As a lover of maps, I’ve often be intrigued by the envi­rons  of the Delaware Riv­er. As the tides go up and down, the time­less­ness of the riv­er becomes a kind of gen­tle solace to the indus­tri­al­iza­tion along its banks. Nowhere is this more appar­ent than on the islands which some­how remain in its course. I’ve camped at Pea Patch Island down by Delaware and found a sur­pris­ing fam­i­ly con­nec­tion in its con­vo­lut­ed own­er­ship. But clos­er to my com­mute is Pet­ty Island, sit­ting along­side the New Jer­sey main­land a short dis­tance north of the Ben Franklin Bridge.

Pet­ty Island is owned by the Cit­go oil com­pa­ny and until just a few months ago was still dot­ted with its oil tanks and a large marine car­go facil­i­ty. Satel­lite views still show this twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry indus­try. But in a very long and oftentimes-uncertain process it’s due to become part of New Jer­sey nat­ur­al lands and even­tu­al­ly to become a pre­serve. The pub­lic is gen­er­al­ly still not allowed on the island but there are occa­sion­al trips and on this past Sat­ur­day I got to tour the island.

The fad­ed sign at the guard booth to the bridge onto the island 

The island was full of heavy truck traf­fic until quite recently. 

The north end has a lot of wind-swept fields 

Chris­tine Whor­ton of NJ Audobon and his­to­ri­an Bob Shinn led the tour. 

The island has had a num­ber of names over the last three-plus cen­turies. Even now there does­n’t seem to be a con­sis­ten­cy around use of apostrophe-s’s after the name. The guard shack and wel­come sign call it “Pet­ty’s Island” but Bob assured us it should be “Pet­ty Island.” 

We were very lucky to have Bob Shinn as our tour guide. He’s a walk­ing ency­clo­pe­dia of the island and the state geopol­i­tics and waves of names and com­mer­cial uses it’s been through. He lit­er­al­ly wrote the entry on Pet­ty Island in the Philadel­phia Ency­clo­pe­dia. Not sur­pris­ing­ly there’s a lot of Quak­ers in the ear­ly record­ed his­to­ry and the deed between the first Quak­er own­er and three Lenape rep­re­sen­ta­tives is intact in the Haver­ford Col­lege col­lec­tions (this deed was also a major part of a talk by Lenape – set­tler his­to­ry giv­en by Jean Soder­lund a few months ago at Ran­co­cas Meet­ing (see also her book Lenape Coun­try)).

The ever-changing, never-settled his­to­ry of the island con­tin­ues with its name. Wikipedia, Google Maps, and — most impor­tant­ly — Bob Shinn call it “Pet­ty Island,” while the guard shack, wel­come sign, NJ Audubon Soci­ety, and New Jer­sey Nat­ur­al Lands Trust adds the pos­ses­sive to make it “Pet­ty’s Island.” The lat­ter is espe­cial­ly awkward-sounding to my ears, as South Jer­sey place names char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly drop the apos­tro­phes over time (for exam­ple, the riv­er land­ing named after Cap­tain George May is now the town of “Mays Landing.”)

Pret­ty, tidal wet­lands along the back chan­nel of the Delaware. 

You can see why devel­op­ers want­ed to get their hands on this island and its views. 

A tidal riv­er mak­ing waves. 

My son Fran­cis was on the tour too and seemed to like it. 

Bob Shinn at the bot­tom of one of the old dredg­ing berms. Behind these the Army Corps of Engi­neers poured slur­ry tak­en from the main chan­nel of the river. 

Pret­ty mas­sive drain pipes from the slur­ry pools. 

Rem­nants of the indus­tri­al­iza­tion remain: the mas­sive three-story load­ing facil­i­ty has been kept to become the bones of a future vis­i­tors cen­ter; the adja­cent asphalt park­ing area has just been replant­ed as a mead­ow and is most­ly a lot of rocks and short blades of grass (with some Fowler’s toads!). We were lucky enough to be the first pub­lic group to be there since this had all been cleared away.

Walk­ing across the for­mer marine terminal. 

Barges were loaded three sto­ries high with car­go con­tain­ers via this structure. 

This struc­ture is solid. 

Even­tu­al­ly this will be part of a vis­i­tors center. 

A friend­ly Fowler’s toad inhab­its the new meadow. 

This was a park­ing lot at the begin­ning of the year. 

Google Maps still shows this as an indus­tri­al zone. 

Bonus: I did­n’t real­ize till we were about to get in our cars that South Jer­sey Trails was also on the tour. He wrote it up too! If you look care­ful­ly, I’m in the back­ground of one of the shots, and now that I’m look­ing I think that’s him in some of mine.