There is little here except history and the singular beauty of a lonesome river. But it is enough. The trip to and through Quaker Bridge from Astion to Washington is a major experience. It is not recommended for the faint of heart. The old stagecoach road to the seacoast is little changed from what it was a century or more ago. There is only one crossroads in Atsion. Pointing east from U.S. 206 is a directional arrow which reads: “Quaker Bridge 4.” Anyone expecting to find at Quaker Bridge a town, a hamlet, or even a house will be sorely disappointed. Many of the turnings in the trail seem to have no reason for being. But the resulting vistas are pleasing to the eye, and it is at such places that deer are likely to dart across the path. In time, one will see an inviting road leading to the right with a small clearing at the junction. This road goes to Batsto and is shown on maps dating from 1778. It is over this road that munitions were conveyed to Washington's armies in Pennsylvania from the Batsto works. Then, only a few hundred feet or so ahead, around a bend to the left, comes the very heart of New Jerseys “Wharton Estate”—Quaker Bridge. It is said from early days, before 1810 at least, Quaker Bridge had a hotel that served as a town-meeting place besides being one of the principle stopping places of the stagecoaches on their way to and from Tuckerton on the Atlantic coast. To travel from Atsion to Quaker Bridge is to travel a route used during the Revolutionary War.

Submitted by: Henry Chenoweth