Atsion: Part 3 – To the Modern Day
This is the final article in a three part series looking at the history of the ghost town of Atsion. You can find part one of the series at this link, and part two...
Author: Ben Ruset
Atsion: Part 2 – Prosperity and Decline
This is part two of a three part series looking at the history of the ghost town of Atsion. You can find part one at this link. Samuel Richards, good-looking and enormously successful, was...
Atsion: Part 1 – The Charles Read Era
Henry Drinker, a wealthy Quaker merchant in Philadelphia, wrote: “I expect it will be nothing new to hear that we Iron Masters are in general a sett of Hungry, needy beings, frequently bare of...
The Beauty and the Wealth of a Land of Desolation
In the Pine Barrens: The Beauty and the Wealth of a Land of Desolation Originally published in the New York Tribune, August 6, 1893. You may still call it, as of old, the province...
Brendan Byrne State Forest: A Quick Guide
Brendan T. Byrne State Forest, formerly known as Lebanon State Forest, is located in the northern part of the New Jersey Pinelands. It’s location and convenient access to State Route 70 make it convenient...
Wharton State Forest: A Quick Guide
Wharton State Forest is the largest, and perhaps the best, place to begin a Pine Barrens adventure. With over 115,000 acres of land spread between Burlington and Atlantic Counties there are plenty of places...
A Hat, a Hut, or a Tavern: The Tale of Ong’s Hat
It all started with a road map of New Jersey. A little north of the Red Lion Circle, in the heart of the Burlington County Pine Barrens, the map depicted a tiny hamlet marked...
The Gun Club Near Buckingham
Hidden back in the woods near Buckingham, the deserted station stop of the Pennsylvania Railroad that brought visitors from Philadelphia to Long Branch in the late 19th century, a scattering of cinderblock bricks forlornly...
The Jersey Taverns
The tavern was a building that, in colonial America, was second in importance only to the meetinghouse. Here a person could hear the news, find the market prices of goods, conduct business, attend court,...
From Crosswicks to Walnford
I set off on todays adventure, as I have so many in the past, following the path of the late historian Henry Charlton Beck. Beck explored many of the “forgotten towns” of Southern New...