'My heart is lifted': Ocean opens Kepwel Park, dedicates new playground

OCEAN TOWNSIP - Kepwel Park opened Tuesday and it was hard for many who marked the occasion to keep a dry eye.

That's because there was so much emotion wrapped up around the dedication of the park's centerpiece — a children's playground built by the Where Angels Play Foundation. The playground was several years in the making, spearheaded by a resolute Kelly Terry, a councilwoman who lost her daughter Mya Lin to cancer in 2013.

Through Terry's Mya Lin Terry Foundation, $300,000 was raised to build the park. Terry became teary-eyed when the blanket was removed from the playground's sign, revealing the smiling face of her daughter Mya Lin, who was in kindergarten in 2007 when she was diagnosed with cancer. She lost her battle five and a half years later, in 2013.

The story behind Kepwel: Here comes a new park as Ocean Township completes $2M land deal

Terry said one of her fears was that people would forget her daughter, but seeing the completed park provided a measure of comfort to her.

"Today my heart is lifted. This playground and all the people that helped make it happen has allowed me to breathe a little," Terry said.

Terry said her hope for the park was to see the children flood through it, and she got her wish seconds after the ribbon was cut when over a dozen kids dashed onto the playground, up its steps and down its slides.

"For those of us who believe, the angels are all around us at this park," said Bill Lavin, the founder of Where Angels Play Foundation, which got to work building playgrounds initially to honor the victims of the Sandy Hook school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012. Ocean's playground is the 64th the foundation has built.

History: What's that odd tower doing in Ocean Township? Lights could brighten historic curiosity

Cold Indian Springs: History and legend

The Kepwel property is steeped in history and legend. Springs on the property were known as Cold Indian Springs as far back as 1749. Local legend is the Lenape came to the springs every summer and camped on the banks of the spring-fed pond.

Tradition holds that Benjamin Woolley of Shrewsbury purchased the land from the Lenape for a barrel of whiskey. A Quaker, William Layton, owned the land after Woolley.

The spring water started to be bottled for sale in about 1872.  William Morrell and his business partners bought the property and spring water business in the latter half of the 19th century.

Morrell's descendants still own the property and still bottle water from the springs for their company, Kepwel Natural Spring Water. However, the family was going to sell part of the property and the town stepped in and bought six of the nine acres on Cold Indian Springs Road for $2 million. The sale was completed in January.

Kepwel kept the remaining three acres, and the spring to run its business. Ocean got six acres, and old natural swimming pond and a 2,600-square-foot home with a deck overlooking the pond. The pond was once a public bathing park but ceased that activity by the 1960s.

Mayor John Napolitano said future plans include dredging the pond and putting in some walking trails around it. Napolitano said they're not going to open for swimming again. Other recreational activities such as fishing are not off the table, though. They don't have an exact plan for the house yet, but making it available for community meetings is one idea being discussed.

When Jersey Shore native Dan Radel is not reporting the news, you can find him in a college classroom where he is a history professor. Reach him @danielradelapp; 732-643-4072; dradel@gannettnj.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Monmouth County: Ocean opens Kepwel Park, Where Angels Play playground