200 Plus
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•December 4, 2019
Lakehurst Rumors Become Fact
In the days following World War I, the nation looked for ways to benefit from the technological advancement it had created. The Trenton Times of April 5, 1919, announced Atlantic City’s plan to be…
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•November 27, 2019
Huge Plans for Lakehurst Site
For most of World War I, the military operations at Camp Kendrick, in Lakehurst, had been kept secret because they dealt with the testing of chemical weapons. With the coming of peace, the operations…
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•November 20, 2019
Four Mile Colony Starts in Pine Barrens
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…
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•November 13, 2019
Colonies for ‘Defectives’ Proposed
As 1913 came to an end, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the law that empowered the state to sterilize criminals and those the government deemed defective. This law had been aimed…
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•November 6, 2019
Is Forced Sterilization Constitutional?
In the early 1900s, the people of the New Jersey Pine Barrens were labeled as outcast deviants and criminals. As such they came under attack from the science of eugenics and its supporters in the…
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•October 30, 2019
Miss Kite’s Influence Widespread
The people living in the New Jersey Pine Barrens were under attack from the science of eugenics and the Progressive politicians of the day. In June 1913, the Trenton Times reported from a Michigan…
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•October 23, 2019
New Governor Addresses Piney Situation
Beginning in 1912, the people of the New Jersey Pine Barrens were under attack and faced extermination. It didn’t come from an enemy army or disease, but from the modern science of eugenics and the…
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•October 16, 2019
Selling Babies, Trading Wives
Until November 1912, 48-year-old Elizabeth Kite was a little-known, European-educated social worker from Philadelphia who was working for the state of New Jersey. On the 25th, the Los Angeles Times…
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•October 9, 2019
Eugenics Sterilization Becomes NJ Law
In the spring of 1911, the New Jersey Legislature passed a bill that was signed into law by Gov. Woodrow Wilson saying, “WHEREAS, Heredity plays a most important part in the transmission of…
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•October 2, 2019
Law Targets ‘Feeble-Minded, Rapists’ and More
With the coming of the 20th century a new progressive scientific theory called eugenics was sweeping the country and attaining almost cult-like status. Coupled with a political movement of the day…
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•September 25, 2019
Perils of Science in the Pines
Today we’re told to have faith in science, that it deals with facts and that citizens and governments should base their decisions on what scientists have said. There was a time when science turned…
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•September 18, 2019
Poisonous Secrets in the Pines
World War I ended in 1918. Most Americans wanted to move on and forget rationing, the draft, chemical weapons and international affairs. The Lakehurst Chemical proving grounds were sold to the Navy…
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•September 11, 2019
Deadly Doings in the Pinelands Revealed
Mention the name “Lakehurst” to most people and they think of the U.S. Navy and giant airships. But for a brief period of time, a hundred years ago, it was a location of an Army base called Camp…
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•September 4, 2019
What’s Happening in the Pines?
The Pine Barrens of New Jersey are a place filled with legends and stories. Some, like the Jersey Devil, have been countlessly retold, while others have slowly faded from the pages of history. One…
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•August 28, 2019
The Ride Down a Dirt Road
In 2018, more than 200 years after its construction, the Cedar Bridge Tavern was about to again welcome the public – but this time not as a place to eat, drink or sleep, but to tell the story of a…
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•August 21, 2019
Digging Deeper in the Pines
The story of what it took to save the historic site known as Cedar Bridge Tavern is one of luck and dedication. It was purchased by Ocean County in 2007, and preliminary archaeological digs and…
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•August 14, 2019
Digging Up History at the Tavern
As you stand on a dirt road just off Route 72 in Barnegat surrounded by what is called the Pine Barrens and look at the fully restored Cedar Bridge Tavern, most people ask how and why. The Press of…
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•August 7, 2019
Digging for the (Arti)Facts
In December 2007, Ocean County purchased the Cedar Bridge Tavern and its 5 acres of land for $120,000 with the stipulation that Rudy Koening, the former owner, could remain there until his death.…
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•July 31, 2019
Growing Support to Save the Tavern
An article in the March 18, 1871, Trenton State Gazette told the story of a group of Pennsylvania hunters who had traveled to New Jersey in search of game birds.
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•July 24, 2019
Saving the Cedar Bridge Tavern
If you had been with Henry Carlton Beck in 1934, when he first visited the Cedar Bridge Tavern in Barnegat, there is no way you could imagine that 85 years later it would be restored, open to the…
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•July 17, 2019
A ‘New City’ in the Pinelands?
Today as you visit Ocean County’s newly restored Cedar Bridge Tavern, off Route 72 in Barnegat, you should take a moment while enjoying the silence to reflect on the fact that if things had gone…
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•July 10, 2019
Fire Rips Through the Pines
Cedar Bridge Tavern today is the centerpiece for Ocean County’s Parks Department. It stands alone in a clearing surrounded by forest, but twice during the 20th century the historic site was on the…
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•July 3, 2019
Saving the History of Cedar Bridge
Today when we talk about Cedar Bridge, we mean the tavern building recently reopened by Ocean County after years of archaeological research and restoration as a museum depicting life in the Pine…
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•June 26, 2019
History Lives in Cedar Bridge Tavern
Located on Route 72 in Barnegat Township is a historic marker next to a dirt road. If you leave the highway and enter, it’s like traveling back in time until you come to the Cedar Bridge Tavern. Now…
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•June 19, 2019
Is It Too Late to Save Barney?
During the winter of 1919, it became apparent the famous Barnegat Lighthouse was in danger of being washed into the Atlantic. At first, federal officials showed little interest in saving it; instead…
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•June 12, 2019
Battle Waged to Save Barney
In April 1919, Associated Press articles told the country that the famed lighthouse at Barnegat Inlet was in danger of falling into the sea. This was a time before local historical societies or…
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•June 5, 2019
Imminent Threat to Old Barney
The battle for Barnegat Light would be one fought with words, not bullets, but it was a David versus Goliath story of a few local citizens versus the bureaucracy of the federal government. Like all…
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•May 29, 2019
Post-War Changes in Ocean County
The spring of 1919 witnessed a war-weary country trying to return to normal. But as they say, war changes everything, and Ocean County was no exception. Over 1,000 men and women served during the…
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•May 22, 2019
Memorial Day Takes New Form
The story of Memorial Day – which, along with Labor Day, has become a government proclaimed three-day weekend, with both bookending the summer tourist season – has evolved over the years, with events…
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•May 8, 2019
Suffrage for 1920 in Senate’s Hands
Alice Paul of New Jersey, head of the National Women’s Party, faced three increasingly more difficult hurdles on the road to passage of the constitutional amendment that would give all women the vote…
