The Isaac Haines Stone

Teegate

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All,

I was looking through some of the maps I have acquired and noticed on one map from 1878 there were two incised stones mentioned on it. After spending some time figuring out where the map was taking me I determined that one of the stones was in the middle of the power lines in Medford north of Atco Dragway. I had actually looked for it on a PBX hike and concluded it was no longer there. The map also shows a second incised stone and I made a decision to look for it this morning.


The Beginning Stone marked IH is in the power line right of way, and the one above it with the arrow is the one I was attempting to find.


IH.jpg




The IH was Isaac Haines. There was a farmer named Isaac Haines living in Medford until his death in 1892. It might be him.


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To get to this area legally is somewhat of a challenge and I had to meander through the woods watching my GPS to keep off of private land. Along the way I found quite a few of their property corners. Anyway, I finally reached the power lines and walked to the edge of it where 60 feet away in the most dense briers was the stone I was seeking. It took forever to get to it and my GPS pointed me to this mess underneath a partially downed tree. I fired up my other GPS to confirm the location and started poking away with my walking stick. After a minute of poking I hit stone.


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I used my body to push away the briers and ended up with this.


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A little scraping and the light of day hit it. I could feel it moving making me suspicious nothing was incised on it.


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With a little help from the chalk Jessica gave me yesterday you can see the partial letter H as well as the full letter I that was scratched into it over 140 years ago.


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I placed it back, covered it over, and returned to the power lines to search some more. It is really remote and quiet around there so I was quite relaxed while wandering. I found a little path that cut across the power lines to the edge of the woods on the other side. I turned and looked around and all of a sudden there was a man walking toward my direction. I took off my orange hat and watched him come closer and disappear behind the vegetation near me. I stood on the edge of the woods waiting for him to approach but he never came. For ten minutes I looked around and never saw him but he had to be there. Then he came into view walking back in the same direction as before. I then realized he had a truck and was heading back to it. I was certain he had to have noticed me but why was he walking away?


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I knew for certain I was not on private property so I decided to continue my search in the woods for another stone. I found it quickly and returned to the power lines and saw the man entering his truck. I decided to wait him out and sat down and texted Jessica. Soon it became apparent I was wasting time so I got up and headed his way. As I got closer I realized he had exited his truck and was 50 feet from me walking towards me with a handful of batteries. It turns out he was a really nice hunter who was replacing the batteries in his game camera. He had gone into the woods earlier and retrieved the flash card and when playing it back in his truck he found the card to be empty. So he was returning to put new batteries in it. We had a nice 15 minute talk.

Guy
 
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Teegate

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I noticed that also. Both corners were from the same tract. However, maybe another family member put in the first stone earlier or later than the other stone which would explain different initials. Or it could be a spelling mistake.
 

Teegate

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Also, here is a "Then and Now" from March 2008 and Today. I did not have the original photo with me so the distance and location are not exact but are close.



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Teegate

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Many of the small tracks in this area are the oldest tracts of land that I have worked on. This tract most likely dates back to 2/3/1767 because many of the adjacent tracts do. Unfortunately, I don't have the dates on this particular one. The info I have says they were not even recorded. Maybe Jerseyman can explain that. I would think it means they were not recorded in the state records but maybe elsewhere.
 

Teegate

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All,

The copy of the 1878 map I have has been very interesting and I enjoy exploring in Medford and Shamong where it depicts. Today, Jessica and I again returned and spent the morning fighting our way through gum swamps and briers to look for a few more stones. The area is really remote and to get to it we had to cross a cedar swamp and follow an old trail to the upland that the map calls Hay Landing (Hayland Hill). The first stone we could not find so we visited the nearby large Medford/Shamong stone on Hayland Hill as we passed by. I took this photo a few years ago.


It really is quite large.


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At our next location we could not find the stone but Jessica did notice this about a foot off the ground on a trail leading to a cedar swamp. It appears to me it has been there a while so it may be abandoned. If I return in the spring and it is still there I think I will remove the card and see if I can find the owner. If it is working and they return soon they will have a very closeup photo of my face. Very close!


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Then to the next stone. This was a struggle to get to and when we arrived there was an obvious corner at an old dry bog. I was certain I was in the correct place but could not find the stone. Jessica came to the rescue and found the stone which in 1878 was on the John Polhemus line.



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The J.W. in pencil is Joseph Wharton. ( J.W. from or formally Phelps)


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To continue on we had to go back past the location we were just at and found the game camera. Of course we found a very easy way back to it unlike what we had just gone through. As we past the area where we could not find the stone we searched again. It was an open area and should be easy to see a stone. Can you see it in this photo? I can't, but it is there.



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What about now?


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It is the top stone in the map above.



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At this point we had the longest leg of our day ahead of us. A quarter mile push through gun swamps and brier. The way there was a struggle and more, but we finially made it. There was a really nice clearing and this was in it.


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I have been helping some individuals find the location of property their father and grandfather owned nearby, and finding this stone now gets me two stones away from accomplishing that goal. I have been years doing this and I MAY be as little as a week away from finding that property line for them. This map has been a game changer and hopefully I will succeed.


Our route back with Jessica taking the front was much much easier even though you would not know it from the tracks. (The date should be 2016 not 2015. I am still in last year mode)


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And then we were almost done. On the way back we looked again for the first stone and were unsuccessful. However, close by we did find another one.


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Guy
 
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Teegate

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Manumuskin and myself we looking for more property stones today in the same area and came up empty. We saved the hardest ones for today. The briers in the swamp were intense and blood was flowing pretty good. Anyway, on our way out of the swamp as we were walking back to Al's vehicle we heard voices in front of us in the woods. Since I forgot my orange today I yelled out before moving on and a man came walking towards us on the trail. He was with two other men and a young woman and had been running in the woods and got lost. Luckily we were there or they would have REALLY been lost. They were heading where we had just left and there was nothing there but misery. That is the keyword for briers BTW :) We took them back to the car and drove them all the way back to Atsion and Jackson Road where they were going to make a call and have someone pick them up.

Here is where we ran into them. Not a good place to be.

http://maps.njpinebarrens.com/#lat=39.7906278&lng=-74.82195100000001&z=17&type=nj2002&gpx=
 

manumuskin

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I have already washed my hands or I would take a pic to show the blood. One man was wearing shorts and wanted to know if they could push through the woods at the end of the trail to Jackson Road.I showed him my hands and said "I suggest you not try it in those shorts"
Those woods definitely need a match,or I should say a drip torch and some experienced supervision.I have seen as bad but never worse.I have always prided myself in stating I never met a briar patch i couldn't cross.Well today i found one.I don't know if it was just that bad or I"m not what I used to be but I told Guy "We have to find a way around that". I"m such a wuss.
 
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Teegate

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We were out this morning looking for same stone manumuskin and I looked for years ago and this past week. It is just a sea of briers there. This time I was able to hack a trail right through the thicker area to get access. As you can see from my tracks in the second photo I was only able to have time today to concentrate on one of my calculations. I will return again for the others with the arrows pointing to them. I was just too tired and cut up to spend any more time there today.

My blazed trail.


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My tracks. I concentrated on the "6 degree" and will return for the locations with the arrow. They are all within 40 feet of each other.

http://teegate.njpinebarrens.com/01162016/stonea.jpg
 
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johnnyb

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Questions for Guy and Manumuskin:
How close are the GPS locations for the stones to the deed positions? Are the differences due to people moving the stones or differences between the old survey and the GPS locations? When we had a property surveyed 30+ years ago the surveyor (RIP) asked at the end where we wanted the corner monuments placed. Huh? There was a difference between the survey points based on a nearby reference marker and the Township tax map 'cause the latter did NOT include a slight kink in the road (on one side of the property) which was there in fact. We put them in where his survey said they belonged......
 

manumuskin

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Might be a question for Redneck (Scott) The stones should not be moved.They take precedence since they were placed there first and hence are correct.I have seen monuments placed several yards from stones and sometimes these are so because the surveyor thinks he's right over the stone and sometimes it's an offset pointing to the stone.They are paid to put in a monument and either place it right next to the stone or offset it a few feet and point to the stone location.(good for locating underground stones).Guy and I have GPS's that only get about 14 ft accuracy whereas surveyors have very expensive GPS's that get to within a foot. I have never heard of a surveyor asking where you want your corners.Thats his job to know where to put them.Perhaps the corner was in the road and He couldn't put a marker there so he was saying.You have paid for a marker,do you want it on this side of the road which cheats you or the other side which cheats someone else? Never trust a tax map. their useful for getting you close and sometimes are right on but often off by 200 ft or more. If I haven't answered your question maybe Guy or Scott can do better.
 

johnnyb

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Feb 22, 2013
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Thanks Al. I'd forgotten that the usual GPS is "good" only to 10 or 15 feet, obviously NG for surveys.
The problem with our survey had to do with the errors in the tax map, which worried the surveyor, not me. It's the same tax map that omits a piece of property that I tried for 30 years to get included, but quit, defeated, when we moved away. Problem was it costs money to have a resurvey done and the Township felt it wasn't worth it.
Knew about offset monuments 'cause adjoining property had one/some. Offset/s were noted on the deed map. and were for convenience to miss a ditch with occasional water in it.
Thanks for replying.
 
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