The Naming of
Waretown
Written to encourage
students to research how their own towns were named)
There was a time when Waretown
didn't even have a name,
but that was long before the Quaker Baptists came.
The Rogerines - their sect was called - stayed here eleven years.
The native people persevered their scoffings and their jeers.
They held their meetings in the school; that was all well and
good.
It's the way they worshipped that amused folks in the
neighborhood -
for the women at their meetings would always knit or sew,
and the menfolk whittled wooden handles for their axe or hoe.
They had peculiar customs; and it's said that, openly,
they would contradict the preacher on the points they didn't
agree.
Persecuted in Rhode Island for disturbances they made,
they moved down to New Jersey, found asylum, so they stayed.
They came here from Schooley's Mountain, then, they shifted back
to there,
but some of their number stayed on - the family of Abraham Waeir.
He built a mill, became respected by the natives - so it seemed -
for history relates that he was "generally esteemed."
The town became his namesake after he had settled down.
There were many ways they spelled it, but it ended up
"Waretown."
On old maps it is written as "Wire's Creek" or Waeirs
Mill."
Over two hundred years have passed, and it is Waretown, still.
-Lillian Arnold Lopez "Pineylore"