History of Sussex County, New Jersey
The history of Sussex County, New Jersey spans over 13,000 years from the time Paleo Indians arrived after the Wisconsin glacier melted to the present day, and the entire width of the American experience.
Sussex County later welcomed Palatine Germans who journeyed north from Philadelphia, Dutch from New York, and other British settlers in the eighteenth century.
During this time the 12 prominent hardwood tree species of Eastern North America existed in Sussex County, which were Ash, Beech, Birch, Cherry, Chestnut, Elm, Hickory, Maple, Oak, Sweet Gum, Sycamore, and Walnut.
The Upper areas above the falls is actually quite beautiful in a most natural setting of tall hemlock trees, and native Mountain laurel and Rhododendron tangles.
Almost "Park-like" in appearance it takes the better part of the day to climb all the way to the top of the ridge where the source of the water is found in higher boggy areas.
Its unique blue quality with flecks of darker iron oxide and some white quartezite is easily spotted to the trained eye for such things.
This takes perhaps hundreds of thousands if not millions of years to produce, which gives the "finder" the unique perspective of "looking back through time" Bob Spear; Historian Forest Fire Lookout Association FFLA.ORG; October 2016 (recounted from a long ago adventure) This cave has six openings and located on a hill in the middle of a wet low area.
With the Paulinskill stream below and the South facing "protected" visual I could also imagine much later as the coal burning steam trains of the New York Susquehanna & Western railroad roared past this most ancient spot.!
To the South a bit farther are the "drowned lands" a level flat spongy plain that forms most of the water source of the Paulinskill Stream.
The Paulinskill Stream, so named for Queen Paulina of Germany by early pioneers flows Southwest and empties into the Delaware River above Belidiere N.J.
This local region is therefore some of the source water for two great watersheds – one working its way South, the other North, both starting from this single formation.
The Treaty of Easton in 1758, forced what little Native Americans remained in New Jersey to move west to the Mississippi River drainage or north to Ontario or Quebec Canada.
At this time, the county was populated by bands of Munsee-speaking Lenape; people who inhabited Northwestern New Jersey and Southern New York, including Long Island.
[2] This Indian Trail led to the council fire of the Lenape tribes at Minisink, an island in the Delaware in present-day Montague Township.
[3] At this time, many adventurers (or coureurs des bois) from Sir Edmund Plowden's failed New Albion Colony and Dutch New Netherland are reputed to have sought mineral deposits (especially precious metals) and animal furs in the undefined wilderness and journeyed to trade with inland Indian tribes, but no evidence of their efforts remain.
Palatine German immigrants, refugees from religious wars and harsh winters, arrived in Philadelphia and New York City in 1709 and 1710, but generally had to work for several years in English camps to pay off their passage to the colonies.
By the 1750s, residents of this area began to petition colonial authorities for a new county to be formed; they complained of the inconvenience of long travel to conduct business with the government and the courts.
[8] In the early 19th century, southern residents sought to gain some court sessions in their part of the county, suggesting alternating locations—in Newton in the north and in either Oxford or Belvidere in the south.
The trail went through the Kittatinny Mountains north of Blairstown to Colonel Isaac Van Campen's Inn 1742, about 18 miles northeast of Fort Reading.
This was the economic model until the mid-19th century when advances in food preservation and the introduction of railroads into the area allowed Sussex County to transport farm products throughout the region.
In 1931, Turner donated the farm property (then 1,050 acres in total), cattle and operations to the State of New Jersey to be used as an agricultural research station.
[11] Today, the property is part of High Point State Park and operated by the Sussex County Heritage and Agriculture Association, a local non-profit organization, under a memorandum of understanding with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
"[13][14] However, in the 1890s, richer soft-grade iron ore deposits located in Minnesota rendered Edison's Ogdensburg operation unprofitable and he closed the works in 1900.
Shortly after his death, two companies were created to exploit the iron and zinc deposits in this region; they acquired the rights to Fowler's holdings in Franklin and nearby Sterling Hill.
Because of ambiguous deeds, overlapping claims, and misunderstanding over the nature of the ores at Franklin and Sterling Hill, mining companies in the district were in constant litigation.
(Bob Spear; Historian, Forest Fire Lookout Association FFLA.ORG, October 2016 As of 2012[update], a freight line running in Hardyston and Sparta townships is the only railroad operating in Sussex County.
With New Jersey Transit's reconstruction and scheduled 2014 reopening of the Lackawanna Cut-Off, passenger rail service will return to Sussex County for the first time in almost fifty years.
This was the first railroad company to establish service in Sussex County and it played a role in the economic development of the dairy and mining industry in the area.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad opened a 400-mile (645 km) mainline that ran from Hoboken, New Jersey, to Buffalo, New York.
[17][page needed] The Lackawanna Cut-Off is an example of early 20th-century right-of-way construction, which minimized grades and curves and was built without vehicular crossings.
