All,
Jessica and I spent Saturday morning returning to Howardsville to explore again after quite a few years. We were looking for a sawmill in the woods east of Howardsville that I felt I could see on HistoricAerials.com. I was incorrect, but the area was something at one time. Apparently others feel the same way because there was obvious metal detecting going on there.
We had walked there from Howardsville and here is the road there and back.
On that road in 1887 the surveyor Walter E.Borden resurveyed Howardsville and placed a large stone right along the road with his complete name and the date on it. I looked for that stone years ago and could not find it. It turns out there is a photo of it taken by our very own Lost Town Hunter back in the mid to late 70s. Unfortunately, on a return visit by him it was gone. That is one reason I am so vague in my posts.
The location today .... 125 years later.
So while passing by I checked on one stone I found in the past. Still there
Jessica and I cut through the woods and came into the main field from the far end. The view from there yesterday morning.
While there I received a call that the information someone wanted to give me was available for pickup. So I traveled to the home of a friend and was greeted with a 3 inch thick envelope with documents on the Lawrence Line. Some of the information I already knew, and obviously some I did not. Included with the information was various other documents pertaining to the Keith Line and even one on the Glover Fulling Mill Site in Haddon Heights NJ. Quite an interesting read on Fulling Mills in NJ. I live near Haddon Heights and have never visited the place and Jessica told me it is high time we do.
Anyway, some of you may remember me finding the 1854 Commissioner stones along the Burlington County line that were placed there by the Commissioners of East and West Jersey to mark the Keith Line and other portions of Burlington County Line. Here is one if you did not see it. You can just see the top of the letter B or O. I can't remember which one it was.
So after acquiring the information mentioned above, I was reading it over closely and realized there actually are at least two more of them. I knew there were others that were no longer in existence, and was even thrown off of Ft Dix property looking for one of them, but this information was new to me. So after looking all the information over I determined I knew where it was, and this afternoon I made a return trip to the barrens to look for it. The story is that in 1854 the Commissioners placed this one particular stone along a small dirt road in the pines that unknown to them would one day be a major highway. Since they had a nasty habit of placing them so close to roads it is obvious this would be a problem. So about 1930 when this road was improved the 1854 stone was dead centered in the new road. In order to preserve the integrity of the Keith Line this stone was moved 33 feet from the middle of the road and reset underground. On the other side of the road was placed a concrete monument 118.59 feet away.
So, 158 years after it was first placed along a small dirt road, and about 85 years after it was moved, I headed out today to find it. I was successful.
Unfortunately, it is along a main road and I did not have a shovel to see the letters. I am not one to do this sort of thing unless I am in the woods, so this may have to be all I see of the stone. Maybe one day at the break of dawn I will venture there again and see what the results are, but i seriously doubt I will do that. Sometimes it is just best to leave things alone and to the imagination. If I dug it up and the letters were not there I would be disappointed. And if the cops caught me I would be in jail.
Back to the Lawrence Line. In the paperwork I received was a survey map which I already had. However, this one actually was different. The same map but different ........ odd. My survey map was saying the Greenwood Forest area near Howardsville was surveyed in 1959, but this one said 1957. It even had small tracts of land mentioned that were owned by other individuals inside the Greenwood Forest. Mine did not. In any event, what really was interesting is this map was used by someone more recently to find the Lawrence Line monuments. I am quite certain it was John Taylor the surveyor or his crew. At this location they could not find a monument.
I have no idea if they found it or not so I went looking for it today.
And then back to Howardsville to again visit the largest stone to see if it is still there.
And finally, the view this late afternoon looking back on the area I took the photo from yesterday morning. The beginning and the end of the town called Howardsville.
Guy
Jessica and I spent Saturday morning returning to Howardsville to explore again after quite a few years. We were looking for a sawmill in the woods east of Howardsville that I felt I could see on HistoricAerials.com. I was incorrect, but the area was something at one time. Apparently others feel the same way because there was obvious metal detecting going on there.
We had walked there from Howardsville and here is the road there and back.
On that road in 1887 the surveyor Walter E.Borden resurveyed Howardsville and placed a large stone right along the road with his complete name and the date on it. I looked for that stone years ago and could not find it. It turns out there is a photo of it taken by our very own Lost Town Hunter back in the mid to late 70s. Unfortunately, on a return visit by him it was gone. That is one reason I am so vague in my posts.
The location today .... 125 years later.
So while passing by I checked on one stone I found in the past. Still there
Jessica and I cut through the woods and came into the main field from the far end. The view from there yesterday morning.
While there I received a call that the information someone wanted to give me was available for pickup. So I traveled to the home of a friend and was greeted with a 3 inch thick envelope with documents on the Lawrence Line. Some of the information I already knew, and obviously some I did not. Included with the information was various other documents pertaining to the Keith Line and even one on the Glover Fulling Mill Site in Haddon Heights NJ. Quite an interesting read on Fulling Mills in NJ. I live near Haddon Heights and have never visited the place and Jessica told me it is high time we do.
Anyway, some of you may remember me finding the 1854 Commissioner stones along the Burlington County line that were placed there by the Commissioners of East and West Jersey to mark the Keith Line and other portions of Burlington County Line. Here is one if you did not see it. You can just see the top of the letter B or O. I can't remember which one it was.
So after acquiring the information mentioned above, I was reading it over closely and realized there actually are at least two more of them. I knew there were others that were no longer in existence, and was even thrown off of Ft Dix property looking for one of them, but this information was new to me. So after looking all the information over I determined I knew where it was, and this afternoon I made a return trip to the barrens to look for it. The story is that in 1854 the Commissioners placed this one particular stone along a small dirt road in the pines that unknown to them would one day be a major highway. Since they had a nasty habit of placing them so close to roads it is obvious this would be a problem. So about 1930 when this road was improved the 1854 stone was dead centered in the new road. In order to preserve the integrity of the Keith Line this stone was moved 33 feet from the middle of the road and reset underground. On the other side of the road was placed a concrete monument 118.59 feet away.
So, 158 years after it was first placed along a small dirt road, and about 85 years after it was moved, I headed out today to find it. I was successful.
Unfortunately, it is along a main road and I did not have a shovel to see the letters. I am not one to do this sort of thing unless I am in the woods, so this may have to be all I see of the stone. Maybe one day at the break of dawn I will venture there again and see what the results are, but i seriously doubt I will do that. Sometimes it is just best to leave things alone and to the imagination. If I dug it up and the letters were not there I would be disappointed. And if the cops caught me I would be in jail.
Back to the Lawrence Line. In the paperwork I received was a survey map which I already had. However, this one actually was different. The same map but different ........ odd. My survey map was saying the Greenwood Forest area near Howardsville was surveyed in 1959, but this one said 1957. It even had small tracts of land mentioned that were owned by other individuals inside the Greenwood Forest. Mine did not. In any event, what really was interesting is this map was used by someone more recently to find the Lawrence Line monuments. I am quite certain it was John Taylor the surveyor or his crew. At this location they could not find a monument.
I have no idea if they found it or not so I went looking for it today.
And then back to Howardsville to again visit the largest stone to see if it is still there.
And finally, the view this late afternoon looking back on the area I took the photo from yesterday morning. The beginning and the end of the town called Howardsville.
Guy
