Where the Lenape once walked

Highland Woods Reserve is nestled between residential neighborhoods and light industries in the geographic center of South Plainfield. It is designated as open space for its passive recreational opportunities and educational resources.

Long before the European fur traders descended upon North American shores, Native American Indians were hunting, fishing and camping in the Reserve. Three thousand year old arrowheads and fire-cracked rock provide evidence of their presence. By 500 A.D. a permanent population of Lenape lived on the banks of local streams, cleared the forest and planted gardens.

It is not known when the first white man set foot in So. Plainfield. The land that the town now occupies was part of the Elizabethtown Purchase of 1664 and, in 1666, became part of historic Piscataway Township. The early settlers were Scottish Quakers. Some were farmers, and others were loggers. Logging began along the Cedar Brook, northeast of the Reserve, by the mid-1680s. A saw mill and grist mill were built near today�s town center and not far from the Reserve.

In the mid-1700s, two hamlets developed: Samptown and Brooklyn. Surrounding farms were generally less than 200 acres. Parts of the Reserve�s uplands were probably farmed or logged until World War I; others into the 1950s. Tree stands in the Reserve range from 40 to 90 years old.

The agrarian way of life did not last long in this north-eastern section of Piscataway. The arrival of the Lehigh Valley Railroad in 1875 expanded job opportunities, not only with the railroad, but incoming industries. A blue collar workforce replaced the farmers and loggers. Agriculture was all but abandoned here in the early 1900s.

Large parcels of farmland were sold to industry and developers. One of the early large land acquisitions was by Elk Realty (around 1906/07) which purchased the Col. John Holly farm off Park Avenue. The 100 acre property was subdivided for summer cottages. This was followed a few years later by the purchase of the Elliott Farm by Spicer Manufacturing, and continued with Harris Steel�s acquisition of the Blackford farm in 1913.

Farms were subdivided and houses sprang up throughout the new Borough, which separated from Piscataway in 1926. The big boom in population and residential housing occurred after World War II with the development of the John Geary farm on Plainfield Avenue. Years later housing reached Pitt Street, Frederick, Carmine, Highland, Moose and Elsie Avenues, and light industry sprung up along So. Clinton Avenue and Sylvania Place, all of them bordering the Reserve. A developer cleared some of the Reserve�s dry uplands in the 1980s, but luckily nothing was ever constructed except for a hunter�s tree stand.

In 1991, the So. Plainfield Environmental Commission recommended that the original 26 acres of the Reserve between Highland Avenue and Sylvania Place be preserved. The Mayor and Council approved the request the following year, and added over 9 scattered acres, with Green Acres funding, to connect it with Pitt Street Park. In 1993, the Board of Education leased it for $1 per year for use in environmental education studies. The Reserve was formally dedicated by Mayor Michael Woskey on June 11, 1994.

The public is encouraged to visit Highland Woods and walk the trails where the spirit of the Lenape lives. The Reserve is open from sunup to sunset 7 days a week and is located on Sylvania Place off So. Clinton Avenue.

Take a virtual tour of HAW. Log on to:
http://geocities.com/friendsofhighlandwoods.
Contact SPNatureTrails @cs.com with questions or comments.