There is a "Pestons Neck" in this warrant—
TO: Samuel Richards
4 Sept 1833
FROM:
SURVEY AND MAP. 3.43 acres. On the North side of Price's Branch; On the road from Longacoming; Pestons Neck; Waterford Township; Gloucester County. [Warrant Date: 26 Sept 1826]. (See also: Book GG, 200).
OTHERS NAMED: Israel Chew (Owner of adjoining land); Benjamin B. Cooper (Owner of adjoining land); Jacob Downing (Owner of adjoining land); Charles H. French (Deputy Surveyor) (Signatory); [Unrecorded] Peston (Owner of adjoining land)
LOCATIONS: West Jersey; Gloucester; Waterford Township; Long-A-Coming; Prices Branch; Roads, Streets, Highways, Paths
WJ Loose Records : 1833 - Richards, Samuel (57399) (PWESJ004)
The use of neck is often very old. From Soggy Ground (Demitroff 2024: 183–184),
"Neck of the woods originally referred to a narrow stretch of wood or pasture, and later to a wooded remote settlement (OED 2003). In the Pine Barrens sense a neck (3) is often peninsula-like upland ground that is found along a river and bounded by water or wetlands (see Marsh et al. 2019). Rivers were the highways and a position in association with them was important to note. The author’s [Spung-Man's] experience is that “neck” (e.g., Broad Neck, Great Neck, Tar Kiln Neck) is used early in regional settlement at a time when rivers are more dependable transportation corridors than early trails."
S-M
Spung-Man,
Thanks for your useful posts and maps. I have finally had a chance to look at the maps carefully and have a few comments:
1. On the 1813 Benjamin Cooper survey, the road that you suggest might be "Pestleton? Road" appears to me to read "Pestons Road." I downloaded a copy of this survey from the New Jersey Archives "Early Land Records" database, enlarged it as much as I could and, although the very faded text is admittedly hard to read, it certainly appears to read "Pestons Road." It is also leads directly in the direction of Sebastian Woos' land that lies to the east of the eastern side of the survey area. That would again support my theory that Pestletown is derived from Peston and that Peston was a name for Sebastian Woos. You also note the road "Clem Dicksons? Road," and that is how I read it as well. Clement "Clem" Dickson was a son-in-law of Sebastian Woos who purchased some of Sebastian's former land from Sebastian's widow Mary in 1802. So the direction of that road fits as well.
2. On one of the 1772 survey maps of John West's sawmill related land showing the location of Sebastian Woos' house, you have superimposed the
1886 USGS topo map. It is an excellent idea, and a very useful way to orient the earlier survey. However, it is in error in its placement of Sebastian's house. His house, aka Shane's Castle, is shown on the 1761 survey that I attached to my post #12. Based on its location on that survey and matching that 100-acre tract with later surveys, I am quite certain that the site of Shane's Castle was west of Pestletown Road both in 1886, as well as today since that road remains in the same location.
3. There are a couple of distinctively shaped geographic references that are very useful for orienting and aligning older surveys of the Pestletown area with newer ones for the purpose of superposing them on each other. I refer to these references as "the notch" and "the arrowhead." In the 1884 survey of Mary Neild's land in Pestletown that I have attached first below you can clearly see the triangular tract of land that I call "the arrowhead" on the left, and "the notch" which is at the top of the base of "the arrowhead." They also can be clearly seen in the 1942 tax map that RednekF350 posted in his post #11. And, if you zoom in on the Pestletown area, they are also clearly visible in current GIS plat maps that you can find online at, for example, NJ-GeoWeb (
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=02251e521d97454aabadfd8cf168e44d). You can even see "the notch" in the 1813 Cooper survey at the location where "Pestons Road" peters out at the eastern edge of the surveyed area. It is by using this kind of matching up of surveys that I was able to locate the same 1761 tract of land that shows Shane's Castle and confirm that it was west of Pestletown Road (see the second attached survey map below (of 1833) showing the land of Sebastian Woos' son-in-law Eli Neild who became of the owner of all of Sebastian's land north of Clark Branch by the early 1800s. It shows "the arrowhead" ("the notch" is not visible due to the scale) as well as three of Sebastian's former parcels including the one of 100 acres that had Shane's Castle on it in 1761 (on the 1833 Eli Neild survey that tract appears to be labeled Liber E-244 if you can zoom in enough to read it, though it is actually I-244).
4. As for the warrant above that names a Pestons Neck, I need to try to get my hands on the associated survey to see where it places Pestons Neck. Sebastian Woos did have a 70 1/2 acre tract of land up near Price's Branch and this may be referencing something related to that parcel.
Note: both the attached surveys are from John Clement's books of maps and surveys at WestJerseyHistory.org.