Toms River

For most of the seventeen hundreds, this river was Goose Creek. Mapmakers went back and forth for decades. Thomas Jefferys called it Goose Creek in 1776. Mathew Carey called it Toms Creek in 1795. Two cartographers named Carey and Lea got so tired of the argument that in 1814 they simply printed both, labeling it Goose or Toms Creek. Eight years later they dropped Goose entirely, and Toms River stuck. The problem is that nobody could say who Tom was. One theory pointed to a Lenape man known as Indian Tom, who lived near the mouth of the river. Another named Thomas Luker, a farmer and ferryman who married the daughter of a Lenape chief in 1695. A third credited Captain William Tom, an English officer who came through on an exploratory trip. In 1992, at the township's two hundred and twenty fifth anniversary, the government and local historians settled it by decision rather than evidence. They declared Luker the Tom, and named a footbridge downtown after him.