Finding God among the Trees – Pitman Grove Camp Meeting, NJ

The First Avenue Gateway into Pitman Grove Camp Meeting Grounds,
ca. 1910. (HABS, 1963)

The cable guy introduced me to Pitman Grove.  OK, that's not as weird as it sounds. This was no ordinary technician. This man is a former systems engineer who, with his wife, is raising 11 children, all of whom are into mathematics and the sciences, including one aeronautical engineer and one bound for veterinary school.  Oh, and he also built his own six-bedroom house.

After he finished up installing my modem, he seemed interested in the house, an 1885 camp meeting cottage, so I gave him a tour. As soon as I mentioned “camp meeting,” his ears picked up.

“Have you ever been to Pitman Grove?” he asked. “That place was a camp meeting, too, with tiny little houses just like this one. Really neat. You can’t believe it …. They are like doll houses!”

Not to sell scientists short, but you don't often find one so enthusiastic and unabashedly enamored of historic architecture. Clearly this place had made a lasting impression on him. It was definitely worth a field trip.

The town of Pitman was familiar only because an acquaintance lived there. I had heard the name, but had never actually seen it. That it was a camp meeting came as a surprise. New Jersey has some prominent ones – Mount Tabor, Ocean Grove, South Seaville -- but Pitman Grove is not among them. And yet, it proved to be one of the most unique.

The GPS gets you to South Broadway, the center of the Pitman business district. It is not hard to find the Grove – it is at First Avenue, just one block west of the commercial strip. Even if you know nothing about the area, the map will draw you to the spot where a radial system of pedestrian streets encircles the Auditorium, the Grove’s centerpiece. No non-resident vehicles are permitted inside the grounds, so you must park your car and walk in.

Plan of Pitman Grove Camp Meeting Grounds (HABS, 1963).

The early parcel map reproduced in the Historic American Building Survey (HABS) data shows twelve radial streets -- for the twelve apostles, they say - that terminate at “Circle Avenue,” which circumscribes the open lawn around the Auditorium.

Termination of Tenth Avenue at Circle Avenue, looking NW, to Auditorium.

When it was established in 1871 by several ministers from the New Jersey Conference of the Methodist Church, the land belonged to the Pitman Grove camp meeting association.  Parcels were leased out for the season for tenting, and later for the summer cottages that now line the walkways. As late as 1963, the New Jersey Conference Camp Meeting Association still rented out 70 of the 160 houses within the meeting grounds. The rest were privately owned by individuals who paid rent to the organization. In 1971 - the 100th year anniversary of its founding - the Borough of Pitman acquired title to all the lands formerly owned by the Association. Now, most houses have been winterized and are lived in year-round.

Tenth Avenue, looking SE.

The Grove’s Beaux Arts radial plan may have had some design guidance from a prominent Philadelphia architect Samuel Sloan, a writer and editor of the Architectural Review. This has not been confirmed, however. The National Register nomination notes that if the design were, in fact, Sloan’s, the execution was “inept,” as the arrangement of the pathways was somewhat irregular and the Auditorium was not at the exact center of the plan.

It is possible that the design is not Sloan's at all, but rather modeled on a camp meeting ground in nearby Barnsboro, which was organized in 1866 - the year of celebrations marking the “Centenary of Methodism in America.” Barnsboro’s grounds were also circular in plan, with tents lining pathways radiating from the central assembly point. It was wildly successful -- by 1869, it drew thousands of visitors -- but suffered from lack of space to expand because of adjacent marlpits.

Birdseye view of Pitman Grove Camp Meeting grounds.
Courtesy of Microsoft, Bing, and Pictometry International Corp.

In June 1871, a group that included officials of the centenary camp, organized the New Jersey Conference Camp Meeting Association, sold shares, and purchased some 70 acres in Pitman near the railroad line, which offered convenient rail transportation from nearby Philadelphia and Camden, as well as room to expand beyond the boundaries of lands owned by the Association. The railroad station was just a block away from the entrance to the grounds on First Avenue – one of the radial spokes – where a portal mounted with a name plaque “Pitman Grove” provided arrivals with a highly visible entry to the center of the action.

View of the main entrance to the Auditorium from First Avenue, ca. 1910.
Courtesy of WestJerseyHistory.org

The small cottages that line the walkways were built by the Association in the late 19th C. as temporary quarters for those who attended the summer camp meetings. Unlike the more typical camp meeting cottages elsewhere that are fronted by 2-story porch, many of the Pitman Grove cottages have an enclosed story over the front porch; some have only the porch at the first floor, with no enclosure above. (It is possible, of course, that the room over the porch in the 2-1/2 story version was a later alteration and that the smaller 2-story cottage was infill of a later period. However, there is little evidence in Pitman Grove of the 2-story porch version that is the dominant form of camp meeting cottage. More research would be needed to clarify this variance from the norm.)

The width of these small houses is typically 12’ – a dimension that is very consistent with the design of cottages in other camp meeting communities. Houses are tightly packed into some areas of the grounds; in others they are interspersed with breathing spaces. Although the Association is no longer officially the owner of the land, a robust schedule of camp meeting events still take place in the Auditorium.

Two typical cottage designs
(National Register nomination, 1977)

The tiny lots shown on the map typically measure some 20 feet or less in width and are uniformly 40 feet deep, forming wedge-shaped central common areas at the rear. Early photos show that these common areas were filled with trees. These days, however, they are rather bare, sandy expanses of driveways, restricted to resident parking.

The Auditorium was originally an open structure having wood benches laid out in in a basilica plan with open wood framing. The clerestory windows are typical of the Queen Anne style, with colored glass panes around the perimeter of the sash. The meeting space was covered by a roof with cupola at the western end.

Interior of Auditorium, looking W.

The Auditorium has gone through transformations over the years, although the basic structure is still visible. The 1977 National Register nomination includes a grim photo of the structure then, which shows much of it covered with stucco and the apse openings infilled with 1960s-era decorative concrete lattice blocks. The front entrance was infilled with concrete block and garage doors had been installed in the side bays.

The Auditorium in 1977 (National Register Nomination)

It 1995, the Auditorium was rehabilitated by the Borough of Pitman. Its current appearance is more in keeping with the historic structure than the previous modernizing effort, even though not a pristine "restoration."

The main entrance to the Auditorium (2013).

Now wood lattice fills in the bays, include the front entrance bay. Vinyl siding in a vertical bead board pattern has been installed on the exterior, save for the small course of original siding exposed under the wide eaves and rafter ends that still show off their original ornamental profile.

Original diagonal wood siding still visible under eaves (2013).

Historic Pitman Grove remains remarkably intact today. Its most wide-spread alteration is the ubiquitous vinyl siding. But the original scale and architectural details of many of the cottages are still evident. Its unique radial camp meeting plan is rare in New Jersey and, although all was quiet on the September day of my visit, it is possible to imagine the languorous bustle of a resort town. Another interesting corner of New Jersey to put on your "must see" list.

Resources

“2013 Pitman Camp Meeting Schedule.” South Jersey Christian Events. Blog.URL accessed 30 September 2013.

Batten, Michael D., Ralph J. Richards. Pitman [N.J.]. Images of America Series. Arcadia Publishing. 2002.

“Highlights of Early Pitman Grove.” Supplement to The Pitman Grove Review. July 1961.

“The History of the South Seaville Camp Meeting.” South Seaville Camp Meeting. Official Website. URL accessed 30 September 2013.

Milner, John D. Pitman Grove Camp Meeting. Historic American Building Survey. HABS No. NJ-730. Library of Congress, American Memory collections. URL accessed 30 September 2013. HABS Report (1963).

Mollenhauer, Lorraine, Preparer. Nomination to the National Register of Historic Places. Submitted 28 August 1975. URL: https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/0c96277e-bdd2-4b6b-8fdf-7782657bde89  Listed on the National Register 19 August 1977. URL accessed 29 September 2013.

Pitman HPC Design Guidelines. March 2008; Revised June 2015. Ed.  Borough of Pitman, NJ.

Postcards of Pitman, NJ. West Jersey History Project. Website. URL accessed 29 September 2013.

Wilson, Harold F. A History of Pitman, New Jersey. Pitman NJ: Borough of Pitman, 1955.

.

Of Fish, Farms, and the Forillon

The cliffs of the Forillon National Park from Cap Bon Ami.

La Gaspésie

.

The coast of the Gaspé Peninsula near Rimouski, QC.

Ten hours of driving. And that only gets me as far as Lévis, which sits on the banks of the St. Lawrence River just opposite Quebec City. It’s my first night’s stop on my long-awaited journey to Gaspé. It has been raining since I left New Jersey, from a drizzle to a heavy downpour. June 2013 is well on its way to officially becoming the wettest June in recorded history in the Northeast USA – a persistent pattern that is following me to the Canadian Maritimes.

The rain makes little difference to my spirits. I am en route – how great is that? It’s not just traveling for itself, but often how much preparation precedes it. My research for this trip to the Gaspésie, the region's formal name, began in earnest some nine months ago. It was then that I started to piece together the story of a part of my father’s family that I never knew and the famous legend of ancestors who survived a shipwreck somewhere along the coast. Over the course of the winter, the family tree I am compiling grew to some 1,000 members. Many of these come from the Canadian branch - all Irish Catholic families who had some ten children each. My new contacts include several new-found relatives having common family roots who I will soon meet for the first time. The research into the Gaspé family tree is just one facet of this journey, however.

Aside from my family connections to the town of Gaspé, Quebec pulls at me like no other place. After crossing the border, one steps into country no less foreign or charmante than France, but with a more relaxed, North American congeniality. The historic architecture feels very old world European. Fast food is a rarity– a few such restaurants dot the Gaspésie but, for the most part, they are found in the more populous cities. Tim Horton's (the Canadian cross between Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks) has a fairly strong presence, but even that has spotty coverage. At the other end of the scale, white-tablecloth restaurants are also few and far between. Mom-and-Pop coffee shops or take-away stands seem to outnumber all other types. Life is not easy in the Gaspésie – the people I see are always working. Leisure time and spending money are not major preoccupations, from what I see.

The village of Grande-Vallée, Gaspésie, QC.

Religion has played, and continues to play, a central role the in the history of the Gaspé. Evidence of this heritage survives in most villages along the St. Lawrence, which consist of a cluster of modest houses - mostly 20th Century – surrounding a monumental 19th Century masonry church. This is particularly true in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region, but it extends into the Gaspésie as well.

A few stores and a gas station form the core of the business district. In spite of my worst fears, there is no shortage of le diesel - the fuel that feeds my VW - but it costs about twice as much to fill up here as in New Jersey.

Route 132 along the St. Lawrence River from Bas-Saint-Laurent to the Gulf of St. Lawrence has some of the most spectacular scenery of all la Gaspésie. It is filled with interesting wilderness areas, lovely gardens, and breathtaking vistas. Its proximity to the St. Lawrence River – the site of so much history and enterprise over almost four hundred years – has left its mark in numerous heritage sites and historic architecture. More recently, the Gaspésie’s elevation and exposure to the Gulf of St. Lawrence has fostered a rapidly expanding wind energy industry that has signaled a rebirth, of sorts. It has kicked off the construction of wind farms across the peninsula, with more in the works. It has also created several thousand jobs, replacing ones in the traditional industries of fishing, mining, and lumbering that are in decline.

Bas-Saint-Laurent

The real kickoff of the journey is on the second day, when I enter Bas-Saint-Laurent (Lower St. Lawrence), the region bounded on the south by Chaudière-Appalaches and on the north by the Gaspésie. It is raining as I leave Lévis, heading toward Rimouski, my next overnight stop. The clerk at my hotel urges me to avoid the Trans-Canada Highway – high-speed, well-maintained, but boring – and instead follow coastal Route 132, which makes a spectacular loop around the entire Gaspé Peninsula. In B-S-L, it is called the “Navigators' Route” (Route des Navigateurs), linking Baie-du-Febvre in Centre-du-Québec with Sainte-Luce at the north end of Bas-Saint-Laurent.

My target for the day is the Parc National du Bic - one of the wilderness areas I want to explore; but the clerk recommends that on my way there, I should not miss the charming village of Kamouraska. “It would be a good place to stop for lunch,” she added. “It is an arts community with several great restaurants and a very good historical museum in the Presbytère (Rectory).”

It is very early spring, well before the main tourist season. I suspect that Kamouraska in a few weeks will be chock-a-block with visitors from Quebec City, enjoying a day trip in the country. It's only about 1-1/2 hours from the city by car, a little more by bus.

A walk down Avenue Morel, the main street, gives me my first taste of the local architecture. The houses are typically well-maintained; the lawns and gardens incredibly tidy.  Not surprisingly, the French influence on architecture is quite strong here. An interesting example is this "ancestral house," a style characterized by rectangular footprint, pitched roof with swooping eaves and small dormers, that appears to date from the early 1800s, perhaps not long after Kamouraska was established. I optimistically think that it looks like its awaiting restoration. What a great project that would be!

Early 19th C. "ancestral house" overlooking the St. Lawrence River., Kamouraska.

Opposite this house is the "Villa Saint-Louis," a hotel with a generous porch and a late 19th C. mansard roof. The Villa was first built in 1819 as a residence and converted to a hotel in the second half of the 19th Century. I successfully resist calling the number on the "for sale" sign, but if you have $725,000 C, it's yours.

Villa Saint-Louis, 125 Avenue Morel, Kamouraska. 

French is the first language in the small towns, although most people you encounter are also able speak English, if pressed. In Kamouraska, English speakers are far outnumbered by francophones. I am feeling a bit tongue-tied as I struggle along with my rusty French. But people are kind and, using a mixture of English and French known as "Frenglish," we eventually make ourselves understood.

The town was a former commercial powerhouse, home to the Desjardins family, wealthy industrialists of the 19th Century Today, the town is an interesting mix of attractions, including a local history museum, a restaurant, a shop that sells crafts produced by local artisans, and another that sells local jams, cheese, and fresh bread, which has a line out the door at lunchtime. A number of artists' studios and galleries are sprinkled along Avenue Morel, but the center of the arts activities seems to be the impressive Kamouraska Art Center, housed in the 1888 Palais de Justice (Courthouse) of Kamouraska.

Le Centre d’art de Kamouraska

le Centre d’art de Kamouraska

It rains off and on all afternoon as I make my way north to Rimouski. Walking in a downpour through the nature preserve of the Parc du Bic becomes less and less appealing. I am soon distracted from my disappointment by the massive churches that tower over every town and village along the St. Lawrence. How could the people of these small villages support such relative opulence? There must have been money around somewhere, but lacking today are obvious remnants of any large industrial buildings or in mansions of the wealthy -- only relatively modest homes and, of course, the monumental churches.

From left: Saint Georges de Cacouna (1845-1848; Louis-Thomas Berlinguet,
Arch.); Eglise L'Isle-Verte (1855; Louis-Thomas Berlinguet, Arch.);
and Eglise Saint-Fabien-de-Rimouski (1854; restored 1898).

La Gaspésie

The Route des Navigateurs ends just north of Rimouski, where it enters the Gaspésie and continues on simply as Route 132.

My first destination in the Gaspésie was Reford Gardens/Les Jardins de Métis in Grand-Métis, QC, about 35 minutes north of Rimouski. Elsie Reford began transforming her fishing camp on the Métis River into a garden in 1926, when she was 54 years old. She was not a professional gardener, by any means, but the years of her experimentation and study helped create an exceptional garden of interesting cultivars in a challenging environment. It is the northernmost garden in the eastern half of North America. The site was opened to the public in 1962.

Pink Hellebore (Helleborus, sp.), Reford Gardens, Grand-Métis, QC.

Today is raining for the third day in a row. By the time I arrive at the Gardens, however, it is more of a heavy mist. I decide that the gardens are too important to miss because of a little wet. There are few visitors. The network of pathways is quiet, except for the sound of the rushing creek that meanders through the site. Heavy droplets glisten on the foliage. The fragrance of rich wet soil mixes with the sweet early blossoms. It is exquisite.

Reford is famous for one of Elsie's rare specimens: the Himalayan Blue Poppy (Meconopsis betonicifolia). Sadly, I am too early for its flowering period. But many other unusual specimens catch my eye in these well-tended gardens. Along the walk to the Belvedere near the Lodge, I am struck by a border of robust Mugo Pines (Pinus mugo) with candles in flower – some pink and some white. It is something I have never seen before.

Mugo Pine (Pinus mugo), The Belvedere, Reford Gardens.

The historic building on the site is the Estevan Lodge, first built in 1887 for Sir George Stephen – wealthy railway magnate and founder of the Canadian Pacific Railway, among other enterprises. Given the weather and the early season, the lodge looks closed, especially since the restaurant there is undergoing renovations. A young intern greets my tentative knock on the front door holding a mug of coffee; I clearly am interrupting his morning break. Nevertheless, he kindly gives me a full tour around the house. Sir George is said to have imported the natural interior cedar and pine woodwork from the far western provinces of Canada – something that would have been outrageously expensive for anyone but the owner of the railroad! The warm and well-crafted woodwork makes the interior particularly inviting, much more interesting than the exterior, which was extensively modified by the Refords.

The former parlor of Estevan Lodge, Reford Gardens, Grand-Métis, QC.

My next destination in Gaspésie is Éole Cap-Chat, the tallest vertical-axis wind turbine in the world, and the Nordais wind farm, one of the largest in the Americas. Nordais alone has 133 wind turbines, which produce some 100 MW of electricity for the Province of Quebec. Currently there are a total of 13 wind farms operation in Quebec, with many more in development. The guide tells me that the local residents were first very skittish about having this new technology installed on their farmlands, but that over the years, they - and their cows - have become more comfortable with it. Now, wind turbines are spinning on the crest of many of the coastal ridges, not only along the St. Lawrence, but above the Baie de Chaleurs, the boundary Gaspé shares with the Province of New Brunswick.

Wind turbines, Nordais Wind Farm, Cap-Chat, QC.

In addition to being an operating wind-farm, Cap-Chat is a wind-energy interpretive center, for which you can arrange a guided visit. Many visitors come to the center each year to learn about wind energy, including school groups and foreign tourists, who arrive in buses. But today there is just me.

The Éole (vertical-axis wind turbine), Cap-Chat, QC.

The most surprising fact is that the Éole (the vertical-axis turbine) was in operation for a only few years. It was originally conceived as the solution to the problem of the changing direction of the wind. A vertical-axis turbine is omni-directional; it responds to wind from any direction. This is unlike the more standard turbines we usually see on the mountain ridges, which must rotate with the wind direction to optimize the amount of energy they generate. However, the turbine had to withstand the stress of constantly shifting wind loads, which vibrated the bolted connections at the bottom of the mast and ultimately made the mast unstable. Rather than worry about the collapse of the apparatus in a strong wind, the company decided to decommission this early model and use it as an interpretative and educational center for the public, given the importance of the industry to Quebec.

The Ville de Saint-Anne-des-Monts, just north of Cap-Chat, is the third and last overnight stay before Gaspé. The town is the jumping off point for visitors going into the Parc National de la Gaspésie. The Chic-Choc Mountains, which make up the greater part of the Parc, are part of the Notre Dame Mountains and form the northern terminus of the Appalachian mountain range. According to the Quebec Biodiversity Website:

The rocks of this range are sedimentary, dating back to the Paleozoic era, 250-500 million years ago. In western Quebec, the mean elevation is about 500m, while in the Gaspé peninsula, the Appalachian peaks (particularly the Chic Choc mountains) are some of the highest in Quebec, surpassing 1000 m [3281 ft].

OK, this may not match the highest mountain in the Appalachian chain (Mount Mitchell, in North Carolina, USA, measuring 2,037 metres (6,684 ft.)), but it is still impressive. And that is only half of the story.

The Chic-Choc Mountains, Parc National de la Gaspésie.

The “Monts McGerrigle” (the McGerrigle Mountains) are the other half of the story. They are volcanic rather than sedimentary, and younger (380 million years) and harder than the Chic-Chocs. This metamorphic rock, from which the softer overburden has eroded, forms the large granite boulders you can see on Mont Jacques-Cartier. The Chic-Chocs are oriented in a E-W direction, while the McGerrigles traverse them in a N-S direction. Both ranges have been shaped by the glaciers of some 8,000 years ago, which have left scours and scars on the mountain profiles.

Map of the Chic-Choc and McGerrigle Mountains, Gaspésie, QC. Courtesy of the
Société des établissements de plein air du Québec (Sépaq).

As fascinating as this geological history is, I am unsuccessful in locating any books on the subject during my trip. The best – and only – exploration of the subject I find is the National Parc’s Discovery and Visitors Centre’s excellent permanent exhibit, "A Sea of Mountains in the Heart of the Gaspésie."

The eastern end of the Gaspé peninsula is called “Land’s End.” The name Gaspé reportedly comes from gespeg, a Mi'kmaq word. It is here that the Appalachian chain rises up from the deeper earth at rakish angles and ultimately tumbles into the sea. The rock formations are raw and rugged along this part of the coast, with some unique and unusual specimens to research.

"Land's End," the easternmost end of the Gaspé peninsula. 

So that is the end of this chapter. I hope I haven't overwhelmed you. And yet this still only skims the surface of the discoveries I found along the south shore of St. Lawrence. Each one of them has its own story. There’s still so much to learn.

Resources

“Achats d'électricité – Marché québécois: Parcs éoliens et centrales visés par les contrats d'approvisionnement” [Interactive Map of Wind-Farms in Quebec]. Hydro-Québec. Company website. Accessed July 21, 2013. URL: http://www.hydroquebec.com/distribution/fr/marchequebecois/parc_eoliens.html

Banque d’images du Centre d’archives. Gaspé, QC, Canada: Musée de la Gaspésie. http://www.museedelagaspesie.ca/album/

Davies, Blodwen. Gaspé: Land of History and Romance. New York: Greenberg, Publisher, 1949.

“Discover Rimouski.” Ville de Rimouski. Official website. Accessed July 21, 2013. URL: http://www.ville.rimouski.qc.ca/en/decouvrezRimouski/

“Eglises.” Tourisme partrimonial du Bas-Saint-Laurent. Website. Accessed July 20, 2013. URL: http://www.patrimoine.bassaintlaurent.ca/eglises/region/tous [Compilation of 19th C. churches in the Bas-Saint-Lawrence region, along the south shore of the St. Lawrence River.]

Éole Cap-Chat. Official website. Accessed July 21, 2013. URL: http://www.eolecapchat.com/e_index.html

Grande-Vallée. Official Website. http://www.grande-vallee.ca/en/index.php

Kamouraska, Une Marée de Richesses. Official Municipal Website.  Accessed July 23, 2013. URL: http://www.kamouraska.ca/

Le Centre d'art de Kamouraska. Website. Accessed 22 July 2013. http://www.kamouraska.org/index.php/a-propos/

“Les Jardins de Métis – Portrait of a Landscape.” National Library of Canada Electronic Collection. Website. URL: http://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/205/301/ic/cdc/metis/ahome.html

“Natural History of Quebec.” Quebec Biodiversity Website. Montreal, QC. Canada: Redpath Museum, University of McGill. Accessed July 21, 2013. URL: http://redpath-museum.mcgill.ca/Qbp/Natural%20History/nat_hist.html.

Parc National du Bic. Société des établissements de plein air du Québec (Sépaq). Website. Accessed July 23, 2013. URL:  http://www.sepaq.com/pq/bic/

Parc National de la Gaspésie. Société des établissements de plein air du Québec (Sépaq). Website. Accessed July 21, 2013. URL: http://www.sepaq.com/pq/gas/

 Reford Gardens – Les Jardins de Métis. Official Website of Les Amis des Jardins de Métis (Friends of the Gardens). URL: http://www.refordgardens.com/english/index.php

Thistle, Scott. “Tied to the wind: How a region in Quebec is making wind energy pay.” Maine Sun-Journal (May 30, 2010). Online Edition. Accessed July 21, 2013. URL: http://www.sunjournal.com/state/story/842528

“Wind energy projects in Québec.” Ministry Ressources naturelles Quebec. Government of Quebec, Canada. Website. Accessed July 21, 2013. URL: http://www.mrn.gouv.qc.ca/english/energy/wind/wind-projects.jsp

The Gaspé Connection

The Adams - O'Toole Family, ca. 1900 - Top (L to R): Raymond, Barbery,
Albert, Gertrude, Gregory, Margaret; Bottom (L to R): Ambrosine,
Mother Eleanor Ellen (nee Adams), Patrick, Elizabeth, Father Andrew O'Toole

This is my Gaspé family. The young woman standing at the far right of this photograph is my grandmother, Margaret O’Toole. She was about 20 years old when it was taken in Alpena, Michigan, around 1900. With her are nine of her ten siblings, posed with my great-grandfather Andrew O’Toole, seated just below Margaret, and my great-grandmother, Eleanor Adams, seated second from left.

They left their home in Gaspé for Alpena, Michigan in 1881. Over a period of about 10 years – from 1875 to 1885 – Andrew, Eleanor and several of the O’Toole brothers from that rugged, windswept peninsula emigrated to the United States. Most of them settled in Alpena.

My Dad spent his early childhood in upstate New York, where the Delaney clan lived. Margaret, his mother, had married William Delaney, a feisty Irishman who, like many in his family, worked in the tanneries. Dad's first years were spent in Gowanda, NY, then the family moved to Endicott, NY, home of Endicott-Johnson shoes. Bill Delaney died when my father was nine. Dad didn’t talk much about his childhood, but in rare moments he reminisced with his siblings about the summers he spent in Alpena with all those many cousins from his mother's side of the family.

This photo of the O’Tooles was among the family papers I inherited from my parents. I knew very little about this side of the family. One story, however, hung in the back of my mind’s closet like a worn oilskin coat: one of my ancestors from this family and her teen-aged son had survived a shipwreck off the coast of Gaspé in the 1800s.

  

My parents didn’t have much information about this story. What was the name of the ship? What year did it come aground? Where, exactly? What was the name of the relative who survived? Her son? How was she related to our family? They had few clues, except that my grandmother had been born in Gaspe. And by the time they began looking, anyone who would have known anything about it was long dead.

Determined to ferret out some evidence of the survivors and document their story, my parents made the trek up to Gaspé in the 1970s to seek out church records that would confirm their identity. There were told that the church that they thought would have kept the records had burned and all records were destroyed. They came home empty-handed.

My father died in 2007. Mother in 2011. They died without ever having solved the mystery of the shipwreck's survivors. 

I came across the photo of the O'Tooles sometime after my mother's death. The shipwreck story pushed its way to the front of my mind. The puzzle began to haunt me. So nine months ago, I began preparations for my own journey to the Gaspé Peninsula – “la Gaspésie.” Over the winter, I did Internet research on the Adams - O’Toole line, compiling a family tree of some 900+ members. I made contact with several distant relatives from that branch who are doing research on their own ancestors. Little by little, the story of the family has begun to fall into place.

In early June, I leave for Gaspé. I am getting close, very close, to finding the answers that my parents were seeking so long ago. Perhaps someday soon I can report the full story of my ancestor, her child, the shipwreck, and how all that is connected to the people in this photograph. 

.

Coastal Browns

Salt-damaged white pines along Route 35, near Mantoloking, NJ (April 2013)

Springtime is always busy at the New Jersey shore. Smells of fresh paint and Spic N’ Span mix with the still-chilly breezes coming off the ocean. Lawns are raked and given their first trim. Planting beds are tidied up and edged. Winter dust is blown off the sidewalks. Patio furniture is moved out of storage and washed down. This year, however, is different.

This spring, many homeowners along the coast - if their homes are still intact, that is - find that they have the additional task of disposing of the brittle corpses of trees and shrubs left dead or dying in the wake of Super Storm Sandy.

One Person’s Garden

The second Saturday in April was sunny and warm – one of the few such days this dreary spring. I jumped at the chance to work in the garden, rather than spend another dusty day indoors removing more damaged wall board. I fixed the back fence; untied the Adirondack chair from the deck railing (I didn’t want it to float away again); and moved the wooden bench onto the patio from the back storage shed. It was too chilly to get out the bucket and scrub at the dirty flood line left on the bench. That would have to wait until my next visit.

I spent the rest of the day raking, trimming the ragged ends from my shrubs, and taking a plant inventory. Since I bought the place some ten years ago, I have gradually replaced the pesky Virginia Creeper with other native plant materials that can survive my neglect. I’m not one for mollycoddling, so they have to be able to fend for themselves. I rely on the advice of local garden vendors – Vaughn’s in Marmora, NJ, is a favorite.  They’ve been in the area for decades and always seem to know which plants perform best at the shore.

On October 29, Sandy inundated my property with two feet of salty water. I don’t know how long it stayed – perhaps only one tide’s worth, maybe two. In the days immediately following the storm, the plants all looked as green as ever, in spite of the coating of silt on their lower branches. I had to focus my attention on cleaning out the flood damaged contents of the house and carting the heavy garbage bags of sodden wallboard to the dumpsters before the dreaded black mold set in. Towards the end of all that, I passed a sign in the window of the local hardware store, offering 40-lb. bags of something that would counteract the salt left in the soil. By then, however, my strength was waning. The garden would just have to wait.

By the end of the month, little remained of my beds except a mass of brown sticks.

Front shrubs one month after Sandy (December 2012).

The hydrangeas, the pink rose bush, the sedum, and even the coral honeysuckle vine that the hummingbirds love so much, all appeared dead. I feared I would have to rip everything out and start again.

The honeysuckle one month after flooding
(December 2012)

With spring’s arrival, I am feeling reassured. My garden appears to have survived its salt bath.  Most things seem to be emerging on schedule and look perky enough, but the jury is still out. There's no sign of the hosta yet. The big holly tree and the bayberry both look a bit stressed out – the bayberry suffered a massive yellow leaf drop, and the holly leaves were dried and curled at the ends. I hope they will bounce back over the summer.

The garden’s most significant casualties were two vigorous mounds of Hypericum (St. John’s Wort) whose yellow flowers bloomed all summer long. I would be sorry to lose them. They were a prominent, no-work feature of the beds.

Hypericum (St. John's Wort) and Sedum before Super Storm Sandy (2012).

A deeper look into the mass of brittle, russet-colored branches, however, revealed green shoots emerging from the roots. They were very tentative signs, to be sure – one small leaf, sometimes two – but at least some proof of life. It provided enough evidence for me to go to the effort of cutting down the mass of dead stalks, bundle them into two large bunches, cram them into the trunk of my car, and drive them down to the OC recycling center.

On my way downtown, I witnessed the larger toll that Sandy had taken on the landscape. On every street, lawn crews were loading their trucks with piles of dead shrubbery they had excavated from yards around the city. Arborvitae, Euonymus, yews – so well-tended the summer before – now lay along the curb in mahogany-colored clumps as they awaited pickup.

The Extended Coastal Landscape

I left for home by noon the next day, having cleaned up as much of the property as I could. It being another beautiful day, I decided to take the coastal route north. I detoured off the Garden State Parkway at Exit 80 and followed Route 35 along the coast from Seaside Park north to Point Pleasant. The route took me through the towns of Seaside Heights, Lavallette, Ocean Beach, Mantoloking, and Bay Head – areas that had seen the worst of Sandy’s winds and storm surge.

Near Mantoloking, NJ, after Sandy (April 2013).

I looked beyond the broken houses that remain strewn about where the storm deposited them and focused on the transformed landscape. Sand still covers almost everything except the streets, now five months after Sandy. Yards where once green grass, trees, and flowering shrubs dominated are barren studies in beige and brown. This precarious island was over-washed by both the sea and the bay, so the amount of sand is not a surprise. What did surprise me was the moribund plant life.

Carefully planted rows of arborvitae – the workhorse of plant screens – stand like rusty sentinels up and down New Jersey’s coastal Route 35.

Dead arborvitae along Route 35, near Mantoloking, NJ (April 2013).

Mature white pines that comfortably populated the challenging marine environment for decades also began to die off over the winter.

House along Route 35 near Mantoloking, NJ (April 2013).

What caused this massive die-off? Why did some plants survive and others didn’t? Why is my garden coming back to life, when those farther North are not? Although many of the specimens are reported to be tolerant of acidic soil, the storm clearly overwhelmed their systems.

Salt Remedies

In November 2012, just weeks after the storm, Charlene H. Costaris, Horticulturist Consultant at the Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Ocean County, published a paper, Coping with Salt Water Flooding, that provides excellent guidance for coastal gardeners. She noted that the salt water pulled the water out of the plant roots. Ultimately, this will cause root damage that will make the plant more vulnerable in future dry spells.

Costaris notes that the longer salt water inundates plants, the worse the damage will be. The best remedy is to irrigate the area with fresh water after the floodwaters recede, a remedy that works better in sandy soils than in clay or loam. Salt destroys soil structure, but sandy soil doesn’t have much structure to begin with.

A week after Sandy, a Nor’easter dumped several inches of snow and rain along the coast. The storm exacerbated the suffering of many, but it also may have saved some of the plant life. Although rain is not the ideal water source for “landscape cleansing,” especially when mixed with the salt spray of a Nor’easter, the salt in the spray may have been less concentrated than that found in the residue of seawater. Thus it may have offered some benefit, albeit imperfect.

The other remedy is gypsum (calcium sulfate, CaSO4), which helps move the salt out of the soil. According to Costaris, the calcium in gypsum replaces the sodium on soil particles. It is the height of irony that all of that soggy gyp-board that I removed from the house and took to the dumpster could have been put to better use by crunching it up and putting it on the garden.

In areas to be replanted, Costaris recommends tilling in organic material like leaf compost with the gypsum, which will provide additional storage for the salt in the soil.

Finally, she admonishes gardeners not to fertilize (fertilizers have salts), and not to apply garden lime, which affects the acidity level of the soil, which some plants prefer. Gypsum "does not affect acidity of the soil," Costaris notes. (Mmm. Salt and soil acidity are different! Who knew?) She provides other resources to consult that will help gardeners understand how their soils are faring after Sandy.

None of this, of course, will help the white pines, which may have survived inundation, but are very likely dying because their thin needles are vulnerable to salt spray. Super Storm Sandy’s winds did not carry with them enough rain to dilute the salt, so the trees got a heavy dose. For the browning white pines, Sandra Vultaggio of Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Horticultural Diagnostic Lab recommends waiting for a full growing season to see if they come back, especially the more mature specimens. Maybe, given their susceptibility to salt spray, white pines are not the best trees for a barrier island. She suggests mixing them in with other types, both conifers and leafy evergreens.

The Short Course in Salt

OK, so this has been a study in a nutshell. But it helped me understand a bit of the chemistry behind why so many trees and shrubs have turned Coastal Brown. I will continue to rely on my local garden supply stores – they sure know their stuff -- and I am now armed with new tools to resuscitate my salty beds. You can bet that I will stop in at the hardware store the next time through and invest in that 40-lb. bag of gypsum.


Resources:

Appleton, Bonnie, Extension Specialist; Vickie Greene, Graduate Student, Virginia Tech; Aileen Smith, Graduate Student, Hampton Roads AREC, Virginia Tech; Susan French, Virginia Cooperative Extension, Virginia Beach; Brian Kane, Department of Forestry, Virginia Tech; Laurie Fox, Horticulture, Hampton Roads AREC; Adam Downing, Madison VCE; Traci Gilland, Portsmouth VCE. Trees and Shrubs that Tolerate Saline Soils and Salt Spray Drift. Publication No. 430-031. Blacksburg VA: Virginia Cooperative Extension, Virginia Tech, and Virginia State University. 1 May 2009.

Barcel, Ellen. “What’s causing the browning of LI’s white pine?” Times Beacon Record. 28 December 2012.

Beckerman, Janna, Assoc. Professor, Dept. of Botany and Plant Pathology, and B. Rosie Lerner, Extension Consumer Horticulturist, Dept. of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture. Salt Damage in  Landscape Plants. Publication No. ID-412- W. Revised. West Lafayette IN: Purdue  University Cooperative Extension Service, Purdue Agriculture. April 2009.

Cape Atlantic Conservation District. Native Plants for Wildlife Habitat Improvement in New Jersey’s Coastal Plain Region.

Costaris, Charlene H., Horticulturist Consultant. Coping with Salt Water Flooding. Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station. Toms River NJ: Cooperative Extension of Ocean County. November 2012. 

Van Es, Harold, Prof., Dept. of Crop and Soil Sciences, Cornell University. Saltwater Inundation: Implications for Agriculture. Fact Sheet. Ithaca NY: Cornell University Cooperative Extension. November 2012.

.