Belleplain, NJ

Belleplain is a Dennis Township community in Cape May County where the old road across the Great Cedar Swamp meets a railroad-and-mill story. The Belleplain depot brought settlers along the West Jersey and Seashore Railroad, and the village was named by railroad superintendent Jeremiah Van Rensselaer for Annabelle Townsend Lee. Earlier work included Hand's Mill, cranberry-bog ice houses, hickory-cane making, gravel and mining, and brickmaking from local clay. The village's history is written in practical trades, with the railroad moving people and material through the pine country.

Belleplain State Forest now supplies the area's biggest landmark: more than 21,000 acres of pine, oak, and Atlantic white cedar across Cape May and Cumberland counties. During the Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps turned a cranberry bog into Lake Nummy, which remains a center for swimming, canoeing, picnicking, and trail access. The Dennis Township Museum keeps the village side of the story in photographs of the depot, school, firehouse, mills, and CCC camp, while a 100-foot fire tower still watches the forest. Belleplain's local clue is the overlap between an old rail village and a state forest built around water, trees, and work.