[AT] Nice photo-farmhouse and mower

[Rob Gray]

Regarding old farms, we still have a lot of older farm homes in this 
region even from the pre-revolutionary war era. One interesting area 
near me is the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation area. This is 
about 50 miles of the upper Delaware River on both the NJ and PA sides 
of the river. The federal government was planning to build a large 
hydro-electric dam on the Delaware and they scooped up hundreds of farms 
and small towns by imminent domain in the 1960's. These confiscations 
occured while the land was still rural before any suburban sprawl had 
occured. Needless to say, the plan for the dam fell threw in the 70's 
after being fought by environmentalists and locals who opposed the idea. 
That left the federal government with huge tracts of land and old farm 
houses and barns built from the the late 1600's through the 1800's. Some 
of the land is still farmed under lease from the gov't, but no farmers 
live there now. Unfortunately many of these old farm buildings fell 
victim to arsonists and vandals once they were vacant, but some are 
maintained as museums or are lived in by park employees. If you ever 
have a chance to visit the area around the Delaware Water Gap, just head 
north along the river on either side and you will see some of these 
places (it is better to have 4 wheel drive since many of the roads are 
rough and unpaved). I recently visited one of the museum buildings which 
was a farm/inn before the revolution. The stone house is very 
interesting if you find that sort of thing of interest. I was there 
because I wanted to get some hints on how to restore some parts of my 
old stone farmhouse. Unfortunately, the unique early 1700's dutch styled 
barn next to the house was burned by arsonists soon after the government 
confiscated the land. Apparently many of the locals were less than happy 
with the seizures.

The NJ side of the river has an old roadway called the Old Mine Road. 
The attached link discusses it a bit. Some might find it interesting:

    http://www.njskylands.com/hsoldmine.htm
    http://www.njskylands.com/pkdwgnra.htm