New Jersey Trivia & Tidbits - Page 13

Looking for New Jersey trivia? Try our list New Jersey little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

More Revolutionary War battles were fought in New Jersey than any other state, earning it the British nickname “Cockpit of the Revolution.”

first appeared: 8/18/2002

Astronaut Walter M. Schirra Jr., the third American to orbit the Earth (on Oct. 3, 1962, following John Glenn and Scott Carpenter), is a Hackensack native.

first appeared: 8/11/2002

The commander of the Union’s Army of the Potomac, Gen. George B. McClellan, was governor of New Jersey from 1878 to 1881.

first appeared: 8/4/2002

The Campbell Museum in Camden, home of the Campbell Soup Co., is dedicated to the history of soup and soup tureens.

first appeared: 7/28/2002

Sandy Hook Lighthouse, which began beaming its light in 1764, is the oldest operating lighthouse in America.

first appeared: 7/21/2002

Matthias William Baldwin (1795-1866), manufacturer of the famous coal-burning Baldwin locomotive, was the son of an Elizabethtown carriage maker.

first appeared: 7/14/2002

Aaron Montgomery Ward (1844-1913), born in Chatham (pop. 8,460), established one of the country’s first mail-order businesses in 1872. At the time, mail-order selling was a revolutionary concept.

first appeared: 7/7/2002

A distinctive feature of plants in the New Jersey Pinelands is the large number of species which reach either their northern or southern geographical limits here. About 850 species live here, including 580 that are native to the region.

first appeared: 6/30/2002

The Susan B. Anthony Building and Loan Association, calling itself the “nation’s first women’s bank,” was founded in 1923 in Newark by Jennie E. Precker.

first appeared: 6/23/2002

Helping ship’s sail into port is a time-honored profession, no more so than among the Sandy Hook Pilots, so-called for the positioning of pilot boats off Sandy Hook to assist ships negotiating New York and New Jersey harbors.

first appeared: 6/16/2002

The Delaware Water Gap along the state’s northeastern border is a craggy, spectacular “hole” in the Appalachians, more than a mile wide, through which the Delaware River flows.

first appeared: 6/9/2002

Clifford Holland, the engineer in charge of the tunnel between New Jersey and New York City that bears his name, died of overwork and a heart attack the day before diggers from New Jersey broke through to those tunneling west from Manhattan (Oct. 28, 1924).

first appeared: 6/2/2002

Legend has it that the infamous Captain Kidd, who married a Monmouth County woman before he turned pirate, buried a cache of treasure in Raritan Bay.

first appeared: 5/26/2002

State town names include Carpentersville, Barbertown, Cookstown, Smithburg, and Farmingdale. The state also has a Jobstown and Leisuretown.

first appeared: 5/19/2002

The Lakehurst Naval Air Station—commissioned by the U.S. Navy in 1921—began as a remote ammunition proving ground for the Russian imperial government in 1915.

first appeared: 5/12/2002

At the Battle of Monmouth (June 28,1778), the legendary Molly Pitcher brought water to the troops and reportedly took her husband’s place after he was wounded. She was awarded a state pension in 1822.

first appeared: 5/5/2002

The Thomas Alva Edison Memorial Tower at Menlo Park—site of Edison’s laboratory—was dedicated in 1938. The beacon at its top celebrates Edison’s development of the incandescent light.

first appeared: 4/28/2002

During the 1940s, the U.S. Army used Atlantic City and its beaches for training, and many of the hotels along the city’s famous boardwalk were occupied by soldiers.

first appeared: 4/21/2002

Gen. George Washington’s army actually crossed the Delaware three times—once on Dec. 25, 1776, after which he defeated an army at Trenton, again when he made a strategic retreat the next day, and once more Dec. 28, when he crossed back to defeat the British at Princeton. The two battles are considered a turning point in the Revolutionary War.

first appeared: 4/14/2002

Because forest fires have been historically common in the Pine Barrens with its dry soil, many smaller plants that grow there have become fire-adapted—which means they are capable of surviving most wildfires.

first appeared: 4/7/2002

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