Are there any known caves in the Pines?
- Thread starter Windsor
- Start date
There is a legend with Cave Cabin Branch, a tributary of the Forked River. I forget the legend, I think it has something to do with an Indian or a character such as Joe Mulliner hiding out in a cave back there. I don't see how it could be natural. I have been back there. Had to have been dug.
Windsor said:
A google of "" "pine barrens" & cave "" didn't yield any helpful info re: the question posed, but did come up with a brief disquisition on endangered ecosystems ( a Defenders of Wildlife article) with a little 1995 data on pine barrens in the northeast. <http://www.defenders.org/amee05.html> Although no pine barrens are mentioned in Pennsylvania, I recall an area not far from Penn State in or near Center County, PA that was called "the barrens" and was supposedly a favored environ of timber rattlers. Of course I did check it out. I wasn't remined of the "real" PBs and the area yielded no rattlers. I did, however, find several other sites of rattler hibernacula in central PA, but not in areas reminicent in any way of the NJPB's.
Dave
I can't think of any area I've ever seen in the pines that could be construed as a cave really. As a matter of fact I doubt you could find anything resembling a cave south of Hunterdon County. Heck when we were building our koi pond my father and I had to go scour some farmers' rock piles up in Cranbury just to find small boulders big enough to edge it and build the waterfall. Even where my parents live right on the border of Burlington and Mercer the biggest rocks you can find are about the size of your fist.
Bob,Guy, Jessica and I found some pretty huge sandstone in Wharton. I think they said they saw some large sandstone up near Jackson also, but I'm not sure. I would say the Cohansey aquifer is too close to the surface to leave room for any caves. Pasadena is about as close as you will get.
Jeff
Jeff
Only "caves" i ever heard of were allegedly near the Crystal Lake building, aka "The Capone Place." I doubt this is true at all, and if it were, I was told they were blasted shut anyway. This rumor probably spawned from the "tunnels under the lake" story.
There was once found while digging a foundation in western burlington county a natural 12 ft long void in a bed of sandstone that a man could crawl into but basically south jersey is not cave friendly.hard to make a cave out of silica sand or marsh mud.a short manmade cave exists at pasadena, and thewre are several underground foundations in manumuskin preserve and used to be a tavern rock before the state tore it down.
"yes I just crawled out from under a rock,I'm a caver"
I also know my arse from a hole in the ground for the same reason
"yes I just crawled out from under a rock,I'm a caver"
I also know my arse from a hole in the ground for the same reason
There is a cave cut into a clayey sandstone formation at the bottom of the Mullica near Mordecai's Landing.
There was once found while digging a foundation in western burlington county a natural 12 ft long void in a bed of sandstone that a man could crawl into but basically south jersey is not cave friendly.hard to make a cave out of silica sand or marsh mud.a short manmade cave exists at pasadena, and thewre are several underground foundations in manumuskin preserve and used to be a tavern rock before the state tore it down.
"yes I just crawled out from under a rock,I'm a caver"
I also know my arse from a hole in the ground for the same reason
Al, do you know exactly where this 12 ft void is/was?
Not cave country by a long shot. Sandstone caves, I think, like you see out west, are often formed by erosion, whereas the caves that are more typical in the east are formed when limestone is dissolved by seeping ground water. Plus the water table is so close to the surface, as was mentioned above.
Windsor,
The Worrell Caves (39º59.4’ N; 74º44.2’W) were located just off 206 north of Ewansville, a couple miles west of the Pines edge. According to Dalton (1976: 15, Caves of New Jersey),
“Two caves were discovered during excavation for a cellar. They appeared to be at the contact between the Navasink and Mt. Laurel Formations. The rock material ver the larger opening was a fossil zone cemented by limonite. The larger of the two cave entrances measured about two by three feet. The passage trended northwest for about four and one half feet where it intersected a northeast and southwest passage. At the northeastern end of the latter passage, there was a small room, eight by six by three fet, about 18 feet from the entrance.
The smaller cave entrance was about 14 feet to the southwest. At the base of the entrance were two passages, one heading southwest and the other northwest. The one to the northwest intersected another passage which was parallel to the one at the entrance. These caves have been filled in and their total extant is not known.”
Best,
Mark
The Worrell Caves (39º59.4’ N; 74º44.2’W) were located just off 206 north of Ewansville, a couple miles west of the Pines edge. According to Dalton (1976: 15, Caves of New Jersey),
“Two caves were discovered during excavation for a cellar. They appeared to be at the contact between the Navasink and Mt. Laurel Formations. The rock material ver the larger opening was a fossil zone cemented by limonite. The larger of the two cave entrances measured about two by three feet. The passage trended northwest for about four and one half feet where it intersected a northeast and southwest passage. At the northeastern end of the latter passage, there was a small room, eight by six by three fet, about 18 feet from the entrance.
The smaller cave entrance was about 14 feet to the southwest. At the base of the entrance were two passages, one heading southwest and the other northwest. The one to the northwest intersected another passage which was parallel to the one at the entrance. These caves have been filled in and their total extant is not known.”
Best,
Mark
There was also supposed to be Fagans Cave, a hideout of a Pine Robber, in Farmingdale. (Not the pines, though.)
Another cave story has been passed down about Mordecai Andrews who supposedly carved a cave out of a gravel bank in Tuckerton for shelter for his family while he built his house. As you enter the Tuckerton Seaport you can see a gravel bank on your right that once bordered a road called “Quarry Road” on old maps. Whether the story about Andrews is true or not, it certainly seems possible that a cave could have been dug into this bank.
German,
When I visited the Tuckerton Seaport, I saw the sign next to Mordecai's homestead that states he had excavated a cave in a nearby gravel bank. I'm wondering where they got that information? Oral tradition? If I recall correctly, Leah Blackman claimed that the Andrews brothers, like Henry Falkinburg before them, had dug holes in the ground and covered them with cedar timbers.
When I visited the Tuckerton Seaport, I saw the sign next to Mordecai's homestead that states he had excavated a cave in a nearby gravel bank. I'm wondering where they got that information? Oral tradition? If I recall correctly, Leah Blackman claimed that the Andrews brothers, like Henry Falkinburg before them, had dug holes in the ground and covered them with cedar timbers.
This is an interesting article:
http://hiddencityphila.org/2011/12/pioneering-quakers-as-spontaneous-urbanists/
It goes into detail more or less on these "cave cabins"
http://hiddencityphila.org/2011/12/pioneering-quakers-as-spontaneous-urbanists/
It goes into detail more or less on these "cave cabins"
Pinelands use of “caves” as living space continued into the twentieth century. In deep woods behind our farm a hermit called Ikey-the-Wild-man lived through the 30’s in such a structure. It was located along the old South River Indian trail that linked the Oasis in Vanamans Thick n’ Hole (hole = spung) Tract with the Smith/Ireland settlement near the artesian well at Atlantic County Park. He was a classic image of an isolate; unkempt long black trench-coat, with long grey hair and beard. On rare occasion Ikey left the woods to visit neighbors.
His abode was a series of tunnels dug into a gravel knob. There the ground is very hard soil of the Aura series, its densification in part attributed to cold Ice-Age conditions. Large (>6-feet X 6-feet) sand-filled permafrost crack relicts crisscrossed the site, allowing easy digging in what would otherwise be pebbly rock-like ground. The entrance was an A-frame wood structure clad with flattened tin cans to shed the rain.
Here’s Ikeys Spung:
Another equally grizzled hermit, Billy Adams, lived in a shack at the Lee Ponds. The hovel was located where South River Road crossed an ancient charcoal road that linked Cumberland and Weymouth Furnaces via Doughty's Tavern.
Billy rode a bicycle into East Vineland to farm-labor when he needed money, the sight of which scared children. Later, he moved to a five-acre clearing and even married late-in-life, thence becoming known as Five-acre Farmer. He even bought a Model-T.
Some hermits were itinerant laborers that had worked as coalers, and remained in the woods after the industry petered out. Doughty's Tavern (c.1790), a charcoal station shown above, was located near Milmay at the junction of Tuckahoe Road, the Weymouth-Cumberland Road, and the old Bears Head Road. Tuckahoe Road was realigned in 1817, so I can not tell you if this was the original building moved from the first site a quarter-mile away, or an 1817 rebuild. It was torn down around 1915 and replaced with the Osterly house from across the road. That house burned down. The current home was an outbuilding that took the place of the burned structure, although the original basement remains beneath it.
S-M
His abode was a series of tunnels dug into a gravel knob. There the ground is very hard soil of the Aura series, its densification in part attributed to cold Ice-Age conditions. Large (>6-feet X 6-feet) sand-filled permafrost crack relicts crisscrossed the site, allowing easy digging in what would otherwise be pebbly rock-like ground. The entrance was an A-frame wood structure clad with flattened tin cans to shed the rain.
Here’s Ikeys Spung:
Another equally grizzled hermit, Billy Adams, lived in a shack at the Lee Ponds. The hovel was located where South River Road crossed an ancient charcoal road that linked Cumberland and Weymouth Furnaces via Doughty's Tavern.
Billy rode a bicycle into East Vineland to farm-labor when he needed money, the sight of which scared children. Later, he moved to a five-acre clearing and even married late-in-life, thence becoming known as Five-acre Farmer. He even bought a Model-T.
Some hermits were itinerant laborers that had worked as coalers, and remained in the woods after the industry petered out. Doughty's Tavern (c.1790), a charcoal station shown above, was located near Milmay at the junction of Tuckahoe Road, the Weymouth-Cumberland Road, and the old Bears Head Road. Tuckahoe Road was realigned in 1817, so I can not tell you if this was the original building moved from the first site a quarter-mile away, or an 1817 rebuild. It was torn down around 1915 and replaced with the Osterly house from across the road. That house burned down. The current home was an outbuilding that took the place of the burned structure, although the original basement remains beneath it.
S-M