Old watering hole site of historic fight

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Old watering hole site of historic fight



Published in the Asbury Park Press 7/25/03
By GREGORY J. VOLPE
MANAHAWKIN BUREAU
BARNEGAT -- Nestled in the pines, along a one-lane dirt road once traveled by oxen-pulled carts carrying clams and oysters west from the shore, sits an 18th century tavern where one of the last skirmishes of the Revolutionary War took place.



STEVE SCHOLFILED photo

The Cedar Bridge Tavern, actually a home dating from Colonial times, is a subject of interest for the county to buy and preserve.
But the Cedar Bridge Tavern is no longer used as a watering hole for oxen drivers or local Pineys. It's the home of a retired electrician who bought the tavern almost 45 years ago because he thought Tuckerton was getting too crowded.

John Bacon, area resident and British Loyalist, and his band of Tories launched an attack on the the Burlington Militia on Christmas Day in 1782 from the property. Things are quieter these days in what is now the wooded home for Rudolph Koenig, 78, and his four dogs.

"I like it," Koenig says of his home, which is filled with write-ups about the tavern. "It's quiet. It's getting so crowded that I don't even like to go to town anymore."

The small dirt road, which has only a handful of homes in addition to the tavern, is so remote that Koenig boasts that he is officially the last person in Barnegat to have his road plowed after a snowstorm.

The bar, which is more similar in size to a modern breakfast nook than a local watering hole, still looks like it did in the 18th Century -- except for the modern-named brands of liquor and the neon Schmidt's sign Koenig has there.

Tim Hart, president of the Stafford Historical Society, said bars were smaller back then because people drank at tables and only went to the bar to fetch their drinks.

Koenig, who refurbished the tavern in the decades he has had it, is credited by Hart with preventing the watering hole from falling apart. And with no one to pass the home too, Koenig would like sell the site to Ocean County, which would preserve it as a park or museum after he dies.

"They should have it," Koenig said. "It belongs to the people, and you have so few of them left."

Koenig bought the building -- and 300 surrounding acres -- for $12,000 for 1959. Most of the land has been sold off, and Hart has estimated that it would take $100,000 for the county to acquire the historic site.

"Every time you come here, it's like Christmas," Hart said, after Koenig showed how he rehung the original door after adding a front porch to the building. "It's like living history."

Ocean County Freeholder Director John C. Bartlett Jr. said the county's Cultural and Heritage Commission is looking at how the building would best be preserved, whether through a public ownership or a historic nonprofit organization.

The freeholders are waiting for a report from the commission before deciding how to proceed.

"The county is very interested in preserving this important part of our history," he said. "We'll do what we can to accomplish it."

The four-bedroom tavern and small rooming house is about 240 years old, and local historians still are trying to see when it last served as a tavern. Before Koenig bought it, it was used as a private residence and once housed migrant workers.

It was first used as a watering hole for the oxen drivers who would bring their own cups and purchase a drink. The trek from Tuckerton to the tavern would take a day, and it would take three more to get to Mount Holly.

Its biggest claim to fame occurred in December 1782, when Bacon ambushed the militia that had been tracking him. Two months before, Bacon's raiders attacked and killed a number of American privateers who were plundering the cargo of a British ship that ran aground near Barnegat Light.

Bacon and his men eluded militia for weeks until Christmas Day, 1782. Bacon's crew barricaded the old cedar bridge by the tavern where militia men were stopped for refreshments.

Bacon and his men exchanged heavy gunfire with the militia killing one man and wounding several horses. They escaped with the help of local loyalists. He was killed the following April in a West Creek tavern.

"It's a piece of American history," Hart says of the tavern. "Whether or not it's the last battle of the Revolution, it's certainly one of the last remaining 18th century taverns."

Gregory J. Volpe: (609) 978-4584 or gvolpe@app.com
 
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