Customer Reviews:
 Local history of Central New Jersey October 23, 2005
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Henry Beck was a newspaperman (and minister) who was interested in the local history of New Jersey; he authored many books on the topic. This was his third in a series. (I believe all the books have been in print since they first came out in the 1930s.) The first two volumes dealt with forgotten towns of southern NJ, and for this one he moved a bit north to the central part of the state. The format in all the books remained the same: one location per chapter, give its history, and make things personal by describing a visit to the place by Beck with often an "expert" on the area. Usually a photograph or two accompanies each chapter. It's a good format, and it works well.
Beck travels to such places in this book as Scrabbletown, Ellisdale, Amwell, Barnegat, Fiddler's Creek, and Tennent among others. The chapters are much longer than in the two previous books. The reason for this is that earlier he chose a spot and stuck pretty rigidly to it while here he wanders far and wide from each place highlighted per chapter. The book feels much more expansive for it.
Anyone interested in forgotten towns and local history in NJ will be delighted with any and all of Beck's books. I've spent many a Sunday afternoon following in his footsteps checking out the places he writes about (most of them very much changed in that last 70 years). Beck is a storehouse of information and a lot of fun to read, too. (The book's original title was much cooler: "Fare to Midlands," changed by RU Press for fear the public wouldn't get the irony and only think it a put down.)
|
