BE IT KNOWN, That Leah Blackman has this day deposited in this office the title page of a book, in the words following, viz: "History of Little Egg Harbor Township, from its first settlement to the present time;" the right whereof she claims as author, in conformity to the act of Congress entitled "An act to amend the several acts respecting copyright."

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I have written this historical and genealogical account for all of the descendants of the primitive white settlers of Little Egg Harbor township. Many of them are scattered far and wide over the surface of the earth. People can make for themselves abiding homes in any country, but they can have but one native place. Many people who were born in Egg Harbor are now living in distant localities,and I believe there is many a dweller in those distant regions, whose thoughts oftimes wander from their adopted homes to Little Egg Harbor; the land of their birth and the burial place of their ancestors; and how oft those migratory thoughts exclaim, “Egg Harbor! my loved, my native land! cherished home of my youth, when everything seemed beautiful and true, and life was like a pleasant dream; there my beloved kindred fought the battle of life, there died and there they are buried, among their fathers and their fathers’ fathers.”

Most people have a desire to know something about their forefathers; who they were, where they resided, and what they did. The dead are soon forgotten, and the people and the place that knew them know them no more forever.

These sketches embrace almost everything of importance that could be gleaned of the history of Little Egg Harbor township, and the biography and genealogy of the various generations of its inhabitants. I have diligently searched among the records and traditions of the past, and thereby have been enabled to relate in this work the names, and the history of hundreds of the forgotten dead; and also to record the names of a large number of the living representatives of the primitive inhabitants of Little Egg Harbor township.

I am sensible that this work has its defects; but such as it is, I humbly submit to the inspection and charitable judgment of my readers, who will not read and revere it for the sake of the author, but for the sake of their own beloved, and in most cases, departed kindred.

THE AUTHOR.

Little Egg Harbor is one of the original townships of Burlington county, being the easterly point of the county, and was established in the year 1741. Its first boundaries have been contracted in order to assist in forming other townships. In 1802 Washington township was established, which then fixed the boundaries of Little Egg Harbor as follows: Bounded north by Oswego, or east branch of Wading river, which separates it from what was then Northampton township; southeast by Stafford township, Ocean county; south by Mullica river and Little Egg Harbor bay, and west by Washington township. Within these limits its greatest length from north to south is about twenty miles, breadth east and west ten miles.

I shall confine my history of Little Egg Harbor township to that portion of it which is included within the above designated limits. In the year 1864 Bass River township was taken from Little Egg Harbor township, but I shall not recognize it as a separate township in my historical sketches, most of which belong to a period anterior to its formation. The present boundaries of Little Egg Harbor township are northeast by Ocean county line; southeast by the Atlantic ocean and Great Bay, and on the west by Bass River township.

The first recorded account of a visit of Europeans to Little Egg Harbor is that of Captain Cornelius Jacobsen Mey, commander of the renowned ship "Fortune," which sailed into the harbor in the year 1614, reaching the harbor by the Old Inlet, which then flowed between Long and Short Beaches. This visit seems to have taken place during the season for birds' eggs, which must have been in the months of May or June, for in their explorations of the marshes, the crew of the "Fortune" found immense quantities of gulls' and other meadow birds' eggs, and the unusual abundance of those fair oval prizes induced the Dutch adventurers to name the place Eyre Haven, which, in their language, means Egg Harbor.

After the visit of Captain Mey there does not seem to have been much, if any, notice taken of the place, until the year 1698, (a period of eighty-six years) when several persons from the upper section of Burlington county, made various locations of land in the township. Among the proprietors of these surveys I have noticed the names of Henz Jacobs or Henry Jacobs Falkinburg, Eleazer Fenton, Susannah Budd, Edward Andrews and his brother, Mordecai Andrews.

It is probable that before the settlement of the county, that there were Calebs and Joshuas who came to view the land, and on their return reported that it was a goodly land, (not flowing with milk and honey) but that its marshes and waters were overstocked with many and various kinds of water-fowl, fish, oysters, and terrapin, and that the forests were alive with deer and other kinds of game, and also an abundance of wild fruits, and that altogether it was a desirable country in which to dwell, and further, that they had resolved to move in and take possession of the land; yet not with the intention of forcibly dispossessing the Indians of their ancient and just heritage.

Tradition says that Henry Jacobs Falkinburg, Sr., was the first white man who settled in Egg Harbor. He had been the Indian interpreter for the first European settlers in upper Burlington county, and therefore a suitable man to negotiate with the Indians of Little Egg Harbor; and he seems to have been chosen or else volunteered to consult and trade with the Indians of Little Egg Harbor for certain portions of their land; and it is evident that he was successful in his mission, for the aborigines immediately sold him the most valuable portions of their lands; and it is said that the goods he gave the Indians for their lands were of little value, and scant in quantity, but like the goods of other peddlers they were admired and coveted by the ignorant savages, and he knew how to accomplish a successful bargain. It is probable that the land comprising Osburn and Wills' Islands, and the Eayre Oliphant, the Elihu Mathis and the Joseph Parker farms, were the first lands ever sold by the Indians of Little Egg Harbor, and Henry Jacobs Falkinburg was the purchaser, and he at once settled on his new possessions, and as soon as possible had his Indian purchase confirmed by the Council of Proprietors.

Very soon after Falkinburg settled in Little Egg Harbor, Edward Andrews and his brother Mordecai Andrews, and Jacob Ong, settled in the place, all of them from upper Burlington county. And soon after these came Richard Osborn, Richard and Joseph Willits, and perhaps others from Long Island, and about the time the Long Island emigrants came James Pharo and Thomas Ridgway from the upper section of Burlington county; and by the year 1714 Evi Belangee, Moses Embro, Charles Dingee, John Higbee and John Mathis were residents of Egg Harbor.

All of the above named persons established themselves on farms in Egg Harbor, where most of them spent the balance of their lives and at present have a numerous race of descendants.

Edward Andrews settled on the east side of Tuckerton creek - his farm being the land on which the village is now situated. Mordecai Andrews settled on the west side of Tuckerton creek, on what is now called the Nathan Bartlett farm. Thomas Ridgway located on the farm where Amos Ridgway now lives. Richard Willits located the farm where Nathan Andrews now resides. Henry Jacobs lived on the Joseph Parker and Elihu Mathis farms; in his time these two farms were one farm. Richard Osborn settled on Osborn's Island. Evi Belangee lived on the farm now known as the Eayre Oliphant farm. John Mathis settled on Daniel Mathis Island at Bass river. James O'Hara settled on the farm now owned by Joseph B. Cox, at West Creek, Ocean county; the farm is situated near the Province line between East and West New Jersey. On the third day of April, 1706, Michael Buffin executed a deed to Joseph Willits for several tracts of land containing in the whole nine hundred acres, but I cannot ascertain where Joseph Willits' farm was. John Higbee had a farm in Little Egg Harbor which he willed away in the year 1715. I cannot locate his plantation, and it is probable that Jacob Ong, Moses Embro, Charles Dinges and others had farms in the place of their adoption.

Most of the first settlers made large locations of land. At first they located the lands from the Eayre Oliphant farm, including Osborn's and Wills' Islands, all along the borders of the salt marsh to the division line between Burlington and Ocean counties. Each person taking sufficient land for a farm, and a large scope of woodland besides.

Between the years 1715 and 1750 there were various emigrations to Egg Harbor. Among whom were Joseph Parker, Robert Allen, Hannah Gauntt, Stephen Cranmer, Samuel Rose, John Leak, Joseph Bartlett, Joseph Seaman, Charles Loveland, Caleb Carr, Francis French, Jonathan Petitt, Adam Petitt, Jonathan Gifford, William Havens, Samuel Shourds, Joseph Lippincott, Jeremiah Baker, John Mott, John Stanton and others, who seem to have been but transient sojourners, as nearly all of the above names are recorded in the Monthly Meeting Books of the Little Egg Harbor Friends' Meeting.

The first settlers in Egg Harbor appear to have been people of respectability, possessing the means and enterprise necessary for establishing themselves in a new country. Most accounts go to say that they were eminent for piety and good works; living in strict accordance with the discipline of the Friends' Society, so that their descendants have no cause to be ashamed of the characters or professions of their forefathers, who adopted as their home, lived and died and were buried in what ought to be called "Quaker Township."

When speaking of the inhabitants of Little Egg Harbor, it is often necessary to refer to residents of Ocean county, some of whom had been residents of Little Egg Harbor, or were nearly related by blood or marriage to more or less of the people of Egg Harbor. In ancient times the Shaws, Seamans, Bartletts, Havens, Spragues and Gaskill's resided at or near West Creek, the Cranmer's at Cranmertown, the Moores, Jennings, Browns, Truaxs, Southwicks, Cranes, Wainrights, and some of the Willits at or near Mannahawkin. The Birdsalls, Lopers, Burrs, Inmans, Arnolds, Collins, Motts, and some of the Ridgways and Cranmers at Barnegat.

It appears that most of the ancient residents of Little Egg Harbor followed farming to some extent, and most of them were skilled in the mechanic arts, such as blacksmithing, coopering, carpentering, shoemaking, tanning and other useful trades. Men made themselves proficient in the use of the musket, and many of them proved themselves "great hunters" and fowlers, nor is it to be wondered at when fat deer would be started up in almost any wooded locality, and the salt marshes, bays and rivers were literally covered with swan, geese, canvass back, brant, black ducks and many other kinds of wild fowls, and on the marshes the eggs of meadow birds would be collected by the bushel. The angler had a delightful time in plying his art, for the waters were alive with fish of many species, of all ages and sizes, and the flats of the bays were covered with various kinds of shell fish. The forests abounded with red deer, bears, wolves, panthers, wild cats, foxes, rabbits, opossums, polecats, hedgehogs, and wild turkeys; pheasants, grouse and quails reared their broods in the thickets, and also many species of smaller birds enlivened the woods with their songs, and at the close of the day scores of whippoorwills came near the dwellings of men and sang the twilight hours away; and at midnight the hoot owls were heard calling to and answering each other back as they were perched on the topmost branches of the tallest trees.

The females carded and spun wool, and hackled and spun flax and tow, and then dyed the yarn they had manufactured with the bark or leaves of the forest trees or shrubs, and many of them wove the yarn into cloth, and then made it into bedding or wearing apparel. There was a loom in almost every house, and every family possessed at least one pair of wool cards, a spinning, or what they denominated a woolen wheel, linen or flax wheel, and a hackle for combing the tow from the flax.

A young lady who was not a proficient in the above named useful accomplishments had rather a meagre chance for obtaining a worthy husband. In those days young ladies who would have scorned the idea of doing kitchen work for strangers, went out among their neighbors to card and spin and weave, and then these occupations were considered as honorable and refined employments as millinery or dressmaking is in these our days.

The young ladies of those primitive times had no newspapers, magazines or novels to read, and no pianos or organs on which to play, and even if they had been blessed with such articles, they would not have had much time to devote to such amusements. A girl, who, at twelve years of age commenced to spin and continued to spin the usual amount of yarn from year to year until she was an old woman, walked many, many thousands of miles at the spinning wheel. Many women would spin two pounds or more of fine yarn in a day.

The young ladies of those primitive days must have been very beautiful or very amiable, or perhaps they were possessed of both of these admirable qualities. It is evident that they were very fascinating, for when the young men of distant localities visited the daughters of the Quakers of Little Egg Harbor, they resolved on taking them for wives. No doubt those healthy, rosy-cheeked, industrious and animated young maidens looked very pretty, dressed in robes which had been manufactured by their own competent hands, and their faces encircled with bonnets which were entirely destitute of feathers, flowers, or knots of ribbon.

If any one will take the trouble to examine the list of marriages for some generations of the ancient inhabitants of Egg Harbor, they will be convinced of the fact that a large number of the young ladies married men who were residents of distant places, such as Long Island, Monmouth county, Gloucester county, and the upper part of Burlington county.

The first settlers had many difficulties to contend with in the wilderness and isolated land of their adoption. They at first built themselves rude dwellings, such as caves in the ground, or else log huts, in which they resided until circumstances admitted of their erecting more commodious and substantial habitations. There were no stores, manufactories, grist or saw mills, churches, schools or roads, except Indian paths or hastily formed bridle paths. It is evident that every enterprising man of the little colony had determined on having a farm, and with that intention they applied themselves to the task of clearing their lands in order to make farms on which they could raise their bread and vegetables. Indian corn and rye were the grains which they cultivated. Wheat is a modern production of the soil of Egg Harbor. The soil produced good crops of rye, but the farmers thought that wheat could not be raised on Egg Harbor farms, and with that erroneous idea generations of them lived and died. But modern Egg Harbor farmers cultivate wheat in preference to rye. The elements which are requisite to produce the grain of rye seem to have been greatly exhausted, leaving the soil in a condition to produce good wheat.

The first crops of grain which the colonists raised were transported on the backs of horses to Mount Holly, to be ground. It is said that husbands and wives, sons, and all who could be spared from home, put sacks of grain across the backs of horses, and then mounted them and rode in Indian file through a greenwood bridle path to the grist mill at Mount Holly; and this was their mode of going to mill, until the year 1704, when Edward Andrews built a grist mill. There is a tradition among some of Edward Andrews' descendants, that while the farmers and their retinue were going on their journeys to mill, the children, who were left at home at night, were terrified by the angry growls of bears, wolves and wild cats, which were so numerous and so tame, as to come prowling around their dwellings. At such times, those of the children who were brave hearted, would (in order to appease the hunger and wrath of their nocturnal visitors) throw out to them a number of dead wild fowl, fat and luscious enough to please the palate of the most fastidious epicure. Though the youthful housekeepers were besieged by wild beasts, yet they had nothing to fear from their Indian neighbors. The savages had learned that those men who wore broad-brimmed hats and shad-breasted coats, were friends who could be trusted. Therefore, all that belonged to such persons were safe from the depredations of the Indians. The red men, if they were ignorant savages, knew how to appreciate friendly and christianlike treatment. If all of the first white settlers in the western world had treated the natives as if they were human beings, possessed of souls and sensibilities like white men; and also had a right to their native country, it would have saved the scalp of many a "pale face," and the blood of many an Indian.

Edward Andrews soon got tired of going to mill to Mount Holly, and when as he and his neighbors got to raising grain in sufficient quantities to warrant the erection of a grist mill, Andrews, who was an enterprising man, and one of those courageous and energetic spirits, who do not shrink from difficult undertakings, constructed a cedar log grist mill, on or near the site of the present grist mill at Tuckerton. The beavers accommodated Andrews with a dam for his mill pond. The mill must have been a great accommodation to the settlers, and its usefulness has been enjoyed by many generations of their descendants. The grist mill must have been a curiosity to the Indians. They must have considered Andrews a great "Medicine man;" and stared when they saw the grains of Indian corn crushed so fast and to such small atoms, they must have deemed it a great improvement on their mode of manufacturing Indian meal, which was by crushing one grain at a time between two stones.

Every husbandman planted an orchard of fruit trees, consisting of apples, pears, peaches and cherries. For a long time after the settlement of Egg Harbor, peach trees lived to a great age, and produced abundantly, but in modern times, their size and age are greatly curtailed. The farmers raised horses, cattle, sheep and hogs. In old times the farmers of upper Burlington county came to Egg Harbor to buy horses and cattle, to be driven to their farms in upper Bur[ling]ton county. The salt marshes afforded pasturage and hay. and the forests contributed acorns and nuts for swine, and also browse for cattle and sheep.

There is no account of who was the first merchant in the place; yet there was not much call for merchandize, for each family manufactured most of its own dry goods, and any farmer who was gifted with even a moderate share of ingenuity, manufactured his own farming utensils, and also household and kitchen furniture. They were, indeed, an independent people, living far away from the rest of civilization, and sustaining themselves by their own industry. I believe they were a happier people than we, of this generation are; we, who have so many fashions to follow, so many wants to supply, and enjoy so many privileges, and deem ourselves so much more enlightened and comfortable than our ancestors. It is probable, that for a long time, the people of this lonely settlement bought what merchandize they needed at Burlington city, and that there the young ladies purchased their bonnets and wedding dresses, those dresses destined as best dresses during the owner's life. In those days fashions did not change every month.

For a long time Egg Harbor was thinly inhabited. The first emigrants, with few exceptions, established themselves along the borders of the salt marshes, in order to be near the natural pastures, and the bogs and rivers, from which they procured the most luxurious portions of their provisions.

After they had gotten their farms in a fair state of cultivation, most of the owners built thereon commodious dwellings, whose roofs and four sides were covered with cedar shingles, or as some term them, "clapboards," nailed on with large headed wrought nails; in many cases the nails were manufactured in the farmer's own blacksmith shop. The shingles of which these mansions were composed, were rove from huge dead cedar trees, whose ages could not be estimated. Those dead cedars were mostly such as had died from extreme length of years, and had fallen down, or such as still remained in an upright position. The huge frames of one of these clapboard edifices, would have made frames for three or four modern structures of the same dimensions. The frame stuff was either oak or heart pine; the trees were cut down and the timber hewn into shape with a broad axe in the forest where the trees grew and were felled. After being thus prepared, it was carted with an ox team to the place where the house was to be erected. When about to raise one of these heavy timbered houses, the owner invited all of his acquaintances from Barnegat to the Green Bank, in order to procure sufficient help to place the unwieldy pieces of lumber in the required position. My readers must remember that at that period an Egg Harborian's circle of acquaintances resided in an extensive tract of country, but as regarded numbers they were rather small, so that it is not probable that there was an overcrowded raising party. These "raisings" are said to have been greatly enjoyed by the little community where social gatherings were "few and far between." What would our great great great grandparents have thought of modern church festivals and picnics? The ladies of all ages were invited for the purpose of having a little social chat, and also to assist in preparing the banquet which always followed the raising of the house, where the old and the young were congregated together, and many were the pleasant jokes that were passed around; but the husbands and wives, the young men and maidens, where are they? They have been borne away by the stream of time, and all, or most of them, have mouldered to dust in the Friends' graveyard at Tuckerton. For over an hundred years the grass has spread its green blades and the wild flowers bloomed over the graves of these old-time merry-makers, but like the tomb of Moses, "no man knoweth" the exact spot where any of them were buried. Even the great houses which they assisted in raising are among the things of the past, most of them changed to dust or ashes. These strongly-built houses withstood the severest gales for more than an hundred and fifty years — not even the great September gale of the year 1821 could budge one of those old shingle-covered mansions, built by the Falkinburgs, Andrews, Ridgways, Willits, Belangees, Dingees, Cranmers, Shaws, Mathis and others.

It is probable that James Belangee, Sr., built the largest clap-boarded mansion in the township, it having six large rooms and one large and two small halls on the first floor. The substantial kitchen chimney of this farm house was composed of stone and mortar, and was built on the outside of the end of the house. The present Nathan Andrew's farm house is an evidence of what James Willits' mansion was, the frame of the present house being the frame of the ancient clap-boarded edifice.

The kitchen fire places of those mansions were exceedingly ample, often occupying all or nearly all of the gable end of the house, and within the extensive jams the whole family could be comfortably seated. The chimneys had capacious throats, and were furnished with what was termed a lug pole, that extended from one side to the other of the broad chimney, from this stout lug pole depended three or four long and heavy iron trammels, each composed of a wide bar and a stout rod of iron which could be raised or lowered as the case required - the wide bar being pierced with several holes by which the rod could be raised or lowered. On those trammels the house wife hung the tea kettle, dinner pot, big wash kettle, and at the season of hog-killing, soap-boiling, and coloring cloth or yarn, and other important housekeeping operations, the mammoth kettle was lifted on to the strongest trammel.

At this stage of time the farmers had plenty of firewood and a stout ox team to haul it home, and it was the custom with them to cut down large oak or pine trees, and then cut them up into what they denominated back-logs. These logs were three or four feet long and often two or three feet in diameter, and when wanted to burn, the kitchen furniture was moved back and huddled together in another part of the room so as to allow ample room for the ingress of the back-logs. The big logs were rolled up and the monster logs carried or rolled into the house, and placed one at a time into the fire place. There were usually three sizes of back-logs, the largest in diameter forming the foundation, then the second in size was placed on the first, and then the third and smallest log on top; this the first great feat accomplished, the fire builder laid three or four splintered pitch pine knots on the coals, which had been placed against the base logs, then a small log (called a fore-stick) was laid on the strong bars of iron called the and-irons, thus forming a fore-stick, and then between the fore-stick and back-logs was heaped up an armful or two of smaller, round or split wood; this done, the farmer soon had a pile which would last a considerable time, and suffice to warm and illuminate the ample room. Those who were blessed with such fires had but little use for candles or lamps, for the blazing pine knots and wood afforded sufficient light for all the work or reading going on in the apartment, and to be added to this first fire of the evening, there were an armful or two of nicely split pitch pine knots heaped up within the jams ready to be added to the fire whenever the light decreased. This split pine was put on, one piece at a time, and when that ceased to give the required light another was thrown on to keep up a successive blaze. For some generations the forests were full of those old pine knots, they being the relics of old pine trees that had fallen, and all except the knots had decayed; but the pine knots would have lasted forever, if people had not gathered and burnt them. At this time, a real old-fashioned pine knot is a rare sight. Around those large evening fires were collected the inmates of the household, consisting of parents and children, hirelings, and in some instances, slaves. During the long winter evenings the male part of the family usually had some kind of employment, such as making or mending shoes, hoe handles, baskets, ladles and ox-bows, or moulding buck or duck shot, preparatory to a hunting or fowling excursion. While the males were thus employed, the females knit, sewed, carded tow, or spun flax, while the juveniles, under the tuition of the father or some of the older brothers or sisters, learned the letters of the alphabet, or spelling, or reading, or were initiated in the mysteries of numeration, and many a child of that time in this way received the whole of their education. Often a member of the family circle, with a tuneful voice, read the Bible or some other book. In those days many people read with a singular tone of voice, and those who were considered good readers usually spelt about half of the words, or more or less syllables of a word as they were reading.

One hundred and eighty years ago Little Egg Harbor was an unbroken wilderness, where towered thousands of stately, dark, green-headed pine trees, interspersed with giant oaks, whose brawny limbs had been shaken by the storms of many centuries, and in the low lands the tall and fragrant cedar, gum, bilstead and maple, none of which had ever been marred by the woodman's axe, but the fate of many a noble tree had been decided on. The unfeeling and avaricious woodmen sharpened their axes and went in among the grand old trees of the forest and felled many of them to the ground in order to clear up farms and have the timber to build houses, barns, fences and other things belonging to civilized life. During the season for flowers, the uplands were beautified by the blossoms of the dogwood, sassafras, laurel, wild rose, and many other varieties of flaming shrubs and plants, and the swamps were fragrant with the cream-colored blossoms of the magnolia, swamp lily, water cup, and scores of other kinds of sweet-scented and many-colored low-land flowers.

In this grand old solitude the bear, panther, wolf, the graceful red deer, and many of the smaller race of quadrupeds made their lairs. There the monarchial eagle built his eyrie among the branches of the stately pine, and the turkey, grouse, pheasant, and quails made their nests among the dead leaves which encumbered the ground, and the buzzard, raven, owl, hawk, wood duck, quanck, blue-jay, robin, mocking bird, whippoorwill, gold finch, red bird, sparrow, bobolink, cat bird, cedar bird, thrasher, blue bird and killdeer, and several other kinds of birds raised their broods in the hollows of trees, on the ground, or constructed their nests on the trees and shrubs of the forest. There the rattlesnake, pine snake, black snake and such like reptiles slowly trailed their serpentine courses. There was plenty of food for all of the denizens of the forest; some of them preyed on each other, and others subsisted on the roots, herbage, fruit and seeds of the wilderness. The salt marshes and the waters were overstocked with a great variety of wild fowl, fish and shell fish. If I were to relate the truthful tales I have heard of the abundance of such things, I should expose myself to ridicule, for the people of this generation would not believe what they would deem extravagant stories. The white man came from afar with his wonderful civilization, and the Indians, and the beasts of the forests, and the inhabitants of the marshes and waters, slowly decreased, until at this date there is a scarcity of such things, and some kinds of them are already extinct.

For some years after the settlement of Egg Harbor, there were no markets for the timber of the forests, but at length cedar lumber became an article of exportation to the West Indies and other places.

In the year 1713, in the thirteenth year of the reign of Queen Anne, there was an act passed by the Governor, Council and General Assembly of the Province of New Jersey,for the protection of pine and cedar timber from the depredations of strangers, who, it appears had been in the habit of trespassing on the lands of the New Jersey Proprietors, and other owners of timbered lands, by cutting pine and cedar and manufacturing it into pipe and hogshead staves and also extracting turpentine from pine trees for exportation. At the same time and place, there was an act passed to lay a duty on all pipe and hogshead staves exported out of New Jersey to other places.

I think the stave trade accounts for the people of that time being so anxious to purchase rights for cedar swamps. In process of time, pine and then oak wood were largely exported to New York and other cities.

Forty years ago there were large shipments of oak and pine wood from Little Egg Harbor to New York city. There were a considerable number of vessels owned in the place, which were engaged in carrying wood, and besides these, vessels from Long Island, Staten Island, New Brunswick and other places followed, coming to Egg Harbor to get freights of wood and rails.

All of the timber sufficiently near to a landing place on rivers or creeks has been cut into market wood, and such as was at too great a distance from the landings to pay for the cartage has been manufactured into charcoal for the New York market. All of the primitive growth of timber has disappeared, and new generations of forest trees everywhere meet the view. On some portions of the land the timber has been cut several times. It takes about thirty years for a new growth of timber to arrive at a size to be suitable for the axe, yet a great deal is cut before it arrives at that age.

The reason why Egg Harbor is not more of a farming country, is owing to its valuable timbers and the abundant products of its waters. While men could live easier by the sale of their lumber and the produce of the waters, they would not perform such laborious work as clearing land from which to make farms. The lumber age is nearly at an end, and Little Egg Harbor is slowly rising in the farming scale.

Sixty years ago Jeremiah Willits, Sr., was styled the best farmer of Little Egg Harbor, and in after time Jeremiah Ridgway was considered the most successful farmer. Joseph B. Sapp and Willits Parker, Sr., may be justly called the modern pioneers in agricultural improvements in Egg Harbor. For some time after those enterprising men commenced improving their farms, other farmers pursued the even tenor of their old-fashioned ways, but finally the "scales fell from their eyes," and they passed into line and marched along the road of improvement, at each judicious step, becoming more and more convinced of the fact that Egg Harbor soil was capable of a high improvement, and that with proper cultivation it may be made to yield as good crops of every kind as any other section of New Jersey.