A Pines settlement called "Chicken Bone"?

cudgel

New Member
Mar 5, 2013
14
3
Mount Holly
A few years ago I was at one of the Pinelands Short Courses over at BCC when I heard about this. One of the discussions I sat in on was about the history of the Cedar Bridge Skirmish at the end of the revolutionary war. The man giving the talk(wish I could remember his name) was very knowledgeable and made mention of some other local history in Barnegat and Ocean townships. One of these caught my ear. He made mention of a historic 19th century African American settlement in that area of the Pines. According to him it had been in the area down 532 between Waretown and Wells Mills and was called "Chicken Bone". I've heard of a chickenbone ridge in the Pines and I know he was certainly not talking about the historic Chickenbone Beach from Atlantic City's segregation days. I didn't inquire about it at the time because a bunch of people were trying to talk to him afterwards and it was one of those things which slipped by me and made me wonder much later on. I can't find anything on such a place? Has anyone else ever heard of this place?
 
Cudgel:

Whether African Americans settled near Chicken Bone during the nineteenth-century is conjecture at best, likely based on the toponym itself. Here is the location of Chicken Bone ridge, which climbs vertically to a height of 104 feet, as shown on the 1872 Beers map of Ocean County:

Detail, 1872 Ocean County map.jpg


As you can see, it is very close to Wells Mills, but located a little distance off Pancoast Road or County Route 532 (Wells Mills Road). In reviewing the 1850 through 1900 federal decennial census, I cannot identified any blacks or mulattoes living in Union or Ocean Township, Ocean County, except those residing in white households where they worked as servants. It is possible, albeit not likely, that the enumerators missed this settlement for each of the census years. The hamlet could have provided shelter to fugitive slaves in the antebellum years, but evidence is required to document the presence of these runaways before we can speak with any certitude.

If anyone can offer evidence of an African American enclave at this location, I would be very grateful. I’ve been collecting the names of black enclaves in New Jersey for over 20 years. It is and always will be a work in progress as I am constantly locating new settlements. To date, I have over 130 separate place names, of which 91 are from the antebellum period.

Best regards,
Jerseyman
 
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Ben Ruset

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I have never heard of any sort of settlement here, merely the that Chicken Bone is the name of that topography.

Jerseyman: Is that set of Beers atlases available online? I know RU Special Collections has the 1872 Beers Atlas sheets, but they are not as detailed as the one you posted.
 

GermanG

Piney
Apr 2, 2005
1,111
434
Little Egg Harbor
I have a USGS topo map at work with handwritten notes on it based on information gathered from Elizabeth Morgan and Cliff Frazee years ago. There is a place called Ridley Field noted on the map in this vicinity which, according to Cliff, was a black hamlet. Unfortunately, I've never been able to find any more information about the site.
 
I have a USGS topo map at work with handwritten notes on it based on information gathered from Elizabeth Morgan and Cliff Frazee years ago. There is a place called Ridley Field noted on the map in this vicinity which, according to Cliff, was a black hamlet. Unfortunately, I've never been able to find any more information about the site.

German:

I cannot find any Ridley living in Union or Ocean Township, Ocean County, during any of the federal decennial censuses that are currently available. So, it makes me wonder how the area received its name. I also wonder if “Field Branch” of Oyster Creek might take its name from Ridley Field?

For what it’s worth, John O. Beattie notes in the centennial book for Ocean Township (published in 1976),

We came to the so-called Forked River Mountains, which rear to the tremendous height of about 200 ft. above sea level, and are sometimes covered with snow in the winter.
First there was Middle Hill; then, Cave Cabin Hill, and lastly Chickenbone. This time we went deeper into the silent Pine Barrens on some of the older abandoned roads, and almost forgotten roads. …When we first heard of Cave Cabin Hill, we immediately though of caves, smugglers, treasure, etc. Questions were asked of all the old timers, and while we still think that there are none left who remembers, there must have been some hanky-panky. The answers that we did get, however, were interesting. Some say that caves were used by the “underground railway” that carried the slaves to be liberated in the north. Well - maybe. Some say that caves, as well as sheds were used to shelter charcoal burners.

I invest no particular validity in this text, but it is the only one I have found in my library so far that provides any supporting information for what you have recorded from Elizabeth Morgan and Cliff Frazee.

Best regards,
Jerseyman
 
I have never heard of any sort of settlement here, merely the that Chicken Bone is the name of that topography.

Jerseyman: Is that set of Beers atlases available online? I know RU Special Collections has the 1872 Beers Atlas sheets, but they are not as detailed as the one you posted.

Ben:

I’ll send you an email about the map a bit later.

Best,
Jerseyman
 
Cave Cabin could also easily be named after a person with the surname of Cave who owned a cabin in the area.

True, although pioneer settlers, sawyers, and colliers would often hollow out the side of a high stream bank for makeshift living quarters. A cabin built over the opening or nearby it could easily garner the moniker “Cave Cabin.”

Best regards,
Jerseyman
 

cudgel

New Member
Mar 5, 2013
14
3
Mount Holly
Cudgel:

Whether African Americans settled near Chicken Bone during the nineteenth-century is conjecture at best, likely based on the toponym itself. Here is the location of Chicken Bone ridge, which climbs vertically to a height of 104 feet, as shown on the 1872 Beers map of Ocean County:

View attachment 3243

As you can see, it is very close to Wells Mills, but located a little distance off Pancoast Road or County Route 532 (Wells Mills Road). In reviewing the 1850 through 1900 federal decennial census, I cannot identified any blacks or mulattoes living in Union or Ocean Township, Ocean County, except those residing in white households where they worked as servants. It is possible, albeit not likely, that the enumerators missed this settlement for each of the census years. The hamlet could have provided shelter to fugitive slaves in the antebellum years, but evidence is required to document the presence of these runaways before we can speak with any certitude.

If anyone can offer evidence of an African American enclave at this location, I would be very grateful. I’ve been collecting the names of black enclaves in New Jersey for over 20 years. It is and always will be a work in progress as I am constantly locating new settlements. To date, I have over 130 separate place names, of which 91 are from the antebellum period.

Best regards,
Jerseyman


I'll bet you're familiar with Timbuctoo outside Mount Holly? Every once in a while I come across something about that place.
 
I'll bet you're familiar with Timbuctoo outside Mount Holly? Every once in a while I come across something about that place.

Cudgel:

I am very familiar with Timbuctoo and, until last year, I served on the committee overseeing the archaeological investigation there and the development of this once vibrant community as a world-class black history site. I resigned due to the press of other activities. I have assembled a large body of research on this important settlement of fugitive slaves. I have fully documented the so-called Battle of Pine Swamp; I have researched the church that once stood proximate to the burial ground; I know who first settled there; I know when Church Street was first laid out and by whom; and I have lectured on some of the fugitive slave cases that arose out of Timbuctoo.

Since you reside in Mount Holly, I should ask you if you know about Clarksborough and Sand Hill in relationship to local African American history? Have you heard the story of William Boen? Through deed research, I have determined where his farm was located.

I recently completed a National Register nomination for Jacob's Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Mount Laurel and it should be listed in the National Register of Historic Places by the end of this month.

Best regards,
Jerseyman
 

cudgel

New Member
Mar 5, 2013
14
3
Mount Holly
Nope, I'm not familiar with Clarksboro and Sand Hill, I don't know of William Boen either. This is all in the Mount Holly area? I'm not surprised if it is, so much history in my town.
WOW, you were seriously involved in Timbuctoo! Sure sounds like you've been busy.Yeah, that's an interesting place. My grandfather and my great aunt made mention of the place a few times in some of their stories.
 

GermanG

Piney
Apr 2, 2005
1,111
434
Little Egg Harbor
I had a chance to dig out the map I referenced today. While I had Ridley Field mentioned in my notes on the site, I was mistaken in that it was not labeled as such on the map. Unfortunately I was not so diligent in noting sources in my own notes back then as I am now, so while I got the information from some source, it can certainly be discounted for now. The site is labeled "black hamlet" on the map however. It is on the north side of the approximately mile and half long road that connects Jones Rd. with Long Ridge Rd., near the 155 foot elevation point noted on the topographic map. The 1956 photo on Historic Arials shows either a clearing or a small body of water near a sand road at that point. I'll try to check it out if I can in the next few days to see if there is evidence of anything in the area. Perhaps it is just a spun yarn that took on a life of its own but it's as good a reason as any to get out there!:)
 
I had a chance to dig out the map I referenced today. While I had Ridley Field mentioned in my notes on the site, I was mistaken in that it was not labeled as such on the map. Unfortunately I was not so diligent in noting sources in my own notes back then as I am now, so while I got the information from some source, it can certainly be discounted for now. The site is labeled "black hamlet" on the map however. It is on the north side of the approximately mile and half long road that connects Jones Rd. with Long Ridge Rd., near the 155 foot elevation point noted on the topographic map. The 1956 photo on Historic Arials shows either a clearing or a small body of water near a sand road at that point. I'll try to check it out if I can in the next few days to see if there is evidence of anything in the area. Perhaps it is just a spun yarn that took on a life of its own but it's as good a reason as any to get out there!:)

German:

Thanks for undertaking a hike out to this location. I will be most anxious to hear what you find there!

Best regards,
Jerseyman
 
Nope, I'm not familiar with Clarksboro and Sand Hill, I don't know of William Boen either. This is all in the Mount Holly area? I'm not surprised if it is, so much history in my town.
WOW, you were seriously involved in Timbuctoo! Sure sounds like you've been busy.Yeah, that's an interesting place. My grandfather and my great aunt made mention of the place a few times in some of their stories.

Cudgel:

I would be very interested in hearing about the stories that your grandfather and great aunt recounted to you about Timbuctoo!

Do you live on or near the Washington Street corridor? This is the traditional black neighborhood in Mount Holly. When African Americans first settled here in the very late eighteenth century, locals dubbed the area “Sand Hill” and even today you know you are climbing a grade when you leave the Washington Street-Madison Street intersection and head west towards Hainesport.

It is not surprising that this hillock had a composition of sand. Most antebellum black settlements in southern New Jersey had a similar geology. During the very late eighteenth and into the nineteenth century, as local African Americans received manumission and began to settle in communities as free people, whites usually provided them with the poorest ground that was good for very little else. At that time—and well into the twentieth century in some locations—blacks were marginalized economically, socially, and agriculturally.

During the first half of the nineteenth century, Sand Hill was considerably removed from the town of Mount Holly. With the very poor soil there, African Americans could barely raise subsistence crops to feed their families, let alone produce a surplus for market ventures. The relative isolation of Sand Hill placed the blacks living there at the fringes of white Mount Holly society. The poor quality of the land provided those who purchased lots and tracts from ever realizing a decent return on their purchase it when they sold it some years later.

As part of this fledgling black enclave, missionaries like Delilah Johnson and Robert Evans formed the first congregation of Mount Moriah African Methodist Episcopal Church and the congregants constructed their first edifice along the south side of present-day Marne Highway just to the west of the Mount Holly Bypass. The original cemetery is still there just to the south of the railroad crossing on the bypass. The community of Clarksborough arose around the top of Sand Hill beginning in the 1850s and included such street names as Rose, Chestnut, Arch, Willow, Flibert, and Carlton. Clarksborough had its own nineteenth-century school back on Filbert Street, which has since been razed and replaced with a modern house. A newer early-twentieth-century segregated school still stands on Chestnut and now serves as a church. Its architecture makes the schoolhouse quite a special building.

In 1862, the members of Mount Moriah replaced their church with a new building at the original location. They had no sooner completed the construction work when a cyclone destroyed the new sanctuary. After deciding to build a second new edifice in less than a year, the members relocated their church to present-day Washington Street in the growing community of Clarksborough and the 1863 building is still there today.

One of the big losses to the Clarksborough neighborhood was the demolition of Arabian Hall, which once stood two doors east of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church on Washington Street:

MtHolly-ArabianClub.jpg


All of the black lodges and fraternal organizations once met in this building and it is a real shame that someone in the community did not recognize its history before demolition occurred.

This is just a partial thumbnail sketch of the black community in Mount Holly. On another occasion, I will relate the story of the freed slave, William Boen.

Best regards,
Jerseyman
 
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Teegate

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Bob also mentioned to me about the "black hamlet" she had noted and we were going to make it a stop on a possible upcoming PBX hike.
 

cudgel

New Member
Mar 5, 2013
14
3
Mount Holly
I actually live over near the old San Domingo tract. I know that neighborhood your talking about, did not know of the names Clarksborough and Sand Hill in connection with that community, have always just known the neighborhood as "the hill". Have also been told it was called, by some folks back in the day, a few racial slurs attached to "hill", folks in general were a lot more racist back then. Seemed to be a lot of prejudice toward "Creek Angels" too back then, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who knows about the Creek Angels anymore, my older relatives avoided talking about them too much, so I don't know a lot about them either. Mount Holly's first black chief of police, Gene Stafford, was from that neighborhood, I've been told he knows a lot of the neighborhood's history, I think he may still live there. Yup, I know that cemetery your talking about. We did have an impressive sand hill on the southeast corner of the town known as the "sand pits" or the "dunes" I witnessed them at the tail end of their existence as a very young child. You certainly know a lot of the history of my town, the history which most folks don't know about.
 
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