All,
I am starting work on the Beaver Dam Cranberry Company bogs along Route 70, and while getting that started I decided to first look for a series of stones that cornered a tract of land along the Pole Branch that J.J. White acquired from Abram Brown on January 29 1917. It is apparent that in order for the Beaver Dam bogs to drain they needed to build a series of canals a very long distance all the way south to the Pole Branch. These canal are some of the longest I have viewed in the pines, but seeing them on modern aerials is almost impossible. These canals go through the J.J. White property and one of the canals is shown in the below map. I am uncertain if J.J. White gave them permission to build the canal through his property, or if the canals were built before he even acquired the land. The bogs are there in the 1931 aerials.
With that said, the only information I had on these stones is shown in the below map. So using HistoricAerials I was able to determine where I believe the NW corner stone(s) are located. I picked a point on a maps and from there proceeded to calculate where I felt the others were. This maps shows the 4 corners, the canal which goes by the stone(s), and had a few hand written notes on it. I was first looking for the green arrow stone(s).
Click to make larger.
So I headed there this morning and after entering the woods I found the old canal. Again, this is one of many canals leading from the bog and I am very close to 1 mile away from the bogs. And this is one of the shorter canals.
After visiting and exploring the canal, I started to look for the stones. I went to the GPS cord I picked here in my computer and started to roam around. In no time at all I came up with one of them, and after poking around I found two. Sorry for the slightly blurry photo but I have not purchased another camera as of yet.
Next, I headed for the NE corner where the penciled text described the stone and gave an old time description where the stone was. (High stone 30 paces south of road from small blazed tree)
You don't know how disappointed I was not to find this one. I had based the next two stone off of this one so my chances of finding them were much less. However, I headed south and spent the next half hour crossing the cedar swamp and the Pole Branch which can be viewed in this photo.
Pole Branch.
And as expected the long walk was for nothing. I could not find the southern stones. So I headed back again through the cedar swamp and across the Pole Branch back to the first stones. Standing there I decided I had to make a second attempt on that High stone and headed there again. This time I actually counted my paces and moved slightly further away. And the result was ...... I had been 75 feet off the first time.
With that find I will be much more accurate when I return to find the two southern stones. I then moved on looking for one of the Beaver Dam Bog corner stone just a few hundred feet off of Route 70. Some of my earlier finds allowed me to accurately know where this one was. It is about 40 feet from the Jones Division line for the Hanover Furnace tract.
Guy
I am starting work on the Beaver Dam Cranberry Company bogs along Route 70, and while getting that started I decided to first look for a series of stones that cornered a tract of land along the Pole Branch that J.J. White acquired from Abram Brown on January 29 1917. It is apparent that in order for the Beaver Dam bogs to drain they needed to build a series of canals a very long distance all the way south to the Pole Branch. These canal are some of the longest I have viewed in the pines, but seeing them on modern aerials is almost impossible. These canals go through the J.J. White property and one of the canals is shown in the below map. I am uncertain if J.J. White gave them permission to build the canal through his property, or if the canals were built before he even acquired the land. The bogs are there in the 1931 aerials.
With that said, the only information I had on these stones is shown in the below map. So using HistoricAerials I was able to determine where I believe the NW corner stone(s) are located. I picked a point on a maps and from there proceeded to calculate where I felt the others were. This maps shows the 4 corners, the canal which goes by the stone(s), and had a few hand written notes on it. I was first looking for the green arrow stone(s).
Click to make larger.
So I headed there this morning and after entering the woods I found the old canal. Again, this is one of many canals leading from the bog and I am very close to 1 mile away from the bogs. And this is one of the shorter canals.
After visiting and exploring the canal, I started to look for the stones. I went to the GPS cord I picked here in my computer and started to roam around. In no time at all I came up with one of them, and after poking around I found two. Sorry for the slightly blurry photo but I have not purchased another camera as of yet.
Next, I headed for the NE corner where the penciled text described the stone and gave an old time description where the stone was. (High stone 30 paces south of road from small blazed tree)
You don't know how disappointed I was not to find this one. I had based the next two stone off of this one so my chances of finding them were much less. However, I headed south and spent the next half hour crossing the cedar swamp and the Pole Branch which can be viewed in this photo.
Pole Branch.
And as expected the long walk was for nothing. I could not find the southern stones. So I headed back again through the cedar swamp and across the Pole Branch back to the first stones. Standing there I decided I had to make a second attempt on that High stone and headed there again. This time I actually counted my paces and moved slightly further away. And the result was ...... I had been 75 feet off the first time.
With that find I will be much more accurate when I return to find the two southern stones. I then moved on looking for one of the Beaver Dam Bog corner stone just a few hundred feet off of Route 70. Some of my earlier finds allowed me to accurately know where this one was. It is about 40 feet from the Jones Division line for the Hanover Furnace tract.
Guy
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