This is very interesting news, Jerseyman. Smiths is the old Bushy Place (
aka Vanamans), where the original Methodist meeting was held prior to Friendship Church's construction. Maybe Methodists were less sober than I thought, with watering holes flanking either side! When did temperance really take hold in Methodism?
Would Watson have charged a subscription for name placement on his maps? Locally he misses taverns I know that are in extant – Pennypot, Doughtys, Blue Bell, Coneys, and Downs (Adams) for instance.
I guess it is hard to know just where a charcoal station (
a.k.a. store, livery, gas station) ends and a tavern begins. A Vanaman at Thick n' Hole by the Oasis spung (New Italy) is on the same Blue Anchor or Mattox road as Smiths (
a.k.a. Vanamans). Another Vanaman had a store in Pancoast Mill (Champions on Watson map). There is a similar charcoal station dynamic with the Smith and Campbell families.
Maybe the story goes something like this. Smiths (=Vanamans) and Berrys (=Scotts) are gas stations where you could also buy a pint of poison, as is John Campbells cabin (another station on an eighteenth century Woodbury Road alignment, note on Watson how roads converge here). While the nineteenth century Berrys camp center has moved to be on the Weymouth tract line, the eighteenth century Scotts Place as shown old deeds was west of the curve. Each early station is on a spung at the head of a branch, which were used as watering holes.
S-M
