Big Timber Creek is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data
The National Map
, accessed April 1, 2011 stream in southwestern

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 Delawa ...

. The creek was called Tetamekanchz Kyl by

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 ...

tribes prior to European settlement in the area. The creek drains a watershed of and is a tributary of the

Delaware River The Delaware River is a major river in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. From the meeting of its branches in Hancock, New York, the river flows for along the borders of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, before ...

. Big Timber Creek enters the Delaware River between Brooklawn and Westville, just south of Gloucester City and across from

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

. The main stream and south branch form roughly half of the border between Camden and

Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east o ...

counties. Pre-Columbian Big Timber Creek was home to numerous villages of 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 ...

. In colonial times, the creek was a commercial waterway, and it powered a multitude of mills up through the 1950s.. In the second half of the 20th century, it suffered some ill effects of the rapid post–

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

development that impacted many of America's waterways. As of 2007, the creek had recovered as a result of pollution controls and improvements in sewage treatment.

The name

The creek was named ''Tetamekanchz'' by the local

tribe, with the North Branch named ''Tetamekanchz'', the Chews Landing section named ''Arwames'', Beaver Branch called ''Tekoke'', and Little Timber Creek named ''Sassackon''. The earliest recorded use of the current name is by an early Dutch explorer, David P. DeVries, who refers to a ''Timmer Kill'', "Timber Creek" in Dutch, in his memoirs of his journey of 1630–1633, after the construction of Fort Nassau at its mouth. This name became anglicized when the

Quakers Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abili ...

arrived. In 1697, the

West Jersey West Jersey and East Jersey were two distinct parts of the Province of New Jersey. The political division existed for 28 years, between 1674 and 1702. Determination of an exact location for a border between West Jersey and East Jersey was ofte ...

Proprietors, in creating the town of

, decreed that the name be the "Gloucester River", and although that name did appear in documents for several years, it faded away. A much smaller creek lying to the north, Little Timber Creek, finds the Delaware at the same place as its larger namesake. To differentiate between the two, the latter came to be known as "Great Timber Creek", which soon became "Big Timber Creek". Even so, at the end of the 20th century it was still usually referred to in speech as simply "Timber Creek".

Description

Course

(Note: All course mileage figures are approximate

river mile A river mile is a measure of distance in miles along a river from its mouth. River mile numbers begin at zero and increase further upstream. The corresponding metric unit using kilometers is the river kilometer. They are analogous to vehicle ro ...

s, not as the crow flies.) Big Timber Creek flows roughly to the northwest. Two streams, the North Branch and the South Branch, join above its mouth to form the main stream. The South Branch is considered the source stream. Both branches are dammed at several points to form impoundments—no natural lakes occur along either branch.

South Branch

Two streams join to form the South Branch of Big Timber Creek, the Big Lebanon Branch and the Little Lebanon Branch. Big Lebanon Branch is considered the source stream, as it is the longer. Indeed, it appears on some maps as "Big Timber Creek". It rises near

Cross Keys Cross Keys or Crosskeys may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Crosskeys, Wales ** Crosskeys railway station ** Crosskeys College, a campus of Coleg Gwent * Crosskeys Bridge, a swing bridge in Lincolnshire, England * The Cross Keys (disambiguat ...

in Gloucester County (under a housing development) at an elevation of about and flows northwesterly , fed by several streams from the east along the way, to its confluence with the Little Lebanon Branch just above Nash's Lake in Turnersville. About north of its source, at the head of Jones Lake, Big Lebanon receives Long Hollow Branch. Jones Lake is formed by a dam about a on and lies at an elevation of about . Just beyond the dam, Chestnut Branch comes in, and Big Lebanon veers northwest to run along the south side of the

Atlantic City Expressway The Atlantic City Expressway, officially numbered, but unsigned, as Route 446 and abbreviated A.C. Expressway, ACE, or ACX, and known locally as the Expressway, is a long toll road in the U.S. state of New Jersey, managed and operated by ...

. beyond Chestnut Branch it receives Slab Bridge Branch, and after another half mile, Jeremys Field Branch about above its confluence with Little Lebanon. Little Lebanon Branch lies within Gloucester County. It begins at Baum Pond (in 2007, dry) at an elevation of about near the intersection of Stagecoach Road and the Black Horse Pike. It flows roughly north for to meet the Big Lebanon and with it form the South Branch of Big Timber Creek. Little Lebanon has no significant tributaries. The South Branch proper begins just above Nash's Lake in Washington Township and runs northward for to the point where it joins the North Branch. It forms several impoundments and receives a number of smaller streams over its course. Just below its head, the South Branch passes under the Atlantic City Expressway to be dammed about a third of a mile down to form Nash's Lake at an elevation of . After weaving once under the highway for about two-thirds of a mile (1 km), it receives Stone Bridge Branch and Toms Branch from the east in quick succession and, passing under the highway (now Route 42) to the west, it flows north for a mile to Grenloch Lake in Turnersville. Grenloch Lake lies at an elevation of and extends for a half mile (0.8 km) above its dam. The lake receives Holly Run from the northeast before passing under the Black Horse Pike, whereupon Bells Lake Branch enters from the south. Below Grenloch Lake's dam, the South Branch wanders northwest for a mile (1.6 km) to Blackwood Lake in Blackwood, having picked up Gardner's Run from the southwest about halfway along. At an elevation of , Blackwood Lake snakes almost a mile along the foot of an

escarpment An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations. The terms ''scarp'' and ''scarp face'' are often used interchangeably with ''esca ...

to its west. Farrows Run enters from the east about at the midpoint. About a quarter mile below the dam, two streams join the South Branch, Bull Run from the west and Minqus Run from the east. About a mile farther on, the stream grows sluggish and tidal. Another mile, and Pines Run enters from the east just after the South Branch passes under Route 42 south-to-north. Its final mile lies among wetlands and mudflats.

North Branch

The North Branch of Big Timber Creek rises near

Albion Albion is an alternative name for Great Britain. The oldest attestation of the toponym comes from the Greek language. It is sometimes used poetically and generally to refer to the island, but is less common than 'Britain' today. The name for Scot ...

at an elevation of about , about from Pine Hill (the hill, not the town, which is nearer), the highest point in southern New Jersey at about . The North Branch flows northwestward through several impoundments to Chews Landing and thence to its confluence with the South Branch. From its origin, the North Branch skirts the northern edge of the world-renowned

Pine Valley Golf Club Pine Valley Golf Club is a golf course in Pine Valley, Camden County, in southern New Jersey. It was ranked the number one course in ''Golf Magazines 100 Top Courses in the U.S. and the World in 2012, 2015, 2019, and 2020. It is a private cl ...

and enters Lekau Lake a mile down.Lekau Lake lies within a

Boy Scout A Scout (in some countries a Boy Scout, Girl Scout, or Pathfinder) is a child, usually 10–18 years of age, participating in the worldwide Scouting movement. Because of the large age and development span, many Scouting associations have split ...

reservation, and it was renamed from "Irelands Lake" after the

word for "sand" or "gravel," apparently translated "sandpiper" by the

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. A teardrop-shaped impoundment about third of a mile (0.5 km) long, Lekau Lake lies at an elevation of in a hollow of the hills. Leaving the lake, the North Branch twines its way a mile northwest, down to , and enters Clementon Lake in Clementon, long a recreational mecca for the region. A quarter mile (0.4 km) below the lake Trout Run enters from the east, and a half mile farther on, Gravelly Run. The North Branch then runs more to the west for a mile to Laurel Lake, a sinuous half-mile-long (0.8 km) impoundment which lies at an elevation of about . The North Branch continues its westerly course for three-quarters of a mile (1.2 km) below Laurel Lake, turning northward where Mason Run enters from the south. It turns to the westward again after another three-quarters of a mile, immediately after which it receives Signey Run from the north. The North Branch then tends northwestward, widening and slowing a mile along, and, turning west upon receiving Otter Branch from the north a half mile farther down, enters an impoundment at Chews Landing. This impoundment is a consequence of the constriction at the point about a third of a mile (0.5 km) down where the North Branch passes under the Black Horse Pike. The North Branch is now tidal and runs westward through wetlands another mile to its confluence with the South Branch.

Main stream

The main stream of Big Timber Creek begins in Glendora, just upstream from Clement's Bridge, at the confluence of the North and South branches. It meanders northwest for to empty into the Delaware River between Westville and Brooklawn. Over much of its length it is hemmed in by roads, old dumps, and fill. It opens out into wetlands here and there. The main stream is tidal throughout. The first mile (1.6 km) of the main stream is essentially a ditch between a housing development and a trash dump. Three-quarters of a mile (1.2 km) downstream from its head, the main stream receives from the north the waters of Hirsch Lake in Runnemede, a smallish impoundment fed by an unnamed stream. A quarter mile (0.4 km) on, the left bank recedes into wetlands, and Almonesson Creek enters on the left another quarter mile down. A further half mile (0.8 km) sees Beaver Brook enter on the right, and the stream narrows again as it passes under Route 42 and the

New Jersey Turnpike The New Jersey Turnpike (NJTP) is a system of controlled-access highways in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The turnpike is maintained by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority (NJTA).The Garden State Parkway, although maintained by NJTA, is not cons ...

. It remains confined for the next mile and a half (2.4 km), receiving Ladd's Branch on the left at one mile and flowing another half mile to pass under Route 295, shortly after which it opens out into three-quarters of a mile of wetlands crossed by navigable channels. The stream forms three channels here, the main one hugging the left bank by Westville. The rightmost channel flows through the borough of Bellmawr and has several small marinas and private docks located along its banks. The creek then flows another three-quarters of a mile under State Route 47, through Michael K. Galbraith Park in Westville, finally opening up into a shallow bay and flowing into the Delaware River.

The land

Geology

Big Timber Creek lies wholly within the

Atlantic Coastal Plain The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe a ...

Physiographic Province, specifically that portion known as the Inner Coastal Plain. The coastal plain is a wedge-shaped mass of

sediment Sediment is a naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of wind, water, or ice or by the force of gravity acting on the particles. For example, sand ...

s, mostly unconsolidated, lying upon

Precambrian The Precambrian (or Pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pꞒ, or Cryptozoic) is the earliest part of Earth's history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is so named because it preceded the Cambrian, the first period of th ...

basement rock In geology, basement and crystalline basement are crystalline rocks lying above the mantle and beneath all other rocks and sediments. They are sometimes exposed at the surface, but often they are buried under miles of rock and sediment. The baseme ...

. It extends from the

Fall Line A fall line (or fall zone) is the area where an upland region and a coastal plain meet and is typically prominent where rivers cross it, with resulting rapids or waterfalls. The uplands are relatively hard crystalline basement rock, and the coa ...

out onto the

continental shelf A continental shelf is a portion of a continent that is submerged under an area of relatively shallow water, known as a shelf sea. Much of these shelves were exposed by drops in sea level during glacial periods. The shelf surrounding an island ...

, thickening as it goes at the rate of 80 to 100 feet per mile (15–19 m/km). New Jersey's inner coastal plain is defined by a

cuesta A cuesta (from Spanish ''cuesta'' "slope") is a hill or ridge with a gentle slope on one side, and a steep slope on the other. In geology the term is more specifically applied to a ridge where a harder sedimentary rock overlies a softer laye ...

that runs through the coastal plain roughly northeast to southwest across the middle and southern parts of the state. This cuesta marks the transition between the underlying

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of ...

sediments toward the

Piedmont it, Piemontese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

and the more recent

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recen ...

sediments seaward and is itself Cretaceous in origin. In its southern reaches, where Big Timber Creek lies, it runs roughly parallel to the Delaware River at a distance of about and delineates the left edge of the Delaware River

watershed Watershed is a hydrological term, which has been adopted in other fields in a more or less figurative sense. It may refer to: Hydrology * Drainage divide, the line that separates neighbouring drainage basins * Drainage basin, called a "watershe ...

in southern New Jersey. The surficial

geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other Astronomical object, astronomical objects, the features or rock (geology), rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology ...

of the New Jersey inner coastal plain is among the most complex in the world. At least eight of the 14 or 15 sedimentary strata, or ''formations'', laid down since the Cretaceous period appear at the surface in the Big Timber Creek basin. Each formation is itself made up of many layers, some the result of irregular interglacial stream deposition. The situation is further complicated by the appearance of fragments of older formations at a shallower level than more recent ones, owing to cycles of

deposition Deposition may refer to: * Deposition (law), taking testimony outside of court * Deposition (politics), the removal of a person of authority from political power * Deposition (university), a widespread initiation ritual for new students practiced f ...

and

erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is d ...

; in fact, the so-called ''Bridgeton'' formation, the oldest, containing iron-indurated

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class ...

, forms the summits of the few prominences on the landscape. Generally speaking, the surface of the area is weathered Cretaceous coastal plain consisting of

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical f ...

sand, with patches where

gravel Gravel is a loose aggregation of rock fragments. Gravel occurs naturally throughout the world as a result of sedimentary and erosive geologic processes; it is also produced in large quantities commercially as crushed stone. Gravel is classifi ...

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay pa ...

are found.

Glauconite Glauconite is an iron potassium phyllosilicate ( mica group) mineral of characteristic green color which is very friable and has very low weathering resistance. It crystallizes with a monoclinic geometry. Its name is derived from the Gre ...

occurs in varying concentrations in the younger formations, and some

bog iron Bog iron is a form of impure iron deposit that develops in bogs or swamps by the chemical or biochemical oxidation Redox (reduction–oxidation, , ) is a type of chemical reaction in which the oxidation states of substrate change. O ...

is seen. There is no rock, though some iron-bearing sand has become concreted and rock-like.

Geography

Big Timber Creek dissects the inner coastal plain in the dendritic pattern characteristic of streams flowing over soft materials. It has been cutting down through sand, clay, and gravel since the retreat of the last of the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

marine inundations which deposited fresh layers of sediment. Big Timber Creek's

encompasses 63 square miles (163 km²), including Little Timber Creek, a small creek that shares its mouth. The sides of the basin are defined by the patchy remains of relatively erosion-resistant formations. Nowhere in its basin does the

relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...

exceed , and much lies below . What relief there is entirely due to erosion, mostly by Big Timber Creek and its

tributaries A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drain ...

. The terrain consists mainly of a jumble of the low, flattened ridges typical of mature sandy basins. The scattered prominences of 100 feet (30 m) or more, some quite steep, owe their existence to caps of iron-rich sand. A cuesta forms escarpments beyond the headwaters of the Creek and along some of its southerly tributaries. There is a small, marshy

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...

in the lower reaches.

References

External links

Big Timber Creek
at South Jersey Trails {{DEFAULTSORT:Big Timber Creek Rivers of Camden County, New Jersey Rivers of Gloucester County, New Jersey Tributaries of the Delaware River