I wonder if the museum and library at Batsto Village http://www.batstovillage.org/ would have any relevant materials. Batsto Village is an ironworkers village dating back to the mid-18th century.

If someone takes this beyond curiosity into serious folkloric study, there will be the problem of defining the Pine Barrens geographically and culturally. For example, do the immigrant communities of Jewish farmers settled near Vineland by the Baron de Hirsch fund at the turn of the last century count as Pinelanders?

--Charlie Baum