USA > New Jersey > The New Jersey coast in three centuries; history of the New Jersey coast with genealogical and historic-biographical appendix, Vol. I > Part 3
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HISTORY OF THE NEW JERSEY COAST.
served to bring the questions at issue still nearer a satisfactory solution. Fortunately, the number of Indians was so small, and the stretches of ninoccupied territory so large, that there was plenty of room for the wants of both people. Then Francis Bernard, on assuming the governorship of New Jersey, in 1758, alarmed by the inroads and massacres on the Walpack, in Sussex county, held a personal conference with several of the chiefs at Burlington. As a result of this and several later confabs and pow-wows, the Indians agreed, October 18, 1758, in consideration of £1,000, to abandon their claim to any land in New Jersey not actually held by them.
This practically settled the Indian question, but it did not remove the Indians. They had to live, and three thousand acres of land in Burlington county were purchased and set aside for their use, but there were only two residents on the tract in 1795, and they removed in 1802 to Oneida Lake. There were other scattered settlements, but they were of trifling extent numerically. In 1832 the legislature settled the last Indian claim by a pay- ment of two thousand dollars. It was hardly a claim that could have stood the test of a white man's law court, but the Indians believed it to be a validi one, and it was the last, apparently, that even Indian ingenuity could devise. So the question was settled on the basis above named, and the Indian, except as an individual, troubled the body corporate no more.
But a degree of sympathy goes out to the Indian in his extinguish- ment as an individual. One of the last members of the Navesink tribe, perhaps the very last, who lived in Monmouth county, was "Indian Peter," who had become so susceptible to civilization that he built a cabin near Imlaystown. His squaw died soon afterward, and he lived alone there- after until his death. He made his living by selling fish to the whites, a large share of his earnings being spent for "fire-water." Notwith- standing his intemperate habits, he was well disposed and peaceable. His life had almost a counterpart in that of Elisha Ashatama, who, when temporarily tired of wandering, made Tuckerton his resort. He served on the unfortunate frigate "Chesapeake" during the war of 1812. About 1833 he was drowned in the Mullica river, while intoxicated, and his remains lie in the old Methodist church yard at Tuckerton.
. As the last pages of this work were passing into the hands of the printer (August, 1902) the last of the Delaware tribe in New Jersey died in a little hut in a secluded spot near the shores of the Raritan river, about ten miles from Flemington, in Hunterdon county, and he was buried according to his wish under the shadow of an ancient elm where once his forefathers sat in solemn council.
He was Kiankia, descendant of a long line of chiefs. Kiankia claimed
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HISTORY OF THE NEW JERSEY COAST.
to be of pure Lenape blood. He said of his branch that it traveled toward what was then known as "the devouring great water"-now called the Delaware river. There he was born, his mother, who was a daughter of the chief, passing away with a gentle sigh-"Kiankia"-and the word was given him as his name. He went among the white men and learned to read and write their language. Yet, as he said shortly before his death, although he was civilized, deep in his heart was a great love for the ways of his forefathers. He had a sister, Anne, but they drifted apart, and she died in 1894, at Mount Holly, New Jersey, believing that her brother had preceded her to the happy hunting grounds, and that she was the last of the Delawares.
CHAPTER II.
GEOLOGY, BOTANY AND PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS.
New Jersey presents many curious features which, in the language of the American wit and humorist, "makes her stand out in bold relief among her sister States." Physical conditions have, in fact, isolated her, and "out of the United States and into New Jersey" has passed into a com- mon saying. It is well cut off from the adjoining territory by water, for, out of its circuit of four hundred and fifty miles, some four hundred miles are fronting on the ocean or on rivers. About three hundred miles of this extent of water front is adapted to commercial purposes, so that. the State is eminently adapted for carrying on trade with the outside world. The length of the State, from Carpenter's Point, in Sussex county, to Cape May is one hundred and sixty-seven miles, and its average width is fifty miles, these figures enclosing five hundred and seventy-six square miles, or 4,849,000 acres. It is still described as an agricultural State, but it contains no fewer than one hundred and ninety incorporated cities, towns, villages and boroughs. They are rapidly growing in population, or the greater number of them are, but the farming interest continues to predominate, and New Jersey still preserves the significance of her State coat-of-arms, adopted in 1776, which shows three plows on a silver ground, with figures of liberty and Ceres as supporters. The crest is the head of a horse, signifying the importance of the stock raising industry. The motto, "Liberty and Prosperity," which is often seen surrounding the arms, appears to have no official authority.
While our work deals primarily with the coast, we may be permitted at times to wander into the interior. The hills of New Jersey play as important a part in its domestic economy as do its water and river fronts. The Navesink Highlands, the best known of all the New Jersey eminences, have of late years really added as much to the popularity of the State as has any similar extent of water front. At their base the waves formerly rolled, and it has been figured that in a long distant era these Highlands were really islands, the summit standing in lonely grandeur amid a waste of waters. At their base and for considerable distance up their sides
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HISTORY OF THE NEW JERSEY COAST.
we find oyster shells and marine relics. The shore of New Jersey has been slowly rising out of the sea for many years, just as the shore of Long Island has been undergoing a process of depression. Indeed, there
A WOODLAND SCENE.
does not seem to be a more wonderful story in nature than that which could be furnished by the valley of the Hudson, that of the Hackensack, and the Bay of New York, at least as far as Sandy Hook. And an equally instructive story might be woven out of the change of the New Jersey coast-its pockets, its washouts, its sand banks, its bays, its har- bors, and its creeks.
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HISTORY OF THE NEW JERSEY COAST.
But we must hie back to the hills. If we draw a line from Jersey City to Trenton, and from there to the New York State line, we are in a region in which the old red sandstone predominates, broken here and there by trap hills and formations and other evidences of early physical changes and excitement. Bones of the mastodon and other prehistoric animals have been found in some of the swamps bordering on the old red sandstone, and in the latter itself a considerable quantity of fossil remains have been discovered. The trap, which seems to have forced its way in a soft aqueous condition through the sandstone, at places stands up in bold relief in hills.
The most interesting development of the trap excitement is the range facing the Hudson, now known as the Palisades. Some of our geologists think that before the irruption of nature which left the face of things as it is to-day, the Hudson and the Hackensack rivers formed one mighty stream, and that one violent outburst of nature's fury threw up that long line of wall and divided it into two. If we are to credit all the theories which have been woven on this point, the demonstration which sent the Palisades into their present position must have been one of the most terrible convulsions of which ever geological speculation has told the story. It is averred that these Palisades are part of the outbreak which gave to the world the Giant's Causeway in Ireland, and a similar range of columns in the Himalayas.
It might be said that the entire territory of New Jersey, north of the line we have indicated between Jersey City and Trenton, was one con- tinuous succession of hills developing (the nearer we get to the boundary linc) into a series of ranges of hills, the real Highlands of the New World, and which for beauty of scenery and charming admixture of mountain, loch and glen, sunny hillside and smiling valley, flowing river and rock bound tarn, have become known as the New Jersey Trossachs. The Oranges are every year becoming more and more covered with fashionable residences. Much quarrying has been done wherever the sandstone has appeared, and even huge abrasions have been made in the face of the Palisades for the sake of the stone there found. But it would seem that the public spirit of both the States of New York and New Jersey have united to bring this last named exhibition of vandalism to a close.
In the northern part of the State iron has been worked with marked success, copper has been found in workable quantities from an early period, and graphite (or black lead) is common. It has been estimated that one hundred and sixty varieties of minerals have been found in the State, but the one which has aided most in the development of the State is iron.
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HISTORY OF THE NEW JERSEY COAST.
Magnetic iron ores are found mainly in Sussex, Warren, Morris and Passaic counties. Zinc ore was formerly found plentifully in Sussex county, but of late years the product of that commodity has greatly decreased. The geologic products of highest value to the industrial devel- opment of the State are the splendid fields of pure marl, clay marl and shell marl, all of which, used along with other fertilizers, have aided in giving to New Jersey its agricultural importance. "Porcelain and potter's clay," says a writer who appears to have made a thorough canvass of the industries of New Jersey, "of excellent quality, found in the State, are used in manufacturing to the amount of three hundred thousand tons annually. Kaolin also is found in large deposits, though much of it is not of superior quality. Morris county furnishes infusorial earths used in the manufacture of dynamite and giant powders and for polishing pur- poses, and sand valuable for moulding purposes and to enter into the composition of fire brick for reverberatory furnaces. Burlington county also supplies these sands. A pure white sand of the finest quality for glass making is found in southern New Jersey, and is used in the glass works of Glassboro and Millville. The variety of building stones fur- nished by the quarries of New Jersey is great, and includes fine granite, or gneiss-granite, sandstones of a variety of tone and quality, limestones, bluestones, traprock, slate and freestones, all together providing the great cities around New York with a large part of all their building and paving stone. Trinity church in New York is one example of brown sandstone from a New Jersey quarry.
New Jersey is well supplied with internal waterways. Although few of these are navigable for any great distance for purposes of commerce, yet the power furnished by them has developed many of the most pros- perous of the cities in the State, and all have aided in the irrigation of the farm lands. At times the people living along these rivers feel that they have too much of them, as when, for instance, they are swollen by successive spring floods which overflow their banks and sweep to destruc- tion everything that opposes them. This was sadly evident in the spring of 1902, when the Passaic river became a torrent, flooded a wide section of country, swept away houses and works and bridges and embankments, and caused a terrible financial loss. Places like Dundee and Garfield were for days practically uninhabitable, and large sections of the cities of Passaic and Paterson were under water. In the last named city such a visitation was cruelly felt, coming as it did just as the citizens were begin- ning to gird up their loins and clear away the debris of the fire which, but a few weeks before, had reduced much of the business portion of their city to ashes.
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HISTORY OF THE NEW JERSEY COAST.
The Passaic and the Hackensack rivers, in spite of their almost yearly breaches of the proprieties, add much to the wealth of the State. The Raritan, which almost cuts the State in two, reaching almost to the Dela- ware, is also a valuable asset of the commonwealth. The Shrewsbury and the Navesink, both of which enter the sea at Raritan Bay, have within recent years become fringed with summer residences and are really as popular for that purpose as is any other section in the State. The Rahway river discharges itself into the Kill Von Kull. Newark Bay, which also empties into the sea at the Kill Von Kull, with its marshes and meadows and general appearance of usefulness, promises in a short time to become the scene of most wonderful improvements and to develop into one of the most valuable sections of the State. The other rivers of importance are the Wallkill, on the north, and, to the south, Toms river, the Assunpink, the Shark, the Manasquan, Cedar creek, Forked river, the Mullica, Great Egg Harbor river, Maurice, Salem, Old Man's and Rac- coon1. New Jersey, truly, is well supplied with watercourses, and is one of the best naturally drained and irrigated States in the Union.
We have said enough, however, of rivers and mountains to show their value in the economy of New Jersey. Our principal concern in this volume is with the coast, and to it we must again repair.
Is the New Jersey coast line rising or falling? That seems a ques- tion as to which there are many differences of opinion. Scientists tell us that the entire Atlantic coast of this continent is gradually sinking, and that in the course of fifteen or twenty millions of years, be the figures more or less correct, we will all be drowned, and our possessions will be under the water. Here, we are told, the traveler along what is now the gay coast of New Jersey may stop his boat and gaze down upon the remains of cities lying two or three fathoms down, somewhat after a famous scene in Ireland which Thomas Moore prettily described :
"On Lough Neagh's banks as the fisherman strays When the clear cold eve's declining, He sees the remains of other days In the waves beneath him shining. Thus shall memory often in dreams sublime Catch a glimpse of the days that are over. And, sighing, look through the waves of time For the long faded glories they cover."
Of course, in spite of the poetical aspect of the idea which the great Irish poet presents us, the prospect is not an encouraging one, but, as there is no help for it, we must consider it as cheerfully as we can. The
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HISTORY OF THE NEW JERSEY COAST.
scientists seem to have fully proven their contention, as far as reasoning and logic and the comparison of data could aid in the demonstration.
But we question whether a non-scientific resident of the New Jersey coast, from Raritan Bay to Cape May, will be found who would agree with them. The old titles rather seem to indicate the very reverse. As in all other sections of the Atlantic coast, each winter's storms play strange havoc with the configuration of the seaboard, and each year many a landmark is pitilessly swept away. But others are as regularly raised in their places. Then, too, it is easy, as we journey along the water front, to make out, very distinctly, wide stretches of what look like older beaches than that on which we are walking, sometimes as far away from the present high tide-mark as a mile, and by a little patient examination we can clearly trace by a succession of ridges the point at which for a time the sea had made a halt. These ridges or beaches are all clear sand, full of the remains of the sea life which was somehow stranded as the waters grad- ually receded, and we find the same conditions confronting us, which, in the old world, enabled the geologists to grasp the theory of the earth's subsidence in places and its elevation in others. The difference is, that in the old world they had to treat the theory with the aid of geologic time-spoke of a thousand years as we would speak of a week-while in New Jersey the oldest of the beaches does not appear to date over three hundred years, and the forces which produce them are still at work, even before our eyes. At Ocean Grove, for instance, and along that stretch of sea front say to Point Pleasant, we can trace tide-marks in places fully a mile inland, and some of the older residents aver that the change has been brought about within the past half century. The older beaches are to be found on Cape May. At Absecon Beach, houses now stand where in 1850 was the low tide-mark, and Long Beach has had its area greatly increased by the agency of nature. In fact, the conditions prevailing are so peculiar and so confusing that some writers find refuge in the theory that, as periods of depression are invariably followed by periods of eleva- . tion. New Jersey may now be just at the turning. Certainly there seems to have been, on the whole, little material change on the New Jersey coast for two hundred years, and what change there has been seems to have been in the direction of elevation. But then we must remember that in such processes a couple of centuries are but as a fraction of time.
The inlets along the coast, too, furnish a most instructive study. They present evidence of more persistent and sometimes more violent changes than the open coast itself. The shifting sands, tossed hither and thither by each storm, sometimes stop up the free passage of the water
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HISTORY OF THE NEW JERSEY COAST.
altogether. Then an inland lake is formed, and if the obstruction is not removed by another outburst of nature's power, a new bed for the inlet may be formed, and the entire configuration of the mouth of the stream completely changed. Along these inlets are many of the finest hunter's paradises to be found in New Jersey, and the early chronicles of the art of "lunttygne ye game" each seem to have an inlet for its theme, or some one of the salt water marshes which have been formed, either tem- porarily or permanently, by some of the changes constantly taking place on the water front.
These salt marshes deserve a word or two here, for they form one of the most noted characteristics of the New Jersey coast. It has been esti- mated that altogether these marshes cover one hundred and sixty thousand acres in the State. They are invariably covered with grasses and reeds of all sorts, and are full of game. But their actual economic value to the commonwealth does not depend upon their popularity as hunting grounds. Year after year, slowly at first, but afterward with wonderful fertility, they produce a succession of crops of grass and hay, apparently with but little effort on the part of man, and gradually gather a soil of rich black earth which, as it increases in thickness around the roots of the grasses and reeds, makes them each year become higher, closer and more succulent, nutritious and valuable, even although fully retaining their salty flavor. When cut and stored, most of these grasses are invaluable for stock-feeding, the grass fed with hay to horses seeming to keep them in prime condition, and the black grass especially being deemed one of the most valuable fodder products of which the stock raiser can get a supply. The hay produced in these marshes is also splendid for pasturing cattle, although some agricultural experts claim that dairy animals yield a less liberal supply of milk when permitted to subsist mainly on such provender. The salt in the various grasses seems, in fact, to be just enough to be beneficial, and as a result a farm near the water front has its marketable value enhanced by including within its bound a corner of a salt marsh.
In the midst of many of these marshes fresh water springs often bubble up and afford drinking places for the pasturing cattle, and often send to the surface eels, perch and other fish. These spots are zealously watched by the local anglers and visiting sportsmen, who readily fill at them a generous basket. Scientists seem puzzled at the existence of these springs in such places, and many explanations have been offered, the most probable of which is that the same disturbance which created these marshes dammed up their natttral course to the sea and compelled them to seek a fresh outlet.
Several times reference has been made to the New Jersey coast as
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HISTORY OF THE NEW JERSEY COAST.
being a veritable hunters' paradise. In years gone by, long before it became a happy camping ground for the summer boarder, the skilled. nimrod or fisherman from New York or Philadelphia would steal away on every chance to some well-known nook where he was certain to find plenty of excitement and reward for rod and gun. The advance of pop- ulation in recent years has frightened away many of the wild fowl which used to haunt our shores, and sent our modern sportsmen away further south in search of the excitement and the health-giving exercise they prize so much. But the Jersey coast still has its charms. Its waters teem as of old with bluefish, sheepshead, flounders, porgees and weakfish, and it is difficult to say how many other varieties. The shad in Egg Harbor are as toothsome as those found in the Hudson, and the inlets and creeks are full of perch, drumfish and similar dainties. For the sportsmen who prefer to use the gun there are all sorts of wild fowl, snipe, ducks, rails, plovers and swans, plentiful enough in their season to afford employment to an army of sportsmen, and the semi-annual migration from north to south, and vice versa, gives opportunity for a snap at many a bird of passage as it wings its way across the State to its summer or its winter home.
There are fossil evidences of a wonderfully luxuriant prehistoric for- est growth. While in all Europe the number of species of native trees does not exceed a half hundred, in New Jersey more than one hundred have been identified, while plant remains point to a tropical variety and immensity of development.
But it is not necessary to hark back to such an unknowable epoch. When the white man came he found forests which in extent, and in variety and magnitude of woods were marvels in his eyes-so far did they surpass all he had known in the land whence he came. Here were vast expanses covered with stately pines, and great tracts bearing the most handsome of deciduous trees-oak, hickory, beech, chestnut, maple, willow, poplar, sycamore, tulip and others. The shipbuilding, lumbering and charcoal interests had wrought a vast denudation of the best varieties nearly a half- century ago, and fearful havoc was afterwards made by forest fires. The result is seen in the revelations made through the official reports of 1890, when the sawmills reported mercantile lumber cut from only 8,355 acres, whereas in New York the acreage was one hundred and twenty times and in Pennsylvania one hundred and seventy-five times as much, and the quantity has greatly decreased since then, with the increased demand for poles for telegraphs, telephones and trolley lines, and for timber for bridge piling and railroad ties, to say nothing of fuel wants. The most com- pletely deforested sections are the Raritan valley, including Piscataway
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HISTORY OF THE NEW JERSEY COAST.
township in Middlesex, and nearly all of Somerset and Hunterdon coun- ties, Mercer county, and the belt of fertile land extending back about twelve miles from the Delaware river from Trenton down to Bridgeton. Similarly bare of forest are the valleys of Warren county and a small area about the Shrewsbury river, in Monmouth county. All of these districts have less than ten acres of forest to one hundred acres of upland.
While this is true, there is yet much available native timber in the State. The total forest area is something more than two million acres, almost equalling the area of cleared farm land. Of this, 800,000 acres is practically all deciduous timber, mainly chestnut, the several varieties of oak and maple, with many other kinds interspersed; and 1,200,000 acres is coniferous forest, mainly pitch pine on the uplands and white cedar in the swamps. This coniferous forest is the well known pine belt of Southern New Jersey. Next to it in importance is the forest of the Northeastern Highlands, 211,000 acres, covering the northern portions of Morris and Passaic counties, the southeastern border of Sussex county and a small part of Bergen county, and next in size is the forest region of Kittatinny mountain, in Sussex and Warren counties, comprising 58,000 acres.
The present timber cuttings do not amount to forty thousand acres per annum. Taking that as an estimate of the future consumption, it is estimated that the supply would become exhausted in a half-century. And this gives point to the speedy necessity, urged by some of the best informed economists, for intelligent action looking to forest preservation and repro- duction.
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