NAMING: LANGUAGE, LANDSCAPE, AND COMMUNITY IN THE PINELANDS

From the early days of European settlement until the present time, people of the Pinelands have used language to name and describe their environment. The names that Pinelands residents have given to the natural features and cultural objects of their environment reflect the social, natural, and cultural history of the region. Among the kinds of names residents have given to their environment are place names, names of plants, and names of objects.

Place names are those names given by people to their communities, and to special locations within their communities. In the Pinelands, towns, locations, roads, hills, and streams were often named for local residents. Family homesteads, occupied for generations by the same family, were named for that family, like "Horner Place" in Atco, named for several generations of Horners who lived there. Leektown, a small Burlington County settlement of several families, was named for the Leek family, many of whom settled there. Whitesbog, a town that grew up around the cranberry bogs, was owned by the White family who cleared and cultivated the bogs. Cranberry bogs, such as Billy Bog and John Bog located at Whitesbog, were named for the men who cleared and built them. Corduroy roads, like homesteads, towns and cranberry bogs, were named for their builders and developers. "Frankie's Crossway" is a corduroy road which is two hundred years old. It is thought to be the oldest corduroy road in the Pinelands. Frankie's Crossway is named for its builder, just as are corduroy roads that are built today. Carranza Road is the name given by local residents to the road that leads to the Carranza Memorial. The Memorial is named for Emilio Carranza, a Mexican aviator, whose plane crashed in Tabernacle Township near Chatsworth during a 1928 good will flight from the United States to Mexico. Each year his brave mission and tragic death is commemorated at the site of the Memorial by local residents and visitors.

Place names can also refer to the site of an industry which no longer exists. "The Clay Pits" were named by Pinelands residents for an industry that supplied the tile works, one of the rural industries that disappeared in the late nineteenth century. Since then the pits have filled with water, and have been renamed "Hidden Lakes" by the many visitors who camp there. Martha Pond is all that remains of the water works that supplied the late eighteenth century iron furnace at Martha. The town, which grew up around the furnace, has similarly vanished and "melted" into the woodland landscape.

The vanished towns and places in the Pinelands are remembered in legend and story by the Pinelands residents. Ong's Hat, one of the vanished towns of the Pinelands, is a location that exists now only in legends and on some maps. It was named, in the nineteenth century, so the legend goes, after Jacob Ong, who threw his hat onto a tree after a lover's quarrel. Like the hat that stuck in the tree, the name has persevered long after the events and people have passed out the people's memories. Sometimes all that remains of a vanished town is a clearing in the woods. "Star-Tree Corner" is an area in the woods named for the convergence of five sand roads. It marks the spot where the town of Washington, one of the more prominent of the vanished towns of the Pinelands, once stood. During the period of the Revolutionary War, the Washington Tavern was an important meeting place. Soldiers were recruited there and weddings were held there.

Double Trouble State Park occupies land that formerly belonged to the Double Trouble Cranberry Company. There are conflicting stories about the naming of "Double Trouble." The earliest story attributes the name to Thomas Potter who coined the words "double trouble" after spring rains twice washed out the dam on Cedar Creek.

The names and places also reflect the diversity of cultures in the Pinelands, and the historical flow of immigrants to its many communities. Indian Mills is named for the Indians who settled there on the Brotherton Reservation in the eighteenth century. Although the Indians left the area soon after, the name remains. Quaker Bridge is named for the bridge erected over the Batsto River in the eighteenth century by Quakers who wanted to memorialize those who had drowned trying to cross the river. Florence and Rome are two Pinelands towns named for the many Italian immigrants who came there at the turn of the twentieth century. Rova farms are named for the Russian immigrants who settled there in the 1930's. Street names in Egg Harbor City, such as Heidelberg Avenue, reflect the heavy German settlement there in the middle of the nineteenth century. More recent immigration to the Pinelands by Puerto Ricans is reflected in the Spanish names of stores, offices, places of worship, and businesses in major agricultural communities such as Hammonton and Vineland.

The agricultural boom in the Pinelands which began in the latter part of the nineteenth century led to the naming of several species of cultivated blueberries and cranberries after local Pinelands workers and growers. The cultivation of the wild blueberries in the Pinelands began at Whitesbog, with Elizabeth White, the daughter of J.J. White, who developed Whitesbog, and Dr. Frederick Coville. White sent local residents into the woods to search for bushes containing the largest berries, which were measured using a board containing several holes of different sizes. The bushes with the largest berries were chosen for large-scale cultivation and hybridization. The berries resulting from this effort were named of their finders, such as the Rubel. The Rubel was named for Rubin Leek, whose family had already lived in the Pinelands for several generations and who settled a small village called Leektown. Like blueberries,cranberry varieties were also named for local growers and workers, like the Howard Bell, Richard, Bozarthtown Pointer, and Applegate.

The names of objects, just as the names of places and plants, reflect the cultural history of the Pinelands. The influence of French Huguenots in the eighteenth century is reflected in names given to two boats that have been used in the Pinelands since the eighteen hundreds. The garvey, the flat-bottomed wooden workboat which is still used today, is so named, it is told in a story that has been handed down for generations in the Pinelands, for Gervais Farrow, its original builder. Gervais Farrow, as the story goes, painted his name on his boat. The name was later corrupted into its present form "garvey," and taken to mean all boats of that type. The bateau, a kind of row boat used for transportation in the Pinelands, may have been named at the same time.

The Pinelands woods have been the setting for many stories and legends, some of which have been handed down to the present day. Some of the stories feature legendary strongmen such as Salt Caesar, who was a woodchopper known for his feats of endurance, and Jesse Johnson, who was known for his feats of strength. Jerry Munyhon was a local trickster who performed many feats of magic. Munyhon was supposed to have lived in the nineteenth century on an iron plantation. A supernatural creature, who some believe inhabits the Pinelands today, is the Jersey Devil, about whom many yarns have been spun. (Many Pinelands legends are retold in books such as Just Around the Corner in New Jersey by Edward Brown and Pine Barrens Legends, Lore and Lies by William McMahon.)

One could compile a history of an area or community by researching the origins of names and recounting legends. The history, culture, and natural features of the Pinelands are reflected in the names and legends that live today.