The Sale of Atsion Furnace

Teegate

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Indeed the dashed line is identified as the Township Line.

So the township line changed sometime after that map was made, and it appears the surveyors of Wharton put that monument in on the the township line. So somewhere out there is another corner inside of Wharton I would think.
 

Don Catts

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I find the words "according to the Plan of Lots of east Fruitland" very interesting. What was east Fruitland? Could it have been a separate development? The language reminds me of other development schemes that were later expanded with "additions". Perhaps I am reading too much into this.

Don, how were you able to identify the street names? If it was from a map of Fruitland then I guess that settles it.



Thanks Oriental,

Yea, I was sure they weren't East Fruitland lot numbers. Wharton bought Atsion in 1892, so am I safe in saying this was his surveyor.

No I don't have a East Fruitland map, I wish I did. The street names came off some surveys I have of these lots, just as good.

The township line is a real puzzle.

Don
 

Oriental

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So . . . it appears that there really was an East Fruitland that was distinctly different from the original Fruitland property. Spung-Man had posted the following map in a 2009 post.

East Fruitland.jpg


I also found in "Industries of New Jersey" (Richard Edwards, 1882) that the village of East Fruitland in Burlington County had their mail delivered at Atsion. The above map is a little sketchy in showing exactly what property would have been called "East Fruitland". However, the deeds that Teegate cites proves that these farms were indeed a part of this apparently separate development. Now I am really wondering if both Fruitland and East Fruitland were promoted by the same entity.
 

Teegate

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That map shows the township line maybe. It connects near Speedwell.
 

Oriental

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Don Catts

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That map shows the township line maybe. It connects near Speedwell.


Teegate,

the township lines on the above 1882 map, Oriental's post #63, are correct from 1866 to 1901 when Shamong gave up the land northeast of Tuckerton road to the newly established Tabernacle Twp. However, the East Fruitland grid is incorrect. In should have extended farther east slightly past the township line, as our old deeds and monument NJ22S has proven.

In 1882 there was no Fruitland, Maurice Raleigh had the name Fruitland changed back to Atsion in Aug of 1871 and re-established the Atsion Post Office with James Sutherland as postmaster.

Don
 
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Teegate

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I believe the stone for that old line was in the middle or edge of Eagle Road near Friendship Speedwell Road. It was there in the mid 50s but I could never find it. I will have to check more into that and see if I may be correct.
 

Don Catts

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So . . . it appears that there really was an East Fruitland that was distinctly different from the original Fruitland property. Spung-Man had posted the following map in a 2009 post.

View attachment 6623

I also found in "Industries of New Jersey" (Richard Edwards, 1882) that the village of East Fruitland in Burlington County had their mail delivered at Atsion. The above map is a little sketchy in showing exactly what property would have been called "East Fruitland". However, the deeds that Teegate cites proves that these farms were indeed a part of this apparently separate development. Now I am really wondering if both Fruitland and East Fruitland were promoted by the same entity.


Oriental, do you have the rest of this map? Does that East Fruitland in the red area actually say East Fruitland Station. The section colored red is Hammonton, Atlantic County, I don't think there were any farms laid out there . Did you notice the proposed town of Shamong is not even in Shamong Twp. haha

The announcement that the mail for East Fruitland would be delivered to the Atsion post office simplify means that the name of the post office was changed from Fruitland to Atsion, it was the same post office. At the time Thomas B. Stiles was postmaster.

Benjamin B. Brown bought the first Fruitland farm. It was located on Atsion Road near the Pineland Adventures canoes. Benjamin ran the Fruitland post office from his farmhouse. His daughter, Emma E. Brown married Thomas B. Stiles that's how Thomas became postmaster. Emma E. Stiles (the only name on the deed) bought the farm (not the original owner, Mary M. Spangler was the original owner) numbered 361 on your survey maps. I don't think her lived on it. I believe they continued to lived up on Atsion Road where they opened a general store and ran the post office from it. On May 10, 1893 she became postmaster. Her husband may have been ill, he died in 1895. She lived in Atsion the rest of her life. Some of my older friend, Norman Le Munyon, Tommy Miller and old Lew Wells, (they are gone now) remembered her. She had a very young adopted daughter living with her.

Don
 

Oriental

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Oriental,

Can you make out what it says on lot no. 367?

Don

I am not certain about the first three initials (my guess is MEM) but the last name is Brinckloe. The link to the abandoned farms of Shamong Township says that one of the properties was once owned by WGP Brinckloe. It has to be the same lot as the acreage agrees.
 

Oriental

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Oriental, do you have the rest of this map? Does that East Fruitland in the red area actually say East Fruitland Station. The section colored red is Hammonton, Atlantic County, I don't think there were any farms laid out there.
Don

Fruitland Map B.png


This is the Burlington County map from the same atlas (1873). No "Station". Even though the text is mostly in Atlantic County it seems to be referring to the area we have been discussing below the railroad and east of the Mullica. Certainly not the most accurate map.
 

Don Catts

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Now I am really wondering if both Fruitland and East Fruitland were promoted by the same entity.
I am not certain about the first three initials (my guess is MEM) but the last name is Brinckloe. The link to the abandoned farms of Shamong Township says that one of the properties was once owned by WGP Brinckloe. It has to be the same lot as the acreage agrees.

Thanks, I found her it is Mary E. D. Brinkloe. She was one of the original owner, 1867. Fruitland and East Fruitland were not the same entity for sure. East Fruitland may have been started before Fruitland, is was pretty close.
 

Spung-Man

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Vineland–Fruitland–Wheatland...

Charles K. Landis in-part founded the New Hammonton and as I understand financed the Vineland Railway Company (1870) that later became the Vineland Railroad Company (1877) between Bayside and Atsion. Is there any evidence that Landis was proactive in any part of Fruitland and Wheatland, or were others copying Landis?

Landis planned Landisville to be the county seat for a Landis County, but his trial for committing murder truncated that initiative. No one wanted to pay for new municipal infrastructure like a jail and courthouse, and certainly the Landis name lacked luster at the time. To appease critics, Landis conceded the “Landis” County title and offered a “Fruitland" County alternative but the project was dead on arrival.

Landis’s old man, Michael, a silent money-bags, was himself a railroad man. I wonder if there a possible connection between the railroad-era City of Fruitland, MD (1873), a Landis, and Fruitland, NJ (or nuts among the berries).

S-M
 
Vineland–Fruitland–Wheatland...

Charles K. Landis in-part founded the New Hammonton and as I understand financed the Vineland Railway Company (1870) that later became the Vineland Railroad Company (1877) between Bayside and Atsion. Is there any evidence that Landis was proactive in any part of Fruitland and Wheatland, or were others copying Landis?

Landis planned Landisville to be the county seat for a Landis County, but his trial for committing murder truncated that initiative. No one wanted to pay for new municipal infrastructure like a jail and courthouse, and certainly the Landis name lacked luster at the time. To appease critics, Landis conceded the “Landis” County title and offered a “Fruitland" County alternative but the project was dead on arrival.

Landis’s old man, Michael, a silent money-bags, was himself a railroad man. I wonder if there a possible connection between the railroad-era City of Fruitland, MD (1873), a Landis, and Fruitland, NJ (or nuts among the berries).

S-M

Spung-Man:

We've had this discussion before and no evidence has yet come to light that connects either Charles K., Michael, or even Jesse Landis to Fruitland and Wheatland. I'm not saying there is no connection, but without even one tantalizing hint of solid proof, this is nothing more than speculation, which could continue ad nauseum without yielding any “fruit.”

While Charles K. did incorporate the Vineland Railway Company in 1867 and constructed the line to Vineland by 1870, and to Bayside by 1871, Landis lost control of the railroad by 1873, when Jay Gould purchased most of the company’s indebtedness and obtained an order of foreclosure to subsume the Vineland Railway into his New Jersey Southern Railway. So the reincorporation in 1877 had nothing to do with Landis.

The concept of creating a Landis or Fruitland County rose and fell between February 1870 and January 1872, several years before Landis shot Carruth, so Charles K.’s sullied reputation had nothing to do with the failure to create a new county. Some sources suggest that the people who lived in the areas to be erected into the new county objected—which they likely did—but the real reason for its demise was pure politics. The Democratically controlled legislature did NOT want another solidly Republican county established in South Jersey. BTW, both names—Fruitland and Landis—were floated as the identifier for the new county in January 1871, instead of Charles K. suggesting Fruitland after the Landis name failed.

Best regards,
Jerseyman
 
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Spung-Man

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Jerseyman,

As always I do enjoy your feedback! I provide suggestions to stimulate discourse and conjure possible connections worthy of consideration. Heston (1924: 271) states, "Michael G. Landis, the father of Charles K. Landis, was a merchant in Lancaster,Pennsylvania, and afterwards a railroad contractor in Pennsylvania and Georgia, and Charles K. Landis, therefore, during his early life, moved about with his parents and studied under private tutors in Philadelphia, Macon and Atlanta, Georgia, and Lancaster Pennsylvania." While Heston is not always the most accurate source, I have little reason to doubt this account.

My suggestion is that Michael Landis would have been privy to the inside dish on railroad plans, and both father and son used this insider status to speculate in land. Heston (1924: 271) continued, Landis' "journeyings about the country had made him aware of the vast potentialities of his native land. Much, even on the Eastern seaboard, was wilderness, but Landis [my speculation – through insider trading] could see what the wilderness might become and how development might be aided [at substantial profit to Landis]."

If Landis had profited through access to insider information, then this would not have been widely broadcasted, so, yes, I do have to speculate even if it seems ad nauseum. So sorry! Bear with me. We now know Landis had early on speculated in other railroad lands in and out of State, even Vineland before 1861, some being ethnic settlements. In my Margaret Mead study notes for the Pinelands Commission, there is a reference to a certain deed, cited as Book P, Page 568, dated March 1, 1860. It is between Samuel B. Coughlin of Philadelphia, and Michael G. Landis of Hammonton, for a sum of $15,000.00, tracts of land in Burlington and Atlantic Counties which make up the Atsion Estate. Is this relevant?

S-M
 
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Spung-Man:

I’m not a huge fan of Heston, but I can accept his account that you provided above unless future research proves otherwise. Based on Michael Landis’s movements, it appears he might have been working with J. Edgar Thomson on railroads. Thomson advanced in his career until he served as the chief engineer and then the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad. He, too, spent a portion of his career working in Georgia, so it is possible he and Landis collaborated.

Regarding Michael and Charles K. Landis trading on inside information relative to railroads, the route and construction of the Camden & Atlantic Railroad was no secret, but there is little doubt that the two men took advantage of the line’s passage through Coffin lands below Winslow, allowing them to plat Hammonton in a timely fashion. Michael may have had a wee bit of insider info on the Raritan & Delaware Bay as its location did shift westward in a somewhat surreptitious fashion to prevent the Camden & Amboy management from learning its true intentions to build to Atsion, but the secret did not remain hidden for very long.

Relative to the deed you mention above, the correct citation for that deed is Book M, Page 568, not Book P. In this deed, Samuel B. Coughlin grants a moiety or half-interest of the Atsion Tract to Landis, deriving that moiety from the assignees of the William W. Fleming estate. The same assignees sold the other moiety to Jarvis Mason for a little more than half the price Landis paid. Mason is the person that conveyed his moiety to Col. William C. Patterson, the platter and promoter of Fruitland. While Landis held a moiety in the Atsion Tract, it is still unknown whether he actively or even passively participated in Patterson’s scheme. If I recall correctly, Patterson only platted his moiety for Fruitland and the Landis lands were not included. Perhaps Landis was behind East Fruitland, but the only way to tell for sure is to conduct a complete title history of the Atsion tract. Is this something you have already completed, Don Catts?

Best regards,
Jerseyman
 
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Oriental

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Found the following in The Gardner's Monthly and Horticultural Advertiser (Vol IX, 1867)

Fruitland Article.png


What is also very curious is that the Publisher of this periodical was W.G.P. Brinckloe who eventually owned one of the lots at East Fruitland. This is the same lot that was mentioned in post 73 above. I don't yet know what his relation was to Mary E.D. Brinckloe.
 
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Oriental

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Edward's Industries of New Jersey (1882) identifies the following places as receiving their mail at Atsion: Atsion Junction, Cranberry Park, Hampton, Chewville (Chewtown), and East Fruitland.

Must have still been something of a village in East Fruitland at the time.
 
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