USA > New Jersey > Gloucester County > Notes on old Gloucester County, New Jersey, Volume I > Part 18
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20
Elizabeth was nearly twenty-one years old when she took possession of this home, not nineteen, as stated by Judge Clement in his "First Settlers of Newton Town- ship." Our knowledge of its construction is based wholly on circumstantial or traditional evidence. Regarding this, I quote Clement (1. c. p. 115) :- "It has been generally believed that she erected the first house on this tract of land, bringing with her much of the material from Eng- land. This is an error, as a map of the land made by Thomas Sharp in 1700 (which was before her arrival) proves that buildings were already on the land; and it is supposable that she occupied those already there. John Willis, the locator of the survey, no doubt put the dwell- ing there and (perhaps) lived on the premises some time, for fourteen years had elapsed between the date of the taking up and John Haddon's title. She probably en-
295
NOTES ON OLD GLOUCESTER COUNTY.
larged and improved the house so as to accord with her notions of convenience and comfort, and to receive her friends in a proper manner; for it is known that she never turned the stranger away from her door, or suffered her acquaintances to look for entertainment elsewhere.
It is worth noting in this connection that the said John Willis, known as a Philadelphia ship-carpenter in 1696, was no doubt a neighbor of John Haddon in South- wark, the latter furnishing him anchors for his ships be- fore he came to America. This explains John Haddon's purchase of the property on Cooper's Creek from Willis's son in 1698, he also living in Southwark. The absence of data for the elder Willis, after 1696, indicates that he died about that time, and the purchase was probably made in a settlement of his estate. The family name of Willis was also prominent on the old minute books of Horsly- down Meeting, in Southwark, when Elizabeth Haddon was a girl, so we can see more plainly the chain of cir- cumstances which finally led her to this wilderness home across the broad Atlantic.
In any event, we are safe in picturing the Old Had- donfield house as a very modest home when the dauntless maiden and her servants began the American housekeep- ing so admirably dramatized by Longfellow's poem "Elizabeth."
Much as one would love to linger in the fairy-land of conjecture as to the sort of house in which John and Eliza- beth Estaugh married and spent the first eleven years of their married life, let us now pass to the period in 1713, when they began to build a more commodious dwelling. Longfellow has taken Lydia Maria Child's story of the "Youthful Emigrant," and given us a rare pastoral of simple cottage life. To these the student is referred, while we consider the second period of Elizabeth Es- taugh's life marked by the building of Haddon Hall. The "New Haddonfield" home site was a mile distant across lots from the old one and a quarter-mile from the present
296
NOTES ON OLD GLOUCESTER COUNTY.
junction of the King's Highway (Haddonfield Main Street) and the old turnpike, now styled Haddon Avenue. The Hall stood on the highest knoll near the centre of a 500-acre tract which John Haddon bought of Richard Matthews the same year the Willis tract was acquired. This plantation adjoined the other one on the south and east, including, on its southeastern half, nearly all of that part of the Borough of Haddonfield lying north and west of the Main Street. A long lane at right-angles to the present Haddon Avenue has, for many generations, given access to that thoroughfare, but it is quite likely that the original lane ran directly from near the front of the house to the present corner of Main and Tanner Streets, where a lively tradition locates the residence of Elizabeth's chief butler. A more eligible site for a fine house than the one selected by our loving pair does not exist in the neighbor- hood, and a fine house has always stood on this site for nearly two hundred years, with the exception of a few months in 1842, when the original Haddon Hall was burned and a new brick mansion was erected by Isaac H. Wood on the same foundations.
The construction of Haddon Hall was not necessi- tated by an increase in the number of American Estaughs. It was undoubtedly due, in part, to the expectation that John Haddon and his wife would spend their declin- ing years in New Jersey. Some letters from London of that period indicate this very plainly, but the infirmities of old age and the dread of an ocean voyage prevented the journey. Other reasons made it fitting that the Es- taughs should enlarge their borders. John, all unwitting- ly perhaps, had been drawn into a strenuous business life as attorney for his father-in-law and sole agent of the Pennsylvania Land Company of London. Elizabeth, con- nected by ties of kinship and friendship with the most influential Friends of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and quickly assuming a responsible position in church and society, had become a great entertainer. Haddonfield, at
297
NOTES ON OLD GLOUCESTER COUNTY.
this time, was not the name for even a village; it literally was The Fields of Haddon. There were probably not more than two or three dwellings on the Main Street of the present town, and they of the most primitive sort-a tavern, a blacksmith shop, a log cabin or two at magnifi- cent distances. In short, the town of Haddonfield was not on the map, not even dreamt of, when the Estaughs had the cellar dug for the new mansion on the knoll. Six feet below ground it went and two feet above the thick founda- tion walls of rough-hewn Pennsylvania gneiss were laid, no doubt being floated up the creek in barges to Stoy's Landing, at high-tide. The floor of this cellar was, in part, covered with the square flag-bricks, which, there is every reason to suppose, were made in England, and whose origin must not be confounded with that of the ordinary bricks of the building, made, no doubt, in the neighborhood.
Having thus, like the Biblical wise man, "digged deep ยท and founded the building on a rock," as literally as was possible in West Jersey soil, the superstructure was built of bricks to the height of two and a half stories in the main building and to two stories in the annex. A word as to these bricks and their origin. They still do duty in the present buildings, and measure 87/8 x 4 x 21/2 inches, being three-fourths of an inch longer and one-quarter inch thicker than the present standard brick. The popular notion that shiploads of bricks were brought over from England to construct the homes of the early colonists may have some foundation, but we have proof that bricks were being manufactured in Burlington, New Jersey, be- fore Philadelphia was even a name. Some of William Penn's early building operations at the Manor, made use of bricks made by J. Redman, of Philadelphia, and in a letter of Hannah Penn's to Penn's secretary. James Logan, dated 1700, she says that "a new (brick) maker at Burlington" now makes them "a crown a thousand cheaper and as much better" than Redman's sort. It is
19
298
NOTES ON OLD GLOUCESTER COUNTY.
certain that, by 1713, brickmaking had become a regular industry in West Jersey, and where surface clay was ac- cessible on a plantation, the materials for large building operations like this were manufactured on the estate as closely as possible to the operation. There is an old clay pond, or marsh, just across the turnpike from, and nearly opposite to the Haddon Hall site, and distant therefrom about 300 yards. From my infancy almost to this day, the fenny shallows of this pool have harbored many a mystery known only to frogs, mosquitoes and boys. Only of late years has it dawned upon me that this blemish on the once fertile field of the Redman family was a legacy of the thrift of their collateral ancestor, Elizabeth Es- taugh, in her building operations. Doubtless from this, or a similar depression on the farm, where clay marl of the best quality for firing is known to lie close to the sur- face, came the "English bricks" which fiction has made illustrious. The square flag-bricks which paved the gar- den walks and cellar floors (as already hinted), were prob- ably imported, being of finer workmanship, a different color and of another sort of clay. Their size was exactly double that of the ordinary kind.
Unfortunately we do not now have access to any memoranda of the workmen or building expenses of Had- don Hall. These records, if existing, are probably in England, owned by some member of the Butcher family of London. It is not impossible that Francis Collins, master carpenter and mason, may have had a hand in planning and erecting the homestead. He was then an old man, but a close and trusty friend of Elizabeth, his daughters being her intimate associates. In 1675 he built the Stepney Meeting House, in London, and in 1682, the old octagonal Friends' Meeting House in Burlington, N. J. Another house-builder of the period was William Matlack, of Penisauken, who, four years later, bought 200 acres of land of John Haddon. Or it may be an ex- planation of the subsequent family relations between the
299
NOTES ON OLD GLOUCESTER COUNTY.
Estaughs and the Redmans, that one of the latter family, known to be Philadelphia carpenters, may have helped build Haddon Hall. In any event it could have been built by no other than a Quaker, and of good Quaker materials and workmanship!
We owe our present knowledge of the outward ap- pearance and inner construction of Haddon Hall chiefly to two sources. The first is a small water-color sketch made by the brother of Thomas Redman the third, John Evans Redman, of Philadelphia, whose maternal ancestor was a niece of Elizabeth Estaugh. Redman was of an artistic and literary turn, and delighted in the beauties of his brother's country-home. He contributed some de- scriptive and poetical essays to the Philadelphia Casket in the early thirties, illustrated with woodcuts, by Gilbert, after the author's sketches of Haddonfield scenes. John Clement says that this water-color view of Haddon Hall was made by John Evans Redman in 1821, but a legend of rather modern writing on the back of it gives the date about ten years later. The most reliable data as to the interior architecture of the Hall is furnished by Rebecca C. W. Reeve, oldest daughter of Isaac and Elizabeth Wood, and who was a child of eight years when the house was burned. It had been the home of her parents from 1831 until the fire destroyed it, in 1842. To the kind and thoughtful courtesy of Rebecca Reeve and to her love of the parental homestead, still held by her brother, Samuel Wood, added to a good memory of the stirring events of the night of the fire, we owe much.
I can do no better than quote from her letter to me about the old Hall :
S. N. RHOADS :-
CAMDEN, N. J.
Respected Friend. Thee requests a Plan of Haddon Hall, my old and well-loved home, which I enclose-made on a large scale as easier to draw. The House was brick, rough-cast and yellow-the Kitchen part also brick and rough-cast. The Garden wall enclosed the North and East sides only-a fence running along close to the box-tree walk, with the one yew tree near the gate.
300
NOTES ON OLD GLOUCESTER COUNTY.
The path from Hall door to front yard gate was in same position as at present-but the flag-bricks have been twice reset-the last time by my brother Samuel Wood.
The fire occurred about midnight of the 14th of April (Second day night of Yearly Mtg. week in Phila.) 1842.
My Father, Isaac Hornor Wood, and Mother Elizabeth H. Cooper Wood-with their children, Rebecca Cooper, William Cooper, Isaac Hornor Jr and Alexander Cooper, the latter six months old, with their three Colored maids, two col'd boys and a white man, con- stituted the household. One colored boy lost his life in the fire. The fire started in kitchen, and supposedly by a man retiring late and dropping a match.
Much of furniture in main part of house was saved by herculean efforts, and also on account of very thick wall, between the main and kitchen part of house. A trunk full of valuable family papers, which had been kept in a room on third floor for safe-keeping, was not secured by the man sent for them; therefore burned, an irreparable loss.
Some of the walls were standing next morning; but pulled down when cool, and the bricks used in rebuilding.
The front door. (and also either the back hall door or door of kitchen we know not which) were lifted from the hinges and carried out-and are now used as cellar doors in my brother's home.
The Barns were not damaged.
The present descendants of E. Haddon have my parents to thank for the preservation, enlarging and beautifying the place; as it had been sold by the Sheriff, and despoilers had been busy before their purchase of it. It has been in family of Isaac and Elizabeth Wood for seventy-seven years.
The original of the picture sold under the name of the "Estaugh House 1776 to 1876" was made during the residence in it of Sarah Cresson, whose carriage in the lane is shown in the picture.
REBECCA C. W. REEVE.
February eleventh, Nineteen hundred and eight.
It may be here added that the only building now standing on the property, originally constructed for Eliza- beth Estaugh, is her old brick Brew House. It stands about 30 feet from the rear of the mansion.
The plans of the first and second stories, as remember- ed by Rebecca Reeve, accompanied the letter. A study of these, as also of Redman's sketch, shows a considerable annex on the north end of the main building. The front of this annex in the water-color view plainly appears to project beyond the mansion some distance, apparently four to six feet. In the Reeve plan the reverse of this is shown.
301
NOTES ON OLD GLOUCESTER COUNTY.
This two-story, four-roomed "Annex," as I have called it, with its pent-roof, low ceilings and apparent lack of cellar,* strongly suggests having been built be- fore the larger building to which it was attached. This is quite likely, and it would have formed ample accom- modations for a year or more during which the main building and its accessories were being leisurely com- pleted after the good, old, conservative Quaker fashion. That the two parts of Haddon Hall were separately built is further shown by the fact that the walls between them were double-thick, and the first floor of the small- er structure was about three feet lower than that of its neighbor, and the height of the ceilings so different that no second-story connection existed between them. Future researches may show that a period of five or six years elapsed between the construction of the two build- ings, and that the larger one was built with a view of bringing John Haddon and his wife over to live with their favorite children during their declining years. There are several well-known facts which favor this theory. As the present building stands on the ancient foundations, we know that the frontage of the old one was 43 feet and the gable end 36 feet wide. The annex must have increased the total frontage, as seen coming up the lane, to 60 feet.
We know not a little of the original furnishings of Haddon Hall, much of these being distributed, before the house was burned, among the heirs of Ebenezer Hop- kins, Elizabeth Estaugh's adopted nephew, who was my great, great, great grandfather. Among these heir- looms are several fine old chairs; a large marble-top, claw-foot parlor-table; a tall, heavy, gilt-topped parlor mirror; a very tall and finely constructed grandfather's clock, made in London; a truly splendid old chest of drawers, etc., etc. All these show that substantial ele- gance, which indicates both wealth and thrift, that happy
* The wine vault was probably under the front room of this part.
302
NOTES ON OLD GLOUCESTER COUNTY.
combination which so many strive after, but so few at- tain.
A search among the journals of traveling ministers of the period between 1720 and 1762 shows that Had- don Hall had almost a monopoly in the hospitalities given to "Public Friends" visiting that neighborhood. Thomas Story, Thomas Wilson and James Dickinson, Benjamin Kidd, William Reckitt, William Ellis, John Fothergill, Samuel Bownas, Mary (Pace) Weston, Catherine Peyton, Edmund Peckover and others, were visitors there from Old England. Besides these, were some from New England and New York, also many prominent Friends from Philadelphia and Burlington. Of these latter, were the Pemberton, Logan, Cadwalla- der, Smith, Norris, Jennings, Drinker, Waln and Rawle families, with some of whom John Estaugh had deal- ings both secular and religious. One of the most read- able notices of a social visit to the "Widow Estaugh's" is given in the now well-known book, "Hannah Logan's Courtship," pages 118 and 167, in which, under date of 8th Month 29th, 1747, John Smith, the undaunted lover, records how he followed Hannah to Burlington and took her to Mount Holly that afternoon after meet- ing, etc.
Journal of Thomas Clark *
He was a son of Jeffery and Mary Clark, born Feb. 18th, 1737, and died Oct. 29, 1809. On Jan'y 4th, 1758, he was wrecked on a small vessel below Red Bank and drifted ashore at Ladd's Cove, where he was rescued by John Wilkins, Sr., John Tatum and Moses Curtin. He changed his mind about being a sea-faring man and settled in Gloucester County, where he mar- ried Christian Vanneman, daughter of Garrett and Chris- tian Vanneman, April 8, 1758. She was born Sept. 20, 1741.
The first year after their marriage he lived with Isaac Cooper and his wife resided with her parents. They began to keep house March 25, 1759, and lived with Isaac Cooper as overseer in a brick house in Cooper's meadow, near Clomell Creek dam.
In March, 1761, they moved on the Garrett Van- neman plantation, which was his birth-place. March 25th, 1768, he moved on the farm he bought of John Vanneman, and while he lived on that plantation he had a spell of sickness and a swelling appeared in his right thigh. Doctor Bodo Otto wished to cut his leg off, which he would not permit, but consented to have it lanced, and then the wound healed.
On Sept. 5, 1769, at 2.40 A. M., a comet appeared in the heavens. He notes that the year 1751 had no month of January or February, nor the first 24 days of March, and that the year ended on the 31st day of Decem- ber, and not as formerly on the 24th day of March. September, 1752, had none of the following days in England or America, viz., 3rd to 13th. He claimed to have taken this entry from the Hibernian Almanac, and that it was fresh in his memory.
* By FRANK H. STEWART.
304
NOTES ON OLD GLOUCESTER COUNTY.
Feb'y 2, 1772, he was appointed Justice of the Peace and took the oath of office under the King's Gov- ernment and remained until the Revolution.
April, 1775, he was elected one of the Council of Proprietors for the Western Division of New Jersey, and served for many years, part of the time its vice pres- ident.
Nov. 19, 1774. Repaupa Creek was "Stoped out" by James Hinchman, James Steelman and himself, man- agers appointed by act of Assembly.
On March 9, 1776, he was in New York and saw the streets entrenched and the enemy in sight.
March 27, 1777, he moved to Deptford Township, on the West place, where he had a disagreeable scene occasioned by the war. Probably an argument with a tory.
On Oct. 4, 1777, he was taken prisoner by the British and kept prisoner by them during an action with the American Shipping. It happened to be on the day of the battle of Germantown, and he and Tench Fran- cis got liberty to go home on that account.
In the winter of 1777 he saw an ox roasted on the ice opposite Philadelphia.
On Sept. 20, 1778, he was elected one of the Con- vention of New Jersey when they assumed the govern- ment of New Jersey.
Dec. 24, 1779, he took the qualifications to the gov- ernment established under Authority of the People.
March 13, 1782, he moved on the plantation he bought of Samuel Paul, Sr., in Greenwich Twp.
When he was 25 years of age he weighed 137 lbs. and 237 at the age of 64.
Oct., 1784, he was elected an Assemblyman for the County of Gloucester and served thereafter for a period of seven years in the N. J. Legislature.
In Nov., 1795, and again in Nov., 1800, he was elected a Judge and Justice of the Peace of Gloucester Co.
305
NOTES ON OLD GLOUCESTER COUNTY.
His children were: Edith, born May 5, 1759, mar- ried May 21, 1777, to David Hendrickson; Mary, born Jan. 28, 1761, married Jan'y 7, 1780, to Joseph Paul ; Anne, born March 4, 1763, married Feb'y 10, 1786, to Samuel D. Paul; Elizabeth, born Dec. 29, 1764, married Feb'y 10, 1786, to Edmund Weatherby, died Sept. 12, 1795; buried at Solomon's Meeting; Thos Clark, Jr., born Jan'y 18, 1767, married, Dec. 21, 1786, Achsah Pancoast; Lydia, born March 26, 1769, married Aug. 21, 1788, Andras Ridgway; died Sept 4, 1804, left 6 sons and 2 daughters, buried at E. Wetherby's; Jeffry Clark, Jr., born Nov. 20, 1771, married Aug 12, 1790, to Rachel Weatherby; Christian, born July 12, 1774, married Sept. 30, 1790, to James C. Wood; Joseph, born Sept. 23, 1776, married Sept. 22, 1796, Elizabeth Tiers ; John, born Apr. 3, 1779, married Nov. 7, 1799, to Mary Lane.
His father and mother were buried in St. Paul's Church Yard, Philadelphia.
His brother Timothy Clark was buried at Clomell on Vanneman's plantation, in the orchard, and had a head and foot-stone marked by Thos. Clark.
His sister Ann Day, wife of Charles Day, died about Sept., 1755, and was buried in Coles Churchyard in Waterford Twp. Had a tombstone.
His brother George was buried in a private burial ground in Salem. He died Dec., 1767, aged about 21 years.
July 4th, 1800, he manumitted a man slave he had raised in his family.
Oct., 1800, a thunder and lightning storm in Green- wich and Deptford Townships near Mantua Creek lower bridge, set fire to James Hinchman's barn, and it and its contents of grain and hay were consumed. Also set fire to three different heaps of cornstalks in George Law- rence's field on the Death of the Fox place.
306
NOTES ON OLD GLOUCESTER COUNTY.
July 23, 1802. Thomas Reeves, a man of good sense and character, was killed by lightning.
May 8th, 1803. There was a snow about ankle deep.
Between October, 1802, and October, 1803, New Jersey was without a governor because of a tie in the legislature.
June Ist, 1804. He laid the big sluice in the meadow on Mantua Creek.
When he was 64 years of age he wrote an account of his life in which he said he bought and read books and became a surveyor and conveyancer, despite his natural disabilities. He was executor of many estates and guardian of minors. He built a house of worship in Greenwich Township, named Berkley, in memory of Lord Berkley, proprietor of West New Jersey. He claimed that he was never sued for a just debt, nor scarcely ever sued any person, and that no person was ever detained in jail on his account, nor their lands or goods sold. "This gives peace to the mind and to God that passeth all understanding."
In his Journal he wrote poetry and observations on various subjects. He also recorded some well known happenings. He closes it with "This Journal is writ with my own hand" * * * "from other books so as to have them together."
These extracts were made from a copy of the Jour- nal in possession of L. Irving Reichner, Esq., a descend- ant of Thomas Clark.
Battle of Chestnut Neck*
This important Battle in Old Gloucester County in what is now Atlantic County is, like the Battle of Red Bank, called to mind by a beautiful monument overlook- ing the mouth of Mullica River, erected by the State of New Jersey and dedicated Oct. 6, 1911. The inscription reads "In honor of the brave patriots who defended their liberties and their homes in a battle fought near this site Oct. 6, 1778." Even at this late date cannon balls are dredged up by the oyster tongers of Great Bay and plowed up by the farmers of Chestnut Neck and Clarks Landing.
The British fleet was sent to Little Egg Harbor to destroy the Iron Works at Batsto furnace at the forks of the Mullica River and destroy the ships secreted in the waters of Little Egg Harbor bay and river and the battle of Chestnut Neck resulted. The British burned the town of Chestnut Neck, which was then one of the largest settlements on the New Jersey Coast. They also destroyed the ships in the harbor before being driven away by Pulaski's Legion.
At low tide the wreck of a ship may be seen at Green Bank and two others at Chestnut Neck. The locality is full of traditions of the Revolution. The women and chil- dren fled to the swampy woods while the men formed squads to defend their homes.
Lewis French, who donated the ground for the monu- ment, told me that an English officer was killed and buried between his house and the present road, and that another English soldier was killed by a militiaman he was chasing around the house that then occupied the site of the present house which was built a year or so after the battle, the English having burned the original one, together with several others.
* By FRANK H. STEWART.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.