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Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2003
Upwards of 500 men were thrown out of work when the mines shut
down; most of them were Jackson Whites. They came to the mines about
half a century ago, attracted by the possibility of wages. Copper-colored,
rather handsome with their angular features, and of normal intelligence,
these people belie the weird tales that have been told about them.
Few isolated racial groups have had so tragic a history as the Jackson
Whites. Hessian, English, West Indian, Dutch, Portuguese, Negro, Spanish, Italian, and American Indian by blood, their ancestry can be traced
to 3,500 women shanghaied by the British authorities for the pleasure of
their New York troops. In the crossing from England one boat-load was
lost; and Jackson, the contractor, filled in his order with a substitute conscription from the West Indies. When the British evacuated New York
City the women were released. But the authorities would have none of
them, and they were forced to leave the city.
Ostracized wherever they went, half-starved, they struggled into the
mountains of New Jersey and found refuge with a group of Tuscarora
Indians banished from North Carolina. They were joined by another band
of outcasts, Hessians stranded by the British government, which had
brought them to America to fight the Revolutionaries. Runaway slaves and
outlaw whites, unwanted men of all races, soon found their way to the
haven in the Ramapos. Stray dogs, used for protection by the harried refugees, swelled the community. Many stories have been circulated concerning
the alleged "savagery" of the Jackson Whites. None of them is true. Today they live in hovels that dot the forest bogs, haunted by poverty. There
are a number of albinos among them, and some of these have been employed as freaks.
The road turns R. at 14.6 miles., through a district of woods and pasture
land.
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