All,
It has been almost a year and it is about time for the two of us to resume our search for the elusive stones and monuments in Lebanon State Forest. I have found while stone searching it always is good practice to take a break from something and take a fresh look at things at a later date. And as expected I am seeing things that I did not see before. Here are this weekends finds.
On Saturday we spent the morning on Pea Patch Road and Turkey Buzzard Bridge Road trying to find at least one stone or monument so I could align myself to the properties. In view of 4 Mile Road we found the corner stone to a lot owned by Helen J. Holm and one owned by Joseph & James Carpenter. They were Acquisition # 32 and # 43 respectively. She sold on 12/13/1928 and the men sold on 7/6/1927 just a short while after my dad was born.
On the far side of both properties there was another stone which I had looked for in the past. But with a fresh perspective and a last minute decision to walk the road to the location and not the woods, I found it nicely embedded in the very edge of the road where it has been for maybe 100 years.
And finally for our last stop of the day we looked again for a property corner that we failed to find a year ago. This time we did not find a monument or stone, but we did find an old wooden post that I am confident held the state sign. Notice how the area where the wooden sign was nailed was burned the most. Look closely and you can see the nails.
Today
We began todays search across the road from the Ongs Hat Diner in the vicinity of the beginning of the Batona Trail. Back in 1929 the property we were searching was owned by a man named John Ziembicki. Even though it appears to be three lots it was all considered one lot back then and was designated Block 921 Lot 1. On March 25, 1929 the state of NJ purchased his 19.39 acres and it officially became Acquisition # 21 of Lebanon.
Jessica is seriously not someone who enjoys walking near homes or roads so as we were walking down Magnolia Road she was emphatic that we had to leave the road and walk in the woods. So we cut in early and followed a small old canal that seemed to run the property line. Unfortunately, it ended and a quick look of the area did not turn up anything of importance. But I was certain we needed to go a little further and after a short while I saw an odd looking pipe sticking up out of the ground. Soon it was apparent we had found our corner. And after digging a little we found a stone that I had no idea was there.
Check out this interesting pipe. It is one solid piece. And notice state monument 94 next to it.
On our way back I tried to get Jessica to walk the road but she refused. So she took the point and plowed through some heavy vegetation as we watched the cars whizzing by us 100 feet away on the easy path. But in the end she made the right decision as we stumbled on this monument I had not plotted.
No matter what it looks like this is NJ93.
From there we headed down the road perpendicular to the start of the Batona Trail and turned into the woods looking for NJ8. An easy walk of a few hundred feet and we were 60 feet off.
We returned to our car and headed to Turkey Buzzard Bridge Road looking for NJ2. I have looked for this in the past and was unsuccessful but with the finds on Saturday I was able to recalculate where it should be. And it was right where I had hoped.
NJ2
Guy
