NJ's oldest rest stop?: Monmouth U. students digging up history at Cedar Bridge Tavern


BARNEGAT — Long before New Jersey had the Vince Lombardi Service Area and the Cheesequake rest stop, there was Cedar Bridge Tavern.

Located in Barnegat, the 1700s tavern was a popular highway rest spot for road-weary travelers crossing the Pine Barrens by horse or stage coach. The Ocean County building, which is still standing, is believed to be one of the state’s oldest-surviving bar and taverns.

Even before the tavern was built, historians believe the wooded site was frequented by Native Americans, who may have camped or traded at the popular crossroads.

“In some ways, it’s a gateway to the Pines . . . kind of an early Jersey rest stop,” said Richard Veit, a Monmouth University anthropology professor. “It’s rather miraculously survived.”

This summer, Veit and his students are trying to unearth Cedar Bridge Tavern’s long-hidden history. The class, called “Field Methods in Archaeology,” is conducting an archeological dig at the site. They are sifting through centuries of dirt to uncover clues about the tavern’s past.

So far, the students have found thousands of artifacts, including Native American tools, Colonial-era nails, buttons, jewelry and ceramics. Because their dig site is next to the tavern, they have also found the remains of food — including fish and snake bones — that may have once been served to travelers.

“It is a sort of little glimpse of what was going on at the tavern,” Veit said. “You wonder what was on the menu.”

The students are cleaning and cataloging everything they excavate. The artifacts will eventually be returned to Ocean County Cultural and Heritage Commission, which wants to preserve the site and eventually open it to the public.

The county purchased the property in 2008 for $120,000 after the death of its last owner, Rudolph Koenig, according to property records. He lived in the aging building, which is still on a dirt road and surrounded by pine woods, for nearly 50 years. Koenig occasionally opened the property to the public to show off its long history.

A 1981 survey by historic preservationists with the New Jersey Office of Cultural and Environmental Services estimated the building was constructed around 1740 on Old Halfway Road near a stage coach route between Camden and the Jersey Shore. For hundreds of years, the wood-sided tavern with the long front porch served as a hotel, restaurant and bar for travelers.

The site, which is tucked away off Route 72, seemed to be caught in time, the historic preservationists noted.

“The structure and its setting remain much as they did in the 18th century,” the survey said.

The area surrounding the tavern was also the site of the of the Affair at Cedar Bridge in 1782, one of the last battles of the Revolutionary War. Historic re-enactors have recreated the battle several times on the property.

For Veit and his Monmouth University students, the site is a rich learning experience. The graduate and undergraduate students are spending every Saturday this summer sifting through the dirt.

In previous years, Veit has taken students on similar archeological digs at Twin Lights in Highlands, Thomas Edison’s Labs in West Orange and the house of Joseph Bonaparte, elder brother of Napoleon, in Bordentown in Burlington County.

The class usually partners with a local historical society or park service and presents the results of its summer-long archeological dig for free.

Students said the class is very physical, requiring long days of digging. But it can be rewarding.

Dennis Owens, a graduate student finishing up his master’s degree in history, said he was thrilled to find a cow bone in the sandy soil during his second week on the dig. It was likely a discarded remnant of a roast served to travellers hundreds of years ago.

Amid the broken pottery and jewelry, students have also uncovered piles of clam shells.
"We're thinking it is most likely a garbage pit. They had a clam dinner and threw them there," said Owens, 62, a retired Army veteran from Spring Lake Heights earning his degree through the GI Bill.

Students taking the course are graded on more than their digging ability. They do weekly readings and write papers, including a final report on items they excavated.

This year, students are also required to read several books, including “The Pine Barrens,” a classic 1968 book on the history and people of the region by Princeton University professor John McPhee.

Like many of the course’s summer excavations, Veit said the dig at Cedar Bridge Tavern shows that New Jersey is rich in forgotten history — if you look just a few feet beneath the surface.

“It’s sort of a hidden history in the sense that it’s all around us, but you don’t see it,” Veit said.

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