I've been wanting for some time to do this post, but my past attempts to visit the location in question never worked in my favor. But that ended up being a good thing! The Longswamp Township Historical Society invited their members and the general public to join them on a visit to the Upper Milford Historical Society to learn about the jasper quarries of the Lenni Lenape, and so off I went.
Our guides were John Fegley and Neil Moser of the UMHS, and as Neil put it, they "learn something new every week" in the organization. John in particular is an absolute fount of knowledge about the jasper quarries, which are so much the pride of the area that the community of Vera Cruz uses a jasper arrowhead as its emblem.
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| The marker stands in the front yard at 5167 Vera Cruz Road, Vera Cruz, roughly two blocks from the entrance to Jasper Park |
Jasper is really a form of quartz, which is the fourth-hardest stone on the Mohs hardness scale. When fractured, the pieces have sharp edges which can be easily honed. This made it an excellent choice for the Native Americans to use for arrowheads, blades, and other tools. When the Lenni Lenape moved into the area which is now southern Lehigh County, they found that previous tribes had already begun excavating jasper from the area. The Lenape went deeper into the pits, and the jasper found there was of such great quality that Natives from other tribes would travel for miles to trade furs and other goods in exchange for Lenape jasper items.
The Lenape would pull the jasper from the pits in large rocks, or nodules. The jasper would have to be broken away from the rest of the stone, then taken from the pits to the 'workshop' area some little distance away. There, the skilled craftsmen would shape the rock into arrowheads, hatchet blades, knives, spearheads, and the like. Examples of Lenape jasper artifacts have been found as far away as Georgia, showing just what kind of distances the Natives were willing to travel for trade.
All this was happening some 12,000 years ago. Much of what was learned about the Lenape jasper quarries can be credited to Henry Mercer of Doylestown; my regular readers will remember that I visited the 'Mercer Mile' in a previous post. During his time (1894-1897) as the Curator of American and Pre-historic Archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania Museum, he did considerable research into the Lenape jasper quarries of Vera Cruz, and concluded that mining in the pits ceased somewhere around 1680. But surprisingly, after he concluded his research and informed the scientific community about his discoveries, no further investigation was performed.
Later, in 1981, Dr. James Hatch of Penn State's archaeology department visited the quarries. He declared them to be "the best preserved of any jasper quarries in the Mid-Atlantic region, and one of the best preserved quarries in the United States." Most other jasper pits have long since been filled in and plowed over by farmers, but the pits in Vera Cruz have been left virtually untouched. It was largely thanks to Hatch's insights and reports that the quarries became so significant, and today they are the pride of the Vera Cruz area.
So we all got into our cars and formed a little caravan to go and see them for ourselves.
John came prepared to continue his lecture, and allowed everyone to examine the items he brought with him. Along with two very large pieces of jasper (one heat treated, one not), he had examples of antlers, which could have had jasper blades attached to them, and a perfectly smooth round stone almost like a cannonball, which he said would have been used for grinding nuts or berries. Our tour was interrupted at one point by the appearance of a young buck, who managed to distract everyone's attention as we all admired him, but he wandered away without paying us much mind.
Jasper Park is open to the public at no charge, from sunrise to sunset every day, and the quarries are there to be seen by all. There is also a walking trail, some playground equipment, and places to enjoy a picnic. Visitors can view a life-size carving meant to represent Chief Lappawinze, the last known Lenape chief in the region. There is even still jasper there to be found - I actually picked up a piece as I was walking back to my car. But one thing you can't do is take a souvenir; the jasper in Jasper Park is federally protected, and cannot leave the grounds. They're quite serious about this, and a sign in the park warns that anyone caught taking jasper will be prosecuted and subjected to heavy fines. (Don't worry, I put back the piece I found.)
Many thanks to John, Neil, and the rest of the Upper Milford Historical Society for the marvelous tour, and to the Longswamp Township Historical Society for inviting me to join them!
Sources and Further Reading:
Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.
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