
Cassville Crossroads Historic District - Jackson , NJ
Posted by:
94RedRover
N 40° 06.299 W 074° 23.217
18T E 552249 N 4439589
At the intersection of CR 571 and 528, Cassville, New Jersey was a small agricultural community where the cultivated cranberry was introduced.
Waymark Code: WM6QQH
Location: New Jersey, United States
Date Posted: 07/10/2009
Views: 4
"CASSVILLE, 10.7 m, (120 alt., 205 pop.), a tiny old village once known as Downsville, then as Goshen, was named Cassville for Gen. Lewis Cass when a post office was opened in 1850. Cass, a veteran of the War of 1812, was the Democratic presidential nominee defeated by Zachary Taylor in 1848.
The southern part of Cassville is known as Webbville in memory of John Webb, "old Peg-leg John," a schoolteacher who, about 1845, was the first to cultivate the native wild cranberry. Watching the growth of the small, vine-like bushes in a swamp that he had drained for meadow purposes gave him the idea of creating a cranberry bog. The first year he received about $50 a barrel for his crop, the berries being bought by Philadelphia ship chandlers who sold them to whalers as a preventive for scurvy. Webb s innovation has brought bread to many people who cling to the impoverished soil of the pine country. Since 1911 cultivation of the swamp blueberry, as a result of experiments of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, has been important. Blueberry growers around Cassville have organized a cooperative association for marketing this crop, which has yielded $600 an acre."
--- New Jersey, A Guide to Its Past and Present, 1939
Cassville was a samll community, that circulated around a local post office, general store and tavern. At the corner of Cassville Road and Veterans Highway in Jackson, New Jersey, you will blink and miss Cassville if you're not careful.
The main meeting place here, still standing today, is the Cassville Tavern. A favorite for locals and bikers, you can get a really mean burger here.
Next to the Cassville Tavern is Art & Kathy's, a deli establishment operating here since 1838.
This historic district was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.