In this episode of The New Jersey History Podcast, we travel the Musconetcong River — a corridor where Lenape homelands, Revolutionary War movements, and New Jersey folklore all collide. From Munsee and Unami river life, to colonial mill towns that fed Washington’s army, to modern sightings of the mysterious “Mantis Man,” this river holds layers of memory that never faded.
Part history, part culture, part legend — all New Jersey.
This episode is part of Your Hometown Revolution, our ongoing partnership with RevolutionNJ, where listeners submit their hometowns and we reveal the closest Revolutionary War activity.
Email me: njhistorypodcast@gmail.com
Socials (especially TikTok): https://linktr.ee/njhistorypodcast
#NewJerseyHistory #Lenape #AmericanRevolution #RevolutionNJ #MusconetcongRiver #NewJerseyFolklore #MantisMan #NJPodcast #HistoryPodcast #GardenStateHistory
Kraft, Herbert C. The Lenape: Archaeology, History, and Culture.
Kraft, Herbert C. The Lenape-Delaware Indian Heritage.
Oestreicher, David M. “Unmasking the Walam Olum.”
National Park Service. Musconetcong Wild & Scenic River Management Plan.
Hunterdon County Historical Society. Early Musconetcong Valley records.
Stryker, William S. Official Register of the Officers and Men of New Jersey in the Revolutionary War.
DiIonno, Mark. A Guide to New Jersey's Revolutionary War Trail.
Kelly, Kathy. Legends and Lore of the Jersey Highlands.
Beck, Henry Charlton. Forgotten Towns of New Jersey.
Strickler, Lon. Phantoms & Monsters: Strange Encounters.
Weird NJ Magazine. “Mantis Man of the Musconetcong.”
Thanksgiving didn’t drift into New Jersey — it arrived early and grew deep.Only one human lifetime after the 1621 New England thanksgiving, Puritans from the New Haven Colony crossed into New Jersey and founded Newark. They didn’t bring the holiday with them — they brought the discipline of gratitude that shaped early New England life. From there, thanksgiving took root in New Jersey and blossomed through every community that found refuge, freedom, or opportunity here.
In this episode, we follow thanksgiving as it moves from Newark into the lives of free Black communities like Timbuctoo, Gouldtown, and Lawnside; into Harriet Tubman’s work in Cape May; into the gratitude of Giovanni Battista Sartori, New Jersey’s first Italian immigrant; into the Irish families of Spring Lake; the Jewish scholars of Lakewood; the Hispanic neighborhoods of our cities; the South Asian communities of Iselin and Edison; and even an exiled king living in Bordentown.
This is the story of how thanksgiving grew on New Jersey soil long before it became an American holiday.
Part 3 of Crossroads of Thanksgiving: Two Peoples, One Prayer, in partnership with RevolutionNJ.
#newjerseyhistory#thanksgivinghistory#newark#revolutionnj#harriettubman#timbuctoo#gouldtown#lawnside#italianamerican#irishamerican#lakewood#littleindia#bordentown#historypodcast#gratitude
Email me: njhistorypodcast@gmail.com
Socials: https://linktr.ee/njhistorypodcast
Puritan Migration & Early Newark:– Atkinson, Joseph. The History of Newark, New Jersey. Newark: William B. Guild, 1878.– New Haven Colony Records (Yale University Library).– Connecticut State Library. Town and Church Records of New Haven Colony.– Massachusetts Historical Society: Puritan Fast Day & Thanksgiving Day Records.
Harriet Tubman & Cape May:– Cape May Historical Society Archives: “Employment Records of Harriet Tubman, 1850–1852.”– Larson, Kate Clifford. Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero. New York: Ballantine Books, 2004.– National Park Service: Harriet Tubman Documentation Project.
Timbuctoo, Gouldtown, and Lawnside:– McGowan, James. Timbuctoo: A Free Black Community in New Jersey. Burlington County Historical Society.– Dunn, Sharon. Gouldtown, New Jersey. Gouldtown Historical Committee.– Price, Clement A. Freedom Not Far Distant: A Documentary History of Afro-Americans in New Jersey. NJ Historical Commission, 1980.– New Jersey State Archives: Timbuctoo Land Deeds; Gouldtown Genealogical Collections; Lawnside Incorporation Records.
Giovanni Battista Sartori & Early Italian NJ:– Archdiocese of Trenton Archives: “Foundations of St. John the Baptist, Trenton (1814).”– McCormack, Michael. Catholic New Jersey: A History. Diocese of Trenton Publications.– Trenton Historical Society: Sartori Papers.
Italian, Irish, and Immigrant Communities:– Kimball, Leighton. Vineland, New Jersey: Birth of an Agricultural Colony. Vineland Historical Press.– Hammonton Historical Society: Italian Immigrant Farm Records.– Spring Lake Historical Society: “The Irish Riviera” Collections.– Vecoli, Rudolph. Italian Immigrants in America. Historical Publications.
Hispanic & Latino New Jersey:– Rutgers Center for Latino Arts & Culture: “Latinos in New Jersey: A Historical Overview.”– Perth Amboy Historical Records: Puerto Rican & Dominican Immigration Waves.– NJ Institute for Social Justice: Latinos in New Jersey.
South Asian Communities / Little India:– Middlesex County Office of Culture & Heritage: Oak Tree Road Cultural Corridor Study.– New Jersey Monthly. “The Rise of Little India in Central Jersey.”
Joseph Bonaparte & Point Breeze:– Miller, Patricia Tyson. Point Breeze: Joseph Bonaparte’s American Exile. Bordentown Historical Press.– Bordentown Historical Society: “The Bonaparte Papers.”– New Jersey Historical Society: Visitor Accounts of Point Breeze.
Thanksgiving didn’t simply appear on the American calendar — New Jersey helped build it.
In this episode, we explore how two New Jersey leaders, Governor William Livingston and Congressman Elias Boudinot, transformed thanksgiving from a private spiritual instinct into a public, civic ritual. Their fasting and thanksgiving proclamations, congressional resolutions, and direct influence on George Washington shaped the first national Thanksgiving in 1789.
From wartime suffering to national unity, learn how New Jersey stood at the heart of America’s earliest public expressions of gratitude — and how these “Jersey architects of thanksgiving” helped turn survival into a national tradition.
Part 2 of Crossroads of Thanksgiving: Two Peoples, One Prayer, in partnership with RevolutionNJ.
Keywords: William Livingston, Elias Boudinot, New Jersey history, Thanksgiving origins, American Revolution, Washington Thanksgiving proclamation, New Jersey Gazette, Morristown winter, NJ colonial history, RevolutionNJ, Continental Congress, early American thanksgiving
#newjerseyhistory #americanrevolution #thanksgivinghistory #williamlivingston #eliasboudinot #revolutionnj #historypodcast #washington #morristown #colonialhistory #thanksgiving
Email me: njhistorypodcast@gmail.com
Socials: https://linktr.ee/njhistorypodcast
Journals of the Continental Congress, 1782.National Archives.
Annals of Congress, 1789. Congressional Record of Thanksgiving Resolution.
Boudinot, Elias. A Star in the West. Philadelphia: Bradford & Inskeep, 1816.
Hutson, James. Religion and the Founding of the American Republic. Library of Congress, 1998.
Washington, George. “Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, October 3, 1789.”National Archives.https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-04-02-0091
Before a single Pilgrim set foot in Plymouth, the people of New Jersey were already giving thanks. In this episode, we explore the Lenape Green Corn Ceremony — a harvest thanksgiving older than the colonies — and stand with George Washington in the bitter winter of Morristown as he prays for the survival of his army. Gratitude on New Jersey soil didn’t begin with turkey and trimmings. It began with humility, endurance, and the recognition that Providence carries us when we cannot carry ourselves.
Part 1 of Crossroads of Thanksgiving: Two Peoples, One Prayer.
#newjerseyhistory #lenape #americanrevolution #morristown #thanksgiving #washington #revolutionnj #historypodcast #indigenoushistory #gratitude
Email me: njhistorypodcast@gmail.com
Socials: https://linktr.ee/njhistorypodcast
Lenape / Indigenous Thanksgiving Practices
Washington at Morristown
Before the Jersey Devil became one of New Jersey’s most famous legends, the Pine Barrens held older stories—warnings rooted in Lenape history, colonial fear, and early American folklore. In this episode, we explore the origins of the Jersey Devil legend before its 19th-century “birth,” tracing how the Pine Barrens gained their eerie reputation long before the name appeared in print.
We follow the disappearance of merchant Hendrick van Driesen, a horse returning without its rider, and how that mystery—combined with Lenape teachings about forest boundaries—evolved into a rumored “presence” in the Pines. We examine how Benjamin Franklin’s colonial print culture helped preserve the story, and how Alexander Hamilton later weaponized that fear during the Revolutionary War as Hessian soldiers marched through New Jersey.
This is the Jersey Devil before the creature had wings, hooves, or a Leeds-family origin story. Before the legend had a name, the land itself carried the fear.
Before the Devil had a name… the forest noticed.
#NewJerseyHistory #JerseyDevilOrigins #PineBarrens #LenapeHistory #AmericanRevolution #FolkloreHistory #BenjaminFranklin #AlexanderHamilton
Email:
https://njhistorypodcast@gmail.com
Socials:
https://linktr.ee/njhistorypodcast
Bibliography:
Franklin, Benjamin. Poor Richard Improved. Philadelphia, 1749.
— Franklin’s printed commentary on fear and superstition.
Baer, Friederike. Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War. Oxford University Press, 2022.
— Context on Hessian troops during the Revolution.
Grumet, Robert S. The Munsee Indians: A History. University of Oklahoma Press, 2009.
— Cultural background on Lenape/Munsee communities.
"Your Hometown Revolution." This is where listeners send in their hometowns, and I explore the closest Revolutionary War activity tied to that place. Because no matter where you’re listening from, chances are the Revolution happened closer than you think.
Today, we’re heading to Fort Lee — the northern gateway of New Jersey’s Revolutionary story, where the war nearly ended before it truly began. This is the hometown of listener Patrice.
In November 1776, the Continental Army stood on the edge of collapse.Fort Washington had fallen. Fort Lee was next. And as British forces under Cornwallis closed in, General Nathanael Greene ordered a desperate evacuation that sent Washington’s troops on a freezing, miserable retreat across New Jersey.
But this wasn’t surrender—it was survival.If the British plan had succeeded, the Revolution might have ended before it truly began. Instead, Washington broke the rules of 18th-century warfare, refusing to take winter quarters and turning retreat into opportunity.
In this episode of The New Jersey History Podcast, we trace the collapse that became the catalyst—the defeat that kept the Revolution alive—and how the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas in 1776 transformed hopeless retreat into renewed resistance.
🎙 Recorded in partnership with Revolution NJ — preserving the stories of our state’s fight for independence.
#NewJerseyHistory #AmericanRevolution #FortLee #GeorgeWashington #RevolutionNJ #NJHistoryPodcast
Email: njhistorypodcast@gmail.com
Socials: https://linktr.ee/njhistorypodcast
Before the turkey and football, New Jersey rolled out the magic. From Hoboken’s old Tootsie Roll factory to Moonachie’s modern parade studio, this is how the Garden State built America’s Thanksgiving.
In this episode, I take you inside the true home of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. From the Gilded Age factories of Hoboken to the modern studios of Moonachie, discover how the Garden State’s welders, artists, and dreamers built America’s favorite holiday tradition.
This episode kicks off our special series, Crossroads of Thanksgiving: Two Peoples, One Prayer, exploring how gratitude, faith, and history took shape right here in New Jersey.
Email me at njhistorypodcast@gmail.com
Follow the socials: https://linktr.ee/njhistorypodcast
Into the Northwest Woods — A Prelude (Preview Episode)
Explore one of New Jersey’s most mysterious regions in this special preview of our upcoming two-part series. Host Kyle Whitfield takes you deep into the Northwest Woods of Sussex County—home to some of the state’s most intriguing folklore, unexplained sightings, and ancient Indigenous traditions.
In this episode, we introduce the rugged landscape that sets the stage for two legendary figures: Big Red Eye (New Jersey’s Bigfoot-like cryptid) and Mesingw, the Lenape forest guardian known as the Watcher. Learn why hikers, hunters, and park rangers have reported eerie encounters in High Point State Park, Stokes State Forest, and the Kittatinny Ridge for decades.
Blending New Jersey history, Indigenous lore, cryptid sightings, and the natural soundscape of the Sussex County mountains, this episode prepares you for the stories behind the state’s most elusive forest beings.
If you’re interested in New Jersey folklore, Bigfoot encounters, Lenape spirituality, cryptids, haunted forests, or local legends, this series is for you.
Step into the Northwest Woods.
The forest remembers—and it’s been watching for a long time.
In "Before the Devil Had Wings," Episode 1, we trace the origins of an old Lenape legend—the Watcher in the Pines—and follow how it changed as it moved through colonial taverns, travelers’ tales, and eventually Benjamin Franklin’s Philadelphia print shop. A story about how folklore transforms when cultures collide. You can guess where this is going...
Email me at njhistorypodcast@gmail.com with any questions, suggestions, or collaboration ideas.
Follow my socials: https://linktr.ee/njhistorypodcast
Lenape History & Culture
• Herbert C. Kraft – The Lenape: Archaeology, History, and Culture
• C.A. Weslager – The Delaware Indians: A History
• New Jersey DEP – “Lenape Lifeways” overview
Pine Barrens Background
• John McPhee – The Pine Barrens
• Howard Boyd – A Field Guide to the Pine Barrens of New Jersey
Colonial New Jersey
• Marc Mappen – Jerseyana (folklore + early New Jersey)
• John Cunningham – This Is New Jersey
Franklin & Colonial Print Culture
• The Papers of Benjamin Franklin – founders.archives.gov
• William Nelson – “Daniel Leeds and His Almanacs” (NJ Historical Society)
You won't find this story carved into the stone of Nassau Hall, or on any battlefield monument. But it’s there, if you listen closely — in the spaces between the Revolution’s triumphs, in the contradictions it tried to ignore.
A Lenape boy at Princeton — educated at the expense of a Congress that broke his father’s treaty.
A nation that promised equality, yet survived by defining who was excluded from it.
That’s New Jersey’s Revolution, too.
It wasn’t just fought with muskets and bayonets — it was waged in promises, betrayals, and brief acts of decency that tried to stitch them together.
This is part of Crossroads: Your Hometown Revolution — our ongoing partnership with RevolutionNJ, telling the stories of New Jersey’s fight for independence through the people who lived it, and those who were left behind.
Email me at: njhistorypodcast@gmail.com
Follow the Social, especially the TikTok: https://linktr.ee/njhistorypodcast
🎓 Primary Sources Cited
George Washington, Diary Entry, May 3, 1779. The Writings of George Washington, Vol. 14, Library of Congress.
Treaty with the Delawares, September 17, 1778. Journals of the Continental Congress, Vol. 12, p. 978.
George Morgan to the Continental Congress, December 1778, National Archives, Papers of the Continental Congress, M247, roll 189.
Resolution for the Education of the Son of White Eyes, Journals of the Continental Congress, June 22, 1785, Vol. 29, p. 480.
Princeton University Archives, Matriculation Records, 1790s, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections.
A man walks into City Hall to cast his vote in a small-town election. Nothing glamorous — no presidential race, no national headlines. But this one simple act would echo through American history.
That man was Thomas Mundy Peterson, and that ballot made him the first African American in the United States to vote under the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
Email: njhistorypodcast@gmail.com
Socials: https://linktr.ee/njhistorypodcast
This episode marks the first in my eight-year partnership series with RevolutionNJ, leading up to America’s 250th anniversary in 2026 and continuing through 2033 — the 250th anniversary of the Treaty of Paris.
It’s also a continuation of my ongoing Lenape series, which explores New Jersey’s Original People — their land, their legacy, and their long struggle to be seen in a story too often told without them.
Here, we go to Middlebrook, New Jersey, in 1779, when Lenape leaders met with General George Washington in the very heart of their ancestral homeland. It was a moment of hope, diplomacy, and quiet tragedy — when the people who once named this land briefly came home during America’s Revolution.
Socials: https://linktr.ee/njhistorypodcast
In the winter of 1777, George Washington’s army froze and starved in the snow at Valley Forge — and legend says that one night, as the General knelt alone in prayer, something otherworldly appeared.
Was it an angel? A ghost? Or the reflection of a weary commander’s faith?
This episode explores the 19th-century legend of Washington’s “Vision at Valley Forge” — a ghost story born from war-time folklore — and the real Washington behind it: a man who truly prayed without ceasing. From eyewitness accounts of his dawn devotions to his letters on Providence, we uncover the line between history, myth, and meaning.
Because maybe Washington didn’t need a ghost to guide him. Maybe his unshakable belief — that Providence watched over the American cause — was miracle enough.
Featuring: historical context, primary-source quotes, and a reflection on how faith shaped the Revolution’s coldest winter.
Part of our ongoing “Spooky Season” series and our eight-year RevolutionNJ partnership, “Crossroads: Your Hometown Revolution.”
Email me at: njhistorypodcast@gmail.com
Socials: https://linktr.ee/njhistorypodcast
What's your most memorable Halloween costume? What's your favorite? What was it like trick-or-treating as a kid in your neighborhood? I've got a great story of my own...
Yeah, I know — William Penn’s a Pennsylvania guy. But this one’s our story too. In 1701, he met with the Lenape one final time. A Lenape leader struck his chest three times — a covenant “made in their hearts.” For the Lenape it meant completeness; for Penn, perhaps the Trinity. A moment of shared peace between New Jersey’s Original People and a Quaker dreamer on the Delaware.
Email me with questions, suggestions, and collaboration ideas: njhistorypodcastgmail.com
Socials: https://linktr.ee/njhistorypodcast
Sources:
William Penn in Pennsylvania (1699–1701): The Papers of William Penn, Vol. 4: 1701–1718 (Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1987).
Quaker Observer Quote: summarized from Albert Cook Myers, William Penn’s Own Account of the Lenni Lenape or Delaware Indians (1937).
Lenape diplomatic gestures: described in Jean R. Soderlund, Lenape Country: Delaware Valley Society Before William Penn (2015); and Evan Haefeli, “The Great Haudenosaunee-Lenape Peace of 1669” (New York History, 2023).
James Logan Correspondence: Letters and Papers of James Logan, 1700-1751, Pennsylvania Archives, Series II.
Iroquois peace-message reference: paraphrased from Documents Relative to the Colonial History of New York, vol. 5 (1855).
A Hessian's Recipe: The Origins of the Headless Horseman..In this special feature of The New Jersey History Podcast, a forgotten legend rises from the soil of Red Bank Battlefield — a tale where history and haunting intertwine.
It isn’t just about the Hessians who fought and fell here. It’s about how the living carry their ghosts — through recipes, heirlooms, and the echoes of ancestral memory.
At its heart lies a single blue ribbon, passed from a Dutch woman to a Hessian soldier, and reborn centuries later in the wrist of a modern New Jerseyan, uncovering his own past.
Rooted in real history, using meticulous research, and inspired by the Washington Irving tale—The Origins of the Headless Horseman turns folklore into lineage, and history into inheritance.
From Red Bank to Tarrytown, from the Continental Army to the breakfast table of the 21st Century, this is a story of war, love, food, and the ghosts that never quite stop riding.
Email me at njhistorypodcast@gmail.com with questions, suggestions, and collaboration ideas.
Socials: https://linktr.ee/njhistorypodcast
What starts as a culinary argument becomes a deep, emotional journey through heritage, assimilation, and identity. From Dom DeLuise’s unforgettable Sunday pot scene in Fatso to the first Italian-American woman in 1902 who called her tomato sauce “gravy,” to Chef Boyardee branding his for the non-Italians of Idaho — it’s a story simmered in humor, heart, and history.
We explore how Italian immigrants faced poverty, prejudice, and even violence — including the 1891 New Orleans lynching — yet turned their struggles into strength and their meals into meaning. Through food, they didn’t just survive; they built a culture so rich it became iconic — even imitated.
And when the pot finally settles, this episode reminds us that the real story isn’t about words. It’s about what we’ve built together — a shared American table where struggle becomes tradition, tradition becomes pride, and the argument itself becomes love.
So call it gravy, call it sauce — either way, it’s delicious.
Email- njhistory@gmail.com
Socials- https://linktr.ee/njhistorypodcast
In Edison, New Jersey… two brothers thought they could steal a witch’s grave. Her name was Mary Moore. Locals said if you walked around her tomb three times and spat — she’d appear.
But the Porubsky brothers didn’t stop at a dare. In the 1970s, they pried her headstone loose and took it home… laughing. Days later — one brother was killed in a car accident on Route 27. The other, shaken, destroyed the stone and buried the pieces.
No one ever found them.
And the original marker for Mary Moore — the Witch of Edison — vanished forever. There isn’t much information on the Porubsky brothers…but they were real. Their names still show up in local forums and in the collective and in individual memories.
And they say… if you visit the old Piscatawaytown Burial Ground tonight, and listen closely, you’ll hear her calling them back. and this is The New Jersey History Podcast.
Where Jersey’s past… never really stays buried.
Email me at njhistorypodcast@gmail.com with questions, suggestions, and collaborations.
Follow the socials here https://linktr.ee/njhistorypodcast
It’s October — the season of beer steins and ghost stories. 🍺👻
This week, we raise a stein to New Jersey’s most misunderstood Germans: the Hessians.
Condemned by Jefferson as “foreign mercenaries,” these weren’t free-roaming soldiers for hire — they were Landeskinder of Hesse-Cassel, conscripted by law, shipped across the ocean, and despised on arrival.
In this episode, we dig into:
How Britain rented entire armies from German princes during the Revolution
Why “mercenary” was the wrong word — and why Jefferson knew it
The economics of war: what £450,000 meant in today’s money
The Protestant roots of Hesse-Cassel and its deal with King George III
The Battle of Red Bank (1777) and the discovery of Hessian remains in 2022
How many Hessians stayed behind — in life, and maybe in legend
And a reflection on how every wave of newcomers — Hessians, Irish, Italians, and modern immigrants — have faced the same suspicion, and still helped build this place we call home
Socials: https://linktr.ee/njhistorypodcast
📚 Sources
Declaration of Independence (1776), Thomas Jefferson.
Rodney Atwood, The Hessians: Mercenaries from Hessen-Cassel in the American Revolution (Cambridge, 1980).
Friederike Baer, Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War (Oxford, 2022).
Charles W. Ingrao, The Hessian Mercenary State (Cambridge, 1987).
Edward J. Lowell, The Hessians and Other German Auxiliaries (1884).
Johannes Helbig, Die Hessen in Amerika (Cassel, 1867).
Alfred L. Shoemaker, The Pennsylvania Dutch and Their Cookery (1951).
UK National Archives, “British War Expenditures, 1775–1783.”
MeasuringWorth.com (currency conversions, 2024 equivalencies).
In 1730, Mount Holly, New Jersey, held a witch trial. Three hundred people gathered. Neighbors were weighed against a Bible, tossed into a millpond… even accused of making hogs sing psalms. The story spread when a young Benjamin Franklin printed it in his newspaper. But there's a twist...But the belief itself? That didn’t die.
A century later, Jersey farmers still wore charms to ward off witches. By the 1940s, Pine Barrens folklore named Peggy Clevenger — not a witch, but a woman turned into one by rumor. Her name was forever stained so the community could have a bogeyman.
New Jersey’s witch stories...? They never really went away.
Email: njhistorypodcast@gmail.com