Our History
We love Johnsonburg, New Jersey for so many reasons—not the least of which is it’s place in history. It originated as an important stagecoach stop, but when mail routes from the east to the west (Dover, NJ to Stroudsburg, PA) crossed at right angles with routes from the north to the south (Albany, NY to Philadelphia), a post office and tavern were built and a community was born. In 1753, that community became known as ‘Logg Gaol’ (log jail), after the first county jail was built. A grist mill, general store, and taverns followed connecting a once remote and rural region to the world. Logg Gaol was open and ready for business. Taverns became vital to the growing community, not only as places to meet for food, drink, and entertainment, but as a place for political meetings, caucuses, and even elections.
The Johnsonburg Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.
One of northwestern New Jersey's oldest communities, the village exemplifies the small agglomerate settlements that proliferated throughout the region in the 18th and 19th centuries to serve its dispersed agricultural population…The village possesses commercial significance because of its surviving general stores and hotel, physical documents of the important economic and social roles of such establishments in an isolated agricultural neighborhood.
The seat of newly formed Sussex County in the 1750s and the site of two taverns and a grist mill as well as of the first county jail, Johnsonburg (originally known as "Log Gaol" after the crude prison erected by the county in 1754) was one of the region's earliest settlements.
—From the National Register of Historic Places
The Old Pig Drover
The Old Pig Drover was an exceptionally curious character from mid 1800s whose job it was to herd pigs from Sussex County to Newark—or so everyone believed…
No one seemed to know whence he came or where he belonged.
He went by the name of “The Old Pig Drover of Logg Gaol”….and he was thought by farmers to possess a kind of witchery in his mode of driving pigs.
—from The Old Pig Drover of Logg Gaol by WH Vail
Logg Gaol became a usual stop on his journey and later the center of his pig droving operations. While in town, he’d hold these storytelling soirees from the balcony of the Logg Gaol Tavern, where he would tell lavish and fantastic tales about life in the South. His storytelling would consistently pack the house and people came from miles around to be entertained by this now local celebrity described as “burly in appearance, laughter loving, and in high degree had the gift of inciting others to laugh”.
There was more to the story behind this storyteller, however. It turns out the pig herding raconteur who slept in the fields with his pigs was actually a wealthy southern gentleman named Samuel Fulton who had lost his fortune after the War of 1812. Distraught, embarrassed, and heartbroken, Fulton left his family and Tennessee home with the hope of recovering his fortune. Instead he found work on farms and eventually adopted the persona of the Old Pig Drover. His local fame brought him to the attention of some suspicious members of polite society who believed, “That man is not what he pretends to be. He has a history.” They wrote to friends in the South to confirm his former identity and Fulton never really did those storytelling gigs again.
Since he’d been gone for years, his wife and son thought him dead until one day his son, who never gave up hope, found him working on one of the Blair Farms. He brought his father back home to Tennessee where he lived out the rest of his life with his family.
For a detailed account of Fulton’s story, download, The Old Pig Drover of Logg Gaol by WH Vail.
The WHite Pilgrim
Joseph Thomas was born in Ohio and became a traveling preacher at very young age. He visited hundreds of cities and gained national notoriety partly because of his preaching but mostly because he dressed head-to-toe in all white and rode a white horse. Legend says he did this as way to ward off evil spirits.
From Weird NJ.com:
Part of why the White Pilgrim’s legend grew so quickly was because he died shortly after his first New Jersey sermon was delivered. A wave of smallpox was sweeping through the area, and the White Pilgrim succumbed to it in Johnsonburg. When he died, church officials (never too fond of Thomas’s over zealous piety in the first place) decided that his contaminated corpse should not be interred alongside the upstanding, Christian, non-contaminated deceased citizens of the area. He was buried not in the town’s official Christian Cemetery, but in the far less respectable Dark of the Moon Cemetery, located on Johnsonburg Road, near the Dark of the Moon Tavern.
According to local legend, this is the reason the White Pilgrim still haunts the area. Enraged that after a life of religious devotion he was denied his proper Christian burial, the White Pilgrim’s ghost would often be seen on his white horse, with his white saddle and all, frightening and tormenting local residents. Eleven years after his death, in 1846, a conference of town elders decided to reinter his remains in the Christian Cemetery, and the townsfolk came together and contributed $125 for the monument which stands there today. Interestingly, his memorial sits in the center of the graveyard, yet it is yards away from any other plot. Regardless of this apparent quarantine, locals say that since his reinterment, the White Pilgrim’s ghost has been seen far less frequently.
HYmnals
As the legend of the White Pilgrim grew, hymns were written about his life, his preaching, his travels, and his grave. The original lyrics from The Old Baptist Hymn Book, by late nineteenth century writer John P. Ellis, were later edited to the lyrics below by Isaiah Reid and George L. Brown for the Highway Hymnal.
And Then Came Bob Dylan
In his 1993 Album, World Gone Wrong, Bob Dylan recorded a version of this hymn and the legend was reintroduced as ‘The Lone Pilgrim’.
I came to the place where the lone pilgrim lay,
And patiently stood by his tomb,
When in a low whisper I heard something say:
How sweetly I sleep here alone.
The tempest may howl and the loud thunder roar
And gathering storms may arise,
But calm is my feeling, at rest is my soul,
The tears are all wiped from my eyes.
The call of my master compelled me from home,
No kindred or relative nigh.
I met the contagion and sank to the tomb,
My soul flew to mansions on high.
Go tell my companion and children most dear
To weep not for me now I'm gone.
The same hand that led me through scenes most severe
Has kindly assisted me home.