After years of being attacked by supporters of the science of eugenics, progressive politicians and a muckraking press describing the Jersey Pine Barrens as being an area filled with deviants, criminals and inbreeding bigamists, its people were taking matters into their own hands.

Fundraising among the local citizens provided enough money to construct a colony for boys on land donated by the state near New Lisbon. On Jan. 15, 1914, J.