She explores the history of a Pinelands settlement

Barbara Solem wrote the book she wanted to read about the pioneering South Jersey settlement where industry made history.

Batsto Village: Jewel of the Pines (Plexus Publishing) is the author's lively chronicle of an unusual company town, later a gentleman's farm and, more recently, a visitor destination, in Wharton State Forest.

While a number of local histories include chapters about Batsto, Solem's is the first commercially published, book-length treatment of a subject that has long fascinated her.

"I love research. It's like going on a mystery tour," says the author, 67, who grew up in and around West Deptford and since 1996 has lived in Shamong.

The retired educator and grandmother of three fell in love with the Pinelands when she began hiking and kayaking there about 25 years ago. Her two previous nonfiction books are about the Pinelands, and both also were published by Plexus, which has offices in Medford.

"I wanted to learn more about the people who lived in Batsto," Solem says. "I wanted to learn about what happened. That curiosity is what really spurred this whole journey."

The author tells a tale of sawmilling, iron-forging, and glassmaking along the Mullica and Batsto Rivers, introducing readers to the entrepreneurs, patriots, and privateers who made fortunes and helped win a nation's independence. Batsto is an American story - and a New Jersey story, too.

"When people think of the Pines, they think of nature, and when they visit Batsto today, it's very bucolic," she notes. "But this was a heavy industrial area. The industries were here in order to be near water, bog iron ore, and pine trees."

Solem used the New Jersey State Archives in Trenton; publications by the Batsto Citizens Committee; and a trove of documents in the personal collection of Batsto historical archaeologist Budd Wilson of Green Bank, to whom she dedicates the book.

"There were 17 blast furnaces in the Pines, and it took 1,000 acres of pine woods to keep a single furnace operating for a year," says Solem. "There would have been no trees. It would have looked a lot different."

The Batsto Ironworks made munitions for the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. Privateers sanctioned by the colonial government preyed upon British merchant ships in waters of what is now known as the Mullica River.

"They captured 22 ships and half a million dollars in cargo," Solem says. "The owners of Batsto were involved in this trade and became very wealthy."

Shifting fortunes and moneymaking schemes - sugar-beet farming was one such effort - seem to have been a defining feature of Batsto's early history.

Glassmaking became dominant in the early 19th century, and by 1850, at least 400 people were listed as renting homes in Batsto Village, according to records Solem examined.

Joseph Wharton purchased the property in 1876, and New Jersey bought it in the mid-1950s. The mansion and other buildings have been restored, and present-day Batsto looks great - particularly in the photographs by Albert D. Horner, who made the book's images.

Horner, 68, a Medford Lakes resident, usually focuses on the Pinelands landscape. But many of the book's photographs feature interiors of Batsto buildings, including its signature mansion, a portion of which dates back to the 1770s.

"It was a little bit challenging, doing really long exposures in the interior of the mansion," Horner says, "but I'm very pleased."

So is Solem, who sold 115 copies in less than an hour at a book-launch party Sunday at Batsto.

"I love the village," she says, adding that she hopes the book will encourage other people to fall in love with it, too.