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51Audubon, Lafayette Attacks!

Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette, was a young man,  just 19 years old when he arrived in Philadelphia in July 1777 to fight for the Continental Army. Lafayette, then an honorary Major General, was anxious to distinguish himself on a battlefield in America. He was a wealthy nobleman and wanted to learn from other highly trained officers. He was introduced to the Continental Commander in Chief, George Washington.

Not long after, the British occupied Philadelphia, and Washington sent Continental Major General Nathanael Greene to defend Fort Mercer on the Delaware River. Lafayette volunteered to go to New Jersey with Greene.

Lafayette reviewed the land formations around Fort Mercer and discovered 350 German riflemen, called jägers, guarding British Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis’s camp. Lafayette had less than 300 men with him but ordered them to attack the British and Hessian soldiers. The losses for the Hessians and British were far greater than for Lafayette’s soldiers.

The whole Battle of Gloucester lasted only 45 minutes, but Lafayette’s “little succès of ours” won out. For his leadership in this battle, Lafayette was awarded a commission to lead a division of soldiers and became a Major General in the Continental Army.

Location: 1825 Kings Highway, Audubon NJ

52Mount Ephraim, Battle of Gloucester

The Battle of Gloucester was short—it only lasted about 45 minutes, beginning late in the afternoon on November 25, 1777.  Later that evening, back in Haddonfield, the 20-year-old Marquis de Lafayette was excited by his adventure. The next day, he wrote a long letter to Washington, wanting “to acquaint your excellency of a little event of last evening which tho’ not very considerable in itself will certainly please you on the account of the bravery and alacrity a small party of ours showed in that occasion… I never saw men so merry, so spirited, so desirous to go on to the enemy.”

That evening, Washington wrote Henry Laurens, President of the Continental Congress, recommending that Lafayette be given his most heartfelt wish: the command of a division of the Continental Army. The Marquis de Lafayette went on to distinguish himself at the Battle of Monmouth, the siege at Yorktown, VA, and in the Newport, RI, campaign before he returned to France in 1781.

Location: Mary Bray School 225 West Kings Highway, NJ

53Gloucester City, Cold Spring School

This map shows where the Battle of Gloucester took place along a 2.4-mile section of Kings Road (todays Kings Highway) in November 1777. The battle took place across several Camden County municipalities including Gloucester City, Mt. Ephraim, Brooklawn, Bellmawr, and much of Barrington and Haddon Heights.

Officers planning military operations must know about the local topography to make a sensible battle plan. Like countless commanders before and after him, the Marquis de Lafayette did his best to learn the “lay of the land” before committing his men to combat. In 1777, this land was divided up by marshes and creeks that fed into the Delaware River. It is said that the area was more easily defended than attacked because there were so many creeks and swamps.

This, then, made up the battlefield: a busy road flanked by houses, fields, farms, and woodlots. On November 25, 1777, as enemy soldiers occupied houses and plundered farms for food and supplies, the fighting threatened the lives and possessions of poor and wealthy alike who lived along this 2.4-mile portion of Kings Road.

Location: 1194 Market Street, Gloucester City NJ

54Gloucester City, County Courthouse and Malt House

The courthouse in Gloucester County was here, at the heart of this small village, in the 18th century. Located on the corner of High and Second (now King) Streets, other county buildings and the jailer’s home surrounded it. The courthouse was a brick, two-story building with a first-floor jail. Completed in 1722, it was impressive for its time. It burned in 1786 as part of a fire at a nearby brewery.

The courthouse was a public place where some of the key events of the American Revolution in New Jersey occurred. In July and December 1774, local citizens created the County’s Committees of Correspondence and Observation. The Committee of Observation enforced the local boycott of British goods and the Committee of Correspondence helped elect delegates to the First Continental Congress. Four times a year, in March, June, October, and December, the County Court came into session for two or three days to hear civil and criminal trials.

Location: 26 South King Street, Gloucester City NJ

55Gloucester City, Hugg's Tavern

Hugg’s Tavern, located between the old ferry wharf and the Gloucester County courthouse, was a vital meeting place in Gloucester Town (now Gloucester City). Travelers arriving by horse or ferry from Philadelphia were fed and housed at Hugg’s Tavern. Hugg’s Tavern was also a Gloucester County public place almost as important as the courthouse itself. Judges, lawyers, attorneys, plaintiffs, and defendants used the tavern for meetings. The county court workers went to the tavern for dinner, justices lodged there between sessions, and when it was unbearably cold in the courthouse, the court often met in the tavern.

Hugg’s Tavern proved vital to the courts. “Commissioners met at the tavern to settle bankruptcies and to discuss freeing insolvent debtors from jail. Executors advertised that they would be at the tavern to meet with decedent's’ creditors, and here they auctioned decedents’ estates.”

Today, the tavern is marked in Gloucester City’s Proprietors Park as an archaeological site. A recreational pier and marina have replaced the old ferry slip.

Location: 225 South King Street, inside Proprietors Park, Gloucester City NJ

56Gloucester City, Sheriff Ellis’s House

As a Continental officer, Colonel Joseph Ellis was determined to secure independence from Great Britain. But he also understood that good men could disagree. When two prominent Quaker leaders suffered arrest for refusing to swear allegiance to New Jersey’s insurgent government, Ellis housed them in his home until their cell could be cleaned and furnished, frequently visited them, and facilitated their release.

As an officer enforcing the militia laws, orders from the governor, and direction from the Council of Safety, almost everything that Ellis required proved difficult to South Jerseyans. He drafted men from their farms to protect North Jersey, and to fill the New Jersey Continental regiments, and he took teams and wagons from owners to move supplies. While the British occupied Philadelphia, he had farmers along the Delaware River drive their cattle and horses out of reach of enemy foragers. Despite all this, Ellis remained popular. He was re-elected three times as Gloucester County sheriff and to higher office.

Location: 101 South Kings Street, near the entrance to the City’s Freedom pier, Gloucester City NJ

57Gloucester City, Morgan’s Rifle Corps

On November 27, 1777, as British soldiers embarked for Philadelphia, Continental soldiers opened fire on them. The Continental Army had failed in their effort to prevent the British from opening the Delaware River to British shipping. British Commander Lord Cornwallis had landed at Billingsport, Gloucester County, on November 18, 1777, and leveled Fort Mercer two days later, forcing the Continentals to evacuate. On November 25, Cornwallis began shipping stolen equipment, horses, cattle, and troops from Gloucester City and elsewhere back to Philadelphia.

Gloucester Town had only two wharves, so it was a slow process loading flatboats with the stolen goods. After the cargo was loaded, British riflemen were the last to board the flatboats to cross the Delaware River back into Philadelphia. The Continental Morgan’s Rifle Corps saw an opportunity to attack and opened fire on the flatboats. They wounded one British light infantry officer, several soldiers, and a seaman.

Location: 225 South King Street, Gloucester City

58Brooklawn, Cornwallis encampment, Big Timber Bridge, Two Tun Tavern

On November 17-18, 1777, British General Lord Charles Cornwallis and 4,250 British and Hessian troops landed at Billingsport, south of Camden on the Delaware River, near today’s West Deptford. Their mission was to take Fort Mercer at Red Bank, NJ, which Continental soldiers built to protect the Delaware River from British ships sailing into the Philadelphia docks. It took only two days of fighting for the Continental Army to evacuate Fort Mercer.

On November 21, the British light infantry found the Great Timber Creek Bridge “broke up” by Continental soldiers. The following day, five companies of British soldiers crossed the creek to protect the workmen repairing the bridge. That evening, a British soldier recalled: “a small party of the Rebels  [Continentals} appeared and begun to be troublesome, firing on us from a railing on the Other side of a small swamp, from which we soon drove them, but with the loss of 2 men of the 5th light Company killed, and man of the 4th Company Wounded.”

Location: South Hanevig & Tommy McAdam Streets, Brooklawn NJ.

59Gloucester Township, Ashbrook Burial Ground

British Commander-in-Chief William Howe, who oversaw the British occupation of Philadelphia starting in September 1777, wanted to reopen the Delaware River again to British shipping to feed his troops. However, the Continental Army controlled Fort Mercer, located at a strategic point on the east bank of the Delaware River in Gloucester Township, just south of Philadelphia. Howe sent German soldiers called Hessians across the Delaware River to attack Fort Mercer. The Hessians landed first at Cooper’s Ferry in what is now Camden, and then marched to and camped at Haddonfield, NJ. The next morning, the Hessians marched along the Kings Road south toward Fort Mercer. Approaching Gloucester Town, the Hessians learned that the British militia had dismantled the bridge across Great Timber Creek, leaving them stranded and without a path forward. More than 400 Hessians were killed fighting the Continental soldiers at Fort Mercer. Their comrades buried the Hessians in this convenient burial ground of John Ashbrooke.

Location: 513 Melvin Street, Gloucester Township NJ

60Gloucester Township, Chews Landing, St John's Episcopal Church,

Tidal Navigation—Watermen could navigate five miles into the heart of old Gloucester County using the tides. They rowed and poled upstream with an incoming tide and navigated downstream with an ebbing tide and the current. Before the 17th century ended, watermen floated great rafts of timber down the creek to Philadelphia along with barrel staves, cedar shingles, fence rails, firewood, and charcoal. Soon, there were sawmills along the creeks. 

Location: Chews Landing, St. John's Episcopal Church, 1730 Old Black Horse Pike, Runnemede NJ

61Gloucester Township, Gabreil Daveis Tavern

After the British burned his tavern and barn at the port of Chestnut Neck, Major George Payne (c.1730-1795) moved to Chews Landing and reinvented himself as a farmer and merchant.

George Payne, “Waterman,” first appears in historical records during July 1755, when he married Mary Davis of Great Egg Harbor Township. He purchased 115 acres at Chestnut Neck in 1760 and 200 acres of woodland in 1764. His daughter Mary was born in 1763. In 1773, he and his wife paid taxes for their land, six cattle, and a sailing vessel.

In 1772, Payne obtained a tavern license for his home at Chestnut Neck. During 1775-1778, Payne was centrally located, since this Mullica River port served as a base for thirsty privateersmen. Payne profited through auctions that attracts customers to the Gabreil Daveis Tavern. Today this property is a historic house museum open regularly to the public.

Location: 500 Third Avenue, Glendora NJ

62Bellmawr, Hugg-Harrison House

In mid-November 1777, Continental Major General Nathanael Greene and his men were ordered to New Jersey by Continental Commander in Chief George Washington to defend Fort Mercer. Stationed in Haddonfield, Greene prepared to attack the British with four infantry brigades. However, as the Continental Army scouts learned about British General Cornwallis’s camp at Gloucester Town, they found it was surrounded by the Newton and Little Timber Creeks, Mile Run, woods, and marshes, so that making an attack would be very difficult. Greene decided not to attack British General Cornwallis, but he allowed the Marquis de Lafayette to attack an outpost with a small force of ten Continental horsemen, 150 riflemen, and 200 other soldiers. The Continental soldiers, commanded by Continental  Colonel Joseph Ellis, included Continental Captain William Harrison and other men from Gloucester Town. Lafayette’s “little success"  would be the only bright spot in what was otherwise a Continental disaster.

Location: 515 West Browning Road, Bellmawr NJ

63Haddonfield, Indian King Tavern

In January 1777, the New Jersey Assembly sublet the second floor of this dwelling, removed the partition, and moved in. Here they struggled to wage war against an British-German army occupying much of central New Jersey.. The assemblymen (two from each county) strengthened the law that made military service mandatory, created armories where each county could store weapons, prohibited the export of war materiel, and imposed martial law. Then the British Army abandoned the Raritan valley, sailed south, and marched on Philadelphia. The New Jersey Legislature moved back to central New Jersey.

In January 1777, this house comprised one of a row of three rental properties Quaker Thomas Redman owned. In May, Redman sold the buildings to Hugh and Mary Creighton, proprietors of the Indian King Tavern on the other side of the street. The Creighton's converted these three dwellings into Haddonfield’s finest tavern. The second-floor assembly room, elegantly remodeled, became the tavern’s ballroom.

Location: 233 Kings Highway East, Haddonfield NJ

64Haddonfield, Guard House Prisoners of War

During 1777, soldiers slept in this building. Entrusted with protecting New Jersey’s state government officials from attack, these soldiers also guarded prisoners that the Council of Safety (which consisted of twelve men and the governor) brought here for questioning.

Here in Haddonfield, March 15, 1777, the New Jersey legislature reauthorized the Council of Safety’s charge to apprehend “any Person disaffected to or acting against the Government.” The council was busy in March and May, questioning over fifty individuals. Most were judged not dangerous and permitted to return home after pledging allegiance to the state government. The council required others to post a bond, while still others were held in the “Guard House.” On May 23, 1777, twenty-six prisoners guarded by Lieutenant Andrew Irvine and eleven men of the 7th Pennsylvania Regiment, jammed the Guard House.

Many other prisoners passed through Haddonfield on their way to prison in Pennsylvania or North Jersey. During Lord Cornwallis’ occupation of Gloucester Town, November 24-27, 1777, these captives included sixteen British soldiers and seven Hessian riflemen.

Location: 260 Kings Highway East, Haddonfield NJ

65Haddonfield, Rising Sun Masonic Lodge

On November 25, 1778, the Marquis de Lafayette joined other officers in learning the locations of the British. Midafternoon, Lafayette asked permission to attack the Hessian soldiers located east of Gloucester Town. Continental Colonels Richard Butler of the Rifle Corps and Joseph Ellis of the militia each provided 150 men to Lafayette. About 3:00 p.m., the soldiers marched west on the Kings Road, the riflemen in front with Lafayette, ten light drago8ns (soldiers mounted on horses), and the other soldiers following. About 4:00 p.m., the riflemen collided with 350 Hessian soldiers. In forty-five minutes, Lafayette pushed the Hessians back almost two-and-a-half miles. This little victory was the only good news that Continental Major General Nathanael Greene could report to General George Washington. December 1, the members of the Continental Congress voted to give Lafayette the command of an army division, his long-sought goal. Benjamin Franklin named this The “Battle of Gloucester.”

Location: 16 Kings Highway East, Haddonfield NJ

66Haddonfield, Library

Haddonfield was the market town of northwestern Gloucester County. The town stood where the region’s main highways crossed, roads bringing travelers to its three taverns and customers to its shops and craftsmen. On the eve of the Revolution, the chatter of buyers and sellers in the market house, the ring of blacksmiths’ hammers, the thumps of the mallets of wheelwrights and coopers, and the paddles of tanners filled the town. On its northern edge, Cooper’s Creek turned the wheels of grain, saw, and fulling mills. In March 1778, a Scots officer estimated that that the town had forty families. Most of the residents were members of the Religious Society of Friends, determined pacifists. Their convictions, however, did not shelter them from the war.

Location: 60 North Haddon Avenue, Haddonfield NJ

67Haddonfield, Greenfield Hall

Continental troops occupied Haddonfield much of the time from September 1777 into June 1778, but generally in small numbers, sometimes using the Friends Meeting house as a sleeping quarters. Enemy officers may have favored the Gill home, as it was the dwelling closest to their Cooper’s Creek perimeter. John and Amy Gill may have welcomed British officers to their home, as officers provided some protection from soldiers who stole from residents.

Years later, an elderly lady remembered “A number of their officers took up their quarters in her mother’s house and ordered supper, which they were forced to provide for them; they behaved very orderly and were very jovial and in good spirits.”

Location: 343 Kings Highway East, Haddonfield NJ

68Cherry Hill, Greentree British Evacuation

Both sides of the American Revolution needed cattle as food for the troops, hay for horses and firewood for cooking. Foraging or widely searching for food and supplies was therefore part of the work of soldiers. General Anthony Wayne was sent to New Jersey by Commander in Chief George Washington to search for cattle and horses for the Continental Army. Washington instructed the Continentals to “allow the people from whom [the forage was] taken a just & Reasonable price for the same.”

In February 1778, General George Washington learned that the British were planning to forage in South Jersey. To prevent supplies from falling into enemy hands, on February 19, 1778, Washington sent Brigadier-General Anthony Wayne across the Delaware River into Salem County to collect cattle and horses, and to burn the hay. By February 28, 1778, Wayne wrote Washington that he had collected 150 head of cattle, and that 400 tons of hay had been burned to keep it from the British.

Location: 1960 Greentree Road, Cherry Hill NJ

69Cherry Hill, Kay's Mill, Pulaski Attacks!

The British had just met the Continental Generals Casmir Pulaski and Anthony Wayne at Kay’s Mill, in what is today Cherry Hill, NJ. During the skirmish, the Continental troops drove the British further inland where the British Navy could not offer additional support coming from their ships in the Delaware River. The evening of March 1, 1778, Pulaski attacked an outpost of British soldiers at Kay's Mill. Later that night, the British hurriedly evacuated Haddonfield in sleet and snow. Wayne followed cautiously until he learned that the British light infantry was below Billingsport NJ.

Then, as the British embarked at Cooper's Ferry, Wayne and Pulaski pushed hard against their outposts, trying to lure the British away from their naval artillery support. The Scots and Queen's Rangers pushed back but refused to take the bait. In the skirmishing, Count Pulaski's horse was killed. The British Rangers were harassed by Colonel Joseph Ellis and the Continental militia firing across the Cooper River.

Location: 1001 Kings Highway North, Cherry Hill NJ

70Cherry Hill, Multiple Skirmish Sites

The stone obelisk standing about 60’ inside the fence of Colestown Cemetery opposite the intersection of Church Road and Friendship Lane, marks the location of the former St. Mary's Protestant Episcopal Church, or “Coles Church.”  The Church was named after the Coles family which emigrated with the Cooper family as Quakers from Coles Hill, Hertfordshire, England to New Jersey in 1680. St. Mary’s Church in Colestown fell into disuse after the congregation moved to the new Trinity Protestant Episcopal Church in Moorestown in 1838. It was destroyed in an 1899 fire.

Location: 1100 Kings Highway North, Cherry Hill NJ

71Lawnside, Borough Hall

When the 1st and 2nd Rhode Island Regiments marched through Haddonfield on route to Fort Mercer on October 22,1777, they must have attracted notice. About sixty of their men were of African American or Native American ancestry. Assembled into service in late 1776 and early 1777, the First Rhode Island Regiment numbered 197 Black enlisted men commanded by white officers. Colonel. James Varnum was commander from January 1, 1777, to February 27, 1777, then Colonel Christopher Greene was commander from February 27, 1777, to May 14, 1781, when Rhode Island Continentals were reorganized.

The regiment eventually totaled about 225 men. As many as 140 of these were black. The enlistment of slaves had been controversial, and no more non-white men were enlisted after June 1778. The unit continued to be known as the "Black Regiment" even though only white men were recruited to replace losses, a process which eventually made it an integrated unit.

The 1st Rhode Island Regiment participated in the Battle of Red Bank (NJ), in which a British and Hessian force was sent to take Fort Mercer on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River just south of Philadelphia. The Hessians were decisively defeated by a smaller force of Colonial soldiers.

Location: 4 Douglas Avenue, Lawnside NJ

72Berlin NJ, Berlin Cemetery

Mary Swain, whose obituary from the 19th century appears here, was one of thousands of women in New Jersey and elsewhere that participated in the Revolutionary War as wagon drivers, cooks, seamstresses, laundresses, and sometimes as spies to support the Continental Army. Lieutenant Colonel Adam Comstock wanted information from inside the Gloucester Town British encampments. Continental General Nathanael Greene recollects in his papers that a local militia officer, most likely Continental Colonel [Joseph] Ellis—suggested “a smart young woman who had a sister in [Gloucester]." This brave young spy invented a suitable pretext, crossed Little Timber Creek, hiked a mile and a quarter past sentries and through German and British camps to visit her sister, hiked back, and returned to Continental Colonial Adm Comstock, having “rec’d no other damage than . . . a Kiss from the Hessian General.”

73Winslow Township, Blue Anchor Tavern, Fire Watch Tower site

The Blue Anchor Tavern was built in 1740 in Winslow Township by John Hinder. Like other taverns, it played an important role as a community gathering place. Blue Anchor Township,  a new township created from part of the old Gloucester Township, held its first town meeting here. Located on a Native American trail to the coast at the junction of trails from Absecon and Tuckahoe, the now-demolished tavern stood at present-day State Route 73 and Folsom Road. The building is no longer standing, but this photo was taken in 1933 for the Historic American Buildings Survey.

Location: Blue Anchor Fire Tower, Route 561 near Route 73, Blue Anchor NJ

74Camden, Benjamin Cooper Tavern

In 1727, Benjamin Cooper was granted a tavern license for the public house he had opened at his wharf on Coopers Point. When Benjamin Cooper constructed this ferry tavern in 1734, it was the largest residence at Cooper’s Point, part of what is known today as Camden City. The tavern and farm suffered during the Revolution. During a naval action, a British cannonball smashed into the roof. On March 1, 1778, as British soldiers sheltered in Cooper’s Point buildings during a snowstorm, Joseph Cooper’s barn caught fire and burned the next day.

During the British occupation of Philadelphia in the American Revolution, the house served as the headquarters of British Lieutenant Colonel Robert Abercrombie. Benjamin Cooper permitted his ferry landing to be used to sell enslaved Black people, however research has not identified any records that enslaved people worked in or around Benjamin Cooper’s house or were specifically owned by him.

Plans are underway to restore this tavern as the American Revolution Museum of Southern New Jersey in time for the 250th Anniversary of the American Revolution in 2026.

Location: 60 Erie Street, Camden NJ

75Camden, Joseph Cooper House

The Joseph Cooper House was built in 1695 in what Pyne Point Park at 7th and Erie Streets in Camden is now. The property was built by William and Joseph Cooper, which makes it one of the oldest buildings in Camden. The ten-room mansion was built in two sections—the first in a Dutch Colonial style in 1695 in stone. The second part, a two-story addition, was built using brick imported from England in the early 18th century.

The Joseph Cooper house was purchased by the City of Camden in 1913. Before being severely damaged by a fire in 2005, the building served as a library and meeting house. In 2012, the city granted control of the house to the Cooper Ferry Partnership. They enlisted Jibe Design to develop an adaptive reuse plan in 2013. The Cooper Ferry Partnership is seeking funds to refurbish the building.

Location: 600 Erie Street, Camden NJ

76Camden, Generals Wayne, and Pulaski Attack

On March 1, 1778, the British marched to Cooper’s Ferry where General Anthony Wayne, assisted by cavalry under the command of Brigadier General Casimir Pulaski, skirmishes with the British before the British returned to Philadelphia.

As the British embarked at Cooper's Ferry, Wayne and Pulaski pushed hard against the British soldiers, trying to lure the British away from their naval artillery support, then in the Delaware River. The Scots and Queen's Rangers pushed back too but refused to take the bait. During the skirmishing, Count Pulaski's horse was killed. The British Rangers were harassed by Colonel Joseph Ellis and his militia, who fired at them across the Cooper River.

Location: 600 North Third Street, Camden NJ

77Camden, Federal St. Bridge

In June of 1778, when the British realized that they would have to withdraw from Philadelphia and go to New York, they began transporting all of their equipment and men to Cooper's Ferry as part of their retreat. Before daybreak on June 18, 1778, the last British troops hurried across the Delaware River while the British troops at Cooper's Ferry began marching for Haddonfield. That night, an army of over 19,000 British men, about 1,000 women and children, and more than 1,000 wagons camped around Haddonfield and along the roads leading from both the Camden and Gloucester ferries.

In its wake was the normal destruction of a large army marching without tents: several thousand "wigwams" constructed from fence rails and tree branches, cherry trees stripped of fruit, gardens robbed of vegetables, missing poultry, and houses ransacked of small items that could easily be carried away and sold.

Location: 1380 Federal St, Camden, NJ

78Camden, Pomona Hall

Pomona Hall, built in 1726, was once part of a 423-acre plantation. Its original owners, Joseph and Mary Cooper, included their initials and the year construction began, on the chimney of the north end of the property. The property was passed on to Joseph’s younger brother Isaac, and then in 1767 it was inherited by Marmaduke Cooper, Isaac’s son. Marmaduke built the south end addition to the property and added his initials to the chimney in 1788.

Like most of the other residents in the area, the Cooper family were Quakers. The estate that Marmaduke inherited included 14 enslaved laborers and some German and French indentured servants. By 1776, the Society of Friends had adopted a policy prohibiting slave ownership by Quakers. In 1777 a joint committee from the Haddonfield and Woodbury Meetings reported Marmaduke as owning and refusing to emancipate several enslaved people. Despite three years of “urgent advice and entreaty” by the Society, Marmaduke refused to budge. Responding to his “arrogant insubordination”, the Society formally disowned him in September of 1780. Marmaduke eventually freed his enslaved laborers in 1792, but there is no record that he was reinstated as a member of the Meeting.

Location: 1900 Park Blvd, Camden NJ

79Camden, War on the Delaware Ferries, RCA Park

The Cooper family has had a long association with the multiple ferries from Camden to Philadelphia, beginning in 1689 when William Cooper paid William Royden £110 for 78 acres immediately adjoining his own plantation along the Delaware River. Cooper established a ferry at Cooper’s Point prior to 1708, the year he conveyed to his son Joseph a tract of land which included the ferry. This came to be known as the Upper Ferry.

The Middle Ferry was operated by William’s other son Daniel, but he was unable to operate it to the satisfaction of the Gloucester County Grand Jury, who in 1695 appointed William Cooper to “Keep said ferry over to Philadelphia at ye certain rates or prices settled upon his son Daniel.”

The ferries remained in the Cooper family until the mid- 19th century.

Location: 2 Riverside Drive, Camden NJ

80Pennsauken, Griffith Morgan House

The Griffith Morgan House, a c.1693 stone farmhouse with a later addition, sits on the Pennsauken Creek, where it flows into the Delaware River in what is now Pennsauken, NJ. Joseph Morgan, the grandson of Griffith Morgan and the son of Andrew Morgan, lived in the house during the American Revolutionary War.

Little more is known about Joseph Morgan (d. 1804), except that he was a farmer, seaman and surveyor. He married four times and had nine children, three sons and four daughters who lived to maturity. Joseph Morgan left the old Morgan family homes to his son Isaac, who also inherited his ‘iron stove’ in the old house.” In his will he left his “sea compass, surveyors chain and other instruments” to his sons.

Joseph Morgan was a member of the Gloucester County Committee of Correspondence, charged with receiving and disseminating information with Committees of Correspondence from other counties in the state. “He attended the meeting at the Gloucester County Courthouse on July 18, 1774, where he and others approved twelve different resolutions pertaining to the troubles with the English Parliament.” The Committee of Correspondence “had power to select three of their committee to meet with the committees of the other counties of New Jersey to choose delegates to represent New Jersey at the forthcoming Continental Congress in Philadelphia.”

Location: 243 Griffith Morgan Lane, Pennsauken NJ

81Cherry Hill, Lenape People during the American Revolution

Sheyichbi (shay-ICK-bee), what is now known as New Jersey, is the central region of the traditional territory of the Lenape (leh-NAH-pay). By the early 1700s, the Lenape population had been reduced by as much as ninety percent, mostly from European diseases for which they had no immunity. The hope of amicable co-existence expressed in the 1682 Treaty of Shackamaxon between Chief Tamanend, spokesman for the Lenape council of chiefs, and William Penn, governor of Pennsylvania, was subsequently dashed by Penn’s own sons, who swindled Chiefs Tischcohan, Nutimus, and Lappawinsoe in a 1737 fraudulent land-grab known as the “Walking Purchase.”

Leading up to the American Revolution (1775-1783), after a century of British colonization’s increasing grip on their homeland, Chief Teedyescunk and most Lenape people, had been pushed west of the Delaware River and into the Ohio Valley into scattered settlements. Those remaining in New Jersey survived by largely adapting to the lifeways of the colonial settlers, either moving onto the Brotherton Reservation in Burlington County, which was established by the colonial government in 1758. New Jersey required the remaining Lenape to take loyalty oaths and wear red ribbons identifying them as “friendly.” Information courtesy John Norwood.

Location: 817 Park Boulevard, Cherry Hill, NJ

82Haddon Township (West Collingswood), Old Newton Burial Ground

Newton Burial Ground holds the remains of most of Old Gloucester County’s (now Camden County) first political and religious leaders, leaders who took an active role in establishing and maintaining religious liberty and democracy. The burial ground was the first laid out in present-day Camden County and was only the third in West New Jersey.

Many of the County’s “founding fathers” and their families met and conducted religious worship in the meetinghouse on the grounds. Their children were educated and wed at the meetinghouse, and the colonial government’s administration occurred within the meetinghouse walls.

The cemetery is also unique in holding a separate section for the remains of former Friends who left or were shunned from their meeting for failing to observe Friends’ doctrines. Examples of infractions that resulted in separation included marrying “out of meeting” or “contrary to discipline” (i.e., marrying a non-Friend) or supporting or participating in military action. The Sloan Section holds 22 former Friends who served in the American Revolutionary War and who fought with the local militia.

Location: 3010 Lynne Avenue, Oaklyn NJ

83Camden, Samuel Cooper House

Benjamin Cooper arranged for Bradford Roberts to take over his ferry, tavern, and inn in 1762 until his son Samuel was old enough to run the operations. Samuel Cooper succeeded Roberts in 1765.

Samuel built a new tavern closer to the ferry landing in 1770. The sequence of transactions suggests that Roberts occupied the Benjamin Cooper House from 1762-1765, and Samuel from 1765 until 1770. As there are no other known residents between Samuel and his brother, Joseph, it is reasonable to infer that Joseph and his wife moved in sometime after 1770 and prior to 1778.

Samuel and his brother Joseph suffered greatly during the Revolution. Joseph was the unwilling host of British Colonel Robert Abercrombie, and Samuel Cooper had one English and several Scotch and Hessian regiments quartered in their ferry house. During that time, the family was allowed the kitchen and one upstairs room for their living quarters. Samuel was imprisoned by the colonial government because as a Quaker he refused to bear arms.

Location: 1104 North Twenty-second Street, Camden NJ