Rock around the Revolution: New Jersey in Chicago?

No matter where you go, you're bound to run into New Jersey. I just wasn't expecting it on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, embedded in the side of a Gothic building.

Admittedly, I found this one about 20 years ago, back when my New Jersey history maven cred was in its infancy. Yeah, I'll admit it: I was the one hanging around the Excellent Diner in Westfield, reminding people that the state was once home to four, count 'em FOUR pre-fab diner manufacturers. It was well before Ivan and I met, and while I did my share of exploring, it didn't yet involve birds.

Anyway, a friend and I made a weekend visit to Chicago for its annual Blues Festival and whiled away some free time enjoying the city's amazing downtown architecture. As we walked past the Chicago Tribune building, I noticed something very unusual: embedded within the uniform granite blocks of the walls are scores, maybe hundreds of irregularly-shaped stones, each labeled with a description and a place.

At first, I figured they might represent locations in Illinois, but as I sought more out, I noticed they came from many states, and even historically significant places in Europe, Asia and beyond. Tribune publisher Robert McCormick had started the tradition before the building was erected, asking the newspaper's correspondents to deliver rocks and bricks from historically significant places. The tradition continues today, with portions of the Berlin Wall and World Trade Center girders incorporated in the building's walls.

There would be no justice if there was no rock to represent New Jersey. Had the Trib assigned a correspondent to the state, and if so, had he (or she) taken the assignment seriously?

The answer came pretty quickly:

Yup: a stone from the Battle of Trenton. I searched farther and found one labeled ambiguously as "New Jersey Washington's Landing after crossing the Delaware River." Another was flatter and browner -- "Revolutionary Battlefield Princeton, New Jersey." Mixed among rocks from Prairie DuChien, Wisconsin, Great Wall of China, Hawaii's Pearl Harbor and Omaha Beach in Normandy, Princeton actually gets another shout-out from the Trib building, with a squarish rock from "New Jersey Princeton University."

The Trib's New Jersey correspondent was apparently a bit of an overachiever, delivering four rocks back to HQ. Granted, he took the easy way out, grabbing specimens from four places no more than 15 miles from his presumed Trenton bureau office, but their significance is unquestioned.

And, well, from what I can surmise, there are more rocks from New Jersey embedded at the Trib than from any other jurisdiction of its type within the United States, maybe the world. This list gives you an idea of what's there... it may not be complete, but it's still staggering to see how well we're represented, and you don't see a heck of a lot of other Revolutionary-era sites on the list, either.

If you were going to send a New Jersey stone to the Trib building, what would you choose?

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?

The Roebling aqueduct - finding New Jersey on the Upper Delaware River

Sometimes Hidden New Jersey spots jump out at us serendipitously, a phenomenon which seems to happen more often out of state. That was the case on an unplanned recent visit to the Upper Delaware River in New York State.

First, though, a little background, starting when I was writing the blog entry on Trenton's Riverview Cemetery. In researching the Roebling family members whose graves we visited, I discovered that one of John Roebling's early spans was an aqueduct crossing the Delaware between New York and Pennsylvania. I didn't read much about it, but the photo looked cool, and I told Ivan we should visit. Not surprisingly (because we'd already grown accustomed to such coincidences), he'd already come upon it in his travels. In fact, he'd discovered it after having his own bit of serendipity: the nearby Minisink Ford hosted a battleground where a commissioned Mohawk named Joseph Brant had led British troops against local colonists in 1779. Ivan had seen the name at another distant stop on his trip, no doubt remembering the name because it's, well, a species of goose. Making stops in two obscure places and seeing the same name? What are the chances?

I'd totally forgotten about the bridge when we got to the area, and thought it would be fun to check out the battlefield, which we did. Taking another road from the site than the one we used to get there, we found ourselves squarely across from the Roebling bridge. This was too good to be true! We had to stop.

What's now a one-lane river crossing was once an active aqueduct for the Delaware and Hudson Canal. Current day pedestrian walkways were once tow paths for the mules who pulled barges along the waterway, making for an interesting stroll across the broad river.

It's kind of funny to think of there being a water bridge across a body of water, but when you look at the history, it makes sense. The canal had to cross the New York/Pennsylvania border, and originally the barges would traverse the river to get to the dug canal on the other side. Problem was, loggers upstream would use the river to transport wood downstream, making collisions almost inevitable. Someone had to yield, and it ended up being the canal traffic.

Enter John Roebling, engineer and wire cable manufacturer. From 1847 to 1851, long before becoming famous for building the Brooklyn Bridge, he built four suspension aqueducts along the canal. The one we visited was the last remaining, and also the oldest wire cable bridge in the United States. He did good work, too. According to the NPS website, nearly all of the bridge's ironwork, from cables to suspenders, are the same materials installed upon the structure's construction. The cables - spun on site under Roebling's direction - were tested in 1983 and found to be still viable. Now, that's craftsmanship!

For a time after the D&H was abandoned, the bridge operated as a private toll road, serving in that capacity until 1979. After many years of disrepair, the National Park Service bought and restored the aqueduct and toll house in 1986. Visitors can enjoy a few interpretive exhibits in the New York-side house, and even drive across the bridge's active roadway.

We decided it would be more fun to stroll the towpath from New York to Pennsy and back again, taking the chance to do a spot of birding. While it was an overcast day, the scenery was beautiful, and we even saw a young bald eagle in the distant sky.

Having found New Jersey striding across the far reaches of the Delaware, I can't help but realize that the water that flowed under the bridge deck beneath our feet eventually glided past Roebling's grave in Riverside Cemetery in Trenton. Hopefully he's resting well, knowing that his works continue to serve the traveling public, over 150 years later.

Washington's Crossing: What if the Father of our Country had had E-ZPass?

After checking out Riverview Cemetery, we made a quick pit stop at the Trenton Visitors Center in the old Masonic Lodge House located on Barrack Street, not far from the State House and the War Memorial building. The small fieldstone building was erected in 1793 and has since been replaced by a grander structure just up the street, but according to the young woman staffing the visitors center, the Masons still occasionally hold meetings there. Interestingly, the first grandmaster Mason in the New World was a Trenton native, Daniel Coxe.

A short history of the Battles of Trenton and Princeton is prominently displayed in the main room, complete with strategic troop movement maps and an outline of events. Known to Revolutionary War buffs as the ten crucial days, this period in the winter of 1776-77 started with Washington's famous crossing of the Delaware River on Christmas night, continued with valiant fighting in Trenton and ended with a decisive victory at Princeton ten days later. These battles were particularly important to the cause, as Washington's troops were dispirited from several previous losses, and weren't re-upping after their 30-day enlistments came to a close.  Winning in New Jersey gave the Continental Army a much needed shot in the arm and the encouragement to continue fighting for the cause of freedom.

The whole venture started with the transport of 2400 troops, sizeable quantities of artillery and horses across the river from Pennsylvania to a site about 10 miles north of Trenton. Both states maintain parks at the crossing, and while I'd been to the New Jersey side, I hadn't ventured to its Pennsy counterpart. In my mind, it doesn't matter so much where Washington left from, as much as it does where he landed. But, given it's a site so closely related to New Jersey history, I agreed with Ivan that it warranted a visit.

Unlike the larger toll bridges farther downstream, the span across the river to Washington's Crossing, PA is barely wide enough to accommodate two cars passing each other. Not surprising, since it was built sometime in the 1830s. As we crossed the Delaware, I resisted the urge to stick my head out of the sunroof and gaze forward determinedly as Washington did in the famous Leutze painting. It was enough of a challenge to nudge past oncoming cars without losing the side-view mirrors.

The bridge deposited us in a tidy little village of colonial vintage, aside from the construction office-type trailers being used as temporary quarters for the visitors' center. Unfortunately, the boat sheds were also closed; Ivan told me that the replica flat-bottom Durham boats were huge and deserved a good look, so that will have to be done on a future visit.

Combining history with a little birding, we took a stroll farther on to an open grove where Washington's troops apparently massed before the crossing. Here's what we found there:

I'll leave you to mull on that one, but I'll tell you that my mom always advised making a quick visit before heading out on a trip. Perhaps Washington did, too. We can safely assume he wasn't about to turn the boat around to accommodate someone's bathroom needs.

The birding was variable; the presence of bluebird boxes led us to try to find a few, without luck. We did spy a black vulture across a pond, plus some other random songbirds and such. And I was able to get a pretty neat shot of a couple of mallards taking a rest (plus a bonus turtle to the right).

If you happen to be in the area at Christmas, it's well worth a visit for the reenactment of the crossing. You can even participate if you register in advance and wear a period costume. Be warned, though: for several years, the troops took the bridge because the river wasn't high enough to support the passage of loaded boats. It makes one even more thankful that the weather was what it was when Washington brilliantly planned to surprise the Hessians at Trenton.