As the glacier melted, it created a 30-mile-long lake called
Glacial Lake Passaic. Over time, the lake has drained to become
wetlands, part of which form Great Swamp. In the process, a great
variety of plant and animal species – including humans – have come
to call Great Swamp home.
There is evidence that humans lived in Great Swamp as early as
12,000 years ago, when mastodon and giant beaver still inhabited the
area. When the first Europeans arrived in the 1600s, they encountered
a group of Native Americans who called themselves the Lenape, which
means "original people." For a time the two groups lived
peacefully together, but disease and pressures for the land eventually
forced the Lenape to abandon their home. The European settlers built
small towns and villages, many of which remain today: Green Village,
New Vernon, Basking Ridge, Meyersville, and others.
The Great Swamp watershed figured prominently in the Revolutionary
War. Continental Army troops spent eight years in the Watershed and
George Wshington wintered here twice. Its high western rim provided a strategic lookout to the
east and New York City, where the British troops were quartered.
In the 19th century, area residents logged the forests
of Great Swamp for firewood and building materials, and tried with
limited success to drain the marshlands for farming. Also during this
time, the area became a retreat for wealthy New Yorkers, who often
built great estates in and near the watershed.
The 20th century saw the unveiling of the most ambitious
plan to put Great Swamp to human use. In 1959, the Port Authority of
New York proposed to build an international jetport in the swamp, with
four 10,000-foot runways. The proposal would have bulldozed many of
the hills, filled in the swamp, and demolished 700 homes and other
structures.
For four years, local residents fought the plan – and finally
won. Thanks to their acquisitions of swampland, Great Swamp became a
National Wildlife Refuge in 1964. The jetport plan in 1968 when part
of the Refuge became a Federal Wilderness Area.
Today, the 7,500-acre National Wildlife Refuge is the crown jewel
in a remarkable array of protected areas in the Great Swamp watershed.
Many of these are listed elsewhere in this publication.
