Salt hay burning?

Spung-Man

Explorer
Jan 5, 2009
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Richland, NJ
loki.stockton.edu
. Is that then what we are looking at along the Mullica? Charred marsh?

Gabe,

Sorry ‘bout the tardy reply. I was hoping to find interview notes about salt-haying along the Great Egg Harbor River in the ‘30s. but will wing it from memory for expediency's sake. That looks like burned salt-hay meadow to me.

There’s a delightful fellow of Italian heritage who lived at the corner of School House Road and County Road 559, Scullville. He told be wonderful stories about helping his father manage for salt hay. If I remember correctly, they burned every year:

Here’s what his meadows looked like in 1931:


My favorite story was about the Long-a-Coming Trail. Its course crossed meadow as it neared Job Somer’s ferry at Jobs Point (long O on Job). Every hundred-feet or so there was a cedar post driven into the ground. He was told by the old-timers the posts were used as capstan, timber mounts where where ropes were placed to free wagons mired in muck.


Now where’s my firkin Lagunitas?
 
Apr 6, 2004
3,606
551
Galloway
Gabe,

Sorry ‘bout the tardy reply. I was hoping to find interview notes about salt-haying along the Great Egg Harbor River in the ‘30s. but will wing it from memory for expediency's sake. That looks like burned salt-hay meadow to me.

There’s a delightful fellow of Italian heritage who lived at the corner of School House Road and County Road 559, Scullville. He told be wonderful stories about helping his father manage for salt hay. If I remember correctly, they burned every year:

Here’s what his meadows looked like in 1931:


My favorite story was about the Long-a-Coming Trail. Its course crossed meadow as it neared Job Somer’s ferry at Jobs Point (long O on Job). Every hundred-feet or so there was a cedar post driven into the ground. He was told by the old-timers the posts were used as capstan, timber mounts where where ropes were placed to free wagons mired in muck.


Now where’s my firkin Lagunitas?

Thanks you, kind sir. Lagunitas coming your way next time I pop in for a visit.
 
Apr 6, 2004
3,606
551
Galloway

manumuskin

Piney
Jul 20, 2003
8,552
2,465
59
millville nj
www.youtube.com
that phot of the maurice river upland they claim has been reclaimed in the intro chapter is buckshutem road about 2 miles from my house.That is not nor has ever been marshland if they are speaking of the fields next to the road.That sits about ten feet above high tide level.Perhpas they are speaking of the marsh itself which did have farms in it a century ago but all the dykes used to hold back the river are now brokens abd only lines of trees remain in spots to show where they were.
What is more economical?Building dikes to hold back water or dredging the marsh mud and dumping it on high ground and tilling it into the sand?The marsh would replenish the mud fairly quickly as I'ce seen it cover low lying fields as sea level rises just from when I was a kid.Fields that are now knee deep in mud.
The Burcham far is still operable but they have massive walls of constrete rubble to hold the water back and it was obviously habitable for quite sometime there because that is one of the best arrowhead producing fields in NJ so the Indians were living there too.
 
Apr 6, 2004
3,606
551
Galloway
Might someone know what the straight cuts thru the penisula's are? Shortcuts for boats traveling the river? Most still show from the 1930 map on the present satellite.

http://maps.njpinebarrens.com/#lat=39.54892689739453&lng=-74.43233013153076&z=15&type=nj1930&gpx=

Just found this in The 41st Annual Report of the Department of Health of the State of NJ (1917):

"An extensive business in raising Seed Oysters is being conducted by the Sooy Oyster Company. They have secured from the State large riparian rights near the mouth of the Mullica, and in addition have expended considerable sums of money in dredging ditches through the adjacent meadows. These ditches are about thirty feet wide and 3 feet deep at low water and vary in length from one hundred yards to one-half mile."
 
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