Crystal Spring Park - Laurel Springs, New Jersey - Municipal Parks and Plazas on Waymarking.com

Crystal Spring Park is a municipal park maintained by the town of Laurel Springs, Camden County, New Jersey. It is located at the eastern end of Laurel Lake. It is very tiny, but has a natural spring that was the favorite location of poet Walt Whitman during his summer stays here. Between 1876 and 1884, Whitman spent summers in his later life at a friend’s farm house a few blocks from Laurel Lake. Whitman converted one of the barn buildings into his summer home. Whitman said that Laurel Lake was the “prettiest lake in either America or Europe”. Crystal Spring is at the bottom of a hill in a beautiful wooded area at the edge of Laurel Lake. The entrance is at Lakeview and West Elma Avenues. Parking is available at the location. Walk down a hill on a path which winds around at the bottom to the right to the spring. The spring is in an alcove, pooling at the base, and then flowing in a very small stream to the lake.

Much of Whitman’s work for “Specimen Days” and part of “Leaves of Grass” were written here. He would sit by the spring, drink the water, and take mud baths near the spring to help his recovery after a partial stroke.


From A Sun-Bath—Nakedness
Sunday, Aug. 27.—ANOTHER day quite free from mark’d prostration and pain. It seems indeed as if peace and nutriment from heaven subtly filter into me as I slowly hobble down these country lanes and across fields, in the good air—as I sit here in solitude with Nature—open, voiceless, mystic, far removed, yet palpable, eloquent Nature. I merge myself in the scene, in the perfect day. Hovering over the clear brook-water, I am sooth’d by its soft gurgle in one place, and the hoarser murmurs of its three-foot fall in another. Come, ye disconsolate, in whom any latent eligibility is left—come get the sure virtues of creek-shore, and wood and field. Two months (July and August, ’77,) have I absorb’d them, and they begin to make a new man of me. Every day, seclusion—every day at least two or three hours of freedom, bathing, no talk, no bonds, no dress, no books, no manners.

Name: Crystal Spring Park Street Location: Lakeview Avenue and West Elma Avenue Local Municipality: Laurel Springs State/Province, etc.: NJ Country: USA Web Site: [Web Link] Picnic Facilities: no Recreational Facilities: none Ponds/Lakes/Streams/Rivers/Beach: Crystal Spring, Laurel Lake nearby Memorial/Commemoration: Not listed Date Established: Not listed Monuments/Statues: Not listed Art (murals/sculpture, etc.): Not listed Fountains: Not listed Special Events: Not listed Traditional Geocaches: Not listed

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Date Logged Log   01/02/2011 bpom visited it