"Let it be remembered," wrote Thomas Sharp in 1718, "that upon
the nineteenth day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand six
hundred and eighty-one, Mark Newby, William Bates, Thomas Thackara, George
Goldsmith and Thomas Sharp set sail from the harbor...of Dublin...We took our
land in one tract together...bounding in the forks of Newton Creek and so over
to Cooper's Creek..." Sharp's narrative account of the first permanent
European settlement in what is today West Collingswood is the most accurate
history of the establishment of Camden County.
Many of the early settlers in late seventeenth and early eighteenth century
West Jersey (modern day South Jersey) were, like the Newton Colony people, Quakers
- members of the Society of Friends, persecuted in England for their
religious beliefs and way of life. They came, lured by the Concessions and
Agreements, a document written in 1677 by proprietors such as William Penn who
owned a large portion of the land in West Jersey and wished to encourage Quaker
settlement in the area. The settlement offered the promise of religious freedom,
equitable taxation, and representative government.
Quakers were not the first people to arrive on New Jersey's shores. Some
13,000-15,000 years earlier, after a long migration eastward beginning in Asia
and leading over the Bering Strait through Alaska and across the American
continent, the Paleo-Indians (Old Stone Age Peoples), whose descendents
eventually became known as the Lenape, had arrived. The Lenape were
peace-loving, semi-nomadic people who lived in small family groups along the
banks of waterways, spoke an Algonquian language, farmed, hunted, and fished.
According to Herbert Kraft, author of The Lenape, published in 1986 by the
New Jersey Historical Society, "Lenape" in the Unami dialect, meant
"our men," "men of the same nation," or, "common
people." Names such as Delaware, Munsi, Lenape, Unami, etc., are 17th and
18th century appellations which did not exist at the time of European contact; as
a matter of fact, Kraft states, the Lenape Indians "...were not a tribe in
the political sense." To the explorers who encountered them along the
Delaware River they simply became known as "the Delaware."
The Quakers had also been preceded by a small band of Dutch families sent by
the Dutch West India Company to establish a minor trading and fur post on the
Delaware River. Fort Nasau, probably established in 1626 near today's Gloucester
City, continued in use however for only about 25 years; it was taken over in
turn by the English and the Swedes and again came under the authority of the
Dutch. Finally, it was ordered dismantled by Peter Stuyvesant in 1651. Thirteen
years later the English again triumphed in New Jersey and the Dutch were forced
to cede the entire colony.
Camden County institutions, municipalities, and streets still bear the names
of many of those who made this area their new home. Elizabeth Haddon, immortalized
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in Tales of a Wayside Inn, arrived
alone in 1701 to look after her father's land claims, and gave the family name to
"Haddon's Field." She married John Estaugh, a Quaker minister with
whom she had an acquaintance in England. Elizabeth, herself, was much esteemed
by the Friends and minister in her own right.
Early settlers also included William and Benjamin Cooper, whose
descendants founded Cooper Hospital and Coopers Ferry; The Kaighns,
Gills, Stokes, Collings,
Coles, Ellises, Zanes, Burroughs, Kays, Morgans, Matlacks, and many,
many
others.
A ferry operated as early as 1688 by William Royden, then by William Cooper
and, after 1693, by Cooper's son, Daniel, provided the earliest means of
communication and transportation between the two colonies on the Delaware River.
For nearly a century the settlement which grew up around it was known as Coopers
Ferry; it became a center of activity during the Revolutionary War period,
1777-78, while the British occupied Philadelphia. British troops often crossed
the river, disembarking at the ferry landing near the Benjamin Cooper House
(Point and Erie Streets) to forage for food supplies in the surrounding
countryside.
Because Quakers opposed war and most would not bear arms for either side,
many of the sect were harassed and imprisoned. Military skirmishes in the area
involved such well-known figures as General "Mad" Anthony Wayne; the
young Marquis de Lafayette, who earned a command for his attack on British
forces near today's Gloucester City in November 1777; and the Polish count
Casimir Pulaski.
Although in 1764 William Cooper's great-grandson, Jacob, purchased land for
subdivision in what is today known as Camden, few homes were established there
until well after the Revolutionary War. By the close of that period only three
houses had been erected between Third Street and the Cooper river and all
belonged to members of the Cooper family. The namesake of the new settlement was
Charles Pratt, Earl of Camden, an English nobleman who supported the American
cause in Parliament.
In 1803 additional lots were laid out north and south of Arch Street between
Front and fifth Streets. In 1820 Edward Sharp, envisioning a bridge and ferry
system between Camden and Philadelphia, broadened the enclave from the south
side of Federal Street to just beyond today's Mickle Boulevard from the river to
Fifty Street and called it Camden Village.
Nonetheless, the City did not really begin to grow until 1834; the coming of
the Camden and Amboy Railroad helped spur its population growth to 9,500 by
mid-century. In 1838 a canal had been cut through Windmill Island in the middle
of the Delaware River, making ferry travel easier under all weather conditions.
The shortened commuter time combined with an increasing number of businesses and
services made Camden an attractive place to live.
During the period following Camden County's separation from Gloucester County
in 1844, the county population, having expanded greatly, exceeded 25,000. In
1853 a new county courthouse designed by noted architect Samuel Sloan was
erected halfway between Market and Federal Streets. That same year the Camden
and Atlantic Railroad (later the Pennsylvania Railroad) began its first run from
Camden to Haddonfield. The following year it was extended almost to Atlantic
City.
Later, during the Civil War, many Camdenites supported and fought for the
Union cause. The Zouaves, a volunteer company, was the first to apply for
service in state regiments. They fought at Antietam, Manassas, Fredericksburg,
Chancelorsville, Gettysburg, Spotsylvania, and in the Wilderness Campaign; they
marched with Sherman, fought in the Shenandoah Valley, and served under
courageous officers such as General William Joyce Sewell. Those who died are
memorialized at the Gettysburg Battlefield and by the Soldiers' Monument at
Haddon Avenue and Mickle boulevard next to Cooper Hospital.
The postwar period brought the poet Walt Whitman to Camden where he first
lived with his brother, George, on Stevens Street and later at 330 Mickle
Street, Camden -- today a National Historic Landmark maintained by the State of
New Jersey. Whitman prepared the final or "deathbed edition" of Leaves
of Grass in the Mickle Street house.
Portions of "Specimen Days," a long essay on nature, in
diary form, were written during the summer months Whitman spent convalescing at
Laurel Springs. The poet's remains rest in a mausoleum of his own design in
Camden's Harleigh Cemetery, a late-Victorian burial ground in the park-lawn
style.
The end of the nineteenth century marked the beginning of Camden's emergence
as a industrial and commercial leader. Eldridge Johnson's machine shop gave way
to the Victor Talking Machine Company, predecessor of RCA, which ended its
presence in the city in 1988.
In 1869 Joseph Campbell and Abram Anderson founded a preserving company that
eventually became known as the Campbell Soup Company. The company flourished in
the city of Camden during the next century, but will close it's processing
facilities and gamble on Camden's future by erecting its corporate headquarters
at the Waterfront Center.
The Esterbrook Pen and New York Shipbuilding Companies had established themselves
in Camden before World War I. By then a popular saying was, "On Camden's
supplies the world relies." Immigrant labor seeking economic opportunity
helped increase the city population, providing a welcome source of abundant and
cheap labor for the many industries which sprung up. Cigars, sausages, patent
drugs, leather goods, iron products, ships, linoleum, carriage bodies, gas
mantles, and terra cotta items were among the hundreds of products manufactured
in the county.
In 1926 President Calvin Coolidge dedicated the Delaware River Bridge, later
renamed for Benjamin Franklin. It opened the way for commuters to work in
Philadelphia and live in the Camden suburbs. A second bridge, the Walt Whitman,
opened 31 years later, connecting Philadelphia and Gloucester City; in 1976 the
Betsy Ross Bridge, linking Philadelphia and Pennsauken, opened to traffic.
These routes and the development of high-speed rail transportation between
Camden and Philadelphia have helped to push the county's population over the
half million mark. This, combined with a broad economic and industrial base,
several centers for higher education, three major hospitals, and an excellent
interstate road system and connections, offer a bright future for the county.
County Historian & Director, Camden County Cultural and Heritage Commission
- This material is from "Know Your
County", published by the League of Women Voters (1991). More
information about the history of Camden County is available at the Library or
through the Camden County Historical Society.
