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Tracker Jim. You provide awesome material to contemplate! Sadly, early charcoal stations (some jug taverns?) don’t always show up on maps. Take the Weymouth border places presented earlier. Abbotts is an existing timber-frame structure built between 1820 and 1830 yet fails to appear on any map...

Many thanks, great survey! By 1762 the Rockwood area is being singled out for its utility. I assume North is up since Batsto lands are to the right. The distance between Plymouth and Hammonton Roads is about a half-mile (2640’), so the 1872 Beers map Goose Pond is ~40 acres in size. The Leeds...

Rockwood bog appears to be the remnants of a big spung called "Goose Pond". See: https://forums.njpinebarrens.com/threads/linear-mounds-in-stafford-wma.7472/#post-87913 https://forums.njpinebarrens.com/threads/goose-pond.6965/#post-82511 The 1872 Beers map shows a large spung about where...

Teegate, I watched the South River head drop a foot in a couple weeks, after decent stream flow through the summer. Tracker Jim, I like long shots, so here are a couple added clues to stir the pot. Even if unrelated, the information provided may be useful towards other pursuits. Note how...

More mystifying is that a Deputy Attorney General I understand is paid per diem by the Pinelands Commission to sit in on Pinelands Commission meetings. I have tried for a month to have someone from the New Jersey Division of Law explain DAG Sean Moriarty’s role in New Lisbon, but the Attorney...

Buckhorn plantain (Plantago lanceolata) is the Milmay cure for chiggers and poison ivy. Take a handful of leaves, roll them between the palms of your hands until macerated into a wet ball. Rub the wet ball into the itchy pustules until a clear liquid oozes. Repeat the rolling process and use the...

Which Buckshutem, the one in Cumberland or Monmouth County? The latter is a Buckshootem Branch now called Bannen Meadow Branch just south of Wyckoff Mills on US Route 9 (Litowinski, undated, History of Howell). It’s on the northern fringe of Pine Barrens. Buckshootem Bridge is probably the Fort...

Spungs are better called intermittent ponds, a term that Pinelands scientists prefer to use. Vernal pools are pockets of water filled by surface runoff. Spungs are instead fed by grounwater passing through them. Wade through a spung and you will feel cold pockets of water contrasting with...

Oh, about the intersection of Atlantic, Gloucester and Cumberland Counties – you mean Royalton, a little-known c.1891 Jewish agricultural settlement. It was one of at least 18 Pinelands back-to-the-land schemes to be hatched along a railway. I was told by an eye witness that shacks existed into...

The passing of Mary-Ann Thompson, a giant but behind the scenes hero of the Pines, has been confirmed through several reliable sources. She owned and managed an incredible certified-organic operation at a one-of-a-kind nineteenth-century farm that is best described as a "Last of the Mohicans"...

You might want to read the Journal of Rev. Richard Swain, transcribed and edited by Robert Bevis Steelman, Old First United Methodist Church, West Long Branch, NJ, January 12, 1977, 37 p. It's been a while since Rev. Steelman and I were in touch (2005), but I will try to track him down. His...

It was common for farmers to work for furnaces during off season, often by or in support of coaling. Unlike company coal-ground coalers, they were not bound to the company store. Ole Uncle Jenk's family settled my property c.1880 from a remote home-base in Newfield. They had portable cabins that...

Before we got too far along I feel it important to provide a little background. Coppersisters is the younger sibling to my best school mate, and her my sister's. Her brother and I met the first day of kindergarten and lived just five houses apart on the same avenue; there being three-miles...

OK, so you wonder why they took it down, then argue you're not crazy?! Something about that line, I love the smell of napalm in the morning! Uncle Budd thinks it was moved, then discarded by the 70s.

Coppersisters, The things you remember! Yes, there was a seven-seater right next to the ice house. Yuk. I too remember it on our visits, many with your family. Budd Wilson, Batsto's archeologist, just confirmed the outhouse and its position next to the ice house. He's going to find a picture of...

I’m tickled that so many Algonquin names survived here in the Pine Barrens, even if their form and meaning has long drifted away! For example, I was surprised to learn that Atco does not commemorate a transportation service, but as “Atco Atco” has native roots – something like Atquatqua or...

Cool beans Oriental. I will use hereafter use "Munyon" with a Y. Is Aserdaten also sited on the edge of furnace land? Some have asked about the places I had listed along the Weymouth Tract border (Figure above in earlier post): Peters) ≥1830s since homes are timber framed, incl. “cigar shed”...

Absolutely, Bride of Fire! My gosh, kinfolk from Milmay. You are at the right place. I credit your family for a great deal of the sand in my shoes, teaching me how to appreciate this place.

There is an ongoing exhibit of images from a 2013 Polar expedition at the The Noyes Museum of Art of Stockton University, which provides a glimpse into just how awesome (daunting?) New Jersey's Ice Age world might have been. A good excuse to visit is an upcoming venue, CLIMATE CHANGE: A PANEL...

See you there? (reproduced with SJCHC's permission) At least Landis no longer thinks he's a tree! I love Vineland's quirky history. Carved out of Pine Barrens wilderness as agrarian utopia, there were ~50 inhabitants in 1861, and ~5500 by 1865. S-M