and starting in 1938, he built his own miniature railroad, fashioning it after the Sussex branch of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad on which his farm's creamery was located. He even nicknamed it "the Fresh Milk Line" and crafted a logo featuring a cow.

From 1940 until 1972, visitors to the farm could enjoy a ride on the C&S RR on weekends from early May until late October. This wasn't just a toy, though: Becker strove for authenticity, running the railroad as reliably as any full-sized operation. According to a brochure published by the family in 1955:

The C & S isn't as wide; nor as long; nor is it narrow gauge: It is a true miniature railroad, and as such, of necessity, it is operated in the same manner, as are its full size brothers. It is thought to be the only miniature railroad in the country that operates on a strict schedule; goes somewhere and comes back - not just around a loop; and runs through natural scenery, such as a trip on a full sized railroad would take you.

Visiting school groups could top off a farm tour with a ride on the railroad, and perhaps also stop by the farm stand for a cool glass of chocolate milk. Though the route was only about 7000 feet long, it had to be a real treat for rail fans, children and adults alike. Hills, curves and signalled intersections were all part of the ride, making real the fantasies of any kid who ever operated a model train set.

Like so many other great things in New Jersey, the C&S met its end with the planning of a highway. The state Department of Transportation took a large part of the Becker Farm in the construction of Route 280, denying the Beckers' request to run the Fresh Milk Line beneath the highway. Forced to reroute the track, the Beckers continued to run the railroad until 1972, when the local government changed the property's zoning from farming to commercial. Another New Jersey farm had perished, and along with it, a unique aspect of the state's railroad heritage.

Eugene Becker reportedly found a home for the railroad at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, but it fell into private hands ten years later, when curators decided it didn't fit the museum's mission. And, of course, we saw vestiges of it in Phillipsburg, where 1500 feet of miniature track has been laid. Unfortunately, plans for a more extensive layout were halted when the land was taken for other uses. Even if the Railroad Historians had been successful in laying a complete track bed, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to recreate the Becker Farm experience, bringing riders through pasture and countryside.

However, I'm told, if you look carefully around the Becker Farm corporate campus, you might find small remnants of the Centerville and Southwestern. A few bridges and cement abutments bear the railroad's insignia, a small reminder for those in the know that the once abundant New Jersey farms were both sources of fresh food and places for memorable experiences.

From Ellis Island to the rest of America

I love running into signs like this:

Where is it, you wonder? Jersey City? Newark? Nope. It's in Bloomsbury, 60 miles west of the historic Immigration Station at Ellis Island. I was a bit taken aback, but not surprised, to find this marker on a ramble through Warren County. It kind of pops up out of nowhere, next to what was once a railroad right of way.

Visitors to Ellis Island learn about the arduous ocean passage that immigrants took in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, enduring cramped and often unsanitary conditions in steerage. There's talk about the post-inspection ferry ride to Manhattan or the Jersey Central rail terminal in nearby Communipaw Cove, but little to nothing is shared about what happened next.

All together, about 70 percent of the people who went through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1924 ultimately settled someplace outside New York City, so the demand for train passage was intense. Immigrants forged yet another link of what might be a lengthy journey to their final destination, perhaps several train transfers westward. Held in a separate room at the Jersey Central terminal until their trains were called, the new arrivals were often put into designated cars to separate them from the American travelers.

Finding this sign so far from Ellis gave me pause. As I stood at the roadside, so close to the path of the immigrant trains, I couldn't help but compare it to the wagon train paths that brought homesteaders westward to new claims and new lives in the 1800s. I wondered what the immigrants were thinking as they passed that very spot on their way to their new homes. Did America look the way they expected it would? Were they satisfied so far, or disappointed? Were they relieved to be on the train, past the inquisitive eyes of the government inspectors? Were they frustrated by the prospect of another long, tiring trip? Their feelings might be hidden in family stories or letters tucked in attics, or perhaps never shared at all.

Safety Follows Wisdom in Alpha

It's a January 1 tradition with us: get up early (yes, early), head out to a targeted spot and find as many birds as possible to start off a brand new year list. This time around, we started the search in Warren County, since Ivan anticipated that foraging snow buntings would be easily visible on some of the farm fields near Carpentersville. The snow cover presumably would force the flock to concentrate toward the cleared edges of the road rather than spreading out over a broad expanse of farm fields. Plus, we could also stop by Round Valley, Spruce Run and Merrill Creek for waterfowl and various wintering songbirds. Somewhere in the mix, there'd be something else of note; I didn't know what, but I was confident.

The farms offered a bit of a mixed bag. While we found a big flock of horned larks near the side of the road and snow geese overhead, buntings were frustratingly absent, and nary a kestrel was patrolling the fields. Chalking the results up to the unpredictability of nature, we went on our way, with a detour to grab some coffee and fill the tank.

We've been to the area plenty of times, but it was the first time we've stopped in the small commercial area of Alpha, so I had an eye out for the new and unusual. The roadside didn't disappoint. Not far away from the Quick Chek, we passed a large stone slab, about seven feet tall, standing proudly at a street corner. It looked kind of dampish in places, the way concrete tends to when there's been precipitation recently, but I could make out some lettering beneath a relief sculpture and the legend "Safety Follows Wisdom." Bingo! We pulled over and I jumped out to investigate.

Closer inspection revealed that the marker was an award recognizing Vulcanite Portland Cement Company for a perfect worker safety record in 1930. Only thing was, the Vulcanite Company was nowhere to be seen. Had the award outlived the business? And what was the origin of the award? We'd found a nice little research project.

We already knew that Warren County was a good location for cement companies, due to the availability of good quality lime, a core component of the building product. You'll recall that Thomas Edison's Portland Cement plant operated in nearby New Village, and there's a big cluster of lime kilns in the area, too. Large open-pit quarries reached the mineral easily and inexpensively, making the industry a natural for the location. Edison, in fact, was so high on the potential of cement that he envisioned entire communities of concrete houses built cheaply for working class families. His company and Vulcanite were the two major cement manufacturers in New Jersey.

The big cement slab of Alpha is anchored in the early days of the worker safety movement. Starting in 1912 and well before the enactment of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, the Portland Cement Manufacturing Association began tracking on-the-job accidents and fatalities within its members' plants. This led to the creation of programs to encourage worker safety, and eventually to the establishment of an industry award for the plant with the best record in a given year.

For the first several years of the program, winning plants received a trophy to be held until the next awardee was announced, but presumably this wasn't enough to publicly represent the industry's commitment. Something bigger, more permanent could be placed outside the plant gate to remind workers of their achievement and prompt them to keep the safety culture going. The association held a competition for the design of a larger, more permanent and more public monument to be displayed by plants that operated accident-free for a full year. Fittingly, it was to be cast in concrete, with room to recognize subsequent achievements.

The winning design was created by a group of students from the Art Institute of Chicago, with guidance from noted sculptor Albin Polasek. The character on the right is meant to represent Athena, goddess of wisdom, with a lamp to illuminate the path forward for the male figure personifying safety.

The first such monument was awarded in 1924, with the last presented sometime in the 1980s when it was deemed too expensive to hand out seven-foot tall concrete slabs on an annual basis. Google search reveals dozens of nearly identical monuments all around the country, in many places abandoned with the shells of the factories whose employees earned them. The Portland Cement Association still recognizes excellence in safety, but with a much smaller token of esteem.

The Vulcanite company opened in 1894 and appears to have ceased operation in 1941, leaving its monument behind. This would be consistent with the fate of the Edison Portland Cement Company, which closed in 1937 and was dismantled in 1942, a victim of resource shortage. The area's more accessible limestone deposits were being rapidly depleted, leaving only underground deposits that would require expensive shaft mining to extract.

Today, New Jersey has no cement manufacturers, but the work of countless plant workers is memorialized in the durability of the structures cast from their product... and the trophy that stands as testament to their commitment to safety.