Caching in Lamington, Bedminster & Pluckemin on Monday 8/11/2008

Monday morning brought some rain and thunderstorms but Mom and I had a few caches we wanted to do before leaving to go back to CT on Tuesday. Sean stayed home from work as he picked up a stomach bug someplace and was feeling well at all this morning. We left and went to our first cache located i outside the Lamington Black Cemetery. Lamington Cemetery is an African American cemetery in the Lamington section of Bedminster Township, New Jersey, located on Cowperthwaite Road. It is sometimes called Lamington Black Cemetery or Cowperthwaite African American Cemetery. The cemetery is on the National Register of Historic Places. The 36 tombstones in the Lamington Black Cemetery are weathered and worn, with letters that are smooth to the touch. Most of the markers list to one side, pushed by the wind and shifting ground, tired from the rigors of standing tall across the centuries. Another 61 souls rest in the cemetery, but here the country's -- and the state's -- history of slavery suddenly becomes visible. Those graves have no tombstones, only small white wooden crosses belatedly added to the holes in which the departed were dumped in burlap sacks. In death, free blacks got coffins and gravestones; slaves were worthy of neither. Several of the headstones were marked by American flags mark the gravestones of veterans, tombstones go back as far as the 1700s, and two generations of a family are buried next to each other. In the Lamington Black Cemetery, the number is 97 men, women and children interred in a segregated burial ground, the purpose of which, was to "establish racial superiority." It is also believed that Cuffy Barnet, “The Lamington Black Saint” is buried in this cemetery, however no records exist of his burial. Cuffy presided over many of the burials at the cemetery before his death in 1844. Some of the other people buried here are Martin King, died March 25, 1867, aged 72 years (Slave of Henry Blackwell of Bedminster, George Henry, died June 1, 1863, aged 80 years old. (Slave of James Henry of Bedminster, William H. Van Horn, d. August 30, 1887 age 58, Private, Company H, 43rd Regiment, US Colored Troops, children of John II and Nancy Pierson, Jacob H., died December 13, 1865, age 2 years, 9 months, 18 days, Ann Elizabeth, died October 19, 1867, age 9 months, 17 days, and Dian wife of Benjamin Somerset, died March 18, 1865 age 66 years (Benjamin Somerset and wife Caty were slaves of Aaron Longstreet of Bedminster. It was interesting to walk around the cemetery after we found the cache and if you notice in the pictures there are several small white plastic crosses in the ground around the area.
Next cache was in a small park in Bedminster, NJ and it was a puzzle cache where we had to use Google Earth to figure out the coords for the final stage of the cache. We put coords to 17 different airports into Google Earth and they brought you to runways at the airports with numbers at the end of each of the runways and you used these runways to figure out the coords to the final stage. It was a fun cache to do and to figure out.
Then we were on our way to the Raritan River and a walk along its banks to a cache hidden in the woods. Then it was on to Pluckemin, NJ and our 1800th cache find which also was a puzzle cache. We had to walk up and down Main St. and take the years off the National Register of Historic Places oval markers. These years represent the years the homes were built and after we had them all we had to do some math to figure out the final stage coords. The final stage was a nano cache (very, very small) hidden at an old cistern well located in the village. This also was a fun cache to do and it did take us a while to locate the nano container.
Then we had one last cache to do and that was a virtual cache that took us to a Hindu Temple. It was Sri Venkateswara Temple located in Bridgewater, NJ. We had to find out how many doors there were on the front of the temple and email the cache owner. Facilities at the Venkateswara temple include a community center, auditorium, canteen and kalyana mandapam. Auditorium, old sannidhi hall, kalyana mandapam and temple kitchen are available for rent (if you know what all that means your a better man than I am). It also organizes lectures on Hinduism & language classes from time to time. As you can see by the pictures it is a very lovely and ornate building and was nice to see. Then we drove back to the house after stopping at Wegman's to pick Sean up some Day Quil and ginger ale. Mom did a load of wash and did our logs and I downloaded our pictures and did 3 days of the blog. We are getting take out tonight at an Italian Restaurant down the road from here and tomorrow we are off back to CT and the coach. Well time to say until next time and we love you all.


Picture List:1-Mom and I with our 1800th cache find...see it in my left hand?, 2,3,4-Old cistern in Pluckemin where we found our 1800th cache, 5,6-Lamington Black Cemetery entrance, 7-Headstone 1865, 8-White plastic crosses stuck into the ground and we figured it was for the folks buried there that have no headstones or are unidentified, 9-Headstones 1867, 10-headstone 1881, 11-Headstone 1867, 11-Methodist Chapel Circa 1831, 12-Cemetery next to the Presbyterian church, 13-Boylan House Circa 1751, 14,15,16,17,18-More of the old homes in Pluckemin that are on the National Historic Register, 19,20-Lamington Presbyterian Church School House, 21,22,23,24,25-Sri Venkateswara Hindu Temple in Bridgewater, NJ, 26,27-Pictures along the banks of the Raritan River, 28-An old barn remodeled into a house, 29-St Elizabeth's Catholic Church in Bedminster.