All,
Hopefully, some of you will find this interesting.
Yesterday, I was planning our next PBX hike and pouring over aerial maps online, and I noticed an interesting location on the 1931 aerial. Just outside of Chatsworth not far from the Cemetery on what is now Parker Preserve property, there was a large open clearing that appeared to me to be a perfect location for a sawmill. There were roads leading to it in various directions, with one of the roads heading into the swamps of the Wading River nearby. It appeared to me there had been some cutting of wood which further enhanced my theory that it was a sawmill. The below map shows the location of the area in question circled in red, and you can see the road leading to the Wading River and the disturbance there circled in yellow. Also, notice the dark area right in the middle of the red area that I believed may have been a sawmill.
I had been corresponding with bobpbx about my plans for the hike, and told him about my find, and he did not really seem to think I was correct. A short time later I received this email from Bob.
Guy, do you have Jersey Genesis in paperback? Look at page 189.
I have the hardback but it is obvious now that the pages are the same. Here is what Henry Beck writes on page 189 in Jersey Genesis and Bob so unbelievably came up with.
What launched my rather spotty investigation of this moss business was something that happened long before I met Sammy Ford. I had come upon the most interesting group of "mossies" I had had the good fortune to meet, most of a family, at work down the Jones Mill Road. I had been looking for gatherers of sphagnum , and Jack Buzby, at the Chatsworth store, called me up one day and suggested that I go along with him by the site of the old Jones mill. It proved a sunny afternoon, and before it was over I had seen the whole procedure, producer to consumer.
Not far down the road was a clearing. In it were neat little piles of drying moss. In the midst was a typical bailer, homemade from odds and ends but entirely serviceable in the job it accomplished. It may be that you have seen this peculiar machine and have wondered what on earth it was. A tall, boxlike affair, made with parts of crates, perhaps with a crank fashioned from an old and rusted pipe that sometime utilizes a chain to pull the moss tight, puzzled you as much as bewildered me. Let it puzzle you no more. It was Elmer Lemmon, a short and twisted man with a surprisingly young face, who overcame his infirmities to demonstrate how well the baler worked. He had just turned the moss in the field, he said. Baling it with wire was scheduled for dusk, in the shed, that evening. Further on, in another clearing bounded by chicken wire which had been taken there for the purpose of keeping the moss from blowing away in a sudden wind, Elvin Leek was still spreading sphagnum on the hot white sand of the pine country, using a pitchfork. Elmer Lemmon had said that the clearing was across from Selah Bowker's; and Jack Buzby told me that until I saw Selah, I could not say that I had talked to a true "mossy." And so we came next upon Selah Bowker, his wife, and a coterie or relatives and friends.
Selah was tall and angular and given to monosyllables, even in the answering of questions. Like him, Mrs. Bowker wore rubber boots, into which were stuffed the legs of blue denim pants. Similarly attired was was Wayne Lockwood, their son-in-law. All three came marching from the pungent lowlands with the last heaping loads of dripping moss that Selah's truck would hold. I marveled that a truck had penetrated so deeply into the swamps drained by the branches of the Wading River. "Mossin'," Selah told me in one of his few full speeches, "just has to be in the family, or it just don't pay at all."
So today Jessica and paid a visit to this location, and roamed around for a short length of time. One still is able to see that something had transpired at this location, and there was no evidence of a sawmill. I have to say that I was wrong and more than likely Bob was correct.
There were many old bottles there, along with other evidence of disturbance. Jessica found a large old Mason jar in perfect shape. Some of the other finds are shown below.
The area.
A dog bowl?
Salt or Pepper???
Guy
Hopefully, some of you will find this interesting.
Yesterday, I was planning our next PBX hike and pouring over aerial maps online, and I noticed an interesting location on the 1931 aerial. Just outside of Chatsworth not far from the Cemetery on what is now Parker Preserve property, there was a large open clearing that appeared to me to be a perfect location for a sawmill. There were roads leading to it in various directions, with one of the roads heading into the swamps of the Wading River nearby. It appeared to me there had been some cutting of wood which further enhanced my theory that it was a sawmill. The below map shows the location of the area in question circled in red, and you can see the road leading to the Wading River and the disturbance there circled in yellow. Also, notice the dark area right in the middle of the red area that I believed may have been a sawmill.
I had been corresponding with bobpbx about my plans for the hike, and told him about my find, and he did not really seem to think I was correct. A short time later I received this email from Bob.
Guy, do you have Jersey Genesis in paperback? Look at page 189.
I have the hardback but it is obvious now that the pages are the same. Here is what Henry Beck writes on page 189 in Jersey Genesis and Bob so unbelievably came up with.
What launched my rather spotty investigation of this moss business was something that happened long before I met Sammy Ford. I had come upon the most interesting group of "mossies" I had had the good fortune to meet, most of a family, at work down the Jones Mill Road. I had been looking for gatherers of sphagnum , and Jack Buzby, at the Chatsworth store, called me up one day and suggested that I go along with him by the site of the old Jones mill. It proved a sunny afternoon, and before it was over I had seen the whole procedure, producer to consumer.
Not far down the road was a clearing. In it were neat little piles of drying moss. In the midst was a typical bailer, homemade from odds and ends but entirely serviceable in the job it accomplished. It may be that you have seen this peculiar machine and have wondered what on earth it was. A tall, boxlike affair, made with parts of crates, perhaps with a crank fashioned from an old and rusted pipe that sometime utilizes a chain to pull the moss tight, puzzled you as much as bewildered me. Let it puzzle you no more. It was Elmer Lemmon, a short and twisted man with a surprisingly young face, who overcame his infirmities to demonstrate how well the baler worked. He had just turned the moss in the field, he said. Baling it with wire was scheduled for dusk, in the shed, that evening. Further on, in another clearing bounded by chicken wire which had been taken there for the purpose of keeping the moss from blowing away in a sudden wind, Elvin Leek was still spreading sphagnum on the hot white sand of the pine country, using a pitchfork. Elmer Lemmon had said that the clearing was across from Selah Bowker's; and Jack Buzby told me that until I saw Selah, I could not say that I had talked to a true "mossy." And so we came next upon Selah Bowker, his wife, and a coterie or relatives and friends.
Selah was tall and angular and given to monosyllables, even in the answering of questions. Like him, Mrs. Bowker wore rubber boots, into which were stuffed the legs of blue denim pants. Similarly attired was was Wayne Lockwood, their son-in-law. All three came marching from the pungent lowlands with the last heaping loads of dripping moss that Selah's truck would hold. I marveled that a truck had penetrated so deeply into the swamps drained by the branches of the Wading River. "Mossin'," Selah told me in one of his few full speeches, "just has to be in the family, or it just don't pay at all."
So today Jessica and paid a visit to this location, and roamed around for a short length of time. One still is able to see that something had transpired at this location, and there was no evidence of a sawmill. I have to say that I was wrong and more than likely Bob was correct.
There were many old bottles there, along with other evidence of disturbance. Jessica found a large old Mason jar in perfect shape. Some of the other finds are shown below.
The area.
A dog bowl?
Salt or Pepper???
Guy
.
