NJ History Watch

Hurricane floodwaters damage Batsto

2011-09-07T04:15:00.000-07:00

I have just read Tom Hester's "Historic Batsto Village in Wharton State Forest seriously damaged by hurricane floodwater," posted September 4, 2011, on New Jersey Newsroom.

Having dealt with flooding from supernormal tides at Historic New Bridge Landing for several decades, I am not surprised to read that "high water initially kept DEP workers from reaching buildings [at Batsto] closest to the river and that some artifacts, such as furniture, may have been damaged. [The DEP spokesperson] said artifacts have been moved to dry storage elsewhere within Wharton State Forest where the village is located." Does it sound like he is saying museum objects were moved after the fact? Shouldn't it be obvious by now that by the time water is rising during a storm, it is too late---meaning, too dangerous---to send in workers to rescue anything. Didn't they learn that lesson from the April 2007 flood that inundated the Zabriskie-Steuben House? Dare I say: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Most people can read between the lines when a spokesperson makes a statement like: "Some things did get wet, but that might not mean they have been damaged. We are taking inventory.” One thing we know by now: bureaucratic cement is pretty much flood-proof, resisting blame or accountability. What is my forecast? It will happen again and again.

Most disappointing is the statement, "He added, 'Most of the old buildings have some water issues.'" Oh, really? Are they blaming the historic resources, rather than those paid to protect them? Aren't there any "volunteers" to blame this time around? And is this spokesperson really suggesting that old hamlets associated with water-powered iron furnaces, gristmills, sawmills, as well as river landings and canals, have "water issues"? Facing down a storm of historic proportions, didn't anyone anticipate a problem here? And what about those emergency plans that were the order of the day back in April 2007??? The best they can do is close the village and keep their latest mistake from public scrutiny.

How much more are we willing to lose before things change? This is not a disaster waiting to happen ... it is "history repeating itself." In bold contrast to the Governor's forceful leadership during this crisis, the DEP "stewards" of historic resources consistently hang us out to dry. Dear God! If they can't appreciate our historic heritage for its intrinsic cultural value, can't they at least appreciate what it could do for the local economy if we ever realized the potential for heritage tourism?

Once again, I strongly urge the historical community to get state owned and operated Historic Sites under professional management of an independent State Historic Sites Commission. I hate to say it, but almost anything would be better than this.

Montague, July 23, 2011

2011-06-28T05:03:00.000-07:00

I will be speaking at 1 PM on Saturday, July 23rd, at the Foster-Armstrong House, 320 River Road in Montague, on my book, 1609: A Country That Was Never Lost - The 400th Anniversary of Henry Hudson’s Visit with North Americans of the Middle Atlantic Coast. Using excerpts from it, I will focus on the Minisinks of the Upper Delaware Valley. For further info: visit www.montaguehistory.org or the Society's Facebook page. Phone: (973) 293-3106, leave a message or call President, Richard Jones at (973) 293-3949.

An Interpretive Platform for New Jersey

2011-06-25T20:41:00.000-07:00

By Kevin Wright©2011

Interpretive Zones lend historical and geographical context to historic resources, linking them thematically on the basis of shared resource communities and the history of their development. It also offers a curriculum through which the public may not only access and sample particular thematic areas of interest, but also pursue either a chronological or spatial progression of thematic developments.

Lying between the Appalachian mountains and the sea, the State of New Jersey occupies a portion of the Atlantic slope, which traverses four distinct sub-provinces: the Outer Coastal Plain; the Piedmont Plateau and Inner Coastal Plain; the Highlands and Kittatinny Valley; and the Blue Mountains and Minisink country of the Upper Delaware Valley. For interpretive purposes, I recommend dividing the State into four Interpretive Zones, namely: (I) the Blue Mountains and Minisink Country; (II) the Highlands and Kittatinny Valley; (III) the Sandstone Piedmont and Inner Coastal Plain; and (IV) the Outer Coastal Plain.

INTERPRETIVE ZONE I - THE BLUE MOUNTAINS AND MINISINK COUNTRY

The limestone bottomlands and alluvial flats of the Delaware River and the tributary Flat Brook were highly productive of cereal grains. The intervening Walpack Ridge was well wooded and mountain streams operated grist and saw mills. Footpaths passed the mountains at Culvers Gap, High Point, on Criggers Road and at Catfish Pond. Several of these became important roads and turnpikes, converging on Milford, Pennsylvania, and thus part of a major overland route from tidewater to the Great Lakes. The river road formed a secluded link in the route connecting New England to Philadelphia and the southern colonies.

The Minisinks inhabited the country surrounding Great and Little Minisink Islands, south to Walpack Bend and northward to Cashecton, New York. When the French and Indian War broke out in March 1756, forts or blockhouses were built at strategic locations along frontier, including a fort at Colonel Abraham Van Campen's on the Pahaquarry Flats and Cole’s Fort at the confluence of the Delaware and Neversink Rivers in what is now Port Jervis, New York. Despite the efforts of Jersey troops stationed at these strategic outposts, hostilities continued until June 1758. The only French and Indian War sites in New Jersey are found along this stretch of the river.

High Point and Worthington State Parks form gateways at opposite ends of the Upper Delaware Valley, flanking extensive lands of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. Both of these parks developed as nineteenth century scenic summer resorts and were later acquired by private wealth and developed into summer estates and game parks.

The Kittatinny or Blue Mountains

The folded Paleozoic strata of the Kittatinny, or Blue, Mountains form an even-crested ridge that rises from 1,495 feet at Mount Tammany in the Delaware Water Gap to 1,804 feet at High Point, the highest elevation in New Jersey. From an elevation of 1,650 feet on Sunrise Mountain, the ridge descends to 1,340 feet at Culvers Gap. Several ponds fill depressions on the mountain crest and the Flat Brook intrudes upon the west slope, narrowing the mountain plateau to a width of about two miles. The Delaware River has carved its scenic passage through an offset fault in the mountain’s crest.

A mixed, coniferous and deciduous forest covers the rocky mountain summit. Distance from markets and inaccessibility limited commercial and domestic cutting. The inflammability of pitch pine and dried deciduous leaves in autumn and spring fed recurrent fires. Oak bark created the basis for an extensive tanning industry.

LINKAGES: Native American Heritage Trail; French and Indian War Heritage Trail.

CROSS-REFERENCES: Transportation Heritage Trail (ferry, roads and turnpikes); Scenic Values, Leisure and Resorts; Public Monuments (High Point).

INTERPRETIVE ZONE II — THE HIGHLANDS AND KITTATINNY VALLEY

The Highlands comprise an elevated gneissic plateau with an average height above sea level approaching 1,000 feet, covering 900 square miles in northwestern New Jersey. Its short even-crested ridges, plateaus and isolated hills are the exposed, plutonic roots of ancient mountains, elevated during the Mesoproterozoic assembly of the Rodinia supercontinent. The region cradles a spectacular stock of metallic ores and some veins of iron can be traced for five miles, extending from one deposit to another. Clustered hills of Silurian quartzite, sandstone and conglomerate, locally known as the Green Pond, Kanouse and Copperas Mountains, divide the Central Highlands Plateau from the Passaic Range.

Differential weathering sculpted the present topography: hard metamorphic rock forms the backbone of the uplands, while streams have eroded their valleys upon sedimentary shale and limestone. The land is heavily glaciated north of the end moraine, a belt of short hills, interspersed by waterlogged hollows called kettles, running through Denville, Dover, Budds Lake, Saxton Falls, Buttzville, and Belvidere. Swamps and kettle ponds dot outwash plains. Drift-plugged outlets created Culvers Lake, Swartswood Lake, Lake Hopatcong, Budd Lake, Green Pond, Allamuchy Pond, the Drowned Lands of the Wallkill, the Paulinskill Meadows and the Great Meadows. Several of these large freshwater lakes developed into popular summer resorts and campgrounds after 1875. Lake Hopatcong was first enlarged in 1766 as a forge pond and then, in 1825, as the summit reservoir of the Morris Canal. Its outlet feeds the Musconetcong River, a valuable mill stream.

In historic times, a deciduous, broadleaf forest, with chestnut prevailing over oak, clad the Highlands, with a great deal of hickory in places, intermixed with scattering white pine on rocky slopes and occasional stands of hemlock. Red cedar and black walnut grew on abandoned clearings. Scrub oak prevailed atop ridges and on sandy soils around Succasunna Plains. Maples, elms, white pines and hemlocks shaded stream bluffs and lowlands. Wooded swamps included maple, beech, elm, scattered pines, larches and white cedar. Butternut, birch, poplar and ash grow intermittently. Some hemlock is found on Jenny Jump Mountain, with oak, chestnut, cedar, ash and poplar in the surrounding valley.

Highland timber suffered considerable damage from fires, browsing cattle and cutting for charcoal, cordwood, railroad ties, mine-props, fencing and hoop-poles. The point of maximum deforestation was reached by 1850. The limestone valleys, denuded of forest except for small woodlots, were brought into cultivation during the eighteenth century.

The Highlands are remarkable for the massing of waterpower at certain points, usually near its borders, and millstreams on its eastern borders were favorably situated for transporting manufactures to market. The fortunate combination of rich ores, forested hills and convenient waterpower encouraged iron manufactures. The Kittatinny Valley also enjoyed great advantages for waterpower, but was distant from tidewater markets before the advent of railroads in 1854.

The Kittatinny Valley

Forty miles of the Great Appalachian Valley pass through Sussex and Warren Counties, northwest of the Highlands. Kittatinny Limestone and Martinsburg Shale, the product of Ordovician marine sediments, compose the valley’s undulating floor. Shale ridges run with the main axis of the valley, dividing the limestone lowlands into parallel channels, trenched by streams. The limestone soils of the Kittatinny Valley were New Jersey’s most productive farmlands and streams descending the flanking foothills gave motion to many mills. Many ponds and lakes, found in the glaciated portion of the valley, served as mill ponds, ice ponds, and recreational attractions.

LINKAGES: Native American Heritage Trail (Swartswood, Wild Cat Rock); Mineral Heritage Trail (Worthington -slate quarries; Franklin, Ogdensburg, Edison, Lake Hopatcong, Andover, New Andover, Waterloo, Wawayanda, Andover Mine- Kittatinny Valley State Park, Ringwood; Long Pond; Windsor Lime Kilns, Oxford Furnace)

CROSS-REFERENCES: Transportation Heritage Trail (Morris Canal, roads and turnpikes); Scenic Values, Leisure and Resorts (Wawayanda, Kittatinny Valley, Swartswood, Stokes); Agricultural Heritage Sites (Barrett Farm, Keen’s Mill).

INTERPRETIVE ZONE III - THE SANDSTONE PIEDMONT AND INNER COASTAL PLAIN

The piedmont plateau extends along the Delaware River from Trenton north to Holland, and continues along the southeast margins of the Highlands from Pattenburg to Suffern, New York. Two large State Reservoirs and Recreation Areas—Spruce Run and Round Valley—are located along this boundary. The piedmont fronts the Hudson River and Kill Von Kull. Its lacustrine red mudstone and shale formed from sedimentary deposits in a deep Triassic rift valley. The exposed and upturned edges of three extrusive lava flows form the parallel, semicircular trap ridges called the First, Second and Third Watchung Mountains. The coarse-grained diabase of the Hudson Palisades indicates a sill of molten magma that cooled slowly at great depths. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, the Palisades Ridge in Hudson County was “rapidly occupied by a city.” Cretaceous sedimentary rocks of the Inner Coastal Plain overlap its southeastern boundary, which runs from Trenton to near the outlet of Lawrence Brook, below New Brunswick, and northeast to the Arthur Kill.

From the very beginnings of pioneer agricultural settlement, through the rise and decline of industrial cities, this hilly, red-soiled plain has been “the most densely populated and highly cultivated portion of New Jersey.” Large cities have grown from tidewater villages, often situated near the fall-line where streams descend from interior uplands, so providing ample industrial power, and always near to water transport upon navigable tidal bays and creeks. Considerable industrial enterprise centered around cascades of the Passaic River crossing First Mountain at Great Falls in Paterson and Second Mountain at Little Falls.

By the end of the nineteenth century, the suburban and urban growth of population in the Hackensack Valley resulted in reforestation of upland slopes. A mixed, deciduous growth prevailed, with oak predominating in the lowlands and chestnut on the ridges. Gum, white birch, beech, and maple prevailed on swampy ground. The Palisades was well-wooded by 1900, covering an unbroken tract of nearly 11,000 acres. Oak and chestnut predominated, with some pine and hemlock near Huyler’s Landing.

Oak, chestnut and hickory dominated the original forest covering the Watchung Mountains. An unusual growth of hemlock was noted in 1899 near Pompton Lakes and scattered stands of pine were observed on Long Hill, on First Mountain, south of South Orange, and on Second Mountain, south of Murray Hill. Gum, maple, and willow prevailed on valley bottoms. Extensive flats, such as Pompton Plains, were cleared for cultivation. Pin oak, maple, birch and elm thrived in the Great Swamp. East of the First Mountain, “the thickly settled and highly cultivated valley, whose surface appears like a plain, [was] painted with meadows, grain fields and orchards, and studded with the villages of Bloomfield, North and South Orange, and the large towns of Newark and Elizabeth ....”

Plainfield, Bound Brook, Somerville, Raritan and Flemington were thriving centers of population built upon the extensively farmed Raritan Valley. Timber was restricted to small farm woodlots, containing oak and hickory. The trap ridge of Rocky Hill forms its western rim. A broad outcrop of argillite, very hard mud rock, constitutes the West Hunterdon Plateau, which remained more heavily forested, largely with oak and hickory, but also with scatterings of pine. Trenton, Pennington and Princeton occupy a triangular shale plain, wedged between Rocky Hill, the Delaware River, and the northwest boundary of the Inner Coastal Plain.

Early footpaths, worn by use into highways, crossed New Jersey’s narrow waist between New York and Philadelphia. The Delaware and Raritan Canal carried coal from the Delaware River through Trenton to tidewater at New Brunswick.

The Inner Coastal Plain

An emerged Cretaceous sea bed, including greensand marl, forms the Inner Coastal Plain, a belt of land averaging twelve to fifteen miles in width, that extends southwest from Raritan Bay to Trenton and from thence along the Delaware River into Salem County. Isolated patches of Beacon Hill Gravel cap its highest hills, leaving outcrops of marl and sandstone to stand as a cuesta ridge, extending from the Atlantic Highlands to Beacon Hill, thence southwest between Englishtown and Freehold, continuing through Arney's Mount, Mount Holly, Mount Laurel, Woodbury Heights and Mullica Hill.

The streams are “generally crooked and sluggish; and the larger are navigable for 10 or 15 miles from their mouths.” The largest towns were tidewater entrepôts, set upon fastland fringed with fresh and salt marsh, where rivers and wagon paths debouched the products of hinterland forest, farm and forge. Along such navigable streams, convenient to city markets, farmers specialized in the “profitable culture of garden vegetables, potatoes, melons, fruit, &c.”

High tides overspread coastal lowlands and creek banks, nourishing extensive salt meadows, mown for their coarse hay. Embankment and drainage converted marshes to crop land of timothy, clover and blue grass. Cattle, horses and hogs ranged upon natural meadows.

The most valuable clay industries of New Jersey were founded upon the Raritan clays of Cretaceous age. Pine and oak timber were the most profitable crop on sandy soils. Sawmills along tributary streams converted pine and oak wood into lumber for market. Cranberry production became a major commercial enterprise on the Inner Coastal Plain. Oysters, clams and fish were harvested from bay waters.

Coastal roads connected hamlets at the head of navigation along the various streams. The Amboy-Burlington road was a much-frequented route between Manhattan and Philadelphia. The village that grew up around Daniel Cooper’s Ferry was the kernel of the great city of Camden.

LINKAGES: Crossroads of the Revolution.

CROSS-REFERENCES: Transportation Corridor Heritage Trail (ferry, roads and turnpikes; Delaware & Raritan Canal; Central Railroad Terminal); Scenic Values, Leisure and Resorts; Public Monuments (High Point); Native American Heritage Trail; Public Monuments (Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island; Princeton Battle Monument; Monmouth Battle Monument; Trenton Battle Monument); Agricultural Heritage Trail (Monmouth Battlefield; New Jersey Agricultural Museum).

INTERPRETIVE ZONE IV — THE OUTER COASTAL PLAIN

The Outer Coastal Plain is a seaward, alluvial zone running from the outlet of the Raritan River eastward along Raritan Bay and Sandy Hook Bay, then southward along the seashore from Sandy Hook to Cape May and finally northwest along the shores of Delaware Bay to the outlet of the Mullica River. Coarse sand, white clay and gravel of the Late Miocene Cohansey Formation, which locally has consolidated into sandstone, forms the surface of the Outer Coastal Plain. Except for a cultivable strip along the seashore, whereon a line of small farms formed the “shore road,” this immense sandy plain was covered with pine, oak, maple and cedar. The Pine Barrens were long regarded as “the wildest and most undeveloped portion of the State.”

Streams pursue their crooked courses through flat country, bordered by marshes, and are reliably navigable for a considerable stretch inland. The principal villages stand near the head of navigation, where streams draining the pine forest blend into their tidal estuaries. Coastal vessels carried considerable quantities of charcoal and lumber to market.

Bog iron found in this district, mixed with richer mountain ores, produced “good iron for castings and the forge.” The Little Egg Harbor River and its tributary, the Wading River, furnished “more natural water-power than is to be found in any other township in this part of New Jersey.” Waterpower operated saw and gristmills, furnaces, forges, and glassworks. By 1834, fourteen furnaces (including cupolas), fourteen forges, a rolling-and-slitting mill, a nail factory, and eleven glass manufactories, producing window-glass and hollow ware, were the chief sources of wealth, selling their wares in city and country markets while providing local farmers with a ready market for their agricultural productions.

The manufacture of iron and glass consumed timber in the production of charcoal fuel, reducing the forest in their immediate vicinities. Further commercial demand for cordwood came with steamboat travel, since charcoal made from pine was needed for kindling anthracite coal. Oak of considerable size grew on loam soils, covering the central portion of Cape May County, and was “much valued in the construction of ships.” White cedar was valued for fencing. Summer fires of great extent visited the Pine Barrens annually.

Sandy Forelands

Narrow, sandy beaches, varying in width from a few rods to half a mile, extend along the tidal plain from Sandy Hook nearly 125 miles to Cape May. Sand islands form forelands along the coast that enclose shallow lagoons or bays on their landward flanks.These barrier islands protect the coast south of Bay Head, isolating an inland waterway of salt bays, connected via sounds and crooked channels called thoroughfares. Island Beach extends south twelve miles to Barnegat Inlet. Long Beach Island extends for eleven miles between Barnegat Inlet and Beach Haven Inlet. The Great Bay of the Mullica River and Great Egg Harbor comprise the widest of the inland salt-marsh lakes. All abounded with clams, oysters and fish, providing employment to shore-dwellers. Barnegat Bay is thirty miles long, two to four miles wide, reaching a depth of about 20 feet near Lovelady Island. Southward toward Cape May, the barrier beaches are more frequently divided by inlets into islands. Ship-building and the lumber trade were major industries.

Boarding-houses were built for the accommodation of sea-bathers and summer excursionists, receiving visitors via stagecoaches from Philadelphia and steamboats from New York. In 1888, C. Clarkson Vermeule surmised that: “The isolation and the opportunities for sailing and fishing afforded by the inside waters form prominent attractions for all seaside resorts south of Bay Head, as the connections with the mainland and consequent facilities for driving and nearness to the great cities attract patrons to the more northern resorts, while the leading allurements of sea air and surf-bathing are common to all.”

Historic lighthouses and fortifications are an integral part of our coastal heritage. The twin towers of Navesink Light Station, standing atop Beacon Hill marked the seaward approach to New York Harbor.

LINKAGES: Coastal Heritage Trail; Native American Heritage Trail.

CROSS-REFERENCES: Transportation Heritage Trail (ferry, roads and turnpikes); Scenic Values, Leisure and Resorts; Agricultural Heritage Trail (Whitesbog; Batsto); Mineral Heritage Trail (Batsto, Allaire, Glass manufacture; clay industries and pottery).

Keen's Mill at the Outlet of Swartswood Lake

2011-05-08T05:45:00.000-07:00

By Kevin Wright
©2006

In an age of waterpower, Swartswood Lake drew attention as a potentially valuable mill seat. Millwrights knowingly searched for a sufficient volume and fall of water in hill country nearest the headwaters of a stream. Since pondage protected against seasonal fluctuations in stream flow, Swartswood Lake provided a natural regulator to ensure sufficient power in all seasons. Its watershed covers 16.3 square miles and was considered “a good example of successful utilization of a small water-shed for power by means of storage.” Drowning the narrow valley at the outlet of the lake created additional storage and a greater fall of water. About 1790, Charles Rhodes, Senior, selected a rocky hollow, where the outlet stream of Swartswood Lake makes a rapid descent, and erected his gristmill on land purchased from John Reading. The milldam raised the lake’s level between 4 and 5.5 feet, creating a 16-foot head to operate three run of millstones.

Charles Rhodes, Senior, died in February 1800, without leaving a will. Else Rhodes, Joseph Rhodes and Charles Rhodes, Jr., were named the administrators of his estate. When his real estate was divided in 1802, the Mill Lot went to son Charles. Charles Rhodes, of Vernon Township, died in 1818, devising the 18-acre Mill Lot to his son John. He sold 81 acres, including the mill, to George Keen in April 1824 for $3,200.

George Keen was born January 18, 1789, at Springdale, where he spent the first half of his life, perhaps at the gristmill there, coming to Swartswood when he was 35 years old. He built the extent stone gristmill in 1838 with three run of grinding stones. The mill operated on a 16-foot fall of water, using a “Pitch back” water wheel, 17 feet in diameter, making 20 revolutions per minute, and generating 30 horsepower. Mill gearing allowed the runner stones to turn at about 100 revolutions per minute.

Keen’s Mill was built on the model of Oliver Evan’s design for a fully automated flouring mill. A form of the bucket or gravity waterwheel, called a pitch back wheel, was selected, as it utilized the weight as well as the impact of the water. Since the water was delivered to the buckets of the pitch back wheels from above, their diameter could exceed the height of the waterfall. Unlike the overshot wheel, it had the advantage of turning in the direction of the current. To improve its efficiency, this variant of the breast wheel also turned within a close-fitting wooden apron, or “breast,” which held the water on the wheel to the bottom of the wheel’s revolution. Its large capacity and high efficiency was particularly suited to a merchant mill.

George Keen died on February 28, 1866, at 78 years of age. According to his obituary, “by a life of industry and integrity, he secured public confidence and became the proprietor of a valuable estate.” His son John W. Keen ground 50 bushels of grain per day in 1880. He owned the mill property until his death in December 1898 at 76 years of age. Being slightly deaf, he did not hear a locomotive whistle and drove directly into the path of a train approaching at high speed on the New York, Susquehanna & Western Railroad.

The children and heirs of John W. Keen sold the old mill at the outlet of Swartswood Lake to Dr. William H. Vail, of Blairstown, in March 1901 for $3,500. Dr. Vail acted in the interest of the Blairstown Electric Light Company, which hoped to use this “valuable acquisition for future dry periods.” The dam was to be raised to control the outflow as soon as possible. The water in Swartswood Lake was to be kept at the high water mark and this enormous reservoir drawn from as needed for power for the electric light plant at Paulina.

The Great Flood of February 26, 1902, washed out the milldam. Charles H. Crisman, a Branchville mill owner, superintended the building of a new dam with heavy timbers in July 1903. Dr. Vail had the wooden door and window frames of the gristmill replaced and he thoroughly overhauled the interior of the gristmill, equipping it with modern machinery. A slate roof was put on the building.

In 1903, Charles Crisman removed the waterwheel and installed a turbine. This is a rotary reaction wheel, which operates from the reactive pressure of the water upon the surfaces of guides or passages from which it issued. The turbine not only operated submerged, but with greater efficiency and economy that the more cumbersome waterwheel. The purpose of the 1903 alterations to Keen’s Mill remains unclear. Charles H. Crisman also operated the hydroelectric plant that supplied Branchville. At this time, many country towns were similarly provided with electric power from obsolete gristmills.

Whatever the economic motivation, the conversion did not succeed. Dr. Vail sold the mill property to the trustees of the Blairstown Presbyterial Academy in May 1904 for $4,000. They owned it until January 1969. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection acquired Keen’s Mill in July 1976.

Help Build a Future for the Past

2011-04-28T08:04:00.000-07:00

Dear neighbor and fellow citizen,

To fully appreciate what it means to be an American, we invite you to experience History in one of the storied places where it was made. The Bergen County Historical Society cares for the American Revolutionary War battleground at the Bridge That Saved A Nation, where General George Washington led the outnumbered garrison of Fort Lee to safety across an oak drawbridge over the Hackensack River on November 20, 1776. That nearly shoeless but unyielding line of citizen-soldiers carried the hopes and future of a young Nation. In admiration, eyewitness Thomas Paine spoke of the “times that try men’s souls,” believing every Patriot who stood by the cause of Liberty in its darkest hour “deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”

We offer a unique opportunity to show abiding gratitude to all those who gave so much for the life of a free nation. Relying entirely upon volunteer contributions, the Bergen County Historical Society is raising $350,000 to construct a first-rate museum building and library on the Society’s property at Historic New Bridge Landing. This museum building will be built to replicate an eighteenth-century Dutch barn, so as to visually complement the landmark stone houses while providing a proper museum environment for thousands of irreplaceable artifacts and documents of our Past. Each object gives meaning to a memorable moment in Bergen County’s remarkable transition from colonial frontier to one of the America’s most diverse and prosperous suburban counties. Better than any textbook, classroom exercise or computer, these artifacts uniquely tell our national story, allowing young and old to “touch” history in meaningful and memorable ways.

Doing our utmost to honor and teach what it truly means to enjoy Freedom, we ask your help. Join our efforts to preserve Historic New Bridge Landing as sacred ground where Americans fought and bled for the right of self-government. As a 501(c)(3) volunteer non-profit organization, 100% of your donation is expended on the fulfillment of our mission! Your donation toward this cause will “deserve the love and thanks of man and women” for generations to come. For further information or to contribute, contact http://www.bergencountyhistory.org or call 201-343-9492

Background on the State Historic Sites of New Jersey

2011-01-15T07:18:00.000-08:00

The State of New Jersey first officially marked its historic heritage by placing a granite monument at the reburial site of John Hart, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, beside the Old School Baptist Meeting House in Hopewell in 1865. Between 1873 and 1921, the State authorized the placement of sixteen cemetery markers, battlefield tablets and monuments. In 1874, the Legislature incorporated the Washington Association of New Jersey and appropriated $5,000 annually towards maintenance and perpetuation of Washington’s Headquarters in Morristown. This historic site became the first National Historic Park in the United States when the State of New Jersey conveyed its title and interest therein to the Federal government on July 4, 1933.

The State of New Jersey began acquiring and operating historic sites at the initiative of Governor Franklin Murphy, a member of several patriotic societies, including the Sons of the American Revolution. On April 2, 1902, the Legislature empowered a State commission to purchase and maintain the Old Indian King Tavern at Haddonfield. The provincial Assembly met here in 1777 and ordered substitution of the word “state” for “colony” in all public documents, decisively rooting political sovereignty in the principle of popular self-government. The State of New Jersey took possession on June 15, 1903, undertaking renovations between 1908 and 1910. The purchase of the first 100 acres forming the core of Washington Crossing State Park, including the Ferry House, was made in 1912 and the State acquired its interest in the Old Barracks at Trenton in 1917. Another historic site, the Walt Whitman House in Camden, came under State jurisdiction in 1925.

Between celebrations of the Sesquicentennial of American Independence (1776-1926) and the Washington Bicentennial (1732-1932), the State of New Jersey authorized acquisition and preservation of four more historic sites, namely: the Steuben House at River Edge in 1926; the Dey Mansion at Preakness in 1929; the Hancock House at Lower Alloways Creek in 1931; and the Wallace House at Somerville in 1931. Acquisition of Princeton Battlefield was authorized in March 1927.

The need to administer an expanding historic-sites preservation and interpretive program led to the formation of the Historic Sites Commission in 1931. It was empowered “to acquire by gift or purchase, or by the exercise of the power of eminent domain, areas, properties, lands, or any estate or interest therein, situate within this state, of historic interest or other unusual features which ... should be acquired, preserved, and maintained for the use, education and pleasure of the people of New Jersey.” At the time of its formation, this Commission was vested with the care and control of six historic homes, four Revolutionary War battle monuments and one Revolutionary War site. The Atlantic County Historical Society acquired the Somers Mansion at Somers Point in 1934 and conveyed title to the Historic Sites Commission. The Commission’s functions and properties were transferred to the Division of Forestry, Geology, Parks and Historic Sites in 1945.

Historic Interpretation

A Division of Parks, Forestry and Recreation was re-established in the Department of Conservation and Economic Development on May 27, 1966, and was vested with the responsibility to interpret New Jersey’s heritage through its historic sites. Under state law (Source: 13:1B-101, 13:1B-105), the Office of Historic Sites and the Historic Preservation Office are identified as “administrative units” in the Division of Parks and Forestry and are the current successors in “authority to the former Historic Sites Commission.” Under current law and regulations (Source: 28:1-4248), “The historic sites and historic preservation unit, with the approval of the commissioner, shall adopt regulations for the proper disposition and administration of any monuments or historic sites owned or maintained by the State pursuant to this chapter, or any non-State-owned monuments or historic sites for which the State has “responsibility.” The Commissioner has “the authority to establish by regulation such additional or subordinate administrative units within the historic sites and historic preservation unit as may be appropriate for the efficient and effective administration of the department.” (Source: 13:1B-15.101, 244 13:1B-15.102, 245 13:1B-15.105246)

Under “Powers and duties” (Source: 13:1B-15.105, 28:1-6247) the offices of historic sites and historic preservation unit:

a. Have responsibility for the custody and care of all monuments, the title to which is vested in the state, whether erected within or without the state, and which are not in the control or custody of any other state commission or agency. The historic sites and historic preservation unit may make suitable arrangements for the care of any such monuments with county or municipal officers, or with local commissions or societies, if, in its judgment, such arrangements are proper and desirable.
b. Formulate comprehensive policies for the preservation, restoration and public presentation of all historic sites within the State.
c. Make the necessary research, prepare exhibits and furnish the services required for a proper and adequate interpretive program.
d. Prepare and disseminate informational materials to inform the public with respect to New Jersey's historic sites.
e. Consult and co-operate with groups and organizations in order to advance the purposes of the historic sites program.

On June 21, 1967, the Historic Sites Council was established within the Division of Parks, Forestry and Recreation to consult with and advise the Department Commissioner and the Division Director. It was authorized to recommend programs and policies for: (1) the acquisition, development, use, improvement and extension of historic sites; (2) the development of a broad historic sites preservation program on a statewide and local basis; and (3) the identification, authentication, protection, preservation, conservation, restoration and management of all historic sites within the State. The Council consists of eleven members who are known for their competence and experience in connection with historic sites preservation and related areas, appointed to a four-year term by the Governor with advice and consent of the State Senate. As presently constituted, the Historic Sites Council does administer a broad historic preservation program through its administration of State and Federal historic preservation policies and laws. It has never been active in the acquisition, development, use, improvement or extension of historic sites. While its activities related to the New Jersey and National Register of Historic Places involve the identification, authentication, protection, preservation, conservation, and restoration of privately and publicly owned historic properties, it has never been directly involved with the management of State Historic Sites.

The Division of Parks, Forestry and Recreation joined the new Department of Environmental Protection in April 1970 and was designated the Division of Parks and Forestry in 1971.

Historical Interpetation: Connecting People to the Resources

2011-01-14T05:51:00.000-08:00

Interpretation centers upon an age-old dilemma: How can I explain? Most dictionary definitions of the word “interpret” offer such meanings as “to explain the meaning of, to conceive the significance of, to present or conceptualize the meaning of.”

Interpreters work to explain whatever is the immediate object of the beholder’s attention and curiosity. The art of interpretation differs from academic teaching in that it seeks to shape the intellectual and emotional content of a first-hand experience. Heritage interpretation always strives to enlighten people as to their interesting and significant surroundings. It never merely describes or recites; it reveals. It does not simply ask us to look; it asks us to imagine. Heritage interpretation places past cultural and natural environments before our mind’s eye.

Heritage interpretation is the instructive act of building context around what is sensibly apparent, exposing, in a sense, the architecture of meaning. As naturalist John Muir once said: “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” Context is any setting or set of circumstances that lends interest or meaning to an individual, object, act or event. As intellectual reconstructions, “contexts” continually evolve as better models are better able to explain what is sensibly apparent. Since good interpretation sustains curiosity, it is an open-ended process.

Heritage interpretation employs the skills of storytelling. It communicates through a variety of media and techniques, working to correct and clarify people’s perceptions of what they have come to experience. An interpreter may choose to blend into the interpretive setting, recreating, for example, the dress, language, skills and activities of a past environment. Or an interpreter may choose to join his or her audience as investigators, exploring and conceptualizing the significance of interpretive clues. But good interpretation is always resource-driven; its themes contextualize and explain the resource; it avoids preconceptions in shaping its message.

Good interpretation tries to capture the “big picture,” yet condenses it into an accessible and digestible storyline. Interpretation only succeeds when it engages the visitor’s level of experience and interest. It builds from a statement of significance, conveying useful information on the meaning and lasting value of the resource. Good interpretation offers insights and does not merely impose conclusions or advocate causes. It leaves judgments to the visitor.

We should acknowledge, however, that present concerns continually reshape our interest in the past and draw our attention. In particular, we search history for insights into the human condition that may prove useful in some present or future context. Without a proven method for predicting future outcomes, we can only look to the past for a sense of how humans have reacted to similar sets of circumstances.

Good and sufficient information underlies all good interpretation. A system of research and development hones conceptualization, performance and content. Professional peer review and visitor response build confidence and ensure accuracy and balance.

Culture can be described as a set of adaptations, which a particular group of people make over time to a particular environment and its resource-based opportunities. The relationship is subtle and reciprocal: people shape the land even as the land shapes its inhabitants. We must recognize that New Jersey’s state parks, forests and historic sites preserve cultural landscapes with nary an untrampled acre of true wilderness — every forest is regrown, every stream diverted to human ends, every lake level raised, and every floral and faunal community manipulated by human activities. Both historical and naturalist interpretations arise from a common resource base.

New Jersey compresses every natural feature of the Atlantic slope — from Appalachian mountains to littoral sands — within a relatively short distance. It boasts many scenic works of nature, but few, other than the Delaware Water Gap, that may be described as filling grand vistas with monumental splendor in the way that the Grand Canyon does. New Jersey, however, encompasses many splendid and diverse cultural landscapes, from its mountains to its seashores. And our historic and natural heritage enriches us by its mere presence; the intricate web of life always evokes wonder and demands explanation.

The broad stream of history certainly flows in our midst. Speaking of New Jersey, the English historian Winterbotham, who published a history of the United States shortly after the Revolution, concluded that: “This State was the seat of the war for several years during the contest between England and America. Her proportionate loss of men and property was greater than any other of the thirteen colonies. While Washington was retreating through New Jersey, almost forsaken by all others, her militia were at all times obedient to his orders and, for a considerable length of time, composed the strength of his army, and the military achievements performed by New Jersey soldiers gives this State one of the first ranks among her sister states in a military way and entitles her to share praise that bears no proportion to her size.” And the story does not end there. Out of all proportion to her size, New Jersey also figures prominently in the political, military, cultural, commercial, industrial and technological development of the United States. But many people have come to believe that History is so remote in time and place that it has lost its power to inform our future. That is why it is now more important than ever to rediscover our Past in those places where it yet has the lively power to quicken the intellect and to enthuse the spirit.

Reviewing Interpretation in the National Park Service: A Historical Perspective, Barry Mackintosh writes:

“Generally speaking, historical parks need interpretation more than natural and recreational parks do. Natural parks, typically encompassing spectacular or outstandingly scenic natural features, may be enjoyed aesthetically by most visitors regardless of whether they understand the geologic or biologic phenomena underlying them. Relatively few visitors to parks established primarily for active recreation are receptive to interpretive programs. But although many historical parks have aesthetic appeal and some accommodate active recreation, few can be greatly appreciated without some explanation of who lived or what occurred there. At historical parks, too, altered or missing features are often restored or reconstructed to better ‘tell the story.’ In far greater proportion than at parks established for other purposes, the [National Park] Service's task at its historical areas — indeed, the basic rationale for its involvement with such areas — is interpretation.”

Institutional compression has made forest management and the interpretation of historic sites subsidiary to a system of recreational parks. This may unduly exaggerate the “recreational” aspects of historical interpretation and environmental education. Furthermore, with the advent of mass entertainment through cable television, the internet and “digital realities,” park interpretation competes with sophisticated nature shows and historical dramatizations for viewers’ attention. The advantage of heritage interpretation over both classroom and screen experiences resides in the inherent quality and value of the first-hand experience.

Oftentimes, scrutiny of a specimen or object opens the best approach to conceptualization in an interpretive environment — a specimen, for example, evidences advantageous adaptations to the particular ecological niche it fills. Likewise, an artifact offers insight into the world of its maker and users. The perception of “authenticity,” or “actuality,” powers the viewer’s imagination. Objects, appropriately described in relation to their original context, contribute significantly to our understanding of past persons, places and events. Arminta Neal, author of Exhibits for the Small Museum, knowingly said:

“A museum is the best device our culture has developed for the transmission of ideas to large numbers of people through the exhibition of genuine objects. This is a museum’s strength. This is what it can do better than any other kind of institution yet devised.”

The goals of the a good historical interpretation may be summarized as follows:

• Meeting the highest standards of scholarly research, develop good and sufficient information necessary to the fair, open-minded and inspired interpretation of our historic and natural resources.

• Relying only upon documented facts, interpretation must be accurate and not merely entertaining or agreeable to popular preconceptions.

• Recruit competent interpreters, possessed of the necessary communications skills, background knowledge and enthusiasm for their work.

• Train and equip them to do a professional job.

• Encourage a variety of interpretive strategies, methods and media, to reach the broadest possible audience.

• Address varying levels and fields of visitors’ interest and experience.

• Seek to inform and not to preach.

• Promote respect for the resource and infer the value of its preservation.

• Acknowledge disagreements and different points of view as helpful to the process of understanding.

Twelfth Night Celebration

2010-12-29T08:15:00.000-08:00

The festivities of Twelfth Night were the most lavish of the year, featuring a great feast with bonfires, plays, music, dancing, and wassailing. The ancient custom of wassailing involved making twelve fires of straw and drinking toasts of cider or ale.

A mock king, called the King of Beans, or Lord of Misrule, was elected by lot: The person getting the slice of the Twelfth Night Cake with a bean in it was elected sovereign for the day. In some places, these kings and queens placed white crosses in the rafters to exclude hobgoblins, witches and bugs.

Conclude your holiday season on a high note by joining the Bergen County Historical Society at Historic New Bridge Landing from 2 to 5 Pm on Sunday, January 9 for a celebration of Twelfth Night. We ask members and guests to bring a favorite food or drink to share in an afternoon of celebration and New Year cheer. At 4 PM, historian Kevin Wright will lead a tour of the Demarest and Steuben Houses. Free.

Book Review in Sunday's Star-Ledger:

2010-09-21T20:14:00.000-07:00

"Books about Lincoln, Washington and Jersey history"
Star-Ledger, Sunday, September 19, 2010

1609: A Country That Was Never Lost

Kevin W. Wright

American History Imprints, 284 pp., $18.95 paperback

To commemorate the 400th anniversary of “Henry Hudson’s visit with North Americans of the Middle Atlantic Coast,” Kevin W. Wright has assembled an exhaustive account of what Hudson and his crew encountered along the eastern coast of North America.

The book, Wright explains, grew from his childhood fascination with the Native American artifacts his grandfather displayed in his home in Newton. Soon enough Wright was joining his grandfather in the search. After graduating from Rutgers, he worked at the restored Village of Waterloo and then as curator of Steuben House in River Edge.

But Wright’s obvious concern and love is for the native peoples who inhabited the Middle Atlantic States, and he draws from the observations of explorers, settlers and missionaries as his source to weave an extremely detailed account of how these people lived, what they believed, their tools, their social customs, their spirituality.

— Review by Pat Turner Kavanaugh

Time To Rally for Change

2010-09-18T09:31:00.000-07:00

How telling is it that the Department of Environmental Protection's Division of Parks and Forestry should cancel the successful State History Fair at Washington Crossing State Park and then turn around and partner with Division of Fish and Wildlife to sponsor the first-ever WILD Outdoor Expo on September 25 and 26, 2010, to "showcase the wonderful natural resources and superb recreational outdoors opportunities" available to the public on state lands! Please note the DEP's core mission statement exclusively embraces "environmental stewardship" and places priority upon building "a sustainable structure that enhances the environment and natural resources of the state." It rightly states, "The parks and wildlife areas of the state are treasured assets and need a long‐term plan to ensure their viability, maintenance and continued access to all residents of New Jersey." These are all laudable goals, but, once again, there is no mention whatsoever of historic resources, most notably, the state owned and operated Historic Sites, which have been entrusted to the Division of Parks & Forestry since 1966. If continued, the most significant reminders of New Jersey's past will perish.

Since the mission statement clearly purposes to "direct DEP's resources to DEP's priorities," we must conclude that historic resources, too long undervalued and unprotected, will be left to further deteriorate without qualified management or minimal resources to sustain them under a bureaucracy that clearly does not value their survival or public presentation. While we must applaud the new emphasis upon customer service, the goals of the DEP's transformation only focus on "Stronger protections for the environment and natural resources of the state" and pointedly excludes stronger protections for state-owned and operated Historic Sites, including our Revolutionary War battlefields.

It is long past time to remove this ignored public trust from the Department's stewardship. If the Department truly seeks "managers who are leaders and change agents for the Department," then it should find qualified persons who will end demolition by neglect or other acts of cultural vandalism. Fulfilling an important recommendation of Governor Christie's Transition Team, Assembly bill A3121 establishes a Commission on State-owned Historic Sites in the Department of State, transfers administration of State-owned Historic Sites from the Department of Environmental Protection to the commission, and transfers historic preservation programs from the Department of Environmental Protection to the Department of State. Assemblywoman Charlotte Vandervalk and Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle are Primary Sponsors and Assemblyman Robert Schroeder is Co-Sponsor. Senator Loretta Weinberg has introduced the companion bill (S2217) in the Senate. This will fulfill a recommendation dating back to Tom Dunkel's landmark article in NJ Magazine, "A State of Ruins," published in 1986!

I encourage everyone in the historical community to support this long overdue reform that will help bring the recognition and proper care our State-owned and operated Historic Sites have long deserved. Establishing professionally qualified administration for our Historic Sites through a commission composed of volunteer experts in relevant disciplines and elevating the long ignored Office of Historic Sites will be the biggest boost imaginable to heritage tourism in New Jersey. Ignore the voices of self-preservation and support the true forces of historic preservation.

Baron von Steuben and his Jersey Estate at Historic New Bridge Landing

2010-09-13T06:34:00.000-07:00

Baron von Steuben and his Jersey Estate at Historic New Bridge Landing.

From 1 to 5 PM on Sunday, September 26, 2010, the Bergen County Historical Society honors Major-General Friedrich Wilhelm Baron von Steuben at Historic New Bridge Landing, 1201-1209 Main Street, River Edge, NJ 07661. Re-enactors of the Third NJ Regiment (aka Jersey Blues) will demonstrate military dress and skills of the American Revolution. Displaying Jersey Dutch artifacts and furnishings, the Steuben and Demarest Houses will be open to visitors. Refreshments and a gift shop are available in the Campbell-Christie House, a restored tavern house dating back to 1774. A Jersey Dutch Out Kitchen will demonstrate culinary arts of the period. At 4 PM, historian Kevin Wright will speak in the Steuben House on Baron von Steuben and his Jersey Estate, emphasizing his significant contribution to the training and organization of the American army. The Bergen County Historical Society is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) volunteer organization, founded in 1902 to develop public appreciation for Bergen County's remarkable history. We are not a government agency and do not receive government grants or funding. Membership is welcome. For further information about the Bergen County Historical Society and its programs, visit: www.bergencountyhistory.org or call 201-343-9492.

On this occasion, the Bergen County Historical Society will also launch its new campaign, Follow The Flag, to promote recognition of New Bridge in Bergen County, New Jersey, as an important battleground of the American Revolution and to weave a narrative from the contributions of every person and place associated with this historic struggle for self-government. Visitors are invited to view a Hopkinson Flag, hand sewn from wool bunting by Margaret Haggerty, an accomplished fabric artist, and her friend Helen Clark. To physically link the stories of our Revolutionary heritage, the Bergen County Historical Society hopes to have this beautiful reproduction flown over every Historic Site in the thirteen original states that is associated with the American Revolution, keeping record of its journey from place to place. Francis Hopkinson, of Bordentown, New Jersey, is credited with designing the first United States flag, taking the short but significant step from the Continental Colors to the first Stars and Stripes. No original version survives, but John Trumbull’s painting, The Death Of General Mercer at the Battle of Princeton, includes a representation showing the blue canton with stars arranged in five columns.

The Zabriskie-Steuben House in River Edge is an important historic memorial to the German immigrant who trained and organized the Continental troops. On December 23, 1783, the NJ Legislature presented the use and income of the confiscated estate of Jan Zabriskie at New Bridge to Baron von Steuben on condition he “hold, occupy and enjoy the said estate in person, and not by tenant.” General Philemon Dickinson wrote the Baron, informing him that he could comply with the terms of the gift “by keeping a bed & Servants there & visiting the premises now & then.” In 1786, Steuben leased the mansion and gristmill to Jan Zabriskie, son of its former Loyalist owner, who operated the store and mill in partnership with Steuben’s aide-de-camp, Captain Benjamin Walker. In 1788, the Baron offered to sell his “large well-built stone house, thoroughly rebuilt lately … situated on the bank of the river by which produce can be conveyed to New York in a few hours, and sloops of 40 tons burden may load and discharge along side of the mill.” Ever since, this landmark of Bergen Dutch sandstone architecture has carried the name of the Prussian Inspector-General of the Continental troops.

Established in Elizabeth, NJ, under Col. Elias Dayton in 1776, the Third NJ Regiment saw action at Scotch Plains, Brandywine, and Germantown. Wintering at Valley Forge in 1778, Lt. Col. Francis, of the Third NJ, assisted General von Steuben in drilling the troops. The Regiment fought at Monmouth and Springfield before joining the siege and final victory at Yorktown in 1781.

Sport on the Hackensack Marshes

2010-06-22T07:12:00.000-07:00

Despite human interference and destruction of habitat, wildlife somehow managed to survive on the wide marshes and sunken meadows of the Hackensack estuary. On September 11, 1879, the Evening Telegram noted, "Great shooting on the Hackensack swamps," reporting hunters penetrated the meadowland in the beginning of September when "the law is up." Gunners and their "pushers"—that is what they called the men who poled boats through the high grass—went out in search of railbirds. On November 19, 1880, the Bergen Index reported, "a day or two ago a flock of blackbirds numbering thousands passed over the Hackensack meadows. So large a flock has not been seen in New Jersey in years."

Governor John W. Griggs was one of many enthusiasts who made outings onto the meadows in pursuit of railbirds. Several gun clubs closed in the first quarter of the twentieth century owing to severe degradation of the river. Hunting revived somewhat after 1930 as industrial pollution of the stream abated during the Depression. Duck and hares remained plentiful.

The Hackensack River scull-boat was extensively used amongst the meadow grasses for hunting duck, geese and railbirds or for trapping mink, muskrat and snapping turtles. Anglers used it to catch white perch, striped bass, sturgeon, catfish and eels. The scull-boat was flat-bottomed, sharp at the bow and square at the stern. Its deck covered only three-quarters of the length of the boat. A shooter or angler would kneel in the front while a "pusher" with an oar mounted on a fulcrum at the stern would "scull" or guide the boat noiselessly through the reedy channels.

Events Update

2010-06-22T06:14:00.001-07:00

Calico Frolic at Historic New Bridge Landing
Saturday, July 17, 2010 – 6:30 to 10:00 PM
The Bergen County Historical Society and Dance Mistress Denise Piccino invite Persons of all Ages and Accomplishments to a Calico Frolic at 6:30 PM on Saturday, July 17, 2010 at the Steuben House, Historic New Bridge Landing, 1201-1209 Main Street, River Edge, NJ 07661. Watch or join in 18th-century Country Dancing to the Musical Accompaniment of Ridley and Ann Enslow on Fiddle and Hammered Dulcimer. Instruction on basic steps and movements will precede the Dance, which commences at 7 PM and continues until 10 PM. Period dress is welcome, but not required. Light summer refreshments provided. The donation is $15 per person and $12 for BCHS members. Come and enjoy Good Company and splendid Musical Entertainments at our usual stand at the New-Bridge, near J. Christie’s Black Horse Tavern.

School of Historical Interpretation, Third Wednesday, 7:30 PM, July 21, 2010.
If you are interested in the public presentation of Historic New Bridge Landing, either as an exhibit docent, greeter, or living-history interpreter in period dress, then join our School of Historical Interpretation. Hone your communication skills while gaining insight into the material culture of the past. With over thirty years of experience, historian Kevin Wright teaches the Basics of Historical Interpretation on July 21, 2010 at 7:30 pm in the Steuben House, 1209 Main Street, River Edge, NJ 07661. We meet the third Wednesday of every month. July's meeting will cover the Dwelling Room and Parlor.

Winu gischuch, the Ripe Corn Moon Festival,
Sunday, August 15, 2010 – 4:30 to 8:30 PM
The Bergen County Historical Society marks the ancient Algonquian festival of Winu gischuch with an old-fashioned picnic, musical entertainment, and corn roast. Historian Kevin Wright will speak on the Cycle of Seasons from his book 1609, A Country That Was Never Lost at 6:30 PM in the Steuben House. Tour the Campbell-Christie House, Demarest House, Steuben House and Jersey Dutch Out Kitchen. $7 Adults, $5 Children, BCHS members free.

The Dark Moon of August, Winu gischuch, was associated with ripened corn, ready to roast. At this time, native farmers pulled cornstalks that produced no ears and sucked out the sweet sap or syrup. Fresh ears of corn in the milk were roasted.

Historic New Bridge Landing, 1201-1209 Main Street River Edge, NJ 07661.

Bad ideas, like clueless bureacrats, never seem to fade away...

2010-04-19T04:51:00.000-07:00

To those entrusted with responsibility for the protection and interpretation of our heritage:

I read that school groups are invited to tour the simulated Indian Village at Waterloo, starting April 15th. What values are you teaching these school children?

As you previously have been informed, the simulated Indian village at Waterloo stands atop the site of a prehistoric/historic cemetery. Not only has public money been spent on this pseudo-historical "simulation" that might better have been spent on actually preserving the decaying historic fabric of Waterloo or its tourist-related infrastructure---largely funded with millions of taxpayer dollars over the past thirty years---but those supposed professionals in the DEP, who are paid to protect our heritage, have actually allowed a compost toilet to be dug into this ancient burial ground, possibly one of the most astounding acts of desecration in recent memory. Did an archeologist monitor the excavation of this latrine?

In a recent historical discussion of this matter on the NJ History List Serve, the State Historic Preservation Office defended its decision to allow construction of these cement wigwams based upon a professional determination from a noted archaeologist in 1984, who decided the cemetery had been "completely looted" in the early twentieth century. Even if there was evidence to substantiate this claim, why would preservationists allow construction of a simulated Indian village, which could have been located anywhere else on less sensitive ground, to cover what should be interpreted as one of the most interesting and significant features of this "restored village," the actual resting place of those who "made history"? Furthermore, I wonder if this professional archeological determination was free of any and all conflicts of interest?

My great-great-great-great-grandfather, a Revolutionary War veteran, and his wife are supposedly buried there, based upon information imparted from my own grandfather, as transmitted from his parents. Furthermore, one of the few documented (John Reading's Journal, 1714-1719) Indian villages in northwestern New Jersey, the village of Allamuchahocking---from which we derive the place name "Allamuchy"---is likely located within the confines of Allamuchy Mountain State Park. Either through ignorance or possibly incompetence, we are missing the opportunity to preserve and interpret our "real" heritage, while misleading the public with such cultural legerdemain.

Waterloo should be developed as the premier interpretive center for the Highlands and the focus of a National Mineral Heritage Area, linking Andover, Wawayanda, Hamburg, Franklin, Sterling Hill in Ogdensburg, Lake Hopatcong, Ferromont, Ringwood, Long Pond, and other important sites, extending southwest to Oxford Furnace and Phillipsburg in Warren County. But first, those in positions of public trust need to distinguish between "entertainment" and "heritage interpretation."

While in the midst of an unprecedented economic crisis, I realize my concerns are not high on the list of priorities. This, however, does not mean they need go unnoticed. I believe in accountability. Clearly, we need to assess the qualifications of those responsible for what I consider an inexcusable act of cultural vandalism. From the heartbreaks over Kuser Manor, Lusscroft, High Breeze Farm and the Hamburg Lime Kilns, down to the present moment, something is very wrong with the "history establishment" in Trenton and its misplacement in the Division of Parks & Forestry.

Events Update

2010-03-20T08:05:00.000-07:00

Crossroads of the American Revolution General Management Plan

2010-02-03T10:43:00.000-08:00

How does something so promising as the Crossroads of the American Revolution National Heritage Area become a lost opportunity? By definition, National Heritage Area designation “offers a collaborative approach to conservation that does not compromise traditional local control over and use of the landscape.” It brings together the private sector, nonprofit interests and governmental entities to plan and implement “a strategy that focuses on the distinct qualities that make their region special.” By consensus building, the plan should not only provide “a structured forum for stakeholders to jointly determine the heritage area’s purpose, vision, mission, goals and strategies,” but it should document the actual process of partnership building. If successful, the outcome is a management plan that “describes comprehensive policies, strategies, and recommendations for telling the story of the region’s heritage and encouraging long-term resource protection, enhancement, interpretation, funding, management and development of the National Heritage Area.”

As regards a National Heritage Area focusing on New Jersey’s role in the American Revolution, “telling the story of the region’s heritage” compels a focal emphasis on heritage interpretation at thematically relevant historic sites. In my opinion, the proposed general management plan for the Crossroads of the American Revolution National Heritage Area fails to accurately identify and therefore engage the necessary stakeholders. Dayton L. Sherrouse, Chairman of the Heritage Development Partnership, Inc., describes the heritage development movement as a “bottom up process,” specifically noting, “heritage areas are managed by the people who live there, preserving and telling nationally important stories through a regionally distinctive combination of natural, cultural, historic and scenic resources.” With the Crossroads of the American Revolution, this principle is turned on its head. If we define stakeholders as those who bring something of value to the planning process, then historic sites that thematically relate to this National Heritage Area are important stakeholders who remain on the sidelines as uninvolved onlookers rather than as “desired participants.”

Having worked in historical interpretation and historic sites administration for over thirty years, I recognize the problem: in my experience, most “managers” in the DEP’s Division of Parks & Forestry regarded heritage interpretation as a form of “entertainment.” While the bloodless pageantry of battle reenactments dazzled large crowds on important anniversaries, the other 364 days of the year were pretty lackluster. Scenarios in the Crossroads’ management plan strangely refer to “recreational events” that promote Crossroad themes, sites and communities. Under Scenario C, for example, “historic sites already attracting recreational users work to become recreational destinations.” To me, this suggests a frightening incomprehension of the value of heritage interpretation. Are these some of the same people who invite school groups to visit mannequin-filled cement wigwams and to use a latrine dug into an ancient cemetery, bypassing the rotting fabric of a truly historic place.

Again, in my opinion, all scenarios of the Crossroads’ management plan are unnecessarily intrusive and expensive, generating a bureaucracy that would largely duplicate and perhaps complicate the responsibilities of public employees. This is not surprising. Doesn’t the board of this 501(c) 3 non-profit organization include four state employees (three from the DEP and one from the Department of State), nine individuals with environmental credentials, two with academic credentials in history and six with backgrounds in historic preservation? Where are the historic site managers and interpreters with credible experience in operating, programming or marketing a Revolutionary War site in New Jersey?

For the most part, the scenarios seem to advocate a jobs program for self-preservationists. Scenario A has the Crossroads Association maintaining “dual central offices to administer heritage area programs (consistent with federal legislation establishing the heritage area), even though they have little or no experience or success in administering historical programs. Scenario B envisions “regional offices to work with communities in different geographic areas facing different issues and partner with local organizations and institutions to strengthen them and provide programming for local residents.” And as if we needed more paperwork or middle-mismanagement, the staff of these regional offices will be assigned to identify “those most committed to programming, interpretation, linkages, historic preservation, stewardship and community planning through community applications.” So sharpen your pencils and walk slowly with the point down!

Scenario C features “the required two offices that act in many ways as a heritage-area-wide destination marketing office (DMO).” Once again, the current board structure, excluding historic site administrators, historians and interpreters, will be maintained. This new politburo will coordinate regional DMOs, interpretive attractions and visitor service communities, while providing “assistance and incentives” for smaller historic sites to comply with hospitality and visitor experience guidelines. And talk about the pursuit of happiness! The Crossroads’ staff will not only work to increase visitor services, but also “community development to enhance the visitor experience and quality of life.” Does this mean they’ll finally install restrooms at these sites? Oh, the humanity! Under Scenarios D and E, the Crossroads will also work from dual central offices and the Crossroads’ board will remain the same. Not much choice here.

The vision becomes ever more Byzantine. A Committee of Correspondence, replete with subcommittees, will help organize regional collaboration, oversee heritage area programming and engage a wide variety of partners. Oh, yes, that’s what we’ve been lacking all these years—more committees of oversight (no pun intended)! An annual convention for sites, communities and other partners will share technical information on education, interpretation and community planning and build a cross-heritage-area sense of collaboration. This is real grassroots’ stuff. Under Scenario D, the Committee of Correspondence will even organize and energize open space protection and historic preservation and work to establish more state funding and policies. Hey, what about recycling? Again, there is no comprehension that this Heritage Area is primarily about interpretive linkages and the American Revolution. And who will benefit from all this cumbersome and expensive bureaucracy?

Behind Curtain Number One—Scenario A: Current Conditions Continue claims the Crossroads Association has been active for some time in sponsoring various programs and it will continue as an "umbrella organization focusing on heritage-area wide and statewide marketing and programming.” I may be all wet, but I haven’t been under any umbrella lately. Other than last November’s beacon fires, lit mainly in New York State, I am personally unaware of any programs that CARA has sponsored? Strangely—somehow implying an alternative would be desirable or feasible—“existing sites and attractions remain responsible for interpretation.” Naturally, the Association will support the “the programs of state-level actors,” naming the Division of Travel and Tourism, the New Jersey Historic Trust, the New Jersey Historical Commission, and the New Jersey Division of Parks & Forestry. If they’re largely represented on the Board of Directors, I guess we could call them “self-supporters.”

Scenario B: Revolutionary Legacies envisions working at the community level to explore our evolving Revolutionary legacy, giving priority to “education, preservation and community development” rather than protecting “the physical heritage of the Revolution that has survived unevenly across the heritage area.” Does this mean they’re going to sponsor Tea Parties? In this scenario, the heritage area becomes irrelevant, a mere ghostly excuse to herd youngsters into Crossroads’ re-education centers. As if they didn’t already, “historic sites will use local stories to illustrate the economic, ethnic, religious, social, political issues experienced by Americans then and now.” Furthermore, under this strange scenario, “visitor services will be strengthened in downtown centers with an emphasis on dining and shopping” and the Heritage Area will focus on “family-oriented activities and such events as marathons and bicycle races…. “ Under resource protection, the Crossroads of the American Revolution Association will concentrate upon “addressing energy use, storm water, water quality, streetscapes and community parks, all to reinforce community and neighborhood character.” Is this what they call “mission creep?”

What a relief! Scenario C: Welcoming Visitors envisions a “program-rich, highly visible and easily understandable” Heritage Area, which supposedly “fulfils the Crossroads mission by preserving and interpreting historic sites and landscapes in order to present this story effectively.” You wonder how we ever survived up to this point? Once again the politburo raises it head, demanding, “interpretation will follow a heritage-area-wide interpretive and tourism plan focused on primary visitor attractions. In other words, they intend to further abandon undeveloped historic sites so that the privileged and compliant few can continue to gorge themselves at the public trough. This scenario recommends “high-quality presentations of evocative stories” and frequent updates of exhibits and interpretive materials. Wish I’d thought of that!

LOL! Scenario D: Resource Stewardship claims the survival of so “much physical evidence of the Revolutionary War” is somehow due “to New Jersey’s longstanding commitment to protecting open space and historic places.” Under this incoherent scenario, “Those venturing beyond primary attractions will find sites preserved with passion but limited resources for interpretation.” Yet, somewhat oddly, they envision visitors services being strengthened in historic community centers.” “Circuit-rider” staff will address “community planning, open space protection and acquisition, sites’ bricks-and-mortar needs, and recreational enhancements.” To arms! To arms! The Roller-bladers are coming!

Scenario E: Regions and Roads contrarily balances investment in the visitor experience and resource protection, emphasizing education over tourism, providing programs for students from kindergarten through college. This is supposedly how we will educate the next generation of stewards, storytellers and civic leaders. Of course, there is no mention of the fact that New Jersey historic sites have been doing this for as much as a century.

Personally, I think we’d be just as well off without any of the above. There is no need for an overweening quasi-governmental non-profit association competing unfairly for scarce private and public funding; the money would be far better spent at any historic site improving amenities, accessibility, availability and the visitor experience.

School of Historical Interpretation

2010-01-27T06:17:00.000-08:00

Whether you are interested in the public presentation of Historic New Bridge Landing, either as an exhibit docent, greeter, or living-history interpreter in period dress, or simply in learning and practicing the craft of historical interpretation, then join the School of Historical Interpretation. Hone communication and other career skills while gaining insight into the material culture of the past. With over thirty years of experience, historian Kevin Wright will present an introductory Powerpoint show on the Basics of Historical Interpretation on February 17, 2010 at 7:00 pm in the Steuben House, 1209 Main Street, River Edge, NJ 07661. Thereafter, we will meet the third Wednesday of every month. If interested, contact : wright@cybernex.net

2010-01-22T11:50:00.000-08:00

Oh, happy day! I am excited to read the recommendations of Governor Christie's Transition team encouraging consideration of "the consolidation of all the state historical programs, Historic Trust (currently in DCA), NJ Historic Preservation Office and the State-Owned Historic Sites (DEP) with the Historical Commission in the Department of State to help establish stronger coordination between these groups, use other related Department of State divisions (DARM and Tourism), and to increase efficiency in staffing and support resources."

One hundred and seven years after the State of New Jersey acquired its first Historic Site and a half century after burying their care and development in a department otherwise dedicated to natural resources and environmental regulations, this recommendation, if enacted, may finally bring our State owned and operated Historic Sites the recognition, professional administration and proper esteem they so deserve. I encourage the history community to unite behind this recommendation and to rescue some of the most significant physical reminders of New Jersey's past from the Dark Ages where they have languished for too long.

Are we finally enjoying the view from Mount Nebo?

The Art of the Valentine

2010-01-12T09:27:00.000-08:00

For St. Valentine’s Day, Brenda Miller, an expert in the art of papercutting with scissors, will offer a Scherenschnitte class in the Steuben House, 1209 Main Street, River Edge, NJ 07661 from 1 to 4 PM, on Sunday, February 14, 2010. Limited to 30 participants, age 14 and older, the cost is $30.

Students will cut and frame a 6" x 6" heart-and-flower design. All required materials, including cutting mats, paper, transfer paper, glass, frames and foam core will be provided, but students are asked to bring a sharp scissors and/or an X-acto knife. A brief history of the craft will be provided. For workshop reservations, send SASE and remittance to BCHS Paper Cutting, PO Box 55, River Edge, NJ 07661. No refunds or exchanges. For info, call 201-679-5182 or 201-343-9492. To visit our website or to make reservations through Paypal, visit: http://www.bergencountyhistory.org

The restored 18th century tavern in the Campbell-Christie House, a Gift Shop, a working Jersey Dutch Out-Kitchen, and the recently restored Demarest House will be open to all visitors on St. Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2010, from 1 to 5 PM. Refreshments will be available for $5 donation. The Bergen County Historical Society will display an 1838 Valentine with an elaborate cut-paper border, inscribed with a poem, which includes a marriage proposal to Henry Bertholf, Sr., of Amos St., New York, from a secret admirer in Bergen, NJ.

BCHS is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) volunteer organization, founded in 1902, to develop public appreciation for Bergen County's remarkable past. To preserve and perpetuate the lessons of history, your membership is encouraged.

An Open Letter to the General Assembly

2010-01-05T08:19:00.000-08:00

This view of the Outlook Lodge at Lusscroft speaks to the urgency of our cause.

On Monday, January 4, 2010, the Assembly Appropriations Committee released a bill Assembly Environment chairman John F. McKeon, Mayor of West Orange and Democratic Assemblyman representing the 27th district, is sponsoring to dedicate $150,000 of the revenue collected from Island Beach State Park to fund that park's programs. The "Island Beach Interpretative Program Fund" created by the measure (A-4337) would support educational programs to help visitors learn about the wildlife and natural resources of the park. I oppose this bill.

I have said this before and I will say it as often as necessary: We need to deal with the deteriorating state of our State Historic Sites, State Forests and State Parks as a whole and quickly. Why are legislators---no doubt acting on behalf of the entrenched bureaucracy--- carving out revenues from a popular state-owned and operated ocean beach from the rest of a poorly run public system of historic and natural resources, which is frankly on the verge of collapse? Instead, why not find a dedicated source of income---even this source of income, if necessary---and begin to repair unmaintained and sadly neglected Historic Sites that belong to the people of New Jersey. I would suggest that most people do not go to Island Beach for their interpretive programs, but for enjoying the ocean in summer. What is the winter attendance at such programs? But visitors do go year round to Monmouth Battlefield, Historic New Bridge Landing, Princeton Battlefield, the Wallace House, Twin Lights and other State Historic Sites precisely for their programmatic offerings (if and when they are available). Sadly, most of these state owned and operated historic resources are either closed or severely understaffed, even after a century of state ownership. Attendance at these sites is limited by the lack of public amenities, such as parking and even restrooms, and quality programming is rare and dwindling due to chronic under-staffing and the absence of qualified management in the DEP.

Consider what knowledgeable professionals have to say. Reviewing Interpretation in the National Park Service: A Historical Perspective, Barry Mackintosh writes: “Generally speaking, historical parks need interpretation more than natural and recreational parks do. Natural parks, typically encompassing spectacular or outstandingly scenic natural features, may be enjoyed aesthetically by most visitors regardless of whether they understand the geologic or biologic phenomena underlying them. Relatively few visitors to parks established primarily for active recreation are receptive to interpretive programs. But although many historical parks have aesthetic appeal and some accommodate active recreation, few can be greatly appreciated without some explanation of who lived or what occurred there. At historical parks, too, altered or missing features are often restored or reconstructed to better ‘tell the story.’ In far greater proportion than at parks established for other purposes, the [National Park] Service's task at its historical areas — indeed, the basic rationale for its involvement with such areas — is interpretation.”

Institutional compression has unfortunately made forest management and the interpretation of historic sites subsidiary to a system of recreational parks. Our state owned and operated Historic Sites have sadly languished under indifference and neglect, lost in an environmental regulatory agency that does not comprehend their needs or purpose. If you do not believe me, please visit such places as Waterloo, where the historic fabric of the village and millions of dollars in publicly funded tourist infrastructure are decaying into ruin. Look below in this blog to find a disturbing lack of care and concern for a State owned Historic Site near you!

Sound the Alarm! Closure of Pennsylvania Historic Sites!

2009-12-10T07:51:00.000-08:00

A friend informs me the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has decided "to get out of the 'history' business." As of November 20, 2009, eighty-five workers, representing one-third of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission's staff, were laid off and numerous Historic Sites across Pennsylvania, including Washington Crossing Historic Park in Bucks County, were shut down. According to the report of Charles Thompson and Jan Murphy in The Patriot-News, "Some historical sites will close for the winter or have responsibility for their operations shifted to outside groups." Governor Ed Rendell suggests, "volunteers and local groups should be prepared to absorb the responsibility of running the sites for several years, given the economy’s slow growth rate."

Bureaucrats have attempted similar transfers of New Jersey's most significant heritage sites in recent years, further burdening volunteers who already contribute substantial amounts of their time, talent and treasure to the cause. While these same administrators would not recommend turning over recreational park administration, programming, maintenance and policing to volunteers---for obvious reasons---they nevertheless are eager to dump responsibility for irreplaceable historic resources, so as to be able to shift the blame for their inevitable decline and loss upon those who recognize their value and care most about their protection. We must also remember that, however well meaning and motivated, most volunteers cannot provide the time, resources, practical experience, historical background, or technical knowledge needed to make valuable museum collections and historic buildings safely and widely accessible on a consistent basis. And as we all know too well, with exceptional demands on their time, with both heads of households working and with some folks working more than one job to get by, volunteers are becoming scarcer.

Why are Historic Sites so often the first publicly owned resources to be threatened with abandonment? One reason is that they touch a deep chord and rouse public support. Otherwise, they are an easy category of expenditure to eliminate on specious grounds: The attendance at long neglected Historic Sites, often lacking such basic amenities as adequate parking, restrooms, marketing and staff, are compared with popular beaches and large venue parks and found wanting, supposedly justifying their removal from the public inventory. What will the result be? A generation of school children and new Americans denied the educational opportunity to discover their history and to connect with core American values.

Reportedly, the December 25th program at Washington Crossing Historic Park will still take place (as well as the rehearsal crossing), not only to keep the event going, but also to allegedly keep the public from protesting before widespread media coverage. The New Jersey Friends of Washington Crossing Park are planning to protest on the New Jersey side during both the rehearsal crossing on Sunday, December 13th, from 12 noon to 2 PM and on Christmas Day, Friday, December 25th, from 12 noon to 2 PM. They need people to show up during the actual reenactment of the famous crossing at 1 PM, so please support their efforts. While some protest signs will be available, you are encouraged to bring your own.

We understand severe budget cuts must be made to restore health to our public finances, but what little is spent on state owned and operated Historic Sites can hardly be categorized with the wasteful spending that brings us to this great crisis. The lessons of History, made meaningful through the experience of storied places and objects, should be considered fundamental to a thorough and efficient education for every American.

Looking ahead, looking back...

2009-12-06T19:00:00.000-08:00

Another transition team is busy laying the groundwork for a new administration in Trenton. What are the implications for public history? Few people realize that our most important state owned and operated Historic Sites were devised to the Department of Environmental Protection's Division of Parks and Forestry, where they have languished for decades, ever diminishing in their visibility and care. While we look forward in anticipation and hope to what may come, perhaps we should also look back, and consider how we got where we are today.

For historical interest, consider what the "environmental policy group" of the last gubernatorial transition team concluded four years ago. The following extracts from the Final Report of the Environment Transition Policy Group, submitted to Governor-Elect Jon Corzine on January 10, 2006, make interesting reading. Even though many of New Jersey's most significant historic sites are "managed" by the Department of Environmental Protection, the word "historic" is not to be found in the text, even under the misleading heading of "Prioritize Eco-Tourism and Heritage Tourism." Equally revealing, ignoring the fact the DEP's Division of Parks & Forestry "administers" the largest system of historic sites and museum collections in the state (and one of the largest in the Middle Atlantic States), no historians, historic site administrators, museum experts, or professionals qualified by experience in marketing heritage tourism destinations were included on the team that prepared the report.

Most disappointingly, perhaps, while there is mention of stewardship of the "state's land," there is no suggestion of any commitment to protect a single splinter of significant historic resources upon that land---I believe the results of this "oversight" are broadly evident. While there is perhaps justifiable outrage that "farmland assessment forestry owners are forced to cut down tress to be eligible for the program," not even a verbal yawn was expended on the deteriorating condition of historic resources across public lands or stagnating bureaucratic indifference to the State Historic Sites.

In my opinion, state government owns nothing---it merely administers what truly belongs to the people of New Jersey. Imagine where we might be today if this document had recommended: "the Governor should dedicate particular historic resources as “Forever Historic,” to protect physical evidence of our common heritage so valuable in its shared meanings that it should never be allowed to deteriorate."

The full report is available at http://www.njbia.org/pdf/env022306.pdf

Here are relevant extracts:

PRIORITIZE ECO-TOURISM AND HERITAGE TOURISM

Create A “New Jersey Natural Heritage And Cultural Treasures” Designation. Create a “NJ Natural Heritage and Cultural Treasures” designation, applying to areas with unique and threatened environmental resources. These “treasures” should be based on the DEP’s rich, extant spatial data sets including mapping in the Wildlife Action Plan, the Landscape Project, Important Bird and Birding Areas, Garden State Greenways, Heritage Priority Sites, critical fish and shellfish areas and nurseries, land cover (e.g. large estuarine marshes)and existing federal and international designations. These
designations should be used to focus acquisition, stewardship, access, landowner incentives and natural resource based planning. Furthermore, the Governor should dedicate particular parcels of open space as “Forever Wild,” for land so valuable in its natural state that it should never be diverted.

Institute A Moratorium On Horseshoe Crab Harvest To Protect The Red Knot. Protection of the Red Knot requires the immediate institution of a moratorium on the 2006 horseshoe crab harvest. The moratorium should persist until a management plan is developed and approved by a peer-review panel including shorebird ornithologists and horseshoe crab ecologists. The State should explore economic compensation for those who can document that they have been adversely impacted while continuing its leadership in the research and management of these economically important species.

Widen Public Access To New Jersey’s Public Lands. The Policy Group recommends that the
Governor demands that the public is able to benefit from any projects spending taxpayer funds for passive or active recreation. The access provisions must take special note of the need to protect environmentally sensitive areas. A wider plan for public access to the state’s recreational resources should include mapping and guides of potential and existing access points and acquisition priorities.

Federal funding for widening access to natural resources is available under the Birding and Wildlife Watching Trails Program – NJ DOT has been successful at receiving these funds in the past. Wildlife watching generates $2.4 billion annually in the State.

BECOME A STEWARD OF THE STATE’S LAND

Start A Statewide Stewardship Initiative To Increase Protection And Attract Federal Dollars. A statewide stewardship initiative is fiscally sound policy that will protect the investment of taxpayers and attract federal matching funds. Stewardship practices implemented on most public land in New Jersey are eligible for up to 75% cost share from USDA and USFWS through landowner incentives. New Jersey gets a smaller share of these funds than other States, and struggles to spend its portion. Programs such as the New Jersey Habitat Incentive Team (NJ HIT), that seek to improve coordination
and cooperation among all public and private stakeholders, are critical.

Provide A Stable Funding Source For Land Stewardship. The Policy Group recommends that you develop a stable funding source to preserve the value of New Jersey’s investment in open space and to ensure that preserved natural and cultural areas are accessible. One potential funding source would be the renewal of the Garden State Preservation Trust. The value of the State’s investment in open space has decreased with overabundant wildlife populations, and the proliferation of invasive plants, insects
and diseases.

Promote Non-Lethal Wildlife Control. The Policy Group recommends that you promote existing laws to reduce human conflict with wildlife. As Governor, the Group encourages you to continue feeding bans, and expand awareness and availability of tools to reduce interaction between humans and wildlife, such as bear-proof garbage cans.

Reward Farmers For Maintaining Forested Land. Support legislation to allow landowners to receive farm assessment on woodlands for natural resource conservation and habitat protection, under a forestry plan. Currently under farmland assessment forestry owners are forced to cut down tress to be eligible for the program.

Members of the Environmental Policy Group Who Have Signed on to the Above Report

Valorie Caffee (Co-Chair), Organizing Director, NJ WEC
Tom Gilmore (Co-Chair), President, NJ Audubon Society
Eileen Swan (Co-Chair), Member of Highlands Commission/Former Mayor,Lebanon Twp
Wyatt Earp, IBEW
Mort Goldfein Attorney, Saiber Schlesinger Satz & Goldstein
Dr. Sunil K. Garg, President, EcoShelf Group
Bob Medin,a Engineering Consultant, Medina Consultants
Joe Morris, Interfaith Community Organization
Rev. Willie Anderson, Chairman, Camden Churches Organized for People
Rick Engler, Director, Work Environment Council
Andy Willner, Executive Director, NY/NJ Baykeeper
Cate Litvack, Executive Director, Crossroads of the American Revolution Association, Inc.
Jeff Tittel, Chapter Director, Sierra Club of New Jersey
Sherry Ramsey, Humane Society of the U.S.
Tom Fote, Legislative Director, Jersey Coast Anglers Association
Bill Sheehan, Hackensack Riverkeeper
Dr. Stephen J. Souza President, Princeton Hydro, LLC
Ella Filippone, Executive Director, Passaic River Coalition
Tim Dillingham, Executive Director, American Littoral Society
Sharon Finlayson, Chair, New Jersey Environmental Federation
Lisa Garcia, Assistant Attorney General New York State/ Fmr Assistant Clinical Professor,Rutgers Environmental Law Clinic
Stewart Abrahams, Practice Director for Remediation at Shaw Environmental and Infrastructure Inc.

Members of the Environmental Policy Group

Valorie Caffee, (Co-Chair), Organizing Director, NJ WEC
Tom Gilmore, (Co-Chair), President, NJ Audubon Society
Eileen Swan, (Co-Chair), Member of Highlands Commission/Former Mayor,Lebanon Twp
Dr. Sunil K. Garg, President, EcoShelf Group
Bob Medina, Engineering Consultant, Medina Consultants
Joe Morris, Interfaith Community Organization
Rev. Willie Anderso,n Chairman, Camden Churches Organized for People
Rick Engler, Director, Work Environment Council
Andy Willner, Executive Director, NY/NJ Baykeeper
Cate Litvack, Executive Director, Crossroads of the American Revolution Association, Inc.
Jeff Tittel, Chapter Director, Sierra Club of New Jersey
Sherry Ramsey, Humane Society of the U.S.
Tom Fote, Legislative Director, Jersey Coast Anglers Association
Bill Sheehan, Hackensack Riverkeeper
Dr. Stephen J. Souza, President, Princeton Hydro, LLC
Ella Filippone, Executive Director, Passaic River Coalition
Tim Dillingham, Executive Director, American Littoral Society
Sharon Finlayson Chair, New Jersey Environmental Federation
Dr. James Sinclair, Former Vice President, New Jersey Business & Industry Association
Mort Goldfein, Attorney, Saiber Schlesinger Satz & Goldstein
Prof. Robert Willig, Professor of Economics and Public Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton
Wyatt Earp, IBEW
Lisa Garcia, Assistant Attorney General New York State/Fmr Assistant Clinical Professor, Rutgers Environmental Law Clinic
James Hughes Dean, Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
Richard Hluchan, Attorney, Ballard, Spahr, Andrews and Ingersoll
Stewart Abrahams, Practice Director for Remediation at Shaw Environmental and Infrastructure Inc.

A Proposal to Create Special Funds

2009-11-30T20:19:00.000-08:00

Talk about Balkanization, well, check this out! The Assembly Environment & Solid Waste Committee reviewed Assembly bill 4121 today, which would dedicate up to $400,000 annually of fees collected at Island Beach and Liberty State Parks to special funds to be used to support certain park programs. In other words, it would create special funds from fees collected at Liberty State Park and Island Beach State Park to be used for staff salaries at these locations. Unbelievable! These are considered prime assignments in the park service and both sites have benefited from out-sized public funding for many years. This will protect these jobs while the remainder of the Division of Parks & Forestry, including the State Historic Sites, dwindles away. The state owned Historic Sites have long been underfunded and understaffed. Some, including the Steuben House, are closed.

It's time for change.

UPDATE! Assemblywoman Valerie Vanieri Huttle informed me on December 1st that "this bill was pulled."

UPDATE! 12/06/09

ALERT!

Senate Bill 2977, which dedicates up to $400,000 annually of fees collected at Island Beach and Liberty State Parks to special funds to be used to support certain park programs, and makes appropriations from the funds, was advanced by the Senate Environment Committee and sent to the Senate Appropriations Committee. According to the release on this legislation, Senator Christopher J. Connors and Assemblyman Brian E. Rumpf state, “We introduced this legislation after meeting with individuals comprising a coalition who, collectively, had undertaken great efforts to protect the Island Beach State Park Interpretive Program. During the meeting, these individuals discussed in depth the disparity in resources provided by the state for the interpretive program at Island Beach State Park as compared to the program at Liberty State Park. There was even deep concern the program would be terminated due to lack of funds. Since the Park does collect fees, we felt it appropriate to introduce legislation establishing a dedicated revenue stream to fund this important program which serves dual purposes as both an attraction for tourists and an educational forum for students.”

I ask, "What about interpretation and public access at all remaining state parks, forests and, most significantly, state owned and operated Historic Sites?" We are now carving out a popular public ocean beach and Liberty State Park from the rest of a poorly run public system of historic and natural resources, which is on the verge of collapse. Instead, why not find a dedicated source of income---even this source of income, if necessary---and begin to repair unmaintained and badly managed historic sites that belong to the people of New Jersey. I would suggest that people do not go to Island Beach for their interpretive programs, but they do go to Monmouth Battlefield, Historic New Bridge Landing, Princeton Battlefield, the Wallace House, Twin Lights and other State Historic Sites precisely for that reason.

Reviewing Interpretation in the National Park Service: A Historical Perspective, Barry Mackintosh writes: “Generally speaking, historical parks need interpretation more than natural and recreational parks do. Natural parks, typically encompassing spectacular or outstandingly scenic natural features, may be enjoyed aesthetically by most visitors regardless of whether they understand the geologic or biologic phenomena underlying them. Relatively few visitors to parks established primarily for active recreation are receptive to interpretive programs. But although many historical parks have aesthetic appeal and some accommodate active recreation, few can be greatly appreciated without some explanation of who lived or what occurred there. At historical parks, too, altered or missing features are often restored or reconstructed to better ‘tell the story.’ In far greater proportion than at parks established for other purposes, the [National Park] Service's task at its historical areas — indeed, the basic rationale for its involvement with such areas — is interpretation.”

Institutional compression has unfortunately made forest management and the interpretation of historic sites subsidiary to a system of recreational parks. Our state owned and operated Historic Sites have sadly languished under bureaucratic indifference and neglect, lost in an environmental regulatory agency that does not comprehend their needs or purpose.

Out With The Old, In With the New.

2009-11-25T05:15:00.001-08:00

With all that lies before us in restoring the financial health of a state bankrupted by poor management and chicanery, rescuing our depleted heritage seems a distant priority, a noble but hopeless cause. The truth is, the State Historic Sites have never known good times, but are paraded out like poster children when New Jersey's cultural Brahmins want to tug at patriotic chords to fleece the public treasury. In the end---as with the Bagger bill of years ago, which created a grant fund for operating support and programming for history organizations---the State Historic Sites are quietly disqualified in the final equation from public funding as being too needy after a generation of neglect and administrative indifference. Likewise, the state owned and operated Historic Sites serve to inflate the salaries and self-opinion of unqualified managers and political appointees who can always be counted on to do more harm than good.

Yet, in truth, we can do something of great lasting value for the people of New Jersey without much, if any, expense. Since the adoption of the state constitution in 1947, the state owned and operated Historic Sites, including our Revolutionary War battlefields and monuments, have been tossed into the bureaucratic netherworld that became the DEP. In a revision of state law in 1966, the Historic Sites Council was created as a panel of experts to succeed the old Historic Sites Commission in the administration of the state owned and operated Historic Sites through an Office of Historic Sites. The Historic Sites Council never functioned in this assigned role, becoming instead a review board for historic register nominations, while the State Park Service absorbed the Historic Sites in its recreational embrace. Consequently, each Historic Site was assigned to the management of the nearest park superintendent, which amplified their salary range, but left this irreplaceable heritage as the widely-acknowledged "orphans" of the Division of Parks & Forestry.

To justify this takeover, allowing persons unqualified and even hostile to assume paid control, the DEP has deeply entombed the State Historic Sites within its bureaucracy, so that after 106 years, they no longer have even token organizational presence in state government. Formerly, under Title 13 (Source: 13:1B-101, 13:1B-105), the Office of Historic Sites and the Historic Preservation Office were identified as “administrative units” in the Division of Parks and Forestry and were the current successors in “authority to the former Historic Sites Commission.” Under the former law and regulations (Source: 28:1-4248), “The historic sites and historic preservation unit, with the approval of the commissioner, shall adopt “regulations for the proper disposition and administration of any monuments or historic sites owned or maintained” by the State pursuant to this chapter, or any non-State-owned monuments or historic sites for which the State has “responsibility.” The Commissioner has “the authority to establish by regulation such additional or subordinate administrative units within the historic sites and historic preservation unit as may be appropriate for the efficient and effective administration of the department.” (Source: 13:1B-15.101, 244 13:1B-15.102, 245 13:1B-15.105246)

Under the former statement of “Powers and duties” (Source: 13:1B-15.105, 28:1-6247) the offices of historic sites and historic preservation unit:

a. Have responsibility for the custody and care of all monuments, the title to which is vested in the state, whether erected within or without the state, and which are not in the control or custody of any other state commission or agency. The historic sites and historic preservation unit may make suitable arrangements for the care of any such monuments with county or municipal officers, or with local commissions or societies, if, in its judgment, such arrangements are proper and desirable.
b. Formulate comprehensive policies for the preservation, restoration and public presentation of all historic sites within the State.
c. Make the necessary research, prepare exhibits and furnish the services required for a proper and adequate interpretive program.
d. Prepare and disseminate informational materials to inform the public with respect to New Jersey's historic sites.
e. Consult and co-operate with groups and organizations in order to advance the purposes of the historic sites program.

The DEP evaded the letter and intentions of the law. Several years ago, a former Parks Director "created" a so-called Office of Interpretation and Resource Management at a bureau chief level to supersede the Office of Historic Sites, even though he had no authority under the law to do so. Now they have apparently "updated" the laws to entirely eliminate the Office of Historic Sites from its former legal responsibilities.

I keep asking: Why is New Jersey the only state without a professional system of state-owned and operated historic sites? We have learned from sad experience that the State Park Service lacks the professional qualifications to administer such cultural treasures. The inevitable consequences are tragic. Dispersing the various sites under the supervision of the nearest park superintendent is wholly dysfunctional. More importantly, no one in the management hierarchy has relevant background in historical interpretation, historic sites administration or museum collections management. When a professional support system is desperately required, all we get is window dressing. I point to the long-standing Federal model---despite its imperfections---where national historic parks operate under the Department of the Interior and are not assigned to an environmental regulatory agency.

As a no-cost solution, we urge legislative creation of a State Historic Sites Commission, composed of volunteers with experience in historic interpretation, historic sites management, museum studies, artifact conservation and public history, appointed by the Governor with State Senate consent, to take over the administration of the state owned and operated Historic Sites, overseeing the Administrator of the Office of Historic Sites, with direct line-command of all Historic Sites personnel and budgetary expenditures. Even in this climate of financial emergency, lending dignity and respect to the hard-learned lessons of history will enrich present and future generations, even with reduced budgetary support. And, simply said, no money could be better spent towards the education of our children. Without adding to the already crushing economic burden heaped upon the people of New Jersey, we can and must remove the State Historic Sites from the dark cellar of the DEP. Most importantly, we encourage the incoming Administration to clean house and to send those responsible for this sorry state of affairs out into the economic mess they helped to create!

You Won't Believe Your Ears! New Bridge Not A Revolutionary War "Battleground"?

2009-11-20T09:19:00.000-08:00

The astounding and frankly bizarre claim is now made that Historic New Bridge Landing is not a "battleground" of the American Revolution and therefore is somehow not entitled to the protection from modern intrusions that we have long fought for so diligently or to the reverence it is due as "sacred ground" where American blood was shed in defense of Liberty. This assertion is just the latest literary contortion of those who wish to pursue their own agenda at the expense of truly historic ground.

Please note that we call New Bridge a "battleground" to recall that this strategic pass, arguably, "the crossroads of the American Revolution," was repeatedly contested by opposing armies throughout the war, preferring this description to "battlefield," which carries the more temporal connotation---at least in my mind----of a site where a major clash of arms, decisive or otherwise, occurred on one or more consecutive days. In fact, we proudly assert that New Bridge witnessed more of the Revolutionary conflict than any other place in America.

The Bergen County Historical Society and the Historic New Bridge Landing Park Commission organized the initial campaign in 2001 to include Bergen County sites associated with the American Revolution within the boundaries of the then proposed Crossroads of the American Revolution National Heritage Area. Below is the form of the resolution, which we prepared, and which was subsequently adopted in support of our efforts by the County of Bergen, several local municipalities, historical societies, Federal and state legislators. I think it summaries the historical facts as well as expresses our undiminished commitment to proper stewardship:

RESOLUTION SUPPORTING
THE CROSSROADS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
NATIONAL HERITAGE AREA
(County or Municipality)

WHEREAS, the United States Congress has authorized the Department of the Interior to conduct a Special Resource Study and National Heritage Area Feasibility Study for the Crossroads of the American Revolution in central New Jersey; and

WHEREAS, the (Name of County of Municipality) has a rich heritage of Revolutionary War history; and

WHEREAS, Historic New Bridge Landing, where the Zabriskie-Steuben House, a State Historic Site, still stands, is the site of the Bridge That Saved A Nation, where General Washington and the American garrison of Fort Lee crossed the Hackensack River in the face of the British invasion of November 20, 1776, as immortalized in Thomas Paine’s American Crisis; and where British troops under Major General Vaughan attacked the American rear guard on November 21, 1776; and where British and Loyalist troops under command of Captain Patrick Fergusen attacked about 40 Bergen militiamen on May 18, 1779; and whence Major Henry Lee led American troops on August 18, 1779, to attack the British earthworks at Powles Hook (Jersey City); and where a force of Bergen Militia and Continental troops attacked 600 British troops and German auxiliaries on their retreat from Hackensack and Paramus on March 23, 1780, during the two hours it took for the British to repair and cross the New Bridge; and where a body of 312 British, Loyalist and German infantry, attacked and overwhelmed an American outpost commanded by Lieutenant Bryson on April 15, 1780; and where 8 British soldiers were killed, and several wounded, by friendly fire when British troops attempted to attack a body of Bergen Militia in the Zabriskie-Steuben House on May 30, 1780; and whence Brigadier General Anthony Wayne led American troops on a raid against the Bull’s Ferry Blockhouse on July 20, 1780; and where General Washington made his headquarters in the Zabriskie-Steuben House during the encampment of the Continental Army at Steenrapie (River Edge) on September 4-20, 1780; and

WHEREAS, New Bridge was strategically located at the narrows of the Hackensack River and set in a no-man’s land between the two opposing armies, it served as a fort, military headquarters, intelligence-gathering post, encampment ground and battleground throughout the American Revolution; and

WHEREAS, American soldiers fought and died upon this ground, leaving future generations with a sacred trust for its stewardship in their honor and memory; and

WHEREAS, John Zabriskie and Lt. Colonel Abraham Van Buskirk, of the Third New Jersey Volunteers, were prominent Loyalists whose homes at New Bridge were confiscated by the State of New Jersey; and

WHEREAS, the State of New Jersey presented the use and income of the confiscated estate of Jan Zabriskie at New Bridge, to Major-General Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, Inspector-General of the Continental troops, on December 23, 1783, in recognition of his “many and signal services to the United States of America,” and

WHEREAS, General Steuben “thoroughly rebuilt” the Zabriskie-Steuben House before selling the premises in 1788, making it the only extant dwelling owned by him in the United States; and

WHEREAS, the (Name of County or Municipality) recognizes that a National Heritage Area (NHA) designation will recognize the unique importance of the NHA to our country’s history, and will provide additional benefits to local communities toward resource protection, heritage tourism, and other economic activities, and related educational initiatives.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT the (Name of Endorsing Entity) supports the designation of a Crossroads of the American Revolution National Heritage Area in central New Jersey, and will take such action as it deems appropriate to support the designation; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT copies of this resolution be forwarded to the following:

New Jersey Congressional Delegation
Senator Robert Torricelli and Senator Jon Corzine
Members of the New Jersey Legislature
Michael Henderson, Superintendent, Morristown National Historic Park
Linda J. Mead, Project Leader, Crossroads of the American Revolution
New Jersey Historic Preservation Office
New Jersey Historical Commission
All Local Officials

Bureaucratic Cement Atop Ancient Cemetery?

2009-11-13T08:32:00.000-08:00

Was the Simulated Lenape Village at Waterloo Built atop an Old Burying Ground?
By Kevin Wright

Wrights Pond in Byram Township is named for my Sussex County progenitor, Charles Wright, who purchased land on the Punk Horn Creek in 1767. The creek’s name derives from the Unami word, pankhanne, describing “a steep stream bank.” When I was still in college, I attempted to locate the burial site of Charles Wright and his son Samuel, but they were not to be found in any of the extant cemeteries in the surrounding towns of Andover, Sparta, Stanhope, Lockwood, Waterloo, or even in an old burial yard under the waters of Lake Lackawanna. Or so I thought.

My grandfather, V. Ivan Wright (1893-1971), told me his mother took him in a carriage from Newton to visit his ancestors’ graves in Byram Township. They first stopped at the old Lockwood Burial Ground, alongside what is now Route 206. The rubble foundation between the cemetery and the road marks the site of the Lockwood Methodist Church, which collapsed into its cellar hole not many years before my grandfather’s visit. There they decorated the graves of his mother’s grandfather, Frederick Queren, a French ironworker employed at the Columbia Forge, her grandmother Sarah Ann Sutton and her great-grandparents, James and Sarah Sutton. Since this burial ground opened when the church was dedicated in 1835, it could not harbor the interments of Byram Township’s pioneer settlers. So, where were they? Mentally retracing his steps, Grandpa recalled riding south a short distance along the old turnpike road (Route 206) before turning west onto Waterloo Road. When they arrived at their anticipated destination —an ancient burial ground on a spit of land projecting into Waterloo Lake— my great-grandmother was quite taken back to find some of the headstones removed. According to Grandpa, she rode to a nearby house and inquired about the disappearance, but the occupants pleaded ignorance. When they were leaving by the kitchen door and returning to their carriage, Grandpa said he felt his mother squeeze his hand, pointing unobtrusively downward with her free hand and winking knowingly. Overturned slabs of what appeared to be broken tombstones paved the walkway around the house under their very feet.

It would be another seven or eight years before I was able to confirm the existence of this ancient burying ground on the banks of the Musconetcong River at Waterloo, for myth obscured history, here as in so many other places. James Snell, in his 1881 History of Sussex and Warren Counties, New Jersey, alludes to the existence of a large aboriginal cemetery located about a quarter mile north of Waterloo: “About a quarter of a mile from the village may be seen the remnant of what was once an Indian graveyard, where numerous jagged headstones proclaim how the savages sought in their crude way to set a sign upon the last resting-places of their dead. These relics have been scrupulously respected by the Messrs. Smith, owners of the land, and, although the plowshare has freely invaded the domain about them, it has not been permitted to disturb the bones of the long-departed children of the forest.” (Snell, 468)

This story is easily traced to its source, for Seymour Smith, a partner with his brothers in the operation of Waterloo’s store and mills, and whose residence stands nearly opposite the canal store, supplied a poetic narrative of the same curious resting place to the New Jersey Herald in 1876: “...To the east [of the Indian village], lies an old Indian burying ground, in which the rough stone marks the final resting place of many a departed child of the forest. The wild grass grows rank and thrifty over the graves, the rude plow of the husbandman having never entered the sacred precincts to disturb them from their sleep that knows no waking, or to imprint a single furrow on the bosom of those driven from their native homes. There they rest in a quiet nook, nestled securely at the foot of the mountain side, over which they have time and again chased the fleeing deer and the wild game, while the calm, clear waters of the modest little lake, on which they have trapped the otter and the mink, washes the eastern and southern shore.”

The promotional booklet for Lake Waterloo Estates, published about 1927, reports: “An old Indian burying ground apparently was located in a rise of land which juts into the waters of what is now the main lake of a chain.” A portion of this burying ground became an island in Waterloo Lake when the Mountain Ice Company excavated a channel to redirect the river’s current along the northwestern bank and thus create a deep quiet pool of water, free of debris, for their ice harvests. Remnants of a dike, which once channeled the flow of water around the ice pond, are still discernible at the upper end of the lake. This short canal or ditch detached the peninsula bearing part of the cemetery from the shore, thereby creating the smaller and more westerly of the two islands in Waterloo Lake. This old cemetery reportedly encompassed about 50 interments.

In 1979-80, I interviewed Seymour Smith’s nephew, Sanford Roy Smith (1887-1982), the son of Peter D. Smith, of Waterloo. Pointing out the site on the lake shore, he easily recalled archaeological explorations there, saying, “From what father told me, he said that it was never, in his opinion, an Indian burial ground.” In helping to dig a new channel for the river, Roy Smith excavated one of the burials on this artificial island, saying he “was in the early twenties at the time and I had this canvas up over me, and I was down six feet, ‘til I come to that doggone coffin down in there. Well, I didn’t know the sun had gone out, and there was a WHAM! The most God-awful shock I ever saw and the top of the coffin fell in and I went down about two feet. Holy smokes, I didn’t know what was happening!” A skeleton was found with pewter buttons and a clay pipe with flowers painted on it and a deer-horn stem. Had Roy found my great-great-great-great grandfather Wright?

Sandford Roy Smith was born in the southwest second-floor bedroom of his father Peter D. Smith’s home at Waterloo on August 21, 1887. He died at his residence in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1982. Two years earlier, in 1980, he provided tape-recorded answers to questions that I prepared for him. Based upon these taped interviews, my friend Robert Smith provides a verbatim transcript of Roy’s description of the excavation of graves in the Old Indian Burial Ground at Waterloo, which now underlies the simulated Lenape Village: “There is an area that has been known as the Indian burial ground, which is, of course, doubtful because Indians didn’t bury below ground; they buried above ground. With that in mind, approximately 60 years ago [circa 1920] a group of Antiquarians legally came and opened three graves in the area. There are some 50 graves that are marked there but three that were opened—these men knew what they were doing and it was judged that one was Irish, one was French, and one was an Indian. The graves were all eight feet deep to the top of the coffin and the coffin was of the antique shape, narrow at the top and long to the feet, wide at the shoulders and had been made of hand-hewn planks and hand-wrought nails used to seal them up. In these graves were found several artifacts such as brass buttons, a pipe, and the quantities of hair still visible. These graves were closed subsequently and they are still there the same as they were in early times.” (Sandford Roy Smith, Tape 1, Transcript, 15-16)

Of course, Roy was wrong in saying “Indians didn’t bury below ground” as numerous such inhumations have been discovered over the years in and around Sussex County. It is clear, however, that the Waterloo graveyard was not “completely looted”in the early twentieth century---as some have claimed---or at any time previous to the Second World War, while Roy was associated with his home village.

Making some allowance for the date, it is conceivable that Professor Max Schrabisch was involved in opening, examining and respectfully closing these graves while he was exploring throughout Sussex County for evidence of prehistoric Indian habitations. From local newspaper accounts, we know Professor Schrabisch was wandering on the mountain above Waterloo May 1913, where he met with a copperhead, three and a half feet long, which he quickly dispatched. He proceeded but a short distance when he heard the sound of a rattlesnake, possessing six rattles and a button, which he also vanquished. According to the local correspondent, Professor Schrabisch, the master of several languages, thought it might be necessary “to take up snakeology if he decides to pass the summer in Sussex.”

Apparently, this sacred precinct for the dead does contain the bones of the ancient people, who first appear to us in history as the Allamuchahocking (“the land at the foot of the mountain”) This cemetery also contains interments of the ironworkers of Andover Forge and of the pioneer settlers of Byram Township. Another story tells us that this burying ground holds the bones of Lafayette’s soldiers, who supposedly died of smallpox while quarantined in huts at Waterloo, The promotional booklet for Lake Waterloo Estates, published about 1927, states, “The health-giving atmosphere of the territory is attested by the fact that during the time of Washington’s occupancy of headquarters in Morristown many of his French allied soldiers attacked by a small-pox were encamped in quarantine on a bluff overlooking the valley. A group of stones facing east marks the spot.” (Lake Waterloo Estates, 16-17).

Events Postings

2009-11-11T11:38:00.000-08:00

1609, A Country That Was Never Lost
Pascack Historical Society, 19 Ridge Avenue, Park Ridge, NJ 07656
Sunday November 22, 2009, 2:00 PM

Author and historian Kevin Wright, past president of the Bergen County Historical Society, has written a new book about Henry Hudson and his visits to the Mid Atlantic coast. His book, 1609: A Country That Was Never Lost, has long been anticipated by his many admirers and readers who know that his research is always airtight and his prose-exciting, educational and enjoyable.
A Q & A period will follow.

Free Admission - No reservations, Complimentary cake & coffee, Children welcome accompanied by an adult

Holiday Weekends at the Foster-Armstrong House in Montague

The Montague Association for Restoration of Community History [M.A.R.C.H.] will celebrate the season by hosting an extended offering of its annual Holiday Weekends. Come out to experience a wonderful Christmas tour through the historic Foster-Armstrong House, which dates to circa 1790 and sports a Dutch Gambrel roof. The house, specially decorated for the holidays, is located in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area at 320 River Rd./ C.R. 521 in Montague, NJ - north of the Milford Bridge. The house will open between the hours of 1pm and 4pm on the following Saturdays and Sundays: Nov. 28th and 29th, Dec. 5th and 6th and Dec. 12th and 13th [weather-permitting].

At the culmination of Montague’s celebration of its 250th anniversary, you will be able to revisit key places from the township’s past. Featured will be the Minisink Reformed Church, whose congregation dates to 1737 and its current church to 1889. Aspects of the Martin Cole Store will be recreated, along with an old-fashioned Barber Shop and Post Office, and the Brick House Hotel. Items representing the Foster and Armstrong family connections with this colonial farmhouse will be on display. Also recalled will be the famed Rock View hotel, which sat on upper River Rd., and the one room Brick House schoolhouse in the village. Santa will make a special appearance on Sat. Dec. 5th as will some “townspeople” to give visitors an experience of stepping back in time.

Costumed society volunteers will welcome and tour the special exhibits with visitors. It's a great opportunity to stop by this historic site, share some refreshments, and get into the spirit of the holiday season. Come browse the books and the handmade craft items offered for sale in the gift shop that help to support the society. Signed copies of the MONTAGUE book will be available for purchase. No admission is charged, though donations are welcomed. Call 973-293-3106 for more information or email ab1759hist@gmail.com.

At The Bridge That Saved A Nation!
Holiday Entertainments at Historic New Bridge Landing
Tickets Now Available!

Winter Tavern Night. Enjoy the holidays with friends and family in the setting of an authentic 18th-century Jersey Dutch tavern. The Bergen County Historical Society's Winter Tavern Night features light tavern fare of soup, herb biscuits, finger foods, desserts and musical entertainment at two seatings, 7 to 8 PM and 8:30 to 9:30 PM on Friday, December 18th in the Campbell-Christie House at Historic New Bridge Landing, 1201 Main St., River Edge, NJ 07661. Each seating is limited to 30 persons, so advanced reservations are advised. The cost is $30 per person. An open-hearth Out Kitchen and Gift Shop will also be open.

Colonial Christmas Concerts. This holiday season we return to the Steuben House, 1209 Main St., River Edge, for our Colonial Christmas Concerts, featuring Linda Russell & Companie, on Saturday, December 19th at 7 and 8:30 PM and on Sunday, December 20th at 6 and 7:30 PM. $25 per person. Limited to 40 guests per show. Tickets may be purchased at the door, only if available, so reservations are advised. The Tavern and Gift Shop in the Campbell-Christie House will be open from 7:30 to 9:30 PM on Saturday evening, so please leave time to visit after the first show or before the second show. On Sunday, the Tavern and Gift Shop will be open from 6:30 to 9:30 PM.

For tickets to the Winter Tavern Night or the Colonial Christmas Concerts, send SASE and remittance to BCHS Holiday Events, PO Box 55, River Edge, NJ 07661. For concert tickets, send SASE indicating 1st and 2nd choice of show. No refunds or exchanges. For Paypal ticket purchases, visit: http://www.bergencountyhistory.org

Sint Niklaas Day Open House at Historic New Bridge Landing
Sunday, Dec 6, 2009, 2 - 4 PM

Enjoy holiday treats, a visit from Sint Niklaas, open-hearth cooking in authentic Jersey Dutch Out Kitchen and gift shop. Takes place at the Campbell-Christie House, 1201 Main St, River Edge, NJ 07661 Suggested donation for events unless otherwise noted: $7 adult, $5 children, BCHS members free. We welcome new members.

Saving America's First Frontier: the Minisink Country

2009-11-10T09:44:00.000-08:00

Emptying the upper Delaware Valley of its inhabitants and landmarks half a century ago touched nearly everyone of my generation in Sussex and Warren Counties. We all knew someone, some friend or relation, who was driven from their land. Then, as quickly as the old families were pushed out, the Federal government began leasing their former homes to squatters, many of whom were hippies in search of a return to nature and simpler life ways.

The best memories!

How happily I remember swinging out over the river on a rope hanging from a tree on the riverbank at Harry’s Farm, just above the northern boundary of Worthington State Park. In the last summer of his life, I took my grandfather Wright to see archaeologists dig in the abandoned field there. According to my earliest memory, there was a semicircle of small cabins on this farm, which the owner rented out to hunters and fisherman. I particularly remember the fine stand of blackcap bushes growing along the river lane, at the edge of that field, which we harvested in early July to have Grandma make her famous blackcap pies.

Going with the current, you could swim across to Tocks Island, where there was a cornfield. Later, I remember a hippie commune—which I think was called Cloud Nine—occupying the old farmhouse and barn. They used to share food with us, whenever my friend Bill Glover and I would stay at his father’s camper, parked near the Copper Mine Inn. I also remember going over to Delaware Water Gap to a fabulous health food store in Hauser’s old storehouse, downhill from the wisteria-wrapped Moosehead Inn, where we enjoyed the best granola I ever had and tasty vegetarian pizza! Then one day, when we came to the old river farm to swim, everything was gone—the Feds had bulldozed all the buildings into their cellar holes. Today, you can’t even find the old dirt lanes down to the river, though by canoe I think I’ve spotted the old tree that held the rope swing.

The cry of eagles!

Outdoor recreationists and lovers of nature will recognize the sentiments of state geologist C. Clarkson Vermeule, even though he wrote admiringly of the upper Delaware River as long ago as 1888, saying, “This quiet and beautiful Minisink Valley, with its wealth of romantic aboriginal traditions and associations and its tragic colonial history, has long enjoyed a well-merited reputation as a charming, restful summer retreat for those who admire simple nature, and as a paradise for the sportsman and angler. On the southeast rise the long, forested slopes of Kittatinny mountain, with its continuous level crest, and bold front raised as a final bulwark against the busy, bustling world beyond, and giving to the valley its air of remoteness and seclusion.”

Paddling downstream in the warmth of July, silent hills and discarded boulders embosom its mercurial waters. For twenty–five miles between Port Jervis and Walpack Bend, the Delaware River occupies a flat-bottomed, gravel-filled trough about two miles wide. The erosional history of the stream is evident in four levels of terraces on its flanks. According to Vermeule’s observation and report, “On these terraces, and particularly on the lowest, which is composed of finer material than the others, were the level and easily cultivated Indian plantations and later the farms of the pioneers, which gave, early in the eighteenth century, a wide reputation for fertility to the Minisink country.” At Walpack Bend, the Delaware River turns sharply east, taking advantage of an offset in Walpack Ridge. Dropping into a parallel valley, occupied northeastward by Flatbrook, it again flows southwest toward the Delaware Water Gap. For much of this distance, the river hugs the base of Kittatinny Mountain. The gravel terraces are broadest upon the west bank, whereas the Pahaquarry Flats on the east side are quite narrow and disappear altogether at Worthington State Park.

Connections to the land

With all its many charms and dangers, the river runs belongs to everyone. But for those of us who connect to the Old Settlers, there is sadness and longing in every turn of the Mine Road. My great-grandfather, John Edward Brink, was born in Walpack Center in 1878, one of eleven children born to Jonas Brink and Sarah E. Snook. “Ed,” as he was called, learned to be a wheelwright and cooper in the smithy at Millbrook. His oldest brother, William Brink, married Emma Hill and lived in a farmhouse, still standing, on the Old Mine Road atop Van Campen Glen, which, in my childhood, was called either Brink Glen or Laurel Glen. My grandmother, Gertrude Brink Wright, spent summers there as a child. We used to go up and swim in the Big Pothole or Teacup in the falls of the ravine, where you could read initials carved in the rock wall, some dating back to the nineteenth century. Coming from Newton, we regarded the aloof and beautiful Minisink Country as “Over-the-Mountain.” We traveled there either by Culvers Gap or south on Route #94 to Millbrook Gap, turning at Marksboro.

Free flowing

The river still runs free, a legacy of generations of raftsmen who daringly navigated its treacherous rifts. Daniel Skinner conceived the idea of binding together a number of large pine logs and floating the first timber raft down the Delaware River to Philadelphia in 1764, where he sold the timber for masts. Nearly a century and a half later, William Skinner, of Callicoon, Daniel’s direct descendant, was to be the last steersman capable of navigating lumber rafts down river—all the other steersmen either being too old to undertake the work or dead. These raftsmen rode either the Jefferson or rafting flood, caused by spring rains and thaws in April and May, or the so-called Pumpkin freshets in September and October.

In May 1913, William guided a raft, measuring 250 feet long and 54 feet wide, down the river from Equinunk, in Wayne County, Pennsylvania, to Bordentown. This large raft, made up of spile lumber worth $1,000, was probably the last of its kind and Skinner’s voyage therefore marked the end of an era. Thereafter, railroads would ship what little lumber remained to be cut. To partake of the historic occasion, half a dozen citizens of Equinunk accompanied Skinner on the first leg of his journey; many onlookers gathered at different points along the banks to cheer the raftsmen and guests as they floated downstream. To add to the excitement, the raft struck a swift current above Flatbrookville and got completely turned around, casting some of the party into the river waters.

Rafting kept the river free flowing and undammed. Now the rising industrial cities within reach of its basin eyed the headwaters of the Delaware River for a potable water supply. Philadelphia proposed a reservoir impounded by a dam at Walpack Bend, but acceded to the Army Corps of Engineers in April 1946, when they instead recommended a dam site at Tocks Island.

Preliminary surveys, completed in 1956 encouraged construction of a flood-control dam near Tocks Island. Lieutenant Colonel John C. Lee, Jr., of the Army Corps of Engineers, testified before the Delaware River Study Commission, suggesting a dam at this location, if the site proved practical, was preferable, since a dam at Walpack Bend would not provide “dependable” flood control. He emphasized that a dam at Tocks Island was judged suitable purely from an engineering standpoint without any conclusions on its economic feasibility. Previous studies, however, some dating as early as 1942, had declared the site unsuitable for supporting such a dam.

The vision was truly astounding and in keeping with the great public works projects of the Great Depression that harnessed the flow of great rivers in the West and Northwest. A Tocks Island dam would have created a huge reservoir covering 14,100 acres with a total storage of 214 billion gallons, while a Walpack Bend dam would have created a reservoir covering 9,500 acres and have a capacity of 121 billion gallons. A study of the comparative costs of the two dams was scheduled for completion in January 1957. Local opposition was loud from the start, but construction of the Tocks Island Dam was authorized in 1965.

Under an agreement with the state of New Jersey, Pennsylvania was authorized to construct a dam at Walpack Bend within the next 50 years. By paying 30% of the cost of construction, New Jersey reserved the right to 30% of the water from the proposed reservoir. The right for a Sussex County water supply was also included in the agreement. Several power companies expressed their interest in buying hydro-electrical power generated by the flow of the river over any such dam. In 1967, opposition to the development of Sunfish Pond as a reservoir for generating hydroelectric power broadened into a fight against the whole dam project.

The Army Corps of Engineers began forcing residents from their homes through use of condemnation. After more than half a century of heartbreak and destruction—nearly the whole of my lifetime to date—you wouldn’t think there would be much left to lose or to save, but there is. What survives is all the more precious for having withstood the storm of time and neglect.

Residents Get A Voice

Congress established the Citizen Advisory Commission on October 31, 1988, to advise the Secretary of the Interior on matters pertaining to the management and operation of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, as well as on other matters affecting its surrounding communities, re-chartering this Federal citizens advisory committee in 1998 for an additional decade. The Secretary of the Interior appoints the eleven-member committee, which consists of two members nominated by the Governor of New Jersey, two members nominated by the Governor of Pennsylvania, two members nominated by the Superintendent of Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, and five County members, nominated by the county administrations of Sussex and Warren Counties in NJ and Pike, Monroe, and Northampton Counties in PA.

When re-authorization expired in October 2008, Representatives Scott Garret (R-NJ) and Christopher Carney (D-PA) introduced a bipartisan bill (H.R. 3476) to reauthorize the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area Citizens Advisory Commission through 2018, saying “Communication is the key to addressing and resolving citizen concerns, and it is clear that residents and park users value the opportunity to respond to park decisions, as well as propose alternative ideas.” Garret’s bill passed the House on Representatives on October 13, 2009.

Demolitions Threatened

On October 29, 2009, Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) announced that the Senate has approved the final version of the FY 2010 Interior and Environment Appropriations Act, which includes $15 million for projects in New Jersey to preserve open space in national wildlife refuges, protect forests, renovate infrastructure and help local communities provide clean water. The legislation also provides federal funds to develop a management plan for the Great Falls National Historic Park. The Appropriations Act also funds several historic preservation projects in NJ, including $200,000 for the preservation of the Mansion at Georgian Court University, a centerpiece of seven historic buildings on the campus, and $150,000 for the restoration of the South Orange Village Hall. Of most concern, however, the act appropriates $2.2 million to demolish and remove hazardous structures throughout the Delaware Water Gap Recreation Area. This legislation, already approved in the House of Representatives, was sent to the White House for the President’s signature.

The National Park Service is in the process of compiling a list of structures that they plan to remove. Citizens are naturally wary, since a number of historically significant structures have been benignly neglected since the Tocks Island project was initiated and may be designated as "hazardous."

Please stand up and be counted

We must save what remains of America’s First Frontier, the magnificent Minisink Country. Save our heritage from further destruction. Contact your Federal representatives today!

What do we value?

2009-10-31T18:39:00.000-07:00

In October 1986, New Jersey Monthly published Tom Dunkel's eye-opening article, "A State of Ruins," asking in subtitle, "Is New Jersey committing historical suicide?" So here we are, twenty three years later, checking for vital signs.

Ever stood on the battlefield at Gettysburg? Or at New Bridge? Princeton? For our generation, the question remains unanswered: Is anything sacred? What stories, persons, places and events are worthy of memory? On the other side of the equation, looking beyond the spiritual and emotional returns, history sells! Many communities around the globe thrive as heritage destinations, albeit not always tastefully or respectfully. Truly, well-managed and well marketed, heritage tourism contributes to prosperity.

Up until the 2008 economic downturn, the tourism industry grew by leaps and bounds. In 2006, tourism generated $37.6 billion for New Jersey's economy, up from $24.6 billion in 1996. Seventy-one million visitors came, creating jobs for one out of every nine workers in the state. Atlantic City casinos and the Jersey shore, however, are by far the biggest draws, while a majority of other destinations attracted fewer than 10,000 visitors annually. Smaller attractions lack the infrastructure, staff and visibility to compete in the metropolitan marketplace.

Obviously, we need to strike a balance: Some places and objects are to be valued, not merely for the revenue stream from souvenirs they generate, but for the hard-learned lessons of history they illustrate? So where does New Jersey stand? What do we value?

The difficulties with preserving significant reminders of our past in such a densely populated state are manifold. Under the myth of "open space," myopic bureaucrats acquire more and more land, but lack the interest or ability to maintain significant historic features upon it. They race developers to erase notable landmarks from the scenery. Pointing fingers at everyone other than themselves, they throw money at the crisis du jour to buy off negative headlines. As soon as other concerns divert public attention, demolition by neglect sets in. Demolition by neglect is very much an act of cultural vandalism and economic suicide.

I also encourage you to examine credentials---all too often, it seems to me, those in charge would probably not even visit a historic site unless they were paid to manage one. Placing the State owned and operated Historic Sites in the NJ DEP's Division of Parks & Forestry has had disastrous consequences. On the Federal level, the EPA oversees environmental issues but not parks, forests and historic sites; likewise, we must free our most important heritage destinations---natural as well as historic---from the death grip of both an environmental regulatory agency and the recreational parks bureaucracy. Most importantly, we must place this cultural legacy in the hands of those who are caring and qualified to protect and promote them.

Come meet our Waterloo. The yellow tape, reading "Do Not Cross," appropriately marks this as a crime scene. Tens of millions of dollars in public money invested in tourist infrastructure once made this one of New Jersey's popular cultural destinations. Now it rots away. This is historical suicide at its most sensational.

Thirty years ago, when I began my career as an historical interpreter at Waterloo, the village slept indolently among the hills, awakening only rarely and grudgingly to acknowledge the jab of modernity. The air of authenticity was often chilling and visitors sometimes complained of rude ghosts inhabiting porches and garden paths. The story of Waterloo's remarkable rise and decline through an era of turnpikes, canals and railroads captured the eye of the curious beholder.

According to the "State of Ruins," Waterloo received "a line appropriation of $500,000, plus $400,000 in DEP preservation money, as well as a $405,000 grant from the State Council on the Arts" in the 1986-87 state budget alone. That was almost a quarter century ago. How much public money is invested there? Who knows. Most visitors were blissfully unaware the State of New Jersey owned most of the land and buildings. The state also employed a maintenance crew. Over the years, the Waterloo Foundation embodied one of the most highly powered and apparently successful public/private partnerships in the state. But it all crumbled into ruin. How? Was it a lack of professional oversight? Was it a hopeless mismatch of goals?

Today, not only is the historic fabric of the place passing beyond salvation, but an expensive public investment in restaurants, conference centers, concert facilities, gardens, paths, snack bars and bathrooms is rusting and rotting into oblivion. The DEP complains of its burden and invites private interests to ride to the rescue. Dedicated volunteers and an irrepressible church congregation keep the lamp of life burning. But I ask: Is New Jersey the only state in the Union not to have a professionally managed system of publicly owned Historic Sites?

A picture is worth a thousand words. Caution! Put on your hardhat and visit some of the historic sites owned by the people of New Jersey as administered by the NJ Department of Environmental Protection's Division of Parks & Forestry. Included are scenes depicting the barns on the Rutherfurd-Stuyvesant estate and a rare example of an English stone house in Allamuchy Mountain State Park, High Breeze Farm in Wawayanda State Park, Crill's Log Cabin in Stokes State Forest, and the fading village of Waterloo, complete with a latrine dug into an ancient burying ground, where both Native North Americans and Revolutionary War veterans are interred.

Crill’s Log Cabin, Stokes State Forest

2009-10-30T11:09:00.000-07:00

A small lot, comprising three-quarters of an acre on the southeast side of Flatbrook Road in Sandyston Township, was added to Stokes State Forest in February 1988. This property harbors an old log house, commonly known as the “Roper Cabin,” being identified with Roswell M. Roper, who purchased the property in 1946. His sons and heirs, Sherwood and Roswell Roper, Jr., sold the old cabin to the NJ DEP in 1988.

Despite the rarity of its survival, relatively intact and unaltered, this primitive log dwelling sits abandoned and largely ignored. In the twenty-one years since the state acquired it, its fieldstone foundation has crumbled and its sill logs rotted. Collapse into its cellar hole appears imminent. Without immediate appreciation and intervention, its survival is doubtful. If nothing else, this report at least documents this architectural landmark for posterity.

The Crill Cabin uniquely tells the story of Stokes State Forest, a recovering wilderness on the crest of the Blue or Kittatinny Mountains. Frederick Crill, an eccentric woodchopper and collier, built this log house in 1861. He transformed the surrounding woodland into earth-blanketed, smoldering domes of charcoal, making fuel to supply a burgeoning iron industry. Across the valley, Highland furnaces and forges worked overtime to meet wartime demands.

According to historical geographer Peter O. Wacker, log structures mark the initial stage of pioneer settlement, being generally “associated with minimal clearance and a general lack of improvements on the property that contained them.”[1] Following a centuries’ old tradition, Crill stacked interlocking squared logs to form his primitive dwelling. He used American chestnut, a wood known not only for its abundance, but also for its resistant qualities. Unfortunately, after a century of blight, dwindling stump sprouts are all that remain of this stately native species, which was once monarch of the surrounding forest. Crill remained on the land for only six years, abandoning his mortgage payments after either exhausting the local wood supply or confronting a postwar recession.

Stone hedges running through the forest tell the next chapter, testifying that even this glaciated mountain crest was formerly dedicated to agriculture. The extension of the Sussex Railroad to neighboring Branchville, begun in 1866 and completed in 1869, made dairy farming an economically viable pursuit. Beginning in 1867, Augustus Grau, a German immigrant from Saxony, who served with Company C, 173rd Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers, during the Civil War, converted this stump land into pasture and croplands, residing with his wife and son in the small log house along Flatbrook Road. He was severely injured in a fall from his wagon in August 1892 and died on April 9, 1894, aged 66 years. James M. Stoll, of Sandyston Township, took ownership after Grau’s death. Mark Utter resided in the cabin and farmed a portion of the former Grau farm from 1906 to 1924.

Farming persisted until around 1925. Frederick G. Handel, of East Orange, bought the old log house on 13.5 acres, adjacent to Stokes State Forest, in June 1931. The Handels used it for a hunting lodge and summer cabin. His heirs sold to Roswell M. Roper, of East Orange, in 1946. The Ropers added a small wing of log construction to the north gable end of the original house. Roswell Roper’s heirs sold 0.783 acres, situated at the intersection of Skellenger and Flatbrook Roads in Sandyston Township, to the State of New Jersey, DEP, on February 17, 1988, for $38,300.

Log Cabin: Symbol of the American Frontier

Swedish, Finnish, German and Swiss colonists introduced log dwellings to the lower Delaware Valley during the late seventeenth century, making New Jersey and southeastern Pennsylvania the primary hearth for a type of vernacular construction that would become forever associated with the westward expanding American frontier.[2] Log houses were widely seen on pioneer farmsteads in northwestern New Jersey. When John Iliff settled upon the Wilson Farm at Hall’s Pond (now Lake Iliff, Andover Township, Sussex County) in 1812, he occupied a “log house on the place that had been built by a tenant. There was not a framed house nearer than Andover, Sparta, or Newton.”

Untold Stories

While the great houses of the rich and famous are rightly preserved for public edification, simple dwellings representing the lifestyles of hardworking common folk often fade unnoticed, except in a few instances where company-built workers’ housing survives in association with industrial communities, such as at an ironworks. Crill’s Log Cabin in Stokes State Forest tells a story of the strenuous life and physical hardships, which defined the American Dream for most Americans throughout the nineteenth century, when an unprecedented industrial revolution propelled the United States into the foremost rank of world powers. Except for its decidedly American setting, the story of Frederick Crill reads like an excerpt from the character-rich imagination of Charles Dickens.

Frederick Crill

Frederick Crill was born on March 1, 1815, just across the line in Warren County, probably in Hardwick Township, a son of Joseph and Katie (Card) Crill. He removed to Vernon Township with this parents when four years of age and resided there most of his life. In his younger days, he was employed as a woodchopper and collier along the Vernon range of mountains, residing at “Canistear, Vernon, and other places” during his life. His companions considered him to be quite shrewd and a sort of leader among them. He reportedly lived and died in poor circumstances, despite his shrewdness.

Frederick Crill married three times. He married his first wife in the vicinity of Swartswood, but they separated after living together only two years, both signing a bond, which he authored. She removed to Warren County and remarried. The history of Crill’s second marriage is shrouded in mystery. It was said that he shot his second wife after they lived together but a short time, escaping punishment by claiming it was an accident. He always evaded all questions about the circumstances of this supposed accidental shooting. Shortly thereafter, he married his third wife, Elizabeth, in Paterson.

Frederick Crill was used to handling a gun and was known to shoot partridge. Stephen Smith, who owned the Vernon farm where Crill later resided with his married daughter Eliza, reported that Crill “could shoot well, saw him shoot a crow once flying, as far off as a cannon would shoot.”

Around 1859, he professed conversion at a Methodist revival in Vernon Township, and took to holding meetings at his home and in neighbors’ houses. He received a medical exemption from the draft during the Civil War.

On November 1, 1861, John Wilgus and his wife Eliza sold 54 acres of land and premises, being part of Lot #8 in the Sussex Allotments, situated in Sandyston Township to Frederick Crill, of Lafayette, New Jersey, for $324. Frederick Crill built the log house presently standing on the southeast side of Flatbrook Road in Stokes State Forest, northwest of Lake Ocquittunk.

The log house and premises were sold at Sheriff’s sale on April 1, 1867, to satisfy a debt amounting to $292.16, with interest; the sum secured by a mortgage given by Frederick Crill to John Wilgus in 1861. Augustus Grau, the highest bidder, purchased the property for $400.

Local folk began to notice Crill’s increasingly eccentric behavior. He appeared quite nervous and spasmodic, wearing an overcoat and hat, even in warm weather, and wrapping a tippet or muffler around his neck. He lived almost entirely on molasses, vinegar, sour milk, and bread. Doctors treated him for “dyspepsia, a stomach difficulty,” and some kind of “nervous affliction.” People who knew his family recalled that his mother, Katie Card, had suffered some kind of similar disorder. In 1879, Crill’s daughter, Hannah Crill, testified that he stopped doing any hard labor or working out doors around 1867, corresponding to the date that he lost his Sandyston property. He also reportedly abandoned the practice of religion at this same time, becoming a pettifogger, who tried lawsuits in local courts. He gleaned his legal knowledge from several unbound copies of the laws of New Jersey, which he kept in his room. Members of the bar gave him credit for displaying considerable skills in conducting minor lawsuits.

The Murder of Eliza Babcock

Frederick Crill gained notoriety for the murder of his own 24-year old daughter, Eliza Babcock, on June 5, 1879. Beginning April 1, 1879, Crill’s son-in-law, William Babcock, worked the Stephen Smith farm on Pochuck Mountain, located about two and a half miles from Hamburg, on shares. He had married Frederick Crill’s daughter, Eliza, around 1875. The extended family residing on the Smith farm included William and Eliza Babcock, their two young children, William’s brother, George Babcock, Frederick Crill and his wife Elizabeth.

After the noon meal on June 5, 1879, William Babcock cut some wood and then went to work in a field about 100 yards from his house. When he left, his wife was nursing the baby. Frederick’s wife, Elizabeth Crill, was the only eyewitness to what happened next. She said that Fred Crill entered the house with an old half-bushel measure and placed it in the room. He would later claim that the children were destroying this old measure by cracking nuts on it. His daughter Eliza complained that the house was not the place for it and to return it to the old woodhouse, a small building located about six feet from the kitchen door, which was also used for a summer kitchen. At this, Crill flew into a rage and commenced verbally abusing his daughter. He finally carried the old measure upstairs, where he left it. A short time later, Eliza Babcock went upstairs and brought it down. She then began wringing out a pail of wet clothes.

According to Crill’s own admission, “the trouble came about a half bushel measure which he had taken upstairs and Mrs. Babcock brought it down again; she was talking in her long tongue, and in a passion I shot her.” As Mrs. Crill, who was in the room, passed into a small pantry, just off the kitchen, Crill stepped to a door leading into the sitting room. He took down an old fashioned musket, which hung on two pegs over the door. This musket, which had been converted into a percussion lock, was heavily loaded with No. 3 shot. He then stepped to the center of the room and within a few feet of his daughter, who was stooping down over the wash, with her back partly turned toward him.

Frederick Crill shot Eliza in the temple at close range, while she stood wringing clothes in the kitchen. Crill later told Dr. J. B. Pellet that he did not take aim, saying, “Heavens, no, I just held it out and fired.” The charge entered the right side of her head, creating a triangular wound between the ear and eye, two inches long, blowing out two ounces of brain matter, and leaving powder burns on her face. The shot tore away the exterior portion of her ear, completely shattered her upper jaw, and broke her lower jaw in two places. The hole in the side of her head was reportedly “large enough to insert a hen’s egg.” Her brains oozed out onto the kitchen floor.

Immediately after the shooting, Crill made his way into Hamburg. He stopped to tell Caleb Scott that Eliza was dead and asked Scott to have his “women to go up there and lay her out.” Coe L. Smith, a Hamburg merchant, saw Crill at Smith’s Hotel “and heard him say that he had shot Eliza Babcock and killed her dead and that he wished a thousand times he had done it before.” Charles Woods also heard Crill say, while drinking a glass of liquor at the hotel, “that he had shot Eliza Babcock and was not sorry for it; that he was sorry for the children, but not for her.” Thomas Lawrence, who had known Crill for about 20 years, said that he noticed nothing unusual in Crill’s manner at the hotel that afternoon, but that “he is peculiar at all times.” Lawrence heard him say that “he was taking the gun down to go to the cornfield, after he had it in his hand he saw the half bushel measure out of its place, spoke to his daughter about it, became angered and shot her; he had lived in hell for years.”
Frederick Crill surrendered to Justice Jacob B. Hendershot in front of Smith’s Hotel in Hamburg.

During his trial, Frederick Crill sat beside his counsel, “closely enveloped in his overcoat, with his tippet drawn tightly about his neck and over his mouth.” The reporter for the Sussex Independent noted he was “allowed to keep his hat on and occasionally gets up and moves around within the bar.” The defense pleaded insanity. After deliberating for about seven and a half hours, the jury convicted him of first-degree murder. Crill’s counsel requested a new trial, claiming that one of the jurors was deaf and unable to hear the testimony; the appeal was denied. Governor George McClellan gave him a brief reprieve, but Crill was hung outside the Sussex County Court House in April 1880. At his request, he was buried in the cemetery of the Vernon Methodist Church, beside his son and daughter.

A Word About Stokes State Forest

Governor Edward C. Stokes established our system of state forest parks in 1905 to restore and protect watersheds, potable streams, woodlands and wildlife, while providing public parklands for nature outings, camping and picturesque drives. Fittingly, when the State Board of Forest Park Commissioners purchased 5,432 acres on Kittatinny Mountain, near Culvers Gap, in May 1907, it was named to honor the “Father of the Conservation Movement in New Jersey.”

Over the past century, Stokes State Forest has tripled to nearly 16,000 acres. Between 1933 and 1941, the Civilian Conservation Corps, housed there in two forest camps, undertook extensive reforestation and the construction of Lakes Ocquittunk and Wapalanne (now the NJ School of Conservation), beaches, bathhouses, hiking trails, scenic roads, bridges, benches, parking lots, picnic tables, fireplaces, cabins, and shelters. This rustic park architecture remains unexcelled in its quality of craftsmanship and scenic values.

[1] Peter O. Wacker, The Musconetcong Valley of New Jersey, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1968, 82

[2] Ibid., 76-77

"A perpetual memorial to coming ages"

2009-10-30T09:39:00.000-07:00

Several years ago, my wife and I were dining in downtown Freehold. We were astonished when our young waiter, being a local resident and graduated from local schools, knew nothing of the Monmouth Battle Monument on Court Street in Freehold. He was only vaguely aware of the Revolutionary War battle that it commemorated.

Joel Parker of Freehold, Governor of New Jersey in 1863-66 and 1872-75, suggested erection of a commemorative monument during an address delivered June 28, 1877, at ceremonies marking the 99th anniversary of the Battle of Monmouth. The Monmouth Battle Monument Association was formed in October of that same year with Joel Parker, president, and Major James S. Yard, editor of the Monmouth Democrat, secretary. Three representatives were chosen from each township in Monmouth County and county residents subscribed $10,000 to the project. Monument Park, comprising 3-1/4 acres on a knoll near Freehold's main thoroughfare, was donated by the heirs of Daniel S. Schanck, namely, Mary A. Schanck, Theodore W. Morris, Alice C. Schanck, Andrew H. Schanck, Daniel S. Shanck and George E. Schanck. Governor George B. McClellan laid the cornerstone on the date of the battle's 100th anniversary. The State of New Jersey appropriated $10,000 in 1881 and, a year later, Congress appropriated additional funds for its completion.

Architects Emelin T. Littell and Douglas Smythe designed the Monmouth Battle Monument. Maurice J. Power, of the New York National Art Foundry, designed the gun-metal bronze reliefs, which were executed by sculptor James E. Kelly. The monument was made of polished, New England granite at a cost of $36,000. Three granite spurs form an equilateral triangle at the base of the shaft with cannon at each angle. The sides of these spurs are inscribed: "Monmouth Lost Great Britain America," "One Country," and "One People." Above the base is a large circular step displaying twenty medallion portraits of prominent officers who participated in the battle. Above this step, the drum-shaped base of the shaft bears five bas-relief panels, each five feet high and six feet long, executed by James E. Kelly, illustrating incidents from the battle:

1. The Council of War at Hunt's House, Hopewell. This scene takes place on the morning of June 24, 1778, in a low-raftered room with a tall chimney-piece, it being the southeast room of Hunt's House, Hopewell. Present at the Council were Generals Washington, Lee, Greene, Stirling, Lafayette, Knox, Enoch Poor, Baron von Steuben, Anthony Wayne, William Woodford, John Paterson, Charles Scott, Duportail and Colonel Alexander Scammell. Washington, standing on the far side of the table, listens to Lafayette urge an attack upon the British. The table is covered with an out-spread map of New Jersey. Alexander Hamilton is seated to Lafayette's right, following the proposed plan of attack on the map with a pair of pointers. Colonel Daniel Morgan, dressed in hunter's attire, listens intently. General Anthony Wayne and Brigadier General John Cadwallader stand in the background. Generals Nathaniel Greene and Henry Knox, chief of artillery, are seated to Lafayette's left. Behind them, General Charles Lee looks on with an air of indifference.

2. Lieutenant Colonel Nathaniel Ramsey's single-handed combat with British dragoons. Colonel Ramsey of the Third Maryland Regiment promised Washington to hold his position with two cannon, manned by Eleazer Oswald and crew, until the Commander-in-Chief had deployed the main army. The British Light Horse charged, but he stuck to his post. The artist shows Ramsey beside Eleazer Oswald's cannon, about to plunge his sword into a British cavalryman whose horse has fallen under him. The Lieutenant-Colonel tried to mount the fallen Dragoon's horse, but was wounded in the attempt. To the right, another British horseman levels his pistol at Ramsey. The retreat of the American advance corps and the old Monmouth County Court House are depicted on the left of the panel. Lt. Colonel Ramsey killed several British dragoons before being captured; he was returned to General Washington the next day by General Tarleton with a note commending his bravery.

3. Washington Rallies His Troops. Washington's approach at a full gallop is greeted by cheers and the waving of hats. In the distance, artillery pushes forward to check the enemy advance.

4. Molly Pitcher serving the gun. This panel depicts Molly, twenty-two years old, with her wounded husband lying at her feet, taking his place at a cannon, rammer in hand. The sponge-bucket with which she had supplied the crew with water lies discarded on the ground. A soldier with is right arm in a sling, carries a cannonball on his left arm. Another is prepared to fire the piece. In the background, the horses of the field-piece are placed between the gun carriage and the caisson to protect the gunpowder. To the right, General Knox on horseback holds a field-glass to his eye. Freehold Meeting-house stands in the distance.

5. The death of Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Monckton of the Second Grenadiers Battalion. The artist depicts the death of Lt. Colonel Monckton who led the Royal Grenadiers' charge against Americans under General Anthony Wayne near the Parsonage. Hand-to-hand combat rages over his fallen form. General Wayne on horseback is shown to the left.

The coats of arms of the thirteen original States, festooned with laurel leaves, are mounted above the historical tableaux. "Monmouth" is incised upon a smaller drum near the base. The column consists of three sections, joined with rings of bay leaves, and crowned with a Composite capital and a statue of the Goddess of Liberty. Governor Leon Abbett unveiled the monument on November 13, 1884, before a crowd of twenty thousand people. It stands close to the spot where the Queen's Rangers encountered the vanguard of the American army, comprised of the Ninth Pennsylvania Regiment commanded by Colonel Richard Butler.

Washington Dined Here

2009-10-30T09:29:00.000-07:00

Until its destruction by fire on November 16, 1857, the County Hotel stood at the corner of High Street and Park Place in Newton, NJ, facing the Courthouse Yard, otherwise known as the Green. Politicians frequented this popular resort, sipping their toddy while mulling over headlines and rumors, arguing the leading issues of their time. General Washington was entertained at this hotel on the night of July 26, 1782, on his way from Philadelphia to Newburgh, NY. In 1919, a local correspondent recalled as "a boy, he frequently heard the older residents when seated about a comfortable fire in one of the Spring Street stores, smoking their pipes and discussing the topics of those early days, tell of a second visit of Washington to Newton, when they said he was entertained overnight at the home of the late William T. Anderson, on Park Place, and where for many years the name of Washington was engraved on a panel above an open fireplace. This house is still standing, and is occupied by Mrs. Cox, on Main Street, having been removed to its present site when the Park Block was built."

According to an account published in the New Jersey Herald in 1871: “The building on the upper side of the [County] Park, [opposite the Court House in Newton, NJ] now the residence of Capt. Thomas Anderson, has two wings on its eastern and western extremities. The central part of this house is of modern date [circa 1785], but the two wings formed the residence of the Thomas Anderson above spoken of, prior to and during the Revolutionary war. They stood together, the part nearest the M. E. Church, was used as the dwelling place of Mr. Anderson, while the lower story of the other part was occupied by him as an office. The upper part he converted into a storeroom for the storage of the commissary goods, which Sussex furnished for the support of the American army. In this house General Washington stopped while on his way from Easton to Newburgh, and dined with Mr. Anderson. An old lady upwards of eighty years of age, now residing in Newton, informs us that she was told when very young, by good authority, that on this visit a number of the prominent families of our town wished to do the great chieftain all the honor possible in these primitive days, and so set before him all the silver ware at their disposal, together with the choicest eatables to be then obtained. But to their surprise Washington rebuked them for the display, remarking that it was inappropriate at a time when soldiers in the field were suffering for the necessaries of life.“

According to General Washington’s expense account, he stayed at Sussex Court-House (Newton, NJ) on November 28, 1780, while en route to the cantonment at New Windsor. It is also thought that he quartered for the night in Newton on July 26, 1782, after dining at Hope en route to Newburgh. On the occasion of his first visit, the Commander-in-Chief stayed at the old County Hotel, which burned in 1857. It occupied the site of the former County Hall of Records at the corner of High Street and Park Place, now being restored under private ownership. Washington dined down the block at the residence of Thomas Anderson.

Thomas Anderson died on May 27, 1805, aged 62 years, and is buried in the Old Newton Burial Ground. The homestead was occupied by his son, Major William T. Anderson (1777-1850), an attorney prominent in town and county affairs. On February 18, 1895, the Anderson property at the corner of Main Street and Park Place was sold to Newton merchants Huston,VanBlarcom & Ackerson to make way for Newton's largest and most prestigious commercial building, the Park Block. The old Thomas Anderson House, however, where Washington dined with the town's leading patriot, was not to fall victim to progress. Instead, contractors O'Donnell & McManiman employed a team of twenty horses in April 1896 to drag the old landmark from Park Place to the southwest corner of the lot facing Main Street, where it was to be refurbished and modernized. On March 29, 1898, John Huston, Andrew Van Blarcom and William D. Ackerson sold the renovated house to Dr. Emerson B. Potter for $5,000. The property came into possession of its present owners on May 3, 1965, when Martin R. Snook and his wife, Anna, sold the Anderson House to the Rector, Wardens and Vestrymen of Christ Church.

Catch the High Breeze

2009-10-30T09:18:00.000-07:00

High Breeze Farm in Wawayanda State Park encompasses 172 acres of mountain farmland. The houses and farm buildings have seen few changes since 1910. Peter Demarest built the main farm house around 1830 on land that he inherited from his father, David Demarest, in 1826. The farm passed to Peter’s older brother Samuel in 1838, who sold it to David Barret in 1860.

During the Civil War (1861-1865), a 200-acre farm in Sussex County could yield $5,000 worth of produce. The Long Depression (1873-1881) collapsed land values and induced hardship. By 1900, railroads brought large machine-worked farms on the Midwestern Plains into competition with the Atlantic seaboard. Farm workers migrated to city factories, encouraging the use of labor-saving machinery. Sussex County farmers increasingly specialized in producing milk and orchard fruits. Lakeside and mountaintop farms took in summer vacationers for income.

Before his death in 1891, David Barret divided the farm between his son James and grandson Ferris. James Edward Barret (1840-1913) added a two-story addition to the house for summer boarders around 1891. James’ son Ferris (1861-1945) dismantled this wing about 1914 and specialized in horse breeding. He was also a skilled blacksmith and farrier. Luther J. Barret (1909-1986) took over management upon his father’s death in 1945. He also was an accomplished farrier and horse breeder, who used only horse-drawn farm machinery. Although electric lighting came in 1948, indoor plumbing and central heating were never installed. High Breeze Farm thus offers a rare glimpse into our vanishing rural heritage.

The State of NJ acquired High Breeze Farm in 1981. After spending a considerable sum on studies and stabilization, this State Historic Site was abandoned to the elements. Though rapidly deteriorating, the remaining structures include:

1. Main House, circa 1825

2. Summer Kitchen/ Wagon Shed, circa 1880

3. Garage, circa 1925

4. Privy #1

5. Privy #2

6. Privy #3

7. Well House, stone and lattice well housing built 1940

8. Lower Barn, 1887

9. Chicken Coop #1, circa 1930

10. Chicken Coop #2, circa 1887

11. Metal Corn Crib (patented 1909), installed 1955

12. Upper Barn, 1886

13. Machinery Shed, circa 1935

14. Tenant House, built 1909 for Frerris Barret

15. Blacksmith Shop, circa 1860

16. Corn Crib (circa 1860) and Wagon Shed moved and rebuilt in 1910

17. Privy #4