No Cranberry Harvest At Double Trouble State Park In Berkeley This Year

by Patricia A. Miller

Anyone looking forward to “Red October” this year at Double Trouble State Park will be disappointed.

Once again, the state Department of Environmental Protection has been unable to secure any takes for a special agricultural use permit to harvest cranberries in the 100-year-old bogs in the state park, DEP spokesperson Bob Considine said.

The DEP had been hoping that Deptford-based Honest Berries would step up again to maintain and harvest the Double Trouble bogs. But that didn’t happen this year, he said.

“Honest Berries did not renew its Special Use Permit for 2014,” Considine said. ”We did not have another potential permittee or lease holder come forward, so no harvesting will be taking place this year.

Honest Berries conducted a limited harvest in 2012, but the harvest was cut short when Superstorm Sandy roared into Ocean County on Oct. 29, 2012. Honest Berries decided not to go ahead with the 2013 harvest because of poor weather that affected crop yield throughout the Northeast.

The Leni-Lenape Indians were the first to harvest cranberries in the park. But the Double Trouble cranberry industry began to flourish at the beginning of the 20th century.

Edward Crabbe of Toms River bought the Double Trouble tract in 1904 and formed the Double Trouble Company. His primary goal was to cut lumber for his sawmill company.

But he pulled out the tree stumps in some areas and used the acreage as cranberry bogs, according to “When Cranberries Were King,” a book published by the Ocean County Historical Society.

The Double Trouble Company soon became one of the largest cranberry operations in the state.

“Double Trouble Village was typical of company towns built in the Pine Barrens,” according to the DEP’s website. “These isolated communities were entirely self-sufficient and totally dependent on the success of the particular industry.”

The Crabbe family sold the Double Trouble tract to the state’s Green Acres program in 1964, but leased back 125 acres and the outbuildings to continue his cranberry business.

Since then, the bogs had been harvested by various second-generation cranberry farmers. But the last longtime leaseholders decided to retire in 2010, according to the DEP.

The cranberry bogs and a number of outbuildings at the park make up about 200 acres of the roughly 8,400-acre park. They are part of the Double Trouble Historic District, which was placed on the State Register of Historic Places in 1977 and on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.