One of the prize possessions of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution is a seal or signet ring that purportedly once belonged to General George Washington. The ring, which features a light orange carnelian engraved with the Washington family crest, is kept in a bank vault 364 days a year. It is brought out only once each year when it is slipped on the finger of the newly-installed president-general of the society. What is the provenance of the carnelian in Washington's ring? Ralph Hall, writing in the May 1985 issue of The Trailside Rockateer, the newsletter of the Trailside Mineral Club, speculated that the stone may have come from a collecting site "at the foot of the Watchung range somewhere within the limits of Mountainside." He suggests that one of Washington's soldiers stationed at Morristown may have collected the stone and presented it to Washington, or a nearby lapidarist may have found the stone at the Mountainside site. Is it possible, however, that the Mountainside site to which Hall refers is actually Carnelian Brook in Warren? After all, there is no modern-day record of any carnelian site in Mountainside, only that in Warren. And is it further possible that the person who collected the stone, either a soldier or a lapidarist, was out prospecting not when the American Army was camped in Morristown but when it was in Middlebrook, a few miles from the brook here in Warren? |