Atsion Lake is a

man-made lake A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including control ...

Wharton State Forest Wharton State Forest is the largest state forest in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is the largest single tract of land in the state park system of New Jersey, encompassing approximately of the Pinelands northeast of Hammonton. Its protected ...

in the

Pine Barrens Pine barrens, pine plains, sand plains, or pineland areas occur throughout the U.S. from Florida to Maine (see Atlantic coastal pine barrens) as well as the Midwest, West, and Canada and parts of Eurasia. Perhaps the most well known pine-barre ...

, in the community of Atsion,

Burlington County Burlington County is a county in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The county is the largest by area in New Jersey. Its county seat is Mount Holly.

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. The lake is part of the

Mullica River The Mullica River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 1, 2011 river in southern New Jersey in the United States. The Mullica was once known as the ''Little Egg Ha ...

. It offers boating, hiking, fishing, swimming and camping facilities, and cross-country skiing in the winter.

History

The name Atsion comes from the

Lenni Lenape The Lenape (, , or Lenape , del, Lënapeyok) also called the Leni Lenape, Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada. Their historical territory inclu ...

Unami language Unami ( del, Wënami èlixsuwakàn) was an Algonquian language spoken by the Lenape people in the late 17th century and the early 18th century, in what then was (or later became) the southern two-thirds of New Jersey, southeastern Pennsylvania ...

. It was the name for the strong, cedar-colored stream in which the tribe called Atsayunk, or Atsiunc."Iron in The Pines: The Story of New Jersey's Ghost Towns and Bog Iron" Pg. 31. Arthur Dudley Pierce
Book available online
/ref> In late 1765, under Charles Read, Atsion became the site of an

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...

forge A forge is a type of hearth used for heating metals, or the workplace (smithy) where such a hearth is located. The forge is used by the smith to heat a piece of metal to a temperature at which it becomes easier to shape by forging, or to th ...

making

bog iron Bog iron is a form of impure iron deposit that develops in bogs or swamps by the chemical or biochemical oxidation of iron carried in solution. In general, bog ores consist primarily of iron oxyhydroxides, commonly goethite (FeO(OH)). Iron-bea ...

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...

ary times, and produced

materiel Materiel (; ) refers to supplies, equipment, and weapons in military supply-chain management, and typically supplies and equipment in a commercial supply chain context. In a military context, the term ''materiel'' refers either to the specifi ...

for American forces. After the war, the area produced iron stoves, and a

grist mill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and Wheat middlings, middlings. The term can refer to either the Mill (grinding), grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist i ...

saw mill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ( dimens ...

s and a

paper mill A paper mill is a factory devoted to making paper from vegetable fibres such as wood pulp, old rags, and other ingredients. Prior to the invention and adoption of the Fourdrinier machine and other types of paper machine that use an endless belt, ...

were added. Still later, cotton and peanuts were grown. The state bought Atsion for Wharton State Forest in 1954.

References

External links

NY-NJ-CT Botany Online: Lake Atsion
* Atsion Atsion Atsion Mullica River Shamong Township, New Jersey {{BurlingtonCountyNJ-geo-stub