For a hundred and fifty
years the horse's back was the best form of conveyance in the
deep sand of the trails and roads. This was true of all southern
Jersey. Pack horses and the backs of Indian and negro slaves were
the principal means of transportation on land. The roads and
trails, in fact, were so few and so heavy with sand that water
travel was very much developed. The Indian dugout canoe was
adopted and found faster and better than heavy English rowboats.
As the province was almost surrounded by water and was covered
with a network of creeks and channels, nearly all the villages
and towns were situated on tidewater streams, and the dugout
canoe, modified and improved, was for several generations the
principal means of communication. Most of the old roads in New
Jersey followed Indian trails. There was a trail, for example,
from the modern Camden opposite Philadelphia, following up
Cooper's Creek past Berlin, then called Long-a-coming, crossing
the watershed, and then following Great Egg Harbor River to the
seashore.
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