Explore Cumberland through a wide range of discoveries: glassmaking and pottery, maritime history, museums and an officially designated river system. This variety offers several thematic ways to explore; you don’t have to limit yourself to just one kind of attraction.
Glass, pottery and different routes
WheatonArts is home to the Museum of American Glass, with daily glassmaking and pottery demonstrations. The Nature Trail complements this cultural focus with a one-mile loop. For comparison, the New Jersey Motorsports Park go-kart track is 1.1 miles long and has eight configurations. Both are of a similar scale, but the Nature Trail is a loop, while the go-kart track has eight configurations. This lets you compare the different themes and types of route.
Maritime history: Schooner and museum
The AJ Meerwald is homeported in Bivalve, New Jersey, and is used by the Bayshore Center at Bivalve as a floating classroom. This schooner thus combines a specific home port with an educational role. The Delaware Bay Museum is dedicated to the history of New Jersey’s Bayshore region. It has a collection of original artifacts and is housed in historic Oyster Shipping Sheds. Maritime history comes to life both through a schooner’s educational mission and through a museum collection in historic buildings.
Raw oysters are served at Bayshore Center at Bivalve events on the second Friday of each month from April through December. If you’d like to plan your trip around one of these dates, it’s worth checking the specific event schedule.
Stories of people and places
The Millville Army Air Field Museum tells the stories of the people who trained or died there, as well as those who served in World War II and other wars. Its scope ranges from the lives of people at the airfield to military service in multiple conflicts. Tours of the museum and its grounds can be arranged.
The Cohanzick Zoo is New Jersey’s first zoo. It features more than 100 individual animals from 47 different species in 25 separate exhibits.
Rivers, designation and lighthouse
The Maurice River and its three tributaries—the Manumuskin, Menantico and Muskee Rivers—were designated “Wild and Scenic Rivers” by the U.S. Congress and President Clinton on December 1, 1993. In total, 35.4 miles of the Maurice River system are designated as “scenic” or “recreational.”
The East Point Lighthouse was built in 1849 and is a relatively rare example of a lighthouse with an integrated keeper’s house and tower. It served to guide ships into and out of the Maurice River. The river designation applies to a river system; the lighthouse represents a specific navigational purpose on the Maurice River. Together, they illustrate two different scales of river and maritime history.
Discover more destinations: Bridgeton, Millville, Fairfield Township, Ocean, Atlantic, Passaic, Mercer, Union.
For the main travel overview: New Jersey.
