The Penn's Grove record., 1913-09-19
Flaw in Proceedings of Sale of Riel
Cunning Grounds.


Cunning Grounds.
It is announced that the recent sale
by order of the Chancery Court of
Clam Island, at Barnegat Inlet, the
best series of cunning points on the
New Jersey Coast, has been set
aside, and the property will not &C to
George j. Gould, who bid $10,150 for
it. Instead, it is said that a flaw has
been discovered in the proceedings
of the sale; that all the owner in
the land we're not made parties in the
partition suit and that Gould has been
paid back the $4,000 he paid on de.
post.
The Clam Island grounds for three
centuries have been a common gun
ming ground for allcomers on Bar
negat Bay. The islands are meadow
sedge, just inside the inlet at the
south, and now comprise about 26
acres, though they are at times in
ceased and at other times washed
away by the tidal currents. Like all
beach lands, only of late years have
they had any money value, and for
two centuries or more no attention
was paid to their ownership. AS a
result, they now have a multitude o.
owners
A short time ago George and Harry
Heights, of Spring Lake, and Edward
Johnson, CT Point Pleasant, bought, as
they supposed, five-sixths of the is
lands. The other sixth was supposed
by them to belong to Sc men in Bar
negat village, each holding an un-
divided interest in the whole group
of Islands. Thinking to get the whole
island and shut the Barnegatters out
from the cunning points, the Heights
brought a partition suit and put the
land up for sale. Through Allan w.
Ridgway, a Barnegat man, who is
conductor on the LakeWood-to-N6w
York train on which George J. Gould
rides in winter, Gould was interested,
and told Ridgway to bid the islands
in for his Barnegat friends, and he
would advance $4,000, which Ridg-
way considered an outside price for
the land. In fact, at the sale Ridg-
way got it for Gould at $10,150. 1t is
understood that the Barnegat gun
ners were to buy it back from Gould
at this figure.
Investigates Tree Blight.
The chestnut tree blight is being
investigated in northern New Jersey
by an expert from the United States
Forest Service. The representative is
S. G. Harris, and he has established
for several weeks he will study local
conditions. His Investigations will be
in Washington township, which ter
ritory the Government has picked out
as being typical of conditions existing
in the upper section Of the State.
The fact that all chestnut timber in
this section is affected and rapidly
dying off has been a cause for alarm
a long time. There is no known
remedy, and even the study made by
the government has not disclosed the
exact nature of the disease, any fur.
Their than that it is a fungus and not
an insect a was at first supposed.
Mr.. Harris has been studying the pest
on Long Island, where the disease first
attracted general attention. He states
that barely a stick of chestnut re.
mains there, and it is an ~undeniable
fact that this condition will soon pre-.
vail all over the country. In the up
per section of New Jersey possibly
as much as nine-tenths of the chest.
nut growth is already affected, he
declares. The work that he is pros.
ecuting is entirely Independent of the
! State investigation.