Ong's Hat: Fact or Fiction?

Dear Road Warriors:

    What better place to begin following Beck around South Jersey than to head to the same town where the legacy of Forgotten Towns started?  The town that started a newspaper reporter off on a quest that would later spawn a piece of cultural history has a classic South Jersey name.  What makes a classic South Jersey name, you ask?  It has to be either:  (1) named after someone [Hammonton, Pemberton Township], (2) named something natural [Cherry Hill, Mount Laurel], (3) or has a name that describes a key physical feature of the town [Bridgeton, Millville].  Today we're looking at "Ong' Hat, N.J."

A journey of a thousand miles...

     Beck's journey into the forgotten towns that fill our state began with a simple question: "Who would name a town 'Ong's Hat'?"  Setting out to write an article for his Camden newspaper Beck took off to locate the small town and interview its inhabitants.  With the founders, long since dead, no one knew the entire story of the town's origin.  Many versions of the same story are told, but which one is accurate remains a mystery.  Beck had the benefit of speaking with citizens of Ong's Hat--people no longer alive for us to speak to, unfortunately.  Citizens of Ong's hat have vanished along with the town--now nothing more than a ramshackle shed and a name on a sign.  Though Ong's Hat was found on a map in 2006, finding it at all these days can be tricky.  Mapquest will get you close using Route 206, as you get off at Southhampton Township, N.J, but the town is easy to miss!

Where'd everybody go?

     Though Ong' Hat has faded into the past the history remains alive through Beck's words and the historical accounts read and re-read by students each year. Through talking with the locals Beck records the following story as the origin of the town's name.

    One of the original settlers, Jacob Ong, was known for his silk hats, a common site in town which was a bit of a party town (dances and bootlegging were two fixtures in the town).  One man, the attention Jacob Ong was getting from the ladies, grabbed the silk hat he was wearing and stomped on it.  Frustrated, Ong flung his hat on a high branch of a tree, where it remained for years.  Later Beck would state that further research indicated that the town's name was a misprinting of the phrase "Ong's Hut" and that the town was really a stop over for a farmer travelling from Little Egg Harbor.

Forgotten towns 2.0

     Reading Beck's account of Ong's Hat, NJ made me wonder if there a modern day example of Ong's Hat here in 21st century Southern New Jersey.  The point of Beck's book is that a once prominent or busy town has  fallen on hard times and all but vanished from sight.  Considering the economy, the shifting of industry from here to overseas, it's conceivable that at least one town (most likely more) would have fallen on hard times.  How does this town comparre to those in Beck's book?  What towns would Beck, if he were writing this book today, include?  I encourage you, Weekend Road Warriors, to go out and find Ong's Hat, and to follow Beck as we see where he might head nowadays.

Next Post:  Weekstown—hidden among the Pines