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New Jersey

So much about light

There was the eeriest light in the sky and on the trees this evening. The rain clouds came in from the west at the same time as the sun was going down. The photos don’t capture it, but it doesn’t matter. We need the rain that’s coming in now.

The grass will approve. Of the rain, not the last of the leaking light. And so will the flowers. They’ll be interested in the rain, though the flowers will miss the light a bit. They do love to show out.

This giant hibiscus is always looking for an audience.

And the hydrangea, a bit more understated, deserves some attention too.

There are other plants and flowers to see. I’ll try to show you some more in the next few days.

Usually, that’s a code for yard work. That is the case this time, as well. Fortunately, the heat wave is about to break. I will try to get philosophical about it this time. The yard work, not the temperatures.

We return once again to We Learn Wednesdays, the feature where we discover the county’s historical markers via bike rides. This is the 41th installment, and the 73nd marker in the We Learn Wednesdays series.

The only reason I’m counting is to see where this ends up. I started from a database and I know how many markers are on that list, but I’m not sure how I’m going to reach that number. But not to worry! There’s still plenty to see! Light helps with that.

The Finns Point Range lights served as a point of entry and exit for maritime traffic between the Delaware Bay and River. In 1950, after the Army Corps of Engineers dredged the channel to 800 feet wide and 40 feet deep, the Finns Point Rangelights became obsolete.

Erected in 1876 for the U.S. Lighthouse Service at a cost of $1,200, the Finns Point Rear Range Light is constructed of wrought iron as opposed to cast iron typically used in similar towers. Wrought iron was considered ideal for a tall structure exposed to both high winds and elements because of its resistance to corrosion and stress fractures.

Prior to automating the lamp in 1939, imagine the lighthouse keeper climbing each of the 130 steps to the top twice each day – once at night to light the lamp and again in the morning to extinguish the flame.

Efforts to Save the Lighthouse

In the years following its decommissioning, the Finns Point Rear Range Light went through a period of neglect, and the lighthouse keepers home burned to the ground. The toolshed is believed to be all that remains.

Through the efforts of a local citizens group called the “Save the Lighthouse Committee” and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Finns Point Rear Range Light was restored in 1983. Today, the lighthouse is part of the Supawna Meadows National Wildlife Refuge.

The light gets its name from the 17th century Finnish colonists who settled there in the 1630s. Jump forward 200-plus years, Congress put $55,000 for two pairs of lights to help navigation. This was the second light, the rear range light.
The Kellogg Bridge Company of Buffalo, New York made the parts for this tower, and it was all shipped by rail and then carried by mules. It was designed to be higher than the first, to aid with visibility and navigation, which was placed one-and-a-half miles inland. That front range light was put in a spot prone to flooding. Today you can only get there by boat. Eventually, river dredging made the lights obsolete, so that front range light was razed in 1939.

At the rear range, over half a century, four people were in charge, Edward Dickinson (1876 – 1907), Laura Dickinson (1907 – 1908), Charles W. Norton (1908 – 1916), and Milton A. Duffield (1916 – 1933). Laura was probably Edward’s wife. But that’s just my guess based on what usually happened when the head keeper died or could no longer keep up the work. His family would keep the lights going — this was a serious business — until a new head keeper could be hired.

Sometimes they kept the job for years. Not all of the women who did this work inherited the role, but these were some of the few jobs available to women in the government that weren’t secretarial. The Coast Guard records several women who worked on various lights for decades. Just a few of them: Julia F. Williams in California, 1865-1905, Catherine A. Murdock in New York, 1857-1907, Maria Younghans, Biloxi, Mississippi, 1867-1918, Ida Lewis in Rhode Island, 1857-1911, Kathleen Moore in Connecticut, 1817-1878. Who knows how much good they did for safety and commerce. Between them, the last two women are credited with saving almost 50 lives between them.

That local preservation group the sign mentioned wanted to move the light to a park, but that project failed. They did get it put on the National Register of Historic Sites in 1978.

After the restoration in the ’80s, the tower was opened to limited touring. In 2004, a re-creation of the keeper’s dwelling was built as part of the property. Today it serves as an office for Supawna Meadows Wildlife Refuge.

If you’ve missed any markers so far, you can find them all right here.

cycling / history / markers / New Jersey / photo / We Learn Wednesdays / Wednesday — Comments Off
12
Jun 24

Got a wrench? I’m going to need a wrench.

We were just heading out to the hardware store for an early evening errand — I needed a wrench larger than any wrench I own. I own many wrenches, a lifetime of accumulation will do that for you, but I do not own anything that will open 10-and-a-half inches wide. And, today, we had a reason to need one. So I resigned myself to spending a fortune for a tool I needed to use exactly twice, to take off a piece and, moments later, reinstall it. Then of course, I wouldn’t need to use the wrench again for a good quarter of a century or so.

We were at the end of our driveway and had to yield because our neighbors were returning home. So I walked over to see Joe the Elder as he got out of his truck. He’s got a great big smile, an across-the-street “How ya doing!?” and a positively enthusiastic handshake. Lovely people. He gave me two wrenches to try, and so we did not have to go to the store.

Both worked! And we needed both. And it took the both of us to complete the job. But we did! And, this part is important, it seems we got it right the first time. Nothing was broken, no utterances were uttered, and our cost, after the replacement part, were two stiff backs and a bit of sweat. Standard DIY invoicing.

The replacement part is a device that holds filters. Looks like a cup holder. We can hold four drinks in the thing. The previous one was broken, somehow, which is a mystery because the thing lives in a case that requires a metric wrench, a mallet and then some deliberate intentions to even get to it. We replaced it with a similar piece, but supposedly more sturdy, which is good, because if we have to go through the whole process again — after all of that to open it, we had to remove a threaded piece that was not installed in such a way as to grant easy access, then mallet hammer and pry one piece from the other and so on — I think we just might start over.

I took the wrenches back over and as ever, I am wondering what I can offer these nice people as a gesture of thanks. It’s one of those small-to-you, big-to-me things. This wrench was sitting in their garage, and that one was in his truck, and he wasn’t using them, but it saved me a small fortune, and a trip to one or more stores and the frustration that could go along with it. And they say, don’t ever go buy something, just come over here and get it. They really are quite sweet. We’re very lucky with the neighbors we picked.

When I woke up this morning I wondered if I should go for a swim, or a ride, today. I did both yesterday. And that was easy enough. Doing both two days in a row seems like a tiny challenge. And then I got up, and wondered if I would do either. I felt weary. But that’s no reason to stop, it’s just an excuse to slow down.

This afternoon my lovely bride was heading out for a ride and I invited myself to tag along, get dropped, and see her back at home. I predicted she would leave me behind in one of two places, both of which can best be described as “early in the ride.” And she did, in both places.

Somehow, I caught up to her again, which was great because that allowed me to ride in front of her in the one little tricky part of this route, a three-tenths of a mile stretch with a fork and an awkward merge. I sprinted through there with the only bit of energy I had and she stayed right behind me and that made the next turn easy.

This look right here?

This is the look The Yankee gives you before she rides you right off her wheel.

While I’d done the little lead out and made it off the relatively busier road onto some empty county roads, I could not keep up from here.

I lost sight of her a third of the way into the ride, and slowly diminished for the next hour or so. But this was too be expected. I don’t have a lot of miles in my legs right now, but somehow it feels like I do. Anyway, pleasant ride, even if I got in two seconds later than I’d anticipated from half-an-hour away. My riding buddy had no such problem. She pronounced it a strong ride, and, having spent the whole of the thing watching her disappear into the distance, I’d say she was being gracefully humble.

It’s time once more for We Learn Wednesdays, where we discover the county’s historical markers via bike rides. This is the 38th installment, and the 69th and 70th markers in the We Learn Wednesdays series. These are grouped together because they’re directly related anyway as we continue our exploration of Fort Mott.

In the last few weeks we checked out the old gun batteries and had a quick look at the observation towers that helped them in their work of defending the river and Philadelphia, beyond. Most recently, we took a quick glimpse at the parados and the moat that served as the fort’s rearguard. We also saw the signs for the generator, plotting and switchboard rooms. (The signs are good, the rooms were empty.) Last week, we saw another empty room, the battery commander’s station.

The park has a map to orient you to the fort’s layout.

The river is on the left side of this drawing. You can see the pier jutting out into the water. Next to that you’ll see the long row of gun placements. You can see the moat, in blue, behind them.

Today, though, we’re starting off between the moat and the gun batteries, up near the top on the map, at Peace Magazine.

There’s no way to photograph the whole sign without the railing, which is, no doubt, period authentic. If you’ll allow me, then, the generous use of the blockquote …

A Special emphasis was placed on keeping the interiors of the defensive magazines under the various batteries dry. According to an excerpt from, “Reports on 5-inch Guns, Fort Dupont and Fort Mott, December, 1900, Operations” which references Battery Gregg …

“…ceilings of the magazines consist of flat arches of 6-inch hollow tile and the vertical walls are covered with 2-inch hollow tile furring and both ceilings and side walls are plastered with a thin layer of Portland mortar 1 – 3. Two hundred thirty-two linear feet of 3-inch vitrified tile were laid underground from emplacement number 6 to a manhole at the entrance of the west emplacement for carrying cables for electric light and power. Outside walls of the battery were roughly plastered and then waterproofed with paraffin paint #3 and coal tar. A 2-inch porous tile drain was placed around the foundations of each emplacement and covered with a layer of broken stone.”

Despite many efforts, condensation of moisture in the emplacements and magazines continued to be a problem that was never adequately solved. On June 11, 1903, the Chief of Engineers authorized an allotment for the construction of a new storage magazine to be detached from the main installation and located behind the parados. Money was also provided for the creation of a tunnel through the parados, and for extending the railroad tracks through the tunnel to the new magazine. The brick building, called the Peace Magazine, was finished in 1904. The structure was slightly more than eighteen feet by fifty-two feet on the inside, with a copper ventilating roof.

I’d like to think that Peace was named after someone who worked on the fort, or in honor of a soldier who served and died elsewhere, like so many of the parts of Fort Mott, but I don’t see any mention of it anywhere.

Here’s another angle of the magazine.

And one more quick view today from Fort Mott. This marker actually addresses what’s across the way.

At this section of the Delaware estuary, the waterway narrows from a broad bay into a river. Considered a strategic location early in the nineteenth century, military officials selected this area for a coastal defense fortification. Fort Delaware was built on Pea Patch Island during the first half of the nineteenth century. However, the advent of steam-powered naval vessels necessitated a more elaborate defensive scheme to adequately protect the upstream ports. Fort DuPont on the Delaware shore and Fort Mott on the New Jersey side were designed and built during the last half of the nineteenth century to reinforce Fort Delaware. The three fort system remained in force until after World War I.

Fort Delaware is visible on Pea Patch Island. Finished in 1859, it also served as a prison for Confederate soldiers during the Civil War. Many of the prisoners who died there are buried at Finn’s Point National Cemetery, located adjacent to the north side of Fort Mott.

(The state really should get around to updating some of these markers.)

The three photographs show Fort Delaware on Pea Patch Island, the view of Pea Patch Island from Fort Mott, and the last is an aerial view of the three forts that protected this section of the river. (All three were closed down when a more powerful and modern installation opened down river.)

And if you’re looking off into the distance, you can see a bit of Pea Patch island, and the fort that stands there.

You have to take a ferry to get over there. And maybe one day I’ll visit. There’s a lot of history over there, as well. When it was built in 1859, that hazy looking fort over there was a state-of-the-art example of American fixed fortifications. It also served as a POW camp during the Civil War. Almost 13,000 Confederate prisoners could be held there at once.

Back on this side of the river, Fort Mott became a state park in 1951, but it was a self-contained military installation in its day. At it’s busiest, Fort Mott had over 30 buildings, including two barracks that each housed 115 soldiers, commissioned and non-commissioned officer housing, a hospital, post exchange, library, a YMCA, a school for the soldier’s children and more. Most of those buildings were constructed between 1897 and 1905. It closed in 1922, when another, more modern, installation opened downstream.

We have just one or two more markers to visit at Fort Mott, and we’ll do that in our next installment. Until then, if you’ve missed any of those historical marker posts, you can see them all right here.

adventures / history / markers / New Jersey / We Learn Wednesdays / Wednesday — Comments Off
5
Jun 24

The long pause Wednesday

Warm today, and cloudy. I watched it all slide away. When I was prepared to go for a bike ride I stepped outside and was impressed by the humidity and that, Nahhh. Could I have made a better use of the time? Sure. Do I feel ambivalent about that? Probably — whatever.

At any rate, I had to return to the closet project. Yesterday I resized six clothes hangar bars. Today I had to resize four more of them again.

That’s what happens when you eyeball things, comfortable with the knowledge that, these things are so adjustable precision doesn’t matter and, they are going to be in a closet, so perfection doesn’t matter and, they’re going to be in the guest bedroom closet, so this will only come to mind a few times per year. So I eyeballed it all yesterday, and I ended up doing a bit more of it again today.

I did not refine my technique. Happily, I did not have to purchase any new equipment. And now the custom-sized closet system is completed.

And, somehow, it may yield us a bit more room for stuff and things.

And, after dinner, it started raining. After a time it started raining hard. And now it is raining so hard it just sounds different.

I’d never heard water roar down a drainage pipe, and now that’s happening just outside the window next to where I am typing. It is, to be sure, a sensation.

It’s time once more for We Learn Wednesdays, where we discover the county’s historical markers via bike rides. This is the 37th installment, and the 67rd and 68th markers in the We Learn Wednesdays series. These are grouped together because they’re directly related anyway as we continue our exploration of Fort Mott.

In the last few weeks we checked out the old gun batteries and had a quick look at the observation towers that helped them in their work of defending the river and Philadelphia, beyond. Most recently, we took a quick glimpse at the parados and the moat that served as the fort’s rearguard. Last time we saw the signs for the generator, plotting and switchboard rooms at. (The signs are good, the rooms were empty.)

As a park, Fort Mott has a map on a sign that will orient you to the space.

The river is on the left side of this drawing. You can see the pier jutting out into the water. (That’ll figure into this in just a moment.) Just above that you’ll see the long row of gun placements. You can see the moat, in blue, behind them.

Today, though, we’re in front of the moat, in one of the most dangerous spots at the fort, the battery commander’s station.

Back then, all of the work of fighting invaders would have started here. The people in this bunker would visually ID and chart the progress of enemy vessels. They’d relay the information they collected, by a simple phone line, to the plotting room. There, soldiers following mathematical formulas created firing solutions that would allow the defenders to put 870-pound rounds downrange, six per minute.

This is in fact a former gun position. One of the batteries, Krayenbuhl, was outmoded as technology improved, and so this went in at the same physical space.

If bad guys ever sailed up the river — looking for Philadelphia beyond — and they were fired upon by Fort Mott, they’d want to target all the observation points in kind. And the guys sitting in here, would be the target.

Remember that pier, in the map above? You can see it through that narrow slat in the command bunker.

Fort Mott became a state park in 1951, but it was a self-contained military installation in its day. They had a small hospital, a PX, a library, school and more. It closed in 1922, when another, more modern, installation opened downstream. But we aren’t done with it yet. There’s still a bit more for us to explore on We Learn Wednesdays. Until then, you can catch up on all of the older posts, right here.

adventures / family / New Jersey / Wednesday — Comments Off
8
May 24

Get the sand between your toes

After a morning at the house we set out for other locales. Because we have company, and because we are close to it, and because the weather was nice, and because it is still uncrowded as we’re still technically in their off-season, and because my mother likes the ocean, we went to the beach.

We walked on the boardwalk in Ocean City. We listened to the waves, felt the breeze, enjoyed the sun and a thoroughly pleasant afternoon.

When you go to the beach, you need an ice cream. This is my lovely bride’s tradition, and some traditions are definitely worth adopting.

We walked out on the rocks of the little jetties.

And we enjoyed the sand, looking for shells and feeling the still quite cold water as it sneaked up to our feet.

It was a delightful and low key afternoon on the beach. We had dinner at a busy local seafood joint, cleverly titled The Crab Trap. Try the tuna steak.

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3
Apr 24

Mediated transference

There is a time in preparing every good presentation when you have the thing well in hand. You’ve practiced it and studied the timing. You’ve considered every angle worth considering, and discard a few that were, honestly, not worth the neurological effort. And so you put it aside.

That’s where I was earlier today, and then some other ideas came to mind.

And those other ideas? When they come in, they are the worst, especially if they’re the best. This is surely why some people throw slide decks together. Better to mumble and stumble through these things, reading text as you go, than be burdened by ideas late in the cycle.

But the presentation I am presenting tomorrow must be presented with some clarity and efficiency and interest. So there is practice and re-practice and new ideas. Always the new ideas. And somewhere in the third or fourth round of practice you get the best version of the presentation.

No one but the cat and my office walls heard that version.

If there was a hall of fame for rhetorical flourish and pithy points uttered to an empty room, I would be a shoo-in candidate.

But enough about my day.

We quickly turn again to We Learn Wednesdays, and this, the 31st installment and the 52nd marker in the effort. You remember this one. I ride my bike around the county seeking out historical markers. I shot this last December in a stockpiling effort to keep the feature active during the indoor season — and I think I’m now out of that stockpile.

This is … well, you can read the signs.

Near the end of the 18th century three men, Col. Robert G. Johnson and Dr. James Van Meter and Dr. Robert Hunter Van Meter, brothers, decided the area needed a Presbyterian church. Johnson was raised Episcopal in a nearby town, but found the style of the church to be too ritualistic and ornate for his tastes. In that same town were the Van Meters, men held in high regard.

In the early years, the Episcopals had no clergy, so they invited Presbyterian ministers to preach for them. That was the arrangement between 1809 until 1820, but they were predestined to go separate ways. The 17th Article of the Church of England, the one about predestination, was at the root of it. The Presbies wanted their own church building. So, on a Tuesday morning, March 6th, 1821, the morning after James Monroe was inaugurated for his second administration down in Washington, they laid the cornerstone to their first building.

Johnson donated the land and he and the brothers Van Meter covered much of the cost of the building. The congregation expanded in 1835, and then started work on this building in July of 1854, just a few days after George Eastman, the inventor of the Kodak camera, was born in New York.

After about three years of work, including moving the bell from the old church to the new, the building was opened.

(Eventually, the bell went to the fire department.)

The church has a Hook and Hasting two manual, fifteen rank pipe organ. It was built in 1878 and installed in 1879 by the Boston firm. Air for the organ was supplied by hand pumping until 1902, when a water-driven motor was installed. They upgraded the organ again, to electricity, in 1912.

As for the men, we’ve met Robert Johnson before. He was the slave owner, historian, horticulturalist, judge and soldier, the guy with the apocryphal story about tomatoes. He died four years before this building went up. Neither of the Van Meters saw it, either.

Scottish immigrant John McArthur Jr. was the architect, a prominent figure from Philadelphia. He would later design the landmark Philadelphia City Hall, then the tallest occupied building in the world. While many of his works have been demolished, at least a dozen or so still exist.

McArthur learned his craft from a man named Thomas Ustick Walter, the fourth architect of the U.S. Capitol, who redesigned the dome and created the office wings. He would have been there the day Monroe was inaugurated, when the first cornerstone of this congregation’s first church was laid. And while his student was overseeing the construction design of this church, he was also working on his own church in Philadelphia.

Architects must keep busy. Shame so many of them don’t see the fruits of their labors. McArthur could have seen this church, but he did not live to see his masterpiece, the Philadelphia City Hall completed. He died, at 66, in 1890. The city hall was finally finished in 1910.

Now the only thing I have to do to tie this up is to find a photo from Eastman of any of these buildings. Or a letter from the Van Meter family to the Kodak people.

Wouldn’t that be a neat solution?

Failing that, how about this. Robert Van Meter and Robert Johnson, two of the founders of this church are each buried not far away, but I only just discovered that. I’ve seen the church where James Van Meter is buried. I showed it to you last September.

You can learn so much on a bike ride.

We’ll see another great marker next week. If you’ve missed any markers so far, you can find them all right here.

Today’s dose of relaxation is right here. Enjoy the zen of the California coastline. This place is so remarkable, and so ubiquitious, that there weren’t even signs offering a name. There are road signs on the Pacific Coast Highway that offer you a spot to pull over and soak in the beauty. The signs say Vista Views. And so that’s the name of this place. But, man, it needs a real name. This was majestic.

Elsewhere, a little slow motion of the water coming right up to your toes. If you feel the water in your socks it is likely because I felt the water in my socks and that’s called mediated transference, which, is not a thing, not in this way, not until just now, because I made it up.

Makes sense, I am a media professional steeped in the study of media effects. But look at all of that water sliding on in!

How long do you figure those rocks have sat there, waiting out time and wind and the water for their fate?

I have, I think, two more slow motion videos from this trip. But there are plenty of other Relax Enjoy Repeat videos still to come, not to worry.

We’re getting pretty good at dragging things out around here, aren’t we?