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If you have to ask, you'll never know
If you have ever driven the New Jersey Turnpike, you are very familiar with the rest stops that flank its exits. These stops are impossible to miss: signaled by big blue signs miles ahead of time, they are right off the highway, making them very well frequented.
With respect for the workers toiling therein, it’s safe to say that these stops are worn out. The bathrooms are generally desecrated, and unless you have a strong hankering for Sbarro’s pizza, the food options are limited. I’m not sure anyone lingers there or considers it a family- or friend-friendly hangout spot. You do what you need to do — fill up or unload, depending — and move on your way.
It is nice that they are named after people of some renown. But it also has some randoms. Joyce Kilmer?1 Molly Pitcher?23 Richard Stockton?4
And right there, in the list of this semi-glorious but relatively unimpressive list of quasi-famous people, there’s the Thomas Alva Edison rest stop.
In case you were wondering, his full name is Alfred Joyce Kilmer. He was a prolific poet who was killed by a sniper's bullet at the Second Battle of the Marne in 1918 at the age of 31.
We aren’t even sure who this is or if it’s even one person. It is a nickname given to a woman who fought in the American Revolutionary War. She is most often identified as Mary Ludwig Hays, who fought in the Battle of Monmouth in June 1778. Another possibility is Margaret Corbin, who helped defend Fort Washington in New York in November 1776. Emily Teipe has suggested that "the name Molly Pitcher is a collective generic term, much like 'G.I. Joe’ and serves as a common label for the ‘hundreds, perhaps thousands, of women served not only as ammunition wives, manning and firing the guns, but also in the army and colonial militia.”
Ed: At our recently held first annual TND Summit, we learned that I was the only one who knew the legend of Molly Pitcher. So goes the lore, when soldiers (sometimes wounded) needed water while on the battlefield, they’d yell (or croak), “Molly! Pitcher!” and Molly Pitcher would bring them water. Baby flex.
A wealthy landowner who donated land and helped bring what is now Princeton University.