Young people have their coming-of-age milestones—getting a car, going on their first date, heading off to college—and young communities have such milestones too. Among the most important milestones for a young town: getting its own post office. We speak of this because the Vernon Post Office was created exactly 200 years ago this month, in May 1807.
Historically there are few developments which better say that a place is important than getting a post office. Because it is a function bestowed by the Federal government, it's a kind of stamp of approval that says once and for all: this town is for real, this place is here to stay (well, maybe). But basically, it's a big deal.
By 1807, Vernon had grown enough to warrant its own post office. Previously, people had to schlep all the way to Hamburg or Warwick to get their mail, so having a post office in Vernon Village was good news. It was an economic boon, too: where you went to get your mail, you also did some shopping, had your horses shod, carriage fixed, etc. And so the village grew even more.
The first postmaster was William Winans, the tavern keeper whose tavern stood right near the traffic light of Routes 94 and 515, until it was replaced by Burger King a few years back. The post office was in his tavern, which was a kind of de-facto community center. Winans was appointed by the Postmaster General on May 12, 1807.
Today, we are used to post office employees who are career civil servants, and post offices that stay in the same building for decades. In the 1800s, quite the opposite was true. Starting in 1836, the job of local postmaster became an appointed position, nominated by the local U.S. Senator, voted on by the Senate, and approved by the President. In short, it was a patronage job, a plum political appointment that was often, if not always, based on political reward.
The effect was that postmasters often served only brief tenures, based on which way the winds of politics were blowing, and the post office changed locations accordingly. Today, a postmaster might well serve for twenty-five years in one post office. Yet in the twenty-five years between 1835 and 1860, Vernon had no less than nine postmasters. One of them, John DeKay, served for a mere two months in 1845.
Local postmasters were frequently village merchants. The advantages were obvious: when the post office is in your store, it makes for good business. In Vernon Village, postmasters over the years included innkeepers, shopkeepers, blacksmiths, a wheelwright or two, and others. In 1827, merchant Richard S. Denton bought William Winans' tavern, and with it evidently came the postmaster job, which Denton held for ten years.
Denton started a veritable postmastering legacy in Vernon: his son, Richard S. Denton Jr., was postmaster from 1851 to 1856, his grandson Solomon S. Denton held the post from 1882 to 1886 and again from 1890 to 1895, his great-grandson Richard D. Wallace was postmaster from 1898 to 1925 (almost twenty-seven years, probably a record for the Vernon Post Office), and Wallace's wife Ethel held the post from1928 to 1934.
All together, various members of the Denton/Wallace family held the job of Vernon Postmaster for nearly sixty years. During most of those years, the post office was in Denton's (later Wallace's) General Store, which stood on the site of the Lukoil Gas Station, and was moved to Church Street in the 1960s, where it presently serves as the Mixing Bowl Restaurant.
Other notable Vernon Postmasters of the 1800s include Sylvester Given (served 1860-71), blacksmith George I. Wood (1871-1882), and farmer and millwright Aaron S. Blanchard (1886-1890).
In 1987, Vernon Township police officer and postal history enthusiast/collector Steve O'Conor compiled a history of Vernon's post offices. In it he notes that in the late 1920s, the Vernon post office was moved to Harden's General Store, which stood on Vernon Crossing Road near the railroad tracks (now gone, the building stood near the concrete ruins opposite Place by the Tracks Deli). In 1934, the location of the Vernon post office was changed once again, this time to the home of the new postmaster Alvin E. Mott on the corner of Route 94 and Pond Eddy Road, now Brookside Florist. Mott was postmaster until 1952, and was followed by his niece, Allena M. Baldwin, mother of Bob and Warren Baldwin, noted town businessmen/farmers.
In the late 1950s, the post office was moved to Lozaw's Store, which stood in what is now the exit to the VFW Post. Throughout the years of all these moves, the office of postmaster remained a political appointment. This state of affairs did not end until 1969, when President Nixon eliminated all political appointments in the postal service. In 1972, the Vernon Post Office was moved to the small strip mall now occupied by Bo Ya Palace Chinese restaurant, where it remained for ten years. In 1982 it was moved to D & S Plaza on Route 515. None of these locations were viewed as being ideal, and discussions to relocate the Vernon Post Office went on for years, until fairly recently, when it moved across the street to the A & P shopping center, where it will presumably remain for some time.
The next-oldest surviving Post Offices in Vernon Township, at North Vernon (Glenwood) and McAfee Valley (McAfee) weren't established until more than sixty years after Vernon's, in the 1860s. The Highland Lakes Post office, established in 1951, is a youngster. At 200 years old, after some thirty postmasters in a bunch of different places, Vernon's Post Office deserves to stay in one place for a good long while. Congratulations!
(Ron Dupont can be reached at dupont@vernonstories.com)
Monday, August 3, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
A Family Cemetery—and a Family's Story
In 1724, Col. Thomas DeKay of New York City purchased 1,200 acres of frontier land along Wawayanda Creek, in what are now the towns of Vernon and Warwick. Settling on his property in 1731 (the first European settler in the town of Vernon), he camped out the first night on a sandy knoll overlooking the creek, in what is now a remote area of the Price's Switch neighborhood of northern Vernon. He slept so well (says family lore) that he declared he would be buried on the spot.
And so he was, in 1758. Over the next one hundred and seventy-five years, scores of his descendants were born and raised in Vernon Township, and some of them were buried alongside him. Today, some five hundred Americans carry the last name DeKay, and all of them are descended from our Colonel Thomas. But in Vernon, at least, the DeKay name had pretty well died out by the late 1930s, with his descendants moving elsewhere. The old DeKay family burying ground became weedy and overgrown.
Neglected, perhaps, but never forgotten. In 2006, one of Col. Thomas DeKay's great-great-great-great grandsons, Earl DeKay of Naples, Florida, came back to Vernon to check up on things. Even after 270-odd years, it seems, the DeKays have Vernon in their blood.
Earl, a retired Union Carbide engineer born in Bloomfield, was tracking down some bits of family history and genealogy. He was particularly concerned about the state of the family's ancestral burying ground. His brother Dick DeKay had visited the site in 2005 and was distressed by its sorry state. Earl's subsequent efforts on behalf of the cemetery have resulted in its recent restoration, removing decades of vegetation and repairing much deterioration. For a full account of that effort, check out Jessi Paladini's column elsewhere in this week's AIM Sussex County.
It's easy to look at such a small country cemetery and regard it simply as the last resting place of one particular family. But it's more than that. If you read the stones, they collectively tell the story of that family.
It is a sometimes-cryptic story, complicated by the fact that in such cemeteries, headstones and other monuments rarely mark all the graves. It seems clear that many—perhaps half or more—would have received only an inscribed wooden cross or other marker, which in time deteriorated. So we only have part of the story. But it still tells a lot.
Col. Thomas DeKay set aside the parcel as a burying ground, but he wasn't the first to be buried there. Sadly for him, it was his son George, who died in November 1757. This was during the French and Indian War, and George had attained the rank of Major. He died either fighting Native Americans, or from "fatigue and exposure," depending on which family genealogy you consult. Whatever the cause, it was a tragedy, as George DeKay left behind a twenty-two year old wife, a two-year old daughter, and a two-month old son.
He was not the only occupant of the cemetery for long: his father, Colonel Thomas, died little more than a month later, on New Year's Day 1758. Surviving gravestones testify to no further burials here for another twenty-six years, until 1784, when the Colonel's seventy-seven year old widow, Christiana, was put to rest next to her husband. Son, father, and mother were the only marked burials here for the next forty years. Their tombstones are elegantly carved from the kind of reddish-brown sandstone found in the Newark basin. Rather dour looking cherubs gaze down from them, a common decorative element of the time.
The apparent disuse of the cemetery from the late 1780s through the 1820s probably reflects the fact that the DeKay family multiplied and spread out, and the Colonel's original farmstead—and burying ground—simply saw less activity. One of the Colonel's sons, Capt. Thomas DeKay (1731-1810), settled and was buried just over the line in New Milford, New York.
But Captain Thomas's son, Thomas DeKay Jr., commonly known as "Squire" or "Bucky" DeKay (1759-1830), settled on his grandfather's original farmstead, and became one of the best known of the Vernon DeKays. With Bucky DeKay setting down new roots on his grandfather's original farm, the old family burying ground again came into use. Among the first of the next generation to be buried here was William DeKay, one of Bucky's sons, who died in 1825, aged forty. Another of Bucky's children was Mary DeKay, who married Charles Welling of Warwick. Their son, Thomas Welling, was buried here in 1829, aged twenty-two. In 1830, old "Squire" Bucky DeKay died at age seventy-one and was buried here, followed the same year by his son-in-law Charles Welling, aged forty-five.
By this time, another of Bucky's sons, Thomas B. DeKay (commonly known by his militia title, Major) was likewise settling near the old homestead, known in old deeds as the Wawayanda Homestead Farm. In 1827, Major Thomas B. (born 1792, same year as Vernon Township) built a big new house not far from his grandfather's frontier home (which subsequently fell to ruin). This house still stands on DeKay Road (it has big white columns now). The Major's young wife, Clarissa Sharp (of Sharpsborough, later Hamburg) was the next to be buried here, dying in 1828 at age thirty. Major Thomas B. and his second wife, Sarah (some eighteen years his junior) saw more than their share of heartbreak, as recorded in the tombstones here.
In April 1835, Major Thomas and Sarah buried their little daughter Sarah A. here, aged just over two years old. Less than a month later, their little one-year-old daughter Emma C., likewise died and was buried here. And in December, Major Thomas's sister, Catherine, who had married Henry W. McCamley, had an infant daughter, who died aged three days and six hours, and was likewise buried along with her little cousins. The little cemetery never saw so many burials in one year again.
In 1842, Alanson Welling, another one of Bucky's grandsons via daughter Mary, died at thirty-six and was buried here. A year later came Ross Welling, aged sixteen (possibly a son or cousin of Alanson). And in 1846, Major Thomas and Sarah buried yet another child, William T., aged eight. And in 1847, their granddaughter Georgianna, aged 8, daughter of their son Thomas S. and his wife Elizabeth, died and was buried here.
In 1848, old Bucky's widow, Hannah, died at age eighty-five, the oldest person buried here. In 1850, Elizabeth DeKay, wife of Thomas S. and daughter-in-law of Major Thomas and Sarah, died (evidently in childbirth) at age thirty-two. The girl she gave birth to was named Elizabeth, but the baby sadly did not outlive her mother by long, joining her and her sister Georgianna here in the cemetery just over a year later.
At the same time Major Thomas and his wife Sarah were seeing grandchildren buried, they were still raising (and burying) children of their own. Their son Willie C., aged six, died and was buried here in 1853, and in 1861 their daughter Julia, aged eight, died and was buried here. All together, Major Thomas B. DeKay and his wife Sarah saw five of their children die.
In 1863, Major Thomas B. DeKay himself joined his children in death and was buried here. In 1866, his daughter Christina, aged twenty-three, joined him. The tombstones from the mid-1800s all reflect the materials and styles of those years: all marble, some slabs, some obelisks, some decorated with weeping willows, some with urns.
By the 1870s, old family burying grounds like this were being replaced in popularity by "Incorporated" cemeteries like Warwick Cemetery and Glenwood Cemetery, which had perpetual maintenance, as well as elegantly landscaped grounds. From then on, the DeKays of this branch were buried mostly in Warwick Cemetery.
But one last person, Sarah DeKay, widow of Major Thomas, chose to be buried here in 1890. Her husband's first wife had been buried here sixty years before, her husband twenty-seven years before, and she no doubt wanted to be buried here instead of the fancy newer cemeteries to be with her husband and her five little ones who had gone on before.
As far as we know, Sarah DeKay was the last person buried here. The cemetery was used for 133 years. It's worth noting a grim statistic: of the twenty-six people buried there for whom there are inscriptions, roughly forty percent were children or adolescents. That was no fluke: childhood mortality was high in the 18th and 19th centuries, even among well-to-do families like the DeKays.
Though it fell into disuse, the historical significance of the DeKay Cemetery as one of the region's oldest burial grounds was noted early on. In 1925, Rev. Warren P. Coon recorded its inscriptions, and a lucky thing, too. Pollution and acid rain has badly weathered some of marble inscriptions from the 1800s (ironically, the tombstones from the 1700s, carved on sandstone, were not affected by this, and are far more legible than the newer inscriptions on marble).
You might imagine Reverend Coon to be a country parson with an interest in genealogy, but he was quite a bit more. Minister of several large Methodist congregations in the Newark area in the early 1900s, he was also a decorated World War I Army Chaplain who served in the trenches at Verdun. Aside from being a prolific recorder of old cemeteries, he was a serious genealogist, and a popular speaker who gave numerous lectures. As if that wasn't enough, he served two terms in the New Jersey State Assembly.
A visit to the DeKay Cemetery today is like stepping back in time—the area looks much as it did in the 1ate 1800s, remaining profoundly rural. Reading these inscriptions on sandstone and marble, it is easy to be saddened by the record of young lives cut short.
But it is wrong to suppose these people were morbid or death-obsessed. Rather, they were profoundly aware that our time on earth is brief and fragile. These monuments were expressions of love, and remembrances of this hard fact. These people—as many today—viewed death as not an end, but as a mystic doorway to something beyond. Visiting a cemetery was supposed to remind you of just this. Or as stated by one 1860s Vernon epitaph:
Behold & see as you pass by--
As you and yours, so once was I.
As I am now, so you must be.
Prepare for death and follow me.
And so he was, in 1758. Over the next one hundred and seventy-five years, scores of his descendants were born and raised in Vernon Township, and some of them were buried alongside him. Today, some five hundred Americans carry the last name DeKay, and all of them are descended from our Colonel Thomas. But in Vernon, at least, the DeKay name had pretty well died out by the late 1930s, with his descendants moving elsewhere. The old DeKay family burying ground became weedy and overgrown.
Neglected, perhaps, but never forgotten. In 2006, one of Col. Thomas DeKay's great-great-great-great grandsons, Earl DeKay of Naples, Florida, came back to Vernon to check up on things. Even after 270-odd years, it seems, the DeKays have Vernon in their blood.
Earl, a retired Union Carbide engineer born in Bloomfield, was tracking down some bits of family history and genealogy. He was particularly concerned about the state of the family's ancestral burying ground. His brother Dick DeKay had visited the site in 2005 and was distressed by its sorry state. Earl's subsequent efforts on behalf of the cemetery have resulted in its recent restoration, removing decades of vegetation and repairing much deterioration. For a full account of that effort, check out Jessi Paladini's column elsewhere in this week's AIM Sussex County.
It's easy to look at such a small country cemetery and regard it simply as the last resting place of one particular family. But it's more than that. If you read the stones, they collectively tell the story of that family.
It is a sometimes-cryptic story, complicated by the fact that in such cemeteries, headstones and other monuments rarely mark all the graves. It seems clear that many—perhaps half or more—would have received only an inscribed wooden cross or other marker, which in time deteriorated. So we only have part of the story. But it still tells a lot.
Col. Thomas DeKay set aside the parcel as a burying ground, but he wasn't the first to be buried there. Sadly for him, it was his son George, who died in November 1757. This was during the French and Indian War, and George had attained the rank of Major. He died either fighting Native Americans, or from "fatigue and exposure," depending on which family genealogy you consult. Whatever the cause, it was a tragedy, as George DeKay left behind a twenty-two year old wife, a two-year old daughter, and a two-month old son.
He was not the only occupant of the cemetery for long: his father, Colonel Thomas, died little more than a month later, on New Year's Day 1758. Surviving gravestones testify to no further burials here for another twenty-six years, until 1784, when the Colonel's seventy-seven year old widow, Christiana, was put to rest next to her husband. Son, father, and mother were the only marked burials here for the next forty years. Their tombstones are elegantly carved from the kind of reddish-brown sandstone found in the Newark basin. Rather dour looking cherubs gaze down from them, a common decorative element of the time.
The apparent disuse of the cemetery from the late 1780s through the 1820s probably reflects the fact that the DeKay family multiplied and spread out, and the Colonel's original farmstead—and burying ground—simply saw less activity. One of the Colonel's sons, Capt. Thomas DeKay (1731-1810), settled and was buried just over the line in New Milford, New York.
But Captain Thomas's son, Thomas DeKay Jr., commonly known as "Squire" or "Bucky" DeKay (1759-1830), settled on his grandfather's original farmstead, and became one of the best known of the Vernon DeKays. With Bucky DeKay setting down new roots on his grandfather's original farm, the old family burying ground again came into use. Among the first of the next generation to be buried here was William DeKay, one of Bucky's sons, who died in 1825, aged forty. Another of Bucky's children was Mary DeKay, who married Charles Welling of Warwick. Their son, Thomas Welling, was buried here in 1829, aged twenty-two. In 1830, old "Squire" Bucky DeKay died at age seventy-one and was buried here, followed the same year by his son-in-law Charles Welling, aged forty-five.
By this time, another of Bucky's sons, Thomas B. DeKay (commonly known by his militia title, Major) was likewise settling near the old homestead, known in old deeds as the Wawayanda Homestead Farm. In 1827, Major Thomas B. (born 1792, same year as Vernon Township) built a big new house not far from his grandfather's frontier home (which subsequently fell to ruin). This house still stands on DeKay Road (it has big white columns now). The Major's young wife, Clarissa Sharp (of Sharpsborough, later Hamburg) was the next to be buried here, dying in 1828 at age thirty. Major Thomas B. and his second wife, Sarah (some eighteen years his junior) saw more than their share of heartbreak, as recorded in the tombstones here.
In April 1835, Major Thomas and Sarah buried their little daughter Sarah A. here, aged just over two years old. Less than a month later, their little one-year-old daughter Emma C., likewise died and was buried here. And in December, Major Thomas's sister, Catherine, who had married Henry W. McCamley, had an infant daughter, who died aged three days and six hours, and was likewise buried along with her little cousins. The little cemetery never saw so many burials in one year again.
In 1842, Alanson Welling, another one of Bucky's grandsons via daughter Mary, died at thirty-six and was buried here. A year later came Ross Welling, aged sixteen (possibly a son or cousin of Alanson). And in 1846, Major Thomas and Sarah buried yet another child, William T., aged eight. And in 1847, their granddaughter Georgianna, aged 8, daughter of their son Thomas S. and his wife Elizabeth, died and was buried here.
In 1848, old Bucky's widow, Hannah, died at age eighty-five, the oldest person buried here. In 1850, Elizabeth DeKay, wife of Thomas S. and daughter-in-law of Major Thomas and Sarah, died (evidently in childbirth) at age thirty-two. The girl she gave birth to was named Elizabeth, but the baby sadly did not outlive her mother by long, joining her and her sister Georgianna here in the cemetery just over a year later.
At the same time Major Thomas and his wife Sarah were seeing grandchildren buried, they were still raising (and burying) children of their own. Their son Willie C., aged six, died and was buried here in 1853, and in 1861 their daughter Julia, aged eight, died and was buried here. All together, Major Thomas B. DeKay and his wife Sarah saw five of their children die.
In 1863, Major Thomas B. DeKay himself joined his children in death and was buried here. In 1866, his daughter Christina, aged twenty-three, joined him. The tombstones from the mid-1800s all reflect the materials and styles of those years: all marble, some slabs, some obelisks, some decorated with weeping willows, some with urns.
By the 1870s, old family burying grounds like this were being replaced in popularity by "Incorporated" cemeteries like Warwick Cemetery and Glenwood Cemetery, which had perpetual maintenance, as well as elegantly landscaped grounds. From then on, the DeKays of this branch were buried mostly in Warwick Cemetery.
But one last person, Sarah DeKay, widow of Major Thomas, chose to be buried here in 1890. Her husband's first wife had been buried here sixty years before, her husband twenty-seven years before, and she no doubt wanted to be buried here instead of the fancy newer cemeteries to be with her husband and her five little ones who had gone on before.
As far as we know, Sarah DeKay was the last person buried here. The cemetery was used for 133 years. It's worth noting a grim statistic: of the twenty-six people buried there for whom there are inscriptions, roughly forty percent were children or adolescents. That was no fluke: childhood mortality was high in the 18th and 19th centuries, even among well-to-do families like the DeKays.
Though it fell into disuse, the historical significance of the DeKay Cemetery as one of the region's oldest burial grounds was noted early on. In 1925, Rev. Warren P. Coon recorded its inscriptions, and a lucky thing, too. Pollution and acid rain has badly weathered some of marble inscriptions from the 1800s (ironically, the tombstones from the 1700s, carved on sandstone, were not affected by this, and are far more legible than the newer inscriptions on marble).
You might imagine Reverend Coon to be a country parson with an interest in genealogy, but he was quite a bit more. Minister of several large Methodist congregations in the Newark area in the early 1900s, he was also a decorated World War I Army Chaplain who served in the trenches at Verdun. Aside from being a prolific recorder of old cemeteries, he was a serious genealogist, and a popular speaker who gave numerous lectures. As if that wasn't enough, he served two terms in the New Jersey State Assembly.
A visit to the DeKay Cemetery today is like stepping back in time—the area looks much as it did in the 1ate 1800s, remaining profoundly rural. Reading these inscriptions on sandstone and marble, it is easy to be saddened by the record of young lives cut short.
But it is wrong to suppose these people were morbid or death-obsessed. Rather, they were profoundly aware that our time on earth is brief and fragile. These monuments were expressions of love, and remembrances of this hard fact. These people—as many today—viewed death as not an end, but as a mystic doorway to something beyond. Visiting a cemetery was supposed to remind you of just this. Or as stated by one 1860s Vernon epitaph:
Behold & see as you pass by--
As you and yours, so once was I.
As I am now, so you must be.
Prepare for death and follow me.
Friday, November 7, 2008
CAN FRANKLIN'S HUNGARIAN CHURCH (AND EDISON'S SCHOOLHOUSE) BE SAVED?
(from January 2007)
Ron Dupont
On Evans Street in Franklin stands a building built some 117 years ago as a school for the children of Thomas Edison's workers. It was moved a century ago and became a vital church for Hungarian miners. In spite of these connections with our area's rich industrial and ethnic heritage, it's slated to be torn down. But not if the Franklin Historical Society can help it.
Thomas Edison was one of the world's great inventive geniuses (no surprise there). Many folks know he lived in New Jersey and did some of his most important work here. But far fewer know that one of the most remarkable chapters of his career occurred right here in Sussex County, up on Sparta Mountain overlooking Ogdensburg.
In the 1880s, Edison worked on a method of pulverizing iron ore and magnetically separating the good stuff, iron, from the rock mixed with it. In 1887, he located the perfect spot for his enterprise: the mountain above Ogdensburg, at Ogden Mine. It had rail access, and lots of the iron ore he needed. In 1890, his first magnetic separating mill there went to work.
The site soon became known simply as "Edison." The New Jersey & Pennsylvania Concentrating Works (as the facility was known) there was a massive complex of ore houses, crushers, stock houses, mills, engine houses, stores, offices, pump houses, and some fifty dwellings for workers. At its peak, the plant employed nearly 400 men.
Those workers had children, and children need to be educated. Hence a school was built at Edison, too, a few hundred yards south of the giant concentrating works, on the west side of Edison Road.
The story of Edison's concentrating works is an epic one. I recommend getting your hands on a copy of Rodney Johnson's excellent, superbly illustrated 2004 history of the site, Thomas Edison's "Ogden Baby": The New Jersey & Pennsylvania Concentrating Works, which can be purchased at www.map-maker.net/, and at local bookstores.
Edison perfected the process of pulverizing boulders into dust, magnetically extracting the ore, and baking it into waterproof briquettes. But he couldn't compete financially with the new iron mines of the Mesabi Range in Minnesota, and by December 1900, the works were closed and being dismantled.
Many of the smaller buildings at the Edison works were sold off and moved by their new owners down the mountain to Ogdensburg and Franklin, where most still stand, used as houses and stores. Bigger ones were scrapped or allowed to go to ruin. One of the last standing was the Edison Schoolhouse. In 1908, that found a home, too.
In that year, Franklin's Hungarian population set out to establish a church of their own. The mines of Franklin and Ogdensburg had long attracted and employed a dizzying array of nationalities (more than twenty-one), but none more so than Hungarians. They represented twenty-seven percent of the mine workforce, outnumbering every other nationality, and native-born Americans, too. Hungarians were a third of the general population. In many a Franklin household, the operative phrase (like the old Strauss polka) was Éljen a Magyar! (Long live the Hungarians!)
But miners back then had limited income and means, and for a long time the area's Hungarians made do attending local churches where English was used, or borrowing space in other churches for services. Hungarian is from an entirely different linguistic family (Finno-Ugric) than most other European languages. The Hungarians of Franklin clearly felt a strong desire to hold religious services in their own church, and in their familiar native tongue.
According to Rev. Herbert Justin Allsup's 1934 history, A Brief History of Church Life in Franklin, New Jersey, the Hungarians of Franklin received permission to use the Franklin Presbyterian Church for services in Hungarian in 1900, but this arrangement didn't last long. They had also used the Baptist church for services.
In 1908, a meeting of Hungarian churchgoers was held at the Franklin home of George Antalics. The Hungarian Reformed Church of Alpha, NJ, under Rev. Janos Ambrus, agreed to act as "mother church" for a Franklin congregation. The New Jersey Zinc Company, the Alpha and Omega of most things in Franklin and Ogdensburg, was asked for help establishing a church and parsonage, and agreed to donate a plot land on Evans Street.
For a building, George Antalics purchased the old Edison School and donated it to the congregation. The men of the congregation gathered after work to construct a foundation for the former school, and "practically rebuilt" the structure in the process of moving it from Edison down to Franklin. Retired New Jersey Parks & Forestry Regional Superintendent and Sandyston resident Lou Cherepy, whose family roots with Franklin and the church run deep, recalls his grandfather George Szabo helped disassemble the school and move it down the mountain with mules and wagons. In 1909, the "Franklin Furnace Hungarian Reformed Church," as it was officially known, opened, deed in hand, with the original school bell still up in its belfry.
The Rev. Janos Ambrus, of the Alpha Church, and Rev. Bela Chekes, of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, were the first pastors to serve the church, which was part of the Eastern Hungarian Classis in America of the Synod of Hungary. Though a Reformed church, it was open to Hungarians of all faiths, and became a kind of de-facto Hungarian community center. The First World War caused the severing of relations with the mother church in Hungary (Austria-Hungary was allied with Germany and Turkey), and likewise a loss of financial support. But the church persevered.
The next minister was the Rev. Laszlo Szabo. Cherepy recalls that Reverend Szabo was "by far the most famous of the Franklin Hungarian pastors, and was highly respected and honored in Hungary as both a servant of the church and its people and a great Hungarian poet." Reverend Szabo, notes Cherepy, wrote a poem, "A Magyar Templom," ("The Hungarian Church"), which summarized the importance of the church to the local community: "A Templom egy darab Magyar fold"—"This church is Hungarian soil."
But by the late 1960s, the Franklin Hungarian Church's congregation was literally dying off. The newer generation was less interested in services in their ancestral tongue, and migrated to other churches. The church was finally closed in 1972 and sold to a private homeowner who used the adjacent rectory as a private home. But the church itself has sat vacant since, becoming dilapidated.
According to Lou Cherepy, interest in preserving the old Hungarian Church was first sparked in 1998, when New Jersey Parks & Forestry officials were drawing up plans for a Wallkill Valley Heritage Trail (still a developing project). Though Parks & Forestry expressed interest in preserving the landmark, the property owner was not interested, and thus ended that effort.
More recent news that the one-time Edison Schoolhouse and Hungarian Church was now to be demolished reached members of the Franklin Historical Society, who launched a campaign to rescue the structure. They soon enlisted the leadership of local historian and author Bill Truran. An avid historian and preservationist with a can-do attitude, Truran (a professor at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken) has published several excellent photographic histories of the area in recent years.
Truran and the Franklin Historical Society have secured several grants, including $1,000 from the Franklin-Ogdensburg Mineralogical Society (FOMS), $2,500 from Wal-Mart, and $10,000 from the Kirby Foundation. They are also working on loan applications with SussexBank and the United States Department of Agriculture. In addition, they are working toward leasing a parcel of land from the Borough of Franklin. As planned, the Edison School/Hungarian Church would be moved a short distance to the site of the (lamentably demolished) Franklin Neighborhood House. There it would become "The Heritage Center for Social and Cultural Study."
In its new role, the landmark would serve as a museum preserving the myriad cultures that played a role in the region's rich mining and industrial history. Truran is emphatic about the importance of Franklin and Ogdensburg's industrial heritage: "The confluence of over twenty nationalities to this world-class endeavor over a century ago contributed to winning two world wars, and is a facet of history that has significant impact on the America that we know today."
The Heritage Center would also highlight the under-appreciated importance of Thomas Edison's role in Sussex County's history. "The connection to Thomas Edison," notes Truran, "who more than any other person made the modern world—is a link that, along with the immigrants' hardscrabble life, is a story worth telling the next generation: a tale of hard work, perseverance, and ultimate success with society-changing results."
Truran is optimistic that the Heritage Center is on track to become a reality. But it still needs funding and help. This is where you come in. To donate time or money to make this exciting and important project happen, contact Bill Truran at wtruran@stevens.edu, (973) 729-1471, or the Franklin Historical Society at 95 Main Street, P.O. Box 332, Franklin, NJ, 07416, (973) 209-1232.
Franklin's history has taken some serious hits in recent years, with the demolition first of the Neighborhood House, and more recently the old Franklin Hospital, both landmarks from the glory days of the mining era. With help and lots of hard work, the Edison School/Hungarian Church won't meet the same fate, but will survive to honor the region's rich history. Bill Truran sums it up: "By saving the structure and building the Heritage Center we can ensure a lasting presence for Franklin's rich past accomplishments."
(Ron Dupont can be reached at dupont@vernonstories.com).
Ron Dupont
On Evans Street in Franklin stands a building built some 117 years ago as a school for the children of Thomas Edison's workers. It was moved a century ago and became a vital church for Hungarian miners. In spite of these connections with our area's rich industrial and ethnic heritage, it's slated to be torn down. But not if the Franklin Historical Society can help it.
Thomas Edison was one of the world's great inventive geniuses (no surprise there). Many folks know he lived in New Jersey and did some of his most important work here. But far fewer know that one of the most remarkable chapters of his career occurred right here in Sussex County, up on Sparta Mountain overlooking Ogdensburg.
In the 1880s, Edison worked on a method of pulverizing iron ore and magnetically separating the good stuff, iron, from the rock mixed with it. In 1887, he located the perfect spot for his enterprise: the mountain above Ogdensburg, at Ogden Mine. It had rail access, and lots of the iron ore he needed. In 1890, his first magnetic separating mill there went to work.
The site soon became known simply as "Edison." The New Jersey & Pennsylvania Concentrating Works (as the facility was known) there was a massive complex of ore houses, crushers, stock houses, mills, engine houses, stores, offices, pump houses, and some fifty dwellings for workers. At its peak, the plant employed nearly 400 men.
Those workers had children, and children need to be educated. Hence a school was built at Edison, too, a few hundred yards south of the giant concentrating works, on the west side of Edison Road.
The story of Edison's concentrating works is an epic one. I recommend getting your hands on a copy of Rodney Johnson's excellent, superbly illustrated 2004 history of the site, Thomas Edison's "Ogden Baby": The New Jersey & Pennsylvania Concentrating Works, which can be purchased at www.map-maker.net/, and at local bookstores.
Edison perfected the process of pulverizing boulders into dust, magnetically extracting the ore, and baking it into waterproof briquettes. But he couldn't compete financially with the new iron mines of the Mesabi Range in Minnesota, and by December 1900, the works were closed and being dismantled.
Many of the smaller buildings at the Edison works were sold off and moved by their new owners down the mountain to Ogdensburg and Franklin, where most still stand, used as houses and stores. Bigger ones were scrapped or allowed to go to ruin. One of the last standing was the Edison Schoolhouse. In 1908, that found a home, too.
In that year, Franklin's Hungarian population set out to establish a church of their own. The mines of Franklin and Ogdensburg had long attracted and employed a dizzying array of nationalities (more than twenty-one), but none more so than Hungarians. They represented twenty-seven percent of the mine workforce, outnumbering every other nationality, and native-born Americans, too. Hungarians were a third of the general population. In many a Franklin household, the operative phrase (like the old Strauss polka) was Éljen a Magyar! (Long live the Hungarians!)
But miners back then had limited income and means, and for a long time the area's Hungarians made do attending local churches where English was used, or borrowing space in other churches for services. Hungarian is from an entirely different linguistic family (Finno-Ugric) than most other European languages. The Hungarians of Franklin clearly felt a strong desire to hold religious services in their own church, and in their familiar native tongue.
According to Rev. Herbert Justin Allsup's 1934 history, A Brief History of Church Life in Franklin, New Jersey, the Hungarians of Franklin received permission to use the Franklin Presbyterian Church for services in Hungarian in 1900, but this arrangement didn't last long. They had also used the Baptist church for services.
In 1908, a meeting of Hungarian churchgoers was held at the Franklin home of George Antalics. The Hungarian Reformed Church of Alpha, NJ, under Rev. Janos Ambrus, agreed to act as "mother church" for a Franklin congregation. The New Jersey Zinc Company, the Alpha and Omega of most things in Franklin and Ogdensburg, was asked for help establishing a church and parsonage, and agreed to donate a plot land on Evans Street.
For a building, George Antalics purchased the old Edison School and donated it to the congregation. The men of the congregation gathered after work to construct a foundation for the former school, and "practically rebuilt" the structure in the process of moving it from Edison down to Franklin. Retired New Jersey Parks & Forestry Regional Superintendent and Sandyston resident Lou Cherepy, whose family roots with Franklin and the church run deep, recalls his grandfather George Szabo helped disassemble the school and move it down the mountain with mules and wagons. In 1909, the "Franklin Furnace Hungarian Reformed Church," as it was officially known, opened, deed in hand, with the original school bell still up in its belfry.
The Rev. Janos Ambrus, of the Alpha Church, and Rev. Bela Chekes, of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, were the first pastors to serve the church, which was part of the Eastern Hungarian Classis in America of the Synod of Hungary. Though a Reformed church, it was open to Hungarians of all faiths, and became a kind of de-facto Hungarian community center. The First World War caused the severing of relations with the mother church in Hungary (Austria-Hungary was allied with Germany and Turkey), and likewise a loss of financial support. But the church persevered.
The next minister was the Rev. Laszlo Szabo. Cherepy recalls that Reverend Szabo was "by far the most famous of the Franklin Hungarian pastors, and was highly respected and honored in Hungary as both a servant of the church and its people and a great Hungarian poet." Reverend Szabo, notes Cherepy, wrote a poem, "A Magyar Templom," ("The Hungarian Church"), which summarized the importance of the church to the local community: "A Templom egy darab Magyar fold"—"This church is Hungarian soil."
But by the late 1960s, the Franklin Hungarian Church's congregation was literally dying off. The newer generation was less interested in services in their ancestral tongue, and migrated to other churches. The church was finally closed in 1972 and sold to a private homeowner who used the adjacent rectory as a private home. But the church itself has sat vacant since, becoming dilapidated.
According to Lou Cherepy, interest in preserving the old Hungarian Church was first sparked in 1998, when New Jersey Parks & Forestry officials were drawing up plans for a Wallkill Valley Heritage Trail (still a developing project). Though Parks & Forestry expressed interest in preserving the landmark, the property owner was not interested, and thus ended that effort.
More recent news that the one-time Edison Schoolhouse and Hungarian Church was now to be demolished reached members of the Franklin Historical Society, who launched a campaign to rescue the structure. They soon enlisted the leadership of local historian and author Bill Truran. An avid historian and preservationist with a can-do attitude, Truran (a professor at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken) has published several excellent photographic histories of the area in recent years.
Truran and the Franklin Historical Society have secured several grants, including $1,000 from the Franklin-Ogdensburg Mineralogical Society (FOMS), $2,500 from Wal-Mart, and $10,000 from the Kirby Foundation. They are also working on loan applications with SussexBank and the United States Department of Agriculture. In addition, they are working toward leasing a parcel of land from the Borough of Franklin. As planned, the Edison School/Hungarian Church would be moved a short distance to the site of the (lamentably demolished) Franklin Neighborhood House. There it would become "The Heritage Center for Social and Cultural Study."
In its new role, the landmark would serve as a museum preserving the myriad cultures that played a role in the region's rich mining and industrial history. Truran is emphatic about the importance of Franklin and Ogdensburg's industrial heritage: "The confluence of over twenty nationalities to this world-class endeavor over a century ago contributed to winning two world wars, and is a facet of history that has significant impact on the America that we know today."
The Heritage Center would also highlight the under-appreciated importance of Thomas Edison's role in Sussex County's history. "The connection to Thomas Edison," notes Truran, "who more than any other person made the modern world—is a link that, along with the immigrants' hardscrabble life, is a story worth telling the next generation: a tale of hard work, perseverance, and ultimate success with society-changing results."
Truran is optimistic that the Heritage Center is on track to become a reality. But it still needs funding and help. This is where you come in. To donate time or money to make this exciting and important project happen, contact Bill Truran at wtruran@stevens.edu, (973) 729-1471, or the Franklin Historical Society at 95 Main Street, P.O. Box 332, Franklin, NJ, 07416, (973) 209-1232.
Franklin's history has taken some serious hits in recent years, with the demolition first of the Neighborhood House, and more recently the old Franklin Hospital, both landmarks from the glory days of the mining era. With help and lots of hard work, the Edison School/Hungarian Church won't meet the same fate, but will survive to honor the region's rich history. Bill Truran sums it up: "By saving the structure and building the Heritage Center we can ensure a lasting presence for Franklin's rich past accomplishments."
(Ron Dupont can be reached at dupont@vernonstories.com).
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Ramapo Buys Itself a Present!
(from December 2006)
The Holidays were nearly a year away, but the Town of Ramapo bought itself a lovely present this year—an historic one. Plenty of municipal governments talk about the importance of historic preservation, but few do anything about it. Some (like Vernon) at least have historic preservation commissions and ordinances. But only a rare few put their money where their mouth is and preserve their history by buying it.
Ramapo, our neighbor up and over the mountains in New York, is one such town. It is home to some of the most wild and scenic sections of Harriman State Park, yet Ramapo also has rapidly growing areas (most of us will know the town best as home to the massive I-287/Route 17/New York State Thruway Interchange). And so, looking to preserve some of Ramapo's heritage before it was lost, the town's eyes turned toward Sloatsburg, nestled in the Torne Valley.
Sloatsburg is a rather quaint, slightly grungy village on Route 17, just south of Tuxedo Park, that regional Valhalla of the rich and famous (well, at least rich.) It was named for the Sloat family, and for good reason. Stephen Sloat settled in the 18th century, married into the well-to-do local Dutch gentry, and prospered as a manufacturer and local muckety-muck. The Sloats operated a stone tavern, or public house, on Route 17, which for decades was a place of importance. Now an historic landmark, it still stands in Sloatsburg.
The ensuing generations of Sloats likewise prospered in various careers, many of them industrial. The family rock star, however, was probably Stephen Sloat's grandson, John Drake Sloat (1781-1867), who rose to the rank of Commodore in the U.S. Navy. In 1846, during the Mexican War, Commodore Sloat defeated the enemy at the Battle of Monterey, and then strode ashore, raised the stars and stripes, and claimed California as U.S. territory—the birth of a State.
Commodore Sloat's cousin, Jacob Sloat, stayed in the ancestral village and continued the family's industrial pursuits. He apparently had no taste for fame or public life, but he was, by several accounts, a mechanical genius. The Sloats had built their first cotton mill on the Ramapo River in 1815, and they did well milling and weaving the fiber, expanding the mill regularly.
By 1840, however, Jacob Sloat had developed a process for winding cotton into a dressed twine that was much in demand. Soon, the Sloat cotton mill focused exclusively on manufacturing cotton twine. At its peak, just before the Civil War, Sloat's twine factory employed 150 people and produced four tons of twine each week. It's no joke: Jacob Sloat made a fortune from string.
The mansion he built in 1848 reflected Sloat's rising fortunes, a huge three-story Greek Revival edifice surrounded by broad lawns, atop a sloping hill overlooking Sloatsburg. With flanking symmetrical wings and a front colonnade, the mansion exuded wealth and classical dignity—and as the dominant landmark in the village, it cemented Sloat's social status. Sloat gave the mansion a name that conveyed the dignified, peaceful atmosphere within: Harmony Hall.
No one seems to know who designed the mansion. Sloat himself, as an inventor, probably had a hand in it. Jasper Cropsey, the famed Hudson River school artist, who was also a trained architect, was a Sloat family friend and did sketches of the mansion; he, too may have aided in its design. Whoever designed it, it was the showplace of Sloatsburg, with fifteen-foot high ceilings, ornate plasterwork, marble fireplaces, and many other handsome details.
Jacob Sloat didn't get to enjoy the mansion for long. He died in 1858, a decade after it was built. His descendants also went on to prominent and interesting careers, including his grandson, Jacob Sloat Fassett, an important New York State politician and Republican candidate for Governor (he lost.) But by the turn of the century, Harmony Hall had ceased to be the family home, and was on to a new career as a restaurant and inn.
By the early 1900s, Route 17 was becoming increasingly important as a highway. This was decades before the New York State Thruway was built, and Route 17 was the main artery north toward the Catskills, the Shawangunks, Albany, and the Adirondacks. In summertime, it was a virtual parking lot (the joke was that local residents on either side of Route 17 shook hands just before Memorial Day, because they wouldn't be able to cross the highway again until after Labor Day.)
The commercial importance of this highway traffic helped tourist-oriented businesses like restaurants, and Harmony Hall went through several incarnations as a roadhouse and lodging. At the same time, Sloatsburg's old industries along the Ramapo River slowly died off, with Jacob Sloat's factory making its last twine in 1955.
After the New York State Thruway was opened in 1956, commercial businesses that depended on traffic on Route 17 took a hit. Harmony Hall changed roles again, this time being converted into a retirement home. At the same time, the vast spreading lawns that had once sloped away from it down toward the river were being sold off. The section along Route 17 became small businesses and a strip mall, while the side sections were sold off for housing. Still, sitting on a remaining two acres, the old mansion retained a considerable aura of dignity and charm.
That surviving historic charm would have been greatly reduced or eliminated by a recent plan to construct condominium townhouses around the surviving land around the mansion/retirement home. Seeing the preservation of the once-proud mansion and its grounds as an opportunity slipping away, the Town of Ramapo under the guidance of Supervisor Christopher P. St. Lawrence pursued the acquisition of Harmony Hall. Using some creative funding, including considerable grant moneys, they finally managed to acquire the mansion and surrounding two acres for $750,000 earlier this year. For lovers of history in Ramapo, Santa came early.
The plan is now to restore Harmony Hall, presently aluminum-sided, weather-beaten, and decayed, and transform it into a cultural and historic center for all sorts of community activities. The mansion was listed on the State Register of Historic Places on October 17 of this year, and listing on the National Register of Historic Places was expected before year's end. An aggressive plan of stabilization and restoration of the building has been advanced, and a live-in curator secured (Geoff Welch, the prominent regional environmental and historical activist).
A volunteer group, the Friends of Harmony Hall, has been formed to assist in the plans. In the short time the building has been in public ownership, the Friends have already hosted tours and put on a Victorian Holiday Celebration. I was lucky enough to go on one of the tours, and explored the old mansion from cellar to attic. It's a fascinating and handsome building that will, to be sure, require years of work to return to its former glory. But it does seem likely that within a few years, Jacob Sloat's mansion, Harmony Hall, will once again be the jewel of the Ramapo it once was.
For more information, you can contact the Friends of Harmony Hall, 15 Liberty Rock Road, Sloatsburg, NY, 10974, or call (845) 753-2727.
The Holidays were nearly a year away, but the Town of Ramapo bought itself a lovely present this year—an historic one. Plenty of municipal governments talk about the importance of historic preservation, but few do anything about it. Some (like Vernon) at least have historic preservation commissions and ordinances. But only a rare few put their money where their mouth is and preserve their history by buying it.
Ramapo, our neighbor up and over the mountains in New York, is one such town. It is home to some of the most wild and scenic sections of Harriman State Park, yet Ramapo also has rapidly growing areas (most of us will know the town best as home to the massive I-287/Route 17/New York State Thruway Interchange). And so, looking to preserve some of Ramapo's heritage before it was lost, the town's eyes turned toward Sloatsburg, nestled in the Torne Valley.
Sloatsburg is a rather quaint, slightly grungy village on Route 17, just south of Tuxedo Park, that regional Valhalla of the rich and famous (well, at least rich.) It was named for the Sloat family, and for good reason. Stephen Sloat settled in the 18th century, married into the well-to-do local Dutch gentry, and prospered as a manufacturer and local muckety-muck. The Sloats operated a stone tavern, or public house, on Route 17, which for decades was a place of importance. Now an historic landmark, it still stands in Sloatsburg.
The ensuing generations of Sloats likewise prospered in various careers, many of them industrial. The family rock star, however, was probably Stephen Sloat's grandson, John Drake Sloat (1781-1867), who rose to the rank of Commodore in the U.S. Navy. In 1846, during the Mexican War, Commodore Sloat defeated the enemy at the Battle of Monterey, and then strode ashore, raised the stars and stripes, and claimed California as U.S. territory—the birth of a State.
Commodore Sloat's cousin, Jacob Sloat, stayed in the ancestral village and continued the family's industrial pursuits. He apparently had no taste for fame or public life, but he was, by several accounts, a mechanical genius. The Sloats had built their first cotton mill on the Ramapo River in 1815, and they did well milling and weaving the fiber, expanding the mill regularly.
By 1840, however, Jacob Sloat had developed a process for winding cotton into a dressed twine that was much in demand. Soon, the Sloat cotton mill focused exclusively on manufacturing cotton twine. At its peak, just before the Civil War, Sloat's twine factory employed 150 people and produced four tons of twine each week. It's no joke: Jacob Sloat made a fortune from string.
The mansion he built in 1848 reflected Sloat's rising fortunes, a huge three-story Greek Revival edifice surrounded by broad lawns, atop a sloping hill overlooking Sloatsburg. With flanking symmetrical wings and a front colonnade, the mansion exuded wealth and classical dignity—and as the dominant landmark in the village, it cemented Sloat's social status. Sloat gave the mansion a name that conveyed the dignified, peaceful atmosphere within: Harmony Hall.
No one seems to know who designed the mansion. Sloat himself, as an inventor, probably had a hand in it. Jasper Cropsey, the famed Hudson River school artist, who was also a trained architect, was a Sloat family friend and did sketches of the mansion; he, too may have aided in its design. Whoever designed it, it was the showplace of Sloatsburg, with fifteen-foot high ceilings, ornate plasterwork, marble fireplaces, and many other handsome details.
Jacob Sloat didn't get to enjoy the mansion for long. He died in 1858, a decade after it was built. His descendants also went on to prominent and interesting careers, including his grandson, Jacob Sloat Fassett, an important New York State politician and Republican candidate for Governor (he lost.) But by the turn of the century, Harmony Hall had ceased to be the family home, and was on to a new career as a restaurant and inn.
By the early 1900s, Route 17 was becoming increasingly important as a highway. This was decades before the New York State Thruway was built, and Route 17 was the main artery north toward the Catskills, the Shawangunks, Albany, and the Adirondacks. In summertime, it was a virtual parking lot (the joke was that local residents on either side of Route 17 shook hands just before Memorial Day, because they wouldn't be able to cross the highway again until after Labor Day.)
The commercial importance of this highway traffic helped tourist-oriented businesses like restaurants, and Harmony Hall went through several incarnations as a roadhouse and lodging. At the same time, Sloatsburg's old industries along the Ramapo River slowly died off, with Jacob Sloat's factory making its last twine in 1955.
After the New York State Thruway was opened in 1956, commercial businesses that depended on traffic on Route 17 took a hit. Harmony Hall changed roles again, this time being converted into a retirement home. At the same time, the vast spreading lawns that had once sloped away from it down toward the river were being sold off. The section along Route 17 became small businesses and a strip mall, while the side sections were sold off for housing. Still, sitting on a remaining two acres, the old mansion retained a considerable aura of dignity and charm.
That surviving historic charm would have been greatly reduced or eliminated by a recent plan to construct condominium townhouses around the surviving land around the mansion/retirement home. Seeing the preservation of the once-proud mansion and its grounds as an opportunity slipping away, the Town of Ramapo under the guidance of Supervisor Christopher P. St. Lawrence pursued the acquisition of Harmony Hall. Using some creative funding, including considerable grant moneys, they finally managed to acquire the mansion and surrounding two acres for $750,000 earlier this year. For lovers of history in Ramapo, Santa came early.
The plan is now to restore Harmony Hall, presently aluminum-sided, weather-beaten, and decayed, and transform it into a cultural and historic center for all sorts of community activities. The mansion was listed on the State Register of Historic Places on October 17 of this year, and listing on the National Register of Historic Places was expected before year's end. An aggressive plan of stabilization and restoration of the building has been advanced, and a live-in curator secured (Geoff Welch, the prominent regional environmental and historical activist).
A volunteer group, the Friends of Harmony Hall, has been formed to assist in the plans. In the short time the building has been in public ownership, the Friends have already hosted tours and put on a Victorian Holiday Celebration. I was lucky enough to go on one of the tours, and explored the old mansion from cellar to attic. It's a fascinating and handsome building that will, to be sure, require years of work to return to its former glory. But it does seem likely that within a few years, Jacob Sloat's mansion, Harmony Hall, will once again be the jewel of the Ramapo it once was.
For more information, you can contact the Friends of Harmony Hall, 15 Liberty Rock Road, Sloatsburg, NY, 10974, or call (845) 753-2727.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
The Baxter Homestead--a Glenwood (and Vernon) Landmark
Ron Dupont
The Vernon Township Historic Preservation Commission, relatively inactive for some three years, has sprung back to action over the last year under the leadership of chairperson Donna Wilson. Moving to Vernon several years ago from West Milford, Wilson brought with her a wealth of experience in historic preservation. She was long active with the Friends of Long Pond Ironworks State Park, and in moving to Vernon quickly became involved in historic preservation here.
Under her guidance, the Historic Preservation Commission has successfully advanced the first new nomination for a Town Historic Landmark in three years. The property in question is the home of Mike and Lisa Taplinger of Glenwood, historically known as the Baxter Homestead. Located on Route 517 in Glenwood, just south of Pochuck Valley Farms, the house has been a Vernon landmark for a century and a half.
Vernon’s Historic Preservation ordinance requires that the Commission review actions that could negatively affect the historic character of an officially registered site—such as alteration, additions, or demolition—at the same time they would normally be reviewed by other Town boards. The intent is to promote and encourage the preservation of historically significant structures while allowing owners to make improvements, repairs, and even convert the use of the structure.
Listing on Vernon Township’s Historic Landmark Registry can only occur with the consent of the owner. Mike Taplinger didn’t have to be convinced to let his house be listed. In fact, it was his idea. He purchased the historic home in 1989, and was immediately intrigued with the history of the property. Over the last decade and a half, he has undertaken the restoration of the exterior of the home, repairing and replacing intricate Victorian gingerbread, scraping and repairing original siding and trim, and returning the home to a traditional color scheme.
Vernon’s landmark registration process is based on that used for the State and National Register of Historic Places, and requires that a property be deemed significant for either archaeology, architecture, history, or its association with significant persons of our past. The Baxter Homestead was deemed significant for its architecture, and for the significance of the Baxters themselves, many of whom went on to notable careers.
The oldest part of the homestead was built c.1816 by Charles Baxter (they sometimes spelled their name Backster, too). The original dwelling was about half the size of the present one, which was the result of an addition, built in 1864 by Charles Baxter’s son John C. Baxter. The large wood frame house has decorative elements from both the Italianate and Gothic Revival styles, and would generally be described as “Folk Victorian.” It represents a well-preserved example of a fairly typical large, upscale farmhouse of a well-to-do Sussex County farmer from the Civil War era, and is architecturally significant for that reason.
It’s also significant for the Baxters themselves. Charles Baxter and his son John C. seemed to have been ordinary, prosperous farmers who led relatively unremarkable lives, but the third generation of Baxters made their mark. This was a time when farming could bring in real wealth, and it afforded the Baxters the ability to advance beyond farming into other endeavors.
Of the third generation of Baxters to live here in the mid-1800s, Charles J. Baxter (1841-1915) started out a schoolteacher and went on to become New Jersey State Superintendent of Schools. His brother John E. Baxter attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, and rose to the rank of Army Colonel. Another brother, George T. Baxter, graduated from Columbia University Law School and worked for the U.S. Treasury Department. All in all, not bad for the sons and grandsons of Sussex County dairy farmers!
After nearly a year of winding its way through the Township bureaucracy, the Historic Landmark Registration for the Baxter Homestead was finally approved by the Town Council in October. Though it was the first Landmark Registration to be advanced for a few years, it won’t be the last. Nominations for at least two more sites are in progress, and the Commission is putting the finishing touches on a master index of some 160 historic sites in Vernon Township. This will serve as a guide for future preservation efforts.
With every recent year seeing the destruction of one or more historic structures in Vernon Township, Commission members are hopeful that the Historic Landmarks Registry, along with their master index of historic sites, can reverse this trend. That is certainly Mike Taplinger’s hope for his home. Some folks might wince at the idea of needing more Township approvals to make changes to their property. But Taplinger was instead looking to the day when he might no longer be around to look out for his house, of which is he is so obviously proud and protective. He states it plainly: “I hope these efforts will result in the preservation of this house for years to come.”
The Vernon Township Historic Preservation Commission, relatively inactive for some three years, has sprung back to action over the last year under the leadership of chairperson Donna Wilson. Moving to Vernon several years ago from West Milford, Wilson brought with her a wealth of experience in historic preservation. She was long active with the Friends of Long Pond Ironworks State Park, and in moving to Vernon quickly became involved in historic preservation here.
Under her guidance, the Historic Preservation Commission has successfully advanced the first new nomination for a Town Historic Landmark in three years. The property in question is the home of Mike and Lisa Taplinger of Glenwood, historically known as the Baxter Homestead. Located on Route 517 in Glenwood, just south of Pochuck Valley Farms, the house has been a Vernon landmark for a century and a half.
Vernon’s Historic Preservation ordinance requires that the Commission review actions that could negatively affect the historic character of an officially registered site—such as alteration, additions, or demolition—at the same time they would normally be reviewed by other Town boards. The intent is to promote and encourage the preservation of historically significant structures while allowing owners to make improvements, repairs, and even convert the use of the structure.
Listing on Vernon Township’s Historic Landmark Registry can only occur with the consent of the owner. Mike Taplinger didn’t have to be convinced to let his house be listed. In fact, it was his idea. He purchased the historic home in 1989, and was immediately intrigued with the history of the property. Over the last decade and a half, he has undertaken the restoration of the exterior of the home, repairing and replacing intricate Victorian gingerbread, scraping and repairing original siding and trim, and returning the home to a traditional color scheme.
Vernon’s landmark registration process is based on that used for the State and National Register of Historic Places, and requires that a property be deemed significant for either archaeology, architecture, history, or its association with significant persons of our past. The Baxter Homestead was deemed significant for its architecture, and for the significance of the Baxters themselves, many of whom went on to notable careers.
The oldest part of the homestead was built c.1816 by Charles Baxter (they sometimes spelled their name Backster, too). The original dwelling was about half the size of the present one, which was the result of an addition, built in 1864 by Charles Baxter’s son John C. Baxter. The large wood frame house has decorative elements from both the Italianate and Gothic Revival styles, and would generally be described as “Folk Victorian.” It represents a well-preserved example of a fairly typical large, upscale farmhouse of a well-to-do Sussex County farmer from the Civil War era, and is architecturally significant for that reason.
It’s also significant for the Baxters themselves. Charles Baxter and his son John C. seemed to have been ordinary, prosperous farmers who led relatively unremarkable lives, but the third generation of Baxters made their mark. This was a time when farming could bring in real wealth, and it afforded the Baxters the ability to advance beyond farming into other endeavors.
Of the third generation of Baxters to live here in the mid-1800s, Charles J. Baxter (1841-1915) started out a schoolteacher and went on to become New Jersey State Superintendent of Schools. His brother John E. Baxter attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, and rose to the rank of Army Colonel. Another brother, George T. Baxter, graduated from Columbia University Law School and worked for the U.S. Treasury Department. All in all, not bad for the sons and grandsons of Sussex County dairy farmers!
After nearly a year of winding its way through the Township bureaucracy, the Historic Landmark Registration for the Baxter Homestead was finally approved by the Town Council in October. Though it was the first Landmark Registration to be advanced for a few years, it won’t be the last. Nominations for at least two more sites are in progress, and the Commission is putting the finishing touches on a master index of some 160 historic sites in Vernon Township. This will serve as a guide for future preservation efforts.
With every recent year seeing the destruction of one or more historic structures in Vernon Township, Commission members are hopeful that the Historic Landmarks Registry, along with their master index of historic sites, can reverse this trend. That is certainly Mike Taplinger’s hope for his home. Some folks might wince at the idea of needing more Township approvals to make changes to their property. But Taplinger was instead looking to the day when he might no longer be around to look out for his house, of which is he is so obviously proud and protective. He states it plainly: “I hope these efforts will result in the preservation of this house for years to come.”
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Digging History at Bear Mountain
I’ve occasionally worked as a field archaeologist over the past twenty-odd years. It sounds fascinating, conjuring up images of Indiana Jones hunting down treasures, or Howard Carter opening Tut’s tomb. Digging into the past! Uncovering amazing artifacts and their stories! Lemme tell ya, it’s a lie. Archaeology is hot, hard, dirty work. The great finds are few and far between. On some jobs, there are almost no finds at all.
But sometimes, you get a bit lucky. I was reminded of this recently when my family and I visited Fort Montgomery State Historic Site on Route 9W, just north of Bear Mountain. Fort Montgomery, and Fort Clinton just to the south, were built on lofty river bluffs to defend the west end of Hudson River chain in 1777. Archaeologists excavated the remains of Fort Montgomery in the 1960s, and the site has recently been opened to the public (check out the restored grand battery, complete with real cannons!). If you follow the famous Appalachian Trail from right here in Sussex County northward, you’ll pass near this very spot: the Trail crosses the Hudson on the Bear Mountain Bridge before heading north into the Taconic Mountains and on to New England.
The site of Fort Clinton was built on over the centuries (most recently being the location of the Bear Mountain Trailside Museum and Zoo) and, unlike Fort Montgomery, was never archaeologically excavated. At least not until 1992, when the firm I have worked for was hired to do archaeology there prior to a construction project. For eager archaeologists, the possibility of digging in a Revolutionary War fort was like going to Disney World. Or at least, so we hoped.
The rich history of the site was examined because plans to construct sorely needed school bus and barrier-free parking for the Trailside Museum and Zoo were underway. This called for a careful archaeological study of the site, one of the most historically colorful locations in the region. A quick study demonstrated that there was good reason for concern about impact on archaeological resources. For decades, it was learned, park workmen had discovered Native American artifacts around the property in the course of digging. But this prominent river bluff's most famous chapter came long after the Native Americans were gone.
The Revolutionary War, July 1776: the British were determined to control the Hudson, and thus split and subdue their newly rebelling American colonies. In response, colonists constructed the second of the famous Hudson River chains, obstructing the river between Bear Mountain and Anthony's Nose. This great river chain would, with luck, stop the British Navy. Two forts were built above Popolopen Gorge to protect the chain and provide general defense: larger Fort Montgomery to the north, and the smaller Fort Clinton to the south. Fort Clinton consisted of a star-shaped redoubt and five buildings, including barracks. Fort Montgomery included barracks, powder magazines, officer’s quarters, and several batteries of cannons.
Both forts were well-defended from the riverside, but partly open from the rear. The Colonists assumed the British would, naturally, attack from the river, instead of trudging miles through the rough mountains to make a rear-attack. But that’s exactly what they did. And so the forts' careers were short: attacked by the British on October 6, 1777, they were captured following a bloody defeat of the American troops. The Redcoats held the forts until October 26, then retreated, burning and razing both to prevent their use by the colonists. They were never rebuilt.
Of course, the Hudson River chain WAS rebuilt—this time further north, between West Point and Constitution Island. This, the so-called “Great Chain,” was in place by April 1778, and kept the British Navy at bay. A portion of it can still be seen on Trophy Point at the U.S. Military Academy there.
The spectacular site of Fort Clinton was not, however, long ignored after the War of Independence. By the late 18th century, Eugene Lucett had established a dwelling, evidently amid the remains of Fort Clinton. In 1834 the wealthy Pell family (same family as Senator Pell, who created the Pell Grants program) of New York, who counted among their number a former New York mayor, purchased the property. The Pells constructed a country estate on the bluff, erasing any visible traces or ruins of the old Revolutionary War redoubt, and replacing them with landscaped grounds. In 1889, an even bigger change was in the wind: a proposed railroad bridge from the Pell property, across the river to Anthony's Nose. Going bankrupt during construction, the bridge scheme was nevertheless a harbinger of things to come. The Pell Mansion itself burned in 1910, by which time it had sunk to the lowly status of boarding house.
By 1920, the fortunes of the area seemed anchored with then-newly created Bear Mountain Park. In 1923, the former Pell estate finally did see a bridge built through it. Bear Mountain Bridge (now a National Engineering Landmark), opened in 1924, cut through the heart of the old fort / estate area atop the bluff, and the massive construction associated with it further mottled and complicated an already much-used and much-altered site. Indeed, our excavation site was smack in the middle of what was the staging area for construction of the bridge.
In 1927, the site was chosen as the location for a park museum and zoo, and by 1936 the present handsome complex of rustic stone buildings and winding paths and overlooks had been constructed. Today, the Historical Museum contains a fascinating array of historical exhibits. To its rear is the site of Fort Clinton's Grand Battery (artillery emplacement), with a breathtaking view of the Hudson.
Fort Clinton's Grand Battery, however, was long gone. The sole surviving trace of the fort, and that having been extensively restored in the 1930's, was the West Redoubt, an outer defensive work, which can still be visited. Still, the array of change on the site is bewildering. Construction of Fort Clinton in 1776-77 erased the bluff's prehistoric appearance; construction of the Pell estate in 1834 erased Fort Clinton's ruins; and now the trailside museum and zoo had erased any visible trace of the Pell estate. Any evidence of the site's history was now buried.
Thus when plans for the school bus and barrier-free parking area were drawn, park officials were concerned that the necessary earth removal might destroy important archaeological data. A careful study of 18th century maps revealed that construction would destroy an area directly within the original 1776 fort. This was potentially exciting, as it was near the site of a Revolutionary War barracks. Fort Montgomery had yielded major archaeological finds, including a complete 18th century hearth. Would Fort Clinton yield the same?
Sheffield Archaeological Consultants of Butler, NJ, was hired to do the Fort Clinton study. I was part of the field archaeology team, along with my fellow Vernonite Rick Patterson. Preliminary archaeological testing determined that, indeed, there were two sensitive areas. One was on the lawn south of the Bear Mountain Bridge tollbooths, and yielded 18th century artifacts. The other was a larger site immediately west that showed signs of Native American occupation. Both sites were rapidly heading for the bulldozer.
-----
In visiting Fort Montgomery recently, I recalled my days in 1992 excavating at Fort Clinton across Popolopen gorge. Looking through my files, I found a journal I had written at the time, recording our efforts:
“ Eleven o'clock and hot as blazes. Two hours of hard scraping and digging and I'm only six inches into my one-meter excavation. The roar of traffic from the Bear Mountain Bridge is incessant. A few curious people stop and gaze at our work, but only a handful ask questions. Our principal archaeologist politely answers their questions. Now off in the distance, the occasional "boom-boom, boom-boom" sounds up north, through the steamy summer air. Not Rip Van Winkle's mysterious crew playing ninepins -- rather, it must be gunnery practice time up at West Point. Now and then a helicopter gunship skims the treetops above us -- another sign that America's future defenders are training nearby. How many people know how much blood was spilled right here to help found a Nation?”
A few days later: “Our first shovel tests in this area turned up tiny chert flakes galore, and the tip of a tiny prehistoric point, maybe from an arrow -- the Native Americans were here for sure. So far, all I'm finding in this black, gritty dirt under the grass a short spit from the highway is trash -- bottle caps, bits of rubber, old macadam -- the detritus of 20th century highway culture. And the pine tree two feet away has a root system roughly as large and complex as the New York Subway system. It's not making my life a joy right now. Out on the lawn, in the sun, other units are digging in the 18th century area. Right now they're trying to decide if the stones they came down upon are natural, or -- hopefully -- the remains of a Revolutionary War foundation.”
Later still: “We're rapidly turning the area into a kind of performance art checkerboard -- our neat square holes separated by untouched areas of lawn or woods. All the dirt, carefully scraped by trowel, goes through the sifter to see what else may turn up. Our sifter pile is now becoming a small mountain; the back-breaking work is relieved by jokes, like our name for the pile: Mount Oswf, an acronym for what we imagine the American soldiers' last words here were as the British Redcoats breached the bastion (use your imagination). The 18th century site keeps on yielding tantalizing clues -- old wine bottle glass, windowpane glass, and bricks. The "foundation" they came down upon seems to be just rocks -- but they're checking to be sure. Our prehistoric site keeps on coughing up a steady supply of flakes and debitage (waste chert from the making of stone tools), and the occasional thriller, like a well-made point or a musket ball.”
After the job is done:” Having endured heat, humidity, roots, mosquitoes, one drenching thunderstorm that ended work, and one New York passerby who asked, in all seriousness, if New Jersey wasn't just "all swamps and highways," we're almost done. Our prehistoric site never quite answered our highest hopes, but still produced a slew of artifacts. The 18th century site was a disappointment: historic artifacts, yes, but in no order of depth -- newer stuff deep down, old stuff near the surface. And no barracks foundation at all. Same with the Indian site -- bricks side by side with Indian material. Mostly we found bedrock within a few feet. The pageant of changes that had occurred on this spot had definitely caused one thing: it had totally jumbled the archaeological remains. Leaving, we're satisfied with our work, but still can't help but wonder: if only . . . . . But you can't find what isn't there.”
Our dig took place over several weeks, and involved the excavation of numerous meter-square units. We removed almost 300 cubic feet of earth (roughly eight tons), every ounce of it troweled out by hand and sifted through quarter-inch mesh. It revealed much more about the history of the site-or at least, how disturbed it had become by later activity. Excavation of the 18th century site yielded considerable 18th century material: bricks, window glass, bottle glass, ceramics, and a fragment of a handsome Rhenishware tankard (once used by a well-to-do officer to sip fine ales, and lost in the ensuing battle and flames? The mind can only wonder). Unfortunately, the material was jumbled in such a way that indicated it had probably been dumped here from elsewhere, long-ago landfill, perhaps from when the Pells cleared away and leveled the old Revolutionary earthworks to make their lawns and gardens. No trace of the barracks was discovered.
The Prehistoric site nearby proved surprisingly fruitful. Over 1,400 prehistoric artifacts were excavated, including tiny chert flakes, stone tools, arrow and spear points, scrapers, hammerstones, pottery, a glass trade bead, and two musket balls-relics of the Revolutionary War battle which came long after the last Native Americans had camped here. The archaeological team concluded that the site had been occupied for brief periods between 3,000 and 1,000 B.C., and again from 1,000 to 1750 A.D., by Native Americans who came there to make or repair stone tools using nearby chert deposits -- an ancient tool workshop.
In spite of the disturbed conditions, the archaeology was valuable. Edward J. Lenik, Principal Investigator for Sheffield Archaeological Consultants, summed up the dig at Fort Clinton at the time: "Archaeology has literally revealed history beneath our feet. For example, although the presence of Native American groups in the general area has long been known, we now know the exact spot at which they stopped along their trail, when they paused here, and what they did here. The archaeological investigations have determined the overlays of history -- Indian, Colonial, and 20th century -- an ever-changing cultural landscape."
The archaeology determined that neither site required further research, and with archaeology completed the entire area was soon obliterated by heavy machinery and construction. Many hikers and sightseers pass this spot all day long. They will, perhaps, appreciate the bus and barrier-free parking area by the Bear Mountain Bridge tollbooths. But few will ever guess at the long cavalcade of history this spot has seen.
Postscript from my journal: “A year later, and a brief drive-by of the Fort Clinton site we dug is a stunner. It's gone. The gently sloping lawn where the 18th century site was, and the small patch of woods where we dug the prehistoric site, have vanished, swept away by bulldozers. New curbs, new roads, new paving. New barrier-free and school bus access, and a far safer exit onto the highway were all long overdue. We're not sad -- our job is to dig, and get the information out of the ground so that other plans can proceed. We dig in the shadow of change and obliteration. But we can't help but wonder: what about all the other places that never see an archaeologist before the bulldozer? What unimaginable history is lost there?”
(Ron Dupont can be reached at Dupont@vernonstories.com).
But sometimes, you get a bit lucky. I was reminded of this recently when my family and I visited Fort Montgomery State Historic Site on Route 9W, just north of Bear Mountain. Fort Montgomery, and Fort Clinton just to the south, were built on lofty river bluffs to defend the west end of Hudson River chain in 1777. Archaeologists excavated the remains of Fort Montgomery in the 1960s, and the site has recently been opened to the public (check out the restored grand battery, complete with real cannons!). If you follow the famous Appalachian Trail from right here in Sussex County northward, you’ll pass near this very spot: the Trail crosses the Hudson on the Bear Mountain Bridge before heading north into the Taconic Mountains and on to New England.
The site of Fort Clinton was built on over the centuries (most recently being the location of the Bear Mountain Trailside Museum and Zoo) and, unlike Fort Montgomery, was never archaeologically excavated. At least not until 1992, when the firm I have worked for was hired to do archaeology there prior to a construction project. For eager archaeologists, the possibility of digging in a Revolutionary War fort was like going to Disney World. Or at least, so we hoped.
The rich history of the site was examined because plans to construct sorely needed school bus and barrier-free parking for the Trailside Museum and Zoo were underway. This called for a careful archaeological study of the site, one of the most historically colorful locations in the region. A quick study demonstrated that there was good reason for concern about impact on archaeological resources. For decades, it was learned, park workmen had discovered Native American artifacts around the property in the course of digging. But this prominent river bluff's most famous chapter came long after the Native Americans were gone.
The Revolutionary War, July 1776: the British were determined to control the Hudson, and thus split and subdue their newly rebelling American colonies. In response, colonists constructed the second of the famous Hudson River chains, obstructing the river between Bear Mountain and Anthony's Nose. This great river chain would, with luck, stop the British Navy. Two forts were built above Popolopen Gorge to protect the chain and provide general defense: larger Fort Montgomery to the north, and the smaller Fort Clinton to the south. Fort Clinton consisted of a star-shaped redoubt and five buildings, including barracks. Fort Montgomery included barracks, powder magazines, officer’s quarters, and several batteries of cannons.
Both forts were well-defended from the riverside, but partly open from the rear. The Colonists assumed the British would, naturally, attack from the river, instead of trudging miles through the rough mountains to make a rear-attack. But that’s exactly what they did. And so the forts' careers were short: attacked by the British on October 6, 1777, they were captured following a bloody defeat of the American troops. The Redcoats held the forts until October 26, then retreated, burning and razing both to prevent their use by the colonists. They were never rebuilt.
Of course, the Hudson River chain WAS rebuilt—this time further north, between West Point and Constitution Island. This, the so-called “Great Chain,” was in place by April 1778, and kept the British Navy at bay. A portion of it can still be seen on Trophy Point at the U.S. Military Academy there.
The spectacular site of Fort Clinton was not, however, long ignored after the War of Independence. By the late 18th century, Eugene Lucett had established a dwelling, evidently amid the remains of Fort Clinton. In 1834 the wealthy Pell family (same family as Senator Pell, who created the Pell Grants program) of New York, who counted among their number a former New York mayor, purchased the property. The Pells constructed a country estate on the bluff, erasing any visible traces or ruins of the old Revolutionary War redoubt, and replacing them with landscaped grounds. In 1889, an even bigger change was in the wind: a proposed railroad bridge from the Pell property, across the river to Anthony's Nose. Going bankrupt during construction, the bridge scheme was nevertheless a harbinger of things to come. The Pell Mansion itself burned in 1910, by which time it had sunk to the lowly status of boarding house.
By 1920, the fortunes of the area seemed anchored with then-newly created Bear Mountain Park. In 1923, the former Pell estate finally did see a bridge built through it. Bear Mountain Bridge (now a National Engineering Landmark), opened in 1924, cut through the heart of the old fort / estate area atop the bluff, and the massive construction associated with it further mottled and complicated an already much-used and much-altered site. Indeed, our excavation site was smack in the middle of what was the staging area for construction of the bridge.
In 1927, the site was chosen as the location for a park museum and zoo, and by 1936 the present handsome complex of rustic stone buildings and winding paths and overlooks had been constructed. Today, the Historical Museum contains a fascinating array of historical exhibits. To its rear is the site of Fort Clinton's Grand Battery (artillery emplacement), with a breathtaking view of the Hudson.
Fort Clinton's Grand Battery, however, was long gone. The sole surviving trace of the fort, and that having been extensively restored in the 1930's, was the West Redoubt, an outer defensive work, which can still be visited. Still, the array of change on the site is bewildering. Construction of Fort Clinton in 1776-77 erased the bluff's prehistoric appearance; construction of the Pell estate in 1834 erased Fort Clinton's ruins; and now the trailside museum and zoo had erased any visible trace of the Pell estate. Any evidence of the site's history was now buried.
Thus when plans for the school bus and barrier-free parking area were drawn, park officials were concerned that the necessary earth removal might destroy important archaeological data. A careful study of 18th century maps revealed that construction would destroy an area directly within the original 1776 fort. This was potentially exciting, as it was near the site of a Revolutionary War barracks. Fort Montgomery had yielded major archaeological finds, including a complete 18th century hearth. Would Fort Clinton yield the same?
Sheffield Archaeological Consultants of Butler, NJ, was hired to do the Fort Clinton study. I was part of the field archaeology team, along with my fellow Vernonite Rick Patterson. Preliminary archaeological testing determined that, indeed, there were two sensitive areas. One was on the lawn south of the Bear Mountain Bridge tollbooths, and yielded 18th century artifacts. The other was a larger site immediately west that showed signs of Native American occupation. Both sites were rapidly heading for the bulldozer.
-----
In visiting Fort Montgomery recently, I recalled my days in 1992 excavating at Fort Clinton across Popolopen gorge. Looking through my files, I found a journal I had written at the time, recording our efforts:
“ Eleven o'clock and hot as blazes. Two hours of hard scraping and digging and I'm only six inches into my one-meter excavation. The roar of traffic from the Bear Mountain Bridge is incessant. A few curious people stop and gaze at our work, but only a handful ask questions. Our principal archaeologist politely answers their questions. Now off in the distance, the occasional "boom-boom, boom-boom" sounds up north, through the steamy summer air. Not Rip Van Winkle's mysterious crew playing ninepins -- rather, it must be gunnery practice time up at West Point. Now and then a helicopter gunship skims the treetops above us -- another sign that America's future defenders are training nearby. How many people know how much blood was spilled right here to help found a Nation?”
A few days later: “Our first shovel tests in this area turned up tiny chert flakes galore, and the tip of a tiny prehistoric point, maybe from an arrow -- the Native Americans were here for sure. So far, all I'm finding in this black, gritty dirt under the grass a short spit from the highway is trash -- bottle caps, bits of rubber, old macadam -- the detritus of 20th century highway culture. And the pine tree two feet away has a root system roughly as large and complex as the New York Subway system. It's not making my life a joy right now. Out on the lawn, in the sun, other units are digging in the 18th century area. Right now they're trying to decide if the stones they came down upon are natural, or -- hopefully -- the remains of a Revolutionary War foundation.”
Later still: “We're rapidly turning the area into a kind of performance art checkerboard -- our neat square holes separated by untouched areas of lawn or woods. All the dirt, carefully scraped by trowel, goes through the sifter to see what else may turn up. Our sifter pile is now becoming a small mountain; the back-breaking work is relieved by jokes, like our name for the pile: Mount Oswf, an acronym for what we imagine the American soldiers' last words here were as the British Redcoats breached the bastion (use your imagination). The 18th century site keeps on yielding tantalizing clues -- old wine bottle glass, windowpane glass, and bricks. The "foundation" they came down upon seems to be just rocks -- but they're checking to be sure. Our prehistoric site keeps on coughing up a steady supply of flakes and debitage (waste chert from the making of stone tools), and the occasional thriller, like a well-made point or a musket ball.”
After the job is done:” Having endured heat, humidity, roots, mosquitoes, one drenching thunderstorm that ended work, and one New York passerby who asked, in all seriousness, if New Jersey wasn't just "all swamps and highways," we're almost done. Our prehistoric site never quite answered our highest hopes, but still produced a slew of artifacts. The 18th century site was a disappointment: historic artifacts, yes, but in no order of depth -- newer stuff deep down, old stuff near the surface. And no barracks foundation at all. Same with the Indian site -- bricks side by side with Indian material. Mostly we found bedrock within a few feet. The pageant of changes that had occurred on this spot had definitely caused one thing: it had totally jumbled the archaeological remains. Leaving, we're satisfied with our work, but still can't help but wonder: if only . . . . . But you can't find what isn't there.”
Our dig took place over several weeks, and involved the excavation of numerous meter-square units. We removed almost 300 cubic feet of earth (roughly eight tons), every ounce of it troweled out by hand and sifted through quarter-inch mesh. It revealed much more about the history of the site-or at least, how disturbed it had become by later activity. Excavation of the 18th century site yielded considerable 18th century material: bricks, window glass, bottle glass, ceramics, and a fragment of a handsome Rhenishware tankard (once used by a well-to-do officer to sip fine ales, and lost in the ensuing battle and flames? The mind can only wonder). Unfortunately, the material was jumbled in such a way that indicated it had probably been dumped here from elsewhere, long-ago landfill, perhaps from when the Pells cleared away and leveled the old Revolutionary earthworks to make their lawns and gardens. No trace of the barracks was discovered.
The Prehistoric site nearby proved surprisingly fruitful. Over 1,400 prehistoric artifacts were excavated, including tiny chert flakes, stone tools, arrow and spear points, scrapers, hammerstones, pottery, a glass trade bead, and two musket balls-relics of the Revolutionary War battle which came long after the last Native Americans had camped here. The archaeological team concluded that the site had been occupied for brief periods between 3,000 and 1,000 B.C., and again from 1,000 to 1750 A.D., by Native Americans who came there to make or repair stone tools using nearby chert deposits -- an ancient tool workshop.
In spite of the disturbed conditions, the archaeology was valuable. Edward J. Lenik, Principal Investigator for Sheffield Archaeological Consultants, summed up the dig at Fort Clinton at the time: "Archaeology has literally revealed history beneath our feet. For example, although the presence of Native American groups in the general area has long been known, we now know the exact spot at which they stopped along their trail, when they paused here, and what they did here. The archaeological investigations have determined the overlays of history -- Indian, Colonial, and 20th century -- an ever-changing cultural landscape."
The archaeology determined that neither site required further research, and with archaeology completed the entire area was soon obliterated by heavy machinery and construction. Many hikers and sightseers pass this spot all day long. They will, perhaps, appreciate the bus and barrier-free parking area by the Bear Mountain Bridge tollbooths. But few will ever guess at the long cavalcade of history this spot has seen.
Postscript from my journal: “A year later, and a brief drive-by of the Fort Clinton site we dug is a stunner. It's gone. The gently sloping lawn where the 18th century site was, and the small patch of woods where we dug the prehistoric site, have vanished, swept away by bulldozers. New curbs, new roads, new paving. New barrier-free and school bus access, and a far safer exit onto the highway were all long overdue. We're not sad -- our job is to dig, and get the information out of the ground so that other plans can proceed. We dig in the shadow of change and obliteration. But we can't help but wonder: what about all the other places that never see an archaeologist before the bulldozer? What unimaginable history is lost there?”
(Ron Dupont can be reached at Dupont@vernonstories.com).
Saturday, August 9, 2008
The "Ghosts" of Canistear
Over the last decade or so the Internet has become a cornerstone of my life. Many have had this experience. It’s changed things forever for all of us, becoming an invaluable source of information, shopping, and amusement. Other radical innovations in information technology once did the same for humanity—the printing press, telegraph, radio, and television. But the sheer—what is the right word? Endlessness? Bottomlessness? The sheer MASS of online data out there means the Internet has taken this info-saturation to a new level, both for good and bad.
I’ve found the Internet to be the most amazingly useful tool I’ve ever known, and also the most astonishing time-waster to sucker me in since I was sixteen and playing Missile Command. And just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, those nefarious wonks at Google go and introduce Google Earth.
If you haven’t seen it, Google Earth is a seamless, 3-D aerial photographic program, allowing you to virtually “fly” across any U.S. landscape you choose. Like an eagle, you can soar over cities, mountains, lakes, rivers, and highways, seeing and enjoying all the places you’ve known in your life from a new perspective, all digitally processed from satellite photographs into a real color landscape.
Taking a “flight” up along Route 23, I enjoyed the scenery through Newfoundland and the Pequannock River area, and then turned up into Vernon. And suddenly, I realized I was seeing more than just a beautiful and fascinating landscape. I was seeing ghosts.
Not ghost ghosts, the kind people with infrared cameras and digital tape recorders walk around old buildings at 2 A.M. trying to find. Rather, ghosts of the landscape. Particularly, ghosts of old Canistear village. As I “flew” up along Canistear Road, I noticed that the satellite photos had been taken when Canistear Reservoir was only about 60 percent full—probably a few years ago. And this revealed the ghosts.
Canistear was once a little town up in mountains of far southern Vernon Township. It grew up around a small iron forge in the 1750s, and was first called Winchester. In 1796, the forge was re-built and called the Canistear Bloomery (it was the kind of forge that made wrought iron directly by heating iron ore and hammering it, and these were called bloomeries. The origin of the name “Canistear” is one of those mysteries nobody has ever quite ferreted out.) After that, the town was called Canistear. Aside from the bloomery forge and its large pond, there was an iron mine, many farms, a blacksmith shop, a school, a couple of churches, and a cemetery, all along Pacack Creek, from which the forge derived its water power.
The little town met its end, however, in the 1890s, when the City of Newark acquired tens of thousands of acres of forest and old farms along the headwaters of the Pequannock River for a new system of water storage and supply. A new reservoir was planned at Canistear, all the old farms and businesses were bought out, and by 1900, “Canistear” no longer signified a village, but a body of water where a village once stood. Vanished. Gone.
Well, not quite gone. The reservoir builders tried to wipe the landscape clean, but they failed. The buildings were torn down and roads re-routed along the shores of the new reservoir, but traces remain—traces still clearly visible on Google Earth. In the 1800s, one road came from the south into Canistear (from present Route 23—this is the road to the Canistear boat launch area, past the Canistear Cemetery, just off modern Canistear Road.) Another old road passed through Canistear northeast-southwest (between present-day Route 515 near High Breeze Estates to modern Canistear Road going into Highland Lakes). New highways above the reservoir bypassed these old sections of road. But though the old stretches were forgotten, their underwater routes can still be seen on Google Earth, the old roads now dipping beneath the waters.
At the center of Canistear, the remains of the old bloomery forge dam—a massive, curved thing made entirely of slag (the waste product of the forge) is clearly visible on Google Earth. The forge pond dam was breached at one end, perhaps when the reservoir was built. Another secondary, or wing, dam, with a stone-walled causeway on top, is likewise visible. With the reservoir about a third empty as it is in the satellite photo, the outline of the original forge pond (called Canistear Pond) once again shows up, as it did 200 years ago, with its odd shape like a lobster claw. Canistear Pond was perhaps a quarter the size of the present reservoir. The site of the forge itself is still underwater in the satellite photos, and hasn’t been above water for some forty years.
All around the forge, near the intersection of the two roads were farms owned by families of men like W.C. Strait, Adam Smith, Christian D. Day and other mountain farmsteaders. What is still quite visible on Google Earth of these old farmsteads are the stone farm walls, once outlining fields, that form a patchwork quilt along the bottom of the reservoir. Some of them are amazingly straight, and transect the sinuously curving shoreline of the reservoir.
In what is now a cove on the northwestern shore of the reservoir is a massive culvert made of huge flagstones laid over blocks. Now utterly incongruous, it once allowed a farmer to drive his wagon over a stream that bisected his farm. This, too, can be seen from Google Earth, though barely.
Easily visible on Google Earth are the largest man-made features here, the ones that put an end to all the previous ones: the main dam (earthen) and the wing dam (cut stone) of Canistear Reservoir, both constructed in the late 1890s by battalions of Italian immigrant laborers.
The irony is that though the reservoir destroyed the village of Canistear, it protects the traces that remain. These ghosts of the landscape come back during those brief intervals when the reservoir is low, but the rest of the time they are protected by the deep blue waters, sometimes for years or decades. But like all ghosts, they’ll come back in time.
Try Google Earth if you haven’t. It’s fun, it’s educational, and you’ll learn about your town. You can see the dam of the old bloomery forge pond at 41.07’20.54N/74.29’01.17W. As for Google Earth, I forget the website address. Just Google it.
I’ve found the Internet to be the most amazingly useful tool I’ve ever known, and also the most astonishing time-waster to sucker me in since I was sixteen and playing Missile Command. And just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, those nefarious wonks at Google go and introduce Google Earth.
If you haven’t seen it, Google Earth is a seamless, 3-D aerial photographic program, allowing you to virtually “fly” across any U.S. landscape you choose. Like an eagle, you can soar over cities, mountains, lakes, rivers, and highways, seeing and enjoying all the places you’ve known in your life from a new perspective, all digitally processed from satellite photographs into a real color landscape.
Taking a “flight” up along Route 23, I enjoyed the scenery through Newfoundland and the Pequannock River area, and then turned up into Vernon. And suddenly, I realized I was seeing more than just a beautiful and fascinating landscape. I was seeing ghosts.
Not ghost ghosts, the kind people with infrared cameras and digital tape recorders walk around old buildings at 2 A.M. trying to find. Rather, ghosts of the landscape. Particularly, ghosts of old Canistear village. As I “flew” up along Canistear Road, I noticed that the satellite photos had been taken when Canistear Reservoir was only about 60 percent full—probably a few years ago. And this revealed the ghosts.
Canistear was once a little town up in mountains of far southern Vernon Township. It grew up around a small iron forge in the 1750s, and was first called Winchester. In 1796, the forge was re-built and called the Canistear Bloomery (it was the kind of forge that made wrought iron directly by heating iron ore and hammering it, and these were called bloomeries. The origin of the name “Canistear” is one of those mysteries nobody has ever quite ferreted out.) After that, the town was called Canistear. Aside from the bloomery forge and its large pond, there was an iron mine, many farms, a blacksmith shop, a school, a couple of churches, and a cemetery, all along Pacack Creek, from which the forge derived its water power.
The little town met its end, however, in the 1890s, when the City of Newark acquired tens of thousands of acres of forest and old farms along the headwaters of the Pequannock River for a new system of water storage and supply. A new reservoir was planned at Canistear, all the old farms and businesses were bought out, and by 1900, “Canistear” no longer signified a village, but a body of water where a village once stood. Vanished. Gone.
Well, not quite gone. The reservoir builders tried to wipe the landscape clean, but they failed. The buildings were torn down and roads re-routed along the shores of the new reservoir, but traces remain—traces still clearly visible on Google Earth. In the 1800s, one road came from the south into Canistear (from present Route 23—this is the road to the Canistear boat launch area, past the Canistear Cemetery, just off modern Canistear Road.) Another old road passed through Canistear northeast-southwest (between present-day Route 515 near High Breeze Estates to modern Canistear Road going into Highland Lakes). New highways above the reservoir bypassed these old sections of road. But though the old stretches were forgotten, their underwater routes can still be seen on Google Earth, the old roads now dipping beneath the waters.
At the center of Canistear, the remains of the old bloomery forge dam—a massive, curved thing made entirely of slag (the waste product of the forge) is clearly visible on Google Earth. The forge pond dam was breached at one end, perhaps when the reservoir was built. Another secondary, or wing, dam, with a stone-walled causeway on top, is likewise visible. With the reservoir about a third empty as it is in the satellite photo, the outline of the original forge pond (called Canistear Pond) once again shows up, as it did 200 years ago, with its odd shape like a lobster claw. Canistear Pond was perhaps a quarter the size of the present reservoir. The site of the forge itself is still underwater in the satellite photos, and hasn’t been above water for some forty years.
All around the forge, near the intersection of the two roads were farms owned by families of men like W.C. Strait, Adam Smith, Christian D. Day and other mountain farmsteaders. What is still quite visible on Google Earth of these old farmsteads are the stone farm walls, once outlining fields, that form a patchwork quilt along the bottom of the reservoir. Some of them are amazingly straight, and transect the sinuously curving shoreline of the reservoir.
In what is now a cove on the northwestern shore of the reservoir is a massive culvert made of huge flagstones laid over blocks. Now utterly incongruous, it once allowed a farmer to drive his wagon over a stream that bisected his farm. This, too, can be seen from Google Earth, though barely.
Easily visible on Google Earth are the largest man-made features here, the ones that put an end to all the previous ones: the main dam (earthen) and the wing dam (cut stone) of Canistear Reservoir, both constructed in the late 1890s by battalions of Italian immigrant laborers.
The irony is that though the reservoir destroyed the village of Canistear, it protects the traces that remain. These ghosts of the landscape come back during those brief intervals when the reservoir is low, but the rest of the time they are protected by the deep blue waters, sometimes for years or decades. But like all ghosts, they’ll come back in time.
Try Google Earth if you haven’t. It’s fun, it’s educational, and you’ll learn about your town. You can see the dam of the old bloomery forge pond at 41.07’20.54N/74.29’01.17W. As for Google Earth, I forget the website address. Just Google it.
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