Early Location Reference

[bobpbx]

A question for anyone having knowledge on this subject. I have a slip of paper with a reference to a location related to botany. The paper reads:

12th St. Sta,. Folsom, Atlantic Co., on Hospitality Branch. July, 1909

I know where the Hospitality branch is in Folsom. But do you think the author is referring to a Railroad Station? If so, do you know where it was? Also, is 12th street the same as route 54 these days?

 

[Spung-Man]

Bob,

12th Street is basically the same as Route 54, the original road laid out for the colony of New Germany or Germantown in 1854 with the advent of the Camden & Atlantic (today Folsom & Newtonville), although Chalmers in Down the Long-A-Coming indicates the bridges crossing the Penny Pot Branches were not built until much later. In 1938, the WPA built an entirely new roadway alongside the original 12th Street, hence the wide grass margin on the east side and funky abandoned bridge abutments at watercourse crossings. It was envisioned that the road was to become a divided highway at some point.

I believe there might have been a whistle stop platform at that location that is known as the duck farm, a wild place of sugar sand dunes and beach plums. An old school chum of mine lived nearby, the Great Boboo. I imagine the location would have been a convenient place to ship out cranberries.

For a similar example, the same Cape May Branch had a passenger station in Richland on Harding Highway, with a nearby whistle-stop platform a half-mile to the south where Old Landis crosses. That platform was used for the convenience of ephemeral rounds (agriculture, forestry, moonshine). Water was pumped from the South River into a wooden tank for locomotive use there too. Jerseyman, thoughts?

 

[bobpbx]

Thank you for that input Mark. My guess is the author meant here, shown below, at the "X", where 54 crosses the railroad. Is that about where you mean as well?

 

[Teegate]

When down there Bob you might want to check out Harris Hotts Barbecue.

 

[Spung-Man]

Anecdotal accounts have the Hospitality Branch railroad bridge as dual use for both early road and railroad traffic crossing. The nearby excavation pond, made for the bridge abutment, was used as a swimming hole—sometime called the Newtonville Blue Hole where a legendary drowning occurred.

Bennett E. 1999. “On joy, sorrow and the blue holes of area Pinelands.” The Press of Atlantic City. October 31, XCIX, 304: A1, A15.​

The man-made blue hole is a namesake of a natural feature that once existed a bit upstream on Three Pond Branch. The Great Ponds or "Locks" have long since dried up. The ancient Woodbury Road, a modified precontact trail crossed nearby at a natural dune dam.

S-M

 

[bobpbx]

I saw that hole on the aerial. Seems a very ignorant move, to dig that hole right next to a stream.

 

[manumuskin]

Bob,

12th Street is basically the same as Route 54, the original road laid out for the colony of New Germany or Germantown in 1854 with the advent of the Camden & Atlantic (today Folsom & Newtonville), although Chalmers in Down the Long-A-Coming indicates the bridges crossing the Penny Pot Branches were not built until much later. In 1938, the WPA built an entirely new roadway alongside the original 12th Street, hence the wide grass margin on the east side and funky abandoned bridge abutments at watercourse crossings. It was envisioned that the road was to become a divided highway at some point.

I believe there might have been a whistle stop platform at that location that is known as the duck farm, a wild place of sugar sand dunes and beach plums. An old school chum of mine lived nearby, the Great Boboo. I imagine the location would have been a convenient place to ship out cranberries.

For a similar example, the same Cape May Branch had a passenger station in Richland on Harding Highway, with a nearby whistle-stop platform a half-mile to the south where Old Landis crosses. That platform was used for the convenience of ephemeral rounds (agriculture, forestry, moonshine). Water was pumped from the South River into a wooden tank for locomotive use there too. Jerseyman, thoughts?

I just rode down 12th street yesterday I always wondered why that wide grassy strip was there along the east side.Wonder why they mow it and don't let it grow up?

 

[johnnyb]

I hope I'm wrong, but it could be they ran out of places to mow. Seems like the verge mowing habit has gotten way out of control. We lost a bunch of rare orchids at Ongs Hat Rd last year to that misplaced fervor.

 

[Heywood]

A question for anyone having knowledge on this subject. I have a slip of paper with a reference to a location related to botany. The paper reads:

12th St. Sta,. Folsom, Atlantic Co., on Hospitality Branch. July, 1909

I know where the Hospitality branch is in Folsom. But do you think the author is referring to a Railroad Station? If so, do you know where it was? Also, is 12th street the same as route 54 these days?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7xn4vnnpr480yff/Iron Furnace dates.pdf?dl=0
About locations so it was easy to just post as a reply to you

For those of us who like history on our own terms we often run across dated events, like the first of
some common item. Not to disparage sources, because we seldom have access to records ourselves,
but if we run across an early record accidentally in our exposure to pine barrens history, we can make

note of it here. I have some artifacts (acquired legally), like two ten plate colonial stoves, and some
other items that always bring up the question of date of manufacture, and the location where they were
made. One of my stoves is marked Ernst and Stees, but no furnace. Because it was purchased from a

junk shop in New Jersey, I suspect (hope) it was a product of a Jersey furnace. The other is a small ten
plate job that is beautifully done, but is labeled Hock Furnace and I think it was from Germany. I have
never heard of a Hock furnace. I may run across an expert on stoves here? Well maybe not, but

comments by anyone are welcomed. I have seen dates of furnace stoves in the middle 1700s, but
maybe the dates given for establishment of furnaces doesn’t tell the whole story? I see in “The Present
State Of The Colony of West-Jersey”, an actual statement of existing conditions dated 1681,* the

following: “For Minerals within the Earth, they have not had Time to search; only there are Iron
mines, - and a Furnace and Forging Mill already set up in East-Jersey where they Make Iron”. Since
it was in East-Jersey it could have been running before Wharton was a gleam in his daddy’s eye? But

where else in East- Jersey would it have been.

* That from Early narratives of American History, Scribners copyright 1912, Charles Scribner’s Sons

 

[bobpbx]

That's interesting Heywood. I could not have imagined a furnace earlier than 1700.

 

[val]

My great-grandfather was one of three Italian immigrant railroad workers who were buried alive in a construction accident in this area in March 1906. Newspaper accounts and state records say that the incident occurred at a "gravel pit" near Folsom, and that a train had to be called from Richland with additional men to retrieve the bodies. My guess is that this may have happened behind what is now the Oldcastle pipe plant on Rt. 54. The aerial shows this to be a very sandy/gravelly plot, with the railroad tracks bordering the back of the property.

 

[Wildland937]

A question for anyone having knowledge on this subject. I have a slip of paper with a reference to a location related to botany. The paper reads:

12th St. Sta,. Folsom, Atlantic Co., on Hospitality Branch. July, 1909

I know where the Hospitality branch is in Folsom. But do you think the author is referring to a Railroad Station? If so, do you know where it was? Also, is 12th street the same as route 54 these days?

Possibly the gauging station but that is on the Great Egg Harbor right down from the Hospitality branch. I believe the train station was in the area of May's landing road.