Composed, for the most part, from sketches that were published in the Courier-Post newspapers of Camden, New Jersey, Beck provides us with a series of stories of towns too tiny or uncertain for today's maps. Together, these sketches help to create a more complete picture of the history of New Jersey. A connecting skein of untold or little known wartime history--the Revolution, the War of 1812, and the conflict of North against South--runs through most of the sketches. Many of the sketches concern the pine towns and their people, "the pineys" who lived in the Jersey pine barrens.

Explores settlements and towns that have been deserted, transformed into tourist attractions, or have less than 200 residents and are mere shadows of their former selves.

In the course of its extraordinary history, the Jersey Devil has been exorcised, shot, electrocuted, declared officially dead, and scoffed as foolishness--none of which has had any effect on it or the people who persist in seeing it!This mysterious creature is said to prowl the lonely sand trails and mist-shrouded marshes of the Pine Barrens, and emerge perioducally to rampage through the towns and cities of New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania, leaving many communities in near-hysteria.The authors show that while a few appearances have been out-right fraud and others have likely been the result of mass hysteria, this creature has been seen by enough sane, sober, and responsible citizens to keep the possiblity of its existence alive and tantalizing.Over 50,000 in print

From Colonial days to the early 1900s, iron forges, glass plants, lumber and paper mills flourished in the New Jersey of the Pine Barrens, in old Burlington, Gloucester and Salem Counties. Around the inlets of the Atlantic shore and on Delaware Bay, whaling and shipbuilding were important industries. Times have changed. Many of the old towns have fallen into ruin or disappeared, swallowed up in the abandoned lands of South Jersey or swept away by the unrelenting tides of the Jersey coast. Henry Charlton Black, raised in Haddonfield for years, shared his endless delight in the land and the lore of South Jersey. He, like a few other devoted Jerseyans, began to hunt out in the 1930s the old sites and to record the stories handed down from generation to generation, clear back to early settlers. In this sequel to Forgotten Towns of Southern New Jersey, his visits to the state's early heritage - churches, villages, and roads - are continued. He explores the routes of old railroads and the tangled wilderness of the Forked River Mountains, and he tells the lost stories of forgotten glass and iron and shipbuilding villages.

Explores haunted places, local legends, crazy characters, and unusual roadside attractions found in New Jersey.

Deep within the heart of the New Jersey Pine Barrens, the Piney people have built a vibrant culture and industry from working the natural landscape around them. Foraging skills learned from the local Lenapes were passed down through generations of Piney families who gathered many of the same wild floral products that became staples of the Philadelphia and New York dried flower markets. Important figures such as John Richardson have sought to lift the Pineys from rural poverty by recording and marketing their craftsmanship. As the state government sought to preserve the Pine Barrens and develop the region, Piney culture was frequently threatened and stigmatized. Author and advocate William J. Lewis charts the history of the Pineys, what being a Piney means today and their legacy among the beauty of the Pine Barrens.