The Smooth Stones of Blawenburg
Updated: Jun 19, 2019
Note the smooth stones in the pillars that mark the entrance to Blawenburg Cemetery.
Each day, hundreds of cars drive by the pillars at the entrance to Blawenburg Cemetery on Route 601, but few people give them a second thought. Who built those pillars? Where did the stones come from?
According to an oral history entitled Growing Up in Blawenburg with Norma Haight Arons, William Haight, Norma's grandfather, was a mason who built many of the original buildings in the New Jersey State Village for Epileptics (now Skillman Park). He was also an elder of Blawenburg Church, and he applied his masonry skills to building the stone pillars at the cemetery. The stones used are not local, being neither shale nor trap rock. They are smooth, likely worn by water, and light colored much like the pebbles you find closer to the Jersey Shore.
When it came time to create new welcome signs for Blawenburg in 2007, the planners picked up on the smooth stone theme and made the base of the signs of similar smooth stones.
It’s often the little things that make a village unique, and the smooth stone pillars of Blawenburg certainly add to its character.
Note the smooth stones on the sign for Blawenburg Village.
Source:
Baker, Walter. Growing Up in Blawenburg with Norma Haight Arons, Oral History 04-14, Belle Mead, NJ, Van Harlingen Historical Society of Montgomery, Inc. 2014.