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The Washington Road Elm Allée is a stretch of Washington Road in West Windsor, New Jersey that is lined with Princeton Elm trees. The
The original allée was planted in the mid-1920s by Princeton Nurseries, at one time the country's largest commercial
To the east of the Elm Allée, from the road, along the jogging path, can be found the Schenck-Covenhoven Burial Ground, sometimes called the Old Conover Graveyard. It contains forty or fifty graves surrounded by a stone wall and is undoubtedly the oldest cemetery in West Windsor Township, with burials dating to at least 1751. The Schenck and Covenhoven families were Dutch farmers who purchased in what is now West Windsor from
File:Albert Schenck Gravestone.jpg, Gravestone of Albert Schenck, died 1786
File:Crumbling graves.jpg, Crumbling gravestones
File:David S. Dye Gravestone.jpg, David S. Dye gravestone, died 1875
allée
In landscaping, an avenue (from the French), alameda (from the Portuguese and Spanish), or allée (from the French), is a straight path or road with a line of trees or large shrubs running along each side, which is used, as its Latin source ' ...
runs through the West Windsor fields of Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...
and provides, along with the bridge over Lake Carnegie
Lake Carnegie is a reservoir that straddles the borders of the towns of Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton, West Windsor, New Jersey, West Windsor, Plainsboro, New Jersey, Plainsboro and South Brunswick, New Jersey, South Brunswick in Mercer County ...
, a dramatic entrance to the campus. The Delaware and Raritan Canal can be found at the northern end of the allée, just before the lake. A jogging path runs through the allée and connects to the canal towpath
A towpath is a road or trail on the bank of a river, canal, or other inland waterway. The purpose of a towpath is to allow a land vehicle, Working animal, beasts of burden, or a team of human pullers to tow a boat, often a barge. This mod ...
, the main campus of the university, and other trails through the adjacent fields.
History
Elm Allée
The original allée was planted in the mid-1920s by Princeton Nurseries, at one time the country's largest commercial plant nursery
A nursery is a place where plants are plant propagation, propagated and grown to a desired size. Mostly the plants concerned are for gardening, forestry, or conservation biology, rather than agriculture. They include retail nurseries, which se ...
. The Elm trees are of the Princeton variety, developed by Princeton Nurseries for its landscaping quality, and are resistant to Dutch elm disease, the only one of ten resistant cultivars to have trees that have reached maturity. Of the original 136 Elms planted in the 1920s only 76 survive. They are approximately in diameter and tall. Their branches meet over the roadway to provide a leafy canopy. The allée has many replacement trees, including 16 Norway maples planted in the 1960s, and 31 Liberty elms planted in 1995. The secondary rows of Delaware Elms were planted in 1983, and a long row of forsythia
''Forsythia'' , is a genus of flowering plants in the olive family Oleaceae. There are about 11 species, mostly native to Eastern Asia, but one native to Southeastern Europe. ''Forsythia'' – also one of the plant's common names – is named ...
to the east is thought to date from the late 1960s.
Schenck-Covenhoven Burial Ground
To the east of the Elm Allée, from the road, along the jogging path, can be found the Schenck-Covenhoven Burial Ground, sometimes called the Old Conover Graveyard. It contains forty or fifty graves surrounded by a stone wall and is undoubtedly the oldest cemetery in West Windsor Township, with burials dating to at least 1751. The Schenck and Covenhoven families were Dutch farmers who purchased in what is now West Windsor from William Penn
William Penn ( – ) was an English writer, religious thinker, and influential Quakers, Quaker who founded the Province of Pennsylvania during the British colonization of the Americas, British colonial era. An advocate of democracy and religi ...
in 1737. The Conover family was among the original settlers in Penns Neck, a settlement found at the south end of the allée. The cemetery has been in disuse for more than a century, though it receives some maintenance from the university.
Gallery
See also
*National Register of Historic Places listings in Mercer County, New Jersey
List of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Mercer County, New Jersey
This is intended to be a complete list of properties and districts listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Mercer County, New Jersey. Latitude ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Washington Road Elm Allee National Register of Historic Places in Mercer County, New Jersey West Windsor, New Jersey Princeton University Avenues (landscape) New Jersey Register of Historic Places