Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1882-05-10
A Pirates Old Retreat.

The extension OF new branch of the
Erie railroad through Weehawken and
Hoboken, New Jersey, has rendered II
necessary for the company TO acquire
the possession of the well known old
rookery known as ''The Pirates Re-
treat" This rookery is situated Oh
land which is now called "The Benson
farm, from the fact that its recent own
ers were family of that lame. OF late
years the place has borne good repu-
tation, 1t being occupied by an honest
Teuton, who earned a living for himself
and family of wife and eight children
by working from early morning until
night in one of tho bluestone quarries
back Of Weehawken. The old house
was the resort OF river thieves and des-
perate characters even in ante revolu-
tionary times. 1t was the property Of
an old Holland Dutchman named John
Finkle who kept it as sort of a road
side tavern. The house was called THE
Jersey Inn, which fact vas made known
to the stranger by the lettering on a
swinging signSoard, supported by tall
post in front OF the door, A trough for
watering horses and shed to shelter
the animals while the drivers were par
taking of liquid refreshments at the bar
of the tavern, occupied a prominent
place across the road from the building.
The water to supply the trough was
brought in wooden pipes. made of
hollow logs. from the spring twenty
rods away. Ostensibly the inn was
merely the resort of northern New Jer-
sey farmers, whose habit it was to stop
there while on their way to Jersey City
with their loads of country produce.
John Finkle, however, had a double
purpose in keeping the house. In ad
dition to being farmers resort, it was
the meeting place Of gang Of outlaws
who made their living by robbery.
There was story to the effect that
peddler, who was on his way back to the
city with the money for which he had
sold his goods in trip up IN the coun-
try, stopped at the pirates headquarters
to rest one night, and was never after
wards seen by his friends. There is a
tradition that he was robbed, murdered
and his body inferred i'll the cellar. The
old quarryman VINO related the story to
a reporter, said '.Now, 1 don't know
whether the peddler was really killed or
not but one thing do know, and that
Is that in the year 1926 two men who
were digging to enlarge and deepen the
cellar, e1cavated some bones that resem-
bled those of a human being. Maybe
the bones once belonged to the psddler.
Scores of people believed that they did;
but doctor who examined them said the
skeleton was that of a woman instead of
man. 1t was said that farmer up near
Nyack bought lot of goods from the
peddler, who paid for them in old-fash-
ioned English two-shilling pieces-the
kind of coin that had two pillars on one
side and the lion and unicorn on the
other-and that soon after the disap-
pearance of the peddler two-shlllling
pieces were extremely plentiful i'll the
till in the barroom of the old tavern"
As near as can be ascertained, the build
irg was erected about the year 1920
1t was what was considered in those
primitive days very fine edifice. Prob
ably it was not then excelied by more
than dozen houses in all New Jersey.
Up to within fifteen or twenty years of
the date of the breaking out of the rev.
olutionary war it was used as private
residence, after which it was changed
into hotel. 1t has passed through .
succession of ownerships, and among
the lessees of the property have been at
lest a score or more of landlords, good,
bad and Indifferent One OF the lessees
was Tory in the revolutionary war;
He was hunted by a party of New Jer-
sey patriots, and to escape their ven
geance was compelled to nide between
two feather beds. Another landlord
went to California at the time of the
outbreak of the gold fever in 1889 and
was murdered by his associates in
mini g camp. The new branch OF the
Erie railroad will run directly across the
aite of the "Pirato's retreat