USA > New Jersey > Atlantic County > Atlantic City > The Daily union history of Atlantic City and County, New Jersey : containing sketches of the past and present of Atlantic City and County > Part 5
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DR. EDWARD NORTH.
HISTORY OF HAMMONTON.
Previous to 1859 the preacher made his weekly visit, and the doctor, when needed, was called from Haddonfield. Dr. Joseph H. North, Sr., was the first local physician, coming from Maine in 1858. The first church, in which also was held the first school, was built probably about the time William Coffin came from Green Bank to build and operate the saw mill for Jolin Coates, for there his children were educated. It was located off the old Waterford road, near the Minor Rogers farm, later a school house was built nearer the lake, which was torn down to make room for the present brick building. Hammonton now has seven churches and five school houses, the central or high school a beautiful and imposing structure, showing that religion and education are after all the founda- tion stones of success.
W. J. SMITH'S RESIDENCE, HAMMONTON.
Hammonton has had its "characters" and its legends; as a boy I once got a glimpse into the lockers and chests of an old woman, whose husban I was said to have been a smuggler. Laces, velvets and silks fit for a duchess, and these in an old house miles from neighbors, and where at that time bears roamed at large.
So, too, the "haunted house" figured in its annals, just across the dam, where the weeping willows shade the unruffled surface of the lake. stood a weatlı- er-stained. unfinished building, long the abode of an eccentric biped whose long hair and doubtful title of "Dr." frightened the children and made sceptical the would-be credulous. It was also the abode of strange sounds and weird sights. but time and the disappearance of the canny owner has exercised the uneasy spirits that roamed through its dusty, empty halls.
THOMAS J. SMITH.
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HISTORY OF HAMMONTON.
A famous character of those days was Wesley Budden, one of God's 11- fortunates, as we were prone to think, but who read the book of Nature nearer right, perhaps, than we who congratulated ourselves on having more sense. Six feet in his bare feet-for he seldom wore boots or shoes-straight as an Indian and with the Indian's acuteness in forest lore, he knew every foot of land from the Delaware to the forks of the Mullica, every pickerel haunt from Atsion to the "Penny Pot." every rabbit run and quail ground in Camden or Atlantic Counties. Of Quaker descent, but Methodist by profession, he could lead a choir or offer prayer, and no camp-meeting was complete without "John Wesley." He was the reincarnation of Cooper's "Deerslayer," simple, honest, God-fearing, and many a lonely housewife felt safer by his presence and richer by a string of shining pickerel or a plump rabbit, and many a child happier by his friendly face and quaint stories. He knew the names and histories of every one for miles around, and every legend from the finding of the "pot of pennies," which gave the name to his favorite fishing stream, to the ghostly flame that led belated travellers into the morasses of its endless swamps.
If he be dead, may some kind hand have soothed his last moments and cut upon his tombstone the word "Faithful." I have before me a "pass." signed by Sheriff Sam Adams, to witness the execution of Hill and Fullen, for the murder of old man Chislett. Well do I remember the excitement when the news of this dastardly crime reached the quiet little village, and the hours spent by the men and boys, with shot-gun and rifle, searching the thickets of Little Egg Harbor swamps for the fugitives. In the same swamps during the Civil War a number of deserters and bounty-jumpers lived, making nightly raids on the chicken coops and larders of the surrounding farmers, and bringing terror to the women folks and children. At that time "Tar Kiln Neck" was as safe for a stranger after dark as would have been the White Chapel in London or Seven Points in New York.
The mystery surrounding the disappearance of William Clark, who lived on the New Columbia road in a small cabin a mile or so below the lake, has never been explained, though it is believed he was murdered and his body thrown into the well near the cabin and removed before the slow hand of authority had time to investigate. Years before an old woman of eighty had disappeared in a like manner. It was said she had wandered to the swamp not far from home, but though they were searched by the whole male population of the town for a week. day and night, no clue was ever found.
Hammonton, too, has entertained its quota of celebrities, Charlotte Cushi- man, the great American actress, owned many acres lying to the north of the town, and her agent, Col. Obertypher, a Hungarian exile and friend of Kossuth, there for a time made his home. Samuel Wylie Crawford, the hero of Cedar Mountain and Brigadier-General, was principal of the High School for one term. Patriot, soldier and scholar, he is well remembered by those whose fortune it was to listen to his instruction. Solon Robinson, Bishop Odenheimer, Moses Ballou, Ada Clare. the "Queen of Bohemia," whose tragic death ended a pic-
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DAILY UNION HISTORY OF ATLANTIC COUNTY.
turesque life; Selma Borg, Edward Howland and Marie, his wife, whose enter- taining articles ran for so many years through Harper's Magazine; James M. Peebles, the scholar, traveler and author, and last but not least among many others, Doctor Bartholet, the "old man statuesque," whose classic lore made him as much sought after in the study and drawing-room as did his herculean frame and patriarchal brow in the studio of the artist. His portrait in the Academy of Fine Arts of Philadelphia, shows a subject who would have brought delight to the heart of the old Dutch masters.
Hammonton has been the theme of "Poem and Story." There lived and sung William Hoppin, a bard of no mean calibre, whose fine poetic nature de- served a better fate than Fortune cast around his untimely death. In the story "Bunker Hill to Chicago," Eloise Randall Richberg has drawn many of the scenes and characters from the little town which was so long her home. There lived Libbie Canfield, the dark-eyed, raven-haired beauty, who became the wife of Brigham Young, Jr. There died Dr. James North, the skillful dentist, the friend of Baron Stein and the Arch Duke Charles, of Austria.
The past has been kind to the namesake of John Hammond Coffin, what the future has in store is a sealed book which is not in my power, nor is it my province to open.
DR. JAMES NORTH.
Batsto.
거 PATHETIC as well as poetic story is that of the rise and decadence of the village of Batsto. Let others explain the philosophy of the strange industrial changes of the past century. Batsto, in the language of the Indians who knew the place well, means a bathing place. It is situated in Burlington County, at the head of navigation, on the northerly bank of the Mullica or Little Egg Harbor river. The Indian name of this stream was Minne lo la, which signifies Little Water. This place was known in the olden times as the Forks of the Little Egg Harbor. Here four streams or forks unite to form the large river which flows thirty miles into Great Bay and the ocean. With the towns along the river for many years there was extensive commerce with New York and other seaports. The iron, glass, wood, timber and charcoal from the Jersey villages were transported to market in ships built by the workers in wood and iron from adjacent forests and exchanged for groceries and supplies required by the sturdy inhabitants.
The Batsto river, Atsion river, Nesco or Jackson creek, and West Mill creek were quite considerable streams in the earlier days, before forest fires had de- voured the herbage and vegetation that covered the swamps and woodlands and held back in Nature's own good way, the floods which now so quickly find the channels and disappear, leaving a denuded, almost desert region on all sides. Forty years and more ago there was ample water power on any of these streams to drive a mill any month in the year, while now by means of dams and canals four united streams are hardly sufficient for the Pleasant Mills paper mill during dry seasons.
Batsto and Pleasant Mills are practically one village with bridges over these rivers uniting them. Forty years ago fully a thousand people found work and happy homes there, where one-fifth of that number now struggle for a livelihood.
Ten years before the Declaration of Independence the first iron furnace was started at Batsto. It was the second one to be started in the State, the first being up in Warren County. Batsto was then the property of one Israel Pemberton, and was known as Whitcomb Manor. It was sold to Charles Reed, a relative by marriage, and then consisted of several thousand acres. Col. John Knox suc- ceeded Reed as owner in 1767, and Thomas Mayberry succeeded Knox the fol- lowing year. Later it became the property of Joseph Ball, a wealthy Quaker of Philadelphia, who owned land in several states. He paid $275.000 for Batsto and developed the bog iron works there during the Revolution. Iron cannon,
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COL. WILLIAM RICHARDS.
THE RISE AND DECADENCE OF BATSTO.
shot and shell were cast there and the place became one of considerable conse- quence to the colonists. A detachment of the British fleet was sent to destroy the place and the battle of Sweetwater was the consequence.
One of the stalwart men who, commissioned as Colonel, rendered Wash- ington distinguished service in the Jerseys, was William Richards, a sketch of
whom appears elsewhere. In 1784. after the battle of Yorktown. Richards came to Batsto as manager for Joseph Ball. his nephew. He was one of the six uncles and six aunts who later in- herited the Ball estate. He was a man of wonderful energy and enterprise, and soon became sole owner and lived like a prince. He brought in immigrants, de- veloped the iron works. built up the estate and reared a large family. Be- THE RICHARDS MANSION. fore the death of William Richards, in 1823. Jesse. his oldest son, succeeded the father as master of the manor, and he ruled Batsto as his father had done with great energy and success for thirty years. enlarged the estate and made it exceedingly prosperous. From the big house, which still stands, he could survey a thriving village whose people were employed in the manufacture of iron, glass, pottery, lumber, farming and ship-building. Shade trees were planted along the four streets of the village and an assembly of happy homes and miles of farm and woodland were the wealth of Jesse Richards. From his own store and mills he supplied his people and was loved and honored as a kind and worthy master. In person he was very large and powerful, weighing close to three hundred pounds. and full of enterprise and good nature. The large farms made larger by the wood choppers and the charcoal burners yielded bountifully of all kinds of fruits and grains, and the several mills were kept busy making flour, feed and lumber of the products of the woods and fields. Batsto, in the heart of South Jersey, was a picture of peace. plenty and happiness for many years. But the development of railroads and steam TOMB OF JESSE RICHARDS. power, the discovery of anthracite coal in Pennsylvania and the opening of the iron mines there and the advantages to manufacturers of proximity to large cities, had a fatal effeet upon the bog iron industry in and about Batsto. In 1848
JESSE RICHARDS.
THE RISE AND DECADENCE OF BATSTO.
the fires in the Batsto furnaces were allowed to die out and they were never again relighted. This was a severe blow to Jesse Richards, who died six years later. in 1854. aged seventy-two years. Near the old church in the village a costly marble monument marks his last resting place, on which the words "Beloved. Hon- ored, Mourned." are a fit- ting epitaph for this re- markable man.
THE RICHARDS YARD AND BARNS.
Three sons, Thomas H., Samuel and Jesse, and three daughters, inherited the large estate. The sons were the executors. They were the sons of a rich father and had not been trained as rigidly for busi- ness as he had been. nor were they calculated to cope with the great indus- trial changes of that per-
iod. New inventions and competition had their relentless effect upon the pros- perity of Batsto. They left the estate in charge of their faithful manager, Robert Stewart, and resided in Philadelphia. Heavy and unexpected losses through the New York agency serious- ly affected the estate, and they were induced to sell thirty thousand acres of their lands. Workmen at times failed of their wages as the clouds of disaster gathered over this once happy village. Later the fires in the glass furnaces went out and the busy vil- lage of half a century was idle. Efforts were made by the residents to again start up the fires, but the competition and advan- tages of other places could not be met successfully. OLD CORN-CRIB AND GRIST MILL. Batsto gradually ceased to be the market-place for the farmers about Mt. Holl .. who sold tons of pork and produce here during the prosperous years. The mills
HON. BENJAMIN W. RICHARDS.
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THE RISE AND DECADENCE OF BATSTO.
were idle, and the houses and foundry began to crumble and the canals to choke up and go to ruin. A few of the old families still lingered, occupying the habitable houses, finding employment in the coalings or chopping wood. The "Big House" was empty at last. No member of the Richards family remained there. One of the daughters had married Judge Bicknell of Ohio; an- other had been buried on the hillside by the old church, while the third had married a Confederate officer and lived in the South.
On the night of Febru- ary 23, 1874, a spark from the chimney of Robert Stew- art's house set fire to the dwelling and spread to other houses and buildings and laid Batsto in ashes. It is now but a suggestion of its BATSTO LAKE ABOVE THE ROAD. former self, a deserted coun- try village. Mortgages had accumulated against the property and the Court at Mt. Holly had given Robert Stewart a mortgage against it for $20,000, and smaller amounts to other parties. In 1876, at a Master's sale, on a mortgage for $14,000, which had been running since 1845, Joseph Wharton of Philadelphia, purchased the Batsto estate of about 100 square miles. Mr. Wharton expended thousands of dollars in the improve- ment of property, repairing the buildings, clearing up the farms, planting hedges, building miles of roads, cultivating cranberry bogs, and restoring the attractive- ness of the estate. The "Big House" was very much enlarged and improved to the extent of over $40,000. It is a model country mansion, standing on a sightly knoll overlooking the lake and village, surrounded by grand old shade trees. It contains 36 rooms and is surmounted by a tower 116 feet from the ground. The dining room is finished in ash, the parlor in cherry and walnut and a large old- fashioned stairway in oak, heavily carved, leads from the spacious hallway to the floors above. Every room is provided with hot and cold water. There are marble top washstands and several bath rooms. On the fourth floor is a billiard room. The walls are beautifully frescoed and the mansion is fit to entertain the President and his cabinet. From the ample porch one may see the carp pond just below the road where for years the old iron furnace stood, the beautiful lake to the right and above the dam and road, and to the left the stone grist mill, corn crib, the old stone store and stables and cattle sheds. What a lively panorama of past scenes do these substantial buildings and this grand estate suggest! Mr. Whar- ton has since purchased other lands and is probably the largest freeholder in the State of New Jersey.
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DAILY UNION HISTORY OF ATLANTIC COUNTY.
With the decadence of general agriculture and the extinction of old-time industries at Batsto, the growing of cranberries for a number of years has been receiving considerable attention. Augustus Richards, twenty odd years ago, was one of the first to engage extensively in cranberry culture at Batsto. The wild berry abounds in the swamps and for years has been gathered by the hundreds of bushels. Swamps have been drained and cleared up and hundreds of acres added to the cultivated area and the cran- berry made a very important product of this section. It is estimated that not less than fifty thousand bushels of wild and cultivated berries were harvested from the various bogs and swamps of the Wharton tract during the season of 1898.
STORE AND LAWN.
Naturally a large portion of the resi- dents of this territory are not property owners. Their income is partly obtained as day laborers and more largely derived from the harvest of the wild huckleberry, which is even more abundant through- out the woods and swamps than the wild : cranberry. . The huckleberry season lasts from the first of June till the middle of September, and hundreds of people gather enough of these wild berries to pay their entire household expenses. Men, women and children scour the swamps for them, expert pickers gathering a bushel a day each. This fruit of the Jersey swamps finds a ready market and is sent away by the carload. Requiring no capital to become a huckleberry picker hundreds of people make a comfortable living from this great natural privilege of the wild lands.
The old iron plate bearing the date of the original building of the Batsto furnace, and its rebuilding twice, is still in existence and is treasured as a relic by Mr. B. W. Richards, at his office in Philadelphia. This plate for years was a conspicuous mark on the last stone furnace, and was saved from the ruins when the furnace was dis- mantled.
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Port Republic.
HE first settlement in what is now known as Atlantic County, was made at Chestnut Neck, on the west bank of the Mullica river, near where the village of Port Republic is now located.
In 1637 John Mullica sailed up the river that took his name, landing at Chestnut Neck, Green Bank and Sweetwater (now Pleasant Mills): from thence he journeyed across country to Mullica Hill, where he settled, lived and died. The river and the town still bear the name of the first explorer of this section of New Jersey. He reported the country a vast wilderness, inhabited by Indians; the forest luxuriant in wild grapes and nuts; the waters teeming with fish, geese. ducks and sea birds. Here on the beach sands the sea birds laid their eggs and reared their young. The presence of large numbers of eggs gave the place the name of Egg Harbor in after years.
The Manahawkin, Shamong and Nacut tribes of the Delaware (Leni Lenapes) nation of Indians lived along the Mullica; at peace with the white settlers for more than a century before the last remnant of the finest type and most powerful nation of the Aborigines of the Western Continent retreated ominously toward the setting sun. There is no record or tradition of any massacres or treachery by the peace-loving Lenapes in this section of New Jersey. Tamanend, their be- loved prophet and chief, loved peace and justice and he instilled these sentiments into the hearts of his tribes.
Many of the first settlers were the peace-loving Quakers, who dealt fairly and with justice with the Indians. Their lands were bought, and when the last of the tribes moved west they received pay for their remaining territory.
In 1676 the province of West Jersey (the Mullica river was the dividing line between East and West Jersey) passed under the control of William Penn. The liberal code of laws instituted by Penn induced four hundred families of Friends to settle in the Province the first year. Many families in Atlantic County trace their lineage to these first Quaker families. The Leeds were Quakers. . \ Friends Society was organized and a meeting house built about this time near Leeds Point. This old meeting house has since been converted into a store and dwelling.
In 1776, when the Independence of the colonies was proclaimed, Chestnut Neck was the largest village on the New Jersey coast-a trade centre-vessels making regular trips to New York, taking out a cargo of lumber, fish, furs and agricultural products and returning with provisions and the mail. In that year
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HENRY DISSTON.
91
SKETCH OF PORT REPUBLIC.
Patrick McCollum and Micajah Smith, having obtained a charter from the King of England, began building the mill dam across Nacut creek at Port Republic and erected mills for sawing lumber and grinding corn. Families by the names of Mathis, Johnson. Bell. Collins, Sooy, Giberson, Turner. Brower, Smallwood. Miller, Bowen. Adams, Leech, Trench. Higbee. Smith. Burnett, MeCollum. and Martin had settled at or in the vicinity of Chestnut Neck (now Port Re- public).
When independence was declared and hostilities with England began, the spirit of patriotism and love of liberty fired the hearts of the sturdy settlers of this section. A company of volunteers was formed, under command of Captain Johnson, and a crude sand fort constructed on the south bank of the river below the village of Chestnut Neck. Another company of Rangers had been formed with Captain Baylin in command, at the forks of the river, below Pleasant Mills. Dr. Richard Collins, who was the first resident physician of Atlantic County, joined the Continental Army as a surgeon. Jack Fenton, of the Continenta! Army, was dispatched by Gen. Washington to this neighborhood as a scout, first to assist Capt. Baylin in exterminating the renegades who were plundering throughout the settlements, and later to reconnoitre for British expeditions that might be sent against Chestnut Neck, which now had become an important post. The British were in possession of Philadelphia and New York, and Washington. with his bare-footed, half famished army of patriots was between these two centres of trade with no means of obtaining supplies excepting from the sparsely settled country district. It was at this time that supplies were brought into the harbor at Chestnut Neck, in vessels from the South, and conveyed by wagon trains across the State to the Continental Army, then at Valley Forge. Cannon balls were moulded of bog iron ore at Old Gloucester furnace and at Batsto, for use in the American Army. The harbor being landlocked and secluded by the forest, made it an excellent and safe rendezvous for prize vessels captured by American pri- vateers. There were thirty of these prize vessels in the harbor, beside the mer- chantmen, when the battle of Chestnut Neck was fought.
In the spring of 1778, a renegade by the name of Mulliner, acted as a British spy and gave such information to the British that Gen. Burgoyne sent an expe- tition, eight hundred strong, against Chestnut Neck. Jack Fenton, the scout. learned of the expedition and sent a messenger to the camp of Gen. Washington, who dispatched Count Pulaski from Red Bank to the Neck to check the move- ment. During a terrific rain storm, on the 12th of April, 1778, the British came into Little Egg Harbor Inlet and proceeded up Great Bay and the Mullica river. When the storm ceased and the fog lifted the British were within gun shot of the village. The volunteers opened fire from their sand fort and continued the fight until their scant supply of ammunition was exhausted. when they retreated before greatly superior numbers, covering the women and children, who fled to the woods, and firing from tree to tree. Tradition tells us that the last shot was fired by Capt. Johnson, from behind a tree, and killed a British officer who was lead- ing his men up the river bank. The British burned all the vessels in the harbor,
ALBERT M. JORDAN.
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SKETCH OF PORT REPUBLIC
plundered and burned the village and ravaged all the surrounding country, taking cattle, provisions and whatever valuables they found from the settlers.
While a portion of the British were plundering, a detachment of regulars were sent against Sweetwater, where Captain Baylin's Rangers were located. The "red coats" camped for the night in a pine grove along the river road. Jack Fenton, the scout, followed their trail, located their camp and hastened to Sweet- water to apprise Capt. Baylin, who immediately broke camp and marched down the river road to meet the enemy. In a ravine he halted, and taking a part of his command to the top of a hill, and placing the scout in command of the others in the thickets by the roadside, Capt. Baylin and his brave patriots, although greatly inferior in numbers, lay impatiently awaiting the coming of the enemy. The sun had not yet pierced the heavy fog that hung over the valley when the sound of martial music reached their ears, and soon the steady tramp of the King's regulars appeared in sight. Not until they were directly opposite did the order from the scout ring out "fire!" And instantly a volley was poured into the enemy's ranks, followed closely by another volley from Capt. Baylin's men. So unexpected was the attack that the British ranks were broken, and taking ad- vantage of their consternation the patriots with a yell rushed out into the high- way and pursued the retreating enemy. Once the British Captain attempted to rally his men in the narrow highway, but after a skirmish they again broke ranks and retreated, hotly pursued by the Americans. Arriving at the Neck they found their comrades making a hasty embarkation, for Pulaski was coming with his command of Continentals. So enraged was the fiery Pole at the wanton destruc- tion by the British that he collected what vessels he could from Bass river and gave chase. So closely did he pursue them that one of the British vessels, which had run aground on the Range in Great Bay, was set on fire to save her from falling into the hands of the Americans. The others got safely out of the inlet and Pulaski's boats not being large enough for the open sea, he gave up the chase.
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