Old road running through Mordecai Swamp
- Thread starter Average Bog Enjoyer
- Start date
-
- Tags
- batsto cedar swamp mordecai roads ruins
Gabe I"d be glad to hit thwe swamp together and settle this.I am now having sunday and mondays off.will have the next five sundays off but in a few weeks will be having saturdays off as well. If the road wasn't built to 1808 then iot definitely wasn't incorporated into breastworks and if the trenches have any correlation to the road at all then they are not breastworks either. But this would still leave a mystery as to why some of the trenches are far from the road. I Knew you would say they were dunes and you may well be right but these have to ne the longest most perfect dunes in the pines and they are in a perfect position to guar Batsto eastern flank.I can't remember if there are trenches along the top of the dunes north of the road or nit.It has easily been 15 years since I was in that swamp.
I want to map the trenches with the gps and get some good video footage of them as well. I"m sure you have read about the supposed stacks of cannoballs in the swamp.I don't know if this is true or not but some of the trenches are in the shape of redoubts.Without the road though that would be a beast dragging cannon out there.
I want to map the trenches with the gps and get some good video footage of them as well. I"m sure you have read about the supposed stacks of cannoballs in the swamp.I don't know if this is true or not but some of the trenches are in the shape of redoubts.Without the road though that would be a beast dragging cannon out there.
The "resolution" is exactly the same - 1 meter/pixel. What the old site allowed you to do was play with the lighting. That is not so easily implemented with the Mapbox API but I think having full, seamless coverage of the pines with a simple user interface is decent trade-off (especially since nobody actually used the old site).
I think the LIDAR is better then I could have ever hoped for.I will take tracks files of the trenches and we can overlay them on the LIDAR and maybe get a better idea of what to look for in identifying the trenches on LIDARIf I remember right they were knee to thigh deep and just wide enough to lay down in.
Looking through that old thread, I think you may be talking about this little map I made in response to all your nagging about the Forks. That was never part of the old site, just a little one-off image.
https://forums.njpinebarrens.com/threads/welcome-to-lidar-boydsmaps-com.13293/page-5#post-159766
Comparing that image to the new map, I don't think it's any better although the lighting is different. The shading is also different because it uses the full range of colors to cover a very small area, unlike a seamless map where the color scale covers the whole region. Regardless, the resolution is the same because the elevation data is the same.
https://boydsmaps.com/#16.04/39.635370/-74.647365/mbx3dshader/0.00/0.00
Al, dunes like that are all over the area. Look immediately to the east and you find this: https://boydsmaps.com/#14.00/39.627062/-74.573964/lidar2021bw/0.00/0.00
I hadnt seen the ones that far away. I stand corrected. I would say yes dunes. On some of those dunes in Mordecai are trenches, some near the road and some not. I could understand borrow trenches along road but further away I’d think the would just dig pits.Yes we definitely need to check them out on the ground. In any case can we both agree the trenches are less then 6000 years old?
Al, Checkout this map used by the British in planning the attack on Chestnut Neck, the Forks and Batsto. Present day 542 in the vicinity of Batsto is about where the road depicted on this map was, a good distance from the dunes. There would be no reason to construct a defense so far from the road.
About 5-7 years ago I hiked the "1808 trail" from Buttonwood to Batsto. It goes from the camp west then turns north to lovely, elevated, sphagnum covered roadbeds (large iron pipes run under them for drainage?) Then it's on to some higher elevation that skirts from the south to the northwest around a smilax bordered pond. Into cedar area and courderoy road that leads to open area and the Batona trail. It was not definitively marked back then (even nicer). There was a local woman who did her due diligence and wanted to create that route as a trail for the Batsto trail system and as an alternate to the Batona trail. Well, you all know the rest when it comes to Batsto projects and it was not to be. I believe she asked for some lumber to lay down to cross a ditch and was told no. Budd Wilson then shared much of his knowledge with us and we attempted again with a big no. I hear that was a piece of machinery that ran north from Buttonwood on Burnt Schoolhouse Rd, so I don't know if there's some project in the works. It's beautiful back there, but I fear time is running out before it's not. Very few remote places remain as people push to explore and share locations on social media. You guys are correct on the cannonballs being gone, there used to be cow pastures between Crowley and Batsto and the swamps were drained towards the river. Guy, do you recall the last fencepost still remaining for the roadbed from 542 to the river? Mark & I explored last winter. Really really overgrown by 20-30 years. Fun memories. I have to dig out my 1808 trail photos from that hike.
Great discussion. Kemp's Nest of Rebel Pirates is a fun read about the battle if anyone reading this hasn't heard of the book. I'm sure many of you have already read it.
From what I remember (i don't have my copy on me), the British never pushed past Chestnut Neck on foot or in boats b/c of both the fear of resistance at Batsto and also the fear of Pulaski's Legion en route. They instead high tailed it out of there and massacred Pulaski's sentries on Osbourne Island on their way out to sea
From what I remember (i don't have my copy on me), the British never pushed past Chestnut Neck on foot or in boats b/c of both the fear of resistance at Batsto and also the fear of Pulaski's Legion en route. They instead high tailed it out of there and massacred Pulaski's sentries on Osbourne Island on their way out to sea
Last edited:
Boyd, is there 2019 lidar data for Burlington County in existence? Can't recall if you said so or not.
No, as I said, the data for Camden, Burlington and Gloucester Counties comes from the USGS, the newest is from 2015. It's basically the same stuff I used in my first "LIDAR in the Pines HD" map although a few missing puzzle pieces were added (or maybe I just couldn't find them back then?).
That was the case the last time I checked in 2021 at any rate. New Jersey did their own LIDAR project in 2019 for the other Southern counties. There's another North Jersey LIDAR dataset, but that does not cover the Pines.
That was the case the last time I checked in 2021 at any rate. New Jersey did their own LIDAR project in 2019 for the other Southern counties. There's another North Jersey LIDAR dataset, but that does not cover the Pines.
Jersey Genesis pg. 284. Can't say this is the same saw mill site for sure, but it sure seems very likely.
We must have different versions of the book. It is not on 284. I will keep looking.
The article mentions that someone else in their group came out of the woods saying there was a sawmill and Beck told them he had visited it before. It also mentioned they had separated and the person who noticed the sawmill came out near the campsite and not at Batsto or further up the road.