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Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2003
Left on this road is JOHNSONBURG, 1.8 miles (580 alt., 162 pop.), a country village spread along a main street at the edge of a narrow valley. The town is hemmed by a rocky, wooded slope and, across the fields, by the high embankment of the a rocky, wooded slope and, across the fields, by the high embankment of the Lackawanna R.R. From 1753 to 1765 the village was the seat of Sussex County. There were only a few log houses then; one of them, the jail, gave to the settlement its early name of Log Gaol. Standing back from the main street in the center of Johnsonburg and aloof from the frame dwellings is (R) the yellowish stone VAN NESS House (private), a plain and finely proportioned building of two stories. Built to square with the points of the compass, it served as a Protestant Episcopal Church from c. 1781 to c. 1850 when, as the incumbent postmaster puts it, "that denomination kinda got pinched out in this vicinity." In stagecoach days Johnsonburg was an important junction for travelers between Easton and Elizabeth; today it has only summertime significance because of the nearby camp for field work by civil engineering students of Stevens Institute of Technology. Two conferences, the Annual Economic Conference of Engineers and one for boys of high school age, are held at Johnsonburg annually. Left from Johnsonburg 0.1 miles on the Allamuchy road the old CHRISTIAN CHURCH CEMETERY (R), enclosed by a stone wall. In the center a small, white marble obelisk marks the grave of Joseph Thomas, described as a "minister of the gospel in the Christian Church, known as the White Pilgrim reason of wearing white raiment." Thomas, in whitewashed boots and astride a white horse with whitewashed trappings, rode into the Johnsonburg district in 1835. His mission ended after one sermon when he was stricken with smallpox and died at the age of 44. Leaders of the orthodox Christian Church did not want to bury him in their cemetery, lest his body contaminate those of the saints. The evangelist was therefore interred in the private burying ground of Dark Moon Inn, a plot maintained for those who lost arguments over cockfights and gambling. Eleven years later it was decided at a synod meeting that it would be safe to remove Thomas' body to its present resting place.
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