Girls Weekend 25. Saturday, Oct 15, 2022.

Saturday, October 15, 2022

I have to add here a tribute to my Mom, Beverly Crawford, who passed away this year on July 15th.  She LOVED reading about our adventures on our Girls Weekend trips and would hound me almost daily to get our daily journaling posted.  I miss that.  I miss my Mom. I promise to continue journaling while on these trips, not only to document our adventures but in memory of Mom.  Love you forever.

Today is the day we are making our trek into New Jersey.  Lori did her research to find something unique to do in New Jersey that wasn't too terribly far away from Wilmington and found Batsto Village, a nationally recognized historic site located in the Wharton State Forest in Southern New Jersey.  https://batstovillage.org/history/ Batsto Village is the site of a former bog iron and glass-making industrial center (1766-1867). A Mr. Charles Read built the Batsto Iron Works near the mouth of the Batsto River.  Originally the Iron works produced household items like cooking pots and kettles. During the Revolutionary War, they produced supplies for the Continental Army (munitions, camp kettles, iron fastenings & fittings for wagons and ships).  After a time iron production moved to Philadelphia and Batsto became a glass-making community.  Between 1784 and 1876 many of the village's buildings and residences for those who worked at the industrial center were built and a post office was established there in 1852.  In 1876, Batsto was purchased by Joseph Wharton, a Philadelphia industrialist, who transformed it to a gentleman's farm. He added to the mansion that was built by a previous owner and added many buildings to the site.  Today, there are 33 historic buildings and structures still standing on the site, including the mansion, many of which are open to browsing. There is a grist mill, a sawmill, a general store, piggery, workers homes, blacksmith shop and a post office.

We had decided the day before to leave by 11:30 since it is at least an hour's drive to Batsto from Wilmington and we wanted to be able to enjoy as much of the site as we could.  We got a relatively late start on Friday and were unable to fully explore the Hagley Museum and wanted to allow ourselves more time at Batsto Village.  After making turkey and cheese sandwiches to take with us for lunch we left a little bit later than our goal and ran into some traffic along the way, but arrived in the village around 1:30. We first stepped inside the Visitor's Center to gather some information and buy tickets for the 3:00 o'clock tour of mansion.  The Visitor's Center includes a small museum, but the day was too beautiful to spend much time indoors, so we took in the 10 minute video that described the history of the site, while we ate our sandwiches, then headed out to explore the village.  

Lori at the corn crib

inside the gristmill

Kathi outside the door to the horse barn

Inside the grist mill

We spent 20 minutes or so at the blacksmith shop where there was actually a blacksmith at work! We asked him where the term "pig iron" came from and, while the following are not his exact words but information found on the internet, his description was essentially the same. "The term “pig iron” dates back to the time when hot metal was cast into ingots before being charged to the steel plant. The moulds were laid out in sand beds such that they could be fed from a common runner. The group of moulds resembled a litter of sucking pigs, the ingots being called “pigs” and the runner the “sow.”"  He also told us how he judges the temperature of the fire by the color of the flames, with a red flame indicating a temperature of around 700 degrees and a white flame indicating a temperature of around 4000 degrees.

The corn crib

It was time for our tour of the mansion. We met with other folks and our tour guide (a charming, knowledgeable young man who used "umm" WAY too much in his storytelling) to begin our tour. Our group included a fairly large gaggle of boisterous teenagers who were enthusiastic participants in the tour.  Some of the glass in the windows of the home was the original glass which appears a bit wavy due to the production process and one of teens asked why the glass looked "pixelated".  A sign of the times. 

Batsto mansion is in the background

Photography is not allowed inside the mansion, so, unfortunately, I have no photos from inside the home.

After the tour we walked around the site a bit more, peeking into some of the worker homes, one of which had an herb garden.

Row of worker homes

The site also includes Batsto Lake where the families who lived there would swim and sail.

We made the hour and half drive back to Wilmington with a stop at the grocery store to pick up a few items, then went back to our home away from home, where Kathi prepared a delicious meal with the pork chops , asparagus and couscous we bought at Booths Corner Farmers Market the night before, which we enjoyed while watching a couple of episodes of "The Rookie: Feds". We both agree that the wardrobe choices for the lead character are distracting, sexist, unprofessional and disturbing and make taking her character as an FBI agent very hard to believe.

We tossed the states, leaving us with North Dakota and South Carolina in the running for next year!!