Forgotten, but Not Gone: New Jersey's Past Is Now

Many of us tend to think of history as separate from the present, but in reality, the two almost completely overlap. We can stand in the same places where other people stood centuries ago, inhabiting the exact same space: we touch the same ground, and we breathe the same air.

Even the time that lies between us and historic people is not so great a gulf as we might imagine. I once shook hands with an older person who had, when she was younger, shaken hands with a living person who had once been a enslaved in America. This was mind-boggling to me at the time, but ultimately I realized that while the 1860s might feel like a long time ago, the truth is that the turning points of history happen so quickly that we tend to forget how recent the past really is. Less than two human lifespans separate us from the Civil War. Less than one lifespan separates us from World War II. And the spaces where those historic events happened are all still there--buildings and landscapes may change, but the locations themselves never go away. Here in New Jersey, where many Revolutionary War battles took place, historic buildings that survived the war still stand.

But a place need not be associated with a major historical event in order to persist. All around us are tangible pieces of the past, tokens of lesser-known people who lived and worked and passed on. Houses they lived in, vehicles they drove, roads they built, stones piled up on stones in centuries past. Nothing on this planet ever truly goes away. Whether buried underground, burned to ash, or overgrown, all of it is still here.

To connect with this real physical presence of history around us, we might try getting away from the shiny preservation of museums with their glass walls, and get out into the daylight, where the same sun that shone on prehistoric humans a hundred thousand years ago still shines today, and the past is so close we can literally touch it.

For those in New Jersey looking for places where the past still physically exists, consider visiting places "time forgot," where a lack of human intervention has kept any proverbial or literal walls from going up between the then and the now. The neglected, the forgotten, the abandoned--while these places might seem dead to us, they can also be the places where the past is most alive. New Jersey has no shortage of ruins, ghost towns, and relics of 'distant' times that really were not so long ago.

A few New Jersey sites that I recommend:

Brooksbrae Brick Factory in Manchester Township - Brooksbrae Brick Factory in Manchester Township

Estell Manor park - Estell Manor Park Trail System | Atlantic County, NJ

Feltville in Union County - The Deserted Village of Feltville/Glenside Park – County of Union, New Jersey

Harrisville ruins - Harrisville Ruins Map

McNeal Mansion in Burlington (visit via the satellite images on Google maps) - U.S. Pipe & Foundry, Burlington City – Delaware River Heritage Trail

These are some of the books in the MCLS collection that offer a path to the past, right here, right now: