Several hundreds of these fanatical
desperadoes made the forest their home, and laid waste the surrounding
townships by their sudden raids. Most barbarous cruelties were practised
on both sides, in the contests which continually took place between
Whigs and Tories, and the unnatural seven-years' war possessed nowhere
darker features than in the neighborhood of the New Jersey Pines.
Remains of these forest-freebooters are still discovered from time to
time, in the process of clearing the woods, and unmistakable relics are
occasionally met with in the denser portions of the forest, which must
have been comparatively open eighty years ago.
The degraded descendants of these Tories constitute the principal
difficulty with which a proprietor in this region has to contend.
Completely besotted and brutish in their ignorance, they are incapable
of obtaining an honest living, and have supported themselves, from a
time which may be called immemorial, by practising petty larceny on
an organized plan. The Pine Rat steals wood, steals game, steals
cranberries, steals anything, in fact, that his hand can be laid upon;
and woe to the property of the man who dares attempt to restrain him! A
few weeks may, perhaps, elapse, after the tattered savage has received a
warning or a reprimand, and then a column of smoke will be seen stealing
up from some quarter in the forest;--he has set the woods on fire!
Conflagrations of this kind will sometimes sweep away many hundreds of
acres of the most valuable timber; while accidental fires are also of
frequent occurrence.
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