Sussex. 62-square-mile borough in the Wallkill Valley in Sussex County. Native Americans of the Shawnee and Minsi tribes once inhabited the area. In the eighteenth century, the borough was home to gristmills, clover mills, and plaster mills. Prior to 1902, it was called Decker town after Peter Decker, who was among the region’s earliest European settlers. By the 1840s, Decker town boasted Presbyterian and Baptist churches, an academy, four stores, five mills, several artisans’ shops, and a population of approximately 500. The completion of the New Jersey Midland Railroad in 1871 brought the greatest growth to the area, and allowed the region’s dairy farmers to ship their products to New York. For a brief time, starting in 1895, Decker town was also home to the Vaughn Private Sanitarium, nicknamed the "gold cure.” The sanitarium was founded by Dr. Frank Vaughn, and it closed when he died in 1905.
Around 1918, the borough’s Seely School was converted into the Linn Memorial Hospital. Sussex still has a local hospital. The addition of a new park and a dam project at Clove Lake are part of a spate of late twentieth-century borough improvements. The 2000 population of Sussex Borough was 2,145, where 96 percent of the population was white. The median household income was $36,172.
Sussex County. New Jersey’s last colonial county, containing twenty-four municipalities and 535.81 square miles of scenic topography, is famed for its agricultural and mineral wealth. Isolated settlement on the Minisink flats began about 1705. As part of the last purchase from the Indians in West Jersey, extensive proprietary tracts were surveyed in 1715. Gov. Jonathan Belcher set aside the sparsely settled upper part of Morris County, northwest of the Musconetcong River, on June 8, 1753, and named it for Sussex, England, home of Prime Minister Thomas Pelham-Holles, duke of Newcastle. In 1756, frontier forts were built for defense. Colonization quickened after the Treaty of Easton resolved native land claims in 1758. In 1762, Sussex Courthouse was built in Newton at the hub of a spoke wise network of roads. The New York boundary was demarcated in 1774. During the Revolution, the Great Valley offered a protected line of communication and a reservoir of supplies. Warren County separated in 1824.
The Kittatinny Valley undulates between shale ridges and limestone valleys trenched by streams. Along its central axis, the Great Slate Mountain separates the Paulins Kill, Wallkill, and Pequest. Orchards shade its brow; cornfields and pastures checker its slopes. Sweet grasses grown on bottomland make Sussex dairy products prized in city markets.
Kettle ponds dot outwash plains formed by glacial melt waters. With drift-plugged outlets, drowned valleys make Hopatcong, Culvers, and Swartswood lakes. Impeded waters also flood the Wallkill Drowned Lands, Paulins Kill Meadows, and Great Meadows. Gouged mountaintop basins cup Lakes Marcia and Wawayanda. Natural pondage, amplified by stream impoundment, provide abundant waterpower. Facilitated by railroads, lakeside summer resorts developed after 1875. By 1890, commercial ice harvests supplied city merchants and meatpackers. Automobiles further popularized vacation spots after World War I.
The Blue Mountains, broken only at Culvers Gap, reach 1,804 feet at High Point, New Jersey’s highest elevation. Over the mountain, the Flatbrook and Minisink valleys were highly cultivated and furnished with mills. Clove River drains the Wantage foothills, driving mills at Colesville, Wantage, Clove, and Sussex (Deckertown). Wending Frankford Plains, Papakating Creek energized gristmills at Woodbourne, Plumsock, Coursenville, and Pa-pakating. Four dams harnessed Culver Brook to two sawmills and three gristmills near Branchville. The turnpike follows the cross clove connecting Woodruffs Gap in Sparta and Culvers Gap. At Tuttles Corner the road forks, one leading to Owego through Layton, Hainesville, Brick House, and the Milford toll bridge (first built in 1826). Another leads to Carbondale via Dingmans Ferry.
The Paulins Kill’s upper branches unite at Lafayette, creating valuable waterpower. Entering its valley at Augusta and crossing the moraine, the stream worked carding machines at Pleasant Mills and Balesville. About 1742, Casper Shaver constructed a log gristmill at Stillwater. Pequest Creek drains a flat, limestone dale. Farmers patronized mills at Spring-dale, Andover, Huntsburg, and Tranquility. Huntsville marks the Forks of the Pequest.
The proximity of minerals, forests, and wa-terpower spawned ironworks along the Wall-kill Range, extending from Pochuck Mountain south into Hardyston, Sparta, and Byram. Highland ores were smelted at Andover in 1761 and at Sharpsborough, between Franklin and Hamburg, in 1768. Garret Rapalje erected Brooklyn Forge at Lake Hopatcong’s outlet in 1766. Exhausting their wood supply, charcoal-iron plantations were superseded by bloomeries along the Wallkill, Lubbers Run, and Beaver Run. Stanhope boasted a gristmill and three forges. In 1825, the Morris Canal raised the level of Lake Hopatcong as principal feeder to an inland navigation system for transporting ore and coal. New Jersey’s first anthracite blast furnace was built at Stanhope in 1840. Sparta anchor-works supplied the Union navy. The Andover Iron Mine yielded 200,000 tons of ore between 1847 and 1867. In 1851, Cooper and Hewitt connected it to the Morris Canal at Waterloo by a mule tramway. That was superseded in 1854 by the Sussex Railroad and extended to Newton.
Zinc ore was found in 1836 at Sterling Hill, Ogdensburg, near the site of Elias Ogden’s forge. Franklinite proved difficult to smelt until a method was found in 1853 to extract iron and zinc paint by a single process. By 1872, railroads carried Sussex ores to distant foundries.
Below Franklin Furnace, the Wallkill motivated Hamburg’s forge, grist and paper mills. Pochuck Mountain overlooks McAfee and the White Rock Lime and Cement quarries. Vernon Valley nestles between Wawayanda and Pochuck Mountains, where the New-burgh road branches towards Stockholm and Newton. Hamburg Mountain runs from Ver-non southwest to Vulcan Head, near Morris Lake, and to Glen Road in Sparta. Briar Ridge, Hickory Hill, and Pimple Hill lie northwest of the Wallkill, while Sparta Mountain widens into a rocky plateau in Byram. Lubbers Run draws from Cranberry Lake, Bear Pond, and Wrights Pond, lifting bloomery hammers before joining the Musconetcong near Lockwood. In 1760, Andover Forge was built below Waterloo Lake. Smith Brothers operated grist-, saw-, and plaster mills here at a lock and inclined plane of the Morris Canal.
In 1825, the Erie Canal cut transportation costs between the Hudson River the Great Lakes inhalf. To compete, local farmers turned to pork and dairy. Butter grew as a staple after 1830; farmers made the "big trip” to market each November. Wayside hamlets accommodated teamsters and drovers. When the Erie Railroad reached Goshen in 1841, farmers went increasingly to milk production. The change accelerated as transcontinental rails cheaply hauled livestock and cereal products from large mechanized Midwestern farms to seaboard markets. During the Civil War, inflation drove up the value of farmland, but the Long Depression (1873-1879) brought depreciation, winnowing outmoded rural industries. The Merriam Shoe Company introduced the modern factory system to Newton in 1873, inaugurating an age of enterprise. Peaches became a commercial crop about 1895. By 1890, Sussex accounted for more than a quarter of the state’s milk production. It still led dairy production in i960, with 767 farms averaging 187 acres each. The population only surpassed the number of dairy cattle in i954. Completion of Interstate 80 in i966 and dualization of Routes i5 and 23 attracted commuters. Suburbanization ultimately overwhelmed Sussex’s rural character as the population reached 144,166 by 2000. Ninety-six percent of this population was white. In 2000, the median household income in Sussex County was $65,266.
Sussex County Community College. Located on a 167-acre campus in Newton, Sussex County Community College (SCCC) was founded in 1981 and became a comprehensive community college in i992. SCCC received its first ten-year accreditation from the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools in June i998. For the 200i-2002 academic year, 4,180 students were registered in credit-bearing courses. The college offers degree/transfer and certificate programs in addition to career, technical, and customized training for individuals and local businesses. Working with regional businesses in workforce development, employee-skill upgrading, and resource-sharing initiatives, the college also promotes lifelong learning through its Corporate and Community Education Division. The college offers thirty-seven associate degree and eleven professional certificate programs. It also maintains its own television station, SCCC/ETV Channel 44, providing educational and cultural enrichment for local residents.
Sutphen, Samuel (b. Jan. i, 1747; d. May 8, 1841). Revolutionary War soldier. Born into slavery in Bridgewater Township, Somerset County, Samuel Sutphen became the principal farmer on his master’s estate. He married Catherine Arey, a free mulatto from Readington. At the outbreak of the Revolution, Casper Berger of Readington offered to purchase him from his owner and set him free at the war’s end if Samuel agreed to serve in his place. Samuel saw action in the Battles of Long Island, Two Bridges, Van Nest’s Mill, Princeton, Monmouth, and the Sullivan Campaign, during which he received two bullet wounds. At war’s end, Berger refused him his promised freedom and sold him instead. For twenty more years, Samuel remained a slave, serving three masters until being permitted to buy his own freedom about i805, when he took the surname Sutphen from his last master. In i8i8, he bought a seven-acre farmstead in Liberty Corner. The state of New Jersey granted him a veteran’s pension in 1836, when he was eighty-nine.
Swedes. The first permanent European settlers in New Jersey arrived in i638 aboard two ships, the Kalmar Nyckel and the Fogel Grip, to start a Swedish colony. They settled in the Delaware Valley on lands that later became part of Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey. The colony, part of an effort to participate in the colonization of America and to increase Sweden’s prestige and wealth, was an economic failure that lasted a brief seventeen years. Yet it left a Swedish (and Finnish) presence in the state.
After the Dutch took over New Sweden in 1655 and the English replaced the Dutch in 1664, approximately four hundred Swedes remained in the region. By the end of the eighteenth century, most descendants had adopted the language and culture of their English neighbors. They inhabited a strip of land that crossed southern New Jersey, making their living primarily as farmers and lumbermen.
In 1870 there were approximately five hundred Swedes in New Jersey, a number that increased in the following years as the United States attracted new immigrants from all across Europe. Although most late-nineteenth-century Swedish immigrants moved to the farmlands of the Midwest and Plains, a number took up residence in the industrial cities of New Jersey and other states. In 1930 there were an estimated 13,500 Swedes in the state. Worldwide depression and World War II limited emigration in the period that followed, but Swedes began to arrive again, although in relatively small numbers, in the late twentieth century.
A number of prominent residents of New Jersey have had a Swedish background, including John Ericsson, the engineer who designed the U.S.S. Monitor; Charles A. Lindbergh, the famous transatlantic pilot who built a home in Hopewell; and astronaut Buzz Aldrin.
In addition to seventeenth-century farmers and nineteenth-century industrialists, New Jersey has been home to several Swedish institutions. Upsala College, founded in New York City, moved to Kenilworth in 1898 and then to East Orange in 1924. It remained there until the 1990s, when increasing financial difficulties and declining enrollments led to its closing. The Vasa Order of America, a Swedish American cultural organization, also long maintained a presence in the state. Vasa Park, located on farmland bought by the organization in Budd Lake in 1936, became a community first of summer cabins and later of year-round houses primarily for Swedish American residents.
New Jersey Swedes have left a legacy represented in place names like Swedesboro, in log cabin construction, and in Swedish Lutheran churches. It is an ethnic group whose numbers have been small, but whose presence has been constant for more than 360 years.
Swedesboro. 0.76-square-mile borough in Gloucester County, the smallest municipality in the county in land area. Settlers from Sweden and Finland settled along the Raccoon Creek in the 1640s, and the British arrived later in the seventeenth century. The town was first known as Raccoon but changed its name to Swedesboro in 1765 in tribute to the first European settlers. Originally part of Woolwich, the borough was incorporated on April 8, 1902.
Swedesboro is an agricultural center. About 11 percent of the borough is still farmland today. The Swedesboro Auction, which opened in 1938, was known for its sale of asparagus and other crops. Today, the auction sells locally grown tomatoes and cantaloupes each summer. Del Monte opened canning facilities in 1948.
Old Swedes Church dates from the 1780s, and on the church grounds is a Swedish-design log cabin dating to the early eighteenth century. Charles Stratton, the first governor of New Jersey directly elected by the voters, was a native of Swedesboro. The Swedish influence is still remembered. King Carl Gustaf XVI of Sweden came to the borough in 1976 during the U.S. bicentennial.
In 2000, the population of 2,055 was 77 percent white and 17 percent black. Median household income was $49,286 in 2000.
Swimming, competitive. Besides the millions who enjoy recreational swimming in New Jersey’s fresh, salt, and chlorinated waters, the state has a large population of competitive swimmers. There are about sixty thousand children racing on summer club teams. About sixty USA Swimming clubs conduct organized training and competition for swimmers from the novice to the Olympic level. Over six thousand youngsters participate in these clubs, led by certified and safety-trained coaches. On some of the teams, training and competition continue all the way through masters competition, in which adult swimmers of all ages participate.
The Jersey Shore plays host to many lifeguard and open-water competitions. Both national and international competitions have long been held in Atlantic City, including the long-distance Around the Island swim.
Eight college and university programs within New Jersey attract young men and women from all over the country. Rutgers, the State University, has a rich heritage of success in Division I. Since the late 1990s, The Scarlet Knights have returned to that level of excellence with achievements at the NCAA Championships.
The pinnacle of competitive swimming is the Olympic Games. Over the years, many Olympians have come from New Jersey. Sue Pitt Anderson represented the United States in both 1964 and 1968, and Ron Karnaugh, Tom Wilkens, and Scott Goldblatt did so in 2000. Goldblatt, who won a silver medal, trained with coach Jim Wood at the Berkeley Aquatic Club in Berkeley Heights.
Switlik Parachute Company. Founded in Trenton as a canvas-leather specialty company in 1920 by Polish emigre Stanley Switlik, the Switlik Parachute Company ultimately became the largest manufacturer of parachutes in the United States. Stanley Switlik, who died in 1981 and was inducted posthumously into Teterboro Airport’s Aviation Hall of Fame in 1989, introduced several innovations in parachute design, including the use of nylon instead of silk for parachutes and the compact chute for use in the close quarters of the ball turrets of B-I7s during World War II. He established the first parachute school in America and, with Amelia Earhart’s husband, George Palmer Putnam, designed and built the first U.S. jump-training tower on the Switlik farm in Ocean County. Amelia Earhart made the first public jump from the 115-foot tower on June 2, 1935. Switlik outfitted the expeditions of Earhart, Wiley Post, and Admiral Richard Byrd.
During World War II the Switlik company supplied U.S. paratroopers, manufacturing nearly a quarter of a million parachutes. In later years, the company developed and produced safety equipment for high-altitude flights and the space program.
Beginning in 1973, the Switlik family was involved in a protracted legal dispute with the Six Flags corporation over the development of the Great Adventure amusement park in Jackson. Stanley Switlik, an ardent conservationist who donated thousands of acres to the state for New Jersey wildlife preservation, sold 800 acres to Six Flags, thinking the land would be used solely for a drive-through wild animal park. When he discovered that the land he had sold Six Flags was intended for amusement park use, he and his family tried to block construction of the park, ultimately losing millions of dollars in court judgments.
The company still manufactures rubber rafts and other lifesaving equipment in its facility in Hamilton Township, adjacent to the city of Trenton.
Tabernacle. 47.64-square-mile township in Burlington County, largely located within the Pine Barrens. State records indicate that a house of worship may have been built in the 1780s near the township’s central village, but no proof of this has ever been established. The name Tabernacle first shows up on 1828 county maps. The township was established as an independent entity in 1901, from parts of neighboring Shamong, Southampton, and Woodland townships.
"Indian Ann” Roberts, allegedly the last of the Lenape Indians to remain in New Jersey after the tribe began its long trek westward to Oklahoma, is buried in Tabernacle cemetery. A local landmark is the quaint Nixon’s General Store in central Tabernacle, which dates back generations. Since the 1970s, the township has been involved in a gradual transition from farmland to residential housing, much of the latter consisting of small tracts of costly homes. Tabernacle is on the cusp of a development wave; expansion of a Route 206 commercial strip is likely as work begins on Seneca High School, to accommodate growth in the Lenape Regional High School District.
The 2000 population of 7,170 was 96 percent white. The median household income was $76,432. For complete census figures, see chart, 137.
Tammany (fl. c. 1685). Lenape leader. Tammany (also spelled Tamanend, Tamanen, Tamnen), an elder of the Nashamminy Creek band of Lenape, born in New Jersey, was one of the best known of these original inhabitants of the lower Delaware Valley. However, we do not even know his birth or death dates, and most of what is said about him derives from legends. Tammany participated in some of the earliest sales of large tracts of land to William Penn. Penn was interested in purchasing all Lenape land holdings rather than making small purchases, as was common before his arrival in the New World. Tammany was the older of two vendors who sold their rights to a large tract of land held by the Neshamminy band to William Penn on June 23,1683. Six of their kin also sold their rights to this same tract on the same day, but why separate deeds were drawn up and why Tammany also received a supplementary payment remains unknown. Tammany, like many of his kin, had abandoned the land long before 1683 in order to become active in the fur trade in western Pennsylvania.
Drawing its name from the respected chief, the Tammany Society was founded in 1789 as a patriotic and charitable organization. In 1830, the group’s headquarters was established in Tammany Hall, and thereafter the name of the association and its location were synonymous.
Targum. The Rutgers University student newspaper Targum is the second-oldest college newspaper in the United States. It appeared first as an annual in 1867 and as a monthly newspaper in 1869. Publication became bimonthly in 1888 and weekly in 1891. In 1925 the Targum began publishing twice weekly and increased to four times a week in 1954. The paper has published on its present five-day-a-week schedule since 1956. The name is from the Aramaic paraphrases of the Hebrew scriptures known as targums, meaning "interpretations.” Formerly financially and legally bound to Rutgers, students overwhelmingly approved independence for the paper in 1979, and the Targum Publishing Company was formally incorporated on July 1, 1980.
Tatamy, Moses Tunda (fl. mid-isth cent.). Lenape translator and guide. The Mun-see known to the English as Moses Tunda Tatamy (Tashawaylennahan), born in New Jersey, became an important translator and guide along the Pennsylvania frontier in the early eighteenth century. He may have taken up residence near modern Stockertown, Pennsylvania, in the Forks of Delaware as early as i733.In 1738 he had a patent issued for a tract of 325 acres near Stockertown. A new patent was issued to Tatamy and "his heirs and assigns” in i74i, possibly for a different tract of land. He was the first native-born individual to make a formal purchase of land in the region. After the Six Nations advised their native dependants to vacate the Forks, Tatamy and a few others petitioned the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania for the right to remain on lands they had purchased. Tatamy’s heirs later inherited the property, and his widow is listed in the first census of the United States.
Tatham, John (b. date unknown; d. July 1700). Colonial politician. A wealthy English Anglican, John Tatham bought land in Burlington in i689, where he then built a large house. Elected by the resident proprietors to the West Jersey Council circa 1690, by 1695 he was its president. By the end of the i690s he had become part of an anti-Quaker faction that fought with Samuel Jennings and others they saw as inciting "the people to rebellion.” Tatham joined in publishing a vitriolic pamphlet called The Case Put andDecided (1699). He was removed from office later that year when Andrew Hamilton returned as governor. He died shortly afterward, but the disagreements in West Jersey continued into the next century.
Tavistock. A 0.25-square-mile borough in Camden County. Formerly a part of Haddon-field, in 1921 Tavistock became a separate borough. Located here is the Tavistock Country Club, which was established in i895. The club expanded in 1921 and bought part of the John Gill farm. Because Haddonfield had blue laws preventing the use of golf caddies on Sundays, New Jersey state senator Joseph Walworth introduced a bill that incorporated Tavistock as a borough. All of the municipal services are provided by Haddonfield borough.
According to the 2000 census, the population of 24 was 92 percent white and 8 percent black. The 2000 median household income was $58,750.
