Recent content by amf

Great reference. I recall when researching land rights on salt hay farms along the Bay in Maurice River Twp NJ coming across a reference to a 'slave ditch'. Presumably it was dug by slaves, but who knows.

I believe the Burcham farm is (was?) a private bank benefitting their farm. The meadow bank companies were a different thing. The closest analogy I can think of is the acequia system of irrigation canals in New Mexico - really a communal undertaking. The landowners abutting a meadow would band...

Altho I am a bit late to this HERE party, having been pre-occupied with a move, my experience with anything Garmin or Navteq, while being excellent products, is that they exist solely to regularly extract money from your pocket. Good luck with developing your alternatives!

They have also been processed in Bivalve / Port Norris.

And there is a LOT of deep water! I've paddled from the bridge a good ways upstream, doing more paddling than walking.

As far at the park goes, I recall when you could paddle on New Brooklyn Lake, prior to all the development in the watershed. Still an impressive stretch of swampland extending up to Cross Keys Road.

Interesting the places that appear in red lettering on the map... in Salem and Cumberland Counties, there is the Seabrook Bulb Gardens and a place called Ivy Manor. I knew a farmer in that area whose home place was called Ivy Manor; never knew there was any significance to the name, and still...

I saw it for the first time at Craters of the Moon last summer. At that time I had no idea what it was... we really thought we were either hallucinating or seeing UFO's!

Not much you can see on foot - you need boat! The bright areas in the photo are probably mud flats. I've gone in there once at low tide by kayak from Elsinboro Point. You can go into the meadows from Black or Straight Ditch and come out onto Alloway Creek, then paddle back up the Delaware to...

Rather small pipes for use in irrigation.

All this brought to mind Danny Mertz' place in the Berlin market. Don't know if its still there, but growing up it was the go-to place on Christmas Day for those last minute items you always needed.

Beautiful stand of them.

Yep. Two Money Islands. The Salem County one I believe was the Starr hunting club / wildlife refuge, owned by a Tatnall B Starr. It and all the surrounding farms were acquired by PSE&G.

We made sap from red and silver maple when I was a kid. Most every tree you can make syrup from takes far more sap than a sugar maple. There had been one semi-commercial sugarbush up near the Water Gap, but the season in NJ starts far too early and ends too soon to make it more than a hobby.

Boondoggle indeed. While there used to be regular barge traffic on the Cohansey many years ago - it is a rather deep river, but always required dredgeing at the mouth and the stretch above Fairton - the many twists and turns made navigation difficult, particularly for a 'large barge'. I recall...