Forget what you learned in third-grade geography. The maps of New Jersey you’ve been looking at are most likely wrong.
Have you ever looked closely at a map of the Garden State? Like, really closely?
There’s our nice straight-line border with New York State to the north, the Delaware River separating us from our Pennsylvania neighbors to the west. There’s the barrier islands along the Jersey Shore to the east and of course, the tip of Cape May down south.
But what you probably haven’t noticed is a chunk of land in our southwestern corner. Nope, not the marshes of Salem County. Just past that. It’s actually our state's surprising land neighbor, Delaware.
That’s right. There’s a swath of land that spans about two miles tucked away next to Pennsville that actually isn’t ours.
The Land in question
Delaware and New Jersey share the Delaware River and Delaware Bay, with travelers utilizing the Delaware Memorial Bridge and the Cape May-Lewes Ferry to get around. However, the two states share two land borders. In Pennsville, near Fort Mott, a section of land that is mainly marsh area, approximately 1.7 miles in length and 0.6 miles wide is owned by Delaware.
The First State also lays claim to another piece of land, this time on Artificial Island, less than two miles away from the near the Salem Nuclear Power Plant.
Why does Delaware own the land?
To see why this all started, you have to go all the way back to William Penn and the former king of England, King Charles II. According to the Delaware Geological Survey, the two men made an agreement to draw a 12-mile circle around New Castle as the border for the Delaware colony. The circle extended beyond the middle of the Delaware River, right up to the low tide line of Jersey's shore.
In the first part of the 20th century, dredge spoils from the river, dug up by United States Army Corps of Engineers were deposited along the coast in a site known as Killcohook, said Ed Voigt, Corps spokesman.
“At first, the land was New Jersey, and the water belonged to Delaware,” Voigt said. “Then, over time ... because of the boundary quirk and land fill process, and some of the dredging, part of the Killcohook site is now in Delaware.”
Border issues
New Jersey has fought for the land three times and argued about having autonomy over it. The three disputes were all handled by the Supreme Court and each time, New Jersey lost.
Most recently, in 2008, the argument was over New Jersey’s plans to have British Petroleum build a pipeline and the only two justices to side with New Jersey were Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito Jr., who were born in the state.
At the time, some South Jersey legislators threatened economic sanctions against Delaware and jokingly said they’d bring the Battleship New Jersey down. The Delaware House of Representatives responded by drafting a bill symbolically calling up the National Guard to defend the land and “the state’s interests.”
Thankfully, neither side followed through on the gestures, although it would have been interesting to see who would have won the battle.
Because of the weird border — and now wall — the local police have had their own border patrol issues.
The Baltimore Sun reported on the trouble the border gave when it came to the death of a hunter on the marsh land in 1987. At the time, Pennsville Police could not go onto the land, then known as the Baja, because of the border and the road leading to the land was unpaved. The article also chronicled other activities that had occurred, including people abandoning cars, trespassers using four-wheelers, people using the area to drink and do drugs, and hunters seeking animals out of season.
In November 1987, a 45-year-old hunter's body was found 10-feet inside the Delaware border. Because it was out of their jurisdiction, Pennsville Police had to contact the Delaware State Police, who took an hour to get over to the scene, they told the Sun at the time. In 1989, Delaware gave permission to Pennsville to enforce the township laws in the area, but Delaware still owns the land.
Is it even worth it?
“We are not impacted too greatly,” said Pennsville Mayor Robert McDade. “It becomes confusing periodically when there are problems up there trying to figure out what's Pennsville's obligation versus Delaware.”
McDade says the most common issue is if someone jumps from the Delaware Memorial Bridge and the body washes ashore on Delaware’s chunk of land. The mayor says the township has to contact Delaware and the state comes over to take over the process.
McDade added the Army Corps of Engineers blocked off most of the points of entry and had seen a dramatic decrease in the amount of four wheelers going in that direction.
“We get them when they come down off the property. We take care of them pretty quickly,” stated McDade.
So, should New Jersey take back the land? McDade doubts it will happen.
“I doubt it, and I do not know that we would really want it,” the Pennsville mayor said. “They have been pumping material in there for years. I don't know that the township would want to take ownership of that material.”
Fort Mott in Salem County is seen in this South Jersey Times file photo. The land owned by Delaware is to the left.
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Chris Franklin can be reached at cfranklin@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @cfranklinnews or on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips
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