Our Forest Heritage: Pine-Belt Employments

The Pinelands Heritage Series celebrates the history and culture of the New Jersey Pinelands.

Date: Wednesday, October 10, 7:00 pm

Speaker: Mark Demitroff

Location: Pinelands Preservation Alliance

Image of Children worked side-by-side in the early 1900s with their parents picking cranberries at Whitesbog Village in Pemberton.[+ ZOOM] Children worked side-by-side in the early 1900s with their parents picking cranberries at Whitesbog Village in Pemberton.

Description: This session provides a natural science-based overview of man's use of Pinelands forest resources. For over 400-years, this great wilderness provided the raw materials needed for America's rapid industrialization. Vast stands of Atlantic whitecedar were over-exploited to sheath growing cities. Before fossil fuels, carbon stores were tied up in tree stock. Pines and oaks were coal mines, which provided the combustibles needed to support local manufacture. Pines were oil wells, tapped for their petroleum-like gum turpentine that furnished naval stores for shipyards, and other gum by-products. Additional tree-based goods included lumber, medicines, and other more unusual output like tessels, bird-lime, and hoop-poles. Speaker Mark Demitroff is a PhD Geography student at the University of Delaware, and a native to the Pine Barrens. He is by trade a tree expert and geomorphologist, and loves to revel in local history with his colleagues at the West Jersey Historical Round Table.

Cost: $10/person

Registration: Register online or call 609 859-8860 x14or email tomdunn@pinelandsalliance.org

Registration fees are not refundable.

Bookmark and Share Find Related Info: economy, lecture