Double Trouble State Park Historic Village

New Jersey Pinelands

Double Trouble State Park
PO Box 175,
Bayville, NJ 08721
(732) 341-6662

The Pine Barrens is a heavily forested area of coastal plain stretching across southern New Jersey. Despite its proximity to the metropolitan areas of Philadelphia and New York City, the region remains largely rural and undeveloped. Fire plays a major ecological role in the Pine Barrens, and the area’s sandy, acidic, nutrient-poor soil supports a unique and diverse spectrum of plant life, including plant species that depend on fire to reproduce. The term Pinelands refers specifically to the 1.1 million acres of the Pine Barrens comprising the Pinelands National Reserve, which is managed by the U.S. National Park Service.

During colonial times iron was mined from bogs, streams, and waterways, and was worked in furnaces at various locations. Iron products from those furnaces supplied the American military during the American Revolution and the War of 1812. The bog iron industry fell off in the mid-1800s, and industries such as paper mills, sawmills, and gristmills rose and fell throughout the years. Ghost towns hinting at the Pine Barrens’ industrial past now inhabit the forest, which has reclaimed almost all of its original territory.

Located on the eastern bank of Cedar Creek, set on an area of high ground between two great bogs, the Double Trouble site has hosted sawmills since the mid-1700s. Power to run the mill was originally supplied by a waterwheel, driven by Cedar Creek. That was later replaced by steam power, which in turn was replaced by electricity generated by internal combustion engines. By 1866 the settlement employed 2,500 people, with two water-powered sawmills producing cedar shingles, laths and timbers for sailing ships. As the swamps were emptied of timber, they were planted with cranberry vines. By the first decade of the 20th century the primary focus was on cranberry and blueberry production, and lumbering was only conducted during the off-season.

The historic village at Double Trouble State Park consists of cranberry bogs and fourteen original historic structures dating from the late 19th century through the early 20th century, including a general store, a schoolhouse and cottages. Restoration of the sawmill was completed in 1995, and restoration of the cranberry sorting and packing house was completed in 1996. The Pinelands Preservation Alliance sponsored a walking tour of the Double Trouble Historic District this weekend, and here are some of the things I saw and learned.

Over the years a number of sawmills were located on this spot, which is on the eastern bank of Cedar Creek. This one was built somewhere between 1906 and 1909. The exterior walls are metal, which protects the structure from regularly occurring Pine Barrens forest fires. Earlier versions were powered by a millrace that draws from Cedar Creek. Later versions were powered first by steam and then by a single cylinder kerosene engine. Now that water from the creek isn’t needed for the sawmill, the millrace has been extended eastward (to your left) to the cranberry bog, where the water is used to flood the bog in preparation for wet harvesting (described below).

Do you see the white belt extending from the Lath Saw down through the floor? Under the floor is a lengthy axle that spans the length of the sawmill. Sawmill machinery operates when the axle spins.

This is a cranberry scoop, used in the days when cranberries were dry harvested. Migrant workers would dry harvest village cranberries by hand over the course of several months. Cranberries here are now wet harvested, a technique which involves flooding the bogs and knocking berries off the vine. The loose cranberries float to the water surface, where they are corralled and removed from the bogs for processing. Wet harvesting requires fewer people and is much quicker; it now takes only four to five days to harvest the cranberry bogs at Double Trouble village.

The cranberry sorting and packing house was built somewhere between 1909 and 1916. The structure to the left was added to house an electricity generator.

The sorting and packing house contains a series of Hayden cranberry separators, which exploit the fact that only good, ripe, healthy cranberries bounce! Behind the machines is a conveyor belt; selected cranberries were transferred to the conveyor belt, where women sat and sorted the cranberries by type, each type being placed into a separate bin. Where were the men, you ask? Out in the field, harvesting cranberries!