Historic Themes and Resources within the New Jersey Coastal Heritage Trail, Southern New Jersey and the Delaware Bay: Cap May, Cumberland, and Salem Counties

Sebold, Kimberly; Leach, Sara; National Park Service

New Jersey, bordered by the Delaware River on the west, New York on the northeast, the Atlantic Ocean on the east, and Delaware Bay on the south, is the fifth-smallest state in the country. Within its 8,204 square miles, however, it boasts a broad range of natural topographical features and retains a surprising balance of urban and rural settings. Despite the proximity to Philadelphia, New York, and the ever-condensing Northeast metropolitan corridor, the lower river and ocean coasts remain pristine. New Jersey has historically acted as a conduit for the growth of its metropolitan neighbors, which represent a market for agricultural and industrial products. Geographer Charles A. Stansfield, Jr., offers the corollary that New Jersey is a microcosm of the United States-with features indigenous to its own industrialized North and agrarian South. It is a unique symbiosis founded on the interaction of land and water. 1 Through the late nineteenth century, inhabitants of Salem, Cumberland, and Cape May counties depended upon the water for four critical reasons: food, employment, transportation, and energy. Fishermen, whalers, and oystermen reaped abundant shellfish from the salty river beds; goods and produce were transported to Philadelphia markets via boat; and mills flourished along every waterway. Until the late 1800s when South Jersey was rendered accessible by the railroad, the region was unaffected by the industrial revolution due to labor shortages, few urban centers, and a lack of investment capital, as well as limited access to ports. With the arrival of the railroad, 200 years of dependence upon water travel was drastically reduced. The railroad fueled local prosperity until the early twentieth century when the many industries founded on natural resources began to decline. In addition, an increasing number of automobiles, commercial trucks-and the highways on which they traveled-decreased the dependence on rail and waterways. The combined impact has left South Jersey an isolated, economically static region dependent upon agriculture, tourism, and remnants of once-prosperous maritime and industrial activities. For this reason a variety of architectural and natural resources remain intact, and though some lack a contemporary descendant, others continue to quietly sustain a long and important tradition of agriculture, maritime, and industrial pursuits.