Maurice River Recollections Project
River Reaches
The Maurice River Reaches Project
Bricksboro Reach #31 In a documentary highlighting the work of Pat Witt, the renowned Maurice River artist quipped, "I love the Maurice River. I know what it tastes like” Pat Witt laughed and explained, "I got thrown into it, so I do know what it tastes like!" Witt related that she spent many happy childhood summers at "Uncle Herb's" (Herbert Vanaman's). From the Vanaman Farm, she and her cousins would walk down to Bricksboro to go swimming. One of her memories is still very vivid, she laughed. She recalled the time when she was thrown into the Maurice River in a bit of child's play with her cousins. "I got stuck in the blue mud," she said, describing the thick, mucky sediment along the river bottom that is well-known to local fishermen and boaters. "They had to pull me out," she said with the drama of an artist. Witt's uncle, Herbert Vanaman, was a respected historian in the region. His research efforts documented much of the history of the Maurice River, especially along the reaches where he lived and grew up. By Vanaman's accounts, the establishment of Bricksboro was facilitated by the success of one of the regions first glass manufacturers, Eagle Glass Works. Sometime before 1799, Nathan Hand rented 170 acres near the Manumuskin River to James Lee. There, Lee built one of the largest producers of window glass (made by cylinder-method) in the state. In 1805, Lee purchased the tract where his factory was operating. He divided and sold several lots to Port Elizabeth businessman Joshua Brick, Sr., and his son. Hoping to gain from the developing landscape in Maurice River Township, Mr. Brick divided that land that lay adjacent to Elizabeth Bodly's tract. In 1807, he sold the first lots in Bricksboro, the town he established there. Private dwellings and a hotel housed families and travelers, but an account in Lucius Elmer's History of Cumberland County, written in 1869, hints that even though the town "was well-situated for trade," it didn't attain the posterity that Brick had hoped for. In her research for the Conservation Plan for the Manumuskin River Watershed, local journalist Jean Jones reported that several wharves were built on the Manumuskin to service the glass houses and other businesses in the early 1800's. There was also a "deep-water wharf” at Bricksboro on the Maurice River which may have been used extensively during the period when Port Elizabeth was a "port of delivery" for the Bridgeton customs district during the period between 1785 and 1835. Two names have surfaced in connection with the stretch of river at Bricksboro. Carrell's Ferry operated from the meadow along the Maurice River, above Mauricetown and opposite Bricksboro. The year may have been 1870. This ferry was mentioned in a list of forgotten places and names. In the same list, there is a notation that Jesse Eldridge operated a ferry, Eldridge's Ferry, from this spot on the Maurice River in 1811. |
Narratives
Bricksboro
Narrative Recollections Jean Jones Pat Witt Other Lores Hill to Brickboro Brickboro Historical Sites-Ferry Crossings |