The cache is a 4 x 4 lock-and-lock filled with a nice selection of new key chains. Please take one and leave one, if you can.
I have had several cachers log a find online without signing the log. The whole point of the game is to sign the log; if the log is not signed, your "find" will be deleted. Sorry.
This 4 x 4 lock-and-lock was assembled years ago and was just waiting for the perfect hide. There had been another cache back here in these marshy woodlands, but it has long since been archived. I wanted to add another cache to my wonderful Township, because if cachers were going to the trouble of coming out this way, I wanted a few more caches around for them to uncover. With this addition, there is now a very nice selection of caches within a 2-mile radius. This area stays relatively dry except after heavy rains. A mowed path takes you all the way back to some interesting areas along the Creek.
Crosswicks was the scene of a skirmish between the British and the Americans during the Revolutionary War. In 1778, as General Clinton and his troops were retreating back towards New York the militia destroyed the bridge over Crosswicks Creek. There were several exchanges of fire including some of the British field pieces, with one wayward British cannonball embedding itself in the side of the meetinghouse. At some point in time a caretaker dug the cannon ball out of the wall and kept it at his house for safekeeping. After his death, sometime in the early 20th century, the ball was returned and a mason hired to plaster it back into place. The ball is still there today, visible between two windows on the upper story.
This area, and the bridge, is steeped in rich history. This passage was retrieved from a free ancestry website.
Crosswicks, Asay Springs Bridge- Spanned Crosswicks Creek. The original source states that it was a Howe Truss, built in 1833.
A December 2, 1908 article from the Trenton Times also states it was “an old style lattice truss bridge, which was built without a nail being driven into it”. The 1908 article further stated that the first bridge at the site was built about 1738 and “was used by the Hessians just previous to the Battle of Trenton, when they were making great efforts to hold off General Washington in this neighborhood”.
It was a single span structure that was later propped up in the center with what appears to be a wooden bent. In 1856 American eagles with wings spread over a globe and massed American flags were painted on each portal by Henry J. Bazzel. A foot path on the west side, enclosed in glass, was added in 1866. According to Of Time, Fire and the River, the bridge was removed in 1908 and replaced by an iron structure, “built by Newton A.K. Bugbee, about 60ft distant from the old one and for the purpose of straightening the curve in the turnpike” (Quotes, Trenton Times). As the article is dated December 2, 1908 and states the covered bridge “has been sold and will be removed in a few months”, it likely survived into the early part of 1909.
The iron bridge was about 144 ft long and was replaced by the present structure at the same site between 1979 and 1995. As the covered bridge was in the immediate area, it was probably close to the same length.
Recently discovered information seems to indicate that this area had also been known as Asay Springs. Some text from this site: “... Asay Springs may not refer to an area, but to actual springs that are located in the White Horse area of present day Hamilton [Township], across the Crosswicks Creek from Bordentown. That approximate area is the former location of a house once known as the Asay-Cubberly house. It was the home of Isaac Asay (son of Joseph), from 1849-1858 and maybe longer. A good account of the area can be found in Louis Berger & Associates, Historic Sites, Trenton Complex Archaeology: Report 12, The Cultural Resource Group, Louis Berger and Associates, Inc., East Orange NJ, Prepared for the Federal Highway Administration and the New Jersey Department of Transportation, Bureau of Environmental Analysis, Trenton, 1998. (That's a long way of saying they had to study the area before they could build a new highway. If you have a recent map of NJ, you'll see the area is now pretty well covered by the intersection of I-295 and I-195.) The springs were tapped to provide water to Bordentown in 1906.”