East Main Street

This 4000-pound boulder was brought to light by the pick of an Irish immigrant employed in building the Delaware and Raritan Canal during the period 1831-1834. There it lay, on a sandy bank of that waterway in South Bound Brook, until moved to the battlefield it was selected to commemorate.

Bearing an inscription cut by one of two local masons, Essex A. Yawger or Robert L. Ayers, (and quite likely both), it was erected April 13, 1897, on the site of the Block House that covered the roads approaching the Queen's Bridge. There the stone stood until 1957 when traffic congestion at that point necessitated its removal to the grounds of the old borough hall. Since that position seemed not sufficiently near the battle site, it was re-erected on the lawn of the Pillar of Fire Temple and stands again, no longer a traffic hazard,on the ground that witnessed the Americans' inglorious defeat.

Thus far this is an account of the monument's recent history, but what preceded it would be equally interesting to relate were it possible to do so. However, geologists tell us that during the glacial period great masses of ice of enormous thickness (like the ice caps of Greenland and the Antarctic continent) moved down from the north and invaded New Jersey eons after the sea had receded from this part of our continent.

Within these glaciers and pushed ahead of them were vast masses of drift (material consisting of rocks, boulders, sand and gravel). Then, when the ice mass ended its course and began its retreat, these materials were left deposited on the ground. Boulders such as this, often oblong in shape, highly polished or smooth, with rounded edges and with streaks or grooves parallel to their longer axes, proved themselves effective agents of erosion. Widening and deepening the valleys through which they forced their way, they exerted a marked influence in shaping the physical features of the land as we see it now. Scientists estimate that the last of the ice of that era disappeared from New Jersey at least 25,000 years ago.

And this, a chance memorial to Those Who Served the Cause, also points out a trace of the Creator's way.