NEW JERSEY FOREST FIRES

NEW YORK HERALD September 7, 1838 pages 2-4

DREADFUL FIRE IN NEW JERSEY - the fire in the New Jersey woods, we learn from a gentleman who left Bordentown on Wednesday, has increased to a most alarming and frightful extent. Millions of acres of property have already been consumed. A space of 20 miles in length by 14 in breadth, through Burlington and Monmouth counties, and consisting chiefly of pine woods and cedar swamps, is now in a state of conflagration. The clouds of smoke are seen twenty miles off, and at night the air is filled with a land blaze which dims the moon. The grass and woods are so parched from the drought that the flames spread with lightning like rapidity, presenting at night a scene of unparalleled sublimity. A great many houses and thousands of cords of wood are destroyed; and it is feared a number of persons, hemmed in by the flames, have perished.

THE NEW JERSEY TIMES
July 26, 1885

CAMDEN, NEW JERSEY, JULY 25, 1885 - The flames are still sweeping through the timber and bog lands of South Jersey, and a great and despairing cry for rain is going up from the people, who have been fighting the fires for the past two weeks. Should wind change to the south or southwest, nothing can save the villages of Atco and Jackson from destruction. Late yesterday the flames reached the Maple Island district and came rapidly westward toward the New Jersey Southern Railroad. A great effort was made to keep the flames from crossing the railroad track and all the able bodied men of Atco and Jackson, recruited with two carloads of section hands sent by the railroad company, ranged themselves along the track at intervals of eight miles to fight the fast advancing flames. They were finally successful in confining the fire to the eastern side of the road, although several thousand railroad ties, piled along the track, were destroyed.

Word was received at Atco last night that the cranberry bogs of E.Z. Collings, of Camden, and the saw mill of Elias Russell, near Brooklyn, had been destroyed. The fires in that section are now confined to the big swamp where they are burning much valuable timber.

THE NEW YORK TIMES
July 27, 1885

ATLANTIC CITY, NEW JERSEY, JULY 26 - A storm unequaled in violence for some years occurred along the coast at 1 o'clock this afternoon and extended far into the interior of New Jersey, doing much damage. The rain fell 'in torrents, and the lightning struck fiercely at several points. No lives have been lost as far as reported. Telegraph and telephone wires are down in many places. A panic was caused among the guests at the hotels. The rain continued to pour until tonight, checking to a great extent the extensive forest fires raging in the interior of the State.