Great Swamp Watershed — Human History
Jewelweed
As the glacier melted, it created a 30-mile-long lake called Glacial Lake Passaic. Over time, the lake has drained to become wetlands, part of which form Great Swamp. In the process, a great variety of plant and animal species — including humans — have come to call Great Swamp home.
There is evidence that humans lived in Great Swamp as early as 12,000 years ago, when mastodon and giant beaver still inhabited the area. When the first Europeans arrived in the 1600s, they encountered a group of Native Americans who called themselves the Lenape, which means “original people.” For a time the two groups lived peacefully together, but disease and pressures for the land eventually forced the Lenape to abandon their home. The European settlers built small towns and villages, many of which remain today: Green Village, New Vernon, Basking Ridge, Meyersville, and others.
The Great Swamp watershed figured prominently in the Revolutionary War. Continental Army troops spent eight years in the Watershed and George Wshington wintered here twice. Its high western rim provided a strategic lookout to the east and New York City, where the British troops were quartered.
In the 19th century, area residents logged the forests of Great Swamp for firewood and building materials, and tried with limited success to drain the marshlands for farming. Also during this time, the area became a retreat for wealthy New Yorkers, who often built great estates in and near the watershed.
The 20th century saw the unveiling of the most ambitious plan to put Great Swamp to human use. In 1959, the Port Authority of New York proposed to build an international jetport in the swamp, with four 10,000-foot runways. The proposal would have bulldozed many of the hills, filled in the swamp, and demolished 700 homes and other structures.
For four years, local residents fought the plan — and finally won. Thanks to their acquisitions of swampland, Great Swamp became a National Wildlife Refuge in 1964. The jetport plan in 1968 when part of the Refuge became a Federal Wilderness Area.
Today, the 7,500-acre National Wildlife Refuge is the crown jewel in a remarkable array of protected areas in the Great Swamp watershed. Many of these are listed elsewhere on this website.
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Geological History
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