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Teegate, A railroad official offered to construct such a barrier, but I thought it unfair to punish others by blocking road access just because of the stupid actions of a rogue entity (my municipality). Neighbors have had a right to enjoy the woods via an adjacent ROW road as they have for over...

Guess who's back on my property today? At least the railroad workers left as soon as I asked them, without State Trooper intervention. I need some big ole survey stones... S-M

Shazam! That’s a surprise. Sorry Manumuskin, but Millville is just a hipper place than first-place Vineland. It must be the banana custard at Blinkers that civilized your haunt, which I argue is the best soft-serve in the whole state. Technically Vineland's border is three miles away from my...

NJCH, Gardening really unites Pineys to the weather and associated seasonal changes. It was the lure of cheap land and the romance of self-sufficiency that brought many homeseekers to the southern Pines. In war-torn Europe, foodstuffs were often in short supply. Pine Barrnes ethnic settlements...

Picked the last of the okra, luffa, peppers, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and beans today. I'll cover a frying pepper and a sungold cherry tomato with a mover's blanket to hopefully steal on extra week's worth of growing season. It's a little unusual to go right to a hard freeze without a light...

Here's an old reference to very early German laborers in the Pine Barrens. At the head of Hospitality Branch, near Williamstown there was an early eighteenth century settlement at a series of spungs referred to as the “Hospitality Ponds.” Surveyor John Clement (1888) writes about this place in...

According to an agricultural survey, Germans were Hammonton's farm labor force until 1877 when they simply didn't show up, and Italians replaced them. It was thought that the Germans had by that time established themselves on their own farms so no longer needed to hire out as laborers. Germans...

Tracker Jim, it would not surprise me that an existing settlement was missed by cartographers, perhaps being too marginal for mention. For example the charcoal settlement of Berrys (New Kuban) is occupied from c.1790–1950 with only a single map citation from 1812, although Clement (Volume 3...

Oriental. thanks for pointing out the symmetry. What is the oldest reference to Middle Road? I looked back at old posts and see I misread Pinelands Paddler's use of Middle Road, thinking it was contemporary to Shinn. LiDAR images indicate the Beers' Middle Road never extended as improved roadway...

DC, Really enjoying the thread! So in 1895 the name Middle Road is used for the Dutchtown portion of Route 206, and Middle Road begins at a suspected tavern near Desolation Pond. Wouldn't that course just about put the roadway in the middle of the Atsion Lands?

Here's my favorite, Vanaman's Thick n' Hole Tract where the ethnic settlement of New Italy began. Several ancient trails converged at the Oasis spung. I believe the settlement's eighteenth century origin lies in naval store production (tar kilning), later becoming a charcoal station. Note the...

Folks, Stockton University is launching a new history, culture, and geography periodical that is much in line with our interests at NJPB. Here's a great opportunity to get that story in print! reproduced with permission of SJCHC Call for Articles SoJourn: Journal of South Jersey History &...

Great thread! There is a tiny third lot shown too. My hunch is that all three lots are within Fruitland but are older exceptions. Left to right, the first two property lines somewhat match the rectilinear railroad-era metes and bounds (red dashes), but are better aligned to Shamong/Washington...

JD, 'Hole' is an incredibly elastic term in the Pine Barrens. In old usage, it can have the same meaning as hollow, like in Appalachia. Lincoln's descendants at Imlaystown lived at Buckhorn manor along the Buck Hole, a small valley. Equally old is its use to describe an intermittent pond like...

There is a report in the American Geophysical Union blogosphere about the Inskip blue hole: The Inskip Sinkhole http://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2015/09/29/the-inskip-sinkhole-1/ "...this is not in fact a sinkhole, but is undoubtedly a submarine landslide" You say "tomato," I say "tomato." S-M

The water they are talking about on Mars would be a thick cold soupy brine, which has the ability to melt at very cold temperatures yet still has potential for extremophile life. I presented during the 3rd Conference on Terrestrial Mars Analogs in Marrakech to propose that the NJ Pine Barrens...

The sky cleared and the daughter and I watched in awe from our Richland backyard. S-M

This is the old, old Egg Harbor that was referring to a region way before Egg Harbor City was founded. Its bounds covered southern Ocean and eastern Atlantic Counties. The first ethnic enclave of New Germany or Germantown or Woolyfield (c.1848) encompassed Folsom and Newtonville along the...

While in Blackman (1880: 185), I found this reference to pine knots that reminded me of your post! She's talking about the first European settlers of Egg Harbor (early eighteenth century), a territorial designation that included Little Egg Harbor. At this stage of time the farmers had plenty of...

I'm not sure if the was made clear, but the dams and canals were all made by beaver, not man.