Black Run: cranberry bogs become a public preserve

Bogs with names

The Friends of the Black Run Preserve describe this 1,300-acre tract as pine forest, wetlands, streams and former cranberry bogs. Their January 2026 trail map names Upper and Lower Schafer, Long, Buzby, Shanty, Crooked Dam, Lydia and Rebecca bogs. The names make an old production landscape legible on a present-day walk: dikes, basins and water crossings were part of managing a crop, even where wetland plants and wildlife now dominate the view. The Friends’ 2020 newsletter says the Evans and Wills families farmed cranberries here for more than a century, ending in 1965. That is the preserve stewards’ account; its exact farm chronology has not been checked against deeds or farm records.

A 2025 NJPineBarrens forum trip report draws attention to Lydia Bog and says two bogs were named for growers’ wives in the 1860s. The modern official trail map confirms the bog names, but does not establish the naming date or the family relationship. Those details remain an oral-history lead.

Making the preserve

Black Run’s public history is unusually well documented by the people who made it accessible. In 2004, Evesham environmental commissioner John Volpa proposed using township open space for passive recreation and education. The township’s 2006 agreement to buy 722 adjoining acres expanded that prospect. Public hikes, school visits and cleanups followed; a 2012 open-space plan recommended a Friends group, which organized in 2013. The Friends’ own chronology records these steps and the volunteers who removed discarded tires and established marked trails. The story of the preserve is therefore also a story of local decisions about access and care.

The headwaters beyond the trail

Conservation work continued upstream. A March 2026 announcement by New Jersey Conservation Foundation reported a binding sale agreement for another 835 acres at Black Run’s headwaters, with Evesham set to accept the land after acquisition. The tract feeds a tributary of the Rancocas Creek, so its protection concerns the water flowing through the older preserve as well as the land itself. As of this research check, an agreement to purchase is not a completed transfer or an invitation to enter that adjoining tract. Stay inside the existing preserve’s mapped public boundary.

Walk the landscape

Use the Friends’ directions to the Kettle Run Road East trailhead, near Braddock Mill Road, and take the current printable map. The map marks both Kettle Run Road and Bortons Road trailheads, the named bogs and the preserve line; the western side is foot travel only. For a short interpretive outing, the Friends’ family activity guide starts on the west side of Kettle Run Road and follows the Black Run Trail toward Lower Schafer Bog. The current map should govern any route choice because crossings and trail conditions can change.

The preserve’s home page says that when trailhead parking is full, visitors must return later; it bars overflow or street parking. An older recreation page describes shoulder parking, so follow the more restrictive current notice and posted signs. Keep to marked trails, leash dogs, and do not cut across bogs or enter the adjoining headwaters parcel.