Pine Barrens History:

  • Around 10,000 years ago, the land on which Camp Ockanickon sits (and the pine barrens as a whole) was home to a thriving temperate forest ecosystem and iconic campground, it was actually covered in permafrost and had a tundra-like climate. Few humans occupied it and had to adapt to the freezing wintery conditions
  • 10,000 years after that, the environment began to warm up and the first oak and pine forests sprouted in the area
  • Indigenous communities used the natural landscape in innovative ways, such as hickory wood for its nuts, to make tools, and as charcoal for smoking meat and sphagnum as astringent wound dressing and diapers.
  • European Settlers came to the pine barrens after the Lenni Lenape and began settling, many of the trees were logged to build dwellings and fuel factories for what became a very lucrative iron industry

 

Camp History:

  • Before it was Camp Ockanickon, it was a cranberry bog and water mill.
  • Camp Ockanickon was established as a YMCA camp in 1906 as a place for young men to spend their summers and do character-building outdoor activities. The camp switched locations a few times before planting roots, at its current location, in Medford.
  • The name Ockanickon honors the Mantas Lenape chief. A man named Henry Stockwell acquired the camp’s current location, which is why the day camp at Ockanickon is now named after him.
  • Chief Ockanickon’s wife was Princess Matollionequay, who inspired the name of the girl’s overnight camp at Ockanickon that opened in 1937.
  • From the YMCA website: Chief Ockanickon, who died around 1681, is buried under a huge sycamore tree in the Friends Meetinghouse cemetery in Burlington City, NJ. A boulder near the tree bears his mark and a bronze plaque is etched with his final words: “Be plain and fair to all, as I have been.” To this day, the YMCA camp’s principal mission is to honor his words, by encouraging the Golden Rule to all who visit here: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

 

https://pinelandsalliance.org/learn-about-the-pinelands/pinelands-overview/

https://www.nj.gov/pinelands/reserve/hist/

https://ycamp.org/about/organization/history/