Pine Barrens Ghost Towns

One of our readers, Gene Berman took the time to tap out some of his memories of South Jersey on the keyboard and has given me permission to share them here.  So, take it away Gene!

I’m not what you could call very familiar with the Pine Barrens but, years ago,
knew certain areas “like the back of my hand” and just thought I’d leave some
notes for others to integrate into existing information as they see fit.

My home (during those years) was in Drexel Hill, PA. Several friends and I
were avid collectors of reptiles and the Barrens were one of our favorite place
to “collect.” Usually, one or another of us went either alone or with one
(rarely two) others, because our chosen mode of transportation was
hitch-hiking.

I know we went as early as 1950 and were probably not very active
after about 1957.

The area we attended was roughly bordered on the north by NJ state highway 70 (numbered 40 in those days) and on the south by US highway 30 (the White Horse Pike).
But, although we sometimes went further east, we usually headed down NJ 72
(numbered S40 in those days) at what was called the “4-mile circle,” and
usually took the right turn about 4 miles further, toward Chatsworth, then on
to Green Bank, through to Weekstown, Sweetwater, Pleasant Mills, sometimes to Batsto (simply an old ruin in those days); sometimes we returned the way we’d come but often headed home through Nesco rto the WH Pike. Every so often, from Green Bank, we’d jog over to Forked River and New Gretna.
When we went east of the 4-mile circle, we always stopped at Upton Station to
see “Rattlesnake” Ace Pitman (and frequently bought out whatever he was holding because i sold snakes to various places, chiefly Black Hills Reptile Gardens in Rapid City, SD.
When we went to Chatsworth (nearly every trip), we always sought out Lou (Lew?) Clair, an old Piney who’s home was in back of somebody else’s. He knew Ace but hadn’t seen him in 30 years or so. So we guys carried the “howdys” and “how you doin’s?” back and forth between the two for years.

One of the reasons for my comment is to get the most accurate ideas into any
historical data. “Ace” caught a lot of snakes of many kinds. But he also bought
or was brought many by other folks, especially from slightly east near
Whitesbog. Some he paid for, others were just given to him.

Ace always kept “”Blue Tick” coonhounds (and I think he sometimes had other types). He trained many of these to hunt snakes and I saw them in action on a number of occasions. The dogs were trained to bark for snakes ONLY, to circle the snake to cut off escape and force it to coil, all the time circling and yapping, until Ace could come bag it. He had at least one dog he’d taught to pin a snake’s head with his nose (after he’d tired it in useless strikes by circling) and to hold it; how he taught it not to do that with a rattler is
anyone’s guess.

Ace had several children, I believe, who lived in other towns and had “regular”
jobs, i.e., they didn’t live the “piney” lifestyle. One of them, a son, has a modern house virtually where Ace’s stood; it’s been about 15 years since I visited.

Ace was no dummy. He wasn’t educated, I don’t think, but he knew the Linnaean (Latin) names for all the local species and had at least one book on snakes (more, I actually think. He got regular visits from Raymond L. Ditmars, Curator of Reptiles at the Bronx Zoo, the first popularizer of herpetology. Also from the curator of the Staten Island Zoo (forget his name–it could have been Karl Kauffeld–or KK may habve been the guy from San Diego–and also by Roger Conant, Curator of the zoo in Philly. I was acquainted with Earl Chace (Black Hills curator) and Johnny Werler, Curator of the Houston Zoo and I’m also virtually certain that I remember both of those guys as having been acquainted with Ace. He was old, though I can’t say what his age might have been (and don’t remember when he died, although his son might have told me). But, even though our trip time was limited, we never hurried to leave either Ace’s or Lou Clair’s company. Both were full of stories of even more bygone days (and now I wish “I’da writ ‘em down.”) Each of them was actually an “oral historian” of sort, knew who came and went (even someplace else), who married whom and had what kids, etc. Both of them spent a fair amount of time actually out just walking in the woods. Lou didn’t catch snakes (at least to my knowledge) but he’d frequently describe exactly where he’d noticed a big blacksnake or kingsnake.

Down in Sweetwater, we became acquainted (and always stopped to visit) with the Haggeman brothers, Ned and Ed, who kept Guernsey cows and sold unpasteurized milk for the specialty market. I think one of them is still alive and that their former farmhouse is occupied by one of their sisters.

Ned and Ed frequently caught snakes and kept them in a cage mounted to a tree in their back yard, where it was shaded. We always got fed there, sometimes even stayed overnight; they always gave us any snakes they had (and wouldn’t take any money). If I recall, both had served in the U.S. Navy.

One of Ace’s theories (and in which I’ve been persuaded he was right) is that
the New Jersey Central Railroad was a key to the distribution of two snake
species: the Rattlesnake and the Corn Snake.
He wasn’t sure why but thought it might be related to the clear-cut
right-of-way affording a lot of good nesting places for their prey.
But both types have almost always been taken along those routes.
Tabernacle (where we never went except on a back-and-forth from Chatsworth), Upton Station, Mount Misery, Whitesbog, etc.

We also visited Atsion and went back to Quaker Bridge fairly often.

In those days, if you’d have wanted to count, you could have probably seen
hundreds, maybe even a thousand, fence lizards (swifts) on any given day. They were all over the place on fences, any downed trees, brush piles, and any wood buildings of any kind. And, also, in scrub near the road, I’ve been back there maybe 4 or 5 times in the past 35 years and haven’t even seen a single one.
Possibly DDT affecting eggs, like with birds?