Regarding "Battle Lane," I spoke to an elderly gentleman who was running Jenkin's bait shop down in Newport when I lived in Gandy's Beach and he mentioned an actual "battle" during the Revolutionary War down that way. I am highly skeptical but it is an interesting name for that area.
I had heard that but find no info on it. I heard it involved indians which is highly unlikely, the Lenape were peaceful and mostly gone by the revolution
Jenkin's was a very mysterious place. I was a steady patron through the mid to late 1990's.
My cousin is a bay crabber and deals with Jenkins all the time.I"ve never been in there but he thinks the world of them.Jenkin's was a very mysterious place. I was a steady patron through the mid to late 1990's.
Always dark and dank inside and it seemed everybody smoked. But they always had good bait and the skinny girl with the long brown hair and a Marlboro dangling from her lips was also mysterious and always friendly.
Bob, I've been by that location on Casino a hundred times to visit dear friends a mile up the road and had no idea that the hill was there, relict plateau composed of Beacon Hill Gravel facies of the Cohansey Formation. Many thanks!
@Spung-Man,
Mark, but what of the depressions? I know we are approaching the source for brick material and/or marl belt up there. Could the top have been dug in several places in the 19th century?
Interesting Al. I had a similar thought about sand ending up infiltrating the old sticks of a beaver dam, but I could not think how it would be done. Your thought makes sense. By the way, I justed noted the road crossing the creek is "Battle Lane". Also, did you notice that slope follows the margin of a cedar swamp. That's some sort of clue.Ok I must report a defeat on my part. I tried to reach one of the dams today after working the hoot owl shift last night.The dam located here https://boydsmaps.com/#17.00/39.347326/-75.075200/lidar2022hd/0.00/0.00
I tried the approach from the south and walked the old road heading west from 555 till I was exactly south of the dam and the gps said something like 1800 ft to my waypoint.These woods eight or so years ago were gorgeous predominantly open oak woods with a scattering of large pine and patches of laurel.Then along came the state and destroyed the trees to save the fores in the name of the pine bark beetle.Something tells me there was a buck in it for someone.This section of woods they turned into chips and hauled em off but other sections of woods they dropped the trees and left them on the ground bark and all which is in no way going to stop the spread of the beetles. In any case in the eight years or so since the devastation event the pine trees have grown about fifteen ft tall and the space in between is packed with six feet high smilax. I could have cut my way through it with a pair of pruning shears but it would have been an all day job.Either the woods have gotten rougher or I have gotten softer in my old age but after leaving the road I may have made it a hundered feet or so north and then I said some pretty bad words and did an about face and headed back toward the road. I made it to about here https://boydsmaps.com/#17.00/39.344738/-75.075447/lidar2022hd/0.00/0.00 I decided I must go in from the north which means walking by that obnoxious dirt track and I know there is another beetle devastation area over there as well which i have not been in but will assume it's the same cellulose hell as the south side so I came home to plot away around it with appropriate waypoints and being as I"m hoot owl hungover I am wisely planning my next attack tomorrow. There does appear on aerials to be a bit of a channel just west of this feature so I may get to see some of the mostly hidden Buckshutem Creek. I will report on my findings tomorrow.I will be in better shape and have a few inches of snow to track my way back out by. I"m thinking this may be an old beaver dam that got a bunch of sand dumped on it in one of the big floods of the past.I have personally seen this swamp fill and pour over 555 in water three feet deep so maybe a monster flood dumped sand on an old dam which has long since rotted away and the sand remains? beaver dams are the only features I have seen like this that look like it was created by a drunken lumberjack.Then again could this be an old civil war breastwrok created during the Battle of Gettysburg in the event that if Lee won He was headed to destroy the old grist mill on Gravelly run located here? https://boydsmaps.com/#17.00/39.337770/-75.051574/lidar2022hd/0.00/0.00 Perhaps I"ll even find cannon redoubts?
I"ll report tomorrow.
The road crossing gravelly run yes is Battle Lane.The road crossing Buckshutem Creek is route 555 (Dividing Creek or Narrow Lane rd.)
No Bob thats not what I meant.I saw no beaver dam. I think there may have been a beaver dam in the remote past like maybe 100 years or more ago and that one of the floods that hit this drainage occasionally (I have seen a few good ones) piled up sand along an existing beaver dam at the time.Of course the dam rotted away but the sand would remain.Then the swamp since then has accumulated mud and covered the sand berm.My question is could the LIDAR be seeing through the soupy mud and exposing a sand berm laid down on a beaver dam in the past that is now covered in Buckscrotem mud?The open grassy bog like conditions at this spot could be the remains of a historical beaver pond at this location.Most of the swamp is dense cedar with bottomless mud between the humps. This would be one of the wickeder swamps of South Jersey especially as you approach the occasioanlly observable stream but in most places it oozes under the roots and mud.Good report Al. Buckscrotum dam.
But hey, you mentioned a ditch across from where you were standing in the first video. If a ditch was dug, maybe that lidar is just showing the dirt thrown up out of the ditch. ??
Also, you said..."I think perhaps there was a flood in the past that dumped sand along a beaver dam that is still there.The flood may have wiped out the beavers or with a new dam they just repaired the spillway but eventually they left."
So, there is a beaver dam there at the squiggly lidar line? That's how I read that.
