Pine Barrens

A new clue into the 1972 disappearance of two boys on an orphanage camping trip in Burlington County has authorities digging deeper to solve the cold case. Until recently, relatives did not know whether Steven Soden, 16, was dead or alive. "We were hoping that he was still alive," said Soden's sister, April Leonard, 56, of Sekiu, Wash., who had given a DNA sample to police to see whether it matched any remains of unidentified victims of the serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Instead, the DNA matched four bones found at Bass River State Park in 2000.

Walter Brower's eyes lit up as he recalled the rain-drenched day in 1939 when he and a buddy were the first to arrive at a train wreck in the thick of the Pine Barrens. "The cars were all over the tracks. . . . I expected to find people dead," Brower said as he recalled the Aug. 19 crash of the Blue Comet, a luxury train that had departed from Atlantic City with 47 passengers, headed for Jersey City, N.J. For residents of the isolated area, the accident stirred the most excitement and alarm since the crash there of the Mexican airman Emilio Carranza 11 years before.

You can swim in it, hike in it, canoe in it, sleep in it, eat in it. Its ruralness is often compared with Appalachia's. Its water is among the cleanest in the nation, though it looks a murky brown. And it is less than 50 miles from Philadelphia. What is it? It's the Pine Barrens, a tract of woodland and water encompassing more than a million mostly rustic acres of New Jersey - just about one-third of the state. It is known around the world for its botanical makeup and its wildlife.

"Remember," warned Karl Anderson, who seemed wide awake and even good- natured despite the 6 a.m. hour, "all activities are rain or shine. You can stay back in your bunk and watch TV, or you can get wet. " And with that challenge issued under a heavy sky the color of gray cotton and a mist so fine it seemed like gossamer netting, Saturday morning of the New Jersey Audubon Society's Sixth Annual Pine Barrens Weekend began. Two groups of people, totaling about three dozen, proceeded from a main clearing near the borders of Pemberton and Woodland Townships, crossed a sandy expanse known as "Rattlers Row," and separated into the woods.

One hundred square miles of majestic Pine Barrens, split by the Mullica River and enriched by pre-Revolutionary War history, give the area both charm and substance. And within, there are pockets of residences tucked away in the green cloak that covers this vast expanse of unspoiled wilderness known as Washington Township in Burlington County. About an hour from Philadelphia, the township is a prime day-trip destination for history buffs seeking Revolutionary War reenactments, hand-blown glass, and a breath of fresh piney air. A more serene spot would be hard to come by. While most are familiar with the region for Wharton State Forest and historic Batsto Village, site of a mid-18th-century ironworks, few may be aware of Green Bank and Lower Bank, the tiny communities that cling to the waterfront.

"Do you smell that?" Dave Orleans asked 125 people Saturday night as they sat on logs around a bonfire in the Pine Barrens, home of the Jersey Devil. "It smells like rotting flesh. " As they sat wrapped in blankets to ward off the damp, swamp chill, storyteller Orleans was warming up his audience for four hours of terror. "This is the place where we can let all our fears run wild," he said. Audience members, some of whom came from as far away as Bergen County, paid $10 apiece to be scared by songs, stories and a haunted hayride through the cranberry bogs on the edge of the Lebanon State Forest.

There was a time when even the Chatsworth Post Office was in Buzby's General Store on the corner of First and Main Streets. Old Willis J. Buzby, who had been running the store since the late 1870s, was postmaster from 1917 to 1923. "Then my aunt across the street took it," said Willis Buzby's daughter- in-law, Kate Buzby. Her aunt ran the post office from her own store for 25 years. Well, things change even in Chatsworth, a small village of homes with manicured yards that lies in the middle of the Pine Barrens.

Dozens of people were evacuated from their homes yesterday afternoon when a fire raging in the Pine Barrens threatened to overrun a section of the Leisuretowne retirement village along Route 70 in Burlington County. Fanned by a stiff westerly wind, the blaze pushed to within a few yards of several houses on a paved street at the perimeter of the village in Southampton Township. It was stopped there, after burning about 30 acres, by firefighters using bulldozers, trucks and airplanes to isolate and attack the flames.

Acid rain has polluted almost all of the streams in the Pine Barrens, the forest that covers nearly a quarter of New Jersey, a federal study shows. "The (acid) levels in the Pine Barrens are pretty high, not the highest in the country, but close to it," said Mark Morgan, an associate professor of zoology at Rutgers University in Camden who has studied acid rain in the Pine Barrens for the last five years. Acid rain is formed when moisture in the air mixes with sulfur oxides released by burning oil, coal and gasoline.

A new clue into the 1972 disappearance of two boys on an orphanage camping trip in Burlington County has authorities digging deeper to solve the cold case. Until recently, relatives did not know whether Steven Soden, 16, was dead or alive. "We were hoping that he was still alive," said Soden's sister, April Leonard, 56, of Sekiu, Wash., who had given a DNA sample to police to see whether it matched any remains of unidentified victims of the serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Instead, the DNA matched four bones found at Bass River State Park in 2000.

By Daniel B. Botkin and Robert R. Williams Forest fires in the drought-stricken West and Southwest received a lot of attention last year, and scenes of several large, destructive fires were widely shown on television. Could this happen elsewhere in the United States? In early March, columns of smoke rose from the Pine Barrens, visible from the New York and Philadelphia metropolitan areas. One might think these fires are dangerous and should be suppressed, but they were intentionally lit by the Forest Fire Service of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, with more to be lit this spring.

  Though a transplant from the Philadelphia suburbs, Nan Hunter Walnut was as much a creature of the New Jersey Pinelands as the deer drifting past her windows, the quail skittering through the brush, or the raccoons poking around her porch. She moved to 20 wild acres in Southampton Township, Burlington County, in 1970, as development bore down on the forest. She soon became one of the most persistent and persuasive voices among the Pine Barrens' first-generation citizen activists.

ESTELL MANOR, N.J. - Standing in a nearly 5,000-acre former game preserve owned for generations by 13 families, his own among them, Stewart Keener was finding it difficult to part Thursday with its nesting bald eagles, meandering streams, and a quiet so pronounced it's almost deafening. "It's hard for us to let go, Keener, 47, of Philadelphia, said. "This is so unique here. " Minutes earlier, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection had formally announced acquisition of the parcel and a smaller adjacent one through its Green Acres land-preservation program.

A 3 1/2-barrel handmade batch of pale ale is simmering just over his shoulder, filling the garage-size brewery with the sweetest aroma known to man, when Tim Hanna, one of four partners in the brand-new Tuckahoe Brewing Co., mentions the unfortunate gorilla in the room: "We're never going to totally get past C oors Light and M iller Lite down here. " "Down here" is the Jersey Shore, land of Snooki and Smirnoff Ice. Down here, "good beer" means it's cold, wet and half-price during happy hour.

Perhaps alchemist is the best word for artist, writer, and musician Paul Evans Pedersen Jr. After all, this is a man who digs up discarded chunks of vintage South Jersey glass and transforms them into "Pine Barrens Diamonds. " Pieces of jewelry featuring his man-made gems will be displayed next Sunday at Lines on the Pines, an artists' showcase in Hammonton. The annual event features about 50 local residents, working in a variety of media, who are inspired by the distinctive history, landscape, and culture of the Pinelands.

Nothing seemed to stand in their way last year, as they marched across South Jersey like an invading army, leaving denuded pine trees in their wake. The exploding population of Dendroctonus frontalis - the Southern pine beetle - killed 14,000 acres of pines in 2010 and was expected to destroy at least that many in 2011. But when state officials checked recently, they were surprised. Only half of the anticipated damage had been inflicted. What happened? A voracious predator, the checkered or clerid beetle, had gobbled up many of the pine beetles, helping to reduce their number.

Authorities believe the fatal stabbings of a mother and son in Hammonton two weeks ago that rattled the small town were not a random attack, and that they are, "close to filing charges. " Atlantic County Prosecutor Ted Housel said last night that although they are prepared to make an arrest, they are not sure when it will happen. They have not publicly named a suspect. "I am confident in being able to say this was not a random act of violence and the citizens of Hammonton should be made aware of that," Housel said.

Two years after Chesilhurst closed its lone elementary school to bus its children to neighboring Winslow Township, residents of the borough will be asked whether they want to end the arrangement in a court-ordered voter referendum next week. A small, predominantly African American community on the edge of the Pine Barrens, Chesilhurst has been the scene of a long-running legal battle aimed at reopening its elementary school. "Most of the people would rather have their kids in town.