The Garden State Parkway Crossing the Great Egg Harbor Bay

The Garden State Parkway Crossing the Great Egg Harbor Bay When the Garden State Parkway bridge City of Somers Point in Atlantic County the two communities have served over Great Egg Harbor Bay opened on with the community of Beesley’s Point as an essential point of connection May 26, 1956, it was the longest bridge in Cape May County. Though the for centuries. This pamphlet explores to be constructed as a part of the new bridge was constructed in the middle the development of the connections highway. The Parkway connected the of the twentieth century, these two between these two points and the population centers of northern New communities have a shared history many historical events that occurred Jersey with the resort communities that extends back through time into within these settlements on the Great of the Atlantic coast. The bridge over the seventeenth century. Connected Egg Harbor Bay. Great Egg Harbor Bay connects the by a succession of ferries and bridges, Native Americans The Great Egg Harbor Bay formed about and eating the abundant shellfish this part of New Jersey. Artifacts found 5,000 years ago when rising sea levels located in the newly formed bays, the at Beesley’s Point include shell middens, slowed and stabilized. The process Native Americans would collect the stone tools, and shards of pottery. resulted in the formation of many new emptied shells in a large pile. These bodies of water, including the bays piles are referred to as shell middens The first official ferry across the Great and salt marshes along the Atlantic by archaeologists. The shell middens Egg Harbor Bay was established 1695, Coast of New Jersey. The new bodies of found along the shores of the Great but it is likely that Native Americans water supported a growing variety of Egg Harbor Bay are between 3,000 and traversed the Bay, as well as providing marine life, and the existence of these 5,000 years old and generally contain transportation across to European new food sources attracted various fragments of tools and other waste. travelers, at an earlier date. The size and small groups of indigenous people These shell middens have helped depth of New Jersey’s rivers and bays to the coast of southern New Jersey. archaeologists to better understand often required European travelers to These early inhabitants left evidence of where and when different Native seek assistance from Native Americans their existence behind. After catching American groups lived and fished in in crossing on small boats and canoes. John Somers and the Ferry John Somers settled Somers Point in with present-day Beesley’s Point, which grown and separate meetings were 1693 following his purchase of 3,000 was known as Goldin’s Point after the established on either side of the Bay. acres of land on the Great Egg Harbor Goldin family settled on the south side On the Atlantic County side, the Somers Bay. Like many of the early settlers of the Bay. In the eighteenth century, family offered up their own home for around Great Egg Harbor, Somers Somers Plantation became known continual worship. This home, built by was an English Quaker who moved to as Job’s Point. It was named for Job John Somers’ son, Richard, (pictured Atlantic County from Pennsylvania. Somers, a son of John Somers, who ran left) remains standing on Somers Immediately after settling on the Bay, the ferry at that time. Point and is a historic site owned and Somers was named supervisor of roads operated by the State of New Jersey. and constable for Great Egg Harbor; In part, Somers may have established Though the congregations separated, his large land holdings were known as the ferry to connect Quaker settlers the communities on either side of the the Somers Plantation. In 1695, Somers on the separated sides of the Bay. Great Egg Harbor Bay held this shared established the first ferry to cross Great Although the majority of people living religious connection through the Egg Harbor Bay, made official by an act in seventeenth-century Cape May centuries. of the Provincial Legislature. The act set County were not Quaker, a few Quaker standardized prices for the passage of families did settle in the vicinity of people as well as horses, cattle, sheep, Beesley’s Point, in the northern portion hogs, and bushels of grain. The ferry of the county. These families joined with connected present-day Somers Point Somers and others in Atlantic County to form a small Quaker meeting. Meetings were alternately held in worshipers’ homes on the north and south sides of the Bay. Worshipers utilized various forms of transportation to cross the bay, including the ferry and canoes. One worshiper reportedly even swam across the Bay. By the early eighteenth century, the Quaker community had The Goldin Family In the chain of whaler yeoman settlers in Cape May County. William the plague in Cape May County killed settlements that ran along Cape May Goldin was a whaler and the eldest 10 percent of the area’s population, County’s Atlantic coast, William Goldin son of a Long Island family. The Goldin including William Goldin. Goldin’s owned the northernmost tract of land, family also gave Beesley’s Point its first children and grandchildren remained in the terminus for Great Egg Harbor Bay name, Goldin’s Point, emphasizing the the area for many years, farming family crossings. He and his family settled in importance of the family’s presence plots and marrying amongst other early Beesley’s Point around 1693. The Goldin there. Goldin owned 600 acres of land, Cape May County families, maintaining family had much in common with the which he began dividing among his a tightknit circle on the south side of majority of late seventeenth century sons in 1708. In 1714, an outbreak of Great Egg Harbor Bay. Whaling Seventeenth century whalers played an families dominated this small, rural laying claim to whales that had simply essential role in the development of Cape society and economy throughout washed up on the beach. May County, including the settlements the eighteenth century, owning the The waters closest to the shore were on the Great Egg Harbor Bay. During majority of land and livestock in Cape quickly over-fished, and by the mid- the late seventeenth century many May County and holding almost all eighteenth century, whalers were whaling families migrated from Long public offices. forced to travel further out to sea. Island to Cape May County. Drawn by These longer trips required larger Whales were valued for their fat (called affordable land, these settlers started boats, more equipment, and more “blubber”). Whale blubber contained whalers per vessel. This new level of small plantations along the coast extremely valuable oil, which was investment resulted in larger-scale and stretching from the Great Egg Harbor extracted from the blubber through more organized whaling operations. Bay to the Cape May peninsula. They a cooking process. In the seventeenth As whales became scarce along the were primarily identified as yeomen, and early eighteenth centuries, shore in the middle of the eighteenth owners of small estates who generally whaling was a relatively simple process. century, whaling became less common worked their own land and had a social Early whale boats were small and in Cape May County. The onset of the held approximately six whalers, rarely Revolutionary War marked the end of standing above a tradesman but below traveling out of sight of the shoreline. whaling off the Cape May County coast a gentleman. These whaler yeoman Some whalers never even left the shore, altogether. Revolutionary Saltworks During the Revolutionary War, salt salt shortages that forced the Colonies and four pans, holding between 3,000 production became an important to find new ways of getting salt. This led and 4,000 gallons of salt water, as industry on the beaches of Great to a dramatic increase in salt production well as a salt-house, a drying-house, a Egg Harbor Bay. Salt was an essential on the New Jersey shore, utilizing the dwelling, and stables. Salt pans were resource in the eighteenth century. It abundance of readily available salt shallow, rectangular boxes made of was used as a preservative and was water. iron. Furnaces in the salt-house boiled heavily relied upon by the fishing and the salt water in the pans to remove fur industries. Before the Revolutionary Great Egg Harbor Bay saltworks the water and leave only salt. The 24- War, a large percentage of salt needed included the Frazer Kinsley Saltworks, hour process was complex, involving in the Colonies was imported from the Kennedy and McCulloh Saltworks, multiple boiling stages and the mixing Europe. During the War, the resource and the Friendship Salt Company. A of egg whites with the boiling water. was in high demand by the Continental 1778 newspaper advertisement for Though labor intensive, the process Army for its use as a food preservative the sale of the Frazer Kinsley Saltworks was fast and efficient relative to other and for the production of gun powder. gave a detailed description of the options, such as using the heat from British blockages resulted in immediate works. The sale included several kettles the sun. Privateering As the Revolutionary War progressed, of cotton, as well as some coffee. The Stillwell captured multiple vessels with Cape May County’s coast, including cargo was auctioned off at the tavern holdings worth many thousands of the Great Egg Harbor Bay, became an on Beesley’s Point. As a privateer, Enoch British pounds. important location for privateering in New Jersey. Privateers had permission from the government to use their personal ships to attack and plunder British trade vessels at sea.

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