Wolfspider found the W.P. 1700 stone!

manumuskin

Piney
Jul 20, 2003
8,552
2,465
59
millville nj
www.youtube.com
I don't know Boyd but I personally know of three stones taken in the last three years all of which were next to roads.These stones were there for close to two hundred years and then one day Bam! they were gone. I notice it seems to be a fad right now that a lot of people do have big stones in their yard and South Jersey being South Jersey we're a stone poor place. I just wonder if their casual thefts where people may not even realize their stealing something important or of their looking at maps and actually hunting them down to steal them? Guy knows many more stones that have been stolen. A Millville Vineland border stone was taken this past year right next to a busy black top road. It was in the grass and I suspect maybe the grass mower got tired of hitting it and dug it up? The hole was covered over and if I didn't know the exact spot I"d of never known a stone was there.A thief would have left the hole.I think the mower guy took this and filled the hole in because he probably trashed a mower on it.Nice big white square cit marble monument that had a big tuft of grass around it in summer.Probably a new guy didn't know it was there and clobbered it. There are others like it along the line elsewhere.
I would suggest if a stone thief is ever caught in the act perhaps they should be stoned? I"m not talking Hippie style neither.
 
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GermanG

Piney
Apr 2, 2005
1,111
434
Little Egg Harbor
I just don't understand why someone would steal a stone. What would they do with it? Put it in their garden? Sell it?
fred.jpg

One never knows :)
 

Teegate

Administrator
Site Administrator
Sep 17, 2002
25,602
8,177
Just wanted to get/give a quick update. At least once a year I head to this area and hike to the stone, just to see how the area is changing over the years. I never use a GPS because it is embedded into my memory. Today I took the hike. The woods have changed a lot since my last hike maybe a year ago. I got to the area and did not find the stone. I am 99.9% sure I was in the correct spot. The mound, the stone post.....but no stone. Maybe it was overgrown but I did some poking with no luck. Does anyone here know anything?


Well, Gipsie is correct, the WP 1700 stone is there no more. Someone just felt that it was theirs and not ours. :bang:
 

gipsie

Explorer
Sep 14, 2008
547
67
55
atlantic county
I am beyond pissed off.I would love to catch said stone thief and see just where I might be able to cram that stone.
I am pretty pissed myself. I have never hoped more that I was wrong. As soon as Guy confirmed my suspicions I emailed Cynthia at Bass River to ask if they, by some chance. moved it themselves. That is the best case scenario.

If, when she gets back to me, she says that she did not know it was missing, I will launch a campaign to find this stone. Social media is a wonderful tool and I will plaster the web with photos. Someone, somewhere, knows what happened to it.

Thanks Guy for checking this out, I was pretty sure that I was in the right spot. But it had been a while and I just wanted to confirm.
 
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Teegate

Administrator
Site Administrator
Sep 17, 2002
25,602
8,177
Just so you know there is another one so there is a possibility she may say it is there if she goes to the wrong one. However, I doubt she will go to the second one this time of year. Not as easy to get to.
 

manumuskin

Piney
Jul 20, 2003
8,552
2,465
59
millville nj
www.youtube.com
It only weighted about 40 lbs and was just a short carry to the vehicle.Any one could have taken it.I"m surprised it stayed there that long.If you found out who took it Gipsie let me know.I will make good on the cram threat.
 

wolfspider05

Explorer
Nov 12, 2004
223
11
39
Riverside Nj
This really sucks, I happened to stumble back after finally finding some free time from life, to read this. Why on Earth would someone take a stone?! Robbing History from future generations, pisses me off. I originally found out about this stone from WeirdNJ of all places, took some time to find it. Guy found others in the area, and with the help of Pete from Bass River Historical Society I had a name and found the stone had been inscribed on the back as well. I am not sure if Pete is still around, last I seen his blog wasn't updated in years. He was forthcoming to me, giving me a wealth of information on the area and stones that I would of never found without him. There are others in the area, close to main highways that concern me now. I am not here very often anymore, but I still have an interest in the pines and the history around it. I hope someone has the decency to at least bring the stone back to where it belongs, it's really a shame that something was there for hundreds of years, to be whisked away for no good reason. Does anyone have any update on this? Is Pete still around? Is the stone still MIA?
 

bobpbx

Piney
Staff member
Oct 25, 2002
14,153
4,257
Pines; Bamber area
If the thief is caught, he should be forced to drag the route 539 stone 1 mile into the woods by himself, without power, and then drag it back and set it upright again.
 
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Pan

Explorer
Jul 4, 2011
554
246
Arizona
Too bad you didn't take it yourself, now looking back, and put it in a museum, in Batsto or someplace.

I used to carve the dates i climbed up Windham High Peak in the Catskill mountains, every year, in the 60s and 70s, into the rock, but the last time i was up there, about 12 years ago, the carvings were already almost all faded out. Acid rain I'm told. In the old days people were better rock carvers than me with my jack knife. The oldest rock carving i found in the Catskills said JAMES 1812. "Thou art God" carved by the very edge on WHP was still good too. I helped reinforce that. I have a photo of me hanging upside down doing it. Sorry 4 going off on a tangent.
 

Teegate

Administrator
Site Administrator
Sep 17, 2002
25,602
8,177
There was an article in the Batsto Citizens Gazette where one of the mile marker stones of the Tuckerton stage was found along Tucketon Road in Wharton. It was taken to Batsto for safe keeping. Time marches on, employees change, and when I acquired about it nobody had any idea where it was. Gone!

So they are best left where they were or buried deeper as they have been on a handful of stones that were along roads that had been widened or altered. One on 539, a few in Lebanon, and others I can't remember where right now.
 
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