All,
Slightly chilly this morning when we headed out to search for a few stones with a little history.
The Jones Mill Tract which consisted of about 10,000 acres ran from downtown Chatsworth at 563 and 532, down the Central Railroad across 72 to Rogers Road just before Woodmansie, then across portions of the Greenwood Forest to Union Clay Works, where it made a sharp turn and went all the way to Long Causeway before heading to Dukes Bridge and Jones Mill and on to downtown Chatsworth back at the beginning.
On February 7 1860 a reader of the Monmouth Democrat wrote in saying the property was owned by Thomas P. Barkalow a prominent hotel keeper and ran stage coach lines between Manahawken and Freehold as early as 1846. The writer also mentioned Barkalow had just sold the Jones Mill Tract to Beers and Chetwood. I have a huge map showing the survey of the outer perimeter of the Jones Mill Tract dated July 24, 1919 which tells us that "Beers Reality" still owned the property. Here is that map laying on my bed.
As I only had the outer perimeter map I did not know that the property had at least a few in-holdings inside of the perimeter, and today we went looking for the corners. My first clue was this line in an old deed.
Beginning at two old stones being the seventh course of the original survey, conveyed by Abraham Jones and wife to Annie Lippincott.
With a little research I was able to narrow the location down and we headed out to the Sykes Branch to find the two stones. We walked to the causeway and proceeded north in the direction my guesses took us.
At the causeway.
After walking a mile we arrived and started looking. It was a semi open area where I could fairly easily poke around and search. This proved to be imperative as when I located it the stone was completely underground. Yes, there was only one stone. Some time in the past one disappeared.
On the Jones Mill Tract
The view from that location.
While in the area we explored a really nice cedar swamp.
Returning to the car we traveled 5 miles to get to the other side of the swamp where we looked for this stone from the deed.
Along the line of lot 6, North 85 degrees West, 38 chains and 84 links to a stake, 5 links South of an old stone corner in the line of the Jones Mill Tract.
We were able to drive close to this location and with a short walk in the woods we arrived. To our surprise there were three stones there. At first I though two of them were one broken in half, but they were both solid in the ground and I believe there is a total of three.
Along the line of the Jones Mill Tract.
