Last month I had an engagement requiring my driving to Philadelphia, and on the way home I took a detour off the New Jersey Turnpike to revisit the first (but not only) place named after a family member, Ong's Hat, located on the western edge of the Pine Barrens of central New Jersey. If you're looking for it yourself, you can enter 794 Magnolia Road, Southampton Township, NJ 08088 into your navigation and you're on your way!
Ong's Hat is described in its Wikipedia entry as a ghost town, which is not strictly speaking true since there are about four or five houses there, as evidenced by the mailboxes at the end of short dirt road angling off of Magnolia Road which is Ong's Hat's principal - and only - street.
There are a couple of abandoned commercial buildings on the main road. The larger one was once a restaurant, and was called "Ong's Hat Tavern" when I first discovered the hamlet in the 1980's. (My wife and I ate there and bought a tee-shirt emblazoned with "Let's Go To The Hat" together with a picture of a dancing/smiling top hat.)
The historical origins of Ong's Hat are obscure and debated. The place name is certainly found on various 18th century New Jersey maps, and the Ong family did live in this county starting in the late 17th century. This exchange from the New York Times on June 30, 1968 illustrates the two extremes of the story:
To The Editor:
In his review (May 12) of "The Pine Barrens" by John McPhee, Earl Schenck Miers repeats an old and erroneous fable. As a member of the Ong family I would like to say that the town of Ong's Hat is a misnomer. The Ongs were Quakers and settled in Little Egg Harbor, Burlington County, N.J., early in the 17th century. They were down at the shore and had to take their grain up to Burlington to be ground by bagging it and slinging the bags over the backs of their horses. Half way to Burlington they stopped overnight to break the journey and built a small shelter at what is now Ong's Hat but was actually Ong's Hut.
Ross K. Cook
East Orange, N.J.
Mr. Miers replies:
According to the late Fr. Henry Charlton Beck, whose "Forgotten Towns of Southern New Jersey" was first published by E.P Dutton in 1936 and reissued by the Rutgers University Press in 1961, the legend of Ong's Hat was well founded. Indeed, it was a shining topper that the maid trampled and flung into a tree, if Father Beck can be trusted, which gave notoriety to the tale. Otherwise, Ong's Hat was known for its secret prize fights and the murder of a Polish woman, whose skull sat for years in the office of the sheriff of Burlington County to remind him that he had not solved this murder. When Father Beck found the Ongs, most of them lived near Tuckerton, and were probably carried there by the mosquitoes that infest the country around Little Egg Harbor.
Mr. Cook was the foremost Ong genealogist of his generation, so I tend to believe his version which I know fits with the facts. But Ong's Hat has been long associated with myths, legends and mystery, and in addition to the many variations of Jacob Ong's hat somehow being stuck in a tree, the small settlement has also inspired various works of contemporary fiction. There is even a small sub-industry of space- and time-travel stories based in Ong's Hat on the internet.
So while there is not much to see or do in the actual Ong's Hat, the virtual Ong's Hat is vast and full of opportunities for discovery. You can start exploring the weird and wonderful on-line world of Ong's Hat yourself through these links:
From Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ong's_Hat,_New_Jersey
Also from Wikipedia, but about the Ong's Hat internet conspiracy stories:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ong's_Hat
From NJPineBarrens.com:
http://www.njpinebarrens.com/a-hat-a-hut-or-a-tavern-the-tale-of-ongs-hat/
From Weird NJ website:
http://weirdnj.com/stories/ongs-hat/
From Hidden NJ website:
http://www.hiddennj.com/2011/05/traveling-into-vortex-of-ongs-hat.html
There is even an Ong's Hat Band:
http://www.ongshatmusic.com/
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