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    The Pine Barrens of New Jersey
    The Pine Barrens of New Jersey
    The Pine Barrens of New Jersey
    Ebook197 pages55 minutes

    The Pine Barrens of New Jersey

    By Karen F. Riley and Budd Wilson

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    The Pine Barrens of New Jersey cover 22 percent of the most densely populated state in the country. It is the largest stretch of open space between Boston, Massachusetts, and Richmond, Virginia. It reaches across 56 municipalities and 7 counties. The name came from early settlers who thought the area was a vast wasteland, but it is anything but barren. Underneath this incredible natural resource lies almost 17 trillion gallons of some of the purest water on earth. Stands of pitch pine gave birth to the charcoal industry, and its acidic swamps were used first for bog iron and later for cranberry production. Many firsts came from this area, including cranberry sauce, cultivated blueberries, and grape juice. Numerous industries have risen and fallen over time. Remnants of forgotten ghost towns bear witness to that history, but the real stories come from the people who lived and worked there.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateOct 4, 2010
    ISBN9781439638873
    The Pine Barrens of New Jersey
    Author

    Karen F. Riley

    Karen F. Riley has developed a passion for the Pine Barrens and its people, history, and culture. This is her third book on the area, and she is deeply indebted to the residents who shared their photographs, stories, and history so others may learn about this jewel of New Jersey. Budd Wilson is a retired historical archaeologist who has excavated several sites in the Pine Barrens, including iron furnaces, a window glass factory, a lime kiln, and a schoolhouse.

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      Book preview

      The Pine Barrens of New Jersey - Karen F. Riley

      tell.

      INTRODUCTION

      Budd Wilson has eloquently summed up the purpose and spirit of this book in his foreword. When I met him for the first time, he told me that he had planned to become a history teacher, but then the field of archaeology opened up at his college, and he switched to that. I humbly suggest that he has managed to do both successfully for many years, through the imparting of his wisdom and experience. Budd is just one of many incredible folks that I have been blessed to meet over the past 10 years since I started researching the Pine Barrens. Unlike Budd, I was not born here, and yet I have developed a passion and respect for this land and the people who live and work here.

      The Pine Barrens occupies 22 percent of the most densely populated state in the country. Its 1.1 million acres are not barren at all, but teeming with life; almost 40 animal species on the state’s threatened and endangered list reside here. There are plant species that exist here that are found nowhere else on earth, such as the bog asphodel. This striking member of the lily family blooms in late June, bursting forth with lacy yellow clusters of lily-like petaled flowers only four to nine millimeters in length. The bog asphodel once also existed in Delaware and the Carolinas but has been extirpated from those states. There are less than 3,000 remaining today.

      I liken my experience in learning about the Pine Barrens to the bog asphodel. When we first moved here in 1992, I was a busy wife, mother, and employee in the corporate world. I loved living out in the country, since I had grown up in the city and wanted to raise my children in a rural environment. But other than beauty and quiet, quite frankly, the edge of the Pine Barrens outside my door was . . . well, a nice stand of trees.

      I say this because you may be thinking the same thing. You may or may not have ever heard of the Pine Barrens before picking up this book. You may live here and know little about this area, or you may be a Pine Barrens enthusiast looking to increase your knowledge. Whatever your vantage point, I suggest you consider the bog asphodel. It is out there, whether you know of its existence or not. Because of its size, you may go in search of it and never find it. Perhaps you have never been told of its wonders and, like I am, remain caught up in this frenzied world.

      The intention of this book is to take you out of that world—even for a brief time—and take you deep into the woods to help you learn about the charcoal burners who stayed in the forest day and night for two weeks at a time to make a product that you may toss on your barbecue grill without a thought, to discover ghost towns and villages whose names only exist on old maps, and to learn about the special and unique people who were born on this soil and whose labor and love made a difference in this land. There are those who made history: John Mason and his patented jar; Elizabeth Lee, creator of canned cranberry sauce; and Elizabeth White, who helped cultivate blueberries. There are also little known people and inventions that have made a difference. There are forest firefighters whom you may never have met but whom you might owe your life or your dwelling to. There are archaeologists like Budd Wilson, unraveling the mysteries of the past so we can learn more about the bog iron industries, the glass factories, and the paper mills. There are dozens of writers, like George Flemming, who spent 50 years doing research that culminated in the publication of Brotherton, which helped us learn about the people who worked this land first, before the settlers

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