12,584. RUDIMENTS, pt. 973

RUDIMENTS, pt. 973

(landing lane bafflement)

Sometimes I feel at home.

When I'm home  -  but lots

of other times I don't. There's

just something about all this

that keeps me estranged, in

an odd way. So, to try and

'explicate' that, I'm taking a

change of pace here to cover

a different subject. As best

I can. Stay with me on this.

-

I don't believe in Government.

I don't believe in systems either,

and feel they're all corrupt, and

self-generating, and, once in

place, they do all they can to

sustain and grow themselves at

the expense of regular people,

continually trying  -  by lies and

deceitful manners  -   to find

continuation by control. To

dupe. By contrast, I'd identify

(self-identify?) as an anarchist

revolutionary, and the rest be

damned, whether its dripping

with blood, slaughter, and

danger in the streets. Who

cares, and we must somehow

take it all back. Of course, I

know all those self-sustainers

will pipe up, in their self-interest,

'Who's gonna pave your streets

and take out your garbage?'

I'd probably go and answer:

'Well, frankly, I don't give a

flying fist-f' who, and it will

probably be you anyway.'

-

Over here, New Brunswick way,

we've got a place called Raritan

Landing. It doesn't really exist at

all except as a more-than-quaint

historic and archaeological point

of reference within the far older

ideas of 1600's and 1700's New

Brunswick, which can be verified

and authenticated.  This entire

Raritan Landing and Landing

Lane colonial, found-village,

thing had been ignored for

years and years, while the

local area grew and prospered

itself to stupid proportions, and

only then, in the late 1970's once

more found itself needing a

'founding' myth, by which to

cover and sentimentalize all the

crap that had been going on.

Politics at the local level is

good for doing this sort of

thing; hoisting itself, as it were,

by its own petard, swinging

all the dirty deals, and covering

them over with trite fantasies.

The problem here which we

once again face is the usual

one of water, rivers, and

canals. Previous to the years

before 1830 or so, everything

was oriented towards the water,

be it the local river, stream,

and later, canal, or shoreline.

People thrived, FACING the

water. Now it's all done in the

opposite fashions  -  roads and

pavement having re-oriented

(destroyed) all of that. Rim-roads,

bypasses, and 'shoreline' drives

hardly even allow access to

water and shore. People's heads

are completely different in

outlook  -  water means nothing,

toll gates, canals, links and

waterways, and the travel that

all provided for access and

freight, isn't even understood

by them. They wouldn't know

a raft from a draft; Mark Twain

notwithstanding.

-

So, when the 'Sewer' Authority

came through the area, long back

about 50 years ago, claiming their

precedence to gouge up, dig, and

remove and replace much of the

ground cover and, in effect, any

'past' there, in order to 'sewerize'

the line from Landing Lane at

River Road right up to Bound

Brook (conveniently already

gouged over much, years before,

in the clearance for making

'Johnson Park'), the certainty

of perpetuating this 'myth'

went as follows (to me this

is so obvious, a payoff the 

find nothing, to the first group, 

and, fortunately, the follow-up 

outrage by the second, which 

at least ended up doing SOME 

digs) : "The first archeologists

who looked for historical evidence

near Landing Lane didn't find

any. Hired by the Middlesex

County Sewerage Authority

to conduct the required

archeological surveys of the

land along the Raritan River

between Bound Brook and

Sayreville [a huge expanse]

where sewers were proposed

Susan Kardas and Ed Larrabee,

both Ph. D.s, 'didn't know'

anything about Raritan

Landing (yeah, right), and 

they didn't find anything

near Landing Lane that

suggested that an important

town had once existed there.

Although they had proposed

what we call 'shovel tests' (in

this case two by two foot holes

excavated to sterile subsoil)

within the portion of Johnson

Park the sewer would cross, a

long stretch of the right-of-way

was already scraped for a new

park-access road and they

examined the exposed area

for a distance of 3,000 feet

down to Landing Lane instead

of digging their own tests. The

absence of shell, ceramic shards,

lithic flakes, or any others debris

relating to past occupation LED

THEM to conclude there were

no prehistoric or historic sites

in the area. [Complete falsity].

-

Just a year or so later, Susan

Ferguson of the NJ Dept. of

Transportation (NJDOT) found

something very different. She

and her crew excavated 21

test pits (again measuring

two feet square), at intervals

of one hundred feet or so along

both edges of Landing Lane

all the way from the base of the

bridge to the intersection with

River Road. At least seven of

the tests produced significant

numbers of historic artifacts.

There were lots of clam and

oyster shells, charcoal fragments,

white clay pipe-stems, hand

wrought nails, and ceramic 

shards. Ceramic styles change

over time, and the ones found

here dated to the 1700's. Local

historian Walter Meuly, visiting

Ferguson in the field, looked

into the holes, and told her

she had found the first evidence

of the invisible and forgotten

Raritan Landing. Meuly knew

of the old area maps and map

reconstruction enough to

appreciate these finds, and

their significance. The planned

bridge and further construction

that had required the survey

was dropped shortly thereafter,

and the DOT didn't do any

further work." An entire town

lay buried beneath the well

groomed lawns of Johnson

Park! The only thing left,

betraying this, was, atop the

nearby, facing hill (to the

river), was what is not called

the Cornelius Low House, 

after originally being called, 

after its construction in 1739,

Ivy Hall. It still stands, but

is put to poor use.

-

Now basically this is all

information, but not context.

I'm here to give it my context,

just as the mythology, of

origination is 'their' context. 

Whatever was saved in this

Raritan Landing and Landing

Lane intervention, was saved

NOT by Authority or the at

work Bureaucracy. They were

underway, by contrast, with

sneaking around regulations,

falsifying studies and tests

and conclusions, and most

probably paying people

off to reach those favorable

conclusions. What was saved

here was saved by a brash

core of adherents to both

Truth and to Real History.

The people, at work. It's

all to easy, like Woodbridge

dies, say, to bulldoze, pillory,

and shackle everything in

front of plows and bulldozers

and cutters, defaming place

and location, while erecting

costly edifices to house, later,

the supposed trinkets of a

useless and false history. As

I walk Landing Lane, at least

I can consider myself fortunate

to be near an effected effort

of saving the past, once, and

not thwarting it. But still, no

one tells you this stuff; you

have to find it out on your 

own. Schools and historic

organizations? Useless. This
could have all been lost; a
buried legacy of the rotten past.
The modern world cares nothing
of that; political factions cast
their warfare towards that
silly thing they insist on calling
Progress,' and the rest be damned.
They're out to make names for
themselves. Vanity. Not History.
-
The last history-angel that came in
on a cloud was killed by politics.
The rest are being interned
by Bureaucracy; a lying, cheating
Bureaucracy, but one nonetheless.
You can 'recognize' local history,
or you can (try to) hide it, as
they did here. But you cannot
ever falsify it. It lives.