Passport Program Information
The NJ Parks and Forests Service came out with a passport book for collecting stamps for visiting a select sampling of our states parks, forests and historic sites. Many fine places did not make the list but many beautiful and culturally important sites did make the list so I suppose it all evens out in the end. The passport book is divided into 3 sections, north, central and south Jersey. This stamp and Voorhees State Park represent the tenth listing for Central New Jersey. If it was not for the release of a puzzle cache a few years ago and my obsession at the time for first to finds, I would never have visited all 24 sites of central and southern NJ. The puzzle cache is called Passport To Adventure (Central Jersey Challenge) and can be found HERE. The stamp and the passport books are free. To find out more about our fabulous passport program please visit HERE.
Voorhees State Park
The stamp in the passport shows Hoppock Grove Picnic Shelter. The page reads, "The landscape that you enjoy today at Voorhees is the result of the efforts of more than 200 men who worked in the CCC camps at the park from 1933 to 1941. The CCC planted trees and constructed shelters, picnic sites, roads and trails throughout the park."
Former New Jersey Governor Foster M. Voorhees donated the original land for the park in 1929. At the New Jersey Astronomical Association's observatory in the park, you can view the starry night through the 26-inch Newtonian reflector scope, one of the largest privately owned telescopes in the state.
This is an excerpt from the America Guide Series:
"The county road is scrub-lined, with masses of sumac bushes. it is paralleled (R) in spots by the South Branch of Raritan River. Voorhees State Park, 3.6 m., on the summit of a steep rise on the southern slope of Musconetcong Mts., is being developed (1939) into a recreation center with smooth dirt roads, trails and fireplaces and other picnic facilities." --- New Jersey, a Guide to Its Present and Past, 1939; page 535
Finally, this is from a previous CCC waymark:
From 1933-1941 about one thousand young men worked at Voorhees and Hacklebarney in a Depression-era federal agency known as the Civilian Conservation Corps. The CCC was the brainchild of one of the 20th century’s leading figures, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The agency had two goals: to give jobs to unemployed young men, between the ages of 17 and 24 and veterans of World War I, and to undertake thousands of conservation projects across the nation in parks, forests and at historic sites.
When the CCC boys arrived at Voorhees in 1933, they found three relatively undeveloped parcels of land. The park still reflected Governor Voorhees’ use of the property as a farm including pastures, woodland, barns and an apple orchard. By the time the CCC boys were finished working eight years later, under the supervision of the National Park Service (NPS) and the United States Army, they had built the present-day road systems, shelters, latrines, visitor amenities, and trail systems or major public access areas that still remain or are used in different ways today.
Each CCC company had 200 men, although that number was not always maintained. The CCC camp at Voorhees was initially known as Camp #20 or Camp Voorhees. Later it was given the designation of SP#5 with Company 1268 assigned to it. SP designated State Park and the company number coincided with the Army Corps district.
CCC boys were paid $30 a month and $25 was automatically sent home to family members or guardians for their support. The boys were paid $2.50 every other week. For many enrollees at Voorhees, the CCC provided vocation and avocational classes. The education program was known as “The School of the Woods” and included job training, current events and access to a camp library.
