“I want to be buried in Hudson County,” he said, “so that I can remain active in politics.”īyrne maintained that his most lasting legacy would be the preservation of the Pinelands, which spans 1.1 million acres in southern New Jersey and makes up 20 percent of the state’s total land mass.īyrne knew little of the Pine Barrens until he read his friend John McPhee’s 1986 book of the same name about the rambling oak forests, streams, rivers and vast underground reservoir, which many in the state considered ripe for development. Well past 90, he remained a well-regarded elder statesman who never lost his sense of humor about his scandal-ridden home state. He was the state’s oldest living governor. In spite of his dry manner and the new state income tax, Byrne had enough political support and savvy to become New Jersey’s last Democratic governor elected to two terms. “I wasn’t a backslapper or a bon vivant,” Byrne was quoted as saying in a 2014 biography by Donald Linky. When he invited a delegation of fourth-graders to his Trenton office in 1975, Byrne was greeted by blank stares when he asked, “Who knows who I am?”