Henry Beck – författare

From Colonial days to the early 1900s, iron forges, glass plants, lumber and paper mills flourished in the New Jersey of the Pine Barrens, in old Burlington, Gloucester and Salem Counties. Around the inlets of the Atlantic shore and on Delaware Bay, whaling and shipbuilding were important industries. Times have changed. Many of the old towns have fallen into ruin or disappeared, swallowed up in the abandoned lands of South Jersey or swept away by the unrelenting tides of the Jersey coast. Henry Charlton Black, raised in Haddonfield for years, shared his endless delight in the land and the lore of South Jersey. He, like a few other devoted Jerseyans, began to hunt out in the 1930s the old sites and to record the stories handed down from generation to generation, clear back to early settlers. In this sequel to Forgotten Towns of Southern New Jersey, his visits to the state's early heritage - churches, villages, and roads - are continued. He explores the routes of old railroads and the tangled wilderness of the Forked River Mountains, and he tells the lost stories of forgotten glass and iron and shipbuilding villages.

Long regarded as folklife classics, Henry Charlton Beck's books are vivid re-creations of the back roads, small towns, and legends that give New Jersey its special character. Rutgers university Press is pleased to make these important books available again in newly designed editions.

Composed, for the most part, from sketches that were published in the Courier-Post newspapers of Camden, New Jersey, Beck provides us with a series of stories of towns too tiny or uncertain for today's maps.  Together, these sketches help to create a more complete picture of the history of New Jersey.  A connecting skein of untold or little known wartime history--the Revolution, the War of 1812, and the conflict of North against South--runs through most of the sketches.  Many of the sketches concern the pine towns and their people, "the pineys" who lived in the Jersey pine barrens.

"None of this is orderly, store-bought legend or folklore. This is the way people talk, sought out and recorded by one who loves both the people and the talk."--The New York TimesLong regarded as folklife classics, Henry Charlton Beck's books are vivid recreations of the back roads, small towns, and legends that give New Jersey its special character. Father Henry Charlton Beck, who lived in New Jersey nearly all his life, was the author of numerous books on New Jersey folklife, state editor of the Camden Courier-Post, and writer for the Newark Star-Ledger. He is considered New Jersey's first folklorist and his painstaking work has left us with a rich collection of tales.