OB.IGIK OF THE JACKSOH WHITES OF THE HAMAPO MOUNTAINS -~~"~ BI JQHH C. STORMS \ copywrighted 1*958
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GEKEKAL CHAHACTBRISTICS
It seems strange that a group of human beings that differ so much from the people around them should live isolated and so little known as the resi- dents of the Ramapo Mountain region and the surrounding country* Here are to be found the Jackson-Whites, a people of mixed blood, about whose origin, antecedents, and even their very name, practically nothing authentic has been known until very recently* Following are samples of the published statements that from time to time have appeared in print* The first is from the pen of a professor of ethnology, who claimed to have made a study of the Ramapo mountaineers* "The term *Sackson Whit*1 is applied to a race of people numbering several thousand persons scattered throughout northern Bergen, Passaic, and Sussex Counties in Hew Jersey* and in souhtern Rockland and Orange Counties in ^ New York State* They differ in many ways from other > residents of this territory, but because of their long p c. residence they are accepted with little or no attention Q oi c being given to their real origin, the generally accepted jg ^~ £' idea being that they are simply a mixture of white and W Q <» negro races*" 85 Q S The next quotations are from social qworkers who visited them. gJ reticence and a suspicion of strangers has made It practically impossible to arrive at authentic information* Added to this the fact that the better informed residents of the surrounding region have looked with distaste on these mountaineers as a rather disreputable mongrel race, offspring of Negroes and Whites. Such information as was to be had was from seclusion, with no real results; and newspaper writers who were more interested in obtaining the facts* The result has been a portrayal of merely the sordid outward conditionsi and superficial statements of things as they appear today* The following description is intended to trace from their sources the various streams of humanity that, flowing Xl> i froia widely separated points, converged in this mountain retreat, and formed the beginning of the people who have come to be known as Jackson Whites* TUSCARORA INDIANS ARRIVE Originally the Bamapo Mountain region was a favorite resort of the Hagingashackie (Eackensack) Indians, part of the Lenni Lenape family of Iriquois. It was a region that abounded in bears* deer, and smaller game, and was a regular hunting ground of the Red Men. These aborigines had practically all disappeared by the end of the seventeenth century* However, a few remained, together with a scattered population that had sought the security of the mountains to evade their brother white man, his laws and customs* Thus it was a sort of No Mans* Land. The first real influx of a permanent population in the Hamapo Mount- ains was in 1714. This was a remnant of the Tuscarora Indians* A colony of German settlers who occupied what is now the counties of Bertie and Halifax in the northestern part of the Colony of North Carolina, so angered the original occupants of the land, the Tuscaroras, by encroch- ing on their land, driving game from the woods and fish from the streams, they plotted and executed a bloody massacre of the settlers* In retalia- tion the Whites summoned help from the neighboring colony of South Carolina which sent six hundred riflemen to avenge the slaughter. The punishment sustained by the Red Men was so severe, and their losses so great that they soon begged for peace on any terms* This was granted, with a proviso that twenty of the Indians who had been leaders in the struggle against the whites be handed over to the British authorities for a sat&tary punishment* This treaty between the Indians and the English was signed on October 8t 1711* From time to time thereafter, the natives wandred away, principally northward, their spirit completely broken by the chastisement they had received. Negotiations were entered into, and finally the pricipal exmdus occurred. This is told in an item found on page 22 of the Rolls Office in London, England, under date of April 21, l?6l. where occurs the following: "The Tuscaroras will move from Bertie this week to New York on invitation from Sir William Johnson to unite with his people* The attorney-general advanced 1200 pounds to aid in buying wagons and provisions on the credit of their land." page Apparently for several years these emigrations occurred* In the early part of the nineteenth century took place practically the final trek of the fuscaroras* The official records of the State of North Carolina contain this notation: MHinety-eight years after creation of reservation (l802)» the descendants and people of old King Blount left their ancient granting grounds and joined their kinsmen, the Iroquois, or Six Nations of Hew York** It is stated in "WheelerfA Reminiscences of North Carolina", Chapter XXII, That? "The exodus was under lead of Sacarusa, whose grandson later became the king of the Sandwich Islands." Over the Cumberland Trail in bodies and separately came the Indians, bringing all their possessions* They were going into a new and forAign land, eight hundred miles from the home of their forefathers} into a cold. Inhospitable northern country, entirely different from the flat coastal plain to which they were accustomed. Arrived at the Raaapos a atop was made for a time; perhapi it was because it afforded a secure haven in its mountain fastness; perhaps it was because there were to be found congenial spirits among the remaining Hagingashackies and the wild renegades who were hiding there. But the ultimate object was to unite theirs with the powerful Five Nations that ruled the country to the north- ward. The Iroquois had a semi-substantial government, with what amounted to a capitol at the Long House, located at Gnandaga, fifty-four miles east of the present city of Utica. To this point the chiefs and braves of the Tuscaroras repaired, and thereafter became merged into the Six Nations of the confederacy* However, the women, children, old men and a few others elected to remain for the present, at least, in the Eamapos. The Hcvenkopf (so called by the Butch for "High Head11) rearing eight hundred and fifty feet in height, seemed to offer a place of comparative security for the wanderers. It is probable that the original intention was for those who thus were left behind to eventually follow their kinsmen further north* It is known that to this day there are occasionally visits paid to this region by representatives of the tribes from the central part of Hew lork State. They seek certain places and conduct ritual services, probably in relation to some who are buried there* This, then, represents the first real influx into the mountains, and consti- tuted the first element in the race of people that grew up there, and has become known as Jackson Whites* THE HESSIAN ELEMENT It is a far cry to search for the origin of the Jackson Whites to move the Scene across the Atlantic Ocean, but it was in Germany that the second element of this race was recruited. In the petty principalities of Brunswick and Hesse Cassel, two minor German divisions, an agent of King George III of England was at work "hiring" troops for his sovereign to send to America to help subdugt his rebellious subjects. It was apparent that more men were needed, and to save his own people the emissary was commissioned to deal with the landgraves tor soldiers to augment the British force in America. •mr «» * The term to "hire" and "soldiers" are misnomers, as is apparent from the following quotations: " present of a tall, strapping fellow was at that time an acceptable compliment from one prince to another, and in every regiment were many deserters from the service of neighboring states. Together with this mixed rabble served the honest peasant lads of Germany forced from their ploughs. It may be noted, as a general rule, that the regiments sent to America in 1776 were made up of better material than the best of recruits subsequently furnished. "In those days a German recruit was a slave, no more, no less, and he was not otherwise treated than a slave•** "The pitiful king of England and the piteous sovereign of Germany leagued together to buy and sell the blood of the unprotected German peasant." — "She German Element in the War of American Independence" George Washington Green, if76. V "Spendthrifts, loose livers, drunkards, arguers, restless people, and such as might cause political trouble, each not more than sixty years old and of fair health and stature, were forced into the ranks*" — "The BessianA and Other Auxiliaries of Great Britain in the Revolutionary War" Edward Jackson Lowell, l88^» It appears that the force thus secured amounted to fifteen companies of five regiments each, four grenadier battalions, two yager companies, and some artillery* Max Von EIking- asserts that there were twelve thousand and fifty-four men, besides staff officers, supply trains, servant men, and two field artillery companies. The Duke of Brunswick received $11*66 for each soldier who was wounded and three times that much for each one who was killed* fie expressed regret that the men wfere not killed fast enough to enable him to collect the larger amount for their deaths, and to furnish others to take their places* During the eight years of the war the principality of Hesse Cassel received from Great Britain for these soldiers that it contributed 2•959,800 pounds* This statement is made on the authority of "German Allies in the American devolution." For his services in securing these men to fight Great Britain's battles, the English king presented his agent with a diamond ring valued at 100 pounds* Reaching America under duress, placed in the forefront at every important battle in which they were engaged, beaten by their officers with the broadside of swords if they attempted to retreat, made to do the menial labor of the British companions, their fate was a particularly cruel one* With no interest in the outcome of the military struggle, unfamiliar with the theory of "liberty1* for which the Americans were fighting, it is not to be wondered at that they proved unfaithful and deserted the Army at every opportunity. In the fighting that took place in the vicinity of Hew York City, from the camps scattered throughout this region, and at the marches across New Jersey, these men, known by the general name of Hessians, page five fled" to the nearest place of safety — the Ramapo Mountains* There was no possibility of escape, no opportunity to return to their native landt so they made for themselves homes in their retreat, mated with those they found already there, and reared families* THE ENGLISH WOMEN Again the scene shifts, and this time it is in England itself where the action took place* The British War Office had a problem on lite hands »— keeping Kea York City loyal to the crown as a Tory city, while keeping thou- sands of its soldiers In the military camp that General Clinton had established there* Soldiers of the rough and ready sort that comprised the average British Tommy of that day might easily by careless freeness have turned the entire city against England, and caused it to staunchly support the American causej it might, if pressed too hard, go over entirely to the tobacco-raising Virginian men who had already caused so much trouble. But there was a way out of the difficulty, a way that had long been in vogue by warring European nations, in fact by England herself* A little judicious questioning and a mam was found who would accept the undertaking* The man's name was Jackson — history has preserved for us nothing mote about him than this* not even his given name. We do not know whether he was a resident of London or not, though presumably he was, as he was known to the War Office located there* A contract was entered into that Jackson was to secure thixfy~five hundred young women whom England felt i% could very well dispense with, and transport them to America to become the intimate property of the Army quartered in Hew York City, thus relieving the terision now felt that at any moment these same soldiers might take to themselves such of the residents as temporarily pleased their fancy* The government was to furnish transportation for the victims of thisylot, and on their arrival in New York would provide for them in its own way. At the close of the war* which would soon end, as other plans for speedily crushing this rebellion were being perfected, some method of caring for the situation would be devised* When Jackson delivered the required number of females his contract would be completed. For his services the man was to be paid in English gold; the best information that is now obtainable is that it was to be 2 pounds for each female. Jackson set his agents at the task of recruiting from the inmates of the brothels of London, Liverpool, Southhampton and other English cities along the sea coast* These men must needs work quietly and quickly; the women were averse to the plan* the people might at any moment be roused to action against it. Not that there was a general feeling of pity that these women were being practically sold into slavery in a foriegn country, but Jack on and his men were none too scrupulous as to the character of those whom they captured* If a young woman or matron chanced to be on her way home from her occupation, or on the street on an honest mission, she fared the same fate as the inmates of the houses of ill fame, and many a respectable working girl or young house- wife was shanghaiied and carried off to a life of shame across the sea* Jackson loaded his human cargo into vessels in the harbors, forced them below decks and battened down the hatches to prevent escape, even suicide by ; /age. six ";••. leaping overboard* Every available vessel that was seaworthy was in use for transport for soldiers and supplies for the army, none could be spared except thet'i merest hulks. Twenty of these Jackson used* All set sail for America, but on the way across the ocean a violent storm arose* Some of the vessels became separated from the others. At last, one by one, they reached New York nineteen of them* Somewhere one had foundered in mid ocean, carrying down to a more merciful fate fifty women and the entire crew. Payment per head made this loss a serious matter in the eyes of Jackson* with the added possibility that failure to hand over the stipulated number of women might be used as an argument to cancel his contract. Accordingly, one vessel was despatched to the West Indies, most assessable Britsh possession* loaded with negresses collected in the same manner as the others had been, and brought to New York, While these plans had been put in operation, the British soldiers had not been permitted to remain idle. Lispemard's Meadows had been secured as quarters for the anticipated "guests", and was being duly prepared, The Meadows was a large open space located in the vicinity of the part of Hew York now knowi^ as Greenwich Village. It was the property of a Frenchman named Lispenard, who operated a disillery in /the vicinity. It consisted of several acres of open country* The preparations that the soldiers made consisted of the erection of a high strong wooden palisa&do around the entire tract, with only a single gate that could be easily guarded. Inside of the enclosure rude shelters were built in which the inmates could huddle together. A quantity of firewood was brought in and deposited at various convenient points. Then the soldier-workmen with- drew —— Great Britain had provided all that it considered necessary or advis- able. When the vessels arrived, their human cargoes were unloaded, and under strict military guard were marched to the Meadows and locked in the stockade. At that time a sizable pool of water was located where the Tombs and other city buildings are now located. It was known as Collect Pond* In it was Magazine Island, where the Arsenal was situated, and where the public hangings took place. The Pond was fed by water^rom springs and the low ground known as the Swaap, now the leather district of the city. It lay at the foot of a considerable hill at what is now Broadway and Worth Street, trom the Pond flowed a small stream to the westward, along the present course of Canal Street, and to which the thoroughfare is indebted for its name. This stream flowed flowed through Lispenard*s Meadows, emptying into the Hudson fiiver. It constituted the only water supply for the unfortunate inmates of the stockade, for drinking, cooking, washing and all sanitary purposes. ORIGIH OF THE NAME The daily Tory newspaper of the city gives us in its files a cross section of the life if the time, and from its references to army life as it touched the unfortunates confined at Lispenard's Meadows, may be learned the solution to one of the most perplexing puzzles regarding the Jackson-White people — the origin of their name* From 1??3 to 1775 this paper was known as "livington*s New York Gazeteer." There were no issues during 1776, but in 1777 it blossomed out again as "Riving- ton's Loyal Gazette". Beginning with the issue of December 13» 1779* it bore page seven the title "Loyal Gazette1*, until it finally ceased publication entirely on November 27, 1?83* In these columns occur references of visits paid by various companies of soldiers to "Jackson's Whites'* and sometimes to "Jackson's Blacks". These sly hints are made in a jocular vein, seem to carry no stigma, reproach, or violation of military discipline. The terms "Whites" and HBlacksn following Jackson's name quite clearly show to which group of inmates of the stockade the visitors* attention was paid. Here, at last, we have solved the riddle of the name "Jackson-Whites". To the women inmates it was applied in jest, to them it clung and to their descendants to the present day. Finally fate's pendulum swung back again and England's supremacy in America visibly waned* Following' military reverses the British beheld the despised Virginian marching victoriously down Broadway, leading his American army* This was no time for parleying, the only thought was of escape. Soldiers were herded to the British war vessels lying off the Battery, Tories crowded among them, all seeking to leave for the most convenient English refuge. Ten thousand men crowded abord vessels and sailed away, principally to Halifax and St. Johns* Suddenly someone remembered the hundreds of English women imprisoned at Lispenard's Meadows* There was no room to take them along, even if there had been the inclination! there was no time, for Washington and his men could be seen advancing as the last British soldiers crowded onto the vessels* A hurried order was given, a messenger rode pell me&b to the Meadows, unbarred and threw open the big gate of the stockade, and hurried back to escape from the city with his comrades* Out of the stockade gate poured the motley throng of women, after several years of imprisonment in their noisome quarters. Soon the party separated} about five hundred of the women decided to go northward, and wandered along the shore of the Hudson Biver until they reached open country in the vicinity of the present town of Hoosick Falls, one hundred and fifty miles from their former prison* There they remained, a diminishing group until about forty years ago, when they finally disappeared entirely, the last of the race having died* By far the larger portion of the living stream that flowed out of Lispen- ard's Meadows on that eventful Evacuation Day of 1783, by some now unknown means reached the western shore of the Hudson. Perhaps they were hurriedly ferried across the river in some of the war vessels as a final act of humanity. At any rate, the tatterdemalion crowd reached the New Jersey side and took up its pilgrimage, strangers in a foreign land, with no place to go* The horde has been estimated at about three thousand or Slightly more* Although many of the women had died from exposire and sickness, there had been a limited increase by births. To the company was added a few soldiers who preferred to cast their lot in with the refugees, having formed a quasi attachment for some member of it* Tories, too, who had been unable to secure passage to the Canadian ports considered their bodily safety rather than their social standing, for it was certain that Manhattan Island had suddenly become too small for both patriots and Tories to live on* Then, too, the confusion of departure afforded an added opportunity for a number of Hessians to make their escape, a fact that may have been winked at by the authorities that despised them, and had found them unsatisfactory as soldiers. Then followed another memorable trek* Across the Hackensack Meadows, up the Saddle River valley these derelicts made their way on foot* Women carried page- eight infants in their anas, older children clung to their tattered skirts, still older ones ran hither and yon, rejoicing in a new freedom tthat they were unable to understand* Pillaging of orchards and deliberate raids on fields and gardens provoked the farmers, who drove the wanderers on with hard words and often with harder blows, all of which was retaliated. No one wanted these unfortunates* When they stopped to rest the neighborhood dogs were set on them. At last, with Oakland past, the crowd entered Ramapo Pass and soon found itself in a country that, while wild and inhospitable in character, yet offered the boon of peace? there was no one to drive them away. Here the colony scattered, finding shelters in the woods and among the rocks* Here the indi- vidual members found companionship of peaceful Indians, escaped outlaws, Hessians, runaway slaves — there was ample companionship, and it was readily accepted* NEGROES ARE ADDED The story of negroe slavery in America is too well known to need any explanation here. The Dutch kept these bondmen as servants principally, and the bondage was not particularly hard in most cases. Still, it frequent^ happened that these slaves would seek their own freedom, and the most access- able place and the most secure was the fastness of the Ramapos, The state of lew Jarsey legally abolished all slavery after the year 1820, but all colored persons who were born after iBo^f were to be automatically free. Some continued with their former masters from voluntary choice, having nowhere to go and no means of securing a living* In the year 1835 there were, accord- ing to statistics, 22^5 slaves still held in New Jersey* But the colored men and women who had taken refuge in the mountains added largely to the population that sprang up there. None of the usual social restraints interfered to curb the wildest passions. AH ITALIAM STHAIN About 1870 the arrival of two brothers in this vicinity added to the mixture of blood and largely increased the population in a few years. These were James and Joseph Castaglionia, who had just arrived from Italy, and were the first persons of this nationalijty to settle in the vicinity, James married Delilah Sniffin, started as a blacksmith and horse trader, but later became a general contractor ajad padrone, acquiring considerable money and property, Joseph settled on a farm near his brother, east of Montvale, New Jersey, and married tabby DeFriese. Both of these women inherited a longing for the free life of the mountains, being of Jackson-White descent} Llbby had also a strain of fu^irora blood* fhe offspring of these families naturally gravitated to the orginal homes of their mothers, and by settling in the mountains added a trace of Italian blood to the already much-crossed strains* The original name of this family almost immediately became lost, and for it the shorter "Casalony" was substituted. MIXED BLOOD From the foregoing it will be seen that the people known as Jackson-Whites have been recruited from three continents — America, Europe and Africa} four countries — the United States, Sigland, Germany and Italy — have furnished citizens? the influx into the maintains came in five separate streams — tolas Indi«nsf HmsBimmB, proetitutes, slaves and outlave{ and tkar« were six raceo in th« ttlxture —• R«d Men, Aaeriean Tories, Kegroes, English «OJK«IV« Teutons, and rane.^ades .£*>©» the tluittd :Jtat«s. Th» Mtp&rate #xasapl««, never of a high grade, from both association, a»d environffl«Bt, dropped loser and lower in the Social scalef education and morals war* rorg«ttee| thers was practically no intercourse with the oatsiaa world* If the {sourstainaors wera l«ft alone th«y d«aired to avoid all contact with outside insfXvWMftcea. Th« only law they knaw or r«cogJiis&ed was ifeat of retalia- tion, Itoy uia »ot call on outsiders to mediae®, hut settled taeir quarrals among thes alvss, and in tb#ir own way. If legal authorities atfc^isptad to interfere, th«j wars set with A stoical lack of k©owl©%© tfeat ®ould aak« legal #itne©*:«j» of thess, ftcd resisted #n &asa« th« iatrusioa of &utlboria«d authority* a aaf.-a»ii» «rlt*r who »o^> tifi» ago »ad© a fitu4y of th& faistl^ rolatlOEship© of the ¥a» SvLwk of today may l«cora« %h® Mr«> .P* Sroai Of tomorrow !-l«.Bi»t perhaps, of th» gb^ tlu»r« feaiB b«en comparatively littl* against theaa p o^l-s, at l»ast, fen have co»«> to the atteBtion of tfco.se of what th& :•;'*.*antaiiwera ©««« to regard. a» th«ir |M>rs»o»'*l ted ©xeluaiv* l»aili» wick* It is net to b# supposed, hoarevor, that the paaslo&a which roit@« .a«B and wota«R to a fat&l f re nay in th« outeida world are all amicably settled among th« p«opl« this book has described. XB tfe© few f#rk *Stta" of S»c#»lwinr 1^»» 19X2, was pa.bli»k® SfTOBT fh« first r-aal effort to 4© real missionary work aatong th«s« and OK« Kliich MA a liaitad good off«ct was mada by Hr« and Kre# Whsatoc, «!iO s#r«i at tha tine rasider.ts of Park Bidg«t. ^©» Jersey, s4«rt tha for»#r had sos5« titoo pr*viou®ly h«ld a bri«f position «m the Sorcaigh Council Hr# ihsatoa «&© bora is Va.lp»r«i»ot Cbilt, oa sapt«al»*r 1S» his father »%s ir. the ©nsul&r S«rvic« of tfc« United r.tatss* •Sh«n the boy was five vasra oT age, hie aether paeeed away. the lad w%« s«Bt to relatives ia Iiidi-r,va arhare !i© gr«w up, developing fiso artistic ability* Ho was adept ir< paintijtig pictures of acimals, and sosa of his «ork say be iia tkc art sitiwios and th« Kational Aead jsay of Ueeigu in Boston* His most noted production is o»tifcl«d **|jagarH &nd repraaects a sheep lest ic a blinding snowstora. Thm •£Jfecte sf a». attack of »carl«t f»«*r when. Mr» *h»ato» was thirty- four years of ago aade it necessary to amputate oc« of hies ftrs, ^'fmaion. was a graduate of ^«llesl#y Collega. It has been stated that at one tisc sbs held a profe»oorehip thare. At any rat®, sh« was highly educated a.n£ rs ?ir,ed* Both • r« and !'T®, *rii©aton bocam« d*«ply interoatsdi i» th# condition of th« Jackwo»»;'?bit«8t aod aftar paying frequ«Bt visit* to the Bamapo ^fountain' •page ten homes* decided that in ord«r to really be of substantial aid to these people it would be necessary to live among them and to become part of them. This was not an easy thing to do, as the mountaineers steadfastly opposed the intrusion of any outsiders among them, no matter how friendly the purpose might be* fPhe iffheatons bought a tract of forty-two acres on top of the Hovenfcopf in 1902. Disposing of their Park Bidge property, they had all of their household possessions moved to the foot of the mountain, waiting for an opportunity to settle in a three-room cabin that they had built on their property. After nightfall two yoke of oxen laboriously pulled the furniture up the mountain path, and the following morning the natives were surprised and angered to find Mr* and Mrs* iheaton established among them. Efforts tc create friend- ly relations between the newcomers and their neighbors were discouraging at first, but finally bribes of coins and cookies resulted in bringing a few of the younger children to the Whaaton home, where the front room was used as a school, with Mrs, Wheaton as teacher. SHE &TAfE TAKES A HAND Hesuits, too, were far from encouraging. Home life was not conducive to successful education, and classes in cooking, personal cleanliness and house- hold matters had no basis. Still, the teacher struggled on and finally, was able to enlist the financial and social backing of Miss Nora E, Snow, a well- to-do and influential resident of Hillburn, New York* The matter of condi- tions on the mountain were laid before the Sew Jersey state authorities, in which state the schoolhouse was actually located, and tfohokue Township was ordered to provide school facilities and a teacher. A new building was erect- ed near the Wheaton home, a regular teacher secured, and the prescribed course of one-room rural schools put in practice. It still was difficult to secure scholars, as the mountain retreats sheltered practically all of those who did not want to be enrolled. A cross-section of the inter-breeding among these p»ople is shown in a recent survey of the school attendance* There were twenty-four scholars, all related to a greater or lesser degree, among whom only four family names appeared on the register. These were Buries* De Oroat, Mann, and Casalony. In the general population on the mountain a census of one hundred and fifty persons taken at random, showed the following: Mann, 60; Be Groat, 40; Van Bunk, 20j De Friesa, 15. It has bean shown that ninety-five psr cent of the residents bear the name of D© Groat, Van Dunk or Mann* Having grovra old, and suffering from the necessity of using a wooden stump for a leg, Mr* fheaton Ira. September 1930 was removed to the Rockland County Almshouse at Viola, Here he remains, a quiet, contented old man, giving no trouble to the attendants, and following the artistic tendency of a lifetime. He wanders about the grounds of the institution, painting whatever suits his fancy* selling his pictures to any interested vioitor. A recent inquiry addressed to the authorities at the institution was answered by one of the officials to the effect that nothing definite was known of the present whereabouts of Mrs. Wheaton* but it was believed that she is making her home somewjgere in Paterson. The efforts of Miss Snow were not confined to installing merely a school teacher when she assumed the task of instructing native Jackson^Whites; she engaged a combination teacher and community nurse. This lady, a person of Southern birth and education* went to the homes not only of her scholars, but •page eleven '" every other house where she could gain admittance, and added instruction to the residents in home making, nursing and a degree of medical care* Finally the help of some of the men in the community was secured, treee were cut down and a little chapel built by them. Preachers from the nearby communities now hold regular services there, in a rotation of Sundays each month* Joseph Graham, a young man of good education and regular training is now the teacher at the school* He is of the opinion that the average Jackson- White is of znental and moral ability with those outside of the mountain dis- trict, and if economic conditions were favorable, he would laake a thoroughly satisfactory citizen* A TYPICAL FAMILY In concluding this history of the Jackson-Whites of the Raiaapos a life story of a single family may be cited, to illustrate several of the statements made in the foregoing* In the latter part of the eighteenth century a Dutchman named De Groat moved into the mountains, marrying a Tuscarora Indian woman* Of their familyjp the daughter*s offspring is here traced/ The girl was named Arvalla. From her father she inherited blue eyes, yellow hair and a beautiful white skin* The mother*s contribution to the physical attractions of her daughter were tall, straight litheness that betokened her Indian ancestry, Raturally, as Arvalla grew to young womanhood she had many admirers, and it is said that she was followed by every young man of the mountains, all desirous to be her beaux* The girl chose as her consort Charles Mann, a Hegro. The couple had thirteen children all of their own* One of these children was named William, born about 1850. On reaching, young manhood William married a negress, who bore a son, Charles, about 1900. The son is the father of a daughter and two sons* In th© summer of 1935 the writer visited the scene, and interviewed William. The old man conversed readily, but was unable to #ell how old he was or when his wife died* He said he had "heard something about there being a Civil War, but did not know anything about it." Oenerally, he said, he eultivated a "little patch of greens and Haters, but this year, didn't plant any thing's as he was on relief* Elizabeth was another of Arvalla1s children. She married a negro named Conklin. Two of their daughters <• Lillian and Bess - showed unmistakable evidence of a higher intelligence. They attended the school and in 1906 were legally adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Wheaton as their own daughters* The occupation of the Kackson-White in hunting, fishing, which the women of the family usually combine a desultory fora of gardening* The making of splint baskets is carried on to a considerable extent, the men frequently cutting suitable lengths, after which the female members of the family do the weaving* Some of these baskets show skill and a degree of original design in the arranging of the colored splints that ornament them* To stain splints red they are soaked in a solution of boiled tag elder bark and bicarbonate of soda* Yellow color is obtained from hickory bark. •page - sassafras root awl alita* The Jalco of the £>ok# berry farxtisfe®* a ©lu» st*ia* tHe winter's accumulatioa of basksts is offered t© resl&rsts of the ©urrowEdtjjg courstrj« «&•& ssvsraX t«M8«B of the fasily sake a tour in the spring, ttm fe»«fe&ts ©trtusg; on a afcring arouiKi their afcouXddre* flea-ceding the «OH4»B« fcto mas- of fci» £«a&ly walk**, all observing strictly the file as was t'm Swtteli of fch«ir as eators. household utaissils io also of is\«ix ojrtfi««l ancestry fls.«y be foan 8BJPTIII0 ygR Mi Achara.cterietic isei4eat occurred a .few years ago* A constable and hi® companion .:^rotr© to 6h« foot of the m* uat&in and then walked up a foot patfa* Approachiisc1; a cleariu.g- whar# they hear^i the soscd of woodcutting1, th*y &&&- covered « t&llt ajafular »«.» 1E front ©f a oii«~rooti shacfc* %h&n WB>¥0 looH'l&c f©r a c«rt'J,i.» *la-ckeoR»^lsite w-ho *a» to b# arrested for alleged ciiicfiau stealing* rt t.o th«» iaa«.t i!o yout know John —•.«——*?«*• .por aodde«i his h«a«Sf but ©aid nothing, wWfe®r@ «^oas !'«« Iiv»?tt was th» next inquiry. A. gestu?® e* th>? thaab towardn th© cabin w@« t&« only "Tell .?©••':» to eos» out, I want to sw»« nia, •• th® offiear ordered. Car** fully the ss&n put hi» %xo down a»d wal?»d i»to th* houee* A. ss©ja«Bt later tfe« door opened the s%ia$ m^n appeared, a long ©qu.irr©l gun at his &;ioui-iar, pointed directly at the H 3 «loh.B ««..»—.,»«,.*•«f iio you waist ®»? in a soft v,oic*t '»*A*k csrtaia in it, ss..i^ the i "So, I t|a»t a- ant«'3 to tccow whers you »r«»** JUt w»» the hurriad reply,, and the two' s»s fca,«fce4. i©w» tfce mountain» r««olv«d tn«t if tia«y *«r® lo£*tu»at« » enough to [email protected]# with their lives they would nw&r «^:ain attsapt to **•*••«#••*»*•*• in tfe® f*Xleria K.-me for &£«4 a«tf Homeleec rear fluff»r»t ^«w fork* ^t^a ep®«t Jii* d*cli»i»g years quietly, doisf a littl* paintias for vieifce>,r*» wko ,pai4 AH&iill ause for his work a© soaveaiss* M# <£i» His fu»$r&l «ae .atie»«i« 201-962-6256 page All record of the lady who succeeded the first Mrs. Wheaton seems to be lost* She was last heard of in Paterson. Joseph Graham did an excellent job as teacher of the Mountain School, as it was officially called, and was later absorbed into the fiidgewood teaching system. Until the Mountain School was closed a copy of one of Mr. Wheaton1s paintings, portraying the sheep which it was pleasure of the artist to paint, hung on the wall. In the cemetery on Lonesome Peak, a point about a half-mile from the principal settlement, are the graves of several soldiers who died in World War I. It is hard to find places on this mountain top where there is eno?rgh dirt to be opened for a grave, so the spots are scattered. However, the final resting place of these people shows evidence of thought- ful care, being bordered by field stones, flowers planted and tended, and sometimes lettered headstones. The soldiers' graves have flags, and inscriptions tailing of their military service. The colony is fast losing its former reputation for dissipation and lawlessness. The hojises are for the most part neat, with flowers, and small gardens. Most of the men find employment in the foundry at Ramapo* lillburn, -Suf fern-, or Kingwood. That not all tha spirit has died out of these people in the change from the old order to the new is shown by the following incident: One of the mountain men bought an automobile through an ageat in a nearby town* He faithfully kept up his payments until he owed only the final installment* When this money was not forthcoming, the city financing company, knowning nothing about thectransactxon except what appeared on its books, sent its collector to bring the car in, With a local officer the collector called at the nan's mountain home, found no one there and no trace of the car. They then went to the place where the man worked, inquired for him, telling their errand. His employer expressed surprise, giving* the man an excellent reputation for steady work and trustworthiness. He sent for the dalinquent. v*hen confronted by the officials the man replied, "There is the car in the parking; lot, it's mine, and I'll kill any man who tries to take it away from me." He looked formidable enough to carry out his threat. It soon developed that it was a rascally agent who had not raade proper return of the man's payments, The car was left with the mountaineer, and the finance company brought suit against its agant, recovering the money* A report recently published in the "Journal of the Medical Society of Hew Jersey" (September 19^0) deals with a certain phase of life among the Jackson-Whites, even of today. It relates and illustrates the condition of polydactylism (extra fingers or toes) and syndactylism (webbed fingers or toes.) It related the case of % Jackson-rWitaLte family where seven of its nine children had one or more of these peculiarities. It was found that this condition had existed for four generations of this family. Th® only other recorded instance of a recurrence in a family to such an extent is said bo be in Horth Carolina k page fourteen ***?-- fhese Jackson-Whites who had webbed fingers were able to grasp with .their* hands only to a limited extent. Some who had an extra toe to ,two could never w ar a shoe, because the toe stuck out away from the foot. The article explains the surgical treatment that was required. Quoting the causes for such a condition, the writer states that it is due to "inbreeding, low intelligence, dietary deficiencies and poverty." Several years ago a sensational Kew York magazine published a lurid ancount of what purported to be a visit by one of its reporters among the mountain people, telling of their belief in witchcraft, evil eye, conjuring, etc., holding them up to general ridicule. It was fictitious in the ex- trame, representing all the natives as ignorant, superstitious, wicked and vindictive. Whatever may have been the characteristics of the original settlers, the article was vicious fabrication, in no way applicable to present residents. The story reached the attention of the mountaineers who have ever since resented the aspersions cast on them and do not want strangers among them* Children who live across the line in New York State attend the Hillburn school, and those who live in Kew Jersey attend the schools in Mahwah and .Ramsey. Their record in the elementary school is excellent, the percentage of absenteeism is much better than that of the white children. They dis- play eagerness to study and receive good marks. There are a number of these scholars in the Mahwah High School where they are doing excellent work; Frost this there have come several students who now attend State College at Rutgers, and others are in colleges in other states. Girls from the Mountain School are now attending nursing schools and other advanced lines. Others have found e*aployraent in the Ford cafeteria and other restaurants. The schoolhnuse on the mountain is used for religious services, weddings, social affairs and a community center. A number of the younger generation have come into Mahwah, where they have sectxred comfortable homes for their families, principally on Grove Street near the church. This has become a center for their activities and they have enlarged it and do much to support it» Among the activities in which they are engaged are Boy Scouts, the PTA, and the National Organization for the Advancement of Colored People. ***************** RINGD PUBLIC UBRARY from this room wood- M* r NEW TRIBT|NEV These Are Jackson Whites The Jackson Whites, one of aided by Colonial patric the nation's great ethnolog- and eventually made the ical challenges, are descended way "to the Ramapo Mou from, Tuscarora Indians^ tains, taking refuge with t American Tories, English Tuscarora Indians. women, Hessian soldiers, run- Meantime, in New Yo away Negro slaves and Ameri- City another episode was u can outlaws. folding. Gen. Sir Her Almost their .entire exist- Clinton, fearing his restli ence has been spent in the British Army would infurii mountainous border area be- local Tories by acts of- < tween New Jersey and New pravity, made an agreerw York State, but their story with a broker named' Ja( began in 1761 in the British son (his first name is i colony of North Carolina known), who contracted when a band of Tuscaroras bring over 3,500 young wo was driven out after a harsh en from England as ca treaty. followers at $2 each. They made their way 800 Jackson's agents empt miles north, stopping off in the brothels of Lond the Ramapo Mountains, en Liverpool and Southamp route to the "long house" of and kidnapped innocent gi the Iroquois in Onandaga, forcing them on ships N. Y., where some merged the colonies. One ship si Crux of the Jackson Whites' future — A solitary watchman magnifies the desolateness of the dormanft mines. with the Six Nations. Others and all on board were 1 stayed in the Ramapos. Jackson, to make up for Iron Discovered loss, dispatched another s In 1763 word of copper and tp the West Indies for iron ore deposits in what is placements.. now Ringwood, N. J., reached Now Greenwich Villagi Baron Peter Hasenclever, a jovial German who bought Brought to New York, the land, sold shares in Lon- "Jackson Whites" and Ji don (including a number to son Blacks" (so named t Queen Charlotte) and re- Tory newspaper) were « turned to live in great style, fined for six years to a sti serenade^ by a German brass ade in Lispenard's Mead band on hot summer days. several acres near wha now Greenwich Village. By the beginning of the American Revolution, Robert When Washington mar/ Erskine, a young Scottish triumphantly into New 1 mining engineer, had devel- in 1783,10,000 British fie oped the mines, opening new Canada and the stocks forges and rehabilitating the gates were thrown open, company's finances. women in the stockade i Erskine, a friend of George carrying babies, were spu Washington, served as sur- by the righteous townspf veyor-general of the Revolu- and they finally crossed tionary armies while the Hudson with terrified T Ringwood? mines worked over- into New Jersey and the time turning out the cannon Ramapos, where they j< and munitions that played a ' the Hessians, Tuscaroras decisive role in the victory outlaws. over the British. Another group of w< Protected West Point from the stockade estin Herald Tribune photos.by Terence McCarten at 500, wandered alon{ Mountain homes—A group of homes inhabited by Jackson Whites. All are owned by the mining company. Much of the great iron chain placed across the Hud- Hudson shore until. son River below West Point reached open country of pollution—a threat to near- to prevent the passage of Hoosick Falls, 150 miles Forsaken Ramapo People by Wanaque Reservoir, which British ships was cast at their former prison. Bu supplies drinking water for Ringwood, a statement some- scendants of the last sur (Continued from page one) or worth saving in the shingled Newark "and other New Jersey died in the late ninet nothing much has changei melange of Jackson White pov- times disputed by historians. cities. :• Bu£ during the bitter century. since they and the mines the; erty. With the 'mines closed Foot-long rats scamper across worked helped to write a uniqui and employment cut off, 25 per struggle, King George III had Runaway Negroes yards cluttered with broken bed sent agents to the German Jersey abolished slave chapter in American history. cent of the families have turned springs, car tires and art occa- At least 5,000,000 tons of iro to relief. principalities of Brunswick 1820) found refuge ii sional chicken. Rain water col- and Hesse Cassal to recruit Ramapos before and c ore remain/ hut high productio: A number of men have gone lects in stagnant pools. Gar- costs and a depressed stee! Hessian mercenaries. To the the Civil War, addini into construction work—at best bage and trash accumulate. Duke of Brunswick, dead mer- other chapter to the Js market have kept the mine! six months of work a year—or Farming would be useless. closed, a somber tribute to ob> xenarles were worth more Whites' legacy. into factories or become la- The rocky soil is stubborn ag^ than Kve ones. He received A final chapter'was n solescence and financial pres^ borers. But skilled workers invaded by rattlesnakes. Br sures. $11.66 for every' man wound- - in 1.870 when two Sii among them are rare and sup- some vegetable gardens aj ed in action and three times married Jackson Whlt< The Jackson Whites, wh porting a family of eight or maintained. that for each one killed. added a Mediterranea prefer being called the "Rama ten children is a challenge too • Conditions inside the fade A number of Hessians fled, fluence. po Mountain People," have live< great for most. brown homes vary. Some inter in this northern teir of Passaic Bought for $650,000 ors are nearly spotless, a sig County for nearly two centuries "I know these people are the borough Board of Healt community through scattered to talk about changii oblivious to the temptations oi worried about the houses," said has made headway. But i newspaper and magazine stories something else to get it New York, fort-five miles away, Russell O. Whitney, local rep- Herald Tribune—Kavenagb. others, a lackadaisical approac ("Community of Outcasts," "A lot of us are Episa Among them are mulattos. Locating Ringwood. flourishes, spurred by tl "Tobacco Road of the North," or Methodists and Chu resentative of the Pittsburgh - crowding of two or more fan "Racial Hybrides") that added tendance is getting bis albinos and families with seem Pacific Mining Co., which pur- Ingly white and Negro and In- brought steady employment, a ilies. to the distrust easily generated the time. People herg see dian children—products of six chased the mine from the by isolation;- .-••• " " waking up." Federal government in Decem- welcome break in the decn/ie of School attendance is spot racial strains from three conti- unemployment that followed Few youngsters remain •We're Not Freaks' Frank Milligah, thi nents. Somu have full lips, ber, 1958, for $650,000. the mine's closing in 1931 be- school past age sixteen. Pa who pays $25 a month broad faces and kinky hair, oth- "I keep telling them we have cause of Western competition. ental discipline ranges from Is "Those stories were so ter- sixty-year-old house o ers high cheekbones and thin no plans to evict anybody or to But malnutritipn, filth and to severe, but local police si rible," said Mrs. Laura Rafferty, ing a main road, spoke lips. " clear the land. But the rumor inbreeding have left perma- most of their activities are coi one of the Ramapo Mountain of his construction job. Others of the same back- is still there. So long as the nent scars. Some residents suf- cemed with the mine. People. "We're not freaks or "Depends on the weal ground—an estimated 5,000 in rent ($25 to $45 per month, fer from impetigo, a skin dis-{ Except ( fbr radios blarii anything." said.- "I can work as haJ : all—rlive in near-by Rockland with a $5 rebate if the rent is ease, and have pitted or scarred rock 'n' roll and cars vital "Life up here is hard, we, next man but if there's and Orange Counties, N. Y., a paid early) covers the cost of faces. Others are victims of transportation, the outsii know that. But it's one thing (Continued on next group classified as neither white a rent collector, insurance and lung ailments. Contagion is an world has made little impa< ~^~" ' ' •' nor Indian nor Negro by the axes, the houses will stay," unending public-health menace. In turn, the cultural lore of tl United States Census Bureau Mr. Whitney said. Ninety per cent of the homes Jackson Whites remains vi ^j Exclusive and registered in statistical "It may be five or ten years lack indoor plumbing. The wat- tually unknown—even in fo *^ tables as "other non-white." before the steel market opens er supply has been ordered music and dances. Except for a handful of men up enough to make this mine closed more than once because Outsiders have learned of t) drafted in recent years, few mean anything. We have high have ever left Ringwood per- hopes and ,the company is manently. The ties are too firnx willing to give it a try. the world v>o harsh. "I know there are all kinds Their lives, misted by a fear )f local problems, but they were born of changes in the mine's lere before we took over. The ownership, revolve around the jest we can do now is to sell mine's 940 acres and the eighty- jff the obsolete equipment. three four- and five-room (Uter all, it hasn't been touched homes along wooded Millertown Road, Pipe Line Hill, Cannon n six or seven years." Mine Road, Jacob's Hill Road Government Spent $4,000,000 and Horseshoe Bend Road. Pittsburgh Pacific, which A few minutes away is his- :ontrols other mining opera- toric Ringwood Manor State ;ions in Minnesota from ite Park, a memorial to an age of lome office in Hibbing, Minn., elegance when the Erskine, ook possession after the Fed- Ryerson, Cooper and Hewitt sral government had poured families owned the. mine and In more than $4,000,000 in a ruled the countryside. Also futile attempt to make the mine near by are the trim homes of iroductive. Erskine Lakes and other mod- For the "Ramapo Mountain' ern communities. •eople," World War II and the But there is nothing quaint ieriod immediately afterward The Forsaken Jackson Whites Herald Tribune photo by Terence McCarten High in the Ramapos where the Jackson Whites live. By David Miller day they will be forced to leave and seek RINGWOOD, N. J., May 13.—A forsaken an uncertain existence elsewhere. • colony "of mixed origin, plagued by unem- "Where will we go?" they ask. "Whafr ployment and public indifference, waits will we,do?" , • ' ;V uneasEy in the sprawling Ramapo foothills To these people, known as the Jackson for the news it knows must come. - Whites and whose roots pre-date the Revo- Despite persistent assurances, the 1,000 lutionary War, uncertainty is a way of Ufa men, women" and children who occupy a " clouded by disease, inter-marriage, sus- string of ramshackle homes astride the picion, hostility and rvmor. Far them, dc aiant Eingwood iron mines dread the pf J.. Herald Tribune photos by Terence McC Mountain homes—A group of homes inhabited by Jackson Whites. All are owned by the mining compai of pollution—a threat t Forsaken Ramapo People by Wanaque Reservoir, supplies drinking wat (Continued from page one) or worth saving in the shingled Newark and other New nothing- much has change* melange of Jackson White pov- cities. Since they and the mines the: erty. With the mines closed Foot-long rats scampe worked helped to write a uniqui and employment cut off, 25 per yards cluttered with bro chapter in American history. cent of the families have turned springs, car tires and a At least 5,000,000 tons of iron to relief. sional chicken. Rain wa ore remain,'but high production A number of men have gone Iects in stagnant pools costs and a depressed steel into construction work—at best bage and trash accumul market have kept the mine: six months of work a year—or Farming would be closed, a somber tribute to ob- into factories or become la- The rocky soil is stubbc solescence and financial pres borers. But skilled workers invaded by rattlesnaki cures. among them are rare and sup- some vegetable garde The Jackson Whites, whi porting a family of eight or maintained. prefer being called the "Rama ten children is a challenge too Conditions inside th po Mountain People," have lived great for most. brown homes vary. Som to this northern teir of Passai Bought for $650,000 ors are nearly spotless County for nearly two centuries, the borough Board of oblivious to the temptations of "I know these people are has made headway, Kent York* fort-flve miles away. worried about the houses," said Herald Tribune—Kavenagk others, a lackadaisical a Among them are mulattos, Russell O. Whitney, local rep- Locating Ringwood. flourishes, spurred albinos and families with seem- resentative of the Pittsburgh crowding of two or me ingly white and Negro and In- Pacific Mining Co., which pur- brought steady employme.it, a ilies. dian children—products of six chased the mine . from the welcome break in the deenje of School attendance it racial strains from three conti- Federal government in Decem- unemployment tnat followed Few youngsters rew nents. '3om,,' have full lips ber, 1958, for $850,000. the mine's closing in 1931 be- school past age sixtee : broad faces and kinky hair, oth- "I keep telling them we have cause of Western competition. ental discipline ranges i ers high cheekbones and thin no plans to evict anybody or to But malnutrition, filth and to severe, but local po lips. " •' clear the land. But the rumor inbreeding have left perma- most of their activities • Others vt the same back, is still there. So long as the nent scars; Some residents suf- cerned with the mine. ground—an estimated 5,000 in rent ($25 to $45 per month, fer from impetigo, a,skin dis- Except, fbr radios all—live in near-by Rockland with a $5 rebate if the rent is ease, and have pitted or scarred rock 'n* roll and cars and Orange Counties, N. Y., a paid early) covers the cost of faces. Others are victims of transportation, the 1 group classified as neither white rent collector, insurance and lung ailments, Contagion is art world has made little nor Indian nor Negro by the taxes, the houses will stay," unending public-health menace. In turn, the cultural lo United States Census Bureau Mr. Whitney said. Ninety per cent of the homes Jackson Whites rems and - registered in statistical "It may be five or ten years lack indoor plumbing. The wat- tually unknown—even tables as "other non-white." before the steel market opens er .supply has been ordered music and dances. Except for a handful of men up enough to make this mine closed more than oriee because Outsiders have ?earn drafted in recent years, few mean anything. We have high haw ever left Bingwood per- hopes and >the company Is manently. The ties are too firm, willing to give it a try. the world "oo harsh. 'I know there are all kinds Their lives, misted by a fear if local problems, but they were born of changes in the mine's lere before we took over. The ownership, revolve around the >est we can do now is to sell mine's 940 acres and the eighty- )ff 'the obsolete equipment, three four- and five-room homes along wooded Millertown ifter all, it hasn't been touched Road, Pipe Line Hill, Cannon n six or seven years." Mine Road, Jacob's Hill Road Government Spent §4,000,000 and Horseshoe Bend Road. Pittsburgh Pacific, which A few minutes away is his- ontrols other mining opera- toric Ringwood Manor State ions in Minnesota from its Park, a memorial to an age of lome office in Hibbing, Minn., elegance when the Erskine, ook possession after the Fed- Ryerson, Cooper and Hewitt iral government had poured families owned the. mine and in more than $4,000,000 in a ruled the countryside. Also futile attempt to make the mine near by are the trim homes of productive. Erskine Lakes and other mod- For the "Ramapo Mountain ern communities. •eople," World War II and the But there is nothing quaint ieriod immediately afterward CHAPTER ONE THE The Image of the Jackson Whites OR generations the inhabitants of the northeastern section of F New Jersey and the southeastern section (of New York have been fed on legends, myths, and fairy tales concerning the Jackson Whites and have passed the stories along.1 Through books, magazines, and newspapers an image of these mountain- people has evolved. This image has not been beneficial, for many of the writers have presented a historically inaccurate picture WHITES that tends to glorify whatever backwardness and degeneracy the Jackson Whites might once have had. During the Nineteenth and early years of the Twentieth Century, the Jackson Whites were overlooked by the popular A Thesis •]. 2 media. They were viewed as simple rustics. But during the x 1920's the image changed when people learned that the Jackson Submitted to the Faculty Whites were different from what they had been previously' pictured. Withdrawing from and shunned by society, these of Rutgers tyniversity Indians, Negroes, and whites had developed into a large, closely related enclave which sought isolation in the Ramapo Mountains and in the small towns at the base of the mountains. by MILES M. MERWIN Outside interest on a large scale was aroused in 1925 with the publication of a popular novel by Albert Payson Terhune (Henry Rutgers Scholar, 1962-63) entitled Treasure. In 1936 a "local historian," John C. Storms of Park Ridge, New Jersey, gathered the myths* legends, and in Partial fulfillment of the fairy tales together in a pamphlet he had printed entitled Origin of the Jackson Whites of the Ramapo Mountains. His conjee-' tures have influenced the public ever since.8 During the 1930's Requirement for the Degree of and 1940's newspapers and magazines began to devote consider- able column space to the Jackson Whites—for within traveling Bachelor of Arts in History distance of their New York offices dwelt a group of people; determined to resist civilization,* In 1937 the New Yor\ 7/arid Telegram published a lu-.d account of what purported ;o je a visit by one .of its repo;:cj:> THE HENRY RUTGERS SCHOLARS PROGRAM, now in its fifteenth to the Jackson Whites. The article was by Francis S. Grtezt year, provides out^anding seniors in the College of Arts and Sci- and was entitled "Jersey's Tobacco Road" and it later appeareq ences with opportunities for interdisciplinary investigation and in the American Mercury a&the "Tobacco Road of the North," research. This honors program of independent wor\ and prepara- Greene's first paragraph is interesting: tion «/ it thesis~i&Mnderta\en in place of two academic courses in the senior yictr tinder the direction of individual faculty advisers. Thirty miles from New York City lives a dull-rr.inded, rr.oral-less and lawless tribe of mountain folk who make the changers of Carefully selected seniors are named Henry Rutgers Scholars Tobacco Road seem cultured and effete by comparison.6 upon recommendation of their departments, and the program is With the exception of certain words it is similar tc ,* passage administered by & permanent faculty committee in cooperation from Terhune's Treasure. with the various departmental -chairmen. Fifty students were in 1 For these Ramapo mountaineers, to a great exterr. were as jp.'.cive the program this last year, and fifty-six have been admitted for as savages. Born and bred within thirty miles ot New Yor*. '!;..> a i RUTGERS ALUMNI MONTHLY and Ladentown, New York. The completion of the New York into Rockland County, New York. The purchasers, who paid State Thruway, the extension of the Garden State Parkway, and two hundred pounds to the Indians and a like amount to the the existence of an excellent system of railroads has led to the con- Proprietors, grouped themselves into a syndicate and held undi- centration of industrial, commercial, and retail businesses in the vided shares in the tract, their interests varying with the amount area, as well as increasing the ease of commuting to places such of purchase money contributed by each. The land was advertised as New York City. The development and expansion of the area for sale and settlers were attracted.5 are among the factors which account for the disappearance of the The English crown also aided settlement of the region through old image of the Jackson Whites and their removal from isolation. the granting of patents. Many of the early settlers bore names associated with the Jackson Whites. Among the settlers were three French Huguenots, Louis, Abraham and John DuBois.* CHAPTER THREE Driven from France by religious persecution they became the patentees of a 36,000 acre tract of land in what is now Rockland County. In 1663, Balthazar DeHarte and his brother, Jacob, pur- chased the "Christian purchased lands of Haverstraw" from the Local History Indians. This area extended from the Hudson westward to the Ramapo Mountains. The largest settlement made in Orange County, New York, led to the foundation of the town of Orange It is well to know the history of the Ramapo Mountain region, b b b especially during the colonial arid revolutionary period, in order in 1686. Claes Maunde, Staaes DeGroot, John DeVries and John DeVries Jr.,b were among the Dutch emmigrant settlers in to understand the origin and development of the Jdckson Whites. 6 The colonial period was a time when many o£ the settlers, Dutch, the region. French Huguenots, and English—some of them bearing names The southeastern portion of New York State, bordering on the associated with the Jackson Whites—settled in the region. It Ramapo Mountains, was a part of Orange County and was witnessed the introduction of indentured servants and slaves. The known as Orange County Under the Mountains until it was Revolution played a role. Escaped slaves, American, Hessian, organized into Rockland County in 1798. The Ramapo Moun- and British deserters, outlaws, and the owners of confiscated tains separated Rockland County from the larger part of Orange property sought refuge in the hills and many of them may have County but a mathematical and artificial line was its only demar- stayed to make up the group of people known as the Jackson cation from Bergen County. "Many of the same families settled Whites. in Bergen and Rockland counties; the two groups intermarried, developed the same habits of thought and modes of living, and The early settlers in the region purchased their land from the 7 Indians, probably from the Tappan, Haverstraw, and Leni built similar houses." Lenape subtribes of the Algonquian confederacy, and upon lands This area, and parts of Orange County, were opened up and so purchased descendants of the original settlers are living today.1 settled under the Tappan and Kakiat Patents. The area included But in every case valid titles were obtained from the crown or in the Tappan Patent was purchased from the Tappan Indians colony and the English maxim "that the King is the fountain of in 1681 by a "group of eight white men and three free Negroes all real property and from that source all titles are derived" from the Bouwery Village on Manhattan Island together with applied here, and none of the Indian titles was ever recognized five men from New Jersey."8 In 1696, William the Third granted as legal.2 Perhaps this is an explanation for the reason why none a tract of land in Bergen and Orange counties, known by the of the Jackson Whites ever obtained land from their Indian name of Kachyachtaweke (Kakiat), bounded on the east by ancestors. DeHarte's patent, extending westward to the Ramapo Mountains, and southwest into New Jersey. One of the names associated with The Dutch were the first to control the region. They made the c territory of New Netherland the sole concern of a trading com- the Kakiat Patent is that of Nicholas Conklin. In 1722, he was one of the inhabitants of the tract and his homestead "was lot pany which sought purely mercantile benefits. Settlement of the 9 region consisted of a few scattered "bouwerries.'' But after No. 1, in the west division of the four hundred acre lots." English seizure of the territory in 1664, the region became an In 1775, George the Third granted four patents, made up of important connecting link between the English colonies to the the remaining vacant land in the area, to four reduced officers north and those to the south. The period from 1664 to 1702 was of the British army. The Prevost Patent was granted to James one of settlement in which towns were developed on the banks Marcus Prevost, whose young wife, Theodosia, later married of every important stream. In 1665, Charles II, King of England, Aaron Burr. In the same year Prevost sold his rights for five granted to his brother, James, Duke of York, the entire region hundred pounds to Robert Morris, John Jay, John Zabriskie, between the Connecticut and Delaware rivers. The Duke of York John DeLancy, and John Suffern. The Suffern family was to then sold what is now New Jersey to Lord John Berkeley and become one of the foremost in the area and then degenerate into Sir George Carteret. These individuals divided New Jersey into Jackson Whites at the end of the Nineteenth Century.10 The two sections—called East and West New Jersey. • Later, Lord Harris Patent was granted to Robert Harris. The Muller Patent Berkeley sold West New Jersey in trust to Edward Byllinge and was granted to Jacob Muller, and the Spence Patent to Peter his assigns. When Carteret died his share was sold to William Spence.11 Penn and eleven associates who were called the "Twelve Pro- A great deal of controversy over the patents ensued during prietors." These men, and their partners, surrendered their right the colonial period. Both New Jersey and New York claimed the to govern to Anne, Queen of England, in 1702, but reserved the 8 lands, due in part to the vague boundary between the two colo- title rights to the land. Their disposal of the land, especially the nies. The boundaries of the counties in the Ramapo Mountains . Ramapo Tract of northern New Jersey and southeastern New area went through numerous changes. During the period of York, as well as the patents granted by the crown, are of note. proprietary control, the boundary disputes caused much disturb- The history of the Ramapo Tract begins in 1709 when Peter ance. "Since Bergen County touched on the New Jersey-New Sonmans, representing himself as "sole Agent, Superintendent, York partition lines, its county government was vitally interested General Attorney, and Receiver General of the «est of the Pro- in the long disputed line of demarcation because the citizens prietors" aided a group of men in purchasing the land from the who lived at or near refused to pay taxes to either colony."12 In Indians.* This tract 61 land contained, upon survey, 42,500 acres an effort to settle the dispute without force, seven boundary lines or about sixty-six square miles, and comprised the present town- were projected between 1699 and 1769. It was not until the latter ships of Franklin, Hohokus, and Ridgewood, with part of Orvil date that a line was definitely established by an agreement be- in Bergen County, a small part of Passaic County, and extended tween the two colonies and approved by the king. JULY, 1963 ; : , • The territory now included in Bergen, Passaic, Rockland, and some of them may have found refuge in the Ramapo Moun- Orange counties was, by reason of its position relative to the tains.26 Hudson River and New York City, the theater of important Though both whigs and loyalists suffered, it was the active events during the Revolutionary War. British control of the loyalists who paid the higher price for their open stand against Hudson River and the Ramapo Pass might have aided the British independence when the war ended. in severing the American connections between the northern and And by this time an enclave of people had begun to develop southern colonies." in the Ramapo Mountains region. This group had formed during The Ramapo Pass had originally been part of an Indian trail the colonial period. Early elements of the group included Indians, between Albany and New York City. The Ramapo Valley was escaped Negro slaves, and freed Negroes. During the Revolution the only avenue of intercourse between Orange and New York these people were joined by others—oudaws such as the followers ' City and the eastern portion of New Jersey up to and during the of Claudius Smith, deserters from the armies, loyalists and others. Revolution. The road through the fourteen-mile pass became a These elements comingled to produce the Jackson Whites. The part of the King's Road in 1703 when the Assembly of New York next section will be an examination of these elements and how appropriated it "to remain forever the public, common road and they came to seek isolation in the mountains. highway to the city of Albany."15 During the Revolution the land transportation of all the munitions of war, as well as the property of individuals, went through the Pass. This circum- CHAPTER FOUR stance, "aided by the vicinity of the impassable and neighboring mountains, may have seduced and stimulated the young ambition of Claudius Smith in his lawless brigand course, knowing that his safety was insured in the dens and caves of the elevated Racial Origins fastness around him."16 The American Army encamped in the Pass on three occasions Who are the Jackson Whites? In order to understand the and it was from the top of Tome Mountain that Washington history of these people and to effect an answer to this question is said to have watched the movements of the British fleet in it is necessary to examine their racial origins. One of the most New York Bay.17 In 1778, Burgoyne's army, while captive, succinct definitions of the racial origins of the Jackson Whites is marched through this narrow defile, on the way from New given in a study done under the auspices of the Vineland Train- England to Virginia. And in 1781, General Lafayette and seven- ing School. The Jackson Whites "are a race of people of mixed teen hundred of his New England troops used the Pass while on Indian, Negro, and white blood inhabiting the Ramapo Moun- tains of the northern part of New Jersey and extending over the their way to check the activities of Benedict Arnold in Virginia. 1 border into the adjoining section of New York State." This Washington had good reason for concerning himself with this chapter will be an examination of the racial elements that com- region. The importance of the control of the Hudson River and pose the Jackson Whites, why these elements sought isolation in the Ramapo Pass was aggravated by the extreme loyalism of the mountain region, and of the two groups of Jackson Whites many of the inhabitants of the region, especially in Bergen and that evolved from these racial elements. Rockland Counties. Ruth Keesey, in her "Loyalty and Reprisal— the. Loyalists of Bergen County and Their Estates" and Adrian The Indian ancestry of these people has been traced back to Leiby in his The Revolutionary War in the Hac\ensac\ Valley subtribes of the two great Indian confederacies that roamed and 18 fought in the area .that embraces the Ramapo Mountains—the portray Bergen County as a "hotbed" of loyalism. The loyalists 2 Algonquians and the Iroquois. When Henry Hudson first sailed were drawn from all classes of society, but the majority were 19 up the (Hudson) river, then called the Shatemuc, the region was illiterate Dutch Reformationists. A newspaper of the period inhabited by three subtribes of the Algonquian confederacy, the repotted that: Leni Lenapes (or Delawares), the Mohegans, and the Minsies. The militia of Bergen County, New Jersey, amount to about 1600 By 1720 the Iroquois confederacy had extended its control over men. They were called out the other Day, in Order to be draughted, 3 when no more than 200 appeared; and 'tis imagined no Ten of them the region and over the Algonquian subtribes residing there." will enter the Service . . .2" The Sixth Nation of the Iroquois, the Tuscarora, settled on the As rhe war progressed, Bergen, Rockland, and Orange Coun- level ground between the Ramapo River and the foot of Hoeven- ties suffered greatly from occupation by both the American and kopf Mountain, near the present town of Mahwah, New Jersey. British forces, from internal discord, and from economic disor- "The Tuscaroras were strangers to the native inhabitants, having 22 come up from the south, about 1718, on their way to join the ganization , Open adherence to either side became costly and 4 f!ar«ge;-c- Kidnappings, ambushes, and murder kept life from Five Nations." Decimated by tribal wars, forced off their lands g.rowjng dull for such of the population as tried to carry on the by white settlers, reduced to slavery, elements of these Indian business of life in a "no-man's land between royal and rebel subtribes sought refuge in the mountains. 22 spheres o.t control." ... the Indian blood found in the Jackson Whites, whether it came The loyalist problem in Bergen County was similar to other from individuals held as slaves, or through isolated free Negroes who married Indians, is supposed to have belonged to the Minsi and Wolf areaf RUTGERS ALUMNI MONTHLY The Algonquian confederacy seems to have been composed of along the Roanoke and Chowan rivers. Their attack lasted three thirty to forty autonomous communities differentiated by social days. rather than political divisions." The identification and location The utmost savagery marked the inroad of the savages. Olde mm of individual Algonquian bands in New Netherland is largely and infants, young men and maidens, all shared the same awful dependent on the degree to which the Dutch and their English fate . . .1" successors made contact with them. The Algonquian subtribes in The Tuscarora were not defeated until March of 1713, when the Ramapo Mountains region were not confined to any one spot a Colonel Moore, widi thirty-three militiamen and nine hundred during the year. "In the winter they sought more sheltered Indians marched on the Tuscarora. In the battle that ensued abodes, and possibly more accessible. For the most part they lived around one of the Tuscarora's fortified towns the Tuscarora were at or near streams."7 defeated. Three hundred and ninety-two prisoners were taken, Those groups living nearest the colonial settlements are among one hundred and ninety-two scalps were secured, and three hun- the best known today. dred and sixty-six Indians were cither killed or burned.19 The The first to meet Henry Hudson in 1609 were the Navasink, who battle was a crushing blow for the Tuscarora and diey began to occupied the Atlantic Highlands below Sandy Hook . . . The Hack- flee northward to join dieir Iroquois kinsmen.20 They moved ensack were among the closest neighbors to New Netherland, con- northward over a ninety year period and "the last community of trolling the present Jersey City-Bayonne area . . . North of them, Carolina Indians conscious of itself as Tuscarora marched north straddling the New Jersey-New York line as it intersects the Hudson 21 were the Haverstraw . . .8 to New York about 1803." The Tappan and Haverstraw tribes were further subdivisions The precise route the Tuscarora took north is unknown. They of the Minsie clan, a subtribe of the Leni Lenape-branch of the passed through Virginia, through Pennsylvania, and finally into Algonquian confederacy.9 The comparatively remote position in New York State. Some of them settled along the Juniata and mountainous terrain prevented disastrous contact with Europeans Susquehanna rivers in Pennsylvania. Some of the Tuscarora for many years, but the subtribes were subject, on the other hand, settled near Binghamton and Syracuse, New York. Tuscaroras to forays by the Iroquois as that confederacy grew in power.10 also settled in New Jersey, in the area around Hoevenkopf Moun- tain at present-day Mahwah, New Jersey, the site of one of the The increased power of the Iroquois confederacy is directly 21 related to European settlement. Chance put the Iroquois across largest remaining Jackson White settlements. the only water-level route between the Dutch (or English) and How this group of Tuscarora Indians arrived in the Ramapo the Great Lakes/thus enabling them to become the most powerful Mountain region is a matter of conjecture. The route diey prob- combination east of the Mississippi and a vital factor in the rivalry ably took was the Esopus Road. "There was a good traveled road between the English and the French. "Through European intru- constructed from beyond the Delaware River, in Pennsylvania, sion the Iroquois acquired firearms; superior organization enabled to Kingston, dien Esopus. In Ulster Co., in this State [New them to use this strength more effectively; and, finally, a reputa- York], one hundred miles in lengdi. The road was made while tion for success bred further success."" Holland owned this country."23 As the road ran near the Ramapo The basic objective for the formation of the league, which Mountains it is conceivable diat the Tuscaroras could have paused consisted of the Conestoga, Susquehanna, Erie, Neutrals, Tio- in their journey and some of them remained in the area. nantati, and Huron, around 1570, seems to have been peace; As previously stated, inter-tribal wars weakened and decimated peace, that is, between the warring Irdquois so they might better the two confederacies and their subtribes in the Ramapo Moun- take up the hatchet against their common enemies. "What began tains region, and led elements of die Tuscarora and the Algon- as a defensive alliance became, if not a positive instrument of quian confederacies to endure each other in the relative sanctuary conquest, at least a covering defense for aggression of the bloodi- of the mountains.2* est variety."12 The Iroquois became convinced that they were a "Master race and engaged in conquest for the partial purpose of Another reason for the removal of some of the Indians to the adding new nations to their confederacy."18 Some nations did mountains was the white man's advent in this region. In the join the pax Iroquouia—the Tuscarora became such a nation and early days of white setdement the relations between die Euro- the Mahican, Scaticook, Tuteloe, and Delaware, among others,. peans and the Indians were friendly. Strife between the two were either adopted by one of the members or forced to join.1* groups first arose in 1632 over the activities of the Dutch fur By 1720, the Algonquian tribes in the Ramapo Mountains region traders. Members of the Algonquian confederacy, including the had been reduced and subjugated by the Iroquois. To avoid total Tappan Indians, had "been annoyed by the partiality of the subjugation and enslavement many of the Indians may have Dutch traders for the Iroquois federation."25 But open warfare moved back into the more inaccessible mountain regions.15 was averted. Then, in February, 1643, Kieft, the director-general Members of the Tuscarora tribe of the Iroquois confederacy of New Netherland, decided to punish the Tappans and Haver- are supposed to have settled in the area around 1718. How and straws for an offense committed by the Mohawks. Eighty innocent when this tribe came to settle in the region has been the subject Indians were murdered and eleven tribes of Indians, including of much conjecture. the Tapoans and the Haverstraws, allied themselves for revenge. Originally, the Tuscarora had resided in North Carolina. By The Indians swept the country and reduced it to desolation. Tt was not undl August 30, 1645, that peace was arranged. ."The the 1700's the Tuscaroras were jealously viewing the increasing 2 numbers and setdements of the whites on their lands. They were hatchet was buried. The European had come to stay." * finally provoked into warfare by "the large number of their Fertile lands, an abundance of game, and the possibility of people being sold into slavery, and others being killed in defend- ore deposits stimulated European settlement in Bergen, Rock- ing their wives and children."16 The Tuscarora formed a con- land, and Orange counties. Practically all the patents secured bv spiracy widi die Pamlico Indians and attacked die white planter different persons, including the tracts of DeHarte, Kakiat, setdements on die Roanoke River in 1711. When the war broke Orangetown, and Ramapo, daring from 1666 to 1703, were pur- out, die Tuscarora had fifteen towns and about twelve hundred chased from the tribes who held die lands." As increasing fighting men. Their territory embraced die country drained by numbers of settlers moved into the area the Indians realized that the Neuse River and its tributaries, from near the coast to the the Europeans had come to stay and many of the Indians began vicinity of the present Wake County and the lands along die Tar the tragic trek westward in search of new lands. "Most of the Pamlico River and possibly die Roanoke River, while their hunt- Indians removed from New Jersey about 1730. After manv ing quarters extended as far as Cape Fear.17 meetings and negotiations, a treaty was made with the hfinsies On September 22, 1711, die Indians struck without warning, in 17^8 whereby they relinquished all land that was under their killing one hundred and thirty settlers, principally on the lands jurisdiction, which included most of New Jersey.*** Yet some JULT, 1963 of the Indians remained behind and joined the Indians that had When the English gained control of the region in 1664, slavery settled earlier in the Ramapo Mountains. was legally authorized. The "Concessions" of Lord John Berke- A final factor that might have led Indians to live in the ley and Sir George Carteret specified slaves as possible members Ramapo Mountains was slavery. Whether any Indian ancestors of the settlers' families, and granted to every colonist who came of the Jackson Whites may have been held as slaves and escaped with the first governor, seventy-five acres for every slave held; to the mountains is not known, but as early as 1682, mention is to every settler before January 1, 1665, sixty-five acres per slave; made of Indians held as slaves in New Jersey.29 Indians were and to every slave holding settler who arrived before January 1, seized and sold by other Indians and by whites.80 That Indians 1667, thirty acres.*0 might be held as slaves under the laws of New Jersey was estab- Slave labor, both Indian and Negro, competed with white lished in 1707. The case was one of habeas corpus and dealt with indentured servants and was found to be more economic and an Indian woman named Rose who was claimed by the defendant more tractable. Male slaves were employed as farm laborers, as his slave. In rendering a verdict in favor of the defendant the stage drivers, boatmen, miners, sawmill hands, house and ship judge stated that "they [the Indians] have so long been recog- carpenters, wheelwrights, coopers, shoemakers, millers, bakers, nized as slaves in our law that it would be a violation of the and cooks. Female slaves were used chiefly for employment in rights of property to establish a contrary doctrine at the present household services.*1 For the most part, slaves were well-treated day, and useless to investigate the manner in which they origi- 31 in the two colonies. While Queen Anne of England, in her nally lost their freedom." One of the major factors that aroused instructions to the royal governor of New Jersey in 1702 recom- Tuscarora enmity had been their seizure and sale as slaves. mended the use of the Royal African Company so that "said Fearing such a fate they remained within the shelter of the Province may have a constant and sufficient supply of merchant- mountains where they were joined by other escaped slaves—both able Negroes," she also stated that "you should endeavor to get Indian and Negro. a law past [sic] for the restraining of human severity, which by Thus from an early period of time the Ramapo Mountains was ill masters and overseers, may be used toward their Christian a place of some safety and shelter for the Indians. The Indians servants, and their slaves, and that provision be made therein, in the region were later joined by the second element in the that the willful killing of Indians and Negroes may be punished Jackson White ancestry, the Negro. Escaping from slavery, forced with death, and that a fit penalty be impressed for maiming to move from large communities by white hostility, Negroes them."*2 sought refuge in the Ramapo Mountains. This section will be an But slaves were never numerous and the custom was not examination of that element, of the institution of slavery as it popular in either colony. Although the slave population of New existed in New Jersey and New York, of the problems associated Jersey grew rapidly between 1680 and 1740 there were only with the institution, and of the union of the Indians and Negroes, 3,981 slaves in a total population of 42,369 in 173s.*3 in the Ramapo Mountains. The institution did exist, and there were many problems The first Negroes in the colonies did not have the status of associated with slavery. Many of the slaves ran away, as frequent slaves but rather that of indentured servants. Servitude was "a notices in the colonial newspapers attest. The Indian and Negro legalized status of Indian, Negro, and white servants preceding 32 slaves in northeastern New Jersey and southeastern New York in most, if not all, of the mainland colonies." But servitude could and probably did seek refuge in the Ramapo Mountains. became slavery when, to such incidents as alienation, disfranchise- Run-away from the subscriber living at Paramus, in the county of ment, whipping, and limited marriage, were added those of Bergen, on or about the first of May last, a negro man named perpetual service and a c'cni?! of civil, juridical, and property Prince . . .** rights and "as soon as Negroes were imported in considerable 38 On Sunday, the 18th of September, absconded from his service, at numbers." Franklin Park, near Burlington, a negro slave, the property of the Slavery was introduced into New Netherland at an early date subscriber, by name Frank . . . He is ... of Indian cast."*5 and reference was made to slaves as early as 1626, five years after Run away from the house of Mark Prevost in Bergen County, on the the establishment of the Dutch West India Company.34 In the 20th of September last, a Negro man and his wife . . . He is a various freedoms and exemptions projected by the directors of preacher among the negroes.*" the Company they promised to supply the colony with slaves Slave escapes lead to the passage of a fugitive slave law as earlv "for the promotion of agriculture" but such promises were not as 1671" And as it was learned that free Indians, possibly in the kept and in many instances the colony devised ways t;> supply Ramapo Mountains region, were harboring a number of the herself.35 escaped slaves, and because of the ineffectiveness of the aforemen- . By 1664 a market with Curasao had been developed by the tioned law, colonial representatives sought conferences with colony and in that year one Symon Gilde, captain of the ship Indian chiefs to devise means for preventing the reception of 'Gideon," advised his superiors in New Amsterdam that he had escaped Negro^and Indian slaves.*8 received for transport "the number of three hundred slaves, Another factor which caused Negroes to seek the isolation of consisting of one hundred and sixty men and one hundred and the Ramapo Mountains was a white concern over the possibility forty women, all merchantable."38 of slave rebellions.*9 This concern lead to the passage of various The first slaves in Rockland, Orange, and Bergen counties were laws and to the extreme harassment of Negroes suspected of introduce: at about this time by the Dutch settlers. Rockland plotting insurrection. 8 County was the scene of slavery as early as the Tappan Patent. ' In 1694, an act was passed in New Jersey which forbade slaves A census taken of Orangetown, in Orange County, in 1702, and Indians from carrying guns unless they were accompanied recorder' forty-nine men .between the ages of sixteen and sixty; by their masters.50 In New York City the slaves were prohibited c, c, e ,rcn ..jjove s;xty; forty married women and widows; fifty- from gathering in places in groups of more than four and they evc" IT.?:-: children and eighty-four maids and girls; thirteen were forbidden to carry guns, swords, or clubs under penalty of N'- - :-.-s, 'even Negresses, and thirteen Negro children, or a total ten lashes at the whipping post.51 In 1712, there was an attempt : ..v adred an-i sixty-eight persons.38 at insurrection under Governor Hunter's administration of New - ec iest sett'?nnents in New Jersey were made by the Dutch York. The recollection of this affair may have had something to »•'•••• set cd in he Kackensack Valley. These early settlers do with the virulence that was aroused iii 1741 by what has been :-.:,•;;'-? • aves w::h them and one writer has asserted that slavery called the "Great Negro Plot." A series of fires in the city led l'.y:.'.-•..•:Hec. in New Jersey because of the large Dutch populationthe, Common Council to offer a one hundred pound reward to rv ';'? • ie grec'-s? .lumber of slaves was found in the counties anyone "who should tell what he knew about a plot for the v! •-: • : "'• e natio" aides prevailed.39 burning of this city."52 An indentured servant, Mary Burton. RUTGERS ALUMNI MONTHLY ascribed the fires to a Negro rebellion. She was believed and a elements and of the two groups of Jackson Whores tha reign of terror resulted in which one hundred and fifty-four the one around Ladentown, and the other i.. aie Ma, , ; ••.•„;• Negroes were arrested, of whom fourteen were burned at the burn area. 83 stake, and eighteen were hanged. The prevailing Jackson White names today e: D. r> >e- The final problem which lead Negroes to seek out more isolated Freese, or DeVries; DeGroot or DeGroat; Mann, M ,rmde, or areas was that of emancipation. In New York certain laws tended Maunde; Van Dunk; and Conklin, Concklin, Conkling or Conk- to destroy slavery, among them, measures adopted by the Legisla- lijn.82 These names are also associated with the early Dutch, ture during the Revolution to the effect that all slaves who enlisted French, and English settlers of Bergen, Rockland, and Orange in the army with their masters' consent should go free. A measure counties.0 enacted in 1798 provided for gradual emancipation. An Act of In 161 x, two years after Hudson's voyage, Amsterdam mer- March 31, 1817 declared that all slaves born after July 4, 1799 chants began fitting out ships to trade with the Indians of the should be free. In 1828, by an Abolition Act, slavery was ended.5* country and as the Dutch influence increased, the area from the >ifanumissions also developed in New Jersey and proceeded southern shore of the Delaware Bay to Cape Cod became known rapidly under the aegis of the Quakers in West New Jersey. The as New Netherland. The settlement of this area can be divided same series of acts finally brought about an emancipation resolu- into three periods: the first being the period proceeding the tion in 1824.*" organization of the Dutch West India Company (1621); the In the period leading up to the Civil War routes of the "Under- second being the period following the colonization of New Am- ground Railroad" were established across Bergen and Rockland sterdam and embracing the administrations of governors Van- counties and it is conceivable that escaping slaves remained in Twiller, Kieft, and Stuyvesant; and the third being the period the Ramapo Mountains instead of continuing northward.88 beginning in 1664 when the English took possession of the There were many difficulties involved with the emancipation colonv and the colony of New Jersey was organized under the of Negro and Indian slaves. It was generally assumed that they proprietors. would not be able to take care of themselves if freed. As early as The first two periods are of little concern, for under Dutch 1714, the royal governor of New Jersey asked for the passage of control there was little attempt made to settle the region, save a law to prevent freed men from coming upon the towns as for the small though compact settlement at Bergen and the estab- paupers "since experience has shown free Negores to be idle, lishment of a few scattered "bouweries" along the Hudson. One slothful people who prove very often a burden to the place where name is of note, that of David Peterson DeVries. DeVries was they are."" the first white settler to purchase land in the Ramapo Mountains But the biggest problem with emancipation was the resulting region and in 1686 relatives of his, John DeVries, Sr., and John competition with white labor. DeVries, Jr. established themselves in the same area.*8 "The freed Negro became a serious menace to white labor and his Under English control settlement of the region proceeded at competition in this line roused such bitter antagonism that he stood a more rapid pace and settlement was aided by the granting no chance at all of finding remunerative employment. Moreover a deep rooted prejudice existed in the community against him. This state of patents by the English crown and the Proprietors of East and of affairs gradually drove the more intelligent among them to seek West New Jersey. Practically all the patents, secured by different shelter in states further west or to cross the border into Canada^ persons, dating from 1666 to 1703, were purchased from the Those lacking in funds or intelligence sought refuge in the Indians that resided in the region. After that time, the English less hostile areas that were near at hand—the Ramapo.Moun- crown controlled the granting of land. The settlement of persons tains. There they joined with Indians, other Negroes, outlaws and whose names are associated with the Jackson Whites took place deserters from the Revolutionary armies, and degenerate whites.89 between 1667 and 1720.** The fact that Negroes existed in the Ramapo Mountains was Many of the same families settled in the three counties; they established by the early patents and during a survey made of intermarried, developed the same habits of thought and modes the New Jersev boundary line in 1774. "Set up a chestnut stake of living, and built similar homes.65 The society that developed with No. XVIII in Negro's [named Aury Guy] improvement." in the area was a homogeneous one. The Dutch culture pre- The presence draws attention to vailed and the inhabitants, besides being husbandmen, were also the fact that in the mountains to the western part of the Ramapos artisans and merchants. The Jersey Dutch were a "quiet, re- at a very early date a large number of Negroes were to be found. served, conservative people, kindly but not demonstrative . . . Whence they come from we cannot tell ... In all probability they prone to demand credentials before taking strangers to their found it for their safety in those days when the 'Negro had no rights firesides, notwithstanding their traditional hospitality."66 which the white man was bound to respect,' to dwell apart by themselves in the mountains.60 But apart from the Dutch society of the region another society Thus from an early period of time the Ramapo Mountains was developing, that of the Jackson Whites. No concerted effort region was a place of safetv and shelter for Negroes as well as has been made to trace the Jackson Whites back to the early Indians. Contact was established between the two races. settlers. The Vineland Training School Study listed the oldest Jackson White under the simple notation: "the oldest living Throughout the colonial history of the state [New Tersey] there were Jackson White is Bessie Morgan, born in 1814 of Indian, negroid few marriages of white men and Indian and Negro women and 67 those that were contracted were looked upon in the light of mis- parents". Yet there are ways in which the commoner Jackson cegenations . . .b [but] neither the law nor social barriers forbade White names can be associated with the early Dutch, French, the intermixture of these two races; both shared the antipathies of and English settlers. the white men . . . For this reason the unions between Indians and Negroes were commonly so frequent, indeed, as to have left Miscegenation could have been a factor. "As a rule marriage permanent impress upon the features of many of the families of with the Indian or Negro was disdained by the white man,"68 Negroes of the present day.81 and "throughout the colonial history of the state [New Jersey] The comingling of the two races marked the beginning of the there were few marriages of white men and Indian and Negro group that was to become the Jackson Whites. The next section women and those that were contracted were looked upon in the will be an examination of the final racial component of the light of miscegenations."69 Though rare, these marriages did group, ,and the most difficult to trace—the white element. Earlier occur. The Schraalenburgh Church (Bergen County) Marriage settlers and their slaves, the results of miscegenations between Records contain the following statement: "DeGroot, y.m. and whites and Indians or Negroes, escaped redemptioners, outlaws, Janetje Dee, y.d. Acthiopes1 . . . 1768 March 17." The footnote deserters from the Revolutionary armies, white degenerates, and after the woman's name refers to the fact that she was a later settlers are the white elements associated with this racial "negro."70 As "half-breed Indians and Negroes shared the anti- component. As such, this section will be an examination of these pathies of the white man" it is conceivable that the offspring of JLLT, 1963 this marriage, bearing one of the names associated with the possibility that deserters settled in the mountains. One of the most Jackson Whites, could have removed to less hostile areas border- fantastic of these conjectures states that a son of William Pitt, ing, or near, the Ramapo Mountains.71 the Earl of Chatham, deserted from the British forces and re- Though marriage between white men and Indian or Negro mained in the mountains "and at the time of his desertion he had in his possession the family Bible and a silver platter bearing the women was frowned upon "the blood of the white man and the 82 Indian and Negro often mingled without sanction of law."72 An coat of arms of the Pitts." Perusual of A List of the General and example of this is given in the Vineland study on the Jackson Field Officers in the Several Regiments does disclose a Pitt, Wil- Whites. "There is a Jackson White family by the name of Smith, liam Augustus. But he was no relation to the Earl of Chatham and while in America he served as a Major-General, making it claiming to be of Dutch origin, which is found around Hoho- 83 kus."73 An Alfred Smith claimed to be descended from Peter highly unlikely that he would have deserted. Despite the many Smith, Jacob Astor's partner in the fur trading business. The fantastic stories about deserters such as a Pitt it is still probable connection was through Alfred's grandfather, Samuel Smith, an that individuals from both armies did desert and hide in the illegitimate son of said Peter. "Samuel married Elizabeth De- mountains. Groat, daughter of William DeGroat of the Ramapo Moun- Another source for the white component of the Jackson Whites tains."7* They had seven sons and three daughters, and Alfred has often been overlooked—redemptioners, or persons who had was descended from the oldest son. While stating that "if Peter their passage from Europe paid for in return for a specified Smith had a son named Samuel he was illegitimate, for the name amount of years in work. This form of bondage was popular in 1 does not appear in the published geneology of Peter Smith's the Seventeenth and into the Eighteenth centuries.34 Ringwqod, family," the researcher nevertheless gave considerable credence New Jersey, was once the site of a thriving mining industry and to the story. "A certain amount of circumstantial evidence exists in 1764 the owners made a man named Peter Hansenclever the ... Peter was on good terms with the Indians and named his first manager. In his notes, Hansenclever wrote: son Peter Skendosh . . . Peter separated from his second wife I purchased and acquired by degrees (patents), for account of the . . . The name Gerrit appears in the generation of Peter's sons American Company upwards of 50,000 acres of land . . . tried 53 and also appears in each generation of Alfred's family . . . The different iron mines and transported 535 persons from Germany to mother of Samuel may have been an Indian maiden . . ."75 America as Miners, Founders, Forgemen, Colliers, Carpenters, Masons, and Labourers with their wives and children.85 -«=- There were miscegenations in the Ramapo Mountain region. Hansenclever had difficulty in preventing the miners from run- And the results of such alliances could have decided to live in the ning away as notices in the colonial newspapers attest: mountains for a variety of reasons, the most probable of which They are all Germans and talk very little English ... As the men are was white hostility. still engaged by contract for 3 years and 4 months ... all gentlemen Another way in which the names of the early settlers could ... are respectively desired not to engage these people in their have been associated with the Jackson Whites is through slaves service.88 of these early settlers who escaped. It was a common practice to Runaways found the mountains near at hand. In the late Nine- record the slave's name as the name as that of his master; "John teenth Century, when the productivity of the mines ceased, or D'puy . . . Peter D'puy, his slave . . ."78 It has been shown that even earlier, other individuals, out of work, could have joined the slaves, both Indian and Negro, escaped. These individuals, group in the mountains. settling in the mountains, could have continued to use their mas- By the beginning of the Eighteenth Century, the Jackson ters' name. Whites were established. The remnants of the Indian tribes in the After the Revolution ended it was the active loyalists who paid area, freed slaves, escaped slaves bearing the masters' names, the the higher price for their open stand against independence. In results of miscegenations, outlaws, redemptioners, loyalists, and many cases their property was confiscated and not returned to deserters settled and comingled, producing the Jackson Whites. them after the war.77 These individuals also faced hostility and Later additions to the white component were added. Two found it difficuh to gain work or sell goods. Among the persons Italian brothers, named Castaglionia, who ran away from a rail- who refused to sign the Orangetown Resolutions (July 4, 1774") road construction gang, married Jackson Whites.87 Into these were Lewis Concklin, Lewis Concklin, Jr., John Concklin, and Jackson White families there has also "been grafted some degen- Joseph Concklin.78 They instead pledged "to support King, coun- erate white blood which shows itself in added coarseness and try, and liberty."79 They were all relatives of Nicholas Conklin, brutality. Such blood came through the blood of the wife of one one of the original settlers in the area. Although histories of of the old mountain men, a white woman born in Connecticut, Rock!a"d and Orange counties do not record what happened the daughter of a sailor . . ."88 The Vineland Training School to these people it is conceivable that they were forced to leave also details the decline of the Suffern family, prominent in the their homesteads and found refuge in the mountains. Unable area from colonial times until it degenerated at the end of the or unwilling to return, they remained. Nineteenth Century and the surviving members became Jackson 89 Besides being a "hotbed" of loyalism during the Revolution Whites. More recent contributers (the past fifty years) include the area, because of its strategic location, was the scene of outlaw an "Irish girl named Collins who came up from Brooklyn to and rnilitary activity. One of the most conspicuous of the outlaws spend the summer and married a DeGroat, Puerto Ricans, whites from Westwood and Hillsdale, and colored people from Ala- was Claudius Smith. During the Revolution the inhabitants of 80 the counties lived in constant terror of Smith, who was assisted bama, North Carolina, and Texas." by hs three so'~s and Tory adherents. "Especially in the Clove, a From the Indian, Negro, and white racial elements two distinct territory through mountain passes extending from Highland groups of people have emerged. One is "principally white, while Mi"* down the "amapo Valley, Smith and his notorious bandits the other is dark-skinned of varying hues."81 op""'\':~r'• The inaccessible declivities of the mountains made their The white group lives principally in the area around Laden- c-• •' errai!<•-"•. comparatively easy to effect .. ."80 Smith's career town, in Rockland County, New York, although they are scat- enc•<.•'.•• '•-• 1779 when he was hanged. But his followers and his tered through the hills from the Hudson west to the Delaware. . ;erents might have found it wise to remain in the moun- One of the best know Jackson Whites is the late Ramsey Conk- ,• and settle down with the other inhabitants. lin.92 "His wife was a Mann. His sons, especially Theodore, are •:-t»rs from both the British and the American army are swarthy, showing definite Indian characteristics, rather than :•..••• •je.-.i to hs-e contributed to the group. Although no evidence negroid ones."93 The people in this area have remained backward of -• rlBc devotions in the area were found, the tradition is so and more ignorant of the oujtside world than has the mixed group •'••• - -at it -.ia not be overlooked.81 Unfortunately credence which has chosen to live in and about the towns at the base of •- give- to various conjectures that tend to devalue the the mountains. RUTGERS ALUMNI MONTHLY The mixed group is found in the area along the New York- fight in the American colonies. Storms' account is J«. 1... New Jersey boundary line, especially around the towns of Suffern with the historical records in many respects He states and Hillburn, New York, and Mahwah, New Jersey. Negroid in the petty principalities of Brunswick and ri-:se Ca 1 characteristics are more evident among them. It is this group agent of King George was at work 'hiring' troc,;>s . . 1- thus secured amounted to fifteen 'Companies of five regin r t <. that is making the greatest effort to improve themselves and are . . . there were twelve thousand and fifty-four men . . . dr finding the, lack of acceptance by the other residents of the coun- the eight years of war the principality of Hesse Cassel receiw ties an insurmountable obstacle. Great Britain for these soldiers that it contributed 1,, , pounds . . .* Because Storms' account of the Hessian element (as well as the other elements) is told in such minute detail and with such CHAPTER FIVE confidence it comes as a further disappointment when various sources contradict or point out exaggerations in his theory. It seems strange that while Storms quotes from Edward J. Lowell's The Hessians and Other German Auxiliaries of Great Britain in the Revolutionary War to point up the sordid element Possible Origins of the of hiring Hessians, it does not appear that Storms studied the book in any detail.5 For one thing the troops came from other principalities than Hesse-Cassel and Brunswick, and a complete Name Jackson White list is given by Lowell in his Appendix. Then, too, Storms' figures on the number of troops and the sum paid out by Great Britain is inaccurate. According to Lowell and to Benson Lossing History has failed to chronicle the arrival of the Jackson Whites the total number of troops raised was 29,867 and they (the Land- in the counties they inhabit. The people themselves are ignorant graves) "asked and received $36 for each man and in addition concerning their origins and this, combined with a reticence and were to receive a subsidy. The whole amount paid by the British suspicion toward strangers, has made it difficult to obtain infor- government was slightly over 1,700,000 pounds."8 mation. But several different hypotheses have been advanced in Storms goes on to state that: regard to the Jackson Whites and the reason for their name Reaching America under duress, placed in the forefront at every although no one hypothesis has ever been indisputably proven. important battle in which they were engaged, beaten by their officers In this chapter the different theories will be presented and an with the broadside of swords if they attempted to retreat, made to attempt will be made to distinguish the one which presents the do menial labor for the British, their fate was a particularly cruel most likely explanation for the origin of the name Jackson White. one . . . (and) it is not to be wondered at that they proved to be unfaithful, and deserted the army at every opportunity.7 i. The most widely-known theory is the one presented by the late John C. Storms of Park Ridge, New Jersey. Though his While it is conceivable that Hessian elements may have been an element in the ancestry of the Jackson Whites, Lowell dis- Origin of (he Jackson Whites of the Ramapo Mountains is un- 8 documented to a great extent and few sources are given, Storms' agrees with Storms' statement on the desertions. hypothesis has found wide acceptance—ranging from individuals In his conclusion Lowell states that for the sum Britain paid who engaged in the Federal Writers' studies of county and state she obtained the services of excellent soldiers. As to the war in history to newspaper and magazine writers. While it is conceiv- the "Middle Colonies we see the Hessians taking the leading able that there may be some historical basis for Storms' conjec- part and behaving with great gallantry" and he goes on to say tures, the discovery of numerous fallacies tends to discredit his that "it has sometimes been said that the German soldiers de- major and most popular conjecture that thirty-five hundred serted in great numbers in America. This assertion is only par- British prostitutes were the source for the establishment and the tially borne out by the facts." Few officers deserted and "even name of the Jackson Whites. among privates the desertion was less than might have been expected. It was proportionally large among prisoners of war . . . Storms agrees with previous accounts, such as the one written but neither among the German or the English was desertion so under the auspices of the Vineland Training School, that the prevalent as among the Americans."" Jackson Whites are a group of people of mixed Indian, Negro, and white blood. But the sources for such a heritage are in many The third element in the Jackson White heritage presented by cases different than those previously described. In his discussion Storms is the highlight of his account and it is with this element of the Indian heritage Storms makes his first blatant error, an that he solves the riddle of the name, Jackson White. error whose enormity casts a shadow over the remaining part of The British War Office had a problem on its hands—keep New York City loyal to the crown, while keeping thousands of its soldiers in his hypothesis. In relating the Indian ancestry Storms states that the military camp that General Clinton had established there ... "originally the Ramapo region was a favorite resort of the Hagin- But there was a way out of the difficulty . . . and a man was found who would accept the undertaking. The man's name was Jackson— gasshackie Indians (part of the Leni Lenipe [sic] family of the 10 Iroquois")."1 Further discussion of the Indians by Storms con- history has not preserved for us anything more about him than this. A contract was entered into with this Jackson to secure thirty- firms his lack of documentation and a weakness toward conjec- v ture and romanticizing. While it is a well-known tradition that five hundred women "who England felt it could very well dispense with, and transport them to America to become the elements of the Tuscarora Indian tribe may have contributed to 11 the Jackson White stock, Storms overemphasises this point. His intimate property of the army quartered in New York City." dates for the beginnings of Tuscarora hostilities in North Caro- For his services Jackson was to be paid in gold at the rate of two lina and their removal are inaccurate.2 Storms goes on to com- pounds per female. pound the reader's disapproval by unfounded statements such Jackson set his agents to work and "inmates of the houses of as "the [Tuscarora] exodus was led under Sacurusa, whose ill fame and many a respectable working girl or young housewife grandson later became king of the Sandwich Islands" and by was shanghaied and carried off to a life of shame across the romantic elements, such as: sea."12 Twenty vessels were secured to transport this cargo and "somewhere one foundered in mid ocean, carrying down to a It is known that to this day there are occasional visits paid to the 18 region by representatives of the tribes from the central part of New more merciful fate" its occupants. To make up the loss Jackson York State. They seek certain places and conduct ritual services, dispatched a ship to the West Indies, loaded it with negresses probably in relation to some who are buried there.3 collected in the same manner as the others had been, and brought The second jelement in the Jackson White racial heritage that them to New York. The British soldiers had secured Lispenard's Storms deals-'with is the Hessian troops hired by the English to Meadow as quarters for the women. The Meadow was a large JULY, 1963 39 open space located in the vicinity of what is now Greenwich still, the accounts of the area make no mention of thirty-five Village. "... a high strong wooden palisade was erected around hundred prostitutes. the entire tract, with only a single gate that could be easily No documentation exists to support Storms' account of the guarded."14 Storms declares that the arrival and the life of these evacuation of the women from New York and their journey women was recorded in Rivington's Loyal Gazette. "In these across the Hudson River and through New Jersey. The evacua- columns occur references to the visits paid by various companies tion of the city by the British was not hasty but orderly and of soldiers to 'Jackson's Whites,' and sometimes to 'Jackson's well-planned. Blacks.' . . . Here at last we have solved the riddle of the name Carleton ordered that no one who had not lived within the lines for 'Jackson Whites.' To the women inmates it was applied in jest, at least a year should embark as a refugee without special permission, to them it clung and to their descendants to the present day."15 and care was taken that no one of bad character should accompany the loyalists . . . Adjutant-General De Lancey ordered all persons . In 1783, while Washington was entering New York City, some- intending to go to Canada to leave their names . . . with him.23 one among the British remembered the women, and the stockade gate was opened. The final evacuation was delayed through the lack of trans- portation, showing that transportation of the women across the . ... by some unknown means they reached the Hudson. Perhaps they were hurriedly ferried across the river in some of the war Hudson River was probably infeasible. Still it is possible that the vessels as a final act of humanity ... At any rate . . . they reached ferry between the city and Hoboken might have been comman- the New Jersey side ... To the companyv was added a few soldiers, deered for the purpose—but not for thirty-five hundred women. . . . some Tories . . . Across the Hackensack Meadow, up Saddle The laws against illegal entry into New Jersey were as strict as River Valley these derelicts made their way on foot ... At last, those in New York and entries into New Jersey were also care- the crowd entered the Ramapo Pass . . . Here the colony scattered fully recorded. Contemporary newspapers make no mention of finding shelters in the woods and among the rocks. Here the indi- 24 vidual members found the companionship of peaceful Indians, escaped such a migration. 18 outlaws, Hessians, runaway slaves . . , Having determined the origin of the name, Jackson White, Storms' account has been presented in detail because of the Storms details further components of their racial history, that of large amount of popularity it has received and also because trying the Negro, and that contributed by two Italians, James and to find documentation for his theories is like "trying to find the 17 Joseph Castaglionia. Storms attributes the Negro ancestry to the proverbial needle in the haystack." There is absolutely no escaped slaves of the early Dutch settlers and to Negroes freed evidence to confirm the account of the thirty-five hundred after the Civil War. This section is short, and while his conjec- women. Storms opens this section by detailing the reason for tures are well-founded, he cites no documentary evidence to the importation of the women—the thousands of soldiers quar- support his contentions. Storms' account of the addition of Italian tered in the city. But Wilbur Abbott in his New Yor\ in the blood is interesting as this belief is maintained bv residents of American Revolution states that*. • the Ramapo Mountains area. In the "1870's two Italians, James It was scarcely even a garrison town, since the soldiers were for the and Joseph Castaglionia settled in the area." James married most part not stationed in the city proper but on Statea Island, which Deliah Sniffin and Joseph married Libbv DeVries. Both women became the chief receiving and cantonment station o* the main body had Jackson White blood in them, and Libby's heritage included of the army when it was not on active service. The reasons for this Tuscarora lineage. The offspring of the couples gravitated "back are obvious ones which always move military commanders to keep to their natural habitat, the mountains."25 As previously stated, their troops as far away from the temptations of city life as possible.*" residents of the area agree with Storms on this point. But Mrs. As to the man Jackson, Storms is at his historical best when Vera Storms (no relation to Mr. John C. Storms') feels that the he states that "history has not preserved for us anything." No date of their arrival that Storms gives is inaccurate. "Around mention can be found in colonial records, newspapers, or in 1840, when the Erie Railroad was built, Italian labor was em- historians' accounts of a man named Jackson who contracted to ployed. Two of the Italians, who ran awav from the construction supply the British army with the women. jjanes were named Castaglionia. One of them married a squaw It seems strange that the arrival of such a large number of TLibbv]. They had fifteen children and most of the children r>eop!e was never recorded, and it was not. New York, in fact, and their descendants stayed around Mahwah where they com- "was virtually a beseiged town . . . Every stranger arriving in prise a good half of the Jackson White population in the area."2' ?he city had to report himself to the commandant . . ." and all arrivals were recorded.1* It is unfortunate that such attention is paid to Storms' Origin Within the last few days between 3 and 4 hundred women and chil- of the Jac\son Whites of the Ramapo Mountains. In most in- dren arrived here from Fish Kills, Poughkeepsie and Ncwburgh, 'rr.ng the wives and children of the friends of government that fled stances what documentation there is does not bear out his '-"-i persecution in different parts of the province . . -20 theories. His inaccuracies, his lack of documentation and sources, 'V-\-sa! of Rivingston's Royal Gazette fails to disclose mention and his romanticization make it impossible to view his work as oJ' :h>: arrival of such a large group and no mention can be an historical analysis of these people. Rather his account should found, in any of the columns, to references of visits by companies be viewed as -an interesting collection of the legends, myths, and o< soldier.; paid to "Jackson's Whites" or "Jackson's Blacks.'* fairy tales of the area. According to Storms the women were confined in Lispenard's 2. Another theory ascribes the origin of the name to a British Meadow. The existence of these meadows is confirmed by Abbott, officer, named General Jackson, who aided the poor. During the Barck. r;':j Fiske in his The Dutch and Quaker Colonies. But Revolution there were many people in New York City who had from *f.£ description of the area it seems impossible that a forsaken their homes, leaving much of their personal property stccka'-v could ha ,-e been built around the area or that the women behind them. The high cost of the necessities of life caused bv cc.-lo -r? survived the impoundment. scarcity and war-time conditions, make it easy to understand TT • • •''."«: regi"" -.vMch the stream [the Great Kill] imperfectly why there were many poor persons in the city during the British >,..;,• was ar.«.r.,.,r^ "Known as Lispenard's Meadow ... It was occupation. "The almshouse was soon filled with people who •"-•amp. witS treacherous quagmires here and there in which could not support themselves, and it became a great source of .!.':'-'•. '••'e erf ITTI. hr perils were illustrated by grewsome [sic] anxiety during the early part of the occupation, since with no 7 •'('•-•. as '.-. ..">•:>• a puzzled pedestrian after nightfall, losing his 2 regular taxes, the poorhouse was dependent on voluntary contri- "• rteppec ":c fl rieep pond and drowned. ' 27 P-.:-1 : •' Storrr: was confused by "Canvas Town," an area near butions." *':>.e -•... 'ront ?.">.£• bv.r:" f down early in the Briti?^1 occupation. Fortunately, officers of the British army ? ' wealthy loyalists "Vr ••: • "s no a?v:rnpt to rebuild the burned area, which was took interest in these unfortunate people, r> v:-; ' ?s in this con- c---•••:•':,! v occupir --• followers of the army, by drunkards, roust- nection that the Genera! Jackson tKrs\$ is r':x%cvxzi. ?';',••.*•".. -.::•<$ Nesroes, '-''ho fitted up temporary shelters by strctch- : The British Genera! Tackson was giver a cert:>> y.:T> of money to •-•• • "'h f: *" r -"?.h : ;: '-->" an;' dv-v.'*:.-:...'""* But he'.p destitute white families . . . oAer ^estitu women, the Reds, Rir;x."-•>.:-. ALUMNI MONTHLY i5 the Blacks, the Yellows, possibly those from Spain and some Indians Jackson White involves the terms 'jacks' and 'whites.' " I:, •<. were also in evidence . . . a loophole was found in the law which recent interview she also stated: allowed him to take care of any color . . . Many of these women, termed 'Jackson's Whites' were picked up by the armies and taken To qualify as a Jackson White they must not have moved into the to wife, taking residence with the clan, the Jackson Whites being a area since 1913 • • . clan rather than a tribe.^8 The Dutch and their slaves contributed some names. Deserters from both armies during the Revolution and outlaws infested the Interesting as this theory may be it appears to have no founda- area ... tion in history. The most conclusive proof as to the lack of a In the I8QO'S and 1900's, when iron again became big in this area, General Jackson is found in Worthington Ford's British Officers colored people were transplanted from Alabama, North Carolina, and Texas. Some of these latecomers have intermarried and that group Serving in the American Revolution. Upon examining the au- lives around Hillburn.8® thorized list of all the British officers who took part in the While this theory is not as romantically intriguing as the one Revolution, no mention is found of a General Jackson. Of the presented by Storms, its simplicity and its widespread support, two Jacksons mentioned, the highest rank held by either was 29 especially by the Jackson Whites, places it in the forefront among that of a colonel. the explanations presented. That there were problems with the poor is evident through But no documentation exists in which the term "jacks" is examination of issues of Rivington's Royal Gazette during the precisely defined as a colloquial for freed slaves. Yet it is still period of British occupation. Mention is made of the problem, highly possible that the term could have been associated with but no reference can be found to a General Jackson. The first 80 the Negro. Among the definitions of the term in Eric Partridge's great charity was on Christmas Eve, 1777. These efforts were A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English are: "an ape not sufficient, and two days after Christmas, Major General (from ca. 1500); a peasant; a term of contempt; a dandy, fop, Robertson, Commandant of the City of New York, authorized as in Jack Dandy."40 And in The American Thesarus of Slang the vestry to "assess the quotas of the inhabitants and to superin- Sl by Lester V. Berrey and Melvin Van Der Bark, some of the slang tend the poor . . ." Reference in later issues of the Royal terms for Negro include: "ape; bootblack or bootjack."*1 Thus Gazette establishes the fact that if any British officer was respons- it is conceivable that Dr. Jones is correct in stating that "the freed ible for relief it was General Robertson. slaves were contemptuously called 'jacks.'" And it is conceivable By the authority of Major General Robertson, etc., etc., the present that the comingling of Indian, Negro, and white elements lottery, being- the third for the benefit of the Refugee and other Poor. brought about the term, jacks and whites—Jackson Whites. Tickets are to be had of the several Managers and of several Printers. 82 4. Other explanations about the origin of the name will be 9000 at $3.00 each is $27,ooo. grouped together as they represent variations of the three major Through lotteries, contributions, rents on rebel-owned homes, theories. and fines, Robertson and the New York vestry did an excellent Several of the additional theories involve the man named job alleviating public distress." Jackson. In a thesis on the Jackson Whites Miss Constance Craw- 3. The third explanation for the origin of the name is one of ford gives two additional explanations but does not cite the the simnlest, vet it is difficult to prove or disprove this exolana- source for them. One analysis states that Tackson was the name rion. The Tackson Whites, anthropologists, sociologists, and resi- of the leader of the clan that formed in the Ramapo Mountains dents of the Ramapo Mountains region support the contention while the other analysis brings forth the idea that Tackson was that the name, Tackson White, is a generic term. The term is a the name of a Londoner who evacuated the thirty-five hundred derivation of the words, "jacks" and "whites." These words prostitutes from New York City and deposited them in Rockland were combined into the term, Jackson Whites, at a later date. County.42 As Miss Crawford does not cite her sources it is im- In ion, Dr. Alanson Skinner, a member of the Deoartment possible to check the accuracy of her statements. But previous of Anthropoloev of the American Museum of Natural Historv investigation of the Storms' thesis failed to establish any historical in New York City, presented this thesis. After calling the Tackson basis for a Mr. Jackson, either as the importer of the women, Whites "nature's experiment in people making ... a primitive the leader of the clan, or as a Londoner who evacuated them. new race created in the verv heart of civilization . . ." Skinner Another theory was advanced by Terhune in Treasurer. Ter- cites the origin of the term. Tackson Whites. "The term is purelv hune was one of the first writers to discuss the two groups of generic. There are no Tacksons and no Whites in the communitv Jackson Whites—the group living in the more inaccessible moun- and the term is a derivation of the words, 'jacks,' and tain regions and the group that lived at the base of the mountains 'whites.'"84 and in the nearby towns. To Terhune, "the Tackson Whites were Skinner's thesis was enlarged upon bv Dr. Charles T. Tones an ancient blend of Indians and Germans." The German element in an article that appeared in the Seotember 5, T93T, issue of the was derived frpm-^three Hessian soldiers named Groot, DeVries, and Mann" who robbed a British pay and escaped into the moun- Pathfinder. In the article, the late Dr. Tones, superintendent of 48 the New Tersev State Colony at New Lisbon, New Tersev, answers tains. Such accounts, though they have been used by people the question, "who are the Tackson Whites?" He agrees with lacking familiarity with the Tackson Whites, cannot be trusted. previous sources on the racial origins of these people. "Thev are The names Terhune uses are associated with the early residents the descendants of freed Negro slaves who, due to economic and of the area and not with Hessian soldiers. Perhaps the best social forces, were crowded back into the Ramapo Mountains analysis of Terhune's novel and of his theory is given by Miss Anne Lutz, "I think he spun a salable story from any bit of where they intermarried with white outcasts and a remnant of 4 the Algonquian Indians."85 Tones goes on to state: fact or fiction." * several traditions reeardine its origin fthe term, Tackson White] are Henrv C. Beck presents a variety of theories on the Jackson current, the most probable beinjr that the freed slaves were con- Whites in his book, Fare to Midlands. On an inspection tour of temptuously called 'iacks.' After they intermarried with the white the middle section of the state of New Tersey, Beck thought that outcasts they were SDoken of as 'iacks* and 'whites' which in time was 86 he had discovered a Jackson White settlement in an area known contracted into 'Tackson Whites.' as Honey Hollow, some fifteen miles from Trenton. Some of The Jackson Whites themselves and area residents support Beck's friends offered explanations for the origin of the group's this viewpoint. Mr. Otto Mann, a Tackson White from Mahwah, name. One friend stated that "they were deserters from Jackson's New Tersev, and the head of the Stag Hill Civic League, a group army. Thev eloped with servants of wealthy pioneer families and that is activelv promoting a "communitv consciousness" among settled in the Honey Hollow area."4" The Jackson who headed the Tackson Whites of the area, agrees with this explanation.*7 the army was associated with three people: a Colonel Jackson Mrs. Vera Storms, the school nurse for the Mahwah Public who commanded Montressor's Island during the Revolution, School System, feels that the "logical explanation for the name Andrew Jackson, and Stonewall Jackson.4* JULY, 1963 31 Another friend brought up Storms' theory but claimed that York, has been substantial and has continued, much to the benefit Jackson was the name of a sergeant who was in charge of the of the Jackson Whites. 1 stockade at Lispenard's Meadow.* Prior to the war [World War II] they drew much comment Beck finally saves himself from the perpetuation of further due to prevailing social conditions. War, an abundance of work, and fantastic theories when he quotes Alden Cottrell, of the New other contributing factors have accomplished what years of financial Jersey Forestry Division. "Mr. Cottrell said no to all the theories. assistance and social planning never could.* In 1940, the population of Mahwah was 3,908. In 1*960, the He did not believe that there were any Jackson Whites in Honey 5 Hollow. There are none south of the Ramapos . . . He went on population was estimated at over 6,ooo. The completion of the to say that in Revolutionary days, colored folk weren't called New York State Thruway and the extension of the Garden State darkies but jacks . . . The elusive hillbillies, if one can call them Parkway has led to increased settlement—much of it by com- that, were the progeny of jacks and whites."48 muters to New York City. These roads have enabled people "in the lower income brackets to seek jobs by commuting to Ramsey and other nearby New Jersey communities, or to Suffern, Pearl River and other towns across the New York State border."8 •The addition of these roads, as well as the existing Route 17, CHAPTER SIX has also attracted industry and commercial and retail business to the area, providing more jobs for the Jackson Whites. The principal industrial firms in the Mahwah area are American Brakeshoe, the Ford Motor Company, Avon Cosmetics, the build- ing industry and related firms, and retail outlets. In addition, The Jackson Whites TodayJackson Whites are employed in the Hot Shoppes on the New York Thruway and by some, though few, of the businesses in the town.7 — Mahwah Community The availability of work has been one of the sources of im- provement of the Jackson Whites. One of the biggest factors in this improvement has been compulsory education. One of the The Jackson Whites exist today. Although the image of earliest attempts at educating these people was made by a Dr. "Tobacco Road hillbillies" has been replaced by more accurate and Mrs. Francis Wheaton in the 1910*5. But "idealism never interpretations, their enclave remains, apart from the society of succeeded in the mountains."8 The Wheatons attempted to in- the Ramapo Mountains region. This chapter will be an exami- struct two Jackson White girls that they adopted,9 but ". . . The nation of the Jackson Whites today, why their enclave still exists, Wheatons' training didn't take . . ."10 the gains these people have made, and the problems they are still faced with. The examination will be restricted to the Mah- The New Jersey State Education Department made school wah, New Jersey, area, primarily because this is where the largest available to the Jackson Whites during the 1920*8. But it was not community of Jackson Whites is located and because of the fairly until 1945 that the one room school on top of Hoevenkopf extensive amount of information available about this area. Mountain^was closed down and the children were brought down to attend school in Mahwah. Until 1954 segregation of the chil- The main reason behind the continued existence of the Jackson dren existed. n Whites is their lack of acceptance by the other residents or Bergen, Rockland, and Orange counties. Through the educational facilities and personnel, changes have been made with the children. These changes have, in turn, influ- The Jackson Whites won't be accepted and they aren't accepted now by either the white population or the colored population. None of the enced the parents. [Jackson White] girls ever thinks about getting a job as a secretary, When I came [1949] the children didn't start school until they were teacher or even salest-H. Few of the men go to college. Their home seven and hardly any of them had immunization shots. Now they and their address will keep them on the mountain [Hoevenkopf start school at the age of five. Through excellent programs offered by Mountain in Mahwah, New Je~sey] . . .Suffern, Wyckoff, and the Valley Hospital [Ridgewood] the mothers are instructed in child Saddle River brag about gctt'n.c: rid of Jackson White elements care and hygiene. All the necessary shots are given for free. There through strict zoning laws . . .* is also free dental care. Their dress has been improved and the aspects They have buried their dead in shallow graves among the rocks on of charity have been overcome by selling them clothes at extremely the mountain because the authorities would not sell them cemetery low prices ... In school the girls have been instructed in home plots except down in the swampy area. They have known that one of economics and the boys have been aided in developing mechanical the girls who would have sung in a group from Ramsey High School skills. All these changes have been brought home with telling for a patriotic organization was unacceptable to some persons in that results.12 organization.^ The availability of work, an emphasis on education, and the Although these people have not been assimilated by the coun- development of a "community consciousness" has brought a ties they reside in, their way of life has changed considerably, noticeable change in the environment and culture of the Jackson even :n the last twenty years. This change is seen in Mahwah, Whites, not only in Mahwah, but also in their other settlements.18 the site of a Jackson White settlement of about fifteen hundred In Mahwah, a local group under the leadership of Otto Martn, persons. Other Jackson White areas of settlement are located in one of the most respected and articulate of the Jackson Whites, Ramsey and Ringwood, New Jersey, and in Hillburn, Suffern, has been promoting this "community consciousness." During the Sloatsburg, and Ladentown, New York. rq^o's and 1960's the Stag Hill Civic League, under the leader- T--.c Depression brought many of these people out of the more ship of Mr. Mann and others, has engaged in several community isolated mountain regions and into the towns at the base of the projects. Among them was the building of a recreational center mountains. In Mahwah, Jackson Whites settled on Grove Street and a fire house in an area without these facilities.14 : in West Mahwa :\ "ackson Lane, and Mountainside Avenue. The sensational aspects of the Jackson Whites, as portrayed In Mahwah, as well as other areas of Jackson White settlement, by Greene and others, have almost disappeared. "tKx people have always been helped and taken care of. In the Polydactylism and syndactylism has petered out. Though they do be•.:-.ni'rp; it was a way of life. After World War I the actions need some good brain cells the school psychologists have stated that A- :• -'^olent. The 1930's saw the beginnings of welfare. per ratio for low IQ, the Jackson Whites have more than normal • • v havp •-, false sense of pride and feel self-conscious IQ's ... At present there is only one atbino in the school system 8 . . . They still have strict taboos against birth control but there has -.. ., 70 to Tv>JfjCWOOd to apply for welfare." never been a twelve year old mother. Almost all their superstitions vth o* *':.•'•> Mahwah area, as well as the counties in the have disappeared. They are not immoral. Their homes are painted rt of ?•• '.v Jersey and the southeastern section of New and neatly tended. They are Protestant and they vote Republican.15 RUTOBM ALUMNI MONTHLT Thus, unlike another "racial island" in New Jersey, the Pineys, Areas of Jackson White settlement were surveyce «;.c .«" the Jackson Whites are growing up instead of growing down.16 following results were drawn up: But in spite of all their improvements, the Jackson Whites are The data on the people in the four areas show 90", people .11 ;r.<; about 15% of Mahwah's population . . . Over % of thc>e pc j c still plagued by certain insecurities. The prime insecurity that are living in substandard houses [the criteria useci o determine the these people must deal with is their lack of acceptance by the conditions of the structures were: water and toilet facilities, ir.iJc- quate size of units and/or rooms, number of rooms, and the valuation other residents in the areas they inhabit. Although the group of the dwelling]. These are, to a large extent, people who have lived has inhabited the region since colonial times, the racially mixed in Mahwah for twenty years or for their life time. 53% of them live enclave is not accepted. Mrs. Storms cited this lack of acceptance in substandard homes . . . Income figures show most families . . . to be earning between $60 and $80 per week. In the substandard as one of the main reasons for the lack of motivation among housing 42% of the families earn below that figure, and in the these people. "They see no reason to postpone immediate pleasure standard units it is 38% . . .19 17 and it seems to be a primary concern with them." In spite of these facts no urban renewal project has ever re- Another problem facing the Jackson Whites is the fact that ceived an affirmative vote when brought up on an election 20 they are finding it harder to live the way they used to. ballot. But the Jackson Whites should be given credit. "They get In 1954 a survey was made of the housing in Mahwah and 21 along better than most people give them credit for." The Jack- recommendations were drawn up, not only for the renewal of son White image has died out. Through continued improvements blighted areas in Mahwah and improved housing for the people and should they some day be assimilated by the residents of the living under substandard conditions, but for the continued devel- region, the Jackson Whites, as a distinct racially-mixed group, opment and healthy growth of the Mahwah area itself.18 may disappear as well. Notes 1(iGreene, "Jersey's Tobacco Road," 22. 3More detailed studies of the manipulations in- Chapter One 17Weller, "The Jackson Whites,'.' 70-71, 76. volved in the New Jersey land transfers may ls iRobert M. Sand, "Sandscript," Ridgetvood Her- Ridgewood Herald-News, "Legendary Jackson be found in: Francis L. Bazley, New Jersey ald-News, 16 April 1953. Whites in Exodus From Mountains," 18 Oct. as a Colony and a State, I (New York, 1902), 121-142; John O. Raum, The History of New 2Mrs. Vera Storms, personal interview with the 1948. 10New York Times, "Patriarch of the Ramapos Jersey, I. (Philadelphia, 1877), 120-166, among author at Mahwah, New Jersey,, 2 March 1963. others. 8That Mr. Storms' theories are influential can be Found Dead/Missing Five Months on Sniper Hunt," 25 Oct. 1952. *Edward S. Rankin, "The Ramapo Tract," Pro- seen in the frequent reference to them. Storms 20 is cited by Greene, Henry C. Beck in Fare to The three articles not cited previously appeared ceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society, in the Ridgewood Herald-News when a group 50, 273. Midlands (New York, 1939), 66, and by the 5 Federal Writers' Project, New Jersey: A Guide of Mahwah Jackson Whites incorporated them- A detailed study of the early patents is given by to Us Present and Past (New York, 1939), 224, selves as the "People of the Ramapos, Inc." Russel Headley, The History of Orange County, among others. and sponsored numerous projects. The articles New York (Middletown, New York, 1908), detailed the civic advances. They appeared on: 17-139- *This seems to be the general theme advanced by a Storms, Terhune, and Greene. 23 August 1953, 11 July 1954, and 11 Dec. "These names are associated with the Jackson r 1955- Whites and will be discussed in Chapter IV. 'Francis S. Greene, "The Tobacco Road of the eCole, Rockland County, 137-197. North," in the American Mercury, 53 (July- Dec. 1941), 15. ^Robert Q. Rogers, From Slooterdam to Fair 6 Lawn—A History of the Fair Lawn Area, Ber- Albert Payson Terhune, Treasure (New York, Chapter. Two gen County, New Jersey (Fair Lawn, New 1925), 4. T Jersey, Thomas Jefferson High School, i960), Greene, "Tobacco Road," 16. ^Raymond H. Torrey, Frank Place, Jr., and Robert 20. "Italics my own. L. Dickinson, New York. Walk Book. (New 8Cole, Rockfand County, 197. "Greene, "Tobacco Road," 17-18. York, 1951). 135- °This name is associated with the Jackson Whites °Snedecor and Harryman, "Surgical Problems in v 2Arthur S. Tompkins, Historical Record to the and will be discussed in Chapter IV. Hereditary Polydactylism and Syndactylism," 9 Close of the Nineteenth Century of Rockfand Cole, Rockland County, 197. Medical Society of New Jersey Journal, 37 10 (1940), 223 on. County, New York (Nyack, New York, 1902), The Vineland Training School, "The Jackson 229. Whites—A Study in Racial Degeneracy" (Un- ™lbid., 224. 3Elizabeth H. Niebyl, "A Program for Housing published and incomplete manuscript, Vine- ^Philadelphia Record, "Twelve-toed Race of land, New Jersey, circa 1918), no page People Bred in New Jersey," 31 July 1940. in the Township of Mahwah, New Jersey," prepared for the Volunteer Committee Con- numbers. "Constance Crawford, "The Jackson Whites" cerned with the People of the Ramapos, Inc. ^Cole, Rockland County, 259-262. (Unpublished M. A. dissertation, New York 12 University, 1940), 77-96. (8 Dec. 1955). 3- Samuel Allinson, ed., Acts of the General As- sembly of the Province of New Jersey (Burling- "George Weller, "The Jackson Whites," in a j.' ton, New Jersey, 1776), 263, 264. New Jersey Reader, ed. by Henry C. Beck (New 13 York, 1939), 76. New Jersey History Committee, Outline History ''Italics rny own. Chapter Three of New Jersey (New Brunswick, 1950), 42. 18Cole, Rockfand County, 269. UWeller, 'The Jackson Whites," 70-71. 1 1BInteresting studies of New Jersey's Kallikak Frances A. Westervelt, ed., History of Bergen "Samuel W. Eager, An Outline' History of family and the solution of sterilization may be County, New Jersey—1630-1923,1 (New York, Orange County (Newburgh, New York, read in Henry Goddard, The Kallikak family 1846-7), 56. I923)> 56. 17 (New York, 1912), 107-109 and in Jacob H. 2David Cole, History of Rockfand County (New CoIe, Rockland County, 64. This is an excellent Landman, Sterilization (New York, 1932), 187. York, 1884), 263. example of some of the legends that have grown JULY, 1963 33 up about this region as it is impossible to see «>Stockton, "The Slaves of New Jersey," 88. 78Vine!and Training School, "The Jackso New York City from this mountain. 81The Grants, Concessions, etc., ed. by Learning Whites," no page numbers. 18Ruth M. Keesey, "Loyalty and Reprisal—the and Spicer, 560. 1*Ibid. Loyalists of Bergen County and Their Estates" 82Benjamin , Brawley, A Short History of the Ibid. (Manuscript document, 1957), 15; and Adrian American Negro (New York, 1927), 14. 76Cole, Rockland County, 199. Leiby, The Revolutionary War in the Hacken- ™Md., 15. 77Keesey, "Loyalty." This is an excellent exami sack. Valley (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 84Elizabeth Donnan, Documents Illustrative of nation of loyalism in Bergen County. 1962). the Slave Trade to America, Vol. Ill (Washing- 78Cole, Rockland County, 30. l»Keesey, "Loyalty," 15. ton, 1932), 410-411. ™Ibid ^Archives of the State oj New Jersey, ed. by **lbid., 406. , ed., Southeastern New York, 49*. William S. Stryker (First Series), Vol. XXIX, BUI bid., 431. 81Vineland Training School, "The Jackso) Newspaper Abstracts, 271. 87Zimm, ed., Southeastern New York., 696. Whites," no page numbers; Terhune, Treasure 21Richard P. McCormick, Experiment in Inde- 88Cole, Rockland County, 199. 4; Storms, Origin, 7-9; Crawford, "The Jack pendence—New Jersey in the Critical Period S9Lundin, Cockpit, 7. son Whites," 69, and Jones, "Jackson Whites,' 1781-1789 (New Brunswick, 1950), 20. 40Cooley, Slavery, 9. 218. ^Leonard Lundin, Cockpit of the Revolution— «/«Ibid., 249- 20 2$7/ie Grants, Concessions, and Original Consti- William Nelson, (First Series), Vol. XXII, Royal Gazette, 37 Dec. 1777, 2. tute. •••: r the Province of New Jersey, edited Marriage Records, 525. ^Copies of Rivington's newspaper for the yours :••/ A:!--:.. Learri-v; and Jacob Spicer (Somer- 71Johnston, "Documentary Evidence," 25. betw«en 1773 and 1783 were studied in the •...'V. :?. j, 30V;. New York Public Library. 34 RUTGERS ALUMNI MONTHLY '•"John Fiskc, The Dutch and Quaker Colonies in 38Mrs. Vera Storms, interview with the author at "Elizabeth H. Niebyl, A p,c?ram for Housing m America, II (Cambridge, 1899), 91-92. Mahwah, New Jersey, 2 March 1963. the Township of Mahwa/i. (Prepared for the 22Oscar Barck, New York. City During the War Volunteer Committee Concerned with the for Independence (New York, 1931), 82. *°Eric Partridge, A Dictionary of Slang and Un- People of the Ramapos, Inc., 8 Dec. 1955.) id conventional English (New York, 1961), 429- ?Mrs. Vera Storms, interview. 24Rivington's Royal Gazette, 1781-1783. 433- Hbid. 41 25Storms, Origin, 17. Lester V. Berrey and Melvin Van Der Bark, ^Vineland Training School, "The ackson 2(5Mrs. Vera Storms, personal interview with the The American Thesaurus of Slang (New York, Whites." The researcher visited the Wheatons author at Mahwah, New Jersey, 2 March 1963. 1952). 385- and reported that both daughters had intelli- 27Barck, New York, 9- "Crawford, "The Jackson Whites," 61-62. gences that placed them in the "moron class." 2S *3Terhune, Treasure, 4. 10Mrs. Vera Storms, interview. Constance Crawford, "The Jackson Whites" 44 (Unpublished M.A. thesis, New York Univer- Miss Anne Lutz, letter to the author, 24 Feb. "Kenneth Zwicker, "They Don't Cah It Segre- 1963. sity, 1940), 48. 4B gation but It's a Battle by Any Means," Bergen 29Worthington G, Ford, British Officers Serving Henry C. Beck, Fare to Midlands (New York, Evening Record, 18 April 1954. 1939), 66. 12 in the American Revolution, 1774-1783 (Brook- ie Mrs. Vera Storms, interview. lbid. 13 lyn, 1897), 56, 87. 7 This change is detailed by Russell Ainsworth in * lbid., 67. a series of articles that appeared in the Bergen 30Barck, New York, 9»- **bid., 68. MWd., 91. Evening Record, 13-17 Aug. 1962. 32Rivington's Royal Gazette, 3 June 1778. Chapter Six 33Barck, New York, 92-94. 15Mrs. Vera Storms, interview. 3*Alanson B. Skinner, The Indians 0} Greater *Mrs. Vera Storms, interview. 16Mr. Miles R. Feinstein comes to this conclusion New York, 9 (Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1915), 2Mis Anne Lutz, Ramsey, New Jersey, letter to in his "Historical Development of the Pineys p. 45. : the, author, 24 Feb. 1963. in Southern Jersey" (Unpublished Henry Rut- 35Charles T. Jones, "The Jackson Whites," 3Mrs. Vera Storms, interview. gers thesis, Rutgers University, 1963). Euzenical News, 16 (Dec 1931), 218. 4Ridgetvood News, "Legendary Jackson Whites 17Mrs. Vera Storms, interview. Sbid% in Exodus from Mountains," 24 Feb. 1949. - 18Niebyl, Program for Housing, 44. 3"Russcll Ainsworth, "Details of Group's Origin ^Report of Progress, published by the Township ™Ibid., 28. Are Clouded/As Is Derivation of the Term," Planning Board and prepared by its planning 20Mrs. Vera Storms, interview. 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Morgan, Lewis H., League of the Iroquois (New Snedecor and Harryman, "Surgical Problems in (Paris, 1774)- York, 1922). Hereditary Polydactylism and Syndactyjjg Clayton, William W., and Nelson, William, Newark Sunday Call, "State Probes Plight of New The Medical Society of New Jersey, 40, History of Bergen and Passaic Counties, New Stewart, William, and Steward, Theophilu? Jersey (Philadelphia, 1882). Jersey Jackson Whites," 25 April 1937. New Jersey History Committee, Outline History Gouldtown, A Very Remarkable Settlement of Cole, David, History of Rockfand County (New of New Jersey (New Brunswick, 1950). Ancient Date (Philadelphia, 1913). York, 1884). New Jersey Historical Society, "New ]etsey and Stockton, Frank R., "The Slaves of New Jersey," Cooley, Henry S., A Study of Slavery in New the Netherlands," 77 (Oct. 1959). Stories of New Jersey (New Brunswick, 1961). Jersey (Baltimore, 1896). New York Herald Tribune, "Museum Prizes Storms, John C, Origin of the Jackson Whites of Cooper, Susan F., "The Hudson River and Its Bones of Indian 400 Years Old," 3 July 1940. the Ramapo Mountains (Park Ridge, N. J., 1936). Early Names," The Magazine of American New Yorkt Times, "Bullets Like Bees in Hillbilly History, IV, June, 1880. Feud," 13 July 1940. Storms, Mrs. Vera, personal interview at Mah- Crawford, Constance, "The Jackson Whites" New York Times, "Indian Art Relic Found in wah, New Jersey, with the author, 2 March (Unpublished M.A. dissertation, New York Up-State New York," 8 August 1940. 1963. University, 1940). New York World Telegram, "Jersey's Tobacco Terhune, Albert P., Treasure (New York, 1925). Donaldson, Thomas, The Six Nations of New Road," 27 April 1937. Torrey, Raymond H., Guide to the Appalachian York. (Washington, 1892). Niebyl, Elizabeth H., A Program for Housing in Trail (New York, 1934). Donnan, Elizabeth, Documents Illustrative of the the Township of Mahwah, New Jersey. (Pre- Torrey, Raymond H.; Place, Frank, and Dickin- Slave Trade to America (Washington, 1932). pared for the Volunteer Committee Concerned son, Robert, New York Walk Book (New Drake, Samuel G., The Aboriginal Races of North with the People of the Ramapos, Inc., 8 Dec. York, 1951). America (New York, 1880). 1955)- Trelease, AUcn W., Indian Affairs in Colonial Eager, Samuel W., An Outline History of Orange Northeastern New Jersey (New York, 1916). New York: The Seventeenth Century (Ithaca, County (New York, 1846-1847). Parkman, Francis, The Jesuits in North America N. Y., i960). Encyclopedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition (Cam- in the Seventeenth Century (Boston, 1899). Tuttle, William P., "History of Morris County, bridge, 1911). Partridge, Eric, A Dictionary of Slang and Un- New Jersey," Proceedings of the New Jersey Fiske, John, The Dutch and Quaker Colonies in conventional English (New "York, 1961). Historical Society (Second Series), vol. II (May America, vol. II (New York, 1927). Philadelphia Record, "Twelve-toed Race of People 1869). Ford, Washington C, British Officers Serving in Bred in New Jersey," 6 June 1940. Van Renessler, Mrs. Schuylcr, History of the the Amerdan Revolution, 1774-1783 (Brook- Philadelphia Record, "The Twelve-toed People," City of New York '" 'he Seventeenth Century, lyn, N. Y., 1897). 30 July 1940. I (New York, 1909). Frazicr, E. F., The Free Negro Family, A Study Philadelphia Record, "Pride and Prejudice," 31 Van Valen, James H., History of Bergen County, of Family Origins Before the Civil War (Nash- July 1940. New Jersey (New York, 1900). ville, 1932). Phillips, UJrich B., American Negro Slavery (New Wallace, Anthony F., The Modal Personality Frazier, E. F., The Free Negro Family in the York, 1927). Structure of the Tuscarora Indians (Washing- United States (Chicago, 1939). Pierson, Edward, The Ramapo Pass (Sterlinton, ton, 1952). Goddard, Henry H., The Kallikak. Family (New N. Y., 1915). Walton, Joseph S., Conrad Weiser and the Indian York, 1912). Pomfret, John E., Province of East New Jersey, Policy of Colonial Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, Greene, Lorenzo J., The Negro in Colonial New 1609-1702 (Princeton, 1962). 1900). England (New York, 1942). Rankin, Edward S., "The Ramapo Tract," Weller, George, "A Reporter at Large: The Jack- Greene, Francis S.. "The Tobacco Road of the Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical son Whites," The New Yorker, XIV (17 Sept. North," American Mercury, 53 (July-Dec. Society, 50, 1932. 1938). 1941). Raum, John O., The History of New Jersey from Westervelt, Frances A., ed., History of Bergen H'•alley. Russel, The History of Orange County, . Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, County New Jersey—1630-1923, in three vol- New' York. (Middletown, N. Y., 1908). in three volumes (Philadelphia, 1877). umes (New York, 1923). Hewitt, Edward R., Ringwood Manor, the Home Ridgewood News, "Legendary Jackson Whites in Wheeler, John H., Reminiscences and Memoirs of •••;• the Hewitts (Trenton, 1946). Exodus from Mountains," 24 Feb. 1949'. North Carolina and Eminent North Carolinians Hudson, Sue F., Background of Ho-Ho-Kus His- Ridgewood News, "Mountain People's Aid Com- (Columbus, N. C, 1851.) 'o'-y (H-)hokus, N. J., 1953). mittee to Purchase Land," 23 April 1953. Wilson, Philip W., William Pitt, the Younger ' ' :.:ton, James, "Documentary Evidence of the Ridgewood News, "Volunteer Committee Con- (Garden City, N. Y., 1930). Relations of Indians and Negroes," The Jour- cerned with People of the Ramapos Incom- Wissler, Clark, ed., The Indians of Greater New nal of Negro History, XIV (Jan. 1929). pany," 7 May 1953. York and the Lower Hudson, vol. Ill of the Jones, Charles T., "The Jackson Whites," Ridgewood News, "Ramapo Committee to Meet Anthropological Papers of the American Mu- Eugenical News, XVI (Dec. 1931). Tomorrow on Building Plans," 21 May 1953. seum of Natural History (New York, 1909). Kcescy, Ruth M., "Loyalty and Reprisal—the Ridgewood News, "Idle Tools Needed for Ramapo Wissler, Clark., The Indians of the United lo'.a.'ists of Bergen County and Their Estates" K Job," 28 May 1953. States: Four Centuries of Their History and ("..•.;:• shed MS. 1957). Ridgewood News, "Students Learn Cooperation Culture (New York, 1940). Kwh'cr. Prancis C, Three Hundred Years in Work Camp Experience," 26 July 1953. Woodson, Carter G., "The Beginnings of Misce- [C.c&lrr, N. J., 1940). Ridgewood News, "Ramapo Mountaineers Honor genation of Whites and Blacks," The Journal 'jm\ Martha, History of the City of New York Friends Group," 23 Sept. 1953. of Negro History, III (Oct. 1918). (New >>. k, 1877). Ridgewood News, "Stories of Ramapo People Woodson, Carter G., The Negro in Our History Lndman, lacob H., Sterilization (l(Jew York, Featured in Book by Josephine Truslow (Washington, 1922). Adams," 23 Sept. 1953. Ijrt, .Vfv.aton J., From Indian Trail to Iron Woodruff, George C-, History of Hillside, Ntto Ridgewood News, "Ramapo Work Wins High Jersey and Vicinity (Hillside, N. J., 1934). ^orsc—Travel and Transportation in New State Award," 17 July 1954. \airy, 1620-1860 (Princeton, 1939). Zimm, Louis, ed., Southeastern New York, in Ridgewood News, "Mahwah Gets Expert for New three volumes (New York, 1940). Lawrence, .'.'. M., The Boundary Line and Other Study," 5 June 1955. Zwicker, Kenneth, "They Don't Call It Segrega- Hitr -••'• liiographv and History (Deckertown, Ridgewood News, "Plans Told to Eliminate Poor tion but Its a Battle by Any Means,". Bergen N. ;., 1889). Housing," n Dec. 1955. Evening Record, 18 April 1954. RUTGERS ALUMNI MONTHLY Whites Miles* M. Merwin Part 1.—The Iiriage of the Jackson Whites For generations the inhabitants of the northeastern sec-J tion of New Jersey and the southeastern section of New! York ha\ e been fed on legends, myths and fairy tales corf-l cerning the Jackson Whites and have passed the stories f along. Througti. books, magazines and newspapei's an image| of thes>e irountain people has evolved. | This image has not been beneficial, Park Ridge, gathered the myths, leg- I for many of the writers have present- ends, and fairy tales together in a ed a *i si orically. inaccurate picture pamphlet he had printed entitled "Ori- that tenc.& to glorify whatever back- gin of the Jackson Whites of the Ram- i wardness and degeneracy the Jackson apo Mountains." His conjectures have | Whites might once have had. influenced the public ever since. Dur- During the Nineteenth and early ing the lsKJO's and 1940's newspapers I years of the Twentieth Century, the and magazines began to devote con- I Jackson Whites were overlooked by siderab'.e column space to the Jackson the populf r media. They were viewed Whites—for within traveling: distance as simple rustics. But during the 1920's of their New York offices dwelt a the iinaje changed when people group of people determined to resist learned that the Jackson Whites were civilization different Jioin what they had been A lurid Account previously pictured. Withdrawing In 1937 the New York World Tele- | from and shunned by society, these (Please Turn to Page Ninety-nine) Indians, Negroes, and whites had de- velope intj a large, closely related en- clave which sought isloation in the Ramapo Mountains and in the small towns al the base of the mountains. Outsido interest on a large scale was aroused ir> 1925 with the publication Of a popular novel by Albert Payson Terhune entitled "Treasure" In 1936 a "local historian," John C. Storms of August 18, 1963 Amusements The Jackson Whites (Continued From Pa?e One) nevitabie vitamin deficiencies, a mini- gram published a lurid account of mum or housing, clothing and com- what purported to be a visit by one fort and the absence of education is of its reporters to the Jackson Whites. casually p.ocepted . . . Certain charac- The article was by Francis S. Greene teristics have become apparent—such and was entitled "Jersey's Tobacco as albinoism and anomalies of the Road" and it later appeared in the hands and feet • • . Americaa Mercury as the "Tobacco Such stavements were not overlooked Road of the North." Greene's first by the press and it is not surprising paragraph is interesting: that soon after the publication of-the 'ITh'rty nines irom New York article, newspaper features such as City lives a dull-minded, moral- "Twelve-toed Race of People Bred in less and lawless tribe of moun- New Jersey' appeared. tain folk who make the characters One of the best articles dealing with of Tobacco Road seem cultured Jackson Whites was written by George and effete by comparison. Weller for the New Yorker. It serves as With the exception of certain words a contrast to Green's. It is readily It is similar to a passage from Ter- apparent that Weller visited the area hune's "Treasure". and talked with the Jackson Whites "For these Ramapo mountain- as well as people such as Storms. The eers, to a great extent, were as article Is an objective appraisal o' primitive as savages. Born and these people and Weller's discussion bred withir thirty miles of New of Jackson White culture and environ York City a dull-minded , . . ment was later used by Miss Con After his opening Greene went on stance Crawford In a thesis on the to discuss the "Jackson Whites who Jackson Whites. sully the Ramapo Mountains today Continental Defense with the same jerry-built, squalid Weller states that "it is harder to communities that have been their find out something that happened in "homes since the Revolution." And in the Ramapo Mountains two genera- discussing the legends about their ori- tions ago than what happened in the gins, Greene devotes considerable Fiji Islands at the same time." And space to the theories of Storms— he goes on to state: a person often lacking In historical "From the time She Ramapos accuracy. But for the most part the were the defense of the Continen- article Is pure Greene. tal army against the British forces "They live in incredible prlmi- .... th<} forebearers of these peo- tiveness in their homes-^shacks, ple held the chain of hills against shanties, lean-tos ... When their alien invaders ... A common an- shacks arc approaching their end cestry and interests have been they are propped up by long poles their spiritual support . . . Quiet, driven into the ground and wedged earnest, and honest they have against the side walls to keep asked only what their forebearers them from falling down ... In had originally—their land and the dooryards are whiskey bottles, their freedom on it ..." shoes, umbrella ribs, and chicken Greene ends is article by hinting at heads . . These people don't ob- the solution advanced by Dr. Henry • serve the least of human decencies Goddard in his study of the infamous . . . There are frequent scraps over Kallikak family—sterilization. corn liquor and women . . . "The Jackson Whites are a def- While 25 years have passed since the inite social problem and are de- articles were written, it is still diffi- tined to become worse, unless sci- cult to believe Greene. Whatever may ence ji a kind fate Intervenes." have been the characteristics of the Butu In his article, Weller develops . original Revoluntionary settlers, the the theory that a solution was already articles appear to be vicious fabrica- in existence, a solution that accounts tions, in no way applicable to the for the lack of press interest during present residents. Green's lack of jour- the late 1940's and 1950's. Weller's nalistic ethics becomes all the more solution involves two conclusions. apparent when his articles are com- First, he refutes the image of the pared with the one written by George 'Tobacco Road hillbillies" presented Weller for the New Yorker in 1938. by Greene and others. This theme is But before sucn a contrast is at- seen in the preceding quote. Second, tempted another element contributing Weller states that the Jackson Whites to the Jackson White image should are leaving the isolation of the moun- be examined. tains and towns. The public, as weir as unscrupulous "After World War I the govern- reporters, gained much from sources ment estimated the Jackson White such as Terhune and Storms. Science population at two thousand but also helped form the popular concep- today it is doubtful If the recog- tion that grew up about these people, nizable types, in which Indian, In 1940, the "Medical Society of the Negro, English and German ele- State of New Jersey Journal" published ments predominate would num- an articl3 by Drs. Snedecor and Har- ber 500 . . . The Jackson Whites ryman dealing with "Surgical Prob- have emerged from their retreats. lems In Hereditary Polydactylism and Through the hollow at Hillburn Syndacty.'Ism.' The doctors had exam- the Jackson Whites may pause ined one Jackson White family whose only long enough to get the cour- member showed polydactylism (extra age to cross Route 17, or he may fingers or toes) and syndactylism linger fore\er on relief . . . The (•webbed fingers or toes). The doctors Jackson Whites are losing their concluded that the main cause for land and becoming sharecroppers." such anomalies was a defective germ Final!/, In his-description of the plasm. But they also stated that in physical environment of the Jackson general, "this polygot gathering with- Whites, Weller does not agree with drew from civilization for one hun- Greene. As an example of this one dred and fifty years. Close intermar- may cite Weller's description of their riage was the rule and this, coupled homes. He details the well-built homes with a meager subsistence level, with in the Mahwah and Ringwood areas. THE SUNDAY NEWS ;••;;_ .^.: "•':?.-- ... ;.;;; THE STAG HILL region of Mahwah, which has been inhabited by some Jackson White families since Revolutionary days, is reached today via Geiger Road, a curv- ing road which joins Route IT opposite the Ford plant. And Welter does not find "whiskey bottles, shoes, umbrella ribs and chick-, en heads' that Greene speaks of. By the late 1940's interest in the Jacksonu Whites had abated. The image was disappearing. "War, an abundance of work and contributing factors have ac- complished what years of financial assistance and social planning nev- er could . . . Perhaps the best story dealing with the end ox" the Jackson White image appeared in the October 25, 1952, issue of the New York Times. The head- line stated "Patriarch of the Rama- pos Pound Dead/Missing Five Months on Sniper Hunt." Under an arresting picture of Ramsey Conklin, appeared an obituary of the "last of the moun- taineers." Since the 1950's, interest in the Jackson Whites has reverted to a local level. This is because stories such as "Ramapo Mountaineers Honor Friends Group," "Ramapo Work Wins High State Award," and "Plans Told to Eliminate Poor Housing" do not carry the reader appeal of a "Jersey's Tobacco Road," or a "Twelve-toed Race of People Bred in Jersey." Although the popular image has been refuted, the Jackson Whites are still an intriguing subject. Little of authoritative value has been published about them and few, if any, theories have bsen documented. Some of the theories aoout ttieir history and the origin of the name are fantastic. Ma- ny conjectures have been advanced but, in general .there Is scant evidence to support them. This paper is an attempt to determine the antecedents of the Jackson Whites, why elements of the population sought isolation in the Ramapo Mountain region, and how the name, Jackson White, origi- nated. (Next Sunday—The area inhab- ited by the Jackson Whites.) Jackson Whites By Miles M. Merwin I Part 2.—Research Site, the Ramapo Mountains Basic to any study of the Jackson Whites is a knowledge of the area they inhabit. Although some Jackson Whites are found in the cities of Paterson, Newark, and Orange, New Jersey, and Morris and Sussex counties, New Jersey, the majority of these people are found in Bergen and Passaic Counties, New Jersey, and in Bock- , land and Orange counties, New York. Bear Mountain-Harriman sector of The scenery of the northeastern the Palisades Interstate Park but section of New Jersey and the south- most of the region extending south- eastern section of New York Is pic- ward to Hillburn-Torne-Sebago, Sev- turesque and, in many places, im- en Hills, and the Kakiat Trials is posing. The Ramapo Plateau ex- owned by the Ramapo Land Com- tends down between the Wanaque pany. In the words of one writer "it and Ramapo Rivers. It is triangular is a bewitched region where anyone, in shape, with its base line on the even the most familiar with it,, can north along the Ramapo River from get 'tol'able confused' by wandering Suffern, New York, to Sloatsburg, even a few yards off the marked New York, and then along the Eagle trails." Valley Road to Sterling Forest. This plateau, together with the Wyano- Many of the mountains, mountain kie Plateau to the west, covers the passes, lakes, streams, and meadows northern portion of Passaic and have names of Indian, Dutch, or Bergen counties. The northern sec- local origin, and these names are tion of Bergen County and the part of the color of the region. southwestern section of Rockland and Ramapo is an Indian name which Orange counties are part of the (Please Turn to Page Five) RESIDENTS of the Stag Hill section maintain com- fortable, attractive homes such as this one. N 1963 THE SUNDAY NEWS The Jackson Whites Art Association (Continued from Page Three) Being Organized is defined as "clear or sweet water." pansion of the area are among the Names such as Tom Jones, Jackie factors which account for the dis- PARAMUS — Area artists are in-1 Jones, Horse Stable, Catamount, appearance of the old Image of the vited to become charter members ofl Black Ash, and Irish have been af- Jackson Whites and their removal a new art group, the Paramus Art! fixed to various hills and mountains from isolation. Association, Inc. The organization isl and place' names like Squirrel, Sweet the first in Northwest Bergen with! Lips, Stony Lonesome, Spook Bock the chief objective of bringing thel Road, the Road Nobody Wanted, More Than 200 works of members not only to thel Scratch, and Short and Long Clove (Continued From Page Two) attention of the public but to that ofl are in evidence. large business concerns and industriesl ski, 257 E. Glen Ave.; Oliver Vance, in the area. Since World War II, the area 224 Walthery Ave.; Mrs. Alice D. rate of expansion has been large. Cronk, 405 Stevens Ave.; Walter A. Mrs. Theodore Slezak of 11 Rock-j The population of the towns located Slaboden Jr., 504 Van Buren St. ingham Place, Glen Rock, heads the] in the area of Jackson White settle- Mrs. Barbara L. Stephens, 415 trustees selected for the group's first! ment • has doubled. These towns in- Stevens Ave.; Mrs. Olga McTaggart, year. She is also the director of thel clude: Mahwah, Ramsey, and Ring- 120 Walthery Ave.; Edmund Cancel"- Academy of Fine Arts in Par&mus.i wood, New Jersey, and Suffern, mo, 160 Cottage Place; Richard She stresses, however, that there will I ' Sloatsburg, Hillbum, and Laden- Smith, 222 E. Glen Ave.; Mrs. J. M. be no connection between the associ-l town, New York. The completion of Lawrence, 950 Barnes Drive; Mrs. ation and the academy. the New York State Thruway, the Stephen Kuno, 104 Godwin Ave.; She also pointed out that with morel extension of the Garden State Park- Samuel Keppler, 482 Alpine Terrace; and more big shopping centers and! way, and the existence of an excel- Peter Smith, 516 Amsterdam Ave.; industrial parks locating In the area! lent system of railroads has led to Robert Utting, 721 Waverly Place; and displaying an interest in further-! the concentration of industrial, com- Philip Sweeney, 123 Avondale Road; mercial, and retail businesses in the Esco Strickland, 338 Fairmont ing the arts, there is a decided de-l area, as well as increasing the ease Road; Dr. Carl Nelke, 207 Spencer mand for a liaison agent between! of commuting to plaices such as New Place; Adrian Van Riper, 5 Maynard local artists and big business. The as-| York City. The development and ex- Court. sociation plans to fill this need. -.septeimoer ro, x»oo •THIS BTXrnjHT THEWS were either adopted by one of the members or forced to Join. By 1720, the Algonquian tribes in the Ramapo Mountains region had been reduced The Jackson Whites and subjugated by the Iroquois. To avoid total subjugation and enslave- By Miles M. Merwin ment many of the Indians may have moved back into the more inaccessible Part 5.—Racial Origins mountain regions. Members of the Tuscarora tribe of the Iroquois confederacy are supposed Who are the Jackson Whites? In,order to understand to have settled in the area around the history of these people and to effect an answer to this 1718. How and when this tribe came question it is necessai'y to examine their racial origins. One to settle in the region has been the of the most succinct definitions of the racial origins of subject of much conjecture. the Jackson Whites is given in a study done under the aus- Indian Attack pices of the Vineland Training Originally, the Tuscarora had re- School. The Jackson Whites "are a The increased power of the Iroquois sided in North Carolina. By the 1700's race of people of mixed Indian, Negro, confederacy is directly related to Eu- the Tuscaroras were jealously view- and white blood inhabiting the Ram- ropean settlement. Chance put the ing the increasing number and settle- apo Mountains of the northern part Iroquois across the only water-level ments of the whites on their lands. of New Jersey and extending over route between the Dutch (or English) They were finally provoked into war- the border into the adjoining section and the Great Lakes, thus enabling fare by " the large number of then- of New York State!" This chapter will them to become the most powerful people being sold into slavery, and be an examination of the racial ele- combination east of the Mississippi others being killed in defending their ments that compose the Jackson and a vital factor in the rivalry be- wives and children." The Tuscarcra Whites, why these elements sought tween the English and the French. formed a conspiracy with the Pamlico isolation in the mountain region, and "Through European intrusion the Indians and attacked the white of the two groups of Jackson Whites Iroquois acquired firearms; superior planter settlements on the Roanoke that evolved from these racial el- organization enabled them to use this River in 1711. When the war broke ements. strength more effectively; and, final- out, the Tuscarora had 15 towns and The Indian ancestry of these people ly, a reputation for success bred about 1200 fighting men. Their terri- has been traced back to subtribes of further success." tory embraced the country drained by the two great Indian confederacies the Neuse River and its tributaries, that roamed and fought in the area The basic objective for the forma- from near the coast to the vicinity that embraces the Ramapo Mountains tion of the league, which consisted of of the present Wake County and the —the Algonquians and the Iroquois. the Conestoga, Susquehanna, Erie, lands along the Tar Pamlico River When Henry Hudson first sailed up Neutrals, Tionantati, and Huron, and possibly the Roanoke River, while the (Hudson) river, then called the around 1570, seems to have been their hunting quarters extended as Shatemuc, the region was inhabited peace; peace, that is, between the far as Cape Fear. by three subtribes 6i the Algonquian 'warring Iroquois so they might better On September 22, 1711, the Indians confederacy, the Leni Lenapes (or take up the hatchet against their struck without warning, killing 130 Delawares), the Mohegans, and the common" enemies. "What began as a settlers, principally on the lands along Minsies. By 1720 the Iroquois con- defensive alliance became, if not a the Roanoke and Chowan rivers. federacy had extended its control over positive instrument of conquest, at Their attack lasted three days. the region and over the Algonquian least a covering defense for aggression The Tuscarora were not defeated subtribes residing there." The Sixth of the bloodiest variety." The Iroquois until March of 1713, when a Colonel Nation of the Iroquois, the Tuscarora, became convinced that they were a Moore, with 33 militiamen and 900 settled on the level ground between "Master race and engaged in con- Indians marched on the Tuscarora. In the Ramapo River and the foot of quest for the partial purpose of add- the battle that ensued around one of Hoevenkopf Mountain, near the pres- ing new nations to their confederacy; the Tuscarora's fortified towns the ent town of Mahwah, New Jersey. Some nations did join the pax Iro- Tuscarora were defeated. Three hun- "The Tuscaroras were strangers to quouia—the Tuscarora became such dred and ninety-two prisoners were the native inhabitants, having come a nation and the Mahican, Scaticook taken, one hundred and ninety-two up from the south, about 1718, on Tuteloe, and Delaware^ among others, scalps were secured, and three hun- their way to join the Five Nations." Decimated by tribal wars, forced off their lands by white settlers, reduced to slavery, elements of these Indian subtribes sought refuge in the moun- tains. ". . . the Indian blood found In the Jackson Whites, whether it came from individuals held as slaves, or through isolated free Negroes who married Indians, Is supposed to have belonged to the Minsi and Wolf subtribes. . . . There were also a few families of the Tuscarora who remained in the mountains . . . (on a trek) which the tribe made to join the Five Nations of the Iroquois." The Indians of what quickly be- came a Dutch colonial interest, the New Netherlands, after Hudson's voyage, fell into two linguistic stocks, the Algonquian and the Iroquoian. The Algonquian was the larger of the two families, both in population and in territorial extent. Occupying the Atlantic seaboard from the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to North Carolina, Algonquian tribes could also be found as far as the northern plains and the Rocky Mountains. They surrounded the greater part of the Iroquoian con- federacy. These tribes, the most fa- mous of which were the Iroquois proper or the Five Nations of New York State, occupied the bulk of present-day New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, southern Ontario, as well as the lower Appalachian region. Social Divisions The Algonquian confederacy seems to have been composed of 30 or 40 •autonomous communities differenti- ated by social rather than political divisions. The identification and loca- tion of individual Algonquian bands in New Netherland is largely depend- ent on the degree to which the Dutch and their English successors made contact with them. The Algonquian subtribes in the Ramapo Mountains region were not confined to any one spot during the year. "In the winter they sought more sheltered abodes, and possibly more accessible. For the most part they lived at or near streams." Those groups living nearest the colonial settlements are among the best known today. "The first to meet Henry Hud- son in 1609 were the Navaslnk, who occupied the AtlantU High- lands below Sandy Hook. . . . The Hackensack were among the clos- est neighbors to New Netherland, controlling the present Jersey City-Bayonne area. . . . North of them, straddling the New Jersey- New York line as it intersects the Hudson were the Haver- straw. . . ." The Tappan and Haverstraw tribes were further subdivisions of the Min- sie clan, a subtribe of the Leni Len- ape branch of the Algonquian con- federacy. The comparatively remote position in mountainous terrain pre- vented disastrous contact with Euro- peans for many years, but the sub- tribes were subject, on the other hand, to forays by the Iroquois as that confederacy grew in power. ruge v dred ana sixtyjij* Indian! were The precise route the Tuscarora either killed or Ktt&ed., Thfl "battle took north is unknown. They passed was a crushing oI8w for the Tusca- through Virginia,.... through Penn- rora and they began to flee north- sylvania, and finally Into New York ward to join their Iroquois kpsmen. Stite. Some of theni settled along the They moved northward over s'ninety Juniata and Susquehanna rivers in year period and "the last cormunity Pennsylvania. Some of the Tusearcra of Carolina Indians consciots of it- settled near Binghamton and Syra- self as Tuscarora marched north to cuse. New York, ruscavoras also New York about i803." (Please Turn to Page Eleven) September T5, 1963 The Jackson Whites (Continued From Page Nine) realized that the Europeans had come settled in New Jersey, in the area to stay and many of the Indians around Hoevenkopf , Mountain at began the tragic trek westward in present-day Mahwah, New Jersey, the search of new lands. "Most of the site of one of the largest remaining Indians removed from New Jersey Jackson White settlements. about 1730. After many meetings and I How this group of Tuscarora In- negotiation, a treaty was made with I dians arrived in the Ramapo Moun- the Minsies in 1758 whereby they I tain region is a matter of conjecture. relinquished all land that was under I The route they probably took was their jurisdiction, which included I the Esopus Road. "There was a-good most of New Jersey." Yet some of I traveled road constructed from be- the Indians remained behind and I yond the Delaware River, in Penn- joined the Indians that had settled I sylvania, to Kingston, then Esopus. earlier in the Ramapo Mountains. In Ulster Co., in this State (New A final factor that might have led I York), one hundred miles in length. Indians to live in the Ramapo Moun- The road was made while Holland tains was slavery. Whether any In- owned this country." As the road ran dians ancestors of the Jackson near the Ramapo Mountains it is Whites may have been held as slaves conceivable that the Tuscaroras could and escaped to the mountains is not have paused in their journey and known, but as early as 1682, mention some of them remained in the area. is made of Indians held as slaves in As previously stated, inter-tribal New Jersey. Indians were seized and j wars weakened and decimated the sold by other Indians and by whites, i two confederacies and their subtribes That Indians might be held as slaves j in the Ramapo Mountains region, and under the laws of New Jersey was I led elements of the Tuscarora and the established in 1707. The case was one I Algonquian confederacies to endure of habeas corpus and dealt with an I each other in the relative sanctuary Indian woman named Rose who was of the mountains. claimed by the defendant as his slave. White Man Arrives In rendering a verdict in favor of the Another reason for the removal of defendant the judge stated that some of the Indians to the mountains "they (the Indians) have so long been was the white man's advent in this recognized as slaves in our law that region. In the early days of white set- it would be1 a violation of the rights tlement the relations between the of property to establish a contrary Europeans and the Indians were doctrine at the present day, and use- friendly. Strife between the two less to investigate the manner in groups first arose in 1632 over the which they originally lost their free- activities of the Dutch fur traders. dom." One of the major factors that Members of the Algonquian confed- aroused Tuscarora enmity had been eracy, including the Tappan Indians, their seizure and sale as slaves. Fear- • had "been annoyed by the partiality ing such a fate they remained within cf the Dutch traders for the Iroquois the shelter of the mountains where federation." But open warfare was they joined by other escaped slaves | averted. Then, in February, 1634, —both Indian and Negro. Kieft, the director-general of New Netherland, decided to punish the Tappans and Haverstraws for an of- fense committed by the Mohawks. Eighty innocent Indians were mur- dered and eleven tribes of Indians, including the Tappans and the Haverstraws, allied themselves for revenge. The Indians swept the coun- try and reduced it to desolation. It •was not until August 30, 1645, that peace was arranged. "The hatchet was buried. The European had come to stay." Fertile lands, an abundance of game, and the possibility of ore deposits stimulated European settle- ment in Bergen, Rockland, and Orange counties. Practically all the patents secured by different persons, eluding the tracts of DeHarte, Kakiat, Orangetown, and Ramapo, dating from 1666 to 1703, were pur- chased from the tribes who held the 'lands. As increasing numbers of set- tlers moved into the area the Indians Page'20 THE SUNDAY NEWS White racial heritage that Storms ment In the ancestry of the Jackson British soldiers had secured Lis- deals with is the Hessian troops Whites, Lowell disagree with Storms' penard's Meadow as quarters for the hiret? by the English to fight in the statement on the desertions. women. The Meadow was a large American colonies. Storms' account In his conclusion Lowell states that open space located in the vicinity The Jackson Whites is at variance with the historical for the sum Britain paid she ob- of what is now Greenwich Village. By Miles M. Merwin records in many respects. He states tained the services of excellent sol- " . . . a high strong wooden pali- that: diers. As to the war in the "Midc*>? sade was erected around the entire "in the petty principalities of Colonies we see the Hessians taking tract, with only a single gate that Part 8.—Origins of the Name Brunswick and Hesse Cassel . . . the leading part and behaving with (Please Turn to Next Page) an agent of King George was at great gallantry" and he goes on to History has failed to chronicle the arrival of the Jack- work 'hiring' troops . . . the say that "it has sometimes been said son Whites in the counties they inhabit. The people them- force thus secured amounted to that the German soldiers deserted in selves are ignorant concerning their origins and this, com- fifteen companies of five regi- great numbers in America. This as- bined with a reticence and suspicion toward strangers, has ments each . . . there were twelve sertion is only partially borne out thousand and fifty-four men by the facts." Few officers deserted made it difficult to obtain information. But several different . . . and during the eight years and "even among privates the de- hypotheses have been advanced in ' of war the principality of Hesse sertion was less than might have regard to the Jackson Whites and the of the Indian heritage Storms makes Cassel received from Great Bri- been expected. It was proportionally reason for their name although no his first blatant error, an error tain for these soldiers that it large among prisoners of war . . . one hypothesis has ever been indis- whose enormity casts a shadow over contributed 2,959,800 pounds . . ." but neither among the German or putably proven. In this chapter the the remaining part, of his hypothesis. Contradictions the English was desertion so pre- different theories will be presented In relating the Indian ancestry Because Storms' account of the valent as among the Americans." and an attempt will be made to dis- Storms states that "originally the Hessian element (as well as the other The third element in the Jackson tinguish the one which presents the Raimapo region was a favorite re- elements) is told in such minute de- White heritage presented by Storms most likely explanation for the ori- sort of the Hagingasshackie In- tail and with such confidence it is the highlight of his account and gin of the name Jackson White. dians (part of the Leni Lenipe [sic] comes as a further disappointment it is with this element that he. solves 1. The most widely-known theory family of the Iroquois)." Further dis- when various sources contradict or the riddle of the name, Jackson is the one presented by the late cussion of the Indians by Storms point out exaggerations in his theory. White. John C. Storms of Park Ridge. confirms his lack of documentation It seems strange that while Storms Though his "Origin of the Jackson "The British War Office had a and a weakness toward conjecture quotes from Edward J. Lowell's problem on its hands—keep New Whites of the Ramapo Mountains" is and romanticizing. While it is a "The Hessians and Other German undocumented to a great extent and York City loyal to the crown, well-known tradition that elements Auxiliaries of Great Britain in the while keeping thousands of its few sources are given, storms' hypo- of the Tuscarora Indian tribe may Revolutionary War" to point up the thesis has found wide acceptance— soldiers in the military camp have contributed to the Jackson sordid element oft hiring Hessians, it that General Clinton had estab- ranging from individuals who en- White stock, Storms overemphasizes does not appear that Storms studied gaged in the Federal Writers' studies lished there . . . But there was this point. His dates for the begin- the book in any detail. For one a way out of the difficulty . . . of county and state history to news- nings of Tuscarora- hostilities in thing the u- •". came from other paper and magazine writers. While and a man was found who would North Carolina and their removal are principalities uian Hesse-Cassel and accept the undertaking. The it is conceivable that there may be inaccurate. Storms goes on to com- Brunswick, and a complete list is some historical basis for storms' con- man's name was Jackson—his- pound the readers' disapproval by given by Lowell in his Appendix. tory has not preserved for us jectures, the discovery of numerous unfounded statements such as "the Then, too, Storms' figures on the fallacies tends to discredit his major anything more about him than [Tuscarora] exodus was led under number of troops and the sum paid this." and most popular conjecture that Sacurusa, whose grandson later be- out by Great Britain is inaccurate. thirty-five hundred British prosti- came king of the Sandwich Islands" According to Lowell and to Benson A contract was entered into with tutes were the source for the estab- and by romatic elements, such as: Lossing the total number of troops this Jackson to secure thirty-five lishment and the name of the Jack- "It is known that to this day raised was 29,867 and they (the hundred women "who England felt son Whites. . there are occasional visits paid Landgraves) "asked and received it could very well dispense with, and Storms agrees with previous ac- to the region by representatives $36 for each man and in addition transport them to America to be- counts, such as the one written under of the tribes from the central were to receive a subsidy. The whole come the intimate property of the the auspices of the Vineland Train- part of New York State. They amount paid by the British govern- army quartered in New York City." ing School, that the Jackson Whites seek certain places and conduct ment was slightly over 1,700,000 For his services Jackson was to be are a group of people of mixed In- ritual services, probably in rela- pounds." paid in gold at the rate of two dian, Negro, and white blood. But pounds per female. 1 tion to some who are buried the sources for such a heritage are there." Storms goes on to state that: From West Indies In many cases different than those The second element in the Jackson "R. e a c h i n g America under Jackson set his agents to work and previously described. In his discussion duress, placed in the forefront at "inmates of the houses of ill fame every important battle in which and many a respectable working girl they were engaged, beaten by or young housewife was shanghaied their officers witih the broadside and carried off to a life of shame of swords if they attempted to across the sea." Twenty vessels were retreat, made to do menial labor secured to transport this cargo and for the British, their fate was a "somewhere one foundered in mid particularly cruel one . . . and ocean, carrying down to a more it is not to be wondered at that merciful fate" its occupants. To make they proved to be unfaithful, and up the loss Jackson dispatched a deserted the army at every opopr- ship to the West Indies, loaded it tunity" with Negresses collected in the same While it is conceivable that Hes- manner as the others had been, and sian elements may have been an ele- brought them to New York. The •Octobe? 6, 1963 THE SUNDA1V-NEWS after the Civil War. This section is short, and while his conjectures are The Jackson Whites well-founded, he cites no documen- tary evidence to support his - con- (Continued from Preceding Page) beseiged town . . . Every stranger tentions. Storms' account of the ad- eould be easily guarded." Storms arriving in the city had to report dition of Italian blood is interesting declared that the arrival and the life himself to the commandant . . ." as this belief is maintained by resi- of these women was recorded in and all arrivals were recorded. dents of the Ramapo Mountains area. Rivington's Loyal Gazette. "In these Perusal of Rivington's Royal Ga- •In the "1870's two Italians, James columns occur references to the visits zette fails to disclose mention of the and Joseph Castagliona settled in the paid by various companies of sol- arrival of such a large group and no area." James married Deliah Sniffin diers to 'Jackson's Whites,' and mention can be found, in any of the and Joseph married Libby DeVries. sometimes to 'Jackson's Blacks.' . . . columns, to references of visits by Both women had Jackson White Here at last we have solved the rid- companies of soldiers paid to "Jack- blood in them, and Libby's heritage dle of the name 'Jackson Whites.' son's Whites" or "Jackson's Blacks." included Tuscarpra lineage. The off- To the women inmates it was applied According to Storms the women spring of the couples gravitated In jest, to them it clung and to their were confined in Lispenard's Mea- "back to their natural habitat, the descendants to the present day." In dow. The existence of these mea- mountains." 1783, while Washington was entering dows is confirmed by Abbott, Barck, As previously stated, residents of New York City, someone among the and Piske in his "The Dutch and the area agree with Storms on this British remembered the women, and Quaker Colonies." But from the des- point. But Mrs. Vera Storms (no re- the stockade gate was opened. cription of the area it seems impos- lation to Mr. John C. Storms) feels "By some unknown means they sible that a stockade could have that the date of their arrival that reached the Hudson. Perhaps been built around the area or' that Storms gives is inaccurate. "Around they were hurriedly ferried the women could have survived the 1840, when the Erie Railroad was acrooss the river in some of the impoundment. built, Italian labor was employed. war vessels as a final act of hu- "The wide region which the Two of the Italians, who ran away manity ... At any rate . . . stream [the Great Kill] imper- from the construction gangs were they reached the New Jersey side fectly drained was afterward named Castaglionia. One of them ... To the company was added known as Lispenard's Meadow married a squaw [Libby]. They had a few soldiers, . . . some Tories ... It was largely swamp, with fifteen children and most of the . . . Across the Hackensack Mea- treacherous quagmires here and children and their descendants stayed dow, up Saddle River Valley there in which cattle were en- around Mahwah where they com- these derelicts made their way on gulfed. Its perils were illustrated prise a good half of the Jackson foot ... At last, the crowd en- by grewsome [sic] incidents, as White population in the area." tered the Ramapo Pass . . . Here when a puzzled pedestrian after It is. unfortunate that such at- the colony scattered finding nightfall, losing his way . . . tention is paid to Storms' "Origin shelters in the woods and among stepped into a deep pond and of the Jackson Whites of the Ramapo the rocks. Here the individual drowned." Mountains." In most instances what members found the companion- Perhaps Storms was confused by documentation there is does not bear ship of peaceful Indians, escaped "Canvas Town," an area near the out his theories. His inaccuracies, outlaws, Hessians, runaway waterfront that burned down early his lack of documentation and slaves . . ." in the British occupation. "There sources, and his romanticization Storms' account has been presented was no attempt to rebuild the burned make it impossible to view his work in detail because of the large amount area, which was presently occupied as an historical analysis of these of popularity It has received and by followers of the army, by drunk- people. Rather his account should be also because trying to find docu- ards, roust-abouts, and Negroes, viewed as an interesting collection of mentation for his theories is like who fitted up temporary shelters by the legends, myths, and fairy ts "trying to find the proverbial needle stretching sailcloth from the re- of the area. in the haystack." There is absolutely maining walls and chimneys." But no evidence to confirm the account still, the accounts of the area .make of the thirty-five hundred women. no mention of thirty-five hundred Storms opens this section by detail- prostitutes. ing the reason for the information No documentation exists to support of the women—the thousands of Storms' account of the evacuation soldiers quartered in the city. But of the women from New York and Wilbur Abbot in his New York in their journey across the Hudson the American Revolution states that: River and through New Jersey. The "It was scarcely even a garri- evacuation of the city by the British son town, since the soldiers were was not hasty but orderly and well- for the most part not stationed planned. in the city proper but on Staten Evacuation Delayed Island, which became the chief The final evacuation was delayed receiving and cantonment station through the lack of transportation, of the main body of the army showing that transportation of the •when it was not on active ser- women across the Hudson River vice. The reasons for this are was probably infeasiible. Still it is obvious ones which always move possible that the ferry between the military commanders to keep city and Hoboken might have been their troops as far away from the commandeered for the purpose—but temptations of city life as possi- not for thirty-five hundred women. ble." The laws against illegal entry into As to the man Jackson, Storms is New Jersey were as strict as those at his historical best when he states in New York and entries into New that "history has not preserved for Jersey were also carefully recorded. us anything." No mention can be Contemporary newspapers make no found in colonial records, newspa- mention of such a migration. paper, or in historians' accounts of a Having determined the origin of man named Jackson who contracted the name, Jackson White, Storms to supply the British army with the details further components of their women. racial history, that of the Negro, and Arrival Not Recorded ttiat contributed by two Italians, It seems strange that the arrival James and Joseph Castaglionia. of such a large number of people Storms attributes the Negro ancestry was never recorded, and it was not. to the escaped slaves of the early New York, in fact, "was virtually a Dutch settlers and to Negroes freed Ramapo mountain people fight %iion, poverty Editor's Note: This is the first etijnic groups. ("But it's not so women were supposed to be of two articles dealing with the much what they call," one lady involved. Now I am no student of mountain people iir the old said, "but the awful way they say revolutionary times, but I Hingwood mine area, the author it that hurts"). suspect that that many ships, has for some time taken an No one knowing the origin of loaded with no less than 3,500 interest in the problems of the the abusive term, legend stepped prostitutes could not have been racially mixed enclave, an in to explain it, for modern man ordered and delivered without interest that began when he was (no less than the ancient Greeks) appearing in the account of some covering housing problems in the feels compelled to explain any historian or another. area in 1971 for Today News- myth that comes his way. The The story might have died a papers. most common story is that they natural death had it not been for a BY SAMUEL MILLIGAN are the descendents of Hessian newspaperman, John C. Storms, They are a curious people, and troops who were British allies in who published ]n 1936 a small their origins were lost in myth the Revolutionary War. who book called The .Jackson-Whites and hearsay. They live in Mah- mated with black women forcibly of the Ramapo Mountains. Mr. wah and in Hillburn across the imported from the West Indies. Storms was more noted for vivid state line, but in this area they The arrangement was sup- imagination than for" accuracy, are concentrated in the old mine posedly made to keep the and claimed as one of his sources area in Ringwood. Hessians happy, and was a New York Tory newspaper They were generally known as engineered by a wholesale published during the Revolution. Jackson Whites, but the name is procurer named Jackson. A detailed search has failed to as offensive as "wop" or "geek" Already the story is suspicious, find refejeno.es, i.n thp, «!£ migration from Npfth Carolina to or "pepper-belly" is to other for no less than 2D vessels full of New York State to join the paper, but in 1936 no one bothered Iroquois Confederacy. Unfor- to check it out, and Storms' ac- tunately for,, this theory, the count came to be accepted as Tuscarora trail to the north was gospel. on the other side of the Delaware. Naturally the people them- Others simply called themselves selves had other theories. Some mountain men or hill-billies. thought that they were the All this might have remained remnant of the Ramapo Indians unresolved except for an en- (whoever they rfiay have been — terprising young man, David I may be mistaken, but I have Cohen, who was working on a found nothing in "New Jersey post-graduate degree and chose histories that mentions any such the area, for research. tribe). These Indians were His findings are not only thought to,, have, intermarried interesting- as historical with early settlers; Dutch, research, but I think will in time English, etc. Others claimed have a beneficial effect on the partial descent from the people. For one thing, he has Tuscarora who supposedly suggested calling them the stopped off on their enforced Ramapo Mountain People, to get FOR REFERENCE NOT TO BE TAKEN FROM THE ROOM CAT. NO. 23 D12 page 2 Oct 20, 1974 today Ramapo Mountain people's tale was soon crossed, as many found employment in the iron mines and furnaces. So it came to be that they finally settled in company nouses on Peter's Mine rid of the offensive label they Road and Cannon Mine Road. bear now. One hopes this will Without realizing it, the work, but it will be a tough job, Ringwood group had placed for habit is so very habitual. themselves in a social and Cohen's discoveries, published economic trap. Economically recently by Rutgers University because the deep-shaft mines Press ("The Ramapo Mountain were to be eventually driven out People"), may be summarized as of business by the easily ac- follows: cessible ore from the Mesabi The Dutch may have been the range in Minnesota. Socially first to introduce slavery into the because they, were in a self- New World, but it must be. said contained valley, and when the that they were also among the Ringwood area began to be first to allow some provision for populated with outsiders, they captive blacks to escape bon- ran into more and more dage. And so it was that three descrimination. free blacks are recorded as being Quite naturally they turned land owners on Manhattan, north inwards and kept to' their own of the small settlement of the ways, developed their own 1670's, near what is now Chatham folklore and traditions. Fear and Square. These were John De distrust of outsiders became the Vries, Claes Emanuels and- inevitable norm, along with Augustine Van Donck. poverty and its attendant health problems. The situation was truly As the city grew and the land one of despair, but outside forces played ojut, we next find their were beginning to take note of the descendants occupying parts of problems and set about to the Tappan Land Grant of 1687, remedy them. located west of the upper Palisades and straddling the New Wednesday, Part II, The York-New Jersey line. The regaining of self-pride. names survive in the townships of Tappan, N.Y., and Old Tappan, N.J. Unfortunately, all children inherited equally, and so what were workable pieces of land were reduced with the passage of a couple of generations into tiny impractical plots. ,A sort of diaspora took place, some going to the area around Hillburn, some to Mahwah, and some to the Ramapos, just over the Ramapo Pass from Ring wood. The pasr - Ra.vHa.PoP (U. Peepl*> Part II Ramapo Mountain People gain sense of pride, identity Kditors Note: This ^ became more clannish and with- families,sharing buildings that second of a two-part /article drawn. Local outsiders regarded dealing with the mountain people were hardly adequate for one. them with a curious combination O$it*of about forty houses, less in the old mine area in Kingwood. of contempt because of their The first dealt with how the than' a dozen had indoor water, differentness and of a sort of not to mention toilet facilities. racially mixed community, whi- pride because . of their ch traces its origins to the nth Dry with age, they were , uniqueness^- '•»',! firetraps. In May of 1972, one of century, came to be eventually After'the myiing industry hemmed in by outsiders.", '*§ *"'& the houses burned, with tragic failed, the wnefe area was results. The fire department BY SAMUEL MILLIGAN acquired by a Ford Motor found the hydrant without any Company subsidiary, Ringwood pressure, and by the time a small After decades of mistrust and Realty Company, to use as a stream had been dammed for discrimination, the Mountain dump for the Mahwah plant. The water, the house was totally People are at last seeing the turn place becanrfe a shambles of consumed. Three small children of the tide. Up until recently, the derelict auto parts. The old iron inside were burned to death. situation could not have been company houses became more Public indignation caused the more desperate. Fearing the and more derelict. Housing borough to take some action attitudes of outsiders, they became crowded, with two Mountain people improve conditions (from page l) the meantime, evidently •Democrats out of office, and at KKK. Eventually the .about the open mine shafts which becoming tired of being slum- • last some progress began to be Republicans gained enough seats dotted the area,. after, another lords, Ford donated the area (290 made. For one thing, the last of to change things and materially small child fell ^dne in 1964. acres) to the Borough of the open shafts, the one I had assist those who were trying to do There was a dis^raceM lack of tRingwootl. A Solid Waste investigated, was capped, the something for the people. anagement Authority was to water inside being tapped for The most notable effort in that examined one IKH administer it, consisting of fire-fighting purposes. direction was a self-help housing had only a di|PP|| Democrats who were then in But the Democrats still ran the effort, funded by the federal covering a drop of'abouTSO feet office, were made to build a ; Waste Authority, and whatever government. Called HOW-TO into water, the eventual depth of gigantic garbage crusher. On top was done was practically over (Housing Operation With which is probably known only to of all the autos, the Mountain their dead bodies, one of the Training Opportunity), the idea God and the Bureau of Mines. People were about to be deluged • members even being also unwise is to train needy pedpie to build That same public indignation with tons of househojd garbage. ; enough to make racist good housing for thertiselves. A was also taking a hard look at Happily, the Republicans used • statements that would have mortgage covers the cost of living conditions in general. In the issue as a crowbar to pry the ; shamed the Grand Dragon of the materials, sponsored by, the Farmer's Home Administation, and under the auspices of the Community Action Council. After The difference that all this has a silly fracas, 8.2 acres were made in the mine area in only a finally gained from the Waste couple of years is amazing. When Authority, arid the needed project I first visited there in 1972, the could get underway. The idea of prevailing attitude was one of self-help housing is a sound one. hopelessness, a situation that was It is evident that free housing is hardly helped by the obstructive not the answer. If, on the other tactics of the Waste Authority. hand, a man builds his own, he ("They don't care nowthin' 'bout knows how to keep it in repair our problems," one lady told and learn a trade at the same me.) But now that the houses are time. But more valuable is the standing there, solid examples of pride in building something what can be achieved, the atti- beautiful. tude is steadily improving. Self- That pride is becoming esteem is growing, and the xenophobia that "Characterized everywhere more evident today, 1 now that the first eight houses are the valley in* ftie: past is near ing completion. Seeing the diminishing. Having gained this success of the first families, more much, it can be hoped that the of the Mountain People are future will bring the final interested in doing something resolution. Certainly because of about their own situation, and geneological and cultural another eight houses are uniqueness, ..the Ramapo projected. Mountain People are different A paved road is also in the from those living about them. But works, something the valley happily the United States is not never had before. (During heavy the gigantic melting pot that rains, Cannon Mine Road is an people like to claim. Differences actual brook for a great part of its between people are interesting — length;) think how bland it would be if we White basic, decent housing is were all exactly alike. But.-that not the*only answer. Education another man is different hardly (Operation Headstart), a Youth means that he cannot be a .good Corps and Legal Aid also play a citizen and neighbor. But first he part. A dental care program was must have the opportunity. established, and HOW-TO also provided classes in consumer education and home making for the ladies while their husbands were learning the basics of carpentry, plumbing and wiring. a 20 The Herald-News, Tuesday, October 29,1974 'Jackson Whites' discussed PATERSON — A Rutgers People," and the first print- The mines are no longer in Today, the prevailing University professor has ing of the book already has operation. conditions of southern Ap- exploded many time-hon- been exhausted. However, Other aspects of his lec- palachian-type poverty in ored myths about the origin the book again will be avail- ture focussed upon the clo- the Ringwood area poses a of the Ramapo Mountain able from the Rutgers Uni- sely interrelated family challenge to those social people, sometimes called versity Press sometime in structure the mountain peo- workers who are attempt- "Jackson Whites." late November. Smyk ple had formed over the ing to improve conditions Professor David S. Cohen called Dr. Cohen's lecture, past 2y2 centuries, and how among the mountain peo- of the history department at "scholarly and informa- intermarriage has made ple, according to Dr. Cohen. Rutgers told 40 members tive." them a tightly knit commu- Smyk said the history and guests at a Passaic Dr. Cohen pointed out the nity. professor's, lecture was County Historical Society ultural affinity between In the days before and planned by the Passaic meeting that one popular the Ramapo Mountain peo- after the American Revolu- County Historical Society to theory explaining the origin ple and the early Jer- tion, the people worked on commemorate the 40th an- of the Ramapo Mountain sey-Dutch settlers, indicat- large estates in the vicinity niversary of establishing a people was in fact unsup- ing further that they of Ringwood, many of them museum and headquarters' portable. adopted the Dutch Re- employed as seasonal agri- at Lambert Castle. Other Stories have been ram- formed religion and spoke a cultural farmers. By the lecture meetings will be pant, in the press and other Jersey-Dutch dialect. The 1920s, the present communi- presented in the future. news media, that a certain professor illustrated his ties had been firmly estab- Among the guests at the Captain Jack had imported talk with color slides show- lished and migration into meeting Thursday was Al- black and white prostitutes ing the mine area of Ring- the area from other por- bert Deardon, past presi- for the pleasure of the Brit- wood where the mountain tions of the state had dent of the Bergen County ish and Hessian soldiers people were once employed. ceased. Historical Society. during the American Revo- lution. They then, according to legend, formed liasons with renegade troops seek- ing refuge from the military authorities in the Ramapo Mountains. Dr. Cohen said no proof exists to validate that story, he traced the history of the Ramapo Mountain people from their racially mixed origins to the present inha- bitants in sections of Ber- gen and Sussex Counties of New Jersey and Rockland and Orange counties of New York. He was introduced at the meeting at Lambert Castle FOR REFERENCE last week by Jerome Nathans, president of the Passaic County Historical Society. Edward A. Smyk, his- NOT TO BE TAKEN FROM THE ROOM torian for the society, said that Dr. Cohen has recently CAT. NO. 23 012 published a book entitled, "The Ramapo Mountain •RIMGV.'OOO PUBLIC 145 Skylarks Road od, NGW Jersey 0745. orthi The Herald-News Magazine BBPSaturday, May 31, 1975 As Henry DeGroat, sage of the now gone Fyke Road area, feeds his chickens, skins of game animals can be seen tacked on barn wall. Researcher renews pride Ramapo Mountain By TOM SULLIVAN who deals in facts, and he has been at- has it that Captain Jackson gave his Herald-News Staff Writer tracting considerable attention with a name to the colony eventually, he is also FROM THE TERMS "Jacks", mean- new book and an ongoing program of credited with having introduced the ing runaway male slaves, and "Whites", slide lectures before historical organi- black strain also, since once of his car- meaning Hessian deserters from Revo- zations all over the state. goes was reported lost in a storm and to lutionary era armies, comes the term He is Dr. David S. Cohen, assistant fulfill his contract he sailed to Jamaica "Jackson Whites". professor of history and American stud- and collected a cargo of black women To many, that name is representative ies at Rutgers, Newark, and his book, there. of the colony of publicity-shy families "The Ramapo Mountain People", pub- The Paramus farmer must certainly living for almost 200 years in the Rama- lished by Rutgers University Press, has have been one of the greatest reporters po Mountains around Mahwah, Ring- become something of a best seller in this of all times, though he failed to fill in a wood and Hillburn just across the line in history-conscious period. lot of gaps, such as how the cargo of New York state. THE EARLIEST ACCOUNT of the co- women was lost and not the ship and its To-those families, the "Jackson lony's formation, told by a Paramus evil captain. Whites" term is a derogatory one. They farmer in 1783, is sheer poppycock in Catherine told the farmer — and he have never liked it and it is a sure way to Cohen's view, though it is spun from the spread the word — that Captain Jackson get yourself shut out if you use It within stuff of romantic legends. had collected two pounds of gold for each their hearing. That farmer told of seeing a group of woman he delivered to the British army They think of themselves as "The British army prostitutes, Hessian de- stockade at Lispenurd's Meadows on the Ramapo Mountain People"', and since serters and a few Tories straggling on lower end of Manhattan Island. few of them live in sub-standard shacks foot into the mountains to seek refuge In the true manner of If/.'.cnd building any more, they wish the title would die and make new lives for themselves. the tale became embellished. Tuscaroru along with other myths that can make He said the women and their mal- Indians were credited with mixing their their lives miserable. nourished children were left to fend for blood lines to the rag-lag, bob-tail col- SINCE THE MID-TO late 1950's, the themselves when the Britisl. army evac- ony, and later runaway slaves were tumbledown shacks with no running uated New York. He said tint some of added in, since the mountains were water and primitive toilet facilities have the men in the party of 3,000 vere mar- ried to their women while otlitrs were known as a heaven for the homeless. almost vanished from the Mahwah COHEN SAYS this whole story post- scene, and many of the mountain people just deserters seeking a haven and fol- lowing a common law policy. dates the formation of the; colony and after a generation or two outside their most of it was created lo fil Iho circum- once-closed community, have gained ed- HIS ACCOUNT, probably embellished stances, including tin; person and activi- ucations, married outside the circle and with the handing down over the years, ties of Captain Jackson. started drifting away from the legends. said there was one man for every "I believe Captain Jackson came into Some, particularly in Hillburn, are four or five women, and that the straggly being 50 or more years after the Ramapo middle-class professional people, often children were never older than five or Mountain People were established with only a name or a scrapbook of faded six, since that was how many years their photos and clippings to remind them there," Cohen told a standing room mothers had been serving as prostitutes crowd recently at a lecture staged by from whence they came. An overwhelm- to the British army. ing majority arc blue collar workers and Clifton's Bicentennial Commission in the a far cry from the clan of the 1930's and The farmer even told of talking to one city library. 40's, the "lost colony" that captured so woman, a Londoner, who told of being He laid out for them, as he has done many imaginations. accosted by two men at the Inn where meticulously in his book, how he traced she worked as a maid, filled full of ale the genealogy of the Del-'riescs, Van The mulatto features that once and tall tales about the prospects for Dunks and DeGroats, some of the bet- marked the tightly-knit circle are van- prosperity in New York, and eventuully ter-known names in Iho losl colonies. ishing with each new generation, as are finding herself on board of a ship, com- COHEN BECAME INTERESTED in the genetic results of intermarriage such manded by a "Captain Jackson,, whose the colony while still in high school in as polydactylism — a sixth finger and special mission was as a white slaver. Westwood, and he soaked himself in the toe on each hand and foot — and the The maid, whose name was Catherine, legends by listening to writer John C. extra teeth that some family members told the farmer that there were 100 Storms. developed. women on the ship and that, to the best of In the years since, Cohen has criti- THOSE MEMBERS OF the Ramapo her knowledge, there were 19 other zed his teen-age mentor because he says Mountain People who want the colorful ships. Storms perpetuated myths that had nn though apocryphal legends to die have basis in truth. recently found an ally, a powerful one, THAT VERSION of the legend Using church records and family wills tJnrth loreov. RnfiiirrlAVi AAav 3.1. gathered In New York, ho traced the families back lo a colony of free Negroes and Dutch muluttoes in New Amster- dam, Cohen explained. "The were residents of Manhattan Is- land and culturally Dutch," Cohen ex- plained. "They lived in Dutch-type homes, spoke the language and attended and followed the rules of the Dutch Re- formed Church." COHEN SAYS THE ORIGINS of this group are well-defined, while there is nothing to substantiate the existence of Captain Jackson or the army of prosti- tutes he was supposed to have transport- ed Into sin. He also points out that Hessian sol- diers had no incentive to desert into the inhospitable mountains, because the Americans offered Ihem free land, and Cohen says emphatically that there is no evidence of any Interbreeding with In- dians in the early years of the colony. "The free black pioneers moved across the river and settled in the Hack- ensack valley, perhaps near where Ber- genfleld is now locuted," Cohen ex- plained. "They made the trek to the mountains in 1798 when New Jersey passed a law hindering the movements, of free blacks Extra teeth were also a result of genetics from a across county lines." close marriage circle but the colony has had IN A SURPRISING DISCOVERY, Cohen found records at the Bergen ample new blood in almost two generations. County Court House showing land pur- chases by the Ramapo Mountain people ' in the area where many of them have lived ever since. He says that some moved to Rlngwood existed, but when he walked into the lec- "His photos of the old homes of I-"yke In 1850 and the group that established in- ture hall at Clifton library, he was Road are a marvelous record of thai Hlllburn moved there in 1873 to take jobs stunned to see a collection on display vanished section, now a park, and they In a new locomotive factory then being there that covered a now-vanished sec- were some of the kind that gave rise lo built. tion, of which he had until then learned the tales of unbelievable squalor in liv- When Cohen started assembling his little. ing conditions." book, he moved lo Mahwah and tried They were some of a hundred or •(;« HOFFMAN, WHOSE WORK will be on with considerable success to assimiliatc more made in the 1940's by Richard display at Clifton's Alhvood library be- himself Into the lives of the mountain Hoffman, Clifton's Municipal Court ginning Monday, said he and his com- people. For the last months of that re- clerk, who was at that time a college stu- panion had been kind lo the children of search period, he stayed with Wallace dent and given to taking hikes with an- Fyke Road on a number of occasions and and Vlvan DeGroat of Hlllburn. other student In the mountain area. were often Invited into the homos. "I was never able to find a case of po- "I became friendly with Elijah and IN PUTTING THE BOOK together, he lydactylism," Cohen said, "but Mr. Cora Jennings and their children, the thought he had traced down every worth- Hoffman has photos of well-defined In- Wybles and old Henry DeGroal," Cohen while photo of the mountain colonies that stances. remembers. "It was un experience I will not forget, because the homes were not only primitive, but the way of life was unique. "The women cultivated gardens for food crops, the men hunted, though mosl worked at one paying job or another. They had no electricity, shared a com- mon well for water, and had ,1 collection of antique jalopies, most uf which didn't run." I Hoffman's photos arc lo be found in the centerfold. fft' The small, relatively useless sixth finger that was once com- mon among the Ramapo Moun- These waif-like youngsters may have once been tain People can be seen. The typical of the Mahwah colony, but no longer,. finger has one joint and the con- Shacks and the suspicious, cloistered existence, dition is called polydactylism. have long since disappeared. North Jersey, Saturday, May 31, 1975 '!' ft . * Where these shacks and clannish were is now Campgaw P Fyke Road in Mahwah, once a center for the scenes without embarrassing the ; the Ramapo Mountain People, is gone 20 jects who had the extra teeth or six fini years or more, but its colorful memories and toes, which were once common came to light in a collection of photos made cause of a very close marriage circle. in the 1940's by Richard Hoffman, Clifton's Municipal Court clerk. He used subterfuge to capture some of :.• &!§<§^&SSws& $ *-" *' s. * k . >« v; , v r.-- ..-,# Black and Caucasian features are mixed on child and sixth fingers on each hand can be seet All Photographs from A man's best friend in the mountains was usually his dog Richard Hoffman collection -,!..*« - ^-: - •-.'.• i7.S. Vu;i-v.-.: ••-"5..SV •••• .r = :-:r:- *•* ;; wxte. Some of rf ;rx-/ x-ere 1~- '. '.. . J ' --.-'. :!.! t 1 ."..-'i.. .: .- sn-i TsO ? '.hevi arc ?;;li vin? so. *ver3 ihcug^ so~? f -.«-,. ^ 2 . * _«•; •.. - t-ji-r areas, rs.Hiy. ;-r. '• - •' ','er Ycrs-Ne'j-" k'rse1 1"'*-- ;^p c? S:sgKill vbich - :'r?~ bai off-daily a part •••; cwn cf Maiiwah, b i ".~; :• .1 fe-andryar-c t ifce F;ra ; ; 2j:ic~biy piant: E the se;- --.—- -.r.. .•- r-. i". :.-•:- e- ; ; ~:;r; =.~.;c; .r';>r."i Vne alardesed deec- 'V T ~ T:- t= near Rtngw?i>d. N.I, ^":"* '' ths cider ;?er> c-ic? .; .-'if..*, ishhoase hir.: .-. • •; .-, -.. , -.-., 'pi- ;-, - ""'."?-=. ."•.' "r. -' "„• •.:."..'..;•:—*$ tiat .65 people Most mine area families want to shed limelight ~>7 The Upper RINGWOOD Mine Area is unique in its history and its people. While most towns in northern Passaic and Bergen counties are affluent, semi-rural lake communities, the mine area is an enclave of poor tenants. While most up-county communities are populated by refugees from inner cities or suburban sprawl, most mine families have been there as long as the iron mines, well over 200 years. Although most suburbanites live in ranch-style homes with garages and finished basements, most mine people live in ramshackle 70- to 100-year-old wood houses where septic systems are a recent innovation. And the mine people would like to know why sociologists, anthropologists and especially journalists won't leave them alone. • It's not unusual, some of them say, to see a school bus full of Ramapo or William Paterson college students ride through without stopping. Strange people in strange cars often come on their land just to gawk, they say. 1 And most annoying to them are the "exposes" of neglect and poverty among the mountain people that appear every few months in various publications. That's why the RINGWOOD Neighborhood Action Association, a group that represents the area's 500 or so residents, is planning to place a sign at the entrance informing visitors that the land is borough property and those who want to come on it should clear it with Al Sheehan, association chairman. In effect, "No trespassing." They can't legally prevent people from using public roads, but they would like people to think before they proceed. "Ordinary" people don't worry about strangers in their neighborhood, unless, of course they're burglarizing their homes. Like most people, the mine area residents would like to live their lives in privacy. If the press insists on scrutinizing them, they say, they would like the positive aspects of their struggle emphasized. How about the families that have left the shacks behind and constructed their own homes? Or how about the ones who have fixed up their old homes? They seem to feel that "positive stories" will end the strange curiosity people seem to have about them. But it probably won't work out that way. Newspaper and magazine stories don't exist in a vacuum. "Good" articles beget more articles, both "good" and "bad." The mine area residents are one of the most neglected groups in the state. For too long they - received too little medical attention, education and other social services. During the 1960s and early 70s, garbage and industrial waste were dumped a short distance from their homes. The federal government is now trying to improve their plight with grants for home improvement. The spending of those grants should be watched closely. For Reference But no matter how it turns out, it is unlikely that WNGWOOP PUBLIC LIBRARY outsiders will lose interest in them. Not to be taken from this room 145 Road As long as the mountain people are unique in any sense, they will have to deal with the press and Ringwrxxl New Jersey 07456 academia. It's the price one pays for being^different. mm This is the first of a three-part series tracing the history, the grim day-to-day life and ths uncertain future of Ringwood's Mountain Paop!s. Today: The Roger DeCroat story. By Ann Rauma News SUff Writer RINGWOOD — Roger DeGroat stands in his rutted, dirt driveway, his thumbsucking year-olu so.i Frank James slung over his hip. Dark-skinned, lanky, almost gaunt, he wears levis and a plaid flannel shirt to keep warm. - It has rained most of the day here in Ringwood's Mine Area, but the drizzle has stopped. Pot holes in the muddy roads are filled with puddles. The Ramapo Mountains are tinged with orange, shrouded with mist. He cautions his other boys, Roger Alan, Roger Andrew and John Alan to stay away from the road as they chase each other around the chicken coop, under the five lines of laundry and past the blue-and-white striped swing set. A black mutt chained to a junked car barks at a passing car. DeGroat waves. ROGER DEGROAT and his family are part of the Mine Area community known as the Mountain People or Jackson Whites. The 70-famiIy community is isolated and tight-knit. Its 575 residents are tenants of the Solid Waste Management Authority. Like DeGroat, many are out of work. The origin of the Mountain People is part-legend, part-history Some say they are a lost tribe of Indians. Other tales claim their ancestors were Tuscarora Indians, Hessian deserters from the British army, escaped siaves and British and West Indian whores News Photos by Don Smith imported by a sea captain named Jackson for the THE MOUNTAIN PEOPLE of Ringwood's Mine Area have been vaguely known by people since the time of pleasure of British troops during the Revolutionary (he Revolution. Always outcasts from the flow of modern life, today's Jackson White's, as they are War. sometimes called, fear that their solitary attachment to tradition leaves them apart from the share of See MOUNTAIN, Page 8 money sent into the state's and nation's blighted areas. MOUNTAI Continued from Page 1 separate from — that of greater Ring- housing development for the area under A Rutgers professor, David Cohen, wood. the auspices of the Community Action published a book four years ago that The Ringwood community-aWarge de- Council, was more blunt. discounts these stories. He attributes the veloped through phases: iron mining in THE. COMPANY, he said, "Rather community's origins to free black land- colonial days, building millionaires' than suffer adverse publicity from its owners from New York City and mansions and estates in the 19th cen- slumlord capacity, decided to wash its mulattoes with Dutch ancestry. . tury; vacation cottages In the 1920's and bands of the entire matter." 30's, suburban development after World TWENTY-NINE years ago Roger War II. In November 1870, the borough set up DeGroat was born in the isolated hills of the Ringwood Solid Waste Management Ringwood's population today <- the Mine Area, as were-his parents and Authority to collect $25 monthly rente grandparents. around 13,000 ~ is almost three times 'and to plan and manage a sanitary He is raising his sons under much the what it was in 1960-4,182. landfill, while the borough continued to same conditions. ? . Developments of $150,000 homes have dump on the property. > been built around Erskine Lakes and The DeGroat home is a two-story, more are planned for Skyline Drive. The state Department of Environmen- brown, shingle-slded house with,an en- But as the borough developed, the tal Protection denied the authority's closed porch at the back. The windows Mine Area remained a pocket of pover- application for the landfill. H further are covered withplastic. Panes installed ty, ordered all dumping to cease, test seep* earlier bad buckled under £ strong wind > age from dumping contaminate the THE MINE AREA homes, located at and blown out of the rotten casements. water supply." the northern side of the Reservoir, were DeGroat's bouse is cold, its heat sucked The SWMA was left a sole function: to built for workers in the mines. When the out through broken windows and crack- be a housing authority for Mine Area mines closed down in the early 1950's, ed doors. tenants. the residents were left jobless. The land ' His house has had a toilet since 1976 then was bought by Ringwood Realty — The authority, in red ink since its — unlike most of his neighbors who rely a company composed mostly of Ford inception, is now about $90,000 in debt — on backyard privies. •Motor Company executives. The realty v "In that ballpark," said Charles Fer- His children bathe in cold water. company became landlord to the resi- riaoli, the authority auditor. Most of the For most of his 29 years, his roof has dents, and used the surrounding land to money owed, he said, is professional bad holes large enough to crawl dump waste from the Mahwah Ford fees for the attorney, the engineer and through. Its shingles had become porous assembly plant. . himself, the auditor. with age. In 1970 Ringwood Realty donated 280" THE RENTS, raised from $25 to $50 a "The roof leaked like a sieve," he told acres of land to the borough, but retain-. home last year, barely cover the author- a visitor. "You could look right out at ed another 180acres. ;: '• ity's expenses, which include electricity the stars. With two or three days of A councilman at the time, Daie "to run. the water pump, insurance, and steady rain, you needed a raft to get Peters, viewed the donation as less than the salaries of the watertender, secre- from room to room." charitable. tary and rent collector, he said. Last week the borough partially re- "The land was simply given to the • The authority, reciting its financial paired his roof, but most of DeGroat's : town," he said, "because of the most troubles, has done little to maintain the neighbors still have roofs that leak. difficult set of social problems existing inadequate homes as they continue to DESPITE HARDSHIP, the Mine Area on this piece for so many years. The deteriorate. is home for Roger DeGroat. Ringwood Realty Company and their Cohen, in his book The Ramapo Moun- "It's the only place I know," he said. , representatives, the Kislak Realty Co., tain People, attributes the poverty of 'If your mother's mother was here and felt that Ringwood could and should Ringwood's Mine Area to its geographic her mother before her/it's a hard thing assume responsibility for solving hous-. isolation and to the residents' tenant for you to leave. ing problems for nearly 400 people — a status. "If you have no place to go, you fix up task they felt was outside of their The Mountain People in Mahwah and what.yougot." corporate purposes." Hillburn have economically fared bet- The history that ties DeGroat to the Andrew Marshall, then-director of ter, he said. They own the property. land is at once the same as — and HOW-TO, a federally funded, non-profit . Ringwood's SWMA plans to sell the homes to its tenants. But whether the from' which he pays $50 a month rent . "WE TRY to be self-sufficient," he residents will be able to stay in their and $105 for food stamps — enough to added. He.raises chickens and pigs to homes will depend on the cost of becom- buy $266 worth of food to support a help feed his family. "We do the best we ing homeowners, the state of the now- family of six. He also pays fuel costs. can." substandard homes when they are sold Fuel, costing up to $1,300 a year for Arthur Hughson, director of Ring- and the authority's unstated plans for some homes^is top expensive for many wood's board of health,-ealled the living the remaining 230 acres of land ripe for families. They can afford only to buy conditions of the Mine Area "similar to development. fuel in $5 containers — containers with Appalachia," worse than the ghetto poverty of Newark or Paterson* THEIR FUTURE is uncertain. Their fuel enough to last eight hours. They daily life is grim. They cling to what dilute the fuel with kerosene to make it The urban poor at least have running tneyjhave—their heritage. , last longer. Some families have stopped water, toilets and electricity, he safd. "Heritage is like a ripped umbrella," using furnaces and again depend on Their problems are more visible, harder to ignore, than the problems of the said! Mike Stefancik, a resident of the kerosene or wood stoves for heat. isolated Mine Area which are "out of Mine Area and the liaison between the DOCTOR'S BILLS cut deeper still into sight, out of mind." community and the borough administra- DeGroat's meager budget. In one week tion. If the Mine Area's problems are out of . he spent $43 for a doctor to treat his sight, out of mind, its residents feel they "Either you ase it...or you throw It .son's anemia; another $46 for a doctor - are not \n & position to call attention to away andyou're left in a downpour." ' to treat a second son with vision prob- them- too loudly. They fear their jobs A, ripped umbrella provides. scant lems. DeGroat must receive ongoing '. and homes are at stake. shelter for DeGroat. . treatment for an ulcer in addition to his \ About 20 men from the Mine area He is unemployed, like 20 percent of chronic back pain. Medicaid does not /'Were employed by Ringwqod to work on theother adultsinthe Mine Area. 'cover all the expenses. ','the road crew of the Department of One resident attributed the high rate '' - Like DeGroat and his family, many of Public Works. About 10 have lost jobs . of unemployment to a cycle of poverty. Jhe Mine Area residents are plagued * due to municipal belt-tightening. Others It is difficult for many to find work i with medical problems common in rural in the community either have jobs with nearby because the community J is so i poverty. , ,' the borough's CETA program or hope remote, he said, and it Is difficult for' Malnutrition, diabetes, hypertension to. Few want to risk raising the admin- them to seek work away from the area istration's ire. because they can't afford the cars to 'are among the most prevalent ailments, commute. according to Rosemary DePaolo, the IN ADDITION, as tenants of the borough nurse. Though the community SWMA, living in substandard dwellings, The community is also hindered, he is too small to make statistics meaning- the residents fear that if they protest too sa^d, by a lack of education. While ful, infant mortality is the biggest indi- loudly, the board of health will condemn "several residents have graduated from cator of the level of health care, she ,, their homes andeyict them. Lakeland Regional High School and said. Mothers and their babies have : "You keep your mouth shut," De- attended college, 40 to 50 percent drop received little prenatal care. This re^ Groat said. out to their first or second year of high suits in a relatively high rate of birth With their .future in the hands of the school. defects, mental retardation, complica- borough administration, an , i- : I THE PROSPECTS FOR improved living condifions often $e®m bleak for members of Ringwood. Five-year old Michael Stefan^ (above, left) .,ote o«t over a JB^ * Wednesday NOVEMBER 22. W8 and future one would more expect to find in generations, yet feel when the time arrives for series tracin; day-to-day I future of Bin ph. Today: dies, furnace: I ' • RINGWOC • children stil Wind still v.1 • • , dows. For three • •• neighbors in '• • been promis •• •'' ., roofs that d< ' • ' i lord, the So. .• . • Authority. Today, aftri- ."• •• '• : i• • • •• • •'• in state and I.. • ' . •••• • ed to upgrad- .. •'• — •• .• residents hav n •,..•' • naces — fur.- •• i' •'• ••"• • to fuel. Eleven fai " •. • • •• Fifty-nine fap! • ,. . "The borough is acting like it's got no place to go and all day to get STLTrerolo!l?n ththee m€«A^ STEFANCiiC peers through the tattered roof of his Ringwood agony. There is^lway?aftumbling Area ho.m* int° u"certain P~"««*ef of,fef?"' «sista«ce' bf nTOStl^ into «• stone What ever happens it is grin uncertain future, despite thousands of aid dollars, the Jackson Whites still and bear it. Grin and bear it." «"fln'» H.-tnto.l nt ih»-it i-ipov (ihpnt Se^HEtP, 30/Local/State/World HELP Continued from Page 1 Payments were made despite resi- two furnaces, one exploded; the other Referring to Borough Administrator dents' complaints of shoddy workman- started a fire. ship. As for the other problems, the bor- Thomas Kane, DeGroat added: "It isi awful easy to leave your desk and go to' . Furnaces were installed in living ough has agreed to provide 200 to 300 a warm house fit to raise your children. rooms, kitchens and bedrooms. feet of insulation to cover the exposed He don't care." Duplexes shared one thermostat; scald- and scalding copper tubing; however, ing hot copper pipes were left exposed; ' the tenants must sign documents that DEGROAT WONDERS where the sheet rock was not placed over the flue they will install it themselves or have a half-million dollars went and why it pipe /or insulation; fuel tanks were left neighbor do it. Sheet rock to cover the took so long to start the work. uncovered. ' exposed flue pipes will not be provided. The answers to DeGroat's questions Gene Braden, a Pompton Lakes con- are complex, offering more riddles than tractor, recently toured some Mine THE BILLS for repairs so far: an solutions. Area homes with a reporter. He saiH additional $1,500. The three-year history of the area that much of the work failed to meet The borough has had different prob- since the influx of state and federal common building standards. lems — resulting in the same delays — funds is marred with delay, question- Describing one case where the out- with its plumbing, roofing and septic able bidding practices, and charges of side fuel tank was left exposed, he said: projects. mismanagement and shoddy workman- It has been sued by its first plumbing ship. "THIS IS ridiculous. In urban areas contractor for breach of contract. you can put a fuel tank in the basement: The borough received its first grant Last July 26 the borough awarded a but it is such a fire hazard that it must — of $115,000 — from the Department of $103,600 plumbing contract negotiated be built-in, surrounded by cinder blocks Housing and Urban Development in with the Kazimir Samulis Corporation, and sand. Outside, the same thing 1975. a Pompton Lakes general contractor, should apply." The application was filed after six "subject to the agreed upon terms and Mine Area children died in a fire in No electrical or building permits, conditions." performance bonds, or inspection re- February 1975. Robert Milligan, Jr., the The 14-page bid contract approved by children's father, slapped the borough ports were ever required of the furnace contractors. the mayor and council stipulated that and the SWMA, the landlord, with a suit the contractor would hold five percent David Gardner, project director for charging them with reckless neglect in of the project's cost in an interest- HUD, was not aware that the project maintaining substandard and danger- bearing account in lieu of a perform- had not been advertised for bids. This ous housing. ance bond. (The federal suit was dismissed. The even after the results of an October 1978 desk audit — the first since 1975 — After the contract was made, the superior court suit was settled out of owner, Kazimir Samulis, sold his 'busi- court last month.) and a personal inspection. Gardner said it is not unusual for the homeowner to ness to his vice president, Donald FOLLOWING THE FIRE, the board receive direct payments for housing DeHart. of health inspected homes and issued rehabilitation-work. An August 1 letter from the borough eviction notices. These notices were Reminded that the homes belong to revised the terms of the contract, suspended as long as the borough the SWMA, not the tenants, he said that requiring a performance bond covering moved to improve the housing condi- he would check into the matter. 100 percent of the project's cost. tions. Tim Coppinger, borough administra- THIS WAS necessary, according to Ringwood received a second HUD tor at the time, how Finance Director borough officials, because the business grant — of $99,000 — in 1976 and a third for Passaic, explained that Ringwood was under new management. - for $180,000 — the following, year. didn't have time to advertise for bids. Barry Zotkow, DeHart's attorney, The funds were fattened by a $75,000 Coppinger said it had been a year contends that the original terms of the grant from the state neighborhood since the first funds were received and 14-page bid contract should apply, since preservation act, and by a $30,000 HUD, reviewing the borough's applica- the corporation is the same legal entity. contribution from the borough. Total tion for a second grant, wanted to know Further, the negotiated price does funds for the Mine Area: $499,000. why the first hadn't been spent yet. not include the price of a performance In addition, the borough has received bond. preliminary approval from HUD for HUD WAS wondering whether Ring- The borough never gave DeHart the $858,000 over the next three years. wood's need was as great as it claimed, he said. authority to begin work. THE FIRST HUD grant and part of "Time was of the essence," he recall- the second were spent on: Samulis claims the borough has lax ed. "We were anxious to get the project standards and exceptions for favored • consultant's fees to grantsman going." Michael Coleman — $17,210 or 15 per- contractors and prohibitively strict The contracts were drafted between standards for other contractors. cent of the first grant. the contractors and the tenants, he • fixing 900 feet of the water main — said, "to make them feel a part of the DeHart, a black contractor, is the $4,124. (The water pressure remains process." first contractor of the Mine Area rebilS- inadequate, according to residents.) Also, it was December 1976 and tation projects to be required to post & • surveying and engineering fees — residents were still without furnaces. performance bond, according to Samu< $17,404. (Again 15 percent of the first Asked why it took until December lis. grant.) 1976 to start looking for a contractor, "Why were no permits or inspections • 46 circuit breakers installed by Coppinger explained that the borough. or bonds required until after I sold my Marinaro Electric - $8,900. (The wir- had suffered a false start on another business?" Samulis asked. ing remains the same as when the project and it took a while to recover. houses were built.) The borough first planned to rehabii- "We were playing football and the • 53 fire detectors — $1,961. (Pandullo tate a house at a time, at an anticipated borough changed to soccer rules." Quirk did a cost-benefit study for the cost of $15,000 to $20,000. It took until SWMA for an undisclosed fee. The June, he said, to draft specifications WHEN DEHART threatened to sue study, the firm's spokesman said, con- and advertise for bids. The bids came sisted of calling fire chiefs to ask about and newspapers began to follow the in at $32,000 to $50,000. story, Samulis said, the borough began the performance of fire detectors.) "You can see. at that rate how many A year after the first grant was to require a performance bond of the homes would be done," he said. "Not other contractors. received, the borough selected two con- many." tractors — Crest Plumbing of Butler HUD rejected the project as imprac- Wilkie Construction Co. negotiated and Thermal Specialties of Pine Brook tical, unfeasible. with the borough to lay 10 roofs. By — to install furnaces to replace danger- early September the contractor had ous kerosene stoves. THE BOROUGH mulled until Decem- ber 1976 how to proceed. purchased $1,075 worth of materials The $91,458 project was not adver- and was ready to start work when the tised for bid, despite a state law which Once it decided to provide heating systems, it took several months to borough requested that he provide a requires any project more than $2,500 performance bond. He was able to pay to be advertised. The law further stipu- install them. The project was com- pleted in early 1977. neither the performance bond nor fee lates that projects may not be broken union-scale wages under the negotiated down into units to fall under $2,500. By this fall, more than a third of the price. RINGWOOD APPARENTLY tried to 33 furnaces were malfunctioning. circumvent the bidding law. It drafted The borough was again faced with the contracts for the work not beween Last month (he borough authorized Crest Plumbing, one of the two contrac- negotiating both the plumbing and the the contractors and the borough, but roofing contracts. between the contractor and each ten- tors that installed the furnaces, to ant. Checks for payment for the work repair 12 mplfunrtioning units. On October 25 the borough awarded a - ranging from $2,150 to $3,077 per job While Hie SDl/Jv!? furnaces are now. ?J03,GC0 plumbing contract to Crest — were made out to the tenant and working, they remain hazardous. When Plumbing, one of the two firms that endorsed to the contractor. a fuftl oi! company recently serviced V installed the problem-ridden furnaces; a $27,000 roofing contract to Werner was started. It will be completed next SAMULIS SAID that contractors Mante Construction; and a $33,420 roof- month, the administrator said. were reluctant to bid because the bor- ing contract to Moore Construction. Mayor-elect, and current borough ough's specifications are so vague as to These contracts were the first phase of Councilman William Hofmann said in require negotiations. the borough's plan. an interview that it was not prudent for He also said that contractors won't the borough to have moved any faster work in Ringwood because of problems A MONTH LATER, four homes out of on the Mine Area projects. with administration. 46 have plumbing. The work is left unfinished, in compliance with the "Everybody would like to see the Roger DeGroat is not convinced by specifications. The floor is bare ply- work completed tomorrow," he said. the administration's answers either wood. Tiling, painting and spackling "It's not reasonable, not realistic. I'm "If they wanted to speed it along, must be done by the tenants. sick and tired of second guessing. It is they could," he said. advisable to go slow and sure. I'm "It's like how the Indians were taken Since the end of October, six out of 33 concerned that politics is starting to get advantage of," he continued. "Because roofs have been laid. However, the to the middle of the project." the people are uneducated, they think sides of each roof are left open where they can take them by the nose and birds can fly in and heat can escape. Hofmann added: "It is a political lead them all over the place." plant to make people look bad. I want Residents say Mante Construction the names of people. I won't stand for While the borough had the adminis- has refused to put roofing over areas • it." trative wherewithal to build an addition such as a pantries that are not "living to the municipal building in a year, it space." Kane said: "The tenants are anxious. lias taken almost four months to pay They do not understand the administra- one employee, a resident of the Mine Earth Sciences Engineering, award- tive process." Area. ed a $122,356 contract to install 26 septic systems, has completed seven. THE BOROUGH, he added, has had MIKE STEFANCIK has worked as trouble ffcifnctiaf; contractors to work The remainder of the roofing, plumb- liaison between the council and the ing and septic contracts must still be Mine Area community since August 1 advertised for bids. The plumbing project had received His salary of $6 an hour is a line item in no bids with two advertisements; the the $75,000 grant from the state. After Kane, the borough administrator, working more than three months with- would not say when the projects will be roofing had received one bid, with two advertisements. out pay, he received a check for five finished. He explained the work will weeks of work. He doesn't know when have to stop when the ground freezes Kane blamed the lark of interest on he'll be paid the balance. and the snow falls. contractors jk-ejudice against the resi- dents and their adversity to working Borough administrator Kane said ONE RESIDENT, waiting at the bus with HUD fuii<;£ beeaiira of the delay in Ffefancik has been paid in full. The stop for her child to return from school, payment. delay occurred, Kane said, because his accused the administration of a history office did not. send out a job description Tho !ioro!'~"'> ndv-3;'(i"^s for bids in of "foot-dragging" when it came to until last month. work in the Mine Area. Tho 7dn^wcc r i '"I 11 i # Thursday, NOVEMBER 23,1978 The News, Passaic County, N.J News Photo by Don Smith MICHAEL STEFANCIK grins here as he emerges througn a gaping hole in the roof of his Ringwood home. The community's recent history, however, is told in faies of such widening holes and other impoverishments, and of the often slapdash efforts to improve them. , ,IT — ' ^ r m l;ll.,llll;lill. ~ ,„, ,„• 1 , , ... 1 I • i 4 1 \ m k * ** ii 'I \ *' News Mmlo by Don Smith L .3 . In jolting contrast, the two communities in motion, New businesses < already have This is the third of a three-part have co-existed — jso far. moved to the south side of the Mine Area on series tracing the history of Ring- " But looking to the future, the Mine Area Margaret King Highway-—.a spinning-shop, wood's Mountain People. Today: residents fear that co-existence may .not a machine shop, a cosmetic sample shop. Will greed destroy the 200-year herit- last. They worry that .they will be evicted . "The borough wants.the people out of age ofthe Mountain People? and their homes sold. - ; " • . . , here," 'said a Mine Area resident, "they THE STAKES are high": a people's loo- want to use the land for something else." year-heritage versus the value of 270 acres IF THE BOROUGH decides to use the ByAnnRauma land for something else, it is uncertain News Staff Writer of property. Value that could net the bor- RINGWOOD — Two men stand at the ough millions of dollars in land sale and whether Ringwood's more affluent citizens shoreline of the Wanaque Reservoir, fishing more in tax revenue from land that- Is now would support the interests of Mine Area poles-outstretched. tax-exempt. Value that will escalate, as up residents. ^ Residents of the Mine Area, they fish for to $1.4 million in state and federal funds, While some citizens of greater Ringwood supper. intended to help the Mine Area residents, is serve on the HUD advisory committee with At nearby Erskine Lake, $150,000 homes used to develop the property over the next representatives of the Mine Area, many line the shore. Some residents there belong three years. others don't know the Mountain People to private swim clubs. The trend towards development may be See FUTURE, Page 4 Already more than $60,000 of the HUD money has been spent on surveying the land, mapping subdivi- Continued from Page 1 sions and upgrading the water main. Thousands of exist. Some that do are less than sympathetic to dollars more have been spent on engineering and their plight. legal fees. "It's their own fault," one woman said. "Anybody. In the borough's application for the next HUD can get out from under." grant — $858,000 over the next three years — $330,000 The Mountain People watch each change with is slated for improving the water main, $100,000 for concern. roads improvement and $5,000 for recreation. The Solid Waste Management Authority owns the "These are things the town could not do unless it 270 acres and is the reluctant landlord of the had the people there," Aviles said. ramshackle homes. It wants to sell the 33 single and two-family homes to the tenants and dissolve. But it ONCE THE land is improved, the borough could can't dissolve until $90,000 in debts are paid. get more taxes if it forced out the Mine Area The residents know that once they become home- residents and sold the land to a developer. owners they will become responsible for bringing the "A lot of unanswered questions," Aviles con- homes up to health codes — a responsibility that cluded. "It is a mixed-up situation with a lot of many can not afford. / money running around." THEY WORRY that the board of health will condemn their homes and evict them. David Gardner, project director for HUD, said Arthur Hughson, the director of the board of there is no rule against the municipality improving health, said it was "very possible" that the residents the land at federal expense and then selling it. would be evicted if progress was not made at a satisfactory rate. Harold Petzold, chairman of the SWMA, said 16 "They will be continually under surveillance," he one-half and three-quarter-acre lots sold to residents said in an interview. "Nobody will be off the hook, I in an earlier program were assessed at, $17,000 to tell you. We'll be up there and around. We have the $19,000 — 69 percent of real value, $23,000 to $27,000. authority and responsibility to do that. But as long as He called those prices "ridiculously low" and added they show good faith and good intentions nobody is that assessors value land conservatively for tax demanding change overnight. purposes. "If the borough wanted to get rid of them," he He was reluctant to estimate the value of the land continued, "they would have done it long ago. The once the improvements were made. option has been there all along. "The borough wouldn't spend all the effort and Even at "ridiculously low" prices, 270 acres, sold money and then evict them. To evict and put them in in half-acre lots for $17,000 a lot would gross the rentals anywhere in the state for a year is far less borough $9.18 million in property sales alone. New than what it costs to support these people." tax revenues would be the icing on the cake. HOWEVER, Rafael Aviles, attorney for the state H. SHEPARD PECK, the SWMA's attorney said: office of poverty and law in the Department of "The land is not, marketable. I can't imagine who Community Affairs, pointed out that the borough would want to buy it." needs the Mine Area residents. As long as the residents remain in devastating poverty, the borough The Ringwood Real Estate Company, representing can continue to apply for federal and state funds. the interests of Ford Motor Company executives, "The land becomes very valuable once they put in sewers, pave the roads and put a recreation area nearby," he said. "It is beautiful land, a temptation to speculators." "It is public property," he said. "I don't want to go out on a limb for less than the raw value. Before a wanted the land. In 1965 it planned to evict the town official gives it away for a dollar, I'll put it out residents to build a $50 million industrial and to open bid." residential development. The project failed to It is uncertain whether the residents, many of materialize. them on welfare, will be able to shoulder the added Councilman Oliver Conklin remembers that there expense of becoming homeowners and taxpayers. was "no opposition to it, it just fell through." Aviles, the attorney for the state poverty and law Michael Newman, a Ringwood salesman of auto- office, pointed out that any resident on welfare will mobile tune-up equipment, also wanted to build oil build no equity when buying a home. Welfare will the land. In 1972 he bid against the HOW-TO • have a lien against any equity. corporation for 8.2 acres to build low-cost housing. He was unsuccessful. The SWMA is including a clause in the sale that •.-ffould require the new homeowner to stay in the TWO OTHER professionals, owed tens of thou- . louse for at least five years. sands of dollars by the authority, are banking on the Aviles said it was difficult to interpret whether this land being sold. would help or hinder the residents, but he noted that Charles Ferraioli, the auditor on retainer to the It' would not. prevent the board of health from SWMA for $2,500 a year, hasn't been paid since the condemning trie homes and evicting the residents. inception of the authority. He is owed at least $17,000. ONCE THE HOUSES are sold, the authority will Asked why he would work nearly eight years for dissolve. nothing, he said: "I'm a big boy. I knew what I was getting into. Pef'zold, echoing many borough and SWMA offi- Someday a Fairy God Mother is going to give (the cials, said the boroufh will assume the authority's authority) a lot of money and I'll get paid. . .The debts and assets — the land and the water company. authority has a very valuable asset — the land." Neither has Pandullo Quirk, the Wayne engineer- "The assets outweigh the liabilities," he said. Ing firm on retainer to the SWMA, been paid since , However, mayor-elect William Hofmann has said 1970. that the borough will not assume the SWMA's debts. The SWMA is running a tab of "over $26,000 or $27,000," according to John W. Leidy, engineering After three years of unfulfilled promises and now vice president for Pandullo Quirk. The tab is a still- facing an uncertain future, the Mountain People mushrooming total of $2,500 a year retainer fees and cling to their 200-year history. additional per-project fees. The per project fees Mike Stefancik, the liaison between the borough cover services from aborted plans for a sanitary council and the Mine Area community, has called the landfill, to phoning fire marshalls to analyze the Mountain People's heritage "like a ripped umbrel- value of smoke detectors. la." "Oh sure," Leidy said when asked whether his firm will be paid. "When the authority liquidates. "Either you use it, or you throw it away and you What we have to do is be patient." arc left, in a downpour," he said. THE RESIDENTS in light of their birthrights will '.'/'nether the. Mountain People's "ripped umbrella" be the first eligible to buy their homes, which rest on will be snatched from them or mended is in the about 35 of the 270 acres. However, becoming home- hands of the now mayor and council. owners will not provide them security. The SWMA is working on a plan to sell them the homes at low interest mortgage rates. The anticipat- ed selling price for the land the borough received as a gift, is $3,000 a lot, according to Petzold, SWMA chairman. Harvest of Shame in the Ramapos Like most Americans, the officials of It was in 1970 that Ford Motor Co. Ringwood will gather with their families executives, donated 290 acres to the bor- today in cozy, warm homes. The lights ough. The executives weren't generous, over the dining room table will be dim- really. They had purchased the land back med, to give a soft glow, suitable for. the. in the 1950s, and Ford had used part of occasion.- The table will, be set with, the the acreage to dump waste from its beet china, and at the lie d will be placed Mahwah plant. The Mountain People a big. juicy turkey. were tenants in houses built while the j ^3 ' ey oil —. : the (.able before area was a thriving mining town. The I 2 t a Oil, OTial L-a^t oe officials will men from Ford^ had allowed these houses y o c ^.u ~ v-i ue blessings of to deteriorate substantially during their r Ci r L .ers in. such an ownership, and they realized that being 6 b slum landlords would not help Ford's 2 ^ nc uiy _y may be thank- lc2ugo that in the not image. Sitti t e borough could e a a ianza possibly Today, the houses and the Mountain s of dc a s xhicti will have People are, if anything, in worse shape gu3£ am J nothing. than they were when Ringwood took over. More than 20 percent of the men { c o " J '1 hcv/sver, the ^y c 06^ fo pir minds that are unemployed. Nearly all families live 3 JV g~ 42 Comment Thursday, NOVEMBER 23, 1978 Ringwood Solid Waste Management Au- effectiveness of smoke alarms by calling thority, and transferred to it ownership of up fire officials. the land and houses. Though HUD has given the authority SWMA was originally supposed to set almost $500,000 over three years, it has up and manage a sanitary landfill, as audited just one grant. We don't think it well as to be landlord for the Mountain coincidental that SWMA has stonewalled People. But the state Department of requests to open its books to our reporter. Environmental Protection denied an We think the story thus far is" but the tip application for the landfill, so almost of an iceberg -of mismanagement and since its inception, the authority's sole cozy dealings. function has been to collect rents and Tharikfully, SWMA is now planning to maintain the buildings. go out of business and promises to sell the houses to the tenants. The price is SWMA says it doesn't collect enough unclear. As for the remaining 235 acres rent to make repairs. But its excuse (20 acres having been sold off at various ignores the hundreds of thousands of times), SWMA will deed them back to the HUD dollars received since 1975. borough. SWMA's financial problems stem in The most distressing irony is that part from the fact that it doesn't follow Ringwood now stands to make a fortune normal procedures in awarding contracts from the land because of HUD grants for repair work. In 1976 it awarded a earmarked to help the Mountain People. $91,000 HUD grant to two local contrac- More than $60,000 from HUD has been tors to replace dangerous kerosene stoves spent on surveying the land, mapping with furnaces. The award was given subdivisions and upgrading the water without competitive bid. Most of the main. With half of another $830,000 the furnaces are defective. One exploded this town hopes to get from HUD, it will past week. further improve the water main and the Contractors repairing the roofs under roads. All of this will make the sale to more HUD money are permitted to omit some developer more attractive. Some those sections of the roofs not covering estimates go as high as $9 million that "living spaces." Thus, for example, the the borough eventually could get for the roof over the pantry way of one house 235 acres. was not repaired and leaks buckets when Though Ringwood officials deny they the rains come. plan to sell, all their steps lead in that SWMA also gives a $2,500 annual re- direction. And, if it's like the other deals tainer to an engineering firm that does affecting the Mountain People, we doubt such important work as determining the they will derive much benefit from it. playground materials, it never appeared Problems in the Mine Area ;? ^inthepaper ; The first article in a series on the Lord knows, we admit to the poverty, , Ringwood Mine Area by Ann Rauma, as we admit to being cold, we admit that 11 ; well intended as it may be, served the of our children have perished in fires in purpose of destroying the self-image the last 10 years and we know that it is ; many of us have been trying to build for all good press, but we also know that | the people of that area. ' . , things are being done and progress is , •The "heritage" which was quoted is an being made. Perhaps the next series of < old and proven false source of informa- articles should be a thorough investiga- ; tion and has created a story which live reporting job on the system and the j certain individuals could hurl in the face community which permits these condi- j of Ringwood residents and keep them in tions to proliferate. the subjective position those people wish We at Community Action Council of ; them in. Passaic County 4o all we can, the people i Let me point out that myself, Ms. of Ringwood themselves have done all Rauma and everyone else are'all directly they can, and we hope that something descended from people who swung from will happen someday. , trees and nobody prints that in the We are not pleased that our children newspaper every day. I have no doubts go to school today to face your front page that some readers may have had a horse article which calls their great grand- , thief in their background and that one of mothers whores and indicates that their my ancestors could have been Attilla the great grandfathers may well have been Hun. cowardly deserters. If the young people in Ringwood, as We have come to the point where we Ms. Rauma points out, drop out of school will no longer tolerate these slanderous so frequently, then should we not look to and demeaning stories which do great the school system if it has not been able injury to all of the people of the Ring- to serve them or meet their needs? It wood Mine Area. May I further point out would seem that continous dropouts in that the term "Jackson White" is to us one particular area would mean a con- an ethnic epithet which we had really stant problem in the system and not the hoped had gone the way of similar, ethnic people. terms. Again, we realize the probable About the housing, and their state of good intended by the reporter and of the repair, the Community Action Council newspaper, and that they, as much as and the Ringwood Housing Committee we, want to see justice and to see that are trying to have repairs made in that the rights of the people of the mine area area which had been funded by HUD. of Ringwood are upheld. It is evident, However, the snarl of bureaucratic red however, that this story will only serve tape and Gobbledegook generated *y tKe to continue the dirty old legends. Even Ringwood Borough Hall has stalled the though they may have brought problems project until now — as winter ap- to the attention of the public, to our own proaches — and only a few of the homes people, it served as a severe set-back have been repaired. This program should and another slap in the face from the have been begun by late spring and 26 establishment. homes should have had roofs, indoor HOWARD L. BALL plumbing and proper septic systems by Executive Director now. Passaic County Community Action Council Pompton Lakes I could further point out that the people of the Ringwood Mine Area have EDITOR'S NOTE: If the letter writer had waited to read the second and third a history of 300 hundred years of service installments of the series and an editori- in North Jersey, and that the rolls of the al on the subject, he would have seen colonial regiments of Robert Erskine and that we discussed many of the problems the Bergen County Milita also bear the he alludes to and came to similar conclu- sions. names of the Mine Area people. If there is a system that can put people into poverty for three centuries,, then there is something wrong with that system. The people of the Mine Area are aware of the need for self-help. Many of them refuse handouts and there is, presently, a committee which is trying desperately to build a self-help park. When we sent The News an article asking for donations of AUG 1984 BITS AND PIECES Happy birthday, Myrtle Howard Lee Ball Myrtle VanDunk was 74 years old on July 25. I recall those lush summer days when 1 used to got a chance to celebrate with her and for a little wander along the brook with my cousin Lucy while I was back at my roots on Peters Mine Road in (Stephens) Olsen. There was no fear of polluted Ringwood. water in those days and even the threat of World War 11 was in the distance. Myrtle Van Dunk has always been a very special friend of mine. We have shared the joys and Myrtle and I had a good talk at her birthday about sorrows of the Ringwood community for more years some of the things which happened at the Gladys than 1 would like to count. Rhinesmith Administration building which was It was a great party and the family-style feast let where the headstart kitchen was. me loose on some of my favorite foods in the world. We always called the building the Midvale school You have never laid your lips on potato salad until . inspiteof the fancy sign they put up. • you-sample-some of the succulent recipe-which - - One of the funniest^hings which happened while graces Myrtle's table. It is simply beyond description! we were working took place one day while we were When I was working with Myrtle in the kitchen at talking about an upcoming party we were going to . Head Start, her children and grandchildren and have. - ' '. great-grandchildren were all around her. All re- Young James Petry was one of the kitchen aides ferred to Myrtle as "Mom" and to her sister Pearl as and he was talking with Myrtle who told Jamie she Aunt Pearl. "Mom" and Aunt Pearl were two of the could "dance him under the table any day no best people you could have in a kitchen which matter how old she was." We continued our work served little kids. Not just because they were grand- but about five minutes later there was the blarihg of children, but because they were kids, Mom and rock and roll and there, under the table was Jamie Aunt Pearl would take great care to see that each doing what must have been the very first break child was taken care of specially.. They sometimes dance. supervised the lunchroom and added a special element of warmth that made every child feel at We had good friendship and good fun at that home and comfortable. • kitchen, There are scores of people who should be mentioned here, but I don't have the space or time. Head Start is a program which is intended to give They all contributed to a very special time in my life. young children a foundation in life — a headstart if Saturday I stood on the lawn with my good friend you will, in a world of poverty. Bill Coleman and his wife Claudette, and I looked at Myrtle Van Dunk and a few others in those rooms the kids as they played on the lawn and did their knew exactly what the program was and worked it break dance exhibition for "grandma." that way. Myrtle was one of the people who knew Headstart was not a fancy government baby sitting A whole bunch of people who are much smarter service, and that it was more than a daycare center. than I am have walked along Peters Mine Road She understood the early character building that : trying to find meanings and philosophies. They went on there and saw to it that every child had an have intruded into the lives of people and made equal opportunity. themselves pests with their cameras and notebooks. Few if any of them ever, found what they were Myrtle had seven children, of whom four are still living. Rhoda Nieves, William Van Dunk, Julia Mann looking for. In their obsessive search for intellectual and Marilyn Milligan all celebrated her birthday answers, they missed the real core of Rjngwood. ; along with 32 grandchildren, 37 great grand- There is a special kind of love on that road that children, and two great-great grandchildren. . some people will never understand. There is a The friends who came to call are far too numer- loyalty to community and friend and loved ones that ous to mention. not many people have any more. t was good to be back on Peters Mine Road and I am happy to be part of it. REFERENCE RINGWOOD PUBLIC LIBRARY Please do not remove 145 Skylands Road from this room Rinjjwood, New Jers«y /M+- RINGWOOD PUBLIC LIBRARY 145 SKYLANOS ROAD RINGWOOD, NEW JERSEY 07456 201-962-6256 THE NEW YORK TIMES METRO SUNDAY, JANUARY 1, 1995 The Mountain People Dig In Over Recognition as Indians By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ ning in the late 1600's. . Special to The New York Times To the Ramapoughs, the Federal Gov- MAHWAH, N.J., Dec. 30 — Here in the ernment's disbelief has been extremely rugged foothills of the Ramapo Mountains frustrating. "We know who we are," insist- the people pledge loyalty to an elected ed Noreen Boddy, who represents the Fox tribal chief, count on a medicine man to Clan on the tribal council. "Unfortunately, cure a variety of ailments and gather for we have to prove that to everyone else. powwows each summer. That's what burns us up. What other group So, why doesn't the Federal Govern- in this country has to prove who they ment consider them Indians? are?" For 15 years, the people of the Ramapo Time is running out for the Rama- Mountains on the New Jersey-New York poughs, whose 3,000 members are scat-r border have been pressing the Federal tered in three communities atop the Ram- Government to acknowledge them as a apo Mountains. The Ramapoughs have legitimate American Indian tribe. Such until April to submit documents to prove recognition is considered crucial because their claims of ancient Indian origin. If they fail to win a reversal by that deadline, it brings lucrative Federal benefits, such their only hope for Federal recognition is as housing and health care assistance and an act,of Congress — which is unlikely/ the right to operate a casino. given local resistance —• or an appeal to So far, however, the "Government has the Department of the Interior. withheld the recognition. It says the Ra- mapoughs are not a tribe at all, but rather Some here believe that without Federal NormanY.Loimlnrihi \I»>OI> linn- descendants of settlers with African and help, the Ramapough people could lose To Penelope Mann, Federal recognition of the Ramapough people means more Dutch blood who moved to the area from than material gains. 'It means being recognized as an American Indian,' she said. Manhattan in search of farmland begin- Continued on Page 34 •-move JAN l 1295 The Ramapo Mountain People Dig In i- Continued From Page 29 ; that as a child she was taughthow to 'h NEW YORK survive in the mountains by identify- ing edible nuts and berries. "I used their identity as a nation and be <• ^Hillburn to ask my father where our people •* J RAMAPO " absorbed into mainstream Ameri- ..' MOUNTAIN came from," she said. "And he can culture. Wanaque , fosesr • Reservoir} & 1 would say, 'We were always here. The Ramapoughs are well aware ; 1 We never came from anywhere.' " of the hurdles before them. Last ,,j" - . ' Mahwah The Ramapoughs go to great year the Bureau of Indian Affairs lengths to preserve their society, • denied them Federal recognition af- ,* * * » ' '•"• **• Hamaoo which is based in the northern Ber- ter determining that they had not gen County town of Mahwah and the shown that they were descendants of Passaic County town of Ringwood, a historic Indian tribe or that they and in the Rockland County town of had even lived as a community be- NEW JERSEY Hillburn in New York State. The fore 1850. people are divided into three clans: "It's a fascinating history," said Pompton Lakes Turtle, Deer and Fox. Recently, they Representative Robert G. Torricelli, 0 Miles 4 held elections to choose a chief and a Democrat from Englewood who The New York Times council. And everyone is given a opposes recognition of (the Rama- About 3,000 Ramapoughs live in tribal membership card. poughs because he believes they are three communities on the New Mr. Van Dunk, who recently ran motivated out of a desire to build a York-New Jersey border. for the office of chief but lost, feels it casino, which he has opposed. "But is important for the tribe to continue it's not the history of an Indian practicing its traditions no matter tribe." what the Federal Government ulti- Walter Van Dunk, a tribal council other documentation in an effort to mately decides. "The important member, said that the tribe's desire bolster the tribe's case for tribal thing is that we know who we are," to be Federally recognized was not a status. he said. ploy to enter into the casino industry. The Ramapoughs believe that To Penelope Mann, the survival of But, he said, the possibility of having they are descendants of the ancient the tribe is so important that she a casino had not been ruled out. Munsee Indian tribe, but acknowl- spends several hours a day answer- The Bureau of Indian Affairs re- edge that their background also in- ing phones and doing other volunteer quires all tribes to pass seven tests cludes some African and European work at the the tribal office here. to-show that they have had "continu- blood. The Munsees left the area in She said she did not care as much ous existence" as a separate band of the early 1700's and moved West. about the benefits of tribal recogni- people since the days of their first Mr. Joslyn's search started with tion as she did about its symbolism. contact with Europeans. Nationwide, the family trees that just about all "The benefits are nice," she said, 143 tribes are attempting to get Fed- 3,000 members of the tribe filled out "but it's more important than that. eral recognition. and filed with the tribal office on It means being recognized as an Critics of the Federal procedures Stag Hill here in Mahwah. American Indian." say the experience of the Rama- He said one of the most difficult poughs illustrates how difficult the parts about verifying the group's rules for securing tribal recognition lineage was the scarcity of docu- can be for Eastern tribes, which in ments like birth, and death certifi- many cases were either assimilated cates for the time the Munsees first or wiped out long before the founding made contact with Europeans in the RINGWOOD PUBLIC LIBRARY of the country. By contrast, Western 1600's. Available records only date to 145 SKYLANOS ROAD tribes still had their societies rela- the mid-1700's, he said. tively intact by the time they came "The records just don't exist be- RINGWOOD, NEW JERSEY 07456 into contact with the Federal Gov- yond that point," Mr. Joslyn said. 201-962-6256 ernment during the 19th Century. The Ramapoughs received official "The Western tribes were gener- recognition from the State of New ally given the opportunity to live on Jersey in 1980, and from New York reservations as a unit and preserve State in 1981. their culture," said Ralph Sturges, But Steve Austin, a cultural an- the- chief of the Mohegan Indians, a thropologist who reviewed the Ra- tribe in Connecticut that got Federal mapough case for the Bureau of In- recognition in March. "But Eastern dian Affairs, said the local docu- tribes weren't given that opportunity ments that do exist show that the - and were absorbed by the white Ramapoughs were actually descend- man." ants of African-Dutch farmers. In the case of the Mohegans, the "Where the story of their Indian State of Connecticut had argued ancestry came from, we can't say," against recognition on the grounds he said. that the tribe had not continuously To many Ramapoughs, the denial existed as a self-governing entity of tribal status by the Federal Gov- since its members encountered Eu- ernment is yet another insult aimed ropean, colonists in the 1600's. The at the group, which has been dispar- REFERENCE tribe was able to overcome the argu- agingly referred to as "Jackson ment. whites" by outsiders. (Local lore has Please do not remove Even a gap of only a few years in a it that Jackson was a white trader from this room tribe's history can make it ineligible who fathered many children with for Federal recognition. slave women.) And that is exactly the problem "How could outsiders know the- the Ramapoughs face. No one knows history of our people?" grumbled '.\ that better than Roger D. Joslyn, a Linda Powell, who is th§ tribe's pro- genealogist who has helped the Ra- gram director. i m mapoughs compile 600! feet of gene- Ms. Powell explained that her alogy charts and four volumes of family has such deep ties to the area G win Rift Ramapougi BySUSANJORELLfctt Once again, the Federal Govern- ment has ruled that me Ramapough Mountain People Have failed to prove they are an Indian tribe. The. group's lawyer described the deci- sion as an election-year sop to the casino industry, tyflicli is .worried . about competition iffoni Indian casi- nos. The Bureau of Indian Affairs said yesterday that it woiild not recognize the Ramapoughs, who live along the New York-New JWsey border, be- cause "they did hot exist as a dis- tinct community from historic times to the present" and did riot meet two other standards of Federal law. The Ramapoughs'lawyer, Al Ca- talano, described thejedsion as "in- tended to accomniodate affluent gaming interests,?! ifjAtlantic City. He said the group would take its case to the Board of Indiari Appeals in the Interior Department. Federal recognition is a require- ment for an Indian tribe to open a casino. But Mr. Catal&no and the Ramapoughs' chief, Ronald Van Dunk, said yesterday that the pro- cess of seeking recognition had be- gun in 1978,10 years before Congress passed a law allowing casinos on tribal land. Mr. Van Dunk said that the group had no plans to open a. casino if it gained recognition and had not even discussed the issue seriously. The Ramapoughs say that they can trace their ancestry back 5,000 years, to the Lenape tribe, and that they want recognition to help pre- serve their culture and to give their members access to Federal educa- tional, housing and health benefits. Opponents of their claim, includ- ing two New Jersey Representa- tives, Marge Roukema, a Republi- can, and Robert G. Torricelli, a Dem- ocrat, have said the group is more interested in casino gambling. "I hope this puts an end to this misguided effort," Representative Roukema said yesterday. REFERENCE The New Jersey Legislature and Please do not re Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York have endorsed the Rama- from thi? .••:•<•:.'r pough claim that they have always lived in what are now Bergen and Passaic counties in New Jersey and JAN 2 3 1396 Rockland and Orange counties in New York. K'P #- 4 Ramapoughs will appeal on tribal status By NANCY LOUGHLIN that the Ramapoughs most certainly combined and functioned as a single. StaffWrtter deserve tribal status and he referred autonomous entity. RINGWOOD — Although the to letters written as early as 1765 The Ramapough Mountain People federal Bureau of Indian Affairs where the group was clearly thought have 90 days to appeal this finding. • (BIA) has denied tribal status to the Several legislators have criticized Ramapough Mountain People, com- of as American Indians. the push for tribal status as a mere • "The Ramapough's have a proud munity leader Carl Van Dunk has ruse to open a casino. According to history, particularly in Upper Ring- said that an appeal of the decision is BIA spokesperson Ralph Gonzales, wood, and through the appeal, I definite. a federally recognized tribe is free to believe the truth will prevail," Prol open gambling establishments under "We really were not surprised. said. We've had obstacles all along and the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act In a BIA decision passed down now it is time to go fight in court," of 1988. last week, it was determined that the Tribal status has other benefits!1 Van Dunk said. Van Dunk said that Ramapoughs failed to prove the the appeal will be filed by the Tribal With federal recognition, the door Is following points necessary for tribal open to numerous grant op-' Council, headed by Ronald "Red- status: existence as a distinct com- portunities for scholarships, roads, bone" Van Dunk. The council rep- munity from historic times to the social services, health care and resents the three area Ramapough present; that they maintained housing. These services, Van Dunk clans — the Deer, Turtle and Fox political influence or authority over said, would be welcome in Upper clans. their members from historic contact Ringwood. Bert Prol, who served as borough to the present, and that their mem- The mine district of Upper Ring- historian for 25 years until this year, bership descended from a tribe of wood, the home of a few hundred disagreed with the decision. He said American Indians or from tribes that Ramapough Mountain People, is in stark contrast to the rest of the borough. Its median household in- come is about 50 percent of the" median income for the rest of the borough according to 1990 census information. And, the planning board commented frequently during last year's affordable housing dis-, cussions on the need to alleviate the neighborhood's overcrowding. There are approximately 3,Q0Q Ramapoughs nationally, and most of them reside in the Ringwood, Mahwah, and Hillburn, NY areas.; Please r-- -v.-r -env tram this room % A Xi "' !"t JAN L ;j RINGWOOD PUBLIC LIBRARY 145 SKYLANDS RGAD A BRIEF HISTORY RiNGWOOD, NEW JERSEY 07456 of the 201-962-6256 RAMAPOUGH MOUNTAIN INDIANS This is a Lenape tribe. More specifically, the Ramapough are a Munsee-Delaware tribe. The Lenape homeland included all of New Jersey and nearby areas of New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware. Often referred to as the Delaware Indians, they were intricately involved in the early history of the United States. The northern branch of Lenape were called Minnisink, meaning "the people from the stony land." Today they are called Munsee-Delaware and are represented by three tribes in Ontario, Canada, one in Wisconsin and the Ramapough Mountain Indians who remain in their New York - New Jersey homeland. Terrain features readily define the boundaries of the Ramapough tribe's original range. From the region of Newark Bay in the south, with the Hudson River as its eastern border and the Passaic River on the west, their lands extended north into and including the Ramapo Mountains. Their first significant European contact came with the arrival of Dutch settlers in the 1620's who called the tribe the Tappans. Later English colonists used the name Hackensacks after a principal village of that name. Although very accepting of the Dutch at first, the tribe suffered as a result of cultural differences. After twenty years marred by conflicts ranging from theft to murder, war broke out. By this time many Natives had been fathered by Dutchmen and the level of hostility the local tribes faced was beyond their experience. After at least eighty men, women and children of the tribe were killed in a nightime massacre in February,1642, an elder reviled the Dutch for being so villianous as to slaughter their own blood. Fighting dragged on for fifteen years by the end of which time the Dutch were clinging to small areas around a few forts. In their weakened state they could offer little resistance to the English who seized control in the 1660's. Shortly thereafter the tribe began to withdraw from the ridges and lowlands along the rivers. Faced with European encroachment from the south and east, Oratarn, chief of the Hackensacks stated they could not go west into the lands of their enemies. So they moved north into the Ramapo Mountains which have provided their home and name ever since. Consolidated under one chieftaincy, the Tappan-Hackensacks began to be called the Ramapough in the early 1700's. Their mountain refuge was so formidable that Natives had long known the best way through was at the pass through which the Ramapo River flows. Native travelers used a nearby location as a meeting place. Their word for which gives us its present name, "Mahwah". REFERENCE Please do not remove from this room MAY 1 0 There is evidence that around 1715, a group of Tuscarora came to the pass. After defeat by English settlers in their Carolina homeland, many of that tribe traveled to New York to join the Iroquois, mostly by way of the Susquehanna River. At least one band is believed to have crossed the Delaware and made its way to the Ramapo Pass where they lingered and ultimately joined the local Ramapough Indian community. In the mid-18th century the tribe's leaders signed the last in a series of land deeds. Two centuries would pass before the tribe would or could openly assert its identity. The Ramapough were a community of families struggling to subsist in their homeland. Migration and military options were not pursued. Their existence depended on isolation. Lenape tribes were enmeshed in the warfare of the 18th century. Even their most pacifist communities were subject to attack. Besides being potential military targets, other serious threats existed. The law offered them no protection. To understand their status, consider that in 1793, the governor of New Jersey stated that Indians are and have always been considered slaves in this state. Periodically the need to remain isolated was re-emphasized. In 1836 the Indian Removal Act forbade the existence of Native tribes east of the Mississippi. Even after the threats of war, slavery and forced removal faded, the pressures of racism remained. Tribal elders today still recall assaults, Klan marches and cross-burnings directed at their Native, and therefore non-white, community. Although they lived in seclusion for generations, by hunting, fishing and trapping, the Ramapough tribe's presence was not entirely unobserved. Dozens of sources documented their continued existence over a period of two hundred and fifty years. As late as the 1820's, Ramapough Indians still made their annual trips to fish the Hudson River near Nyack, New York where they sold their handicrafts. A French traveler of that time wrote about the Indians of the Ramapo Mountains. He described the community that has been genealogically linked to the Indian congregration ministered by Rev. George A. Ford from 1876-1880. At that time, historian J.M. Van Valen remarked that the Ramapo Indians were known almost exclusively by a derogatory nickname. Misidentification was an inevitable result of generations of Ramapough isolation and non-Native prejudice. The effects of both of which are still strongly felt today. As industry came within reach of their mountains in the late 19th century, many Ramapough Indian families left their remote cabins. Some took advantage of cheap, mining company housing near Ring\\rood. Others clustered near Mahwah and Hillburn, New York to work as laborers. Ramapoughs enlisted in both World Wars and asserted their Native identity just as their predecessor Jan DeFreese had done in 1760 when he joined the New York militia during the French and Indian Wars. His surname, like DeGroat, VanDunk and Mann, dates back to the early Dutch arrivals who commonly assigned European names to Natives with whom they interacted. By the 1940's the community's existence was no longer secret. In fact it was the focus of contoversy. In 1943, Thurgood Marshall, later a Supreme Court justice, challenged the State of New Jersey on its refusal to provide schooling for Ramapough children. Twenty years would pass however before that fight would be won. In the 1950's the Ramapough's began to find their political voice. Under the dynamic leadership of Otto Mann the community demanded egual rights and participation in the law. However, myth and misunderstanding continued to effect the denial of their Native tribal identity. Finally, an incident in the early 1970's prompted the Ramapough to declare their identity once and for all. A folklorist had come to their settlements to research a book in which he proposed to debunk a myth about their origins. He did so by replacing it with one of his own manufacture. The people and leaders of the tribe were deeply offended by his denial of their heritage. They brought their case before the States of New York and New Jersey and were officially recognized as a Native American tribe by both states by 1981. Even so, the effects of generations of isolation, poverty and racism contribute to the political agenda of those who see a federally recognized Ramapough Mountain Indian tribe as a threat to their interests. If there is one lesson the history of this tribe offers, it is that the Ramapoughs are survivors. They wanted to remain in the land of their ancestors. Despite the overwhelming odds against them, they did. Now they are determined that their descendents will enjoy undisputed claim to their Native heritage. Their history suggests they will. prepared by: Daniel Dravot DalCais, MSW, LSW, Director, Indian Education Board of Education, Ringwood, NJ This map shows locations from which 27 separate r' 1 !••! sources record the continuing presence of the local Native community over almost two and a half centuries in an area NEW YORK approximately one hundred miles square. TAPPAN NEW JERSEY ZEE Ringwood 5 O Mshwah 9-12 15-16 8 17-18 Haskell O 19-20 MLES 23-24 1-1710 Tappan/Hackensacks unify in Ramapo Mtns. 2-1735 DeVries' Indians plant trees on Kakiat Patent HUDSC* 3-1747 Ramapo Indian Deeds until this time RIVER 4-1760 J.DeFreese,Indian, on NY Militia roles 14-1876-1880 Rev .Ford's Indian congregation, 5-1765 Peter Hasenclever describes local Natives genealogically same as Jacquemont 1826 6-1778 Cornelius Smith claims Indian allies 15-1876 Historian Walker identifies tribe 7-1790's Campbells Indian trade underway 16-1890's Prominent local authorities, Squires 8-1790's These sites identified as Native villages Christie and Bogert identify tribe 9-1793 basket purchased from Ramapo squaw 17-1900 Historian VanValen identifies tribe 10-1802 DeGroot with Brotherton Indians 18-1911 Vineland study published 11-1822 DeClark buys local Native wares 19-1911 Ethnologist Speck & Linqulst Prince identify 12-1826 V.Jacquemont describes local Natives tribe 13-1828 Stockbridge-Brotherton Agreement 20-1913 Archaeologists Skinner & Schrabisch identify tribe 21 -1917 World War One records identify individuals 22-1920 NY census identifies individuals 23-1931 Historian C.T.Jones identifies tribe 23-1948 Anthropologist Gilbert identifies tribe •l}\<- J Ramapo River Brook Chapel Q RAMAPO MOUNTAINS Ramapo River D Authors' locations Contemporary Native X 18th Century Native camps settlements -19th century 8 villages Documentary evidence of the continuing presence of the local Native tribe, known as Ramapough Mtn. Indians, was provided by the authors at the locations shown above. Victor Jacctuemont wrote his 1826 account from the Hopper house. The Green Mtn. Valley community he describes is genealogically linked to Rev. Ford's 1876 Native congregation at Brook Chapel. The homes of Squires Christie and Bogert, who in the 1890's confirm the tribe's continuing presence since before the Revolution, are also indicated. As can be seen, reports from four separate sources span most of the 19th century in an area less than four square miles.