Washington
The pinelands municipality of Washington Township was made from part of Little Egg Harbor Township in 1802. (Little Egg, incorporated in 1739, was one of the original municipalities of Burlington County. It was given to Ocean County in 1891.)
The first families moved into the Washington Township area in 1770. The early families carved farms out of the pinelands. There were no more than 20 families in the area by 1790.
The village of Batsto was founded in 1776 on the Atsion River. It was a company town, and at one time had as many as 1,000 workers in the iron industry. Fire destroyed most of Batsto in 1874. Joseph Wharton acquired the land in 1876.
Wharton bought nearly 100,000 acres of pinelands by 1890, and planned to take the area's pure water, via canals, to a Camden reservoir, then under the Delaware River to Philadelphia, according to John McPhee, in his book "The Pine Barrens." An act of the New Jersey Legislature stopped his plan.
By 1955 the state had acquired much of his land, which is now Wharton State Forest. Much of Washington Township was once focused on the bog iron industry, but after the 1830s, the ore beds were little used.
John H. Rapp opened a glass factory in Green Bank in 1869, but it was open only a few months. By 1882, shipbuilding was the area's chief industry. In 1882, when Major E. M. Woodward and John F. Hageman were writing their "History of Burlington and Mercer Counties, New Jersey," Green Bank held a store, post office, schoolhouse, hotel, gristmill, blacksmith, carpenter shop and 100 homes.
William Sooy was the merchant, and the post office was in his shop. The Herman City Hotel (bearing an old name for Green Bank) was run by Augustus E. Kaster. Charles Bowne was the justice of the peace.
Washington Township at that time was shaped somewhat different from now. Part of the current Washington Township, including Lower Bank, belonged to Randolph Township, which no longer exists. Lower Bank was a thriving community by 1800.