Jersey Shore Magazine

J e r s e y s h o r e • S p r i n g 2 0 1 9 56 continued on page 58 JERSEY SHORE LANDMARKS Peanut Stone in Monmouth County A Touchstone to History by Christine Menapace From beautiful to haunting to quaint, what do these sites all have in common? A unique building material native to the area called peanut stone. With a warm, copper colored patina, peanut stone is a sandstone conglomerate of quartz and other pebbles (resembling pea- nuts) embedded into iron oxide rock that is uniquely native to upland areas of eastern Monmouth County. (Other areas call such conglomerates "puddingstone." The distinctive, gray- ish-purple to grayish-red conglomer- ate found in Morris County and the lower Hudson Valley region is known as Schunemunk puddingstone.) As a local natural resource, peanut stone was used in early buildings and walls. "It's still evident in a good many eighteenth and nineteenth century buildings today," comments Gail L. Hunton, chief of Acquisition & Design at the Monmouth County Park System. Not a first class con- struction material, it was primarily E very area has unique historic buildings that stand as local landmarks, and Monmouth County is no exception. In northern Monmouth, it's the beautiful All Saints' Memorial Church on Navesink Avenue in Atlantic Highlands or the hauntingly infamous "Dempsey House" in the Leonardo section of Middletown. In southern Monmouth, it's the quaint Hobbit-like cottage at the corner of Sylvania Avenue and Marine Place in Avon-By-The-Sea. The abandoned "Dempsey House," in the Leonardo section of Middletown, is clad completely in peanut stone and surrounded by a peanut stone wall. Built in 1923, it was once a pump station to generate well water for the area. Today, it fulfills the role of local "haunted house," inspiring many myths and ghost stories. The historic peanut stone "Hobbit" cottage at the corner of Sylvania Avenue and Marine Place in Avon-By-The-Sea. Paul Scharff

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