The Clayton Farm in Upper Freehold survived into the late 20th century
as one of the county’s best-preserved historic rural landscapes. Paul Clayton had farmed the
land from the time of his purchase in 1906 until he retired in 1972 at the age of 87. Paul and his
daughter Thelma lived in their 1840s farmhouse without plumbing, electricity or telephone, and
they pumped water from a well outside the back door. Paul farmed with horses until his son
helped him with a tractor for the last few years.
Doctor’s Creek runs through the farm’s majestic woods, and lumbermen pestered the Claytons for years to log them. The high ground affords panoramic views of the Upper
Freehold farmlands, and developers tried to buy the farm to subdivide it. Instead, the Claytons
chose to sell their land to the county to preserve it, and they held on for five years while Park
System staff secured financing with help from the N.J. Conservation Foundation and Green Acres.
The Park System purchased the farm in 1979 and the Claytons donated a six-acre woodlot in 1982.
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Paul Clayton & daughter Thelma Clayton
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In 1990, two years before Paul died at 107, Thelma told a Newark Star Ledger reporter (August
18, 1990), “Monmouth County was all agricultural years ago. Then to see so much development —
it looks quite sad. There were so many beautiful farms then and now they’re all gone…We sold
to the county by choice. We didn’t want the farm torn up. We had many happy days there as a
family. We wanted the happiness to stay so the children of tomorrow could be happy too.”
Clayton Park lies on the western end of the cuesta ridge that extends to Hartshorne Woods Park, and it was the Park System’s first large
land acquisition in the rural western part of the county. From a high elevation of 240 feet, the parkland slopes down to 110 feet at the lowest
level of Doctor’s Creek, which drains to Crosswicks Creek, a tributary of
the Delaware River.
Due to better soil and moisture conditions, the Piedmont environment typically hosts more species than those found on the outer
coastal plain. Because the Clayton woods have not been logged for
many decades, they contain some of the highest quality hardwood forest
in the county. The old growth woods are dominated by American
beech, white and red oak, and birch trees and have a diverse and lush
understory. Black oak, white and green ash, tulip poplar, and shagbark
hickory trees are also plentiful. An 18-acre field released from agriculture in the 1950s shows the successional transition from the pioneer
red cedar trees to the tulip poplars and oaks that now dominate them.
A small manmade pond at the intersection of forest and fields
provides habitat for many species, including
beaver, turtles, and wading birds like egrets, heron, and snow geese.
The forest and field juncture also provides habitat for quail, pheasant,
and wild turkey. Spice bush and greenbriar shrubs and skunk cabbage thrive in wet areas. Interesting perennials include strawberry
bush, beechdrops, rattlesnake plant, roundlobe hepatica, hobblebush,
American golden saxifrage, trumpet vine, ladyfern, and cinnamon fern.
Six miles of trails through Clayton Park provide access to some of the
best forest landscapes and spring wildflower sites in the county.
In 2015, the Park System acquired the Imlaystown School on Davis Station Road. Once home to the offices of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education New Jersey (D.A.R.E), the building is now called the Clayton Park Activity Center which has allowed the Park System to offer a variety of programs, from crafts to health & wellness, in the western most section of Monmouth County. This summer, our Naturalist staff planned and planted a pollinator garden at Clayton Park to help attract a variety of pollinators which are vital to food production around the world.
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