There's nothing so fascinating to the local historian as tracking down the origin of neighborhood place names. One of Warren's most unusual is Dock Watch Hollow, the subject of a brief but interesting article that appeared in the May 21, l979, edition of the Courier-News. Entitled, "Dock Watch Hollow Tough to Trace," the article is well worth repeating in part, with some added commentary by your editor and others. "How did Dock Watch Hollow Road in Warren get its name? From Dock Watch Hollow, of course. Ah, if only it could be that simple. Actually, the origin of Dock Watch Hollow and the corresponding road and quarry... remains a collection of documentation and conjecture -- all leading in different directions." "The Hollow, according to North of the Raritan Lotts, a book put out by the Martinsville Historical Committee, is a gap in Second Mountain located on the boundary between Bridgewater and Warren. Through this gap flows a stream, which empties into the east branch of the Middle Brook. Running past this stream is Dock Watch Hollow Road, a winding piece of asphalt that extends from Washington Valley Road up to Mount Horeb Road in the southwest corner of the township." Driving up the road from Washington Valley, motorists back in l979 could hear operaations underway at the Dock Watch Quarry. "The quarry operates on a 21-acre tract and was started by Harry E. von Osten, who still lives next to the quarry and says he has been in the area since l924." "One explanation for the Dock Watch Hollow name traces back to a l766 map of property owners in Somerset County that lists a large 3,000-acre tract in the northeast corner of the town as belonging to a William Dockwrae, with another 2,000-acre piece in South Bound Brook listed under a William Dockry. The correct name, according to George H. Bebbington (former Historical Society president) ...is William Dockwra. In l684 Dockwra became the chief secretary and register to the East Jersey Proprietors...." "In one of the early property transfers in the Hollow, Bebbington indicated there was a Doquatch Creek referred to. As early as l828, a map of the township was listing the Hollow as Dock Watch. In the summer of l975... the Martinsville historical group uncovered...a copy of the original July 26, l708 [deed] for the land between the first and second mountains bounded on the east by 'a brook called by the Indians, Dockwatches Brook.' This land was sold to Peter Sonmans (an associate of William Dockwra) by Mochosconge, an Indian "Sachamakre" or sachem, for "30 pounds of gunpowder, 30 barrs of lead, one fowling piece, one brass kettle, l2 hatchetts, l2 knives, six shirts, two Stroudwatter coats, two blanketts and six hoes." "Yet a different explanation for the...name was provided by the 95-year-old von Osten.... According to von Osten, there was an Indian chief, Dochwach, who lived in the area and used to scout his enemies from a spot high atop what is now the quarry site. Because it was his territory, the low-lying area below the scouting post was known as Dochwach Hollow. Von Osten said that many documents he uncovered mentioned the chief's name, and between l925 and l930 some residents in the area conducted a persistent dig in search of the old chief's grave, but found nothing." While we'll probably never know the absolute truth about the origin of the name Dock Watch, a few facts point us in the right direction. William Dockwra, influential secretary and register of the Board of East Jersey Proprietors, was a merchant in London, England, who established a penny postal system there in l683. He never set foot in America (much less New Jersey) and was removed from his Board of Proprietors office amidst charges of self-dealing in l702. Moreover, his 3,000 acres was in the eastern portion of the township south of the Passaic River -- just about as far from Dock Watch Hollow as you can get and still be in Warren. It is unlikely that an area in the southwestern part of Warren would be named after an absentee Englishman who owned land in the eastern part of the township or in South Bound Brook. Dockwra died in London in l716, nearly a generation before Warren's first settlers arrived on the land. Further evidence against the "Dockwra connection" is the high probability that William Dockwra's name (variously spelled Dockwray, Dockwra, Dockry, Dockquerye, etc.) was probably pronounced "Dockray" -- the first syllable of the surname and Warren's Hollow match all right, but the second does not: "Ray" and "Watch" simply do not sound alike. Moreover, according to research by Bebbington, early property transfers in the Hollow refer to Doquatch Creek and an l828 map of Warren lists the Hollow as Dock Watch. As late as 1841, however, when the township established new school district boundaries, the records refer to the large tract once owned by Dockwra in the Mountain Avenue area as "Dockwry's Patent on the Pisiac River." In short, William Dockwra is a red herring. The good Indian chief Dochwach, for whom Harry von Osten presumably searched lo those many years, is another herring. There is no independent evidence that Chief Dochwach ever lived outside von Osten's imagination; none of the documents he claimed he uncovered have been seen by others. Indian artifacts discovered in the Hollow prove only that the Indians did indeed pass that way. What is the truth of Dock Watch's origins? Charles Philhower, a noted authority on New Jersey's Indians, believed the name to be Indian. In his work, Indian Lore of New Jersey, Philhower says: "The question has arisen frequently, where do we get the name for Dockwatch Hollow in the Second Watchungs north of Martinsville? Again the answer is Indian origin. In Fenwick's Salem (N.J.) vocabulary is the word "dogwatch" with the meaning "cold." Hence Dockwatch Hollow is "cold hollow." It has this appropriate name since a cold current of air is always noticeable even in midsummer. There are many places in New Jersey known as Cold Hollow but this seems to be the only one where the Indian name persisted." In Indian Place Names in New Jersey by Donald W. Becker (l964), the author tells us that Fenwick's Indian vocabulary included the expression, NE DOGWATCHA, which meant, "I am very cold, I freeze." Interestingly, the l708 deed between the satchem and Peter Sonmans refers to a brook "called by the Indians, Dockwatches Brook." The Indians may not have understood the scientific reason for the cool air currents flowing down Dock Watch Hollow, but during the hot summers they surely enjoyed the area and named it appropriately. The interplay between Indian and early white settler lasted just long enough for the European to adopt the Indian name for one of Warren's most beautiful areas. |