VISIT XX Baron Friedrich von Steuben Home/Gravesite, Remsen, NY + TOUR Fort Delaware Museum, PA 1Sept-23

VISIT XX to Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben's Home & Gravesite ... and TOUR of Fort Delaware, Narrowsburg, PA....

Steuben Memorial NY State Historic Site

Remsen, New York on September 1, 2023

NJ History Nerd Tour #8 ... Edison's Sparta Mountain Factory + Sterling Mine Mine Tour, 21Aug-23

NJ History Nerd Tour #8

Edison's Sparta Mountain Factory, Sparta, NJ & TOUR of Sterling Hill Mine, Ogdensburg, NJ...

August 21, 2023, Bill Bogertman, John Breur, Gary Link, Mark Yost (Newbie Nerd)

Plans today included a visit to Edison's Sparta Mountain as well as a "ticket only" tour of Ogdenburg's Sterling Hill Mine.  Bills Notes:

1)  Edison’s Ogden Mine, Sparta Mountain, Sparta, NJ

- Viewed the Edison Marker in the small parking lot, then walked from mine shaft to mine shaft and foundation ruin to ruin.  What an incredible history of the Sparta Mountain area (technically “The Works of the New Jersey and Pennsylvania Concentrating Company” 1881-1900);  when viewing an original map/schematic, as well as photos, the complex was huge with 20 industrial buildings, mines, crushers, separators, engines, and 500 employees. Some of the mine shafts were hundreds of feet deep, now flooded with water. Iron ore was the main product, made into “concentrated” iron ore hockey-puck sized briquettes. After touring a number of shafts and building sites, we drove to…

2.   The Sterling Hill Mining Mine and Museum, Ogdensburg, NJ.  We took a two+ hour guided walking tour of the Zobel Hall Museum, the Sterling Hill mine, and the Warren Museum of Fluorescence. (about half an hour is to Zobel Hall Museum, about an hour to the mine, and half an hour to the Warren Museum). To realize the mine itself is completely flooded and is at certain locations over 1,000 feet deep, is quite amazing history.  At one time, this mine was one of the world’s richest zinc ore deposits.  We walked down 56 degree shafts, one level only, to view blasting stations, drilling equipment, miner lockers and cleaning stations, electric locomotives.  Quite a learning experience about New Jersey’s ore and mining history.

VISIT X Naugle House and Easton Tower, 8Feb-23

VISIT X ... Naugle House, Fair Lawn, NJ and Easton Tower, Paramus, NJ, 

Bill Bogertman, February 8, 2023

NJ History Nerd-Nerdette Luncheon, The 76 House, Tappan, NY, 12Dec-23

Nerd/Nerdette Luncheon at The 76 House, Tappan, NY, ...on Tuesday, December 12, 2023, 12:30-2:30PM....The Bogertmans, Breurs, Dyksens, Links

CONTEXT

John Breur made plans for “our second annual Nerd Board Meeting” at the historic 76 House, which we again so thoroughly enjoyed.  Good food and good conversation with good friends.  We missed Jim and Ruth Aupperlee as well as Probie Mark Yost and his  wife.  

Wilma and I left abit after 10:00am and planned a 1.5 hour ride to arrive, but we got there quite early, say 11:30 or thereabouts. 

NJ History Nerd Tour #9 ... The Green at Hackensack, NJ 29Nov-23

NJ History Nerd Tour #9 ... The Green at Hackensack, NJ, Wednesday, November 29, 2023

Charter Members Bill Bogertman, Gary Link and Probies John Breur and John Dyksen.  New Probie Mark Yost unable to attend.

NJ History Nerd Tour #5 ... Monmouth Battlefield State Park, 18May-22

NJ History NERD Tour #5 ... Wednesday, May 18, 2022  

Monmouth Battlefield State Park, Manalapan, NJ... Jim Aupperlee (Absent), Bill Bogertman, Gary Link, and Probies John Breur and John Dyksen, 10:45am to 1:45pm

In early 1778, an alliance between France and the new United States of America forced the main British Army to abandon the rebel capital of Philadelphia to concentrate their forces in New York City. As the British marched across New Jersey, the main Continental Army marched from Valley Forge to intercept them. At Monmouth, a Continental Army attack on the rear of the British column failed, but when the British counter attacked, they were bloodily repulsed. After a 3-hour cannonade – the largest field artillery duel of the war – the British were forced to withdraw. The Continental Army and Washington had won a major psychological victory.

“Washington Rallying the Troops at Monmouth” 
23 feet by 13 feet Painting by 1857 Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze

From the Internet... Leutze’s painting is one of those heroic mid-nineteenth century canvases which one can look at again and again without seeing everything. The painter tried to be meticulously accurate with regard to uniforms, weapons, facial types of the soldiers, and i^mtntits of the leading figures. The coni|X)sition is carefully balanced, but packed with action. In the center, Washington, the sunlight shining on his wrathful face, waves aloft his sword as he starts to rally the troops of the advance corps. Hamilton and a bareheaded Lafayette have ridden up with him and arc reining in their horses. Lee sits back in the saddle, his crestfallen face in shadow. In the foreground, exhausted riflemen—and a thirsty dog—scoop water from a spring; farther back, on the left, the soldiers raise a cheer for their Commander in Chief, while some of them have already turned to fire on the redcoats, who can be seen outside Monmoulh Court House, in the distance at upper left. On the hilltop, behind the figure of Washington, American artillery gallops into position to stem the retreat, and at far right the regular ranks of Continentals approach the scene to do battle.

Note: This painting now resides in Freehold, NJ at the Monmouth County Historical Society Museum.  

NJ History Nerd Tour #7 ... Fort Montgomery State Historic Site, Fort Montgomery, NY, 6Jul-23

NJ Nerd Tour #7...Fort Montgomery State Historic Site Tour 

Thursday, July 6, 2023, Gary Link, John Dyksen, Bill Bogertman, Susan Serico (North Haledon Public Library Director) and Mark Yost.

Located on 690 route 9W, Fort Montgomery, NY, almost literally next door (1.3 miles away) to the Bear Mountain Bridge (built in 1923 and celebrating the 100th anniversary), spanning the Hudson River.  Our weather was very, very warm with hot, hazy sunshine and high temperatures.

CONTEXT:

Major General Richard Montgomery was an American General killed during the battle of Quebec on December 31, 1775, fighting with General Benedict Arnold. This Fort, and that of Fort Montgomery on the Canada/USA border on Lake Champlain, NY/VT was named after Major General Richard Montgomery 1738-1775. 

A day after the battle and British capture of Forts Clinton and Montgomery, the British received word of their humiliating loss to the Americans at Saratoga on October 7, 1775.  Add this to the context of battles during and after this one:

• Battle of Peekskill, NY on March 23, 1777 (also where the Fort Montgomery chain connected to the Hudson's eastern shore)
• American victory at the Battle of Germantown, PA on October 4, 1777
• American defeat and burning of Kingston, NY on October 16, 1777 (Kingston, NY was the capital of New York State at the time)
• American defeat at the Battle of Brandywine Creek, PA on September 11, 1777
• American victory at the battle at Stony Point, NY on July 16, 1779

The battle at Fort Montgomery between the British Army under Sir Henry Clinton and American Militia and Continentals under brother General George Clinton (Governor of New York State) and Colonel James Clinton, happened on October 7, 1777. (aka "the battle of the Clintons"). The British landed over 2,000 troops on the Hudson River, south of the Forts at Stoney Point, NY. They marched north by northwest and split at Doodletown, NY with 1,100 troops following the Hudson River to attack Fort Clinton and a second group of 900 troops travelling north, northwest, to attack Fort Montgomery from the west. General Putnam was in Peekskill, NY with 50 soldiers meant to slow any approach from the east.

(British casualties were 41 killed and 142 wounded. The Americans had 26 officers and 237 enlisted men captured and about 75 killed and wounded apart from wounded prisoners; most of them from the garrison of Fort Clinton. The Americans were also forced to destroy several boats in the area, as unfavorable winds prevented them from escaping upriver.) 

Fort Montgomery

Fort Clinton

I arrived at 9:50, then Gary, John and Yost;  Susan came shortly thereafter. After 10:00am, Docent Peter took us around the indoor Museum until 11:05 am, and took us from maps to each site display.  He gave us the background of the British Strategy, then to the maps of Forts Clinton and Montgomery and then to each of the artifact displays. 

Map of British Attack

At around 11:00am, we then went outside to walk the Fort grounds until we returned around 12:30.  The Fort and battleground is effectively cut in half by NY Rt 9W. 

We had lunch outdoors in the shade (outdoor temperatures were hot and humid, with highs of 90-94 degrees F), lunch until around 1:00pm, then Peter demonstrated and shot the British Brown Bess, a .69 caliber musket around 1:10 or so, then off to 15 minute movie about the battle until 1:30.  Left for home at 1:45 or so.