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National Park Service
From Marsh to Farm The Landscape Transformation of Coastal New Jersey |
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NOTES
CHAPTER 1
1One of the main components in the reclaiming of tidal marshes is a bank or dike located on the edge of the marsh. As a result, "banking" and "diking" can be substituted for "reclamation" or "reclaiming."
2Audrey M. Lambert, The Making of the Dutch Landscape: An Historical Geography of the Netherlands (London: Seminar Press, 1971), 81.
3Annual Report of the State Geologist for the Year 1892 (Trenton: John L. Murphy, 1893), 14-15.
4W. L. Powers and T. A. H. Teeter, Land Drainage (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1932), 4-6; Lambert, 306-307.
5Facts Concerning the Reclamation of Swamp and Marsh Lands by Means of an Iron Dike (New York: Iron Dike and Land Reclamation Company, 1867), 7.
6C. A. Weslager, The Swedes and Dutch at New Castle (Wilmington: Middle Atlantic Press, 1987), 179.
7Charles T. Gehring, ed., New York Historical Manuscripts: Dutch vol. 20-21: Delaware Papers (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1977), 86; David Steven Cohen, forthcoming entry in The Encyclopedia of North American Colonies, see "Technology, Dutch," TMs.
8David Steven Cohen, The Dutch-American Farm (New York: New York University Press, 1992), 71-72; Cohen, "Technology, Dutch."
9Cohen, The Dutch-American Farm, 120. For a more descriptive account of life in the New Netherlands see A Description of the New Netherlands by Adriaen van der Donck, edited by Thomas F. O'Donnell and Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680, edited by Bartlett Burleigh James and J. Franklin Jameson.
11Annual Report of the State Geologist for the Year 1895 (Trenton: John L. Murphy, 1896), xxiii.
12D. M. Nesbit, Tide Marshes of the United States, USDA Special Report 7 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1885), 5.
15Nesbit, 120-133; Nesbit listed New York with New England in his report.
17Nesbit, 141-142; Facts concerning New Jersey will be discussed at the end of the chapter.
32John B. Smith, The New Jersey Salt Marsh and its Improvement, New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Stations Bulletin 207 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1907), 5-6.
CHAPTER 2
1John Teal and Mildred Teal, Life and Death of the Salt Marsh (New York: Ballantine Books, 1969), 8-9.
7The length of the Atlantic coast from Sandy Hook to Cape May is approximately 128 miles; the length of the Delaware Bay coast from Cape May to Salem is fifty-nine miles. Beyond Salem Creek, there are no true tidal salt marshes because certain characteristics change.
8Smith, New Jersey Salt Marsh, 6-7.
9Smith, New Jersey Salt Marsh, 6-7.
10Smith, New Jersey Salt Marsh, 7-8.
12Teal and Teal, 102-112. For descriptions of the various species as well as their similarities and differences see Chapter 8 of Teal and Teal's Life and Death of the Salt Marsh, or Chapter 7 of The Delaware Estuary: Rediscovering a Forgotten Resource. The common names for Distichlis spicata and Juncus gerardi are salt grass and black grass. More familiar names for Iva, Sabatia, Salicornia, Atriplex, Suaeda, Salsola, and Chenopodiaceae are marsh elder, sea pinks, saltwort or glasswort, orache or spearscale, sea blithe, saltwort, and pigweeds or lamb's quarters.
15Ralph W. Tiner, Jr., Wetlands of New Jersey (Newton Corner: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Wetlands Inventory, 1985), 7, 21,95-96.
CHAPTER 3
1W. Marshall, On the Landed Property of England: An Elementary and Practical Treatise, (London: G. & W. Nicol, 1804), 32.
2George Stephens, The Practical Land Drainer (London: T. Cadell, 1834), 142.
7George Waring, Jr., Draining for Profit and Health (New York: Orange Judd & Co., 1867), 199-200.
9Facts Concerning The Reclamation of Swamp and Marsh Lands, 12-19.
13William Smith, Observation on the Utility, Form and Management of Water Meadows and the Draining and Irrigating of Peat Bogs (Norwich: John Harding, 1806), 90.
14Robert Gibbon Johnson, "On Reclaiming Marsh Land," American Farmer 8 (1 September 1826): 185-87.
CHAPTER 4
1Harry B. Weiss and Grace M. Weiss, Early Industries of New Jersey (Trenton: New Jersey Agricultural Society, 1965), 49.
4The amount of land reclamation done along New Jersey's Atlantic Coast was minuscule. In fact, neither state nor federal report, mention reclamation projects on the Atlantic side. P. M. Nesbit of the U.S.D.A. stated that "the marshes (in Ocean County) being, as a rule, at or near the level of mean high water, are not at a sufficient elevation to admit of thorough drainage through sluices, and can be perfectly reclaimed only by the use of pumping machinery.
5Geology of The County of Cape May, State of New Jersey (Trenton: Office of the True American, 1857), 91, 94.
7Annual Report of the state Geologist for the Year 1866 (Trenton: Office of the State Gazette, 1867), 17-18.
8One linear rod is equal to 5-1/2 yards or 16-1/2'.
9Annual Report for the Year 1866, 17.
10Annual Report for the Year 1866, 17-18.
11Annual Report for the Year 1866, 18.
12Annual Report for the Year 1866, 18.
13Annual Report for the Year 1866, 19.
14Annual Report for the Year 1866, 20-21.
15Upland crops could not be grown on improved marshes immediately after diking because of the saline content of the marshes. As a result, farmers allowed the marshes to mellow for several years, which meant allowing the soil to rid itself of all salt content.
16Annual Report for the Year 1866, 21.
17Annual Report for the Year 1866, 20-21.
18Annual Report for the Year 1866, 21-22.
19Documents of the Ninety-Second Legislature of the State of New Jersey (Jersey City: John H. Lyon, 1868), 11.
20Annual Report of the State Geologist for the year 1882 (Trenton: John L. Murphy, 1883), 94.
21Annual Report for the Year 1892, 17.
22Cornelius Clarkson Vermeule, Report on Water-Supply, Water-Power, the Flow of Streams and Attendant Phenomena (Trenton: John L. Murphy, 1894), 260-261.
24C.C. Engle, L.L. Lee, and H. Miller, Soil Survey of the Millville Area, New Jersey, USDA Bulletin 22 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1921), 43.
26Engle et at., 13; Annual Report for the Year 1892, 17-19.
27Only four of the rooms from the frame house still exist: the storeroom from which Burcham operated a neighborhood store, the adjacent living room, the bedroom above, and the cellar below. The rest were either destroyed or damaged by strong winds and storms. Rooms not harmed by the storms were torn down in the 1960s. The following description of these rooms were given by Janice and Jeanette Burcham. Since they are based on childhood memories and family history, there may be some discrepancies.
Janice and Jeanette Burcham remember some of the rooms in the older frame portion of the house including four bedrooms, two living rooms, a cellar kitchen, spring cellar, storage cellar, conservatory, two storage or bicycle rooms and the store. The two living rooms were adjacent to one another in the north end of the house with bedrooms directly over them. A third bedroom was in the northeast corner of the house with its access in a shed or bicycle room that was adjacent to the northernmost living room. The fourth bedroom faced east over a second shed or bicycle room, but could only be accessed from the adjacent pantry. The entrance to the second shed was in the interior living room that still exists. Inside of the shed were three steps that led up to the conservatory. Below the conservatory was a spring cellar and a cellar kitchen. The spring cellar as well as the shed in the northeast corner of the house had wells. The well in the spring cellar provided a cool atmosphere for keeping perishable items cool. Burcham also provided water to the cellar kitchen through a makeshift cistern via the conservatory which was over the kitchen. He placed a barrel in the corner of the conservatory with pipes leading from the top of the barrel to the roof and from the bottom of the barrel to the cellar kitchen. The barrel acted as a holding station until the water was needed. The cistern also acted as a source of water for Burcham when he resided in that room.
Evidence of the these rooms can be seen on the exterior walls and in the basement of the present house. The roof line of the conservatory and the addition of the main house to the bicycle room can be seen on the east wall. In addition, the front wall of the conservatory which was tied into the front wall of the cellar still exists. The doors to the spring cellar and the cellar kitchen can be still be seen in the cellar under the main house. These two rooms were filled with dirt and their doors blocked with concrete blocks when the conservatory and bicycle/storage room were destroyed.
28Frank Burcham bought a windcharger from Sears, Roebuck and Company in the early twentieth century and placed it on the roof of barn. The windcharger was moved to the windmill's present location when fire damaged the barn in 1940. The windcharger charged twenty-four batteries that were located in the house's cellar. The voltage produced was too weak to operate major appliances, but enough to operate a radio and lights. In 1950, electricity was installed in the house, eliminating the dependency on the windcharger.
29Heinrich Rica and Henry B. Kummel, The Clays and Clay Industry of New Jersey (Trenton: MacCrellish and Quigley, 1904), 348; Interview with Janice Burcham and Jeanette Burcham, Millville, New Jersey, 26 September 1991.
30According to Janice and Jeanette Burcham, Amaziah Burcham depended primarily on seasonal help from Philadelphia. The men worked from the last frost in the spring to the first frost in the fall. Unmarried men resided with Burcham and his family while married men and their families lived in three tenant homes located on the northeastern end of the property. These tenant homes no longer exist.
31Interview with Janice and Jeanette Burcham.
32Interview with Janice and Jeanette Burcham.
33Interview with Janice and Jeanette Burcham.
34Interview with Janice and Jeanette Burcham.
35Interview with Janice and Jeanette Burcham.
36Interview with Janice and Jeanette Burcham.
CHAPTER 5
1Rita Zorn Moonsammy, David Steven Cohen, and Lorraine E. Williams, Pinelands Folklife (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1987), 143-144.
3Interview with Edward and Lehma Gibson, Port Norris, New Jersey, 29 May 1991; Interview with Art Handson, Joe Smith, and Loretta King, English Creek, New Jersey, 7 October 1991; In the Geology of Cape May County, State of New Jersey, the state geologist reported that 11,227 tons of salt hay had been cut in Cape May County in 1857. In 1921 according to the Soil Survey of the Millville Area, between 10,000 and 12,000 acres of salt hay were cut each year along the Maurice River. The better grades of hay, which were usually cut before the first frost, brought between $5 to $6 a ton locally and $8 to $10 a ton at more distant markets.
5Weiss and Weiss, 64-65; The number of farmers who cut salt hay for their personal use is unknown, but local historians comment frequently on how every farmer in the study area, especially in Salem County, rented or owned meadows for the sole purpose of cutting the salt hay to be used for bedding and fodder.
6It should be noted that when Lizzie Ray Steelman Force (1895-1987), a resident of Somers Point, was a child she helped her father cut salt hay along English Creek and on the southern side of the Great Egg River at Cedar Hummocks. In an interview, conducted by members of the Atlantic County Historical Society, Force described the use of a scow to transport her, her father, a horse and the machinery across the Great Egg River to the meadows. At the end of the day everything including the salt hay was loaded onto the scow and taken back across the river. Her father sold the hay in Atlantic City, possibly to stables, for $8 a load. It should also be noted that Issac steelman (no relation to Lizzie Ray steelman Force) cut hay for his livestock and for commercial use.
7Interview with Art Handson; Interview with James Steelman, Maya Landing, New Jersey, 7 October 1991.
9Since there is no need to sow any crop, harvesting is the main component in salt hay farming. Salt hay grows naturally on the marshes and replenishes itself annually. Farmers did perform certain steps to aid nature in producing a better crop of hay. Atlantic Coast farmers followed the same harvesting methods as the Delaware Bay farmers, but the length of their seasons depended upon tides in the summer and freezing weather in the winter.
10Interview with George Campbell, Eldora, New Jersey, 25 June 1991; interview with Henry Hayes, Port Norris, New Jersey, 23 July 1991; Gibson related the dangers of burning the meadow. When burning the meadows, farmers waited until a northwest wind had settled in and then started the fire; it was up to the wind to push the fire to the bay in order for the fire to extinguish itself. Once when Gibson was burning his meadows just south of Berrytown and southwest of Port Norris, the wind shifted and the fire turned toward Port Norris. Gibson commented on how the wind picked the fire up, formed a tornado-type cloud, and dropped it in another part of the meadow. The local fire companies had to help stop the fire.
11Interview with Edward and Lehma Gibson; Interview with George Campbell; Interview with Henry Hayes.
12Interview with George Campbell.
13Betsy H. Woodman, "Salt-Hay Farming and Fishing in Salisbury, Massachusetts," Essex Institute Historical Collection (July 1983). According to Woodman, after the hay was cut it sat several days to dry. Then it was hand raked into windrows, or long rows that paralleled the drainage ditches. Once this occurred, the hay was raked with loafer rakes, rakes with 5' wood handles and elongated teeth that measured more than a foot and were spaced 3" inches a part, into haycocks or hay mounds of 100 to 150 pounds. Two willow-wood poles approximately 9-10' with pointed ends were then laid parallel and slid under the haycock; this allowed the haycock to be carried in a litter fashion to a hay staddle. A staddle was a group of wood poles placed in the marsh which provided an open surface where the air could circulate under the stack of hay; this kept the hay dry and well elevated above the marsh and high tides.
To make a stack of hay, five single haycocks were poled to the staddles and placed in a circle around its diameter. Another cock was then dumped in the middle to form the bottom; after that more cocks were brought to the staddle where a stacker would then begin to build a stack with the cocks brought to him. It was the stacker's job to make sure the hay was tightly packed, well shaped, and level. The first layer was leveled out and the successive layers were placed so the stack would be larger in diameter by several feet than the supporting staddle underneath it. At the end, the stack tapered in conically to finish off the top. This top kept the rain and snow off the inner hay. Further waterproofing was accomplished by covering the stack with a layer of thatch or cord grass. Tarred rope was then thrown over the stack and its free ends were weighted down with bricks or stones.
Woodman's description of this New England process is similar to that which occurred in New Jersey.
14Interview with George Campbell.
15Hayes, originally from Durham, North Carolina, was 17 when be arrived in the Port Norris area. He immediately began working for a local oyster house gathering shells in a wheelbarrow and dumping them outside; they would later be put on an oyster schooner and returned to the bed. Over the years Hayes worked for many Bivalve oyster houses, and continued shucking until about 1985. On the off season he worked for area salt hay farmers; perhaps the two largest were Leaming Berry and Stewart Campbell and their descendants.
19George R. Campbell, Sr., "Salt Hay Farming in Pinelands Saltwater Marshes," paper presented at the Third Annual Pinelands Short Course, sponsored by the New Jersey Pinelands Commission, New Brunswick, New Jersey, March 1992.
20Interview with Henry Hayes; Frank N. G. Kranich, Farm Equipment for Mechanical Power (New York: Macmillan Company, 1923), 107-109.
21J. Brownlee Davidson, Agricultural Machinery (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1931), 230-231.
23Weiss and Weiss, 60-61; Robert J. Sim, Pages from the Past of Rural New Jersey (Trenton: New Jersey Agricultural Society, 1949), 97.
24Henry Charlton Beck, Jersey Genesis: The Story of the Mullica River (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1963), 108.
26Smith, New Jersey Salt Marsh, 18.
27Interview with Henry Hayes; Interview with LaDonna Gibson Angelo, Port Norris, New Jersey, 16 July 1991.
28Campbell, "Salt Hay Farming," n.p.
30Thomas H. Bowen, "Mudslinging once was free, private enterprise," Today's Sunbeam (30 September 1986), A-3.
32It is unclear whether Muddigger Lou and Muddy Lew are one and the same, but it seems unlikely since Muddigger Lou lived in the Leesburg vicinity and Muddy Lew lived in Harmersville.
33Interview with Ed and Lehma Gibson; Interview with George Campbell.
35Interview with George Campbell.
36Interview with George Campbell.
37Harold F. Wilson, The Jersey Shore (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1953), 900.
38Weiss and Weiss, 56; Interview with Edward and Lehma Gibson; "He gets a Harvest Without Plowing," Esso Farm News (September/October 1940), 13.
39Interview with Owen J. Carney Jr., Port Norris, New Jersey, 21 November 1991.
40Interview with Owen Carney, Jr.; Maria LoBiondo, "Making Rope: It's Not a Living, But He Likes It," Millville Daily, 24 June 1983, 8.
41Interview with Owen J. Carney, Jr.
CHAPTER 6
1Henry French, Farm Drainage (New York: C. M. Saxton, 1860), 346.
2Research reveals that it was possible for a meadow company to reclaim the property of a marshland owner who did not or could not afford to participate in the collective; the company could then rent the land to pay for maintenance and taxes. It should also be noted that the owners of reclaimed marshlands sometimes rented out the rights to use the land to hunt as well as to cut salt hay.
3This description of the different duties is a simplistic overview. Over the years, certain duties and offices were eliminated while others were added. Furthermore, by the nineteenth-century collectors were called treasurers, and assessors were called arbitrators, or commissioners. More precise information can be found within the respective acts of incorporation located at the Trenton State Library.
4Thomas Cushing and Charles E. Sheppard, History of the Counties of Gloucester, Salem, and Cumberland in New Jersey (Philadelphia: Everts and Peck, 1883), 330-31; The number of meadow companies located in Cumberland and Cape May counties is unknown. Closer examination of each county's records could reveal an accurate number.
5Helen H. Thompson, ed., "Jonathan Goodwin Woodnutt, Diary of a Quaker Farmer," series of articles in the Salem [New Jersey] Standard and Jerseyman (1940-41), n.p.
6Senior and junior does not follow their names; it is not part of their legal name and the family does not recognize these additions.
7Henry B. Abbott to the Director of U.S. Census, 1920. Abbott Family Papers.
8Edward Abbott, Sr., "History of Abbott's Dairy," Salem County Historical Society Newsletter 31 (September 1986), 5-7.
11Diane Miller, "He watched family business grow," Today's Sunbeam, 15 August 1984, n.p.
12Interview with Charlie Weiser, Pennsville, New Jersey, 29 August 1991; John Cunningham, Garden State (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1955), 194-97.
13Interview with Charlie Weiser.
14Interview with Daniel Hancock, Greenwich, New Jersey, 20 October 1991; Telephone interview with Corinne Davis, 4 November 1991. More meadow companies may still exist, but how active they are is not known.
CHAPTER 7
1Paul Eck, The American Cranberry (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1990), 1-2.
3Eck, 3-4; Lucian Fosdick, The Cranberry Industry (Union Hill: Dispatch Printing Co., 1914), 210.
7Joseph J. White, Cranberry Culture (New York: Orange Judd & Company, 1870), 22-23.
8It should be noted that there are family ties among the cranberry fathers. Barclay White and Joseph White are father and son while Joseph White married J. A. Fenwick's daughter. Fenwick's plantation became one of the largest cranberry plantations in Burlington County and is known as Whitesbog. Theodore Budd's descendants are still in the cranberry business as well as some of the other growers who started in the late nineteenth century. The Hog Wallow cranberry bogs near Chatsworth have been in William Haines' family since prior to the Civil War.
10Throughout the nineteenth century and today, Burlington County has remained the largest producer of cranberries in New Jersey.
13Henry G. Schmidt, Agriculture in New Jersey: A Three Hundred-Year History (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1973), 264-65.
15Phil Marucci, "Memories of Charley Doehlert," Cranberries (August 1989), 14-17.
16Telephone interview with Phil Marucci, 10 June 1992; Eck, 13-14; Marucci also noted that the false blossom disease flourished until after World War II. At that time, DDT was introduced as an insecticide against the blunt nose leafhopper. The number of insects was reduced dramatically along with false blossom disease. Today, both are non-existent in New Jersey.
18Eck, 15; Interview with Marucci; The Agricultural Experiment Stations in Wisconsin, Oregon, Washington, and Massachusetts also have branches that deal with the problems of cranberries. The research done by scientists in these stations also aided the experiments at the Cranberry and Blueberry Research Laboratory and vice versa. Today the laboratory focuses more on the problems of blueberries, although cranberry production is still important.
19Eck in American Cranberry refers to this group as the American Cranberry Growers' Association, established in 1871. Carl Raymond Woodward, in The Development of Agriculture in New Jersey, refers to the group as the New Jersey Cranberry Growers' Association, founded in 1873. The discrepancy is unclear, but I will follow Eck's information. Many of the more prominent cranberry-growing families such as the Whites and Haines have been members of the Association for several generations. Another distinguished member of the Association was Andrew J. Rider, founder of Rider College in Trenton.
20Eck, 11; Carl Raymond Woodward, The Development of Agriculture in New Jersey: 1640-1880 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1927), 242.
26Dorothy Voss, ed., "She Gave Us Cranberry Sauce," New Jersey Bell Newsletter, n.d.
29John F. Mariani, "Cranberries," USA Weekend (22 November 1985), 10.
30Fosdick, 211; many of the same principles and thoughts are still used today.
31Turfing is the removal of the top layer of the soil to a depth ranging from 2" to 4".
33Fosdick, 212; Today, the dimensions of the ditches vary slightly from those used in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. According to Eck, the main supply channel, which carries the water from the reservoir to the bog, measures 5' to 8' wide and 2' deep. The ditch located around the perimeter of the bog is about 3' wide and 2' deep. Smaller cross ditches, which measure 18" to 24" wide at the top, 10" wide at the bottom, and 18" deep, extended into the main bog area from the periphery ditches.
35Eck, 175-76; Interview with Dr. Patrick Slavin, Chatsworth, New Jersey, 2 October 1991; Interview with Marucci.
36During the twentieth century, other ethnic groups joined the labor force needed for cranberry production, including Portuguese, Jamaicans, and Puerto Ricans.
37Wilson, 738, 881; Federal Writers Project, Stories of New Jersey: Its Significant Places, People and Activities (New York: M. Barrows, 1938), 258-59.
38Federal Writers Project, 252.
40Federal Writers Project, 263; Marucci added that although the introduction of the scoop alleviated labor problems, it also led to a decline in cranberries because it caused excessive damage. Even the most expert scoopers could not avoid uprooting vines. Such problems were discussed in the Procedures of the American Cranberry Association.
43William S. Haines, Jr., "Cranberry Growing in New Jersey's Pinelands," a paper presented at the Third Annual Pinelands Short Course, sponsored by the New Jersey Pinelands Commission, New Brunswick, New Jersey, March 1992.
45The Cranberry in New Jersey (Chatsworth: American Cranberry Growers Association, 1991), n.p.
46National Register of Historic Places nomination.
47National Register nomination.
48National Register nomination; a Hayden separator consists of conveyor belts, bins, and rollers to facilitate manual sorting.
49Elizabeth Carpenter, "Cranberry restored in historic Double Trouble," Cranberries: The National Cranberry Magazine 47 (March 1983): 9-11; Local folklore perpetuates the events behind the naming of the town. Supposedly, the local preacher who was charged with maintaining the banks around the bogs discovered two breaches caused by muskrats within a week and exclaimed, "Here's double trouble!"
50The Cranberry in New Jersey (Chatsworth: American Cranberry Growers Association, 1991), n.p.
CHAPTER 8:
NOTE
1Annual Report of the State Geologist for the Year 1895 (Trenton: John L. Murphy, 1896), xxvii.
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