Ocean County , NJ History

May 1930 saw a huge forest fire in the pines of Ocean County. This is how it was reported in the New Jersey Courier of 9 May 1930: Tuckerton Lost One House in Four Days Tuckerton, May 8--For a period of three days this town experienced the worst series of forest fires ever recorded here. Beginning with Saturday afternoon and still raging on Wednesday night. Every able bodied man and even school boys were fighting fires. There were companies here from Atlantic City, Ocean City, Pomona, Beach Haven, West Creek, Manahawkin, Beach- Arlington and other places. During the time a thousand or more men have been at work. The first fire started on Saturday afternoon at Tuckerton Manors, a new development on North Green street road, and quickly spread through the Wood street area, but above the houses, burned out to the New York road, endangering the Marine Radio Station, the home of James Cullen, his son's and Joseph Petzak's. These places were saved only after a hard fight. On Sun...

from the New Jersey Mirror 17 Aug 1881: A HEAVY SHOWER of wind and rain visited this vicinity shortly after five o'clock on Saturday afternoon. The day had been extremely hot, said to have been the hottest of the season, the mercury rising to 100 in the shade. The storm came up suddenly, the wind blowing a young hurricane, trimming dead limbs and some live ones from the trees and strewing the streets with them. The rain followed as suddenly and for some time the rain-fall was heavy, the lightning sharp and the thunder startling, indicating that the lightning had struck something near by. The shower was over in less than a half hour. Soon after the storm it was learned that the lightning had done fatal work on the road between Mount Holly and Lumberton. It appears that just as the shower was approaching, Isaac Fenimore, living near Lumberton, drove to the Mount Holly depot for Mrs. Blanche Short, engaged as a domestic in the family, who was waiting to be conveyed to his residence....

in May of 1936, a tremendous forest fire swept through the Pine Barrens of Ocean County. This is how it was reported in the pages of the New Jersey Mirror on the 27th of May Five Killed, Many Injured in Greatest Forest Fires in the History of Two Counties / More Than 20,000 Acres Involved in Four-Day Conflagration in the Area from Chatsworth to Tuckerton and Manahawkin--2,000 Men Fought Fire / Men Were Trapped While Fighting In one of the worst forest fires in the history of Burlington and Ocean counties, the past four days, burning over more than 20,000 acres, five men lost their lives and many others were injured. The area involved includes the section from Chatsworth to Tuckerton. There also were fires east of Brown's Mills. Colonel Leonidas J. Coyle, state fire warden, reported last night that the fire was under control and practically extinguished, when a change of wind turned the flames back over the area already burned over. The dead are: Edward F. Sullivan, 19, of ...

That was the front page headline on 14 June 1939 in the New Jersey Courier...the initial story appears below...but make sure to read the whole story! This wasn't quite what it seemed at first... "Lakewood police and county detectives are endeavoring to unravel a suspected 'tarring and feathering' crime. It was believed from bits of clothing found on trees and bushes that the unknown victim was a woman, who had been covered with paint, walked through the woods, and wallowed in the muck of a sewage tank. The suspected crime was first discovered on Sunday by Charles Galati of Whitesville, an employee of the sewage plant. Officers found the spot where a car had parked about a quarter of a mile southeast of the plant. and found also a man's shirt and a pair of slacks. The dresses were daubed with red, orange or aluminum paint and black asphalt. Two small empty cans which had contained red and aluminum paint were found in the woods near the spot. There were no signs of...

Sharing bits of information related to genealogy and history, mostly New Jersey related.  I also post the information on my website at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~batsto/ I'll also be posting photographs taken in my travels around the state for posterity.  Like this picture of a shack out on Cedar Bonnet Island taken around 2009.