Parvin State Park

This land is part of the ancestral homeland of the Lenape people, who fished, hunted, and traveled the streams of what is now southern New Jersey for thousands of years. Their descendants remain a living presence in the state today, among them the state-recognized Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape community centered in nearby Bridgeton and Cumberland County.

The lakes here are not natural in the way they look. Muddy Run was dammed generations ago to power a sawmill and a gristmill, and the ponds that backed up behind those dams became Parvin and Thundergust lakes. The park takes its name from the Parvin family, early landowners whose mill stood on the stream. By the early twentieth century the state had begun assembling the property into public land.

The park you walk through today was largely built during the Great Depression. Beginning in the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration cleared and graded trails, built the beach and bathhouse area, and raised a group of rustic cabins in the pines, several of which still serve visitors. Their handiwork gave Parvin the settled, cared-for feel it keeps to this day.

Parvin's strangest chapter came in the years around World War II. In 1934 part of the park served briefly as a camp for young men in federal work programs. During the war years the cabins housed families of Japanese descent relocated from the West Coast, and later German prisoners of war were held and put to work in the area's farms and canneries. For a short time this small, out-of-the-way forest in South Jersey sat at the edge of some of the largest events of the century.

Parvin sits right where the sandy, acidic soils of the Pine Barrens meet the richer farmland of Salem County, and that gives it an unusual mix of forest. Pitch pine, oak, and holly of the Barrens grow alongside sweetgum, red maple, and other hardwoods, with a dense understory of mountain laurel and blueberry. The result is more varied and shady than the open pine forest deeper in the Barrens.

The lake's tea-brown color surprises first-time visitors, but it is entirely natural. Water draining through cedar swamps and pine forest picks up tannins from the plants, staining it the color of weak tea. This cedar water is clean and acidic, and it is one of the defining traits of the whole Pine Barrens region, home to plants and creatures found in few other places.

Beneath the sandy surface lies one of the reasons this region matters far beyond the park: the Kirkwood-Cohansey aquifer, a vast body of pure water held in the sands under the Pine Barrens. The streams and cedar swamps you see at Parvin are the surface expression of that enormous underground reservoir.

The lakes and swamps make Parvin a strong spot for birds. Herons and egrets stalk the shallows, wood ducks nest in the flooded timber, and warblers move through the canopy in spring. Ospreys and, at times, bald eagles hunt over the open water, and the woods hold woodpeckers, owls, and the small songbirds of the mixed forest.

Along the water's edge and in the cedar swamp, watch for turtles hauled out on logs, frogs, and the occasional black rat snake or northern water snake, all harmless and part of the wetland's web. White-tailed deer, red fox, and gray squirrels move through the woods, and beaver and muskrat leave their sign along the quieter channels.

The signature bloom is mountain laurel, whose pink-and-white flowers light up the understory in early summer and draw walkers who plan their visit around it. In autumn the hardwoods turn, layering red and gold over the evergreen pines and hollies, and the trails empty out into some of the year's best walking.

Spring wakes the park up, with wildflowers, migrating birds, and the fresh green of new leaves over the dark water. It is a fine time for the trails before the summer insects arrive, though the ground can be soft after rain.

Summer is the busy season, centered on the swimming beach and the cool of the lake. The forest is deep green and shady, mosquitoes are out in force in the low wet ground, and the water is at its most inviting.

Fall is many people's favorite, when the hardwoods color up against the pines, the crowds thin, and the cooler air makes for easy walking and paddling. The light through the mixed forest is especially good.

Winter is quiet and stark, the lake sometimes edged with ice and the bare hardwoods opening up views you cannot see the rest of the year. It is a peaceful time to walk the trails, with the evergreens holding their color against the gray.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.