Hike #1214; Freehold to Englishtown

Hike #1214; Freehold to Englishtown

4/13/19 Freehold to Englishtown with Ellie Zabeth, Rob Gearhardt, Alyssa Lidman, and Robin Deitz

This would turn out to be a crazy hike of fortune and misfortune, and dealing with a lot of different feelings while trying to remain positive. All in all, it’s not all that hard to do.

Former Freehold and Jamesburg Railroad

It would be another day that made me wonder what was going on; I figured this was a real winner of a hike that everyone would want to do. It had history, a winery, a mall, all sorts of diverse stuff that made the route both relaxing and fun. Even the terrain was overall easy.
Still, I was kind of put off by it.
My mind was going to weird conspiracy things where they were finding more fun things to do than what I was putting together, but this one almost felt like it was a forced fun kind of thing.

My then and now comp of Freehold and Jamesburg

I’ve not been thinking all that clearly, and I kind of put together the details of this hike rather fast. I’d already had plans for what I wanted to do for this for a long time, but they never really came together. So, I didn’t really think into it all that much.

Freehold Station

I had a bunch of things I wanted to do, and the hike could easily have been extended further to some other area parks, but it would have run over the distance I was hoping to do.
I’d found the best greenway route with the least road walking would be to end in Englishtown, and start over near Freehold Raceway Mall. We could then connect with Monmouth Battlefield and do the wine tasting on the way. It seemed like a good thing.

Freehold and Jamesburg Railroad

There are tons of trails in Monmouth Battlefield, so the majority of the hike could be there.
I found a good area to park near the McDonalds in Freehold. I figured it’d be an easy spot, and there were other businesses around it that would make it okay to park there. I carpooled with Elizabeth down, and met the others at the mall. We had a misconception at the start because Alyssa thought I was coming to pick her up at her house, but she’s like forty minutes north of me, and I’d expected her to meet me in Washington. In retrospect, it’s probably a better for her that she didn’t!

THEN AND NOW FREEHOLD

After meeting, everyone fit easily into the van to shuttle to the start. I was originally thinking of parking at the Freehold Raceway Mall, but immediately realized my error in thinking: I had not figured out how this hike would connect to the previous ones!

IN Freehold

I had initially figured all of this out, but then in the final stages of it, I cut out the connection in Freehold in favor of Englishtown. It just seems impossible that there’s someplace in New Jersey that I’ve never hiked to, and Englishtown was one of them. This hike didn’t connect with any other hike in any way, so I had to make last minute changes to it, which weren’t much, but I felt it necessary because I didn’t know when I’d make it down there again. We had to start in Freehold itself instead of at the mall.

1957 Freehold image by Don Wood

I had hiked out of Freehold only twice before, both times following the old agricultural railroads in different directions. The first time was the Monmouth County Agricultural Railroad north to Matawan/Aberdeen and beyond, now partly Henry Hudson Trail.

The crossing on my 2008 hike

For that, we started in the middle of town and headed north.
It was a really interesting crossing in the downtown, because the railroad crosses right over the center of the main intersection between Main Street and Throckmorton Street. When traveling Throckmorton, it’s like you’re driving down the center of the tracks for a time.
That hike was in May of 2008, and I returned in September 2008 to the same point to hike the Freehold and Jamesburg Railroad east to the shore. I’d intended to come back to follow the somewhat active line out to Jamesburg, but never did.

Freehold and Jamesburg Railroad

It made sense that we start this hike at about he same point. We’d start by doing a little bit of the line heading to the west.
We headed out of Englishtown, and went to make the left turn to head toward Freehold, and there were cops standing in the street motioning some cars to pull into a parking lot to the right, and others to go on. I had my left blinker on, and the light turned from green to yellow while I was already committed to it. The cop in the street yelled “YO” and motioned me to pull into the lot to the right.

Historic image of potatoes being loaded on a train in Freehold

We had to wait a bit, and a different cop than the one that motioned me over gave me a ticket for having a cracked wind shield. I explained that it looked like the other cop was motioning me to go on, and this second guy didn’t seem to know what I was talking about.

Rail fan stuff in Freehold

He really seemed like he didn’t want to give me a ticket, but there was this ticketing blitz going on, which seemed like just a money grab. The guy who was pulled over next to me got a ticket for having too much tint on his windows.
I’m certain this stuff came down from above, and these officers weren’t enjoying giving out tickets for anything and everything they can, but they have their job to do. The truth is, having this entrapment thing in their downtown is really only hurting the businesses there, because no one wants to drive through.

Caboose in Freehold

So, I got a $54 ticket with no real break given.
We continued on to Freehold, and I parked on Throckmorton Street near a sketchy looking massage parlor where there was on street parking, right next to the tracks. We could start exactly where I’d been before.
All this extra thing did was change the starting point slightly, and I’d have to omit a little bit of what I was going to do in the other trails, which was easy, and there’s plenty more to come back to meriting another future trip.

The tracks in Freehold

I figured we would just parallel those tracks along the streets, but the town was totally full of Spanish people who were all walking the tracks to get around. It’s really amazing, so many of them standing around in front of convenience stores, just waiting on day labor.
It’s such a controversial thing, and Democrats and Republicans are always pointing the finger and saying the other is wrong, when the truth is that both sides are more right than wrong.
There’s a very real humanitarian crisis going on, because these people will work in excess of eighty hours a week for less than minimum wage, and it’s totally allowed.

Freehold and Jamesburg Railroad

First, I think of what hell they are leaving behind to consider this kind of life they are leaving behind to consider these conditions “good”.
Then, I think of the Americans who are exploiting these people for their own benefit. It’s not just rich people. It’s Joe Schmoe contractor or landscaper who hired a big bunch of them every day, pays them crap, and he and maybe a son make big money without paying fair wage.

Spring comes to Freehold

The rich aren’t the problem so much any more. It’s more the complacent. These small business owners who work the system make enough to support a small level of extravagance, maybe a big house and some toys, but it’s not being done fairly.
I was talking to Justin after this hike, and he mentioned a Mexican hired to work on his apartment complex had fallen down stairs and badly injured himself, and was just cast away to fend for himself with no benefits. They can then just pull another one in until he gets hurt.

Spring in Freehold

Hearing about this, it’s no wonder some of them who patronize the park where I work hate the white Americans. They have some pretty good reason after hearing that story.

Mall mirror shot

As we walked along the tracks, an Hispanic man was waking by talking on his cell phone repeating over and over again in Spanish about having a “big problem”.
We are creating a society of people who hate us, and then they come to Spruce Run and defecate on the floor to get even, and then they’re hated more and no one understands why.
There were just so many people there on this beautiful Saturday, all going somewhere for work or waiting to be picked up for work, and here we were out enjoying it.

Freehold Raceway Mall

I used to work sixty to eighty hours a week, and between each of these retail establishments, I’ve had so many foreign coworkers, and we were all overworked. Most people these days never go through having to work sixty to eighty hours a week, and they just have no clue what it’s like to do it out of absolute necessity.
I don’t know what the answer is to all of it, but we definitely have some craziness coming up in our futures. We’ve created a system that is unsustainable and basic needs are not being met everywhere.
I thought back to my old friend Necibu at Walmart, who worked a couple of jobs and literally never had time off. He had a wife and family in Africa he was working hard to bring over. He was in Walmart working when I first started there in February of 2003, he was there when I left, and I would see him regularly up until his horrible accidental death a bit over a year ago.
He had fallen while at home alone, and apparently he had no one close to him. I have no idea what happened with his stuff, his family, the money he was saving. A tragic end.

New building construction by the mall

We followed the tracks through town, saw the historic former Pennsylvania Railroad station, and continued past where there was a caboose on display, as well as some old railroad signage at a sort of escape room place. We continued on the tracks out to Bowne Ave, where there were lovely blossoms of spring coming out everywhere. We turned left here, and then right across grass to Bannard Drive. We then turned left on Vaught Ave for two blocks.
We crossed Ward Ave and then cut into an apartment complex known as Mattison Crossing. We turned left, walked around the buildings on a paved access lane, and then crossed Manalapan Ave to reach a parking area for the Freehold Raceway.

A pond near the mall

When we reached the Raceway area, we crossed over Park Ave and passed along the edge of the valet parking area for the raceway. This took us to the north onto an exit road that goes under Rt 9 and becomes the Raceway Mall Drive.
We cut up hill to the left and walked past the outsides of strip mall stores. We moved to the south past a Big Lots or something, and then a Dick’s Sporting Goods to the south. We went down a hill through grass, and then headed toward the south entrance to the Freehold Raceway Mall.

New construction near the mall with spring signs

I forget what the name of the store was that we went in through, but it had an old neon sign. It really looked from the outside like a trip back in time. Inside though, it was quite posh looking.
We cut to the right and made our way through the store and out to the regular mall promenade.
The inside was set up like a giant hallway with two levels. We were on the upper level where we walked in, which didn’t seem possible because it seemed lower elevation where we entered than where we had walked from.

An old pond off of Rt 33

We headed on through, and I was surprised at how busy it was, and at some of the stores I was seeing. They had a Hot Topic, which I thought went out of business years ago. There was Nordstrom, and Disney and such, and then plenty of cell phone distributors and weird chocolates and such.
I didn’t think malls like this were really successful at all any more.
We continued on along the upper level and went looking for the restrooms. The signage pointing to them was quite confusing, because it said to go to the lower level.

The orchards and wine tasting room

Once we got to the lower level and followed signs, it seemed to point us back up to the top, in the area of the food court.
As we walked through, I saw several popular names like Wendy’s, but then a Taco Bell.
I can’t walk past a Taco Bell. I stopped to pee, but then had to go back to get something.
Unfortunately, the crunchy taco dollar special at every other Taco Bell was not in effect here. They charged something like fifty cents more for it. I was put off, but still wasn’t going to turn it down.

At Monmouth Battlefield

I tried eating the stuff while walking, but it was just too messy. I’d have to stop as not to make too much a mess.
I don’t know why I really tried to do this. I’d done an all you can eat thing the night before for the retirement party of former co worker Bob Parichuk at the northern region office of state parks. I was completely stuffed by the time I left that, and still felt totally stuff in the morning when I was heading out. The tacos were overall probably not a very good idea.

At Monmouth Battlefield

I was surprised while walking that we also passed a Sbarro. Those Italian places seem to have all disappeared, but like other malls of old, here it was.

We continued on through the mall, heading north on the upper level. We went down the escalators at the far side before entering Lord and Taylor, the last store at the north end.
We made our way out and exited the mall there, and then continued through the parking lot to the north.
The road that circled the mall was called Winners Circle, which we crossed and started heading out he access road toward Rt 33.

Monmouth Battlefield

My plan had been not to go this way, but to turned to the left and cut through a Hebrew cemetery to the left and limit the amount of road walking.
Unfortunately, there was a fence separating the cemetery from the road. I figured instead, we might be able to walk on the outside of the fence around it. It would, if nothing else, be more interesting.
I told everyone to wait behind, and I’d see how feasible it was. I walked on along the fence through the woods, and it opened up a bit. It wasn’t really a trail, just a deer path, but it could be walked. I hollered back for everyone to join me that way.

I was well ahead of everyone else, heading through the woods and skirting the cemetery.
When the cemetery ended, there was new construction going on to the right of me. It was a four story high building in framework stages. A guy working the site said hello, and told me to watch out for ticks.
To the left, there was a pretty little pond, probably a retention pond put in for the Freehold Raceway Mall.

Historic marker

There was a wetland ahead, and some private land that would have been hard to get around, so we turned to the right.
Lots of flowers were coming up in this area. I waited for everyone to catch up, and we continued to skirt the construction area after the fence ended, and then entered a swath of woods above a former pond area. There was a berm along the east shore of it with a little foot bridge that clearly hadn’t been used probably in twenty years, and wasn’t going to be used on this hike either.

Cannon at the battlefield park

We continued along the slope and exited the construction site along the entrance where coffer dams were in place along Rt 33. We turned left on the road and could see the open dam that once held water in the pond area we had skirted on the west side.
This next bit was probably the worst part of the hike; we had to walk Rt 33 for a bit heading west until we got to Wemrock Road and the Wemrock Orchards, where Tomasello Winery has a tasting room. We regrouped at this point and then went in for our tasting.

At Monmouth Battlefield

I don’t think we’ve ever actually visited the Hammonton Winery before. We’d hiked very close to it, and I think we did one of them that was nearby after hiking around Carol and Rob Creamer’s place, but I just don’t think we did it.
This tasting room was just rented by them at the Wemrock farm store, which is along the creek of the same name. That place was pretty cool too. Both Robin and Elizabeth really liked these cute little pineapple plants they’d had for sale, and asked about working out purchasing.

Big cannon

They worked out a deal where they could leave the plants hidden in a box behind the place, so if we didn’t finish until late, they’d still be there when we passed back through.
We all lined up for our tasting, except Rob who didn’t want to partake this time (he did come in to chat with us however).
The wines were quite good. I can see why they’re about the largest in New Jersey. We had, as usual, the choices between dry and sweet. I do enjoy both, but at this point my favorites have been the semi sweet.

I did pick one of the dry wines, but pretty much only because it was the most incredibly damned expensive thing on there and I wanted to know what it tasted like. Not bad for a dry.
I then picked two semi sweets, and one sweet.
The two semi sweets were the Shore House Red and the Shore House White. The Shore House Red was good, but the Shore House White (which has a different name that I forget in the Winter time) was absolutely delicious. It wasn’t too sweet, but not really very dry either. It was really the perfect wine for me I think.
I was pretty much set on getting a bottle of the Shore House White, but then another woman came in to buy bottles while we were doing our tasting.
She was going on about how she doesn’t drink, and she’s not been a drinker, but that this wine changed her life and she loves it. She was picking up larger bottles than what we were being served from, and I found through her order that it was possible to get either the small bottles of some varieties for $12 or $13 something, or for like $15.99ish I could get a very huge bottle of the same thing.

Spring arrives at Monmouth Battleground

Sadly, the Shore House White was not one of the bottles offered in the large size, and after seeing it I had my heart set on that.
I’d finished my tasting, and I asked about what kinds I could get. The Ranier Red was a sweet wine, but it was not included in my tasting because I’d picked something else. The lady at the desk gave me some anyway.
The wine was sweet, but it wasn’t caustic super-sweet like some of them tend to be.

Bridge at Monmouth Battlefield

I got myself a big bottle, but they were selling cork screws for over $5. I wasn’t about ready to go for that. I’d already had them at home, and I couldn’t find the one usually in my bag.

Spotswood South Brook

I figured it was no matter. I still had my Weyerbacher Blasphemy, and I could probably just open it by pushing the cork in, or heaven forbid, try what my brother Tea Biscuit had shown me along the Lehigh Canal a while back: bang it against a wall in a shoe or something and work the cork out.
I’ll rush ahead a little bit and get this out of the way: I tried my brother’s stupid technique, and I watched it on a youtube video as well first. I tried using a wooden post to open the thing up, and the cork was in fact working it’s way out.

Spotswood South Brook

This was not a carbonated wine, but I must have weakened the glass just enough for it to burst. It shattered and cut my right middle finger deeply right at the last bend. It ended up bleeding like mad.
Fortunately, I’d had the first aid kit in my bag that Jen Berndt had gifted me a while back, and it had gauze and such in it.
Fortunately also, Rob is basically a doctor, and extremely caring, so he was able to quite professionally field dress it, and add a needed level of seriousness to the situation where I was basically just joking about it the entire time.

Parsonage Farm

Of course, I would still go on to finish the hike.
Anyway, we jump back to the winery where we packed up our stuff, the girls hid their pineapple plants, and we made our way toward Monmouth Battlefield State Park.
We continued on the highway only a short distance before we could turn to the right into the grass before the main entrance. We then skirted the cleared and mowed areas without getting on the main access driveway, which was quite pretty and pleasant.

Parsonage Farm

We passed by a lovely little pond, out of which flows part of the south fork of the Spotswood Creek. We went around the body of water to the right, then ascended to a parking area where there was a woman sitting there and staring at us like were were some kind of nuts or something.
We continued onto a paved trail around some picnic grounds, and then picked up a paved trail briefly to the right. We cut away from this and headed slightly up hill more, and then headed straight on to the visitor’s center ahead.

Parsonage Farm

The visitor’s center is quite nice. I’d been here many times before for different meetings with the state. I’d also done a couple of chain saw trainings and cut some trees down in the grove to the northeast of the visitor center.
The center is very nice, with a couple of cannons on display. I think one is a reproduction, and one authentic to the Revolutionary War. They have a video inside, which is quite good, on the Battle of Monmouth, and I was quite surprised that the group didn’t really want to see it.

Parsonage Farm

The Battle of Monmouth took place on June 28th 1778. At the time, General George Washington and the Continental Army were not doing so well.
Washington had suffered several defeats and the British occupied both New York City and Philadelphia. The rather untrained Continental Army had stood little chance against the well trained British, and morale was low. Letters from the time said that they feared they would fall under Washington’s command.

Parsonage Farm orchard

The Continental Army spent the previous Winter at Valley Forge training. They were not the same army the British had previously engaged.
The British left Philadelphia and were headed back to New York when Washington decided to wage a surprise attack. He sent Major General Charles Lee to attack and hopefully cause a major blow without a full engagement, but the attack was apparently botched when Lee attacked the rear guard as it left the Monmouth Court House.

Parsonage Farm

Lee was forced to retreat until Washington could arrive with the main body of the army.
The conflict escalated into a two hour long artillery duel between both armies. When the Continental Army set up a strategic advantage with fire from a hill within the Combs Farm, the site of today’s visitor center, General Henry Clinton began to disengage and retreat. The Continental Army inflicted more casualties than it sustained, and the battle was written off as an American victory.

Historic marker

Truthfully, the battle should not have been as significant as it was, but it instilled confidence in Washington as a Commander and silenced his critics.

Railroad underpass

It was written that Washington was “everywhere” during the battle, and instilled hope in the army.
When the battle died down, both armies camped only one mile apart from one another, and the British were allowed to escape to New York in the night through the next day.
Lee was Court Martialed for the retreat which was considered to be disgraceful, but reading it back today does not appear to be such a terrible move. I suppose someone needed to burn for the failed part.
Lee made claim that his retreat was a brilliant plan to lure the British into the main Continental Army body. It’s likely that his court martial was more a political move to alleviate any major criticism of Washington’s wrongdoing during this or previous battles.

The north part of the park

When the video plays, the screen opens up and reveals an overlook dead ahead from the top of Combs Hill, which is quite powerful.
I have another version of this same hike we’ll do in the future, and when we have a larger group we will most certainly do the video thing. This time, I already knew there would be another trip so it was not much to consider.
We continued out of the visitor center back to the south a little bit through the former Combs Farm. We got on a paved trail which skirted the parking lots heading south a bit.

an old well

There are three loops along the west side of the Combs Farm section. A red trail, a white trail, a green one, and a yellow one. We didn’t take the full loop down on red, and instead cut to the right on white. This took us through some nice woods, and then to a connector to the outer red trail.
There was one more trail on the outside of that, but it was closed off for some reason. We continued along red along the outside, with some nice little bits of topography. Eventually, after some muddy stuff, we came to the creek side.

Old farm

This was the Spotswood South Brook. It passed through some quite pretty wetlands as we were now heading to the east.
We kept on this section, and eventually it took us to the foot bridge over it, which was visible from the visitor center above.
Once on the other side of the bridge, we turned hard left. This was a trail shown in green on the map. It went out and around the field boundaries which was pretty nice. There was a lady that walked by before that tried to tell us the visitor center had maps, and she told us here that the trail was really muddy. I suppose people don’t realize we’re in for it all!

Old well

The trail continued out to the far west side of the fields, and then cut around to the north side and turned back to the east again. Robin told us that she’d known someone who used to have the farming contract on these fields, which is pretty cool. What a small world.
This was the Parsonage Farm section. Apparently, there were once farm buildings on this piece, but they are all gone now. The trails were nice, but none of them were marked. No posts, no blazes. Nothing. It made it confusing.

Old farmstead

If I hadn’t been looking at the map, and paying close attention to the comparison with the GPS google map on my phone, I would not have been able to find my way through easily. It’s so easy to make mistakes here.
The trail ended up leaving the side of the field and making it’s way up the center. It was obviously more well worn, but not enough to be totally obvious. We had to turn left at a point in the middle of the fields also, which is so easy to miss. Still, we managed, and soon we were walking through orchards.

Thompson-Taylor Farm

We crested a bit of a hill and then started to head down through trees, and came to one particularly big one. Just beond there was an historic marker as I recall which told of the Parsonage Farm’s role in the Battle of Monmouth.
From here, the trail led us out to another access point off of Route 522. The trail took us beneath an old farm underpass under the former Freehold and Jamesburg Railroad again. We paused under that to enjoy the shade a bit before moving on.
We had to across, but there was a crosswalk further over to the right we didn’t wait on.

Thompson-Taylor Farm

A trail that seemed to go straight ahead to the wood line abruptly stopped, and we had to head back out. We turned left, or east, and eventually met the trail we were supposed to be on. This took us from the open area into a swath of woods.

Thompson Taylor House from the Freehold FB page, before collapse.

First, we came across a lovely little spring, and there was a quaint wooden well structure to the right of the trail where it crossed the wetlands. We continued ahead.

Thompson-Taylor Farmhouse.

Next, we came across an old silo. This was getting to be a pretty cool area. A woods road joined from the right, and although our route was to continue straight out over a wetland and pond ahead, the Spotswood Middle Brook, I wanted to explore this area a bit first.
We kept to the right, and there was an old barn to the left that appeared to be in pretty good shape. To the right, there was some meta framework that I think was probably something to do with cow milking or something.

Thompson Taylor Farmhouse

I continued along the road while the others waited behind a bit.
I was quite surprised when next I came upon a terribly collapsed old farm house. The entire middle of it had come down into the main body of the building. It looked like it probably happened somewhat recently.
Upon a brief internet search, this was the Thompson-Taylor Farmhouse. It’s been abandoned in the park for quite a long time, and there are somewhat recent online photos of it, which means it’s only really a recent collapse.

Thompson-Tayor House

There was a ghost hunter guy on line that went exploring it, and judging by the article he was only in about a year ago. His photos show that the roof had bowed out in the section that was closest to the road, and that the floor inside was much collapsed into basement. I’m somewhat certain that one of the heavier snows we had must have brought it down.
There were a couple of rooms on the ends that could still be entered if intrepid (crazy).

Thompson-Taylor House

At this point, the place is a total loss. There’s really no salvaging. Some of the wood could probably be re-used, but it would take some effort.
I can’t find anything on when the building was constructed, but it must have been around by the 1800s. The lower end of the building could potentially date back to before the Revolution, but it’s hard to say. It was definitely built in two different times judging by the original shape.

Thompson Taylor House

The far side, which was likely the front, was collapsed down to where it was falling onto the ground in front. The weight of the roof and upper floors must have forced it to blow out.
As per the Freehold facebook page, a guy by the name of Paul Jones was living at the farm when he graduated from High School in Freehold in 1963. He said his mother passed away in the house, on the upstairs of the side closer to the road.

Another of the house before it fell by Timothy O'Rourke

I was fascinated by this place, and sad that I’d not been to it before it fell down.

The house before it fell by Timothy O'Rourke

After I went all the way around it, I headed back to the rest of the group, who were hanging around the barn building. We continued from here back to the main trail route.
One of the biggest tragedies is that since the building was apparently built after the Battle of Monmouth, it didn’t have a thematic history and would not be preserved.
However, if rumors are true, the building had hidden compartments in the top floor to hide runaway slaves. The house was reportedly an important stop on the “underground railroad” for slaves seeking freedom, and no one has ever looked into it that I know of.

Thompson-Taylor House now

We made our way along the trail across the Spotswood Middle Brook and continud out to open fields, where the Sutfin Farm was off to the left.

Thompson-Taylor House

This next area was the Sutfin Farm. That farm was already established by the time of the Revolution.
The Sutfin family didn’t want to have anything to do with it, and so they fled before the battle started I’ve ready. Their house ended up in the middle of this major skirmish. They were probably smart to have backed out ahead of time, as it was one of the bloodiest battles of the Revolution.
The Sutfin Farm house is still standing out in the fields, but also in poor shape.

Thompson Taylor Farmhouse

We turned right rather than get closer to this farm house, and headed to the east side of the park. This kept us mostly on field edges, but also passed through some woods.

Thompson Taylor Farmhouse

We crossed over a swath of woods, and then over a foot bridge to a finger of the previously crossed creek. Just ahead of there, we crossed the access road to the Central Region Supply.

The Central Region of the State Park Service gets all of their major supplies out of this area. I’ve had to come down to that point many times to pick things up.
There’s an old house out there, but I think it’s employee housing and I don’t know the year constructed or anything.
The trail turned to the right ot follow the road for a short bit, then continued along the south sides of the fields. Off in the distance, the Clark House was coming into view, which the trail would soon go right by.

Trail over Middle branch of Spotswood Creek

The Craig House was home to John and Ann Craig and their three children during the time of the battle, and it served as a military hospital to the British army.
The house was built in two phases.
The first section was built by Samuel Craig in 1746. The one and a half story Dutch style frame house was a modest home, but used only few years by Samuel until his death. The property reverted to his father, Archibald Craig, who bequeathed it to Samuel’s son, John Jr. upon his death in 1751.

Marsh land on the Middle Branch Spotswood Creek

At the time, the fourteen year old John Jr. was not legally allowed to own land. The property was used by farming tenants until John Jr. turned 21 in 1758.
About 1770, John Jr. built the three bay, two story, side-hall plan Georgian style addition which today appears to be the main portion of the house.
Several other barns and out buildings for various farming purposes were included in the property and added during the time. John Jr. left to fight with the local Militia when the Revolution broke out.

The Craig House

When news of the battle reached Ann, who was at home with the children, the family fled to Freehold, leaving the house vacant.

Field view to Central Region Supply

Legend has it that she dropped the family silver in the well, and that the British drank it dry and discovered it, then took it with them.
With the house vacant, it was there to use as a field hospital for the wounded.
Of 30,000 soldiers engaged in battle, 501 of them perished. With temperatures of 100 degrees Fahrenheit, it is believed that about half of them died of heat stroke rather than wounds.

Field trails at Craig Farm

John Jr. survived the war, and upon his death in 1824, divided the lands among his children.
After that, the land passed through other owners and the Craig House was used as a poor tenant farm. Much of the internal wood paneling was burned by the poor farmers for heat.
The Green Acres Program was instated and Monmouth Battlefield was among the first preserved under the plan, if not the very first.

Plantation style house at Central Region supply

The information is not very prominent on line about the start of the park, but I’ve gotten oral history about it, from none other than the man who was responsible for it, because he was the guest speaker when Olivia Glenn was named Director of NJ DEP.
It was a refreshing lecture, though slow, and not for someone disinterested in such things.
I believe the speaker, if I remember correctly, must have been David Moore, who was second Director of the NJ Conservation Foundation for which Olivia Glenn used to work.

Monmouth Battlefield toward Craig House

He took over as head of Green Acres I think he said it was, and there was all of this money with no rhyme or reason about what to do with it. They decided to set up Monmouth Battlefield State Park, and apparently he was responsible for all of the boundaries there. When I met him, he didn’t have a lot of great things to say about NJ DEP, which was kind of surprising because he was this honored guest speaker. It was refreshing to hear an honest take on all of it, and the quote “what are we going to let go of this year”. It made me think of the other house we had passed and how that was let go.

Craig House

I believe the start of the acquisition of the park lands was 1961, and the Craig House was purchased in 1965.
After initial purchase, the house was falling into worse disrepair, and Friends of Monmouth Battlefield formed to restore it and open it up for tours.
Although the house is not in great shape right now, it is kept up with through this friends group, and they do tours of it certain days of the week.

Craig House

There was an access from this point out to Rt 9 where there were a couple of mini marts. I was going to go out there and maybe find another drink (maybe a cork screw would have helped) but we instead decided to sit in the shade of the house for a bit.
We moved on from here to the north, and passed an old barn building. We continued north, to the north side of the fields, and the trail turned to the west. We followed it past a small out building of some non historic significance, and then to another park out building.

Old style fence by the Craig House

We simply continued along the north edge of the fields from here, from the Craig Farm to the Sutfin Farm. The Sutfin Farm House still stands on the property, but is also bad shape.

Craig House

We didn’t see this because we stayed to the field edges. There were more trails going off for loops into the woods to the right, but it would have been more distance, and there was another bit of trail system to the south, along the opposite side of the previous Spotswood Creeks, but we just couldn’t do it all.
Also, Rob was pretty insistent that I not try to take all day and do bonus miles with my finger bleeding profusely.

Barn at Craig House

I chose to try to make a joke of it to keep things light, but took heed of Rob’s warnings. We did remain with the more direct route back, but still tried to make it slightly interesting rather than just boring roads.
We left the Sutfin Farm, and started passing through the Perrine Hill area. The old Sutfin House came into view in the distance through the fields as things opened up more, past the other end of the Central Region Supply. It’s sad to see this one going. The original section of the building was built in 1731, with a couple of additions in the early to mid 1800s.

Historic marker

Around this time, I got a call from Erika Lorin Daniels, whom I’d not seen in a long time. She wanted to join in for the remainder of the hike, so I tried to find a spot.

Sutfin Farm House in view

We started heading toward Rt 522 which bisects the park, to the historic Conover-Perrine Farm House, where I figured Erika could park her car.

Historic marker on Perrine Hill

The Conover-Perrine Farm is an interesting contrast to that of the other buildings. It’s in pretty good shape, and it housed a couple of rangers until somewhat recent years.

Conover-Perrine Farmstead

The Perrine Family lived on the farm during the time of the Battle of Monmouth, and ancestors of the Perrines recount stories passed down that the original Perrine farm house was full of holes from ammunition, which also took out area orchard trees.
The current home dates back to 1832, which replaced the original farmstead, but reportedly incorporates four doors from the original structure. The Perrines sold the farm in 1818 to John I. Conover, but it went back to the Perrine Family in 1844 and remained so until 1892.

My finger ouch

The building appears to be in fine shape today, and hopefully won’t suffer the same fate as the other buildings within the park.
Erika called me back; she had gone to the main entrance of the park by following her GPS, and I had to remind her never to use a GPS to try to get to a park meeting point. Each park has no real address that can be followed, and most have multiple parking areas.
We wouldn’t be able to meet up with her here. We’d have to move on and catch her somewhere else.
We turned right on the road briefly, and then turned right again up into the Old Tennent Cemetery.
This is a very historic cemetery, and it’s church is among the state’s most historic.
Known as the Old Tennent Meeting House today, it was built in 1751 by a Scotch Presbyterian congregation organized in 1692, apparently the oldest such congregation in the country.

Historic church image

Some sources state that the church was built in 1731, but that it was enlarged in the 1750s.

Old Tennent Church

Like the other buildings that were in place during the Battle of Monmouth, this church too served as a sort of military hospital following the battle.

Old Tennant Meetinghouse

We headed up hill through the large cemetery, which is immediately adjacent to and cojoined with the battlefield property.
We went diagonally toward the Old Tennent Meetinghouse, which takes it’s name from two brothers who preached in the church during the 1700s.
Once I reached the front, I realized the others hadn’t paid attention to the way I walked, and they had to make their way out to the entrance. There, I met up with Erika, her girlfriend, and her dog Loki.

The entrance may be the only thing changed from 1750s. Reportedly built 1730, enlarged 1753

They couldn’t really park to join at the cemetery, so I directed them to head to the next park we’d pass through, the Manalapan Recreation Fields.
I started following Church Lane away from the church and cemetery, which eventually intersected with Rt 522 again. I made sure the others had seen me and knew where I was going.
We continued across 522 and directly into the Manalapan Recreation Park, which was loaded with people playing all sorts of sports. The first part was basketball courts.

Manalapan Recreation

I started heading to the right rather than my original plan to follow the park closest to the southern wood line. There were still some reasonable pathways through it.
When Erika pulled in, she realized that dogs were not allowed in the park. People were already giving her dirty looks.
I was honestly not at all surprised, because more and more parks are banning dogs altogether because of the amount of dog waste that’s being left behind. Monmouth County was one of the first big ones with Manasquan Reservoir Par, and other parks have followed suit.

Englishtown

Pretty much anywhere we were going on Long Island had banned dogs. We looked around to see if it was only certain sectiobns; there was someone with a dog somewhere in there, but probably wasn’t allowed. The way the police of the area had been, they were probably ready to give a ticket, so Erika decided to just bag it and go home. It really sucks because it would have been great to catch up with her after so long, but the truth of the matter is it’s very hard to do a long hike like what I do and have a dog with you these days.
When we’re covering as much mileage as we do, and going through multiple parks on one trip, the chances are one of the parks we are passing through will not allow them. On the night hikes it doesn’t matter so much because no one sees anything.

McGellaird's Brook in Englishtown

We continued on through the park, through lines of trees, and around the edges of different sports fields until we got to the far western entrance to the park. We cut out to a fence, which we had to climb over to get through, and ended up back on 522/Englishtown-Freehold Road and started to enter Englishtown.
The town is named for early settler David English. It was at the Village Inn at the center of town where General George Washington met with Lord Stirling to discuss the terms of Court Martial for Lee following the Battle of Monmouth.
We turned to the right on Harrison Avenue and went north until Dey Street.

My finger with slowed bleeding hooray

From there, we turned left and reached Main Street, crossed McGellaird’s Brook, and then reached the McDonalds where we were parked.
We devised a plan where Robin went back to the farm stand and picked up the pineapples for herself and Elizabeth, and Rob took Elizabeth and I back to my van. I was considering driving Elizabeth home first, but Rob insisted that I go to the emergency room right away.
Rob had done a good job field dressing it, but I’d lost all feeling in the thing. I was getting a little concerned too, truth be told.
I arrived at the ER, and they got me in surprisingly fast. The central hospital just to the south of Freehold was not that busy, but must have been short staffed because I was in there forever once I was there. There was some kid screaming bloody murder one room away from me to such a degree that one might think he’d taken a cannonball to the testicles in the Monmouth Battle.
I tried to have some fun with the nurses who were coming in, answering questions as stupidly as possible. When the one nurse asked, among a thousand other things, if I’d felt depressed or suicidal over the last week. I explained that I’d attended an all you can eat buffet party the night before, and that while some people eat until they’re stuffed, I eat until I hate myself. She started to laugh and didn’t know quite what to say from there.
Elizabeth got tired of waiting out front and came in to keep me company. She was surprised I actually told them the truth about how I cut my finger. But I can own my own stupidity.
When they took me to get an X Ray (to see about broken glass), and asked if I could walk, I quipped again that “I unfortunately hadn’t had any WINE, so yes I can”.
Elizabeth took the van out to get burritos and picked me up one, and no sooner did she leave, everything happened fast and I was soon released. Although the cut spanned the entire underside of my finger, the deeper part only required three stitches.
I went outside and sat on the steps until Elizabeth showed up and we were off.
My finger swelled up pretty badly, and I couldn’t really get it wet or uncover it easily, so I was stuck out of work for the next two days. At least that helped me to catch up on some reading and writing.