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GHPCC-Big Timber Creek Traditional Geocache

Difficulty:
2 out of 5
Terrain:
2.5 out of 5

Size: Size:   small (small)

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Geocache Description:

This is one of the series of caches placed throughout Camden County to bring awareness to historical locations or historical events.

Big Timber Creek is also known by the name 'Tetamekanchz Kyl' by the Lenape tribes. It comprises about 25 miles of stream and is a tributary of the Delaware River.

Pre-Columbian Big Timber Creek was home to numerous villages of the Lenni Lenape. In Colonial times, the creek was a commercial waterway, and it powered a multitude of mills up through the 1950s. In the second half of 20th century it suffered the ill effects of the rapid post–World War II development that plagued many of America's waterways. As of 2007, it had recovered somewhat thanks to pollution controls and improvements in sewage treatment.

First named 'Tetamekanchz' by the local Lenape tribe, with the North Branch named Tetamekanchz, the Chew's Landing section named Arwames, Beaver Branch is called Tekoke, and Little Timber Creek is named Sassackon. The earliest recorded use of the current name is by an early Dutch explorer, David P. DeVries, who refers to a Timmer Kill, "Timber Creek" in Dutch, in his memoirs of his journey of 1630–1633, after the construction of Fort Nassau at its mouth. This name became anglicized when the Quakers arrived. In 1697, the West Jersey Proprietors, in creating the town of Gloucester, decreed that the name be the "Gloucester River", and although that name did appear in documents for several years, it faded away. A much smaller creek lying to the north, Little Timber Creek, finds the Delaware at the same place as its larger namesake. To differentiate between the two, the latter came to be known as "Great Timber Creek", which soon became "Big Timber Creek." Even so, at the end of the 20th century it was still usually referred to in speech as simply "Timber Creek."

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Pnpur vf va n gnyy gerr naq abg ba gur tebhaq bireybbxvat gur jngre. Cyrnfr or pnershy nf gur uvyy vf fgrrc naq fyvccrel jura jrg.

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)