I am very familar with the Allaire area, but not sure where you were. Was this on the south side of the Manasquan River? If not, where was it in reference to the village and river? It's very likely the dumping spot from an old farm in the area, of which this spot, may be the former boundary of such a farm. Although, oyster shells were often used in the furnaces, they were also eaten...a lot, so it may be just refuse shells.
Help ID an old strutcture
- Thread starter KCB
- Start date
That looks like a very neat location. Thanks for the pics, KCB. I have no clue what to make of it as of now, but I am eager to go check it out myself.
If its a dumping area it wasn't used much. the majority of what's there is shells only a few bottles and some dishes but it's relatively very little, It did not strike me as an area used for dumping garbage. How would that explain the concrete structures? This is south of the river off one of the unmarked bike trails.
There were cranberry bogs at the top of the hill south of the river and west of the village. The dry bogs are still visible and bike trails pass right through them. Maybe you were near this? There is also the remains of an old cranberry packaging facility that consists of a large concrete foundation and there are really old wagon wheels, parts of an old sleigh and many very old mill parts out that way. There also were 4-5 farms along the south side of the Manasquan River (evenly spaced west to east) behind Allaire at one time and a lot of the areas along there were accessible by vehicle back then. If there are foundations, it possibly could be part of an old farm. The concrete I see in the photos shows that the activity would likely be sometime after 1920 approximately. There are also MANY one-time dumping spots that seem inaccessible, but were at one time accessible by vehicle before the roads grew over. I see them all the time out there.
Maybe this is part of the old bogs. I can't really give anything other than trail markers as I have no other reference point.
Oh OK, are you going to the west along the river? If so, did you come out to a big grass field where they fly the model airplanes? If so, there is an old farhouse area there, but teh photos you showed were not what I normally see there.
Edit: I think I know where you mean. You're talking about the parking lot right in front of the airplane park. I have gone up the trail on the left side of the parking lot. I believe that service road is one of the driveways that led up to the farmhouse behind that field. I may still be wrong though since you mentioned a sandy clearing. That sandy area may be what we used to call "the desert".
Edit: I think I know where you mean. You're talking about the parking lot right in front of the airplane park. I have gone up the trail on the left side of the parking lot. I believe that service road is one of the driveways that led up to the farmhouse behind that field. I may still be wrong though since you mentioned a sandy clearing. That sandy area may be what we used to call "the desert".
Sounds good to me. I would post an image from google earth but I can't figure out how to save the image to my machine in oreder to upload it to this site.
The easiest way to post an image from Google Earth is to use a Ctrl + Print Screen command to capture the image, then paste it into photo editor or a similar graphics program. You can then save the image, and crop away what you do not want. There are other ways as well, but like I said, this is the easiest.
I'll try that when I get home from work. There is a "save image" option on one of the drop down menus but it did not work for me. Thanks for the help.
I'm looking at that area and I'm going to guess that this area may have been mined for sand/gravel. You can see that the area that is still sand to the road is stiull recovering from being disturbed. The structures you found may have something to do with an old mining operation. I always wondered about that area that we called "the desert". Thanks for letting us know about it. I will go check it out soon.
I visted the site in question today. Jokerman is right: This place was farmed (I found the remains of some old plows) and it looks like it was only abandoned a few decades ago. Does anyone know when the state purchased this tract of land?
I went back and found several more fence posts and some railroad ties. It does look like it may have been some sort of farm as there is more open area than I realized. I am not sure what the railroad ties were for. Where did you find the farm equipment Paddler? I missed that. I also noticed that the area must have been used for some other purpose in the not too distant past as there was an old garbage can (metal) with some plastic containers in it at the SE boundry of the site. What did you think of the area where all the shells were and the patch of reeds.
KCB, the whole area is generally surrounded by higher ground, so it would have been frequently wet. Did you notice the slight descending ditch which borders the reedy area?
The fences, I presume, would have have served to keep wildlife away from the crops (whatever crops were grown there). As for the shells, I have no opinion as to their purpose except that they were probably discarded after being eaten. My guess is that the trash was not dumped there but came from the house that probably once stood on the high ground next to the junipers. As for the railroad ties, they appear to have been used as the base for some sort of shed. The house itself, I am guessing, was made of brick. The bricks would have since been salvaged, for only one remains at the site.
But this is merely my opinion. I am no expert when it comes to intepreting stuff like this,
The fences, I presume, would have have served to keep wildlife away from the crops (whatever crops were grown there). As for the shells, I have no opinion as to their purpose except that they were probably discarded after being eaten. My guess is that the trash was not dumped there but came from the house that probably once stood on the high ground next to the junipers. As for the railroad ties, they appear to have been used as the base for some sort of shed. The house itself, I am guessing, was made of brick. The bricks would have since been salvaged, for only one remains at the site.
But this is merely my opinion. I am no expert when it comes to intepreting stuff like this,