A SELF-GUIDED
TOUR
of
63 of
Medford's Historic Sites
THE
MEDFORD
HISTORIC
ADVISORY BOARD
The blue and
white historic sites markers are,
in most instances,
placed on private property.
The public is
asked to respect the rights of the
owners and to
regard the signs as information
and not as
invitations to trespass.
2004
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Locations of 63
Historic Sites Markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 3
Introduction . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Historic Sites
Texts, No. 1 to No. 37 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 - 31
Map showing 35
sites within Medford Village . . . . . . . . . . 32
Fold-up map
showing 28 sites outside the Village . . . . . . 33
Historic Sites
Texts, No. 38 to No. 63 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 - 51
Glossary of Terms
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 58
(NOTE: Underlined terms in the 63 texts
are defined in
the Glossary.)
Index . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 - 65
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1. Braddock's
Mill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sawmill Road
2. Taunton
Furnace and Forge . Breakneck & Hopewell Roads
3. Hoot Owl Farm
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .70 Christopher's Mill Road
4. Oliphant's
Mills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Himmelein Road
5. Cross Keys
Tavern . . . . . North of Stokes and Jackson Road
6. Powder
Explosion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Branin Road
7. Braddock's
Landing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Mill Street
8. Friends
Meeting House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Union Street
9. The Nail House
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Jennings Road
10. The Benjamin Wilkins
House . . . . . . . . . 40 Jennings Road
11. The Thomas
Wilkins House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271 Route 541
12. Dr. Still's
Office . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 Church Road
13. Kirby's Mill
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Church Road
14. The John
Haines House . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Fostertown Road
15. Sandtown . .
. . . Corner of Eayrestown and Sandtown Roads
16. Peacock
Cemetery . . . . . .Chairville Road, north of Route 70
17. Star Glass
Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . South Main Street
18. Christopher's
Mill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Tuckerton Road
19. Aetna Furnace
. . . . . . . . . . . . . Stokes Road, Medford Lakes
20. The Nehemiah
Haines House . . . . . . . . . . . 272 Church Road
21. The Dr.
George Haines House . . . . . . . . . . 33 N. Main Street
22. The Jonathan
Haines House . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Union Street
23. The
Haines/Cochley/Singer House . . Jones Rd. & Union St.
24. The
Stratton/Braddock House . . . . . . . . . . 70 S. Main Street
25. The
Riley/Garwood House . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 S. Main Street
26. The William
Dyer House . . . . . . . . . . . 63-65 S. Main Street
27. Stratton
Burying Ground . . Stokes Rd., N. of HimmeleinRd.
28. The Toll House
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Route 541
29. Main Street
Friends Meeting House . . . S. Main & South St.
30. The Sawyer's
House . . . . . Fostertown Road at Church Road
31. Cross Roads .
. . . . . . . . Corner of Church Road & Route 541
2
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32. The Albert
Kirby House . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 N. Main Street
33. The Maurice
Haines House . . . . . . . . . . . 85 N. Main Street
34. The Everett
Haines House . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 N. Main Street
35. Ely Hall . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 N. Main Street
36. A Sears
Roebuck House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Branch Street
37. The Indian
Chief Tavern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 N. Main Street
38. St. Peter's
Episcopal Church. .Union Street & Allen Avenue
39. Nine South
Main Street . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 S. Main Street
40. The Owen
Stratton House . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 S. Main Street
41. The Dr. R. S.
Braddock House . . . . . . . . .100 S. Main Street
42. The P. M.
& M. Railroad. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 N. Main Street
43. The Joseph
Allen House. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 N. Main Street
44. The Weeks-Bowker
House . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 N. Main Street
45. The Dr.
Josiah Reeve House . . . . . . . . . . . 50 N. Main Street
46. Milton
Allen's School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Branch Street
47. The Stacy Prickett House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Branch Street
48. The Oldest
House on Branch St . . . . . . . . . 47 Branch Street
49. The Methodist
Church Cemetery . . . . . . . . . . Branch Street
50. Glassworkers'
Homes . . . . . South Main and Trimble Street
51. The Oliphant
Homestead . . . . . . . . . . 108 Himmelein Road
52. Decades Ago
in Lake Pine . . . Falls Road and Taunton Blvd
53. The Village
of Chairville .Chairville Road north of Route 70
54. Two One-Room
Schools .Corner of Church/Eayrestown Rds
55. Brace Road
School . . . . . . Corner of Church and Ark Roads
56. Cranberry
Hall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Charles Street
57. Filbert
Street School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Filbert Street
58. First House
on Filbert St . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Filbert Street
59. First House
on Bank St . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Bank Street
60. The Mary
Smith House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Union Street
61. The
Glassworks Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 S. Main Street
62. Cross Keys
School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mill Street
63. The John
Peacock House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Branin Road
3
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INTRODUCTION
A major purpose
of the preparation and distribution
of this booklet
to Medford's residents is to acquaint
today's young
people and tomorrow's decision makers with
the unique and
historic nature of the town in which we
live. It is our hope
that the information about the historic
persons, sites
and buildings presented here will be one
step toward an
increased appreciation of Medford's past
and the need for
future preservation of the rich historical
heritage within
our community.
PRESERVATION IS
PROGRESS, TOO.
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Sawmill Road
In the late
1700's John Prickett
owned several thousand
acres of prime
timberland in this area. To provide power to
operate his
sawmill, Prickett
dammed Kettle Run.
William Braddock
in the 1860's established here an
up-and-down
sawmill, capable of cutting larger timbers.
Charcoal used at
the old Philadelphia Mint was made from
oaks cut down in
the Braddock's Mill area.
Charcoal is
chunks of carbon made from wood by burning
off the water,
gases, tars and resins. The collier constructed
a charcoal pit
above ground using four-foot long slabs of
wood. To make the
8-to-10 foot tall mound nearly airtight,
he covered it
with sod and filled in the cracks with sand.
The collier then
lit a fire that burned slowly inside the
pit for a week to
ten days. When the pit collapsed and cooled,
he raked the
charcoal out and put it in bags. While tending
the charcoal pit,
the collier slept nearby in a crude shelter
made of boards or
of branches covered with leaves.
Charcoal was the
fuel used in the iron furnaces and
forges at Aetna
and Taunton.
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Breakneck and
Taunton Roads
Taunton furnace
and forge were part of the iron empire
of Charles Read.
The furnace went into blast in 1767.
Taunton produced
pig iron bars and hollowware. Cannon
balls were cast here
during the American Revolution. The
Medford
Historical Society has a cannon ball made at
Taunton on
display in the museum at Kirby's Mill.
An iron furnace
used bog iron ore, or limonite, that forms
naturally along
the edges of streams and in swamps in the
Pine Barrens. The
ore was dug out, floated on boats to the
furnace, crushed
into small pieces and dried. The raw
materials ore,
charcoal and lime in the form of crushed
oyster or clam
shells were dumped into the top of the
chimney of the
furnace. A fire of 3000 degrees melted the
heavy iron, which
sank to the bottom of the chimney and
flowed out into
shallow trenches under the casting shed. The
two rows of
cooled metal were known as "pig iron bars."
Each bar was as thick
and as long as a man's arm and
weighed about 60
pounds. Some of the molten iron was
ladled into molds
to form pots, pans, stoves, firebacks,
water pipes and
dozens of other cast iron objects.
6
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The ironworks at
Taunton was purchased in 1830 by Cox,
Longworth and
Company. It operated for a few more years
before it went
out of blast permanently.
Joseph Hinchman
inherited the Taunton property in 1847.
He converted more
than 2000 acres into a huge cranberry
growing area.
70 Christopher's
Mill Road
Image
photo circa 1940
The original Hoot
Owl property was built in 1772.
It is now known
as "Sandy Run." This 2-_ story, 3 bay
brick farmhouse
is a fine example of construction during
the Colonial Era.
Ongoing restoration by several recent
owners has
preserved this fine landmark.
The property was
a notorious hangout for a gang of
bootleggers
during Prohibition in the 1920's.
Himmelein Road
John Goslin
established a sawmill at this site circa 1720.
A gristmill was
added before David Oliphant purchased the
mill complex and
3750 acres of timberland in 1763.
An economic depression
in 1768 caused the Oliphant's
Mill property to
go up for public sale. It was acquired by
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Samuel Coles of
old Gloucester County, which in those
days included
Cherry Hill and bordered on the original old
Evesham Township.
Coles willed it to his granddaughters,
Ann, Rachel and
Martha Newbold, who hired David Oliphant
and his son,
Jonathan, to stay on as the millers. In 1821, grandson Shinn Oliphant took title and once again a member of the
family owned the "home mill." In all, five generations of Oliphants were
associated with the mill as owners or as manager/operators for over ninety
years. The gristmill, sawmill and icehouse at Oliphant's Mill
served long and
useful lives before they closed in 1906.
Image
Oliphant's
Sawmill, circa 1905
Rafts of lumber
were floated from Oliphant's sawmill on
the South West
Branch of the Rancocas Creek to Lumberton.
There the wood
was tranferred to barges and shipped to
Philadelphia, New
York and other large cities on the East
Coast. Early
frame houses in Medford were built with oak
timbers, pine or
cedar boards and roofed with cedar shingles,
all sawed at
Oliphant's and several other local sawmills.
8
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North of the jug handle
at Stokes and Jackson Roads
Benjamin Thomas
was granted a license in 1775 to
keep one of the
first taverns in our area at this hamlet,
known then as
Cross Keys and by 1859 called Fairview.
A tavern was
important in those early days as a center
for exchanging
news and holding meetings and as a resting
place for weary
travelers and their horses. At Cross Keys
in 1847, Samuel Thackara founded a mill that
crushed
charcoal.
Production of various degrees of fineness averaged
100 bushels per
day. Pulverized charcoal was used in the
making of
gunpowder and whiskey and to polish brass and
copper products.
By the early 1900s most of the timberland
in our area had
been cut. The scarcity of wood for making
charcoal
contributed to the closing of the mill by Thackara's
son shortly
before World War I. Most of the
village of Crosskeys/Fairview has been lost to development in recent years.
Branin Road
justice in the
Court of Quarter Sessions and for seven years
as deputy
Surveyor-General. In 1759 he surveyed the land
in Indian Mills
that became Brotherton Reservation.
A blacksmith by
trade, Peacock had a farm here where
he also operated
his small one-man powder mill, attached
to the fireplace
in his kitchen. The Quartermaster of
Washington's Army
at Valley Forge sent Peacock a bad
batch of black
powder to be reprocessed and dried. Some-
thing went wrong
on that fateful day in January 1777.
was killed, his
house was destroyed and several of his
family members
were injured.
20 Mill Street
This site was the
beginning of navigation on the South
West Branch of
the Rancocas in the 1700's, when the creek
was much deeper
and wider than it is today. At this landing
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barges started
their trips to Philadelphia and other large
East Coast cities
loaded with cargoes that included charcoal
and products from
the iron furnaces and the glassworks.
Before there were
roads to transport goods by wagon, it
was very
important that the waterways remained open. In
order to hire men
with teams of oxen to remove fallen logs
and sunken barges
from the creek, the Pioneer Navigation
Act of 1768
ordered that tolls be collected. One shilling
was charged for a
raft of timber, two shillings for a barge
of iron or
charcoal and six pence for a raft of nails.
Union Street
Most of the
settlers of Medford were members of the
Religious Society
of Friends. The honest and considerate
treatment of the
Lenape Indians by the Quakers was
outstanding and
their friendly relationships were a bright chapter in local history. Medford
was known until 1874 as Upper
Evesham. The
first Quaker Meeting in Upper Evesham was established in 1759. The first
Meeting House was built here in 1762.
as it was in 1821
Union Fire
Company was constructed on the site in 1821 by
Barzilla Braddock
and Shinn Oliphant. A 1969 replica built
by the Medford
Historical Society can be seen there now.
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NO. 9 THE NAIL
HOUSE
30 Jennings Road
The Nail House
has been in three locations and it
has served as a
store, a smithy, a nail factory and a home. The
building stood
originally at the corner of Main Street and
Friends Avenue.
Before the American Revolution it had a
small blacksmith
shop with two forge fires where molded
bullets for the
Continental Army were later made.
Mark Reeve owned
the property in the early 1800s. He
developed there
the first machinery for the mass production
of headed cut
nails. It was operated by horse power.
Later the Nail
House was moved to Cherry Street.
By the mid-1900s,
the owner of the badly run-down building
was Evelyn Belcher,
a retired school teacher. She gave it to
the late Dr.
Edward Jennings with the agreement that it would
be moved and
restored by him. Circa 1955, he relocated
it to Jennings
Road and enlarged it to its present size.
More about Mark
Reeve: After visiting and admiring
Medford,
Massachusetts, he successfully promoted that name
for our township.
Reeve was also Medford's first real estate
developer. Circa
1810, he purchased ninety-two acres of
farmland, mapped
out streets, divided the land and sold the
first building
lots in historic Medford Village.
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40 Jennings Road
In the bricks of
the west wall of this beautifully restored
farmhouse are 1785,
the year it was built, and BW, the
initials of the
builder. The style and general features of
the smaller east
section of the house suggest that it is from
an earlier date,
probably the 1760s. The façade is Flemish
bond decorated
with a pattern of darker glazed brick.
271 Route 541
This 1732 home is
a special example of an early American
brick farmhouse.
The smaller section was a later addition.
The building is
located at the end of the _ mile-long lane beside
the English
Setter Club sign on the west side of Route 541.
The property
remained in the Wilkins family until the
English Setter
Club of America bought it in the early
1900s. Two of the
well-known persons who have attended
and participated
in field trials here were Ty Cobb in 1927
and later Clark
Gable.
12
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206 Church Road
James Still was
born in 1812 in Indian Mills, the son of
runaway slaves. In
his 1877 autobiography, Early Recollec-
tions and the
Life of Dr. James Still,
he wrote of overcoming
many personal
trials and difficulties during his lifetime.
With less than
three months of formal education at Brace
Road School, the
"Black Doctor of the Pines" taught himself
how to make
herbal medicines. In this office Dr. Still gave out
his famous
remedies to patients who came from miles around.
Dr. Still's
office and Victorian home in the 1880s.
13
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Eventually Dr.
Still became a major landowner in the
Crossroads area,
including a nearby hotel that he used as a
hospital for
patients who were too sick to return home. His
large Victorian
residence was next door to the office on a
plot of land that
is now a horse paddock. He died in 1885
and is buried in
the cemetery behind Jacobs Chapel on
Elbo Lane in
Mount Laurel.
Dr. James Still's
office was entered on the New Jersey
Register and
National Register of Historic Places in 1995.
Church Road
In 1773 Isaac
Haines and several others petitioned the New
Jersey Assembly
to allow construction of a dam, a gristmill and a
sawmill on the
South Branch of the Rancocas Creek. The
mill complex was
completed in 1778. It operated for eighty
four years under
Haines family ownership until 1866.
William Kirby
bought the property in 1877 and operated
it with his
younger brother, Charles H. Kirby. A century ago
it was a thriving
industrial center with a wheelwright shop,
14
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blacksmith shop,
two sawmills, shingling mill, carding mill
and cider mill,
all clustered around the big gristmill.
Kirby's Mill was
the last commercial, water-powered mill
in New Jersey. It
was converted to electric power in 1961.
The property was
purchased in 1969 by the Medford
Historical
Society, which has worked for more than thirty
years to
preserve, restore and develop it into an important
museum site.
Kirby's Mill was entered on the New Jersey
and National Registers of Historic
Places in 1971.
14. THE JOHN
HAINES HOUSE
26 Fostertown
Road
This farmhouse is
the oldest home in Medford Township
and it is the
earliest frame dwelling in Burlington County
still on its original
stone foundation. It was built on land
patented to the
builder's father, Richard Haines, by the
Duke of York
(later King James II) on April 21, 1682.
The west side of
the house is the earliest section, built
by John Haines
prior to 1690. His son, Jonathan Haines,
added the east
section in 1720. Another Haines "modernized"
it in 1808 and
still another Haines added a wraparound
section circa
1840.
15
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The property
remained in the Haines family until 1919.
A direct
descendant of John Haines purchased the farm in
1972. Two
different owners have seen a "resident ghost."
The home was
listed on the New Jersey and National
Registers of
Historic Places in June 1976.
Corner of
Eayrestown/Sandtown Roads
The Sandtown area
contains several homes that date to
the 1700's.
Elizabeth Collins, a pioneer Quaker minister with
the Union Street
Friends Meeting, and her husband Job lived
here circa 1775 in
a house that is still occupied nearby.
Because many
generations of the Prickett family lived
in this area, the
hamlet was also known as Prickettown.
Historic members
of the family include: John Prickett, the
first sawyer at
Braddock's Mill; Nathan Prickett, a teacher
at Brace Road
School; another John Prickett, owner of the
chair parts
factory in Chairville; and Stacy Prickett, well-to-do
owner of the
Federal-style brick home at 23 Branch Street
and proprietor of
a general store on South Main Street.