Burlington County, NJ

Grubb Estate

While Henry Grubb (Grubb Estate, 46 Riverbank, 28 on map) and his family were known to be ardent abolitionists, they are also said to have built tunnels from the riverbank under their home for the concealment of runaway slaves. Grubb operated the first tavern in Burlington, growing his business interests into mining and manufacturing. The estate contained a tannery, a brewery, and a brickyard. It is possible that the sluices and water channels necessary to the conduct of his businesses may have given rise to rumors of more humanitarian uses. It is also possible that Grubb’s anti-slavery sentiment extended from belief to actions.
Gen. Edward B. Grubb, his grandson, was a Civil War General and Ambassador to Spain and built the two Victorian-style homess. See his marble portrait bust in the Library Company of Burlington

General E. Burd Grubb (see Grubb Estate, on the riverbank)
fought valiantly at the battles of the Peninsula, dashing not once but twice on horseback through shot and shell for orders. At Bull Run, he saved mortally wounded General Taylor from falling into enemy hands. At Chancellorsville he had his horse shot from beneath him. Heading up his regiment at Fredericksburg, once again his horse is shot from beneath him. He advanced then on foot, first and foremost, and was last to leave the field in the magnificent and disastrous charge on Salem Church. After the War, he was awarded the Ambassadorship to Spain. A fine marble bust of Genl. Grubb is on display at theLibrary Company of Burlington (23 W. Union St., 25 on map) where you can marvel at his noble mustache.

Some 400 veterans of America’s Civil War are buried in the City of Burlington, notably next to the Bethlehem AME Church (213 Pearl Blvd., 44 on map); Broad Street Methodist where lies Oliver Cromwell, African American Revolutionary War soldier and others; Friends Burial Ground (behind 341 High St., 12 on map); and St. Mary’s Churchyard behind W. Broad St. (18, 19 on map). See the special tour “Graveyard Shift” for more on the resting places of heroes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bordentown_School 

Manual Training and Industrial School for Colored Youth, Domestic Science Class New Jersey Manual Training School for Negro Youth Borndentown

The Bordentown School (officially titled the Manual Training and Industrial School for Colored Youth, the State of New Jersey Manual Training School and Manual Training and Industrial School for Youth, though other names were used over the years), was a residential high school for African-American students, located in Bordentown in Burlington County, New Jersey. Operated for most of the time as a publicly-financed co-ed boarding school for African-American children, it was known as the “Tuskegee of the North” for its adoption of many of the educational practices first developed at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.^[2] The school closed down in 1955.

The school was founded in 1886 in the New Brunswick house of the Rev. Raymond Rice, a minister of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and former slave from Laurens, South Carolina. Born in 1845, Rice had fought as a volunteer with the Union Army during the American Civil Warand went to New Jersey to get an education, after completing his military service.  When it was first founded, it was known as “The Ironsides Normal School.” The school’s mission was to train African-American students “in such industries as shall enable them to become self-supporting.”   The state passed legislation in 1894 to designate the school as the state’s instructional institution for vocational education. With this legislation, the school was placed under the aegis of a board of trustees composed of state and county officials. The school came under the direct auspices of the New Jersey Board of Education in 1903, with its capital expenditures, curriculum and staffing under state approval.  In 1886, the school moved to Bordentown and moved in 1896 to a 400-acre (1.6 km²) tract there that had been owned by United States Navy Admiral Charles Stewart and known as the Parnell Estate.  The state originally leased the land, and purchased it in 1901.

The school operated on a year-round basis. It had its own farm, cattle, and orchards that supplied the school with its food; scholarship students could work on the farm to cover their tuition. The school was selective and initially offered its 500 to 600 students an education in the Classics andLatin as part of its overall curriculum, which earned accolades from both W. E. B. Du Bois andBooker T. Washington. Among notable lecturers at the school were Albert Einstein and Paul Robeson.  In 1913, Booker T. Washington recommended that the school identify occupations prevalent among African-Americans as a guide to developing a curriculum for the school, suggesting that training in automobile repairs for boys would help meet the growing demand for chauffeurs, while girls should be offered “domestic science” training  Students were instructed in a trade in addition to the educational curriculum, with boys instructed in agriculture, auto mechanics, and steam boiler operation, and girls being taught beauty culture, dressmaking, and sewing. During the Great Depression, Bordentown graduates were better able than many to find jobs using the skills they had learned at the school.

http://burlington1677.blogspot.com/2011/09/oliver-cromwell.html

Oliver Cromwell House

Some years after the war, Cromwell applied for a veteran’s pension. He was well-liked in Burlington, and although he was unable to read or write, local lawyers, judges and politicians came to his aid, and he was granted a pension of $96 a year. He purchased a 100-acre farm outside Burlington, and fathered 14 children, then spent his later years at his home at 114 East Union Street in Burlington. He lived to be 100 years old, outliving 8 of his children, and is buried in the cemetary of the Broad Street Methodist Church. His descendants live in the city to this day.
In 1983, the Oliver Cromwell Black History Society was organized to research and preserve Black Heritage, in Burlington and elsewhere. The Society works to encourage young men to represent Cromwell and other African-American soldiers in Revolutionary War recreations at the Old Barracks Museum in Trenton, New Jersey.

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/legacies/NJ/200003305.html

Originally submitted by: Christopher H. Smith, Representative (4th District).

Underground Railroad: A Route of Escape

Wheatley’s Burlington Pharmacy, built in 1731 and established as a pharmacy in 1841. According to oral tradition, this Quaker-owned building was used frequently to harbor Underground RR fugitives and was the site of anti-slavery rallies. Photo courtesy Cultural & Heritage Department, Burlington County

During the Civil War (1863-1865), abolitionists in New Jersey assisted runaway slaves with their escape to northern free states.

No New Jersey county has a richer black historical presence than Burlington Country. By 1790, the county had the largest free black population of any county in New Jersey. This can be attributed to its location in the Delaware Valley, known as the “cradle of emancipation,” where slaves were freed on a large scale. The sizeable presence and influence in the valley of Quakers, America’s first organized group to speak out against the evils of bondage, enabled this region to be the pacesetter regarding black emancipation.

Underground railroad stations that belonged to whites provide examples of interracial cooperation and goodwill. Burlington served as a short stop, where horses were changed, after a rapid twenty-mile trip from Philadelphia to Princeton. The stop would be known as Station A. Bordentown, known a Station B, served as a continuous connection to the line from Philadelphia to Princeton. Another line ran east through Station B, which followed the northern route. Its southern route remained independent for sixty miles before it intersected with the Bordentown corridor. Another branch of the Philadelphia line extended through Bucks County, Pennsylvania, to Trenton, then followed a northern course to New York.

Documentation includes a tour guide of African-America Historic Sites in Burlington County, a newspaper article from 1860, and photos.

http://www.tourburlington.org/SeeSites41-44.html

Bethlehem African Methodist Episcopal Church 1855

Burlington’s oldest African American institution was founded in 1830. It is one of the oldest African American churches in the state. Originally constructed in 1836, the building was replaced in 1855, remodeled in 1873 and again in the 1980s. Beside it are but a few of the 212,000 graves of African American Union Army and Navy Civil War soldiers.

In 1833 Pastor Rev. Jeremiah H. Pierce legally challenged forced segregation of his four children into Burlington’s all-black elementary school— and won this landmark case.

http://www.co.burlington.nj.us/upload/Tourism/Images/Quaker_Meeting_Houses.pdf

Quaker Meeting House in Burlington, New Jersey

The Quaker movement arose in England in the mid-1700’s. Its followers called themselves “Friends of Truth.” In time they came to be known simply as “Friends.” The name Quaker was a nickname used by others, implying that they quaked with religious devotion. The formal title of the Quaker movement is “Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).” Records show that in the late 1600’s there were more “Friends” in Burlington County than any other county in the Delaware Valley . Today there are a number of Quaker Meetinghouses, some active and others not.

The first meetinghouse was built in the 1600’s but was demolished for the new building, which was constructed in 1785. It is still functioning as a meeting and conference center. This historic site recently underwent a multi-million dollar restoration.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Woolman

John Woolman Memorial House, NJ

The John Woolman Memorial, 99 Branch St., Mount Holly, New Jersey

John Woolman came from a family of Friends (Quakers). His grandfather, also named John Woolman, was one of the early colonial settlers of New Jersey. His father Samuel Woolman was a farmer. Their estate was between Burlington and Mount Holly Township in that colony.

In his Journal, John Woolman related a story about a major turning point in his life. During his youth he happened upon a robin’s nest with hatchlings in it. Woolman, as many young people would do, began throwing rocks at the mother robin just to see if he could hit her. He ended up killing the mother bird, but then remorse filled him as he thought of the baby birds who had no chance of surviving without her. He got the nest down from the tree and quickly killed the hatchlings — believing it to be the most merciful thing to do. This experience weighed on his heart, and inspired in him a love and protectiveness for all living things from then on.

http://www.nj.gov/dep/newsrel/2006/06_0010.htm

Office of Dr. James Still

Dr. James Still Burlington, New Jersey  (c. Lawrence E. Walker Foundation Collection)

Dr. James Still (born 1812-died 1882) was not a trained or licensed physician. At a time when most doctors relied on unproven medications, James Still was a distinguished herbalist–a seller of botanical remedies of his own devising, the superiority of which gained him a large clientele. Known as the “black doctor” of the pinelands, early New Jersey settlers came from miles around to be treated by Dr. Still. With only three months of traditional schooling, he was a self-taught doctor, using money he earned from working in a glue factory to buy books on medical botany.

Dr. James Still Office and House, New Jersey  (c. Lawrence E. Walker Foundation Collection)

Built in the 1850’s, Dr. Still’s office was a small unpretentious one-story frame building. The building was later remodeled and continued to serve as the office for his practice. Still’s home and office are pictured in the 1876 Atlas of Burlington County. Although the office still stands, Still’s Victorian house was demolished in 1932.

In addition to practicing medicine, Still was a highly accomplished writer. In 1877, he published his memoir entitled Early Recollections and Life of Dr. James Still. The book presents a first-person account of his childhood, medical practice and his personal insights. It is considered a classic piece of African American non-fiction literature.

Dr. Still’s son, James Still, Jr., the third African American in the United States to graduate from Harvard Medical School, received his degree in 1871 with honors. Another son, Joseph Still, continued the legacy and although unlicensed, practiced medicine in Medford and later in Mount Holly.

http://www.co.burlington.nj.us/pages/pages.aspx?cid=506

Isaac Evans House (on site of 1715 house of Thomas Evans), Evesham Twp., 1769 (owned by Dr. Haines, 1935) 

This house is reputed to have been a stop on the Under­ ground Railroad. It is thought to have been built originally in 1750 for Isaac Evans, a Quaker and member of one of the area’s earliest and most prominent families; additions were made to it in 1855. At the time it was involved with the Underground Railroad it was owned by Thomas Evans, also a Quaker. The occupants of this house in the 1950s discovered a hidden passageway that was used, it is believed, to hide runaway slaves. An old board enclosure between the west chimney flues in the attic and patches in the original wood flooring on the first and second floors where the passageway is said to have been located are thought to be the

surviving evidence of the passageway. Thomas Evans is believed to have owned another house that was a UGRR station. Located next to the Cropwell Friends Meeting House on the corner of Old Marlton Pike and Cropwell Road , it was destroyed in the 1980s after having fallen into disrepair. During its demolition a network of secret closets was discovered.

http://www.co.burlington.nj.us/pages/pages.aspx?cid=506

Elisha Barcklow House 

This house, built in 1765 by Elisha Barcklow, an English Quaker, is thought to have been a station on the Under­ ground Railroad. It was purchased in 1799 by William Roberts who built the adjacent brick house. By the time of the Civil War, a tunnel had been built from the house to a barn, which stood where Main Street is today. It is believed the tunnel was used to bring fugitive slaves from the barn to the house or to deliver food to them in the barn. A part of the tunnel is still visible in the Barcklow House basement.

http://www.tourburlington.org/TourUGRR.html