Salt hay burning?
- Thread starter pinelandpaddler
- Start date
Gabe, old friend. You want salt-hay burning, I'll give you salt-hay burning:
Ben, many many thanks for providing us with the interactive maps. I use them daily!
Cheers,
S-M
Ben, many many thanks for providing us with the interactive maps. I use them daily!
Cheers,
S-M
Whoa! Very neat, Spung-Man. 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?
I posted this in the open forum Gabe. An excellant read. Look at chapter 5.
http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/nj3/chap1.htm
http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/nj3/chap1.htm
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=
http://maps.njpinebarrens.com/#lat=39.54892689739453&lng=-74.43233013153076&z=15&type=nj1930&gpx=
I don't rightly know, but I've always thought they were dug out as short-cuts for boats. How exactly they dug it out back then, I don't know.
That's what I'm thinking, Mosquito Control. The reason, I often visit Assategue Island. Along certain trails, there are interpretive signs that explain/support the mosquito control idea.
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.
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.
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."