London Calling at the Pole Farm

On any given summer day, an 800-acre expanse of grasslands and forested tract on Lawrence Township’s Cold Soil Road is alive with buzzing insects and chirping birds. Ninety years ago the tract was alive with state-of-the-art radio technology that transmitted telephone calls to Europe, South America and the Caribbean. 

Locals dubbed it the Pole Farm for the ever-increasing number of oversized telephone poles that sprouted up to meet increasing demand for international telecommunications service. Today the poles are gone and the site is part of Mercer Meadows, a unit of the Mercer County Park System.

The Pole Farm’s quaint appellation belies the magnitude of its stature as the American Telephone and Telegraph Company's Long Lines Overseas Telephone Radio Transmitting Station. More than two dozen steel towers, and then hundreds of towering poles were erected between 1929 and the 1960s to support antennae that transmitted telephone calls via shortwave radio to points across the Atlantic.

These days, we take international telephone service for granted; with the advent of web-based services, many of us skip the phone for video anyway. In the early 20^th century, however, telecommunication was limited to places that had been physically wired into the system. Thus, North America could talk to North America, and Europe could talk to Europe, but there was no way for people in the Eastern Hemisphere to talk with those in the Western Hemisphere.

Enter the wonders of radio, which was becoming commercially viable for voice signals in the early 1920s. Bell Labs engineers first devised a way to transmit converted phone signals to London and back via long-wave radio signals, but that was on an expensive single circuit. If AT&T had any hope of selling international telephone service to the public, it had to be both cost effective and available on demand.

The answer came in shortwave radio, which overcame the issues of long-wave but brought its own limitations. (Big science alert here!) To beam powerful signals long distances, specialized radio antennas would have to be located precisely, built under exacting conditions and suspended by large arrays of towers. Bell Labs engineers again got to work, determining what kind of equipment the service would need and where it would need to be located to operate optimally. Their solution also had to address the very real problem that the wavelengths of shortwave vary in how well they work, depending on the time of day. If the service were to be reliable, engineers would have to overcome the limitation with a better antenna.

Beyond the knotty radio transmission challenges, AT&T needed two pieces of land - one to build a transmitter and another to build a receiver - far enough away from each other to assure that the arriving and departing signals didn't interfere with each other. Building them in sparsely populated areas would assure that there wouldn't be much if any other radio traffic to interfere. The transmitting station needed to be relatively close to U.S. Route 1, where the primary East Coast telephone system trunk line was located.

Netcong in hilly, rural western Morris County proved to be a suitable location for the receiving station, narrowing the possibilities for a transmitting station to the south. Lawrence and Hopewell Townships proved to be just the spot, with appropriately level farmland that was largely cleared. AT&T’s land acquisition team quietly began negotiating with 14 farmers in 1928, moving quickly in the hopes that deals would close before local chatter would prompt property owners to raise their prices. Word got out in the local newspaper, and while AT&T initially denied being in the market for farmland, it eventually admitted the transactions and closed the deals.

Following the purchases, AT&T quickly got to work on the infrastructure, both here in New Jersey and the first two international locations, London and Buenos Aires.

The Lawrence Township facility included two radio transmission buildings complete with an innovative water cooling system for the powerful vacuum tubes that generated the necessary shortwaves. To the outside world, the most remarkable feature of the facility was the v-shaped configuration of 180-foot-high steel towers – 26 in all – which supported a series of wire-mesh antennas. Placed about 250 feet apart, the lines of towers extended about a mile in each direction, aimed to beam signals to London and Buenos Aires. Somewhat like shades that could be rolled up and down, the mesh curtain antennas were precisely tuned to accommodate the complexities of shortwave technology at a given time of day or night. Machinery hoisted the various curtains on Roebling cable at the appointed hours to ensure reliable telephone service 24 hours a day.

Work was completed in Lawrence and London in 1929, right on schedule, with Buenos Aires coming online in 1930. Technological advancements soon improved efficiency and capacity, enabling the site to handle more calls on a single radio channel and bringing the cost of a call to $30 for three minutes. Meanwhile, some of the farmers who once owned the land had made deals to lease it back, and continued to raise crops in the shadows of the towers. One could say the property was bearing fruit for everyone.

An example of the layout of a single rhomboid antenna,
illustrated on the Pole Farm's concrete map. 

Just three years after the massive towers were erected, AT&T introduced the rhombic antenna – a five acre-wide diamond-shaped array of eight poles, each 80 feet high, holding up the antenna wire. These smaller, less expensive arrays spelled the end for the giant curtain antennae, which were dismantled in 1939. Further advancements brought the twin rhombic antenna (think one diamond next to another). It’s the proliferation of those, over time, that led locals to dub the tract the Pole Farm. With farming still going on around and amid the antennae, it probably didn’t take much imagination for an onlooker to conclude that the tract’s big crop was oversized telephone poles.

By the mid 1950’s, the site was the largest facility of its type in the world, handling more than a million calls a year. The site’s remaining woodlots and orchards were cleared to erect even more antennas, totaling more than 2000 poles by the 1960s. Old farmhouses, previously converted to housing for AT&T workers, were either moved offsite or demolished to create more space.

In the end, the technological progress that had given birth to the Pole Farm was what ultimately what created its demise. The successful introduction of transatlantic telephone cables and then satellite telecommunication proved to offer more reliable, less costly service. AT&T relegated the Pole Farm to backup status in the 1960s, removing antennae as they were taken out of service. In the final years, the facility that once provided groundbreaking voice communications to world capitals was now left to serve small markets in countries most Americans couldn’t easily locate on a map.

AT&T fully decommissioned the Lawrence Overseas Telephone Radio Transmitting Station on December 31, 1975. By the end of 1977, virtually every standing structure on the Pole Farm had been demolished – everything but a single pole from the Tel Aviv rhombic. Farmer Charlie Bryan had requested that it remain standing as a lightning rod to protect his home and barn nearby.

Other traces of the Pole Farm’s infrastructure are largely gone, through you might find the stray cable or concrete footing among the ground foliage as you stroll along the wooded paths. The county has memorialized the two transmitter buildings with steel arches that approximate where their entrances would have been. The site of Building Two, not far from the parking lot, includes a large concrete map of the antenna configurations that once stood on the grounds. One can walk from Bogota to Berlin, to Moscow, to London, to Willemstad, to Bermuda, imagining the conversations that flowed through those radio waves.

Turns out, too, that the Pole Farm is a remarkably lovely place to visit on a summer afternoon. In the two decades since Mercer County bought the property, 435 acres of the former farmland has been converted to native grasslands. It’s great habitat for Short-eared Owls and Harriers in winter, and Grasshopper Sparrow, Bobolink and Meadowlark in summer. The Washington Crossing Audubon has pegged the fields as outstanding for butterflies if the county leaves the grasses and wildflowers unmowed for the summer.

Level gravel paths make the entire place very welcoming to anyone on foot, bicycle, stroller or wheelchair. As you walk or roll or run, consider that some of the very routes you’re taking are the service roads that linemen once used as they maintained the antennae that connected the world’s voices. Stop to look closely in the woods, and you might even see vestiges of the poles, guy lines and concrete footings that stabilized the antennae. Interpretive signage along the paths offer photos of the structures that once stood there, along with portraits of some of the people who kept the station humming. A leisurely visit will leave you marveling at what once stood there.

While I’ve covered a lot, there’s so much more to the Pole Farm, from nature to history to technology. Lawrence Township historian Dennis Waters’ very informative presentation for the Mercer County Park Commission, available on YouTube, dives a bit deeper into the technology, the people who worked at the site, and the post AT&T history. It’s definitely worth watching.

Backed up on the road to Sandy Hook

On a warm summer Sunday, we weren't surprised to run into people just trying to make it to Sandy Hook. What surprised us was how long ago they'd started their trip and the massive delay they suffered -- maybe New Jersey's first huge traffic jam. Certainly, it was the biggest hassle anyone has experienced in trying to get to the shore.

We'd started the day avoiding all things beach. In fact, we were at a sod farm in eastern Mercer County, looking for 'grasspipers' - a general description of the shorebirds that hang out in grasslands. The fields weren't quite as productive as we'd hoped, leading us to wander a bit aimlessly until we found ourselves in the western Monmouth County community of Allentown.

Full of Colonial, Georgian and Federal-style buildings dating to the earliest days of the nation, Allentown was built around an old grist mill on Doctors Creek. A picturesque mill pond offers a nice focal point to downtown and, of course, is irresistible to intrepid birders. The part downtown isn't quite so interesting -- it's the part that extends back to the residential areas that's tempting.

Finding the right road wasn't hard -- it's called Lakeview Drive. Before we got to the lake, though, we noticed an old graveyard by the side of the road. The landscape is well tended, the grass is short, but its old stone border wall has seen better days, and its grave markers are well worn. In a lot of ways, it's not much different from any number of other small cemeteries dotting the more remote areas of New Jersey.

Not exactly a rest area, but sufficient for the need.

What got our attention was a shorter stone flanked by two American flags. According to the plaque affixed on top, we'd stumbled on the pit stop for somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 travelers who were just trying to get to the shore during some of the hottest days of June.

This seeming horde of Bennies weren't headed to sun, fun and maybe some debauchery on the Boardwalk. They were members of what was acknowledged to be the best trained fighting force in the world: the British Army of 1778.

Led by General Sir Henry Clinton, the troops had left Philadelphia and were on their way to the British stronghold of New York at Manhattan. Originally, the plan had been to evacuate troops via ship down the Delaware River and around New Jersey northward, but a shortage of transports forced a change of plans to an overland route. Crossing the Delaware, the troops moved in a northeasterly direction through Mount Holly and beyond.

The trip was arduous. Heavily encumbered by a 12-mile long wagon train of equipment and supplies, the Brits and had been struggling to make their way despite demolished bridges and harassment by local Patriots. Even nature seemed to be conspiring against them: thunderstorms, mosquitoes and oppressive humidity made the trek especially onerous.

After encamping at Allentown overnight, Clinton decided to direct his troops toward Sandy Hook. It was a logical move: the British had captured the peninsula over a year before and fortified it against attack, though Patriots occasionally attempted raids to disable Sandy Hook Lighthouse. Several British naval vessels were usually stationed offshore as further protection, and from there, safety in Manhattan was just a reasonably short sail away.

Clinton and many of his troops eventually made it to Manhattan, but not without a serious fight, and that's an understatement. General George Washington, seeing an opportunity to strike, advanced the Continental Army to confront the British at Monmouth Court House - present day Freehold. The battle that ensued on June 28, 1778 was the largest artillery battle of the American Revolution and one of the longest engagements of the entire war.

Consider that the next time you're stuck in shore traffic.

America's first cattle drive? Salem County's Great Cow Chase

New Jersey isn't especially known for its wide open prairies, ranches and cowboys. According to some, though, Salem County just may have been the sight of the nation's first cattle drive. And no, I'm not talking about a Saturday night rodeo in Cowtown, though the historic drive took place nearby, led by a brigadier general known as Mad Anthony Wayne.

Venture back to early 1778, when General George Washington's army was encamped at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Beset by desertions by February, Washington still had to feed more than 2000 men, as well as the horses they relied upon, even as the British conducted their own foraging expeditions and dealings with help from sympathetic Pennsylvanians.

This specimen would have fed a LOT of Continental soldiers.

Across the Delaware River was New Jersey, known as the Breadbasket of the Revolution for its plentiful forage for animals and food for humans. Washington sent Wayne with about 550 troops down Jersey to Salem County to retrieve the life-sustaining supplies. Starting from Wilmington, Delaware to avoid the British-controlled river near Philadelphia, Wayne and his troops made their way to Salem and to the area near present-day Pilesgrove, where they gathered about 150 head of cattle. Horses and wagons, however, were in short supply, meaning that the Continentals would have to drive the cattle on the hoof back to Valley Forge, rather than transporting butchered beef.

By this point, a local Loyalist had tipped off the British and more than 2000 Redcoats were sent to track Wayne and his troops down. After an initial stab at transporting some of the cattle to New Castle, Delaware to evade the British, Wayne led the procession northward and west along the Old Kings Highway on the 50 mile journey to Valley Forge, eventually crossing the river north of Philadelphia, somewhere between Burlington and Trenton. While some say that the herd was diminished to a mere 50 head by the time Wayne reached camp, the Jersey beef and hides undoubtedly made the difference for countless hungry and shoeless Continental soldiers.

The Great Cow Chase, as it's now known Down Jersey, has been commemorated a few times in recent years. Back during the Bicentennial, Cowtown founder Stoney Harris and friends drove 50 cattle up Kings Highway, with cheering spectators lining the road. And last year marked the first running of the Cow Run 10 Miler road race for humans, starting at Cowtown in Pilesgrove and ending 10 miles away in downtown Salem City. It may not be the running of the bulls, but it's a truly unique way of celebrating a little-known yet important part of our Revolutionary history!

Firing up a celebration of joy in New Brunswick

John Adams famously predicted that the anniversary of America's independence would "be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty." In a letter to his wife Abigail just after the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the states, he said, "It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more."

That brings up the question -- when did celebrations actually begin? Who declared the day an official event for commemorating the act of separation from Great Britain and the official birth of the United States? I'm sure if you go to Massachusetts or Pennsylvania, you'll find people who say their forebears were the first to make July 4 a major holiday, but they'd be wrong. Like so much of what occurred during the Revolution, the first celebration was held in New Jersey, ordered by General George Washington himself. You can't get much more official than that.

The story brings us to 1778, just after the Continental Army fought the British at the Battle of Monmouth on June 28. Having demonstrated to the enemy in a daylong conflict that the Americans were a force to be reckoned with, Washington led his 11,000 Continentals to New Brunswick to rest. The Raritan River would provide refreshment to the parched and exhausted troops, who camped on both banks during the first week of July while the General made his headquarters at Ross Hall on River Road in Piscataway.

Marking the route of the 1778 Independence Day celebration
on River Road in Piscataway.

Washington capitalized on the massive gathering of soldiers to make a LOT of noise on the Fourth. He ordered them to line the Raritan's edge in a single file that ran two miles from White's Farm -- the present-day Buccleuch Park -- to Sonman's Hill, where Douglass College of Rutgers University now stands. Bolstered by an artillery force of more than a dozen cannons, the men then fired their muskets one by one in sequence in a feu de joie, or fire of joy.

That was just the start of the celebration. Every soldier was issued an extra ration of rum, and the officers gathered at Ross Hall for an evening party. Notables including Baron von Steuben, Alexander Hamilton and the Marquis de Lafayette were among the 100 people in attendance at Ross Hall.

Imagining the celebration as it occurred is a little difficult these days -- subsequent development and Route 18 have obliterated the 18th century landscape in New Brunswick, though the terrain remains a little more natural once the Raritan flows into Piscataway. Ross Hall was torn down in the 1960s after a destructive fire, though a single wall was saved for eventual restoration; plans are to have it displayed at the nearby Metlar-Bodine House. However, anyone driving the length of the highway along the river can appreciate the sheer mass of humanity it took to create a two-mile long shooting range, along with the duration of the gunfire they created, firing one after the other in sequence.

We can still get a little taste of the 1778 celebration every year on Independence Day. On the afternoon of July 4, reenactors gather at New Brunswick's Buccleuch Park for a smaller though no less enthusiastic feu de joie, a reminder not only of our fight for independence, but of New Jersey's significant sacrifice toward the goal.

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.

Plymouth Rock at Echo Lake?

We run into plenty of historic markers -- plaques on boulders -- in our travels. Every once in a while, they're head scratchers.

For instance, there's the one in Union County's Echo Lake Park, situated near the western end of the lake. It's not far from the intersection of Route 22 and Mountain Avenue in Mountainside.

It stands alone in a grassy field, with no benches or contemplative area to give it context. One might think it was dedicated to someone associated with the creation of the park in the mid 1920s, or to whatever might have been there before the park, but it isn't. The inscription on the plaque is rather puzzling:

If you can't quite make it out, the inscription reads: "New Jersey State Branch of the National Society Sons and Daughters of the Pilgrims planted this site to commemorate the courage faith and ideals of our early settlers 1966."

I'm all for memorializing the people who helped found the country, and when I researched the Sons and Daughters of the Pilgrims, I discovered that's the business they're in, so to speak. Founded in 1908, the organization's members are the descendants of people who came to the New World before 1700. Their ancestors didn't have to have come over on the Mayflower, but they've been around a loooong time. And part of their mission, beyond encouraging the study of Pilgrim history, is to create "durable memorials of historic men, women, and events."

So that explains why the New Jersey chapter would invest in placing a good sized brass plaque on a very large stone in a public place. It doesn't explain, however, why the plaque and stone would be placed at Echo Lake. While it's a well-used park, it doesn't have the visibility of a downtown location in a major city, and that part of the park gets much less visitorship than other areas. Someplace in Military Park in Newark, or even within the grounds of the Presbyterian Church in Elizabeth would be more fitting, considering the founding dates of both cities.

Why, indeed, does Union County need its own Plymouth Rock?

Your guess is as good as mine, but I do have a theory, fueled by the relatively recent appearance of a series of historic markers on nearby Mountain Avenue. Signs for the Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route (or W3R) mark the path taken in 1781 by the Continental Army and ground forces sent by France to help American forces finally defeat the British. Starting in Boston where more than 4000 French officers and troops landed, and extending south to Yorktown, Virginia, the route actually diverges in New Jersey, reflecting the more westerly route the French took (more or less along current day Routes 202, 287 and some county roads) and the easterly route Washington's troops took (attempting to convince the British of yet another possible attempt to invade Staten Island) before heading toward Trenton. The Mountain Avenue segment is part of that easterly route.

Knowledgeable as they must be about colonial history, had the New Jersey Pilgrim sons and daughters deliberately chosen to plant their memorial in Mountainside alongside this pivotal Revolutionary route? Or was it just a happy coincidence?

Or maybe the answer is much simpler. In time-honored Jersey tradition, could it be that the Pilgrim descendants just knew a guy at Union County Park Commission who could get the stone placed? Who knows? Stranger things have been known to happen.

The unlikely link between chickens, deli food, bandages and art

What do Johnson & Johnson, a good brisket sandwich and art have in common? Interestingly enough, Rutgers University and New Brunswick, sort of, by way of George Segal.

That's George Segal the artist, not George Segal the actor.

A lot of people don't realize it, but Rutgers' New Brunswick campus was at the center of a vibrant and influential art community in the late 1950s and early 1960s. For example, now-legendary Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein was a professor in the Douglass College art department, right around the time Rutgers College instructor and performance art pioneer Allen Kaprow was beginning to conceive of what became known as Happenings. Enjoying both the proximity and distance from Manhattan's scene, they and others found the freedom to experiment on radical new ideas.

Segal found his way from his native New York City to Central New Jersey in 1940 when his father bought a chicken farm in South Brunswick as part of an organized effort to boost food production during the Great Depression. After briefly attending Rutgers, he studied art at Cooper Union in the early 40s and Pratt Institute several years later, marrying Helen Steinberg, the girl next door, in the interim. Ultimately he earned his bachelors degree at NYU, graduating in 1949 with a degree in art education.

The Segals bought their own South Brunswick chicken farm in 1953, but when finances got tenuous, he started teaching English and art in local high schools. Kaprow lived nearby, and the two became friends, with Segal's paintings eventually becoming part of Kaprow's exhibitions. The pair also shared wall space in New Brunswick's Z&Z Kosher Delicatessen in New Brunswick, perhaps hoping that patrons would fancy a nice piece of art with their kreplach.

A portion of Segal's
New Jersey Turnpike Toll Booth,
as installed at the Newark Museum.

Eventually, Segal's worlds combined: he hosted one of the first Happenings on the chicken farm and began using poultry netting (chicken wire) to frame out the basis of plaster sculptures that he'd arrange in front of painted canvases. He soon abandoned the wire in favor of placing plaster-soaked J&J gauze bandages directly on his models, reportedly coming upon the idea after one of his students gave him the material doctors used to create plaster casts for broken bones. Segal would plaster his models with the gauze, allowing it to set only to a certain firmness, then gently removing and reshaping it back to its three-dimensional form. Thus he'd have a fully-formed, accurate human being, albeit in ghostly white. He'd then place the form -- or several -- into a tableau that he called an 'assembled environment.' It might be a group around a kitchen table, couples on a park bench (as in New York's Christopher Park) or a toll collector in an authentic Holland Tunnel booth (as in the Newark Museum's garden).

Segal's molding methods evolved over time, allowing him to create intensely lifelike details in his plaster sculptures. Understanding that his models had to stay in the same posture for more than a half hour as the plaster hardened, he came to realize that what he was capturing was not a pose or posture, but the subject's actual true stance, revealing a great deal of who they were as people and lending truth to the art itself.

Over the decades, Segal's art has been installed widely -- chances are you've seen either the plaster works or those cast in copper, like the Breadline installation at the FDR Memorial in Washington D.C. If you're like me, they've prompted you to want to participate somehow. Maybe you've found yourself wanting to line up with the hungry men waiting on the bread line, or maybe handing fare to the toll collector at the booth in the Newark Museum Garden. Either way, they've drawn you into their lives and made you wonder: what's on your mind? What challenges are you facing today? And perhaps, in some small way, they've encouraged you to consider the same questions about yourself.

Segal eventually became successful enough as an artist to leave teaching behind, but he maintained a 6000 square foot studio at the South Brunswick chicken farm until his death in 2000. Whether he still had chickens at that point, I don't know.

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.

Mendham: George Washington perked here

I have to admit to being a bit confused when I discovered that George Washington lived in Mendham. 

I stumbled on this fact during yet another aimless drive through Morris County, accompanied by the WPA Guide to 1930s New Jersey. Finding myself in Mendham I flipped through a few pages of the manual to discover that somewhere along County Road 510, the Old Route 24, "An overgrowth of tall trees and thickets... hides from the road the Estate of George Washington, coffee manufacturer." Or at least it did in 1938.

That certainly got me curious. Thing is, the connection between the Father of our Country, coffee and Mendham wasn't that clear to me. While wintering in Morristown, did General Washington have a little hideaway, just a few miles distant, where he discovered the secrets of a good cuppa joe in his spare time? The Ford Mansion may have been the Pentagon of the Revolution, but I'd never heard Mendham referred to as the Coffee Pot of the Revolution.

Okay, I'm having a bit of fun, but there indeed was a George Washington who lived in New Jersey in the 20th century and ran an eponymous coffee company in Morris Plains.

The java-loving Washington was an Anglo-Belgian chemist who immigrated to the United States with his wife in the 1890s. An unsuccessful businessman -- he tried selling kerosene lamp mantles and cameras for a time -- he eventually attempted cattle ranching in Guatemala. It was there that inspiration struck.

As the story goes, one day as he was waiting for his coffee to brew, he noticed a residue forming on the spout of the pot. Curious about the substance, he began experimenting and eventually found a way to make a form of soluble coffee that could be brewed instantly. 

Other inventors had already developed similar products, but Washington's work was the first to lead to a commercial venture. The G. Washington Coffee Refining Company was formed in 1910, with production facilities in Brooklyn. 

By the start of World War I, Washington was ready to meet the demand for a coffee that could be made quickly in the field to keep troops awake and alert. The taste of the instant variety was far inferior to the traditionally brewed coffee, but it could be manufactured double-strength and even be drunk cold, perfect for the trenches. Used first by the Canadian Expeditionary Forces at the start of the war, it was adopted by the American military once the U.S. entered the conflict in 1917. Some say that at a point during the war, the U.S. Army requisitioned Washington's entire coffee output to ensure that doughboys would always be able to count on a cup of George.

Washington relocated the company from Brooklyn to Morris Plains in 1927, also purchasing a home for his wife and himself, a 200 acre Mendham estate which once belonged to Governor Franklin Murphy. The grounds were soon filled with a menagerie of exotic animals the coffee magnate had assembled while living on Long Island; reportedly he eventually expanded his collection to include zebras, llamas and deer in addition to many rare birds.

George Washington retired from the coffee business in 1943, at the age of 75, selling the company to American Home Products. He died three years later. While the coffee line was terminated in 1961, a spin-off brand of seasonings and broth developed in 1938 continues to this day. 

Chatham: where the press was as mighty as the musket

If you grew up in Union County or are a New Jersey news media junkie, you might remember the Elizabeth Daily Journal. Before finally succumbing in the early 1990s, the Journal proudly proclaimed its status as New Jersey's longest-printed newspaper, founded in 1779. What many of us didn't know was that wasn't always printed in Elizabeth, one of the state's oldest cities. Rather, it was born in the much smaller community of Chatham.

The other day I headed to this tidy Morris County town to check out what I thought was the site of the Journal's first printing press, marked by this sign on Main Street.

The timing of the paper's founding during the depths of the Revolutionary War, combined with the longevity of its existence, would lead you to believe that the Journal had started its life as a pro-independence broadsheet. With Washington's encampment just a few miles away in Morristown, it wouldn't seem logical or probable that a Tory or Loyalist newspaper would survive after the war ended. But still, I wondered about printer Shepard Kollock, noted on the historical marker as a former soldier. Why had he left the military? Had an injury sidelined him? Was he needed at home yet still eager to support the cause with his profession?

Back at Hidden New Jersey headquarters, we discovered this was another case of the information that wasn't included on the marker being just as interesting as what is. The short answer, courtesy of The WPA Guide to 1930s New Jersey, was that Kollock, "an ink-stained Revolutionist," resigned from the Continental Army "for the more vital task of combating the Tory press of New York City." True, but that's not the complete story.

Look further, and you'll discover that while Lieutenant Kollock may have left the army, it was with more than the blessing of his superiors. It was with their direct support and encouragement, born from an acute need. No newspapers were published in New Jersey at the start of the war, leaving state residents to rely on the highly-slanted and misleading Tory propaganda sheets from New York. Though a Patriot-friendly New Jersey Gazette was published in Burlington, its circulation area fell far short of northern and eastern New Jersey, leaving residents with no news source critical of Great Britain. Continental Army leadership realized that if the battle for hearts and minds was to be won, they'd have to get someone to publish a newspaper that promoted the cause of freedom and boosted troop morale.

Who to do it? Alexander Hamilton, stationed in Morristown with General George Washington at the time, suggested Kollock, whom he knew had been a printer in the West Indies. Washington and General Henry Knox agreed, either allowing Kollock to resign or giving him an honorable discharge, depending on which source you cite. The influence of his press, it seemed, was worth far more than whatever he would contribute militarily. The Continental Army gained an ardent and exceptionally loyal mouthpiece eager to publish news provided directly by Washington's Morristown headquarters.

That's not to say that Kollock had an easy life as writer and publisher of the Journal. Though the army supported him, fed him information and ensured he had sufficient paper stock to publish, his safety was another issue altogether. He had to move his press several times, as he was constantly under threat of being captured by the British. In fact, it's not entirely clear to me when he published at the exact location of the historic marker I visited. Other sources say that at some point he printed from a back room in a building that once stood somewhere on the current location of the Mall at Short Hills. His other covert locations? They may be marked with plaques on rocks around town, but I haven't found them yet.

Both publisher and newspaper survived the war well; Kollock even moved to New York once the British evacuated to start a paper there. After returning to New Jersey, he founded another newspaper in New Brunswick before moving the Journal to its final hometown of Elizabeth in 1786, operating at 39 Broad Street. He sold the paper in 1818 after being appointed the city's postmaster.

Today Kollock is remembered in his onetime hometown of Chatham with a ballfield named in his honor, hopefully reminding kids that the power of the press is mighty and potent.

Spring for a visit to Schooley's Mountain

I'll admit it: Morris County confuses me sometimes. Having grown up to the east, my primary reference point to the county was its very historic seat, Morristown, and I rarely had an occasion to go much farther beyond. If I had to go anywhere beyond, I'd usually take the quick route on Route 80 or, on occasion, a county road. Thus, despite four years of Hidden New Jersey barnstorming, I still get a bit disoriented on solo trips in the region.

This all came to a head over the weekend, when I endeavored to track down a few mills said to be in Warren County. I set myself to take Route 57 west from its terminus in Hackettstown, maybe stop in one or two of the old canal port towns if I got that far. Usually it's a matter of taking Route 46 to Hackettstown and keeping an eye out for signs leading to 57. Usually. This time, as the great philosopher Springsteen once sang, I took a wrong turn and I just kept going.

More accurately, I didn't take a turn when I was supposed to. Things didn't feel quite right from the start, but I persisted as the road brought me further away from 57 altogether. A street sign at an intersection told me I was on Schooley's Mountain Road. Okay... this is different, I thought as the road started climbing in elevation.

Still doubtful, I was somewhat reassured when I passed the Washington Township Police Department building. There are no fewer than four communities in New Jersey named for our first president. Could it be this was part of Washington, Warren County, the community along Route 57? Could two of them be within mere miles of each other?

As it turns out, yes, and Schooley's Mountain takes up a good part of the Morris County version. At about 1200 feet high, it's a commanding elevation, and its namesake road twists a bit as it descends into Long Valley. The chances of me getting to the mills within my time frame were waning with every mile of country road I took forward. A quick look at the map revealed that it was quite a distance to the next major highway. Schooley's Mountain Road, a.k.a. County Road 517, was once the Washington Turnpike or Morristown-Easton Turnpike, leading to CR 513, which leads to, well, more countryside before it gets you to a more modern highway. I'd be lucky to find a gas station for miles.

Fuel for me was a little easier to find: the Schooley's Mountain General Store puts together a decent fresh mozzarella and roasted pepper sandwich with pesto. As I lunched, I perused the WPA Guide to 1930s New Jersey to determine whether I was close to tripping on a good story. I discovered that the mountain was named for the family that once owned farmland there, but that's just incidental to its true claim to fame as New Jersey's first resort, perhaps the nation's as well.

Morris County is well known to historians as an iron-rich region, once hosting colonial-era mines that earned it reknown as the arsenal of the Revolution. It wasn't the ore that drew thousands of people to Schooley's Mountain, however. It was the waters. Known alternately as chalybeate or ferruginous waters, or salts of iron, the mineral content of the Schooley's Mountain springs were acclaimed for their healing powers, first by the Lenape and then by European settlers.

Visitors seeking the waters' restorative powers first stayed on the site in tents. The history is somewhat cloudy, but from what I can tell, Joseph Heath was the first to capitalize on this natural phenomenon, opening accommodations on the mountain in 1801. He later built a larger facility called Heath House, which then drew competitors as well as regular visitors. By 1815 the springs were well known to be the purest of their kind in the nation, drawing health-minded devotees from all over.

Depending on the source, two or three more inns were built and by the late 19th century, accommodations for a few hundred were available to people who wanted to sample the spring or just get back to nature, away from the chaos of America's burgeoning cities. Schooley's Mountain reportedly attracted a wide range of celebrities, some even taking a break from their vacations to spend a few days. President Grant and his daughter stayed at the mountain's Belmont Hotel when they wanted a change from their summer visits in Long Branch. Rosters of the notables who are said to have taken to the waters include all the usual suspects: the Vanderbilts, Roosevelts and Thomas Edison, as well as several governors and former governors.

It was all gone, however, by the 1930s, apparently for the reason so many other New Jersey vacation spots suffered: improved transportation made it easier for visitors to go farther afield to other resorts. Detonation for a road construction project had reportedly ruined the spring site; some stories also note that the spring house itself was dismantled by highway workers. According to Henry Charlton Beck in The Roads of Home: Lanes and Legends of New Jersey, the Heath House may have been taken down and moved to Brooklyn.

When I hear stories of natural resources made inaccessible, it leads me to wonder whether they've simply been taken out of public view. Today, there's a Heath Village on the Hackettstown end of Schooley's Mountain Road, a seniors facility that offers a range of options from independent living to nursing care. A conspiracy theorist might wonder if the home's operators have hit upon something: could the waters extend life? Do the locals guard a still-existent spring from the outside world, sheltering it from future exploitation?

What it all says to me is that there's room for much more Hidden New Jersey exploration on Schooley's Mountain. And I wouldn't mind grabbing another sandwich at the general store.

B-cups and pigeon vests: Maidenform in Bayonne

Research often makes an interesting story even more fascinating. Case in point: pigeon bras.

Pigeon bras? You certainly knew that birds have breasts (so to speak) but so much so that they need support? Well... not really.

It all starts with a bit of reading I was doing for Women's History Month, where I stumbled on the story of Ida Cohen Rosenthal. A Russian immigrant who arrived in Hoboken in 1904, Ida soon married, bought a Singer sewing machine and went into business for herself as a dressmaker. Within 15 years, she and her husband William were operating a factory with 20 workers, but their time in Hoboken would be cut short due to snow. It wasn't that the white stuff was preventing their workers from getting to the shop, or curtailing their deliveries. What infuriated the Rosenthals was the fact they had to manage it. City statutes required property owners to clear snow from the public sidewalks in front of their buildings, and the couple apparently didn't want to be responsible for that task, sizable though their shop might be. Rather than hiring people to shovel their walk, they moved across the river, decamping to Washington Heights.

Their business prospering, the Rosenthals partnered with a friend, Enid Bisset, in a new Manhattan dressmaking venture, Enid Frocks. It was the 1920s, and the flapper look was in style, with its waifish, boylike appearance. To fit into the vogue fashion, women would bind their bosoms with plain strips of cloth to approximate a flat chest, despite their natural dimensions. Ida and Enid went one step beyond and created a bandeau that hooked in the back and cupped a woman's natural curves. Their dresses appealed to the more womanly customer, who didn't like the restrictive feeling of the fashion of the day. Including a brassiere with the purchase of an Enid Frocks dress, Ida and Enid apparently didn't initially recognize the bonanza they had created. Their customers would have to show them.

And, indeed, they did: after buying an Enid Frocks dress and accompanying bra, women would return to buy more undergarments, which the women accommodatingly sold them for a dollar apiece. Ida created the brand name "Maiden Form" to differentiate the womanly bras from the boyish look of the flapper fashion, and the undergarment business took off, despite warnings from her brothers, who told her to stick with dresses. In fact, it was the bra, not the dress, that kept the company afloat after the stock market crash of 1929, when competing dressmakers went out of business. Already, the success of the business had led the Rosenthals back to New Jersey when Maiden Form outgrew its New York factory. According to some sources, it eventually became one of the largest employers in Bayonne, doing well throughout the Great Depression.

Which leads us to... pigeon bras. Maiden Form, like virtually every manufacturer in the United States, had to fight tooth and nail to get raw materials during World War II. If it wasn't needed for the war effort, it wasn't going to get to the factory. Ida, in her own spunky style, convinced government officials that her business was absolutely essential. Wouldn't women serving in the WACs and WAVES face fatigue without the right support from a Maiden Form bra? (Ironically, Jane Russell would famously support this concept for another manufacturer in commercials for the 18 hour bra.) Parts of the business also converted to parachute making, while yet another group at the Bayonne factory turned out pigeon vests. Sewn from bra fabric and attached to a paratrooper's gear, the vests enclosed a carrier pigeon, which the paratrooper would release with a message once he'd landed in enemy territory. Soldiers being who they are, the vests quickly became known as bras.

The challenge of wartime shortages overcome, Ida brought her company into the late 40s and 50s with a series of innovative advertising campaigns that kept Maiden Form in the vanguard of women's undergarments. William had already made substantial contributions to design, including standardized cup sizes to ensure women could find a reliable fit, time after time. By 1960, the company's name had evolved to Maidenform, its founder still active in the business at an age when most folks would have retired. The business had expanded into Europe and Latin America, its manufacturing moving to southern states and Puerto Rico. Ida continued to work until suffering a stroke at the age of 80, leaving Maidenform in the capable hands of her daughter.

Today, Maidenform is part of Hanes Brands and retains offices in Iselin, its former Bayonne factory now converted into chic apartments. You have to wonder how many people know the unique way the small city supported the troops in World War II... or, for that matter, millions of American women. I do know that the next time I drive down Avenue E, I'll give a small salute and a knowing grin to the pigeons hanging out in front of the brick building at number 154.

Birding with a beret: the Bohemian Waxwing at Sandy Hook

Ah, the Bohemian Waxwing.

The name sounds like something out of one of those caricatures about nutty bird watchers: "yes, we saw the crimson-bellied saw whet and the Bohemian waxwing."

Thing is, it's a real bird, and at least one, maybe two, have been sighted over the last week or so at Sandy Hook. Normally, this time of year it's somewhere in lower Canada or the northern states of the Midwest or Western U.S. These misguided avian visitors apparently decided a trip to the Jersey Shore was a good way to spend part of the winter.

Yes, they spent Washington's birthday weekend at the Sandy Hook that's been totally frozen this winter. According to the many hearty birders who've seen the Bohemian there, it's been very cooperative, happily eating berries from the hollies near the flagpole at the scout camp.

Bohemian Waxwing, courtesy Lisa Ann Fanning.

A combination of the weather and workload kept Ivan and me from taking a look, until the unusually warm (for this winter, anyway) Sunday of Washington's birthday. Though I'd wanted to hobnob with George and Martha at his headquarters in Morristown I wanted to see the waxwing even more. This beautiful creature, even more distinctive than its dapper cousin who's a New Jersey regular, has been on my "must see" list for quite some time.

"Bohemian" brings up thoughts of bongos and smoke-filled Greenwich Village coffeehouses, but this bird eschews the hep cat life for a diet of fruit in the winter, supplemented by insects during the breeding season. The first part of their name comes more from their said nomadic journeys, much like the European Bohemians of old. The "waxwing" part comes from the crimson markings on some of its wing feathers, which makes them appear dipped in red sealing wax.

Seeing either waxwing, common though the Cedar waxwings are, is always a treat. Unlike the usually stark differences evident between feather colors on most birds, the waxwings' bodies appear almost airbrushed, greys evolving into browns, and the yellow of the Cedars' breasts gently transitioning from the brown surrounding it. If your only exposure to one came from a painting, you'd be excused for thinking that something so beautiful couldn't exist in nature.

The Bohemian, while still very dignified, is larger and more colorful than the Cedar, making it a "want" not just for my own life list, but because I want the joy of seeing it for myself. Enough that yes, I'd be happy to head to ice-encrusted Sandy Hook to see it.

How cold was it? Sandy Hook Bay was frozen.

So, off we went, thankful for the 40 degree weather that usually passes for "normal" this time of year in New Jersey. Reports were also that a Vesper sparrow was hanging out near one of the parking lots at the base of the Hook, but the Bohemian was our top priority.

We weren't the only ones looking. After stopping at the Nike base on a hunch that a guy with a scope set up had the bird in his sights, we found a scarce spot in the small parking lot near the camp. Other birders returning to their cars said they'd heard the bird was with a flock of robins, but they hadn't seen it.

Thus started a couple of hours of wait and see, wander a bit, chat with other birders, and just one sighting of a waxwing of either kind. The hollies at the camp flagpole were still pregnant with berries, but alas, no birds were there to feast on them. Perhaps the waxwing had decamped to a spot deep within Sandy Hook's enormous holly forest, far from the prying eyes of appreciative birders. Wherever it was, we didn't find it. My usual mantra about chase birds once again came true: if it wants me to see it, it will be there. I guess it just wasn't my time.

The Vesper sparrow on the other hand, was a bit more cooperative, though barely. Flocking with a bunch of Song sparrows, it finally sat long enough for us to spot it among some weedy grass on the north end of B lot. While it already made my life list just before Hurricane Sandy, they're not always an easy find in New Jersey, so this little guy was a nice consolation.

Happy birthday, Thomas Edison: a man of his own making

Today's the 168th birthday of Thomas Edison, one of our favorite personalities here at Hidden New Jersey. We've done a lot of reporting about hidden Edisonia around the state, from his mines in Ogdensburg, the cement factory in Stewartsville, the electric railroad and tattoo pen in Menlo Park, and the site of an old lightbulb factory in Harrison, among others.

Prolific as Edison was in developing new technologies, though, one of his greatest creations was his own public persona. As reporters and the public became more fascinated with his life and career, he told his own life history with zest and verve, firmly placing himself in the continuum of American history. In fact, according to a 1909 biography published with his blessing, his great-grandfather, also named Thomas, was a New York banker and patriot who proudly signed his name to Continental currency during the American Revolution.

Anyone who researches their family history runs into stories like this. The farther back you go, and the longer you wait to interview your older relatives, you discover your great-granduncle three times removed sold penny nails to Abraham Lincoln, at least according to your third cousin Mary's grandmother.

Thing is, Edison's story isn't true. His family history in America does, in fact, venture back to 1730, when the toddler John Edeson arrived in Elizabeth from Holland. Thirty-five years later, he married into one of the community's most prominent families, the Ogdens and settled with his wife in current-day Caldwell. And in the lowest days of the Revolution, as the British forced Washington's retreat across New Jersey in December 1776, John reportedly provided intelligence to the Redcoats. His loyalty to the crown cost him more than a year of his own independence, as he was captured and held in Morristown by patriot forces for 13 months.

Now persona non-grata in New Jersey, the Edesons moved first to British-held Staten Island and eventually to Digby, Nova Scotia with thousands of other exiled loyalists. It was there that Thomas Edison's grandfather and father were born, before the family moved to Ontario and then, eventually back to the U.S. and the inventor's birthplace in Ohio.

Funny thing is, there seems to be a bit of a karmic conspiracy working on Edison's behalf when it comes to finding his Digby roots very easily. A few years ago, Ivan and I found ourselves in the small community on a birding trip and tried to find the Edison family plot reported to be in one of the local cemeteries. Despite guidance from a map done by the local historical society, we weren't able to find it. Perhaps the Edison graves were among those whose stones were obscured by the wear of age, or maybe we just looked in the wrong place, but I wondered if the Old Man was perhaps playing one of his pranks from the Great Beyond.

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?

Phew! It's been a year!

New Jersey’s 350th anniversary year is coming to a close, and I'm constantly amazed by how many more topics, events, people, places and birds pop up, just waiting for us to research and share with you. Just when we think we've found about as much as we can possibly find, we stumble upon another hidden spot, a reader sends an intriguing lead, or research on another topic leads to a completely different story.

Here are just a few (well, more than a few...) of our favorites from 2014:

Our favorite inventor, Thomas Edison, continues to inspire, even though his Harrison lightbulb factory is long gone and the Portland cement factory in Stewartsville has been adapted for other purposes. While his Menlo Park workshop was long ago shipped to Michigan, the re-interpreted museum on his lab site off Lincoln Highway tells the story of his many inventions.

Liberty and Prosperity, baby!

Speaking of inventors, we met several this year, including a seemingly unlikely Episcopal priest-chemist who derived the formula for flexible photographic film and the irascible Trentonian who arguably was the first to develop the steamboat.

Industrial New Jersey New Jersey’s industrial history keeps popping up in the most interesting places, including a former nail factory grounds turned park in Bridgeton, a World War munitions plant turned Atlantic County park, and the one-time piano and organ capital of the world, disguised as a lovely Warren County town.

Our perpetual search for avian visitors brought us to the first New Jersey sighting of the Neotropic Cormorant and the third-ever sighting of the Whiskered Tern. And, of course, there’s the annual wild goose chase to find rarities among the herds of Canada Geese wandering open farm fields and corporate lawns.

A search for the rarely seen King Rail led me to discover other treasures in Bayonne, including a world-class links golf course and the distinctly agricultural heritage of what was once the world’s largest petroleum refineries. Earlier in the year nature had brought me to vestiges of the city’s contribution to the American war effort of the first half of the 20th century, the ELCO electric boat works that had built the iconic World War II PT boat.

During one of my Hidden New Jersey library appearances earlier this year, an attendee asked why I wasn’t talking more about roads themselves, rather than things we find on the side of the road. Good question, as we keep finding out interesting things about the thoroughfares we travel. Some take the path of the Revolutionary-era Washington-Rochambeau Route, while others are the vestiges of a highway envisioned to honor our 16th president. Then there's the pretty much inaccessible monument that honors a man who dedicated his career to the fight for good roads (boy, do we need him now!).

And while we’re talking about thoroughfares, I'm still absolutely gobsmacked about what we’ve learned about the Morris Canal. Between our engineering lesson at the Jim and Mary Lee Museum and our stop to visit a lightly-restored excavated inclined plane at Montville, I’ve got a newfound respect for this onetime express route through the hilliest part of the state. Wandering the now-quiet landlocked port towns of Port Colden and Port Murray opened my eyes to the canal’s impact on local commerce.

We found religion, too! Not really, but travels in the southern part of the state gave us an up-close look at how communities of faith have shared fellowship in more rural areas. A tiny shul in Cumberland County stands as a reminder of the vibrant Jewish agricultural community that once farmed the surrounding fields. The Methodist camp at Malaga is as observant today as it was at its founding, with cottage owners held to strict religious requirements.

And, as always, we found plenty to recommend New Jersey as the Crossroads of the American Revolution. Researching one of our favorite lighthouses led to a surprising story of Sandy Hook as a loyalist stronghold during the war, while travels in Passaic County led to the rarely-told stories of patriot mutinies during the darkest days of the war.

On the more positive side, we discovered the stories of some pretty kick-butt Revolutionary Neighbors, including a sculptress-turned-spy, a healer who became the defacto doctor for her community during the war, and a Newark farmer who took matters into her own hands when Hessians attempted to take over her homestead.

What’s in store for 2015? We’re still mulling over invading Delaware, but even if we don’t, we’re convinced it’ll be a busy year. Between chasing down rare birds, taking on speaking engagements and finding even more obscure New Jerseyana, we’re looking forward to learning right along with you!

Washington's Crossing: more than meets the eye

It's not exactly hidden New Jersey, but the annual reenactment of General George Washington crossing the Delaware River was a bit of an eye opener for me when Ivan and I attended this Christmas.

This year's reenactment looked nothing like this.
Washington Crossing the Delaware, Emanuel Leutze.
Metropolitan Museum of Art collection,
gift of John Stewart Kennedy, 1897  www.metmuseum.org

Every American school child learns the story of the crossing and events that led to it, or should. Having lost the Battle of Long Island and Forts Washington and Lee in the summer and fall of 1776, Continental troops retreated across New Jersey to the relative safety of Pennsylvania. During these bleak days, morale plummeted and troops deserted in droves, having lost confidence in Washington's leadership. Philosopher and pamphleteer Thomas Paine, traveling with the retreating forces, was inspired to write some of his most famous words in The American Crisis: "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."

Washington knew that he would have to make a daring move to save the young nation that had been born with the Declaration of Independence less than six months earlier. While a diversionary attack would be waged farther downstream, he would lead 2400 men across the Delaware about eight miles upstream of Trenton on Christmas night. Once ashore they'd split up and march southward to surprise and engage Hessian troops at their winter quarters.

Today we know that Washington's plan succeeded. Wins in three battles over the following ten days gave the Continental Army a much needed shot in the arm and the encouragement to continue fighting for the cause of freedom. Artistic representations of the Delaware crossing are part of our shared vernacular and are used everywhere from New Jersey's contribution to the state quarter series to The Simpsons.

But... you don't really get it until you see it. At least that's what I came to realize as Ivan and I stood on the banks of the Delaware this Christmas, waiting for the reenactment of the crossing.

When we arrived at Washington Crossing State Park that morning, skies were cloudy and the temperature around 50 degrees. Winds were blustery, though, and while there were no ice floes as there were on the original night, the river current was running briskly. We walked across the narrow bridge that spans the river to get to the Pennsylvania side, where the small town of Washington's Crossing was buzzing with a growing number of reenactors and spectators. Altogether, the group may have totalled about half the number Washington had with him that night. A few Durham boats had already been brought down the riverbank and positioned in the river, only a small representation of the number that the general had commandeered for the crossing.

The relatively warm weather and all of the hubbub made it hard to envision what Washington and his troops faced on that stormy, bitterly cold night in 1776. Even when we returned to the New Jersey side to await their arrival, the event was taking on a carnival atmosphere. Children chased each other between chatting adults, the local Lions Club was selling hot chocolate and a historian was describing the events that led up to the fateful night.

As we often do, Ivan and I had brought our binoculars for some casual birding as we waited for the event. They came in handy as we gauged how close the crossing was to starting; when the reenactors walked down toward the boats, we probably had a much better view than most of the people on the Pennsylvania side, but it still seemed to be taking a long time.

"Eagle," Ivan said, looking over the Washington's Crossing Bridge. Indeed, a nearly-adult Bald Eagle was soaring overhead, unnoticed by the people around us but entirely fitting for the event. It circled once or twice and then winged away, perhaps looking for someplace a bit less crowded to set down in a tree.

And finally, a small party of about six or eight reenactors made their way into the smallest of the boats -- a bateau -- to make the initial foray across the river. We're accustomed to thinking of Washington and his men rowing directly across the Delaware in more or less of a straight line, pushing blocks of ice aside along the way. Bergs weren't a factor for the 21st century patriots, but the current seemed to be. First struggling to row a few hundred feet upstream, the crew valiantly started making their way across in somewhat of a V pattern. For a bit, they seemed to be losing to the force of the river, leaving me to wonder if they might actually end up traveling to Trenton by boat rather than possibly reenacting the march.

We're so accustomed to seeing history represented in movies with action-heightening editing and dramatic music that an actual reenactment can seem tedious by comparison. Watching the struggles of the batteau men, however, seemed so much more realistic and perhaps truer to history, even if the weather, time of day and river conditions weren't consistent with the actual event. Were they going to be able to make it to New Jersey safely? We didn't know. Would all of the boats make the trip, or would the organizers decide conditions weren't right to finish the reenactment? Only time would tell.

The uncertainty, more than anything else, made an impression on me. Washington truly didn't know if his plan would work. He wasn't sure that all of his troops and their horses and equipment would make it across the Delaware, and in fact, it took hours longer than he expected. Further downstream, the diversionary attack was aborted without his knowledge. If the crossing we were watching had been cancelled, it would have been disappointing but not a tragedy. Had Washington's not worked, the future of the United States would have been in question.

Ultimately, in 2014 all of the boats made their way to New Jersey, their crews welcomed by loud applause and cheers from a happy crowd. Reenactors got into formation and marched across the bridge back to Pennsylvania, many of them undoubtedly looking forward to a big Christmas meal.

For the rest of us, they'd provided a memorable insight into the realities of one of the pivotal events in our forefathers' fight for independence. It's one I'll not soon forget.