By Cathy Miller

This Week’s Persons of the Week are all about Cultivating Camaraderie!

Hailing from Knowlton, a four-man, hard-working, community-minded volunteer team jokingly refer to themselves as the Tuesday Morning Old Guys Grounds Crew. What entity has so captivated the Crew’s dedication? The Ramsaysburg Homestead Riverside Amphitheater, part of the Ramsaysburg Homestead historical park in Knowlton Township.

Who’s In The Crew?
Rick Clarkson started his own landscape business in 1976, and retired in 2017. He was Recreation Director in Knowlton. He and his wife Eleanor ran Knowlton Riverfest from 1995 through 2008, taking off 2006. Rick joined the Knowlton Township Historic Commission in late 2017. In his spare time Rick enjoys gardening, hiking, travel and music, especially jazz.

Pat Clayton grew up in Parsippany and moved to Knowlton in 1986. He was a union truck-driver for a newspaper for 30 years. He retired in 2017. A 30-year active member of Knowlton Fire and Rescue, he helped with parking at Knowlton Riverfest. He’s a member of the Knowlton Township Historic Commission since late 2017. He enjoys vegetable gardening and coaching youth sports.

Jim Ashe worked as a special needs teacher in private schools for 28 years. Before that he taught English as a Second Language at an international school in Brazil. He retired in 2017. He grew up in Frelinghuysen and has lived in Knowlton since 1989. He, too, volunteered at Riverfest. He’s an outdoors person, hiked the Appalachian Trail, and enjoys wildflowers, ecology and working with the soil. He also likes doing chores around the house.

Don Boyd worked with AT&T, NJBell, Bell Atlantic, and Verizon for 32 years and retired in 2002. He then went into construction, delivering supplies to jobs for his son’s business, Boyd Contracting. He was born in Norway, grew up on Staten Island, and relocated to NJ in 1969. He moved to Knowlton in the early 1980s. He enjoys home and yard improvements.

What’s The Backstory?
Dating from 1795 as a tavern, Ramsaysburg Homestead became Spring Brook Farm Hotel resort in the early 1920s. Its magnificent grounds attracted people from Philadelphia and New York to enjoy the luxurious accommodations. The property was sold to new owners in 1987 who’d planned to open a bed-and-breakfast, until a devastating fire in 1997. What remains is the tavern, barn, cottage, smokehouse and shed.

The Homestead hosted Ramsaysburg Summer Concerts in the Barn from 2013 through 2016. Bands performed inside the historic barn, doors wide open, facing Route 46 – not an ideal spot for music, with all the traffic and noise.

The scene from the back of the barn was overgrown, littered with debris, railroad ties, and trash. While looking at this tumble of refuse in 2017, Eleanor commented it would make a beautiful amphitheater under a canopy of trees.

One week later, the mayor of Knowlton announced $3,000 remained from a big settlement. Ramsaysburg Homestead received funding specifically to purchase stone to build a wall, fill behind it with gravel and soil to create the stage, and grass seed for landscaping the audience area between the barn and the Delaware River.

In Fall 2017, a dumpster was brought in to remove the debris, and Don stepped up to help with his tractor. Materials were purchased in November 2017 for work on the amphitheater. Delivery of goods and work started in Spring 2018, when John, Rick’s son, and Pat began the stone wall. Jim came on board about a year later.

It was a few months after the idea of an amphitheater was hatched until the completion of the Ramsaysburg Homestead Riverside Amphitheater in August 2018 when musician Bill Kirchen performed the inaugural concert.

What’s On The Drawing Board?
The Crew creates a tentative work plan in the Spring. Tuesday is their standing work day, but weather or personal commitments sometimes interfere. Whatever work they do must meet with state and town approval as they carefully reclaim the grounds, trying to respect the past and restore it. Everything there has a purpose.

Currently, they’re building a small garden surrounded by a stone wall to house a white oak sapling grown from the Historic Salem Oak Tree, in Salem, NJ. Believed to be 500 to 600 years old, the iconic tree collapsed in June 2019.

Just before the Salem Oak fell, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection collected its acorns and grew hundreds of saplings, gifting one to each of New Jersey’s 565 municipalities in celebration of the 50th Birthday of NJDEP and the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day on April 22. The sapling arrived at Ramsaysburg Homestead four weeks ago and it’s leafing out now.

Rick previewed a couple of proposed undertakings. “Generally, the projects we take on are ones we feel inspired to do. We take our time and try to enjoy it all. Some are smaller, like creating a flower bed or an area for a bench to view the river. Others, like building rock walls, are larger.

“We’d like to build a narrow path, perhaps with the Scouts, left of the barn, parallel to the river, to the end of the property. Great effort would be taken to protect trees, native flowers, ferns and other plants.” On the opposite side of the property he described “another shorter path to an area that overlooks a spring, a stream and a pond. We might then build a small bluestone patio for a bench.”

Rick said, “Nearly everything the Tuesday Morning Old Guys Grounds Crew does involves enhancing or maintaining the grounds or preparing the grounds for events. We clear overgrowth, wood, briars, and stickers, but always leave the trees undisturbed.”

For Nature Enthusiasts…The Homestead property is open to the public for hiking, with river access for fishing, canoeing or kayaking. If the gates are closed, there is parking in front and a separation in the fence for walk-in entry.

2022 Summer Concerts at Ramsaysburg Homestead Riverside Amphitheater
June 25 – Toby Walker / July 16 – Karl Latham Quartet / Aug. 28 – Alex Radus Band / Oct. 1 – Don Elliker

Ramsaysburg Homestead, 140 Route 46 East at Ramsaysburg Road, Delaware, NJ 07833
www.ramsaysburg.org