Candace McKee Ashmun and the Pinelands Education Exhibit

A working plan, and a long-serving commissioner

In 1978, Congress created the Pinelands National Reserve, the first in the United States. New Jersey established the Pinelands Commission in 1979 to plan and oversee protection in a region that included forests, farms, towns and privately owned land. The commission’s account of the Comprehensive Management Plan describes the central problem: how to steer development while safeguarding water, habitat and cultural places. That plan emerged from studies of the region and interviews with residents, not from treating the Pine Barrens as empty land.

Candace McKee Ashmun joined the commission at its start in 1979 after Governor Brendan Byrne asked her to serve. She remained a volunteer commissioner for more than four decades, becoming its longest-serving member. The commission’s 2020 remembrance credits her knowledge of the Pinelands Protection Act and earlier commission decisions with helping the agency carry out and strengthen the plan. Her name also appears on the original 1980 Comprehensive Management Plan. The exhibit recognizes that sustained, often unglamorous planning work.

What the exhibit makes visible

In December 2018, the commission voted to dedicate its new exhibit to Ashmun. It opened to the public in January 2019 inside the Richard J. Sullivan Center, on the historic Fenwick Manor farmstead. The commission’s exhibit guide describes more than 400 square feet of displays, a 90-gallon aquarium with native fish, a terrarium of live carnivorous plants, and Pinelands artifacts. Its stated purpose is to help visitors understand the region’s natural, cultural and historical resources before going out to explore it. The fish and plants make an immediate point: protecting the Pines involves living water and habitats as well as historic buildings and stories.

The center itself opened in 2001 and hosts commission meetings and public events. Its name honors Richard J. Sullivan, who chaired the commission from 1988 to 1998 and helped write the management plan. The building therefore holds two generations of the region’s conservation history, alongside a present-day visitor stop. Pinelands Commission, Sullivan Center background.

Plan the visit

Use the commission’s published destination, 15 Springfield Road, New Lisbon, for the Richard J. Sullivan Center and its public exhibit. The commission lists hours as Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., except state holidays. Groups of more than ten are asked to arrange a visit with the Public Programs office. Check the current exhibit page and the commission’s written driving directions before leaving; this is an indoor stop with office hours, not an always-open trailhead. The map point marks the commission building footprint approximately, not a verified parking space or door.