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Chapter I
Early History of the City of Camden

 

Introduction - Early Settlements and Subsequent Transfers of Land on the Site of Camden - Early Settlements and Transfers of Land on the Site of South Camden - First Town Plan of Camden - Coopers Hill - The Kaighn Estate - Fettersville - Stockton - Kaighnsville.

 

INTRODUCTION. - A little more than two centuries ago the fertile lands now covered by the beautiful and prosperous city of Camden were first permanently occupied by white settlers. During the century succeeding this event, New Jersey, as well as all the other American colonies, was under the control of the English government. About the time the great struggle between the colonies and their mother country began, an enterprising and progressive descendant of one of the first settlers conceived the idea of planning a town on the east bank of the Delaware, opposite what was then the largest city on the American continent, and now its greatest manufacturing centre. Imbued with the same Patriotic spirit as his friends and associates, he named his new town Camden, in honor of Charles Pratt, Earl of Camden, a distinguished lawyer and statesman, Lord Chancellor of England in 1766, and President of the Council in 1782. The Earl of Camden was the firm and liberal friend of the American colonies during the whole period of their struggle for Independence. He boldly opposed the policy of the King and his ministers, and openly expressed his sympathy for the Americans.

The growth of Camden during the first eighty years of its history was slow but sure, like that of the century plant. It existed for a long period as a small collection of houses near the ferries, toward which most of the travel of West Jersey was then directed on its way to the city of Philadelphia.

During the last decade the manufacturing and business interests of Camden have very largely increased and developed. Many new industries have lately been established, until now the full force of its life is plainly observable to many of the older inhabitants, who remember Camden as a small village.

Could the first settlers upon the site of the city now look upon the industry and energy that have asserted their power in the rumble of ponderous machinery, the whistle of the high-spirited iron horse, the hum and whir of revolving wheels, the stately magnificence of some of the public institutions, the comfortable homes and beautiful streets and the improvement in the modes of life and living, they would feel gratified that their children’s grandchildren and those cotemporary with them are so bountifully favored in this land of freedom and independence, of which they were the hardy pioneers.

The census table below was prepared from official reports, and will enable the reader to observe the changes in the population of the city of Camden at the dates given. The increase during the last decade has been truly wonderful. With the healthful situation, beautiful surroundings, proximity to Philadelphia, rapid development of the manufacturing interests, well-managed ferries, excellent schools, fine churches, an enterprising press, and intelligent and cultured society, Camden gives promise, within the next half century, to many times double its present population, and hold high rank among the leading cities of the Union.

 

1828	1,143	1860	14,368
1830	1,987	1865	18,315
1833	2,241	1870	20,045
1840	3,360	1875	33,852
1850	9,118	1880	41,159
1860	11,217	1885	52,884

 

CITY OF CAMDEN BY WARDS.

	1850	1855	1860	1865	1870
North Ward	2520	2462	4141	5396	6666
Middle Ward	2856	4266	5051	5545	6684
South Ward	4242	4489	5176	7372	6695
Total	9618	11,217	14,368	18,313	20,045

 

	1875	1880	1885
First Ward	5932	6362	7031
Second Ward	3946	6060	8007
Third Ward	3031	3952	4800
Fourth Ward	5261	6935	9464
Fifth Ward	5267	6018	6866
Sixth Ward	3480	3720	4198
Seventh Ward	3760	4426	5805
Eighth Ward	3175	4186	6713
Total	33,852	41,659	52,884

THE EARLY SETTLEMENTS AND TRANSFERS OF LAND ON THE SITE OF
NORTH CAMDEN.

The first known settlements on the Delaware River within the limits of Camden were made by Richard Arnold and William Cooper, before the land they located had been surveyed to them and before the Dublin colony, composed mostly of English Friends who had fled from England to Dublin to avoid persecution, had located inland from the river, between Newton and Coopers Creeks. It would appear from the order given below that the number of Friends living along the river was sufficient to warrant the yearly meeting held at Thomas Gardiner’s house, in Burlington, the 5th of Seventh Month (September), 1681, to grant permission, as follows:
     "Ordered that Friends of Pyne Point have a meeting on every Fourth day, and to begin at the Second hour, at Richard Arnold’s House." The Richard Arnold here mentioned lived on the riverbank, a short distance above the mouth of Newton Creek, although he did not receive title until March 1, 1702, when two hundred acres were surveyed to him. His house is marked on the map made by Thomas Sharp in 1700. He sold this building the same year to Martin Jarvis, who had purchased the year previous two hundred and twenty-two acres of the adjoining land bounding on Coopers Creek. The name of Arnold disappears from this time in the history of the territory now Camden County.

The next resident on the site of Camden, so far as known, was William Cooper. He was born in England in 1632, and for many years prior to his emigration had resided at Coleshill, in the parish of Amersham, county of Hertford, where, early in the history of the Society of Friends, he became a convinced member of that religious body. He is styled in various deeds and in his will as "Yeoman." Upperside Monthly Meeting, to which he belonged, contained within its limits the home of William Penn, whose projects for a settlement on the Delaware thus became well known to its members, and William Cooper, attracted by the prospects, and wearied by religious persecution at home, concluded to emigrate thither in the early part of 1679, with his wife, Margaret, and five children. He brought with him a certificate from Upperside Monthly Meeting, setting forth "that the said William Cooper and Margaret, his wife, having lived in these parts for many years, ever since the first of their convincement, have walked conscientiously and honorably amongst us, agreeably to the profession and testimony of truth, according to the best of our observation and knowledge of them."

He arrived at Burlington in the spring or summer of 1679, and soon after located fifty acres of land within the town limits, and had the same surveyed and returned to himself by deed dated October 5, 1680. On this land he built his first home and temporarily settled his family. During the same year, no doubt conversant with the project of planting a city near Shackamaxon (now Kensington, Philadelphia), he located a tract of three hundred acres immediately opposite, at the junction of the Delaware with Aroches Creek, which now bears his name, and obtained a certificate for the same from the commissioners June 12, 1682. He built his second house and established his family on a high bank above Coopers Point, called by him Pyne Point, from a dense pine forest which then grew there. This site is now washed away and is near where Fifth Street touches the river. "The remains of this house," says Mickle, writing in 1844, "were visible a few years ago." It was built, according to reliable family tradition, of brown sand-stone, which, no doubt, was quarried at Pea Shore, north of the creek. It had a stone portico, and a door opened out from the second story hall to the roof of the portico. Benjamin Franklin, who was a guest there nearly a century after it was built, styles it "a large house." His son Joseph, a few years later, built a house a short distance east of his father’s, on the bluff near the creek, and that, too, has disappeared.

On his arrival the place he selected was occupied by a small band of friendly Indians, under a chief named Arasapha. The title to the land on the Delaware between Oldmans Creek and Rancocas Creek had been purchased of the Indians in 1677, but William Cooper extinguished what rights they still might possess at Pyne Point by a conveyance from the chief Arasapha. This deed was a few years ago in the possession of Joseph W. Cooper, but is now unfortunately lost. Intercourse between Shackamaxon, where the pioneers of Penn’s colony, under Fairman, the surveyor, and Markham, the deputy-governor, and Pyne Point had long been established by canoe ferry between the Indian settlements at those places, and the settlers on both sides of the river could therefore well meet together for religious worship.

At a Yearly Meeting of Friends held at Salem, Second Month 11, 1682, for both Jersies and Pennsylvania, it was therefore ordered "that the Friends at (Pyne Point) and these at Shakomaxin do meet together once a month on the 2d and 4th day in every month, the first meeting to be held at William Cooper’s, at Pyne Point, the 2d and 4th day of the 3d month next, and the next meeting to be at Thomas Fairman’s, at Shakomaxin, and so in course." This meeting was alternately held at Cooper’s house until the arrival of Penn, when it was removed to Philadelphia. There was also a gathering for worship at the house of Mark Newbie, on Newton Creek, of which Thomas Sharp, in his narrative of the establishment of the Newton Meeting, says: "Immediately there was a meeting sett up and kept at the house of Mark Newbie, and in a short time it grew and increased, unto which William Cooper and family, that live at the Point, resorted, and sometimes the meeting was kept at his house, who had been settled sometime before." When the meeting-house was built, in 1684, at Newton, William Cooper was appointed one of the trustees, and they continued the trust to Joseph Cooper, his son, and others in 1708. It was built on the land of Thomas Thackara, between the houses of Zane and Thackara, and stood until destroyed by fire, December 22, 1817.

William Cooper was present at the treaty of Penn with the Indians in 1682 at Shackamaxon, opposite his house. He was chosen one of the members of Assembly from the Third or Irish Tenth in 1682 -83 and also in 1685. In 1687 he was appointed by the Assembly of the province one of the Council of Proprietors. He was a commissioner for the division of lands, and in an Individual capacity, also acted as attorney for many Friends in England and Ireland in the purchase and location of land. In 1694 he was appointed judge of the County Court of Gloucester and continued in that capacity several years. His position among Friends is set forth in the testimony issued by the meeting after his death as "having been raised to his gift of exhortation in Hartfordshire, England, and lived here in Godly conversation, exercising his gift in the meeting at Newton, whereunto he belonged, to the benefit of God’s people until it pleased God to remove him. As he lived so he died in unity with Friends and in full assurance of his eternal well-being." In 1685 he had located four hundred and twenty-nine acres of land on the north side of Coopers Creek, in Waterford (now Delaware) township, where he erected a house and out-buildings and having removed thither about 1708, died there on the 11th day of First Month (March) 1710. His will bears date March 7, 1709, and was probated March 20, 1710, twenty-one days later (the first of the year at that time beginning March 25th). The history of the early settlement of Camden is so interwoven with the acquisition and transfer of land within its limits, largely made by William Cooper and his descendants, that a skeleton genealogical chart of the first four generations is given on page 406 to elucidate the descriptions in this article.

The land on which Camden is situated was originally surveyed in several large tracts, as follows - (given in order as they lie contiguous on the river and creek-fronts). The tract of three hundred acres for which William Cooper obtained title on the 12th June, 1682, was situated on the Delaware and Coopers Creek, and includes what has since been distinctively known as "Coopers Point." Next below on the Delaware was a tract of four hundred and fifty acres which extended eastward to Coopers Creek and had been surveyed, September 20, 1681, to William Roydon, "a citizen and grocer of London," who came to this country some time after the London and Yorkshire commissioners, and upon this land the original town of Camden was subsequently laid out.

William Cooper’s tract had not then been surveyed, but application therefor had doubtless been made, for when the lines of his survey were fixed, June 12, 1682, he made complaint that Roydon’s survey extended upon his land. This was probably when Roydon was absent in England, as he visited there several times within a few years, and upon his return refused to accept any change.

On June 26, 1688, Roydon sold three hundred acres of his survey to Zachariah Whitpaine, it being on the north side, and the north line he made to conform to his original survey. Whitpaine gave a mortgage for the original purchase money, and as he did not meet his payments it was forfeited to Roydon, who, April 1, 1692, sold the same to John Tysack, who sold it, December 25, 1697, to Anna Nore, whose heirs, January 24, 1720, conveyed to Jonathan Dickinson. He died in 1722, and it passed to his son, Jonathan Dickinson, who January 17, 1723, sold ft to William Cooper, son of Daniel and grandson of William, to whom had descended his grandfather’s title to the adjoining land and thus ended the dispute on the boundary between the Roydon and Cooper surveys.

On November 9, 1681, Roydon sold fifty acres of his tract, on the lower side reaching to the river, to Richard Watt. The north line of this fifty acres afterward became the boundary line of the Cooper and Kaighn estates, and is now known as Line Street in the city of Camden. On the 1st day of First Month, 1688, Roydon was granted a license to keep a ferry from Philadelphia to the Jersey shore, where he had built a house, it having been "judged that William Roydon’s house was convenient and ye said William Roydon a person suitable for that employ." After his sale of land to Tysack, in 1692, he returned to England and died there the same year.

Lying between the larger tracts of Cooper and Roydon was a small wedge-shaped piece of land of twenty-eight acres, with its base resting on the Delaware, which was surveyed to John White, November, 1683. On the south of the Roydon purchase, and lying on the river, was a large tract of five hundred acres which was located by William Cooper as the attorney for Samuel Norris, to whom it was surveyed in May, 1685, and extended southward along the river and then from the riverfront eastward to Little Newton Creek, or Kaighn’s Run, with its northeast angle nearly touching Coopers Creek.

Next below the Norris tract was one hundred acres of meadow land, on both sides of Kaighn’s Run, which was located March 9, 1681, by the Dublin emigrants who settled at Newton. East of Kaighn’s Run, and reaching down to the river, on the south side of the Newton meadow land, was located five hundred acres, by Robert Turner, May, 1685. Next below was the two hundred acre tract of Richard Arnold, before mentioned, on which he lived, probably as early as 1680. The next survey on the river, and extending up Newton Creek to the mouth of its north branch and along that branch, contained two hundred and twenty acres, and was also made by Robert Turner, Twelfth Month 27, 1687. Farther up the north branch of Newton Creek, and east of the Turner survey, was a tract of three hundred and fifty acres, surveyed, March 6, 1882, to Mark Newbie, a part of which is now in the east part of the city limits. North and east of the Newbie, Turner and Norris tracts, and bordering on Coopers Creek, lay a tract of five hundred acres which was surveyed to Robert Turner in July, 1683.

Of those who, as above stated, originally located the land, William Cooper was the only one who made substantial improvements, and with his family settled and retained permanent ownership. In addition to his survey of three hundred acres at the "Poynt," he acquired title, January 8, 1689, to the twenty-eight acres located by John White, lying south of his tract and on the river. This wedge-shaped piece of land had passed from White to John Langhurst, and later to Roydon, who sold to Cooper on the date mentioned. William Cooper also obtained, through several conveyances, the fifty acres fronting on the river adjoining his other land, which Roydon had sold to Samuel Carpenter, April 20, 1689. He disposed of all his real estate at the point between the river and creek, by various deeds of gift, before his death, to his children and grandchildren, the last gift being a small tract of thirty-eight acres on Coopers Creek, adjoining Roydon’s survey, which he granted to his grandsons - John (son of William) and Joseph, Jr. (son of Joseph) - as joint tenants, and they, in 1715, sold and conveyed the same to their cousin William, son of Daniel. His land, with the house thereon, in Burlington, he presented by deed to his daughter Hannah, wife of John Woolston, Sr.

William Cooper, Jr. (born 1660, died 1691), the eldest son of William the emigrant, married, in 1682, Mary, the daughter of Edward and Mary Bradway, of Salem, and the young couple settled in that town. He died in 1691, leaving three children, - John, Hannah and Mary. His widow intermarried the next year with William Kenton, of Choptank Meeting, Maryland, and the three children were fostered and cared for by their grandfather Cooper at the "Poynt." John was provided with a farm, as above stated, and did not change his residence until after his grandfather’s death. He married, at Chesterfield Meeting, Anne Clarke in 1712, and settled in Deptford township, Old Gloucester County. Hannah married, in 1704, at her grandfather’s house at the "Poynt," John, the eldest son of Archibald Mickle, and they settled on Newton Creek, within the town bounds of Gloucester. Mary appears to have accompanied her grandfather when he removed to his farm at Coopertown, on the Waterford side of the creek, where he died, for she was married, 1707, at the house of her testamentary guardian, John Kay, near Ellisburg, to Benjamin, son and heir of Thomas Thackara, of Newton, the pioneer. They resided on the Thackara property on the middle branch of Newton Creek.

Joseph Cooper (born 1666, died 1731), second son of William, the emigrant, married, 1688, Lydia Riggs, a member of the Philadelphia Meeting of Friends. They resided on Coopers Creek, just east of the residence of his father. They had seven children, - Elizabeth, who married Samuel Mickle and died without issue; Joseph, Jr., who married, first, Mary Hudson, and, second, Hannah Dent; Lydia, who married John Cox and died without issue; Hannah, who married Alexander Morgan; Benjamin, who was three times married: first to Rachel Mickle, secondly to Hannah Carlisle (a widow née Clarke), and thirdly to Elizabeth Burcham (a widow née Cole); Sarah, who married Joshua Raper; and Isaac, who married Hannah Coates.

The first purchase of land made by Joseph Cooper, son of William, of which we have record, was effected June 12, 1697, when Joshua and Abraham Carpenter conveyed to him the tract containing four hundred and twenty-three acres, being the greater part of the Turner survey, located in July, 1685, lying on the south side of Coopers Creek, and deeded by Turner, December 30, 1693, to the Carpenters, - a tract still locally known as the Carpenter tract. The remainder of the Turner survey Joseph had purchased a short time before of John Colley, and on the 13th of December, 1702, he purchased ten acres adjoining this land of Archibald Mickle. These three pieces of land, purchased of Carpenter, Colley and Mickle, as stated, Joseph Cooper conveyed to his son Joseph, Jr., by deed dated June 16, 1714.

Joseph Cooper, Jr. (born 1691, died 1749), married, 1713, Mary Hudson, daughter of William and Hannah, of Philadelphia. She died 1728, leaving him one child, Mary, who married, 1737, Jacob Howell, Jr. Mary Howell died before her husband, leaving to his care three daughters - Lydia, who married John Wharton; Hannah, who died unmarried; and Mary, who married Benjamin Swett. In his will Joseph, Jr., directed that a tract of five hundred acres, on the north side of the south branch of Coopers Creek, which came to him from his grandfather, William, the emigrant, should be divided into three parts for the use and benefit of his three granddaughters. By his second wife, Hannah Dent, there was no issue. The large tract of four hundred and thirty acres, on south side of Coopers Creek, deeded to him by his father in 1714, passed under his will to his younger brother, Isaac Cooper and the same has since passed through an heir, female, to the descendants of Israel Cope, of Philadelphia. Joseph Cooper, Jr., represented his district in the State Legislature for nineteen years, and held other important official and religious trusts. He died Eighth Month 1, 1749.

Joseph Cooper, Sr., son of William, purchased one hundred and sixty-seven acres of land (adjoining the Turner survey) and other lands of Joseph Dole, November 19, 1723, and conveyed the same, January 27, 1728, to his son, Isaac Cooper, who, by will dated in 1765, devised it to his son Marmaduke, who, upon obtaining possession, built the two-story and attic brick building, with extension. This residence still stands on the Haddon pike, near Coopers Creek and west of the Harleigh Cemetery. These lands have also passed to the name Cope.

Marmaduke Cooper, the only son of Isaac and Hannah (Coates) Cooper, married Mary Jones, daughter of Aquila and Elizabeth Jones, and had Lydia, who died 1817, aged twenty-nine, unmarried; Hannah, who died 1851, aged seventy-one, unmarried; Margaret, born 1781, who married Israel Cope, of Philadelphia; Isaac, born 1785, died 1844, unmarried; Elizabeth, who died 1811, aged twenty-one, unmarried; Ann, who died in 1816, aged twenty-four, unmarried; and Joseph, born 1794, who died in his minority and unmarried. Marmaduke, by will, October 21, 1795, devised all of his lands in Newton township to his son Joseph (born 1794), who died in his minority and unmarried, when it passed to Isaac (born 1785), who died in 1844, also unmarried, when the same fell by inheritance to Hannah, the surviving sister of Isaac, and to the children of his deceased sister, Margaret Cope. Israel and Margaret (Cooper) Cope had five children - Mary Ann, who married Stephen P. Morris and died without issue; Marmaduke C., who married Sarah Wistar; Emeline, who died unmarried; Elizabeth C., who married William M. Collins; and Lydia, who died unmarried.

Joseph Cooper, Sr., received from his father, William, the first settler, by deed dated August 24, 1700, a tract of land of one hundred and sixty-four acres and "his house in which he liveth," on Coopers Creek, being part of the original survey, and on the 18th of February, 1708, his father conveyed to him two hundred and twelve acres of land at Coopers Point, being the remainder of the original survey, together with all appurtenances, etc., and on the 2d of May, 1728, Joseph Cooper, Sr., conveyed the last-mentioned tract of two hundred and twelve acres to his son, Benjamin Cooper.

Benjamin Cooper, son of Joseph, Sr., was three times married, as heretofore stated. By his first wife (Rachel Mickle) he had two daughters, both of whom married Woods, of Philadelphia. By his second wife (Hannah) there was no issue, and it was during this marriage, or in contemplation of this marriage with Hannah Carlisle, that he erected the brick mansion at the Point, which bears on its gable end the legend, "B. + H.C., 1734." By his third wife (Elizabeth Cole) he had seven children - Joseph, of Newton, born 1735, married Elizabeth Haines and died childless; Benjamin, of Haddonfield, born 1737, married Prudence Barton; James, of Philadelphia, born 1739, married Sarah Erwin, and, secondly, Hannah Saunders; Samuel, of Newton, born 1744, married Prudence Brown; William, of Waterford, born 1746, married Ann Folwell; Isaac, of Philadelphia, born 1751, married Elizabeth Lippincott; and Elizabeth, born 1756, married George Budd.

The old dwelling-house of Benjamin Cooper, mentioned above, still standing near the corner of Point and Erie Streets, being surrounded by a garden of several acres, was in later years used as a pleasure resort by the old residents of Camden Village, Kaighnton, Dogwoodtown, Fettersville and Coopers Ferry. Many of the old trees and a portion of the shrubbery of this garden may yet be seen, but are now on the property of house-owners in the vicinity. The mansion is built of stone, has two stories and attic, with hip-roof and dormer-windows. The dimensions are twenty-four by forty-five feet, with L extension of stone and brick twenty-four by twenty-seven feet, and on the front and river-side are wide piazzas. There are fifteen large rooms in the mansion. It was used in 1778 by the British General Abercrombie as his headquarters, and when not occupied by their forces, was a favorite target for the practice of the English cannoneers from the Pennsylvania side of the river. In the attic is a red-oak girder cut and splintered by a twelve-pound shot which entered thereof; struck the girder and fell to the floor. This shot is in possession of Samuel C. Cooper, of State Street. This mansion was long the residence of Joseph and Elizabeth (Haines) Cooper, he being the eldest son of Benjamin.

The two hundred and twelve acres of land which Benjamin obtained from his father, Joseph, Sr., was conveyed by him to his sons Joseph and Samuel, the bulk of the property, one hundred and twenty-two acres, going to Joseph, by deed dated July 31, 1762, but Samuel, in 1669, received in addition forty-four acres, at and near the ferry, together with all ferry rights and privileges, and the next year he built the brick ferry-house, which bears in its gable-walls the initials "S. + P.C., 1770," which stands for Samuel and Prudence Cooper. Joseph Cooper, son of Benjamin, built upon his one hundred and twenty-two acres, at the Point, the brick house near the river at the head of Third Street. It is constructed of English brick, alternately red and white, and has two stories and an attic, thirty-six by eighteen feet, and contains nine rooms. A lean-to at the rear is fourteen by eighteen and one story high. It contains the remains of the old Dutch bakeoven of the period when the house was built. On the north end, worked in black bricks, is seen the inscription, C I + E 1788 which, interpreted, means Joseph and Elizabeth (Haines) Cooper. The house is popularly known as the ICE-house, and is now dilapidated and unoccupied. Joseph Cooper, by deed dated November 17, 1817, devised the said one hundred and twenty-two acres to his grand-nephew, Joseph W. Cooper, son of William, son of Samuel.

The house built by Samuel Cooper was the second ferry-house built at the Point. It has two stories and an attic, with dormer-windows, built of old English red and black brick, and has a front of sixty-three feet on State Street, with an L extension on the side next to the river, making the entire length seventy-five feet. There are twenty-four large rooms in this mansion, which is still in good condition, has been known as Coopers Point Hotel, and in part is now used as offices of the Camden and Atlantic Railroad Company.

Samuel Cooper, son of Benjamin and Elizabeth (Cole) Cooper, was born Ninth Month 25, 1744, and died Sixth Month 25, 1812. He married, at Evesham Meeting, in 1766, Prudence, daughter of William and Elizabeth (Haines) Brown, of Nottingham, Pa. His wife, Prudence, survived him, and died Eighth Month 14, 1822. For many years they had resided on his farm called "Pleasant View," now Pavonia, in Stockton township. They had children, - Joseph, born 1767, married Sarah P. Buckley, of New York; William, married Rebecca Wills; Mary, born 1766, married Richard M. Cooper, of Camden; Sarah, married Henry Hull, a minister, of New York; Benjamin, born 1775, married Elizabeth Wills; and Elizabeth, who died unmarried. When Samuel withdrew from business, about 1790, and retired to "Pleasant View," he turned over the control and management of the upper ferry and the ferry property to his son William, and during the same period the lower ferry, at Cooper Street, was owned and managed by a cousin bearing the same name, - William, the son of Daniel.

William, the manager of the upper ferry, at the Point, was an active business man, and kept pace with the progress of the times in all things that pertained to and facilitated ferrying. In later years he leased the ferry and the ferry-house, and resided in the old brick house on State Street, built in 1789, and now occupied by Mrs. Sarah Gaskill and Rachel Cooper, his daughters. The ferry and the ferry property eventually passed to Joseph W. Cooper, son of the last-named William, who continued it until the property was obtained and incorporated by the Coopers Point Ferry Company. The land lying along the south side of the ferry property was left by William Cooper (son of Samuel), of the upper ferry, to his two grandsons, William and Samuel, the sons of Samuel H. Cooper, who married Hannah Wood, and deceased in year 1827, and before his father, William, who died Ninth Month 27, 1849.

The title to the bulk of the property lying north of Birch and Pearl Streets and west of the Isaac Cooper estate, has passed through, or is still retained in, the following lines, descending from the above Samuel and Prudence Cooper:
     First line. - Joseph and Sarah P. (Buckley) Cooper, had one posthumous child, Joseph B. (born 1794, died 1862), who married Hannah Wills and left two sons - (1) Charles M., (2) Joseph B.
     Second line. - William and Rebecca (Wills) Cooper had eight children - I. Samuel H. (born 1797, died 1827), who married Hannah Wood and left two sons (1) William, (2) Samuel; II. Joseph W. (born 1799, died 1871), who married Rebecca F. Champion and had eight children - (1) Joseph, (2) Elizabeth C., (3) Samuel C., (4) Anna M., (5) Mary, (6) Joseph W., (7) Ellen C. and (8) Walter M.; III. Mary W., who married William F. Reeve; IV. Hannah, died unmarried; V. Elizabeth H., who married Isaac H. Wood; VI. Sarah, who married Charles C. Gaskill; VII. Rachel; VIII. Prudence B., who married Emmor Reeve.
     Third line. - Benjamin (born 1775, died 1842), who married Elizabeth Wills and had six children - I. Samuel, who died unmarried; II. Rebecca W., who married John M. Kaighn; III. Prudence, who died unmarried; IV. Benjamin W., who married Lydia Lippincott and had (1) Samuel, (2) Benjamin, (3) Clayton, (4) Anna; V. William B., who married Phebe Mendenhall, née Emlen.

Samuel C. Cooper, lawyer, of State Street, is the son of Joseph W. Cooper, deceased, who was the devisee of his great uncle, Joseph Cooper. The lands at the Point, north of Pearl Street, were laid out in town lots in 1852 by the heirs of William Copper, and by Joseph W. Cooper. The property lying east of the Joseph W. Cooper tract is held by the heirs of Isaac Cooper, son of Joseph, Sr.

Daniel Cooper, the youngest son of William Cooper, the first settler, was about seven years of age when he came with his parents to this county. When twenty years of age, and in 1693, he married Abigail, daughter of Henry Wood, who then resided on the north side of Coopers Creek, near the home of Lemuel Horner. On March 16, 1695, William conveyed to his son Daniel, "In consideration of ye natural love and affection which I have and bear toward my son Daniel Cooper, and for and towards ye preferring and advancement of him in ye world, &c., all that dwelling-house upon Delaware River wherein my said son now dwelleth, together with 114 acres of land thereto adjoining, which said premises were by me formerly purchased of William Roydon." This passed the ferry rights and privileges which had been granted to Roydon by the Gloucester County Court in 1688, the franchise extending from Coopers Creek to Newton Creek. In 1717 the Legislature of Pennsylvania passed an act establishing a ferry to "Daniel Cooper’s landlng," and January 21, 1739, all of these rights were confirmed by royal patent to William Cooper, son of Daniel, and a monopoly thereby created giving the exclusive right of ferry for two miles above and two miles below, without limit of time and for a nominal tax. The above-mentioned conveyance of William Cooper to his son Daniel also included four separate parcels of land situated on Coopers Creek, Timber Creek, and the Delaware River, amounting together to about one thousand acres.

Abigail, the wife of Daniel Cooper, died the next year after marriage, leaving one child, William, who became the heir of his father’s estate, and from whom all the Coopers in this line living in this vicinity descend. In 1695 Daniel married Sarah Spicer, the daughter of Samuel, who lived on the north aids of Coopers Creek, adjoining Henry Wood. By her he had two children, Samuel and Daniel, and died in 1715 intestate, his eldest son, William, by the English law of primogeniture, inheriting his estate, which had been kept intact as conveyed to him by his father, the first William, in 1695. Prompted by a sense of fairness, William conveyed of his inheritance to his half-brothers, Samuel and William respectively, two hundred and twenty-seven acres in Waterford township and a large tract on the head-waters of the north branch of Coopers Creek. On March 20, 1715, - the year of his father’s death - William purchased thirty-eight acres fronting on Coopers Creek. In 1722 he bought out and obtained releases from the residuary devisees of all interests and claims on the estate of their grandfather William, the first settler, and in 1723, as mentioned above, the three hundred acres of the Roydon survey, thus vesting in himself nearly five hundred acres of the valuable Delaware River front lying between the present Line and Birch Streets, together with the ferry privileges originally obtained by Roydon in 1688. In 1744 he conveyed to his son Daniel one hundred acres, comprising land mostly below or south of Plum (now Arch) Street, and in 1764 one hundred acres lying between Plum and Cooper Streets to his son Jacob, who, in 1773, laid out forty acres of the same into a town plot and gave it the name of Camden.

William Cooper (born 1694, died 1767), son of Daniel, had by his first wife, Deborah Medcalf five children, - Daniel married Mary West, Jacob married Mary Corker, Abigail married William Fisher, Deborah married Restore Lippincott and Mary married Jonathan Lynn, - and by a second wife Mary Rawle, he had one child, Rebecca, who died unmarried.

During the latter part of his life he resided in Philadelphia, where he owned considerable real estate. By his will the balance of his Delaware front estate, lying north of Cooper Street to Pearl Street and from the river to Seventh Street, passed to his grandson, William, the eldest son of his son Daniel.

Daniel Cooper, who, as above mentioned, received one hundred acres from his father, William, in 1744, built the large brick house lately known as Parson’s Hotel, now demolished, near the corner of Front and Federal Streets, where he resided. On its gable was inscribed the initials, "D.C.M., 1764," - i.e. Daniel and Mary Cooper. Daniel Cooper, son of William, married Mary, daughter of Charles and Sarah (Parsons) West. of Philadelphia, and had three sons, - William, who married Abigail Matlack; James, who married Priscilla Burrough; and Joshua, who married Abigail Stokes.

His son William (born 1740, died 1787), who married Abigail Matlack, daughter of Richard and Mary (Wood) Matlack, had five children, to wit: (1) Daniel (born 1766, died 1804), who married first Elizabeth Rogers, and secondly Deborah Middleton; (2) Richard Matlack Cooper (born 1768, died 1844), who married Mary Cooper; (3) Charles W., who married Susan Flemming, and died without issue; (4) Mary, who married Samuel Volans of Philadelphia; and (5) Sarah W., who married Samuel W. Fisher, of Philadelphia.

By will dated February 15, 1768, Daniel Cooper devised the ferry property and adjacent land to his sons, William and Joshua. Daniel married Mary West, daughter of Charles West, of Philadelphia, and died in 1776, leaving three sons, - William, James and Joshua. Jacob Cooper, who received one hundred acres from his father, William, in 1764, after laying out the town plot of Camden, as mentioned above, sold the remainder of his holding October 10, 1781, to his nephew, William Cooper, the son of his brother Daniel. This remainder lay mainly south of Federal Street to Line, and east of West Street, towards Coopers Creek, and is known as Coopers Hill, a name applied to that ground rising from the marsh west of Fourth Street, and south of Bridge Avenue, forming a knoll then covered with stately oak and pine-trees and having on the eastern slope a magnificent apple orchard. Upon this hill stands the City Hall, the Cooper Hospital, the Haddon Avenue Station and many fine private residences. In 1776 Jacob Cooper gave to five trustees and their successors the lots on Plum (now Arch) Street, at the corner of Fifth and Sixth Streets, in trust to erect a place of worship and make a grave-yard. Joshua Cooper, the youngest son of Daniel, and grandson of Wm. Cooper, of Philadelphia, inherited from his father a portion of his land south from Plum Street (now Arch Street,) and in 1803 laid out a town plot adjoining that of his uncle Jacobs - town of Camden. He established the ferry at the foot of Federal Street, and placed it under the management of his son William, but finally sold it to John D. Weasels. In 1818 Joshua conveyed to Edward Sharp ninety-eight acres of land lying along the river and south of Federal Street, which terminated his interest in this locality. He built and resided in the house No. 224 Federal Street, now occupied by the Camden Safe Deposit Company; afterward removed with his family to New Albany, Ind. Wm. Cooper, the eldest son of Daniel, inherited from his grandfather, Wm. Cooper, of Philadelphia, "the plantation called Cooper’s Ferry, wherein my son Daniel now dwells," which, with other lands purchased from his uncle, Jacob Cooper, comprised the large territory extending from the Delaware River to Sixth Street, between Cooper and Pearl Streets, and from West Street to Coopers Creek, between Federal and Line Streets. He died in 1787, and by will divided the bulk of his real estate between his sons, Daniel and Richard M. Cooper, the land at the foot of Cooper Street, to which belonged the ferry franchise, passing to Daniel, who died intestate in 1804, leaving three daughters, - Mary Ann, who afterwards married William Carman, Abigail and Esther L., - whose shares in their father’s estate were set off to them in severalty in 1820, with the exception of the share of Mary Ann Carman, which was divided among and sold by her heirs. The remainder of Wm. Cooper’s estate vesting in Richard M. Cooper and his nieces, Abigail and Esther L. Cooper, has been kept intact and managed as one property for their mutual benefit, first by Richard M. Cooper and after his death, in 1844, by his son, William D. Cooper, who had, in 1842, laid out into town lots the land between West Street, Broadway, Pine Street and nearly to Benson Street, known as Cooper’s Hill. The Cooper Street Ferry, after varying fortunes, with team and steamboats, was finally discontinued soon after the establishment of the West Jersey Ferry at the foot of Market Street, having been for many years an unprofitable asset of Abigail Cooper’s share.

The lands lying north of Cooper Street, between that street and Pearl Street, and eastward as far as Sixth Street, were laid out into town lots before 1852, and mainly by Wm. D. Cooper.

Richard M. Cooper (born 1768, died 1844) married Mary, daughter of Samuel and Prudence (Brown) Cooper, of Coopers Point, and they had children, - (1) Sarah West Cooper, who died 1880, unmarried; (2) Elizabeth Brown Cooper; (3) Caroline Cooper, who married John C. Hull, of New York City; (4) Abigail Matlack Cooper, who married Richard Wright, of Philadelphia; (5) Alexander Cooper, who married first, Hannah Cooper, and secondly, Mary H. Kay, (nee Lippinceott); (6) Mary Volans Cooper, who died 1855, unmarried; (7 and 8) Richard Matlack Cooper and William Daniel Cooper, twins, who both died unmarried, Richard M. in 1874, and William D. in 1875.

JOHN COOPER AND HIS SONS. - John Cooper, the only son of William Cooper, eldest son of William and Margaret Cooper, of Coopers Point, was born at Salem, Ninth Month 22, 1683. His father died in his thirty-second year, in 1691, leaving him to the fostering care of his grandfather Cooper.

John Cooper and his cousin, Joseph Cooper, Jr., received as joint tenants from their grandfather William in his lifetime, a large improved tract on the creek, near its mouth, which had been surveyed to him as an overplus of the original survey. This land they sold and conveyed, in 1715, to their cousin William, son and heir of Daniel. By his grandfather’s will he received a handsome legacy, and he and his cousin, Jonathan Woolstone, were made tenants in common of all land belonging to him as the third dividend "out of the one-eighth part and one-twentieth part of a Propriety."

In addition to this, John was the heir to three hundred acres on a stream called Coopers Creek, the largest branch of Alloways Creek, deeded to his mother, Mary, by her father, Edward Bradway.

With this liberal start in life, John Cooper married, Eleventh Month 1, 1711 -12, in Chesterfield Meeting, Anne Clarke, and soon after settled permanently in Deptford township, Gloucester County.

He was early called to the services in the meeting in 1711, and meetings for worship were for some time held at his house; and together with his cousin Joseph, Jr., and William Evans, acted as the first three trustees of Haddonfield Meeting in 1721, and was soon appointed to the station of an elder, "for which his religious experience and a divine gift had qualified him." He was a public Friend of much weight and frequently traveled in the ministry. A memorial was issued by the Gloucester and Salem Quarterly Meeting, held at Haddonfield in 1756, in which the above and the following clear testimony is borne: "He was often concerned for the well ordering of the church in its several branches, careful to demean himself as became an humble follower of the Lamb, showing it clearly by his good example among men and in a particular manner before his own family. . . He departed this life the 22nd day of 9th mo. 1730, in the 48th year of his age." His widow, Anne, died Twelfth Month 17, 1766. They had three sons, - James and David who were distinguished as ministers among Friends, and John, provided for in his father’s will as "a child unborn," was prominent as a delegate to the First Continental Congress in 1776. The testimony from Woodbury Monthly Meeting concerning James Cooper sets forth that "In the 41st year of his age he appeared in the ministry, in the exercise of which he was diffident and cautious. . . . As he grew in years he increased in the gift of the ministry, which was sound and edifying. . . . He had a compassionate feeling for the poor and needy, bestowing his goods cheerfully to them, and was liberal in entertaining friends, his heart and home being open for that purpose." He died at Woodbury Eighth Month 3, 1798, in his seventy-first year. His brother, David Cooper, also a minister, died Eleventh Month 5, 1795, in his seventy-second year, and the memorial published by the same meeting on occasion of his death, bears testimony that "He was endowed with superior talents, wan a useful member in the community, in religious meetings he was solid and weighty, sound in judgment and clear in expression. He was a firm advocate for the liberty of the black people and a liberal promoter of schools." David Cooper was the author of "Thoughts on Death," and of "Counsel and Instruction to his Grandchildren." In 1761 he represented his county in the General Assembly. In the Pemberton letters, 1764, it appears that David was interested in the Moravian Indians as their friend and protector.

JOHN COOPER, the third son, was born January 5, 1729, in Deptford township, Gloucester County, about one mile below Woodbury. Some time prior to the Revolution he built and moved into the fine old-fashioned brick house in Woodbury, opposite the county clerk’s office, where he lived the remainder of his life a bachelor. At the outset of the Revolution he embraced the cause of the colonies with fervor, and when the Committee of Correspondence for Gloucester County was formed, on May 5, 1775, he was chosen one of the members. Thenceforth until his death he was, with hardly an intermission, continuously called to fill important public offices of trust and responsibility. He was elected to the Second Provincial Congress that met at Trenton, May 23, 1775, and re-elected to the Third.

On the last day of the first session of the latter he was appointed treasurer for the Western Division of New Jersey, and at the second session was, on February 14, 1776, chosen a delegate to the Continental Congress, his associates being William Livingston, John De Hart, Richard Smith and Jonathan Dickinson Seargeant. His name does not appear on the published minutes of this Congress and it is uncertain whether he attended or not.

It is certain that he did not attend after the meeting of the Fourth Provincial Congress, to which he had been again chosen, and where he was in daily attendance km its opening, on the 10th of June, 1776, to the 15th of July, when he was compelled to leave, it is said, from sickness. While there he took a prominent and decided part in its proceedings, being appointed one of the committee to draft a Constitution for the new States, and chairman of the committee to prepare a bill regulating the first election under that Constitution, and voting on the 21st of June to establish an independent government for the colony, and on Tuesday, July 2d, for the adoption of the new Constitution he had helped to draft.

At the first election held under the new Constitution he was chosen by the people of Gloucester County to represent them in the Legislative Council. He and Richard Smith, who were the only members who took the affirmation of Friends, were appointed by the Council its representatives on the joint committee to form the Great Seal of the State.

Thus publicly assuming his share of the responsibilities of the American cause, he had become so marked a "rebel" that In the winter of 1777, when the British army was foraging in Gloucester County, he was compelled to flee from his house, which Lord Cornwallis seized and occupied as headquarters during the stay of his army in the neighborhood of Woodbury, the soldiers prying open the doors and cupboards with their bayonets, leaving marks that can still be seen.

He was continued by successive elections a member of Council for each year until 1782, being a diligent and leading member, rarely absent from his seat. There is scarcely a day when his name does not appear on the minutes in active participation in the busy and difficult affairs of the times; no member being oftener appointed on prominent committees and none reporting more important measures for the carrying on of the government than he.

During the recess of the Legislature in 1779, moved by the great suffering of the officers and troops of the Jersey brigade stationed at Elizabethtown for the want of sufficient clothing, he joined with Governor Livingston and seven others in a request to the treasurer to furnish clothing to the army in any amount not exceeding seven thousand pounds, agreeing to return that sum of money to the treasury if the Legislature should make no provision therefor. Upon this guarantee the clothing was furnished and the Legislature, at its next sitting, sanctioned it. He was chosen a member of the Council for Safety for the year 1778. At the election by the Legislature in 1783 he was the candidate for Governor in opposition to Livingston, who was elected.

To him belongs the credit of taking, while the contest of the colonies for their freedom was yet undecided, the first step ever taken in the Legislature of New Jersey for the freeing of the slaves. On September 21, 1780, he introduced a bill entitled, "An act to abolish slave-keeping," which, on its second reading, after considerable debate, was, on account of the near close of the session, postponed for the consideration of the next Legislature. Early In the next session he was careful to call the subject to the attention of his fellow-members by moving for leave to bring in a bill entitled, "An act to abolish slavery throughout this State." But this was a philanthropic move too far in advance of the times to be adopted by the Council, and it was lost. Firm, however, in his anti-slavery convictions, he did not abandon the subject, but waited until the colonies had won their independence before he again urged it in the Legislature. He was not a member of Council in 1782 or 1783, but was once more chosen in 1784 and on November 4th he renewed his efforts to make New Jersey a free State indeed by moving for the appointment of a joint committee to enter into a "a free conference" on (among other things) the subject of the gradual abolition of slavery within this State.

But the Council was still not ready for so advanced a step and it was again lost.

At the joint session held at Mount Holly in December, 1779, he was elected president, or as it was then called, first judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Gloucester County for the full term of five years. The court minutes show that notwithstanding the claim upon his time the frequent sessions of the Legislature caused, he was regularly in attendance at every term of the court. On December 21, 1784, he was re-elected first judge and sat at the term commencing on the third Tuesday in March, 1785, between which time and the 11th day of April, when his will was proven, he died. The exact date is unknown.

JOSEPH COOPER, JR., of Newton township, Old Gloucester County, born in 1691, was eldest son of Joseph and Lydia (Riggs) Cooper, and grandson of William and Margaret, the emigrants.

Joseph, Jr., was in many respects a remarkable man and his memory is well worthy of perpetuation. He was early called to places of honor and trust, and was continued in them during life, being emphatically a man of action and affairs. For nineteen consecutive years he represented his county in the State Legislature, "in a manner satisfactory and acceptable, and," says Judge Clement, the historiographer of Newton, "no like confidence has been extended to any representative of the constituency of this region." Smith, the historian, who knew him well, tells us that "he had steady principles and a nobility of disposition and fortitude superior to many," and relates, that at one of the tedious sessions in Governor Morris’ times, when contrariety of sentiments had long impeded business, the Governor, casually meeting the representative in the street, said: "Cooper, I wish you would go home and send your wife." "I will," answered Cooper, "if the Governor will do the same by his," - an anecdote illustrative of the political antagonism of the men, as well as deservedly expressive, says Smith, of the estimation placed upon the mental capacity of their respective wives.

Cooper was also treasurer of his town and judge of the Gloucester County Court. He and his cousin, John Cooper, of Deptford, a minister, with Wm. Evans, were the first trustees of Haddonfield Meeting in 172i, in which meeting he was an elder, being called to the service in 1723. He resided on a farm deeded to him by his father in 1714, of four hundred and thirty acres of land on the south aide of Coopers Creek, and his house stands near the junction of the present Haddon and Kaighn Avenues, within the city limits.

This plantation passed under his will, by reversion and remainder, to his younger brother Isaac, and has since passed by heir female to the Cope family. He died Eighth Month 1, 1749, having survived all of his descendants except three granddaughters. A plantation of six hundred acres on the south side of the south branch of Coopers Creek, which came to him from his grandfather William, the patriarch, he directed should be divided into three farms for his granddaughters. The farmhouse on this tract was built before 1726, and stands near Peterson’s mill, not far from Ashland Station. The Haddonfield Monthly Meeting, in their testimonial published on the occasion of his death, have placed on record ample evidence of the high estimation in which he was held by the Society of Friends.

JOSEPH AND SAMUEL COOPER. OF THE POINT. - Jos. Cooper, born at Coopers Point, Twelfth Month 1, 1735, a son of Benjamin and Elizabeth (Cole) Cooper, was fourth in descent from the emigrants, William and Margaret Cooper. He married Elizabeth Haines, and occupied the brick homestead house, a portion of which yet stands on the corner of Point and Erie Streets, bearing on one of its gables the legend "B. + H.C., 1734," being the initials of his father; Benjamin, and his second wife, Hannah, who died without issue. In 1788 Joseph built the brick home at the Point, in the gable of which is set in black brick the initials "C I + E 1788." They lived in this house to an advanced age, and died without issue.

Mr. Cooper was a model farmer gentleman. Possessed of an independent fortune and cultivating a highly improved plantation, he devoted his time and means to the advancement of improvements in agriculture and general farming. His orchards and grapery were most productive, and probably were in a higher state of cultivation than any in West Jersey; he was also the successful introducer of fruits and vegetables not indigenous to the soil of New Jersey. Dr. Pickering said of him that "he was the shrewdest man he ever knew, and possessed of the strongest mind." His ability was folly recognized by his neighbors and he was much employed in the church affairs of the Society of Friends. He and his wife, Elizabeth, were widely known for their unfailing hospitality and were greatly respected in the community at large. He and his brother Samuel (born Sixth Month 25, 1744) were stanch Whigs and patriots. They were both imprisoned by the British and their property burnt, destroyed or appropriated. Their lands were held by the enemy as an outpost to the army of occupation in Philadelphia. The English General Abercrombie occupied the farm-house of Joseph as headquarters, while the Hessians and Scotch were quartered on the property of his brother Samuel at the ferry, who was kindly allotted the use of his own kitchen for the shelter of his family. Samuel, writing at this dismal period (May, 1778), says: "I can stand and see them cut, pull down, burn and destroy all before them and not think more of it than I used to think of seeing a shingle burnt. When they (his Tory neighbors) tell me they will ruin me, I tell them I shall be able to buy one-half of them in seven years," - a prediction literally fulfilled. In the same year Samuel was betrayed to the enemy by one of his domestics, and seized as a spy, was sent to Philadelphia. Escaping from his guard through the influence of a friend, he obtained a pass from the general commanding, saved his neck and rejoined his family, as he quaintly tells us, "to the great mortification of a great many of my old friends and new enemies, who stood in clusters and pointed at me as I was going to the General’s, and followed me to see me go to Goal, (jail) where many of them said I should have been long ago - but alas! they were all disappointed."

The substantial brick building at the ferry, marked on the gable with "S. + P.C., 1770." was the early home of Samuel and Prudence Cooper. It is now known as Coopers Point Hotel, and a portion is used as offices of the Camden and Atlantic Railroad Company. The later years of his life were passed on his farm of three hundred and forty-three acres, called "Pleasant View" (now Pavonia), in Stockton township, where he died in 1812. John Hunt, a minister of note, made the following entry in his journal:
     "Ninth Month 22, 1812. Heard of the death of Samuel Cooper, aged about seventy, an old schoolmate. He owned the ferry opposite Philadelphia, and although he had great possessions and was counted rich, yet he retired from business, obtained a right among Friends, became a much approved man, and was very useful in the Society, and also open-hearted and kind in entertaining Friends, so that he will be very much missed in the neighborhood and in society." Samuel and Prudence had had children, - Joseph, William, Benjamin, Mary, Sarah and Elizabeth.

Joseph and Samuel had a brother Benjamin, of Haddonfield, who, by his first wife, Prudence Barton, had an only son, James B. Cooper, born March 6, 1753, soldier and sailor, who served on land and sea, filling honorable and responsible positions in army and navy during two wars - 1776 and 1812. He served with distinction in the War of ‘76, under Lee and Marion, and his services in the navy during the War of 1812 were especially recognized and honored by the President. Commander Cooper died at Haddonfield, in the ninety-third year of his age, being the last survivor of Lee’s Legion and the senior commander in the United States navy. (See page 60.)

Joseph Cooper, one of the subjects of this sketch, being childless, named in his will a grand-nephew, Joseph W. Cooper (son of William), born Seventh Month 22, 1709, as the chief beneficiary under that instrument, devising to him the lands in Camden lying near the Upper Ferry, the same being a large part of the original survey made by William Cooper in 1680.

Samuel Champion Cooper, of Coopers Point, counselor-at-law, son of Joseph W. Cooper, is the representative of this branch, and the able and experienced manager of their large estates.

EARLY SETTLEMENTS AND LAND TRANSFERS ON THE SITE OF SOUTH CAMDEN. - The foregoing, in its large divisions, comprise the original Cooper and Roydon surveys. Below the tract on the river was the tract surveyed to Samuel Norris, in May, 1685. He bought a share of Propriety of the trustees of Edward Byllynge, in 1678, and located several tracts of land in different parts of West Jersey, of which this was one. On October 12th following he leased twenty acres of this survey to John Ashton, who built a house upon it, and sold the remainder of the survey to Robert Turner, September 21, 1686, and who bought the lease of Ashton, May 5, 1689. The meadow lots, which lay on both sides of Little Newton Creek (Kaighns Run), and had been divided between the settlers at Newton, part were sold as follows: No. 1 was sold by Stephen Newbie, son of Mark, to John Kaighn, July 20, 1699. No. 2 was sold by Thomas Thackara, June 16, 1693, to John Burrough, who conveyed to Robert Turner, July 6, 1696, and he to John Kaighn, Tenth Month (January) 14, 1696. No. 3 William Bates conveyed to his son Jeremiah, November 10, 1693, who sold to John Kaighn, March 1, 1697. No. 4 Thomas Sharp sold to Robert Turner, April 12, 1693, who sold to John Kaighn, Tenth Month 14, 1696. No. 5 Robert Zane left, by will, twenty-four and three-fourths acres, also fronting on the river, Eleventh Month 27, 1694, to his three sons, - Nathaniel, Elnathan and Robert. This was sold to John Kaighn, Eleventh Month 6, 1698, and Tenth Month 1, 1702. No. 6, originally laid out to Turner, was sold to John Kaighn, Tenth Month 14, 1696. All these lots lay on the north side of the stream. On the same date the last was purchased, and by the same deed Robert Turner also sold to John Kaighn four hundred and fifty-five acres, lying north of the meadow-lands and Kaighns Run, embracing part of the Norris survey and extending from Line Street to Little Newton Creek. John Kaighn was evidently a native of the "Isle of Man." He was a carpenter and came to Byberry about 1690. In 1693 he married Ann Forrest, widow of William Forrest and daughter of William Albertaon, of Newton township. A daughter was born to them, June 24, 1694, who was named Ann. The mother died July 6th following, and the daughter died, unmarried, in 1715. John Kaighn purchased of Robert Turner four hundred and fifty-five acres of land, as above stated, and part of the remainder of the meadow lots within a few years. In the same year (1696) he married, as a second wife, Sarah, the widow of Andrew Griscom and sister of John Dole, who then lived in Newton township. Andrew Griscom, the first husband of Sarah (Dole), was the owner of a tract of land adjoining that lately bought by John Kaighn, and it was also a part of the Norris survey. The title to the tract is not known, but in 1723 it was the property of John Kaighn.

Andrew Griscom had two children by his wife, - Tobias and Sarah. From Tobias the family name is still known in this region. William Griscom (of Haddonfield before and during the Revolution) was his son. Another son, Samuel, was a carpenter, lived in Philadelphia and assisted in building Independence Hall.

John Kaighn, after his purchase of land in Newton township (now Camden), settled upon it and built the house now owned by Charles McAlister. By his second wife he had two sons, - John, born December 30, 1700, and Joseph, born December 4, 1702. His wife died soon after the birth of Joseph. Jane Kaighn, mother of John, then living at Kirk on the Isle of Man, addressed a letter, dated August 26,1702, "To John Kaighn, Linener, in West New Jersey, nigh on Delaware river side, opposite to Philadelphia city, America," in which she informed him of the death of his father and other family news. On the same sheet John Kaighn wrote an unfinished letter to his mother, without date, in which he said that he had "lost two good and loveing wives in a few years’ time, and left alone with young babes, the youngest still at nurse." He married, in 1710, as a third wife, Elizabeth Hill, of Burlington. In 1699 John Kaighn was chosen as one of the judges of Gloucester County, and served three years. In 1708 he became one of the trustees of Newton Meeting, and, in 1710, represented Gloucester County in the Legislature. He died in 1724 and his will was proved June 12th, in that year, by which he left a house and lot in Philadelphia to his wife, Elizabeth, and his real estate in Newton township to his two sons, John and Joseph.

About 1726 John conveyed his interest in the home property to his brother, Joseph Kaighn, who held it until his death, in 1749. He (Joseph) in 1727 married Mary, daughter of James Estaugh, of Philadelphia, and niece of John Estaugh, of Haddonfield, by whom he had five children, - Joseph, John (who became a physician, and died unmarried), Isaac (who died in his minority), James and Elizabeth.

In 1732 John Kaighn, Jr., the eldest son of John Kaighn, and brother of Joseph, married Abigail Hinchman, and as a blacksmith followed his business at Haddonfield for several years, and removed to a farm on Newton Creek, where he died in 1749 and was buried in the old Newton grave-yard. His children were Sarah, Elizabeth, Samuel, John and Ann. His widow, Abigail, about 1750, married Samuel Harrison, of Gloucester. She survived her second husband, and died in 1795, at the house of her son-in-law, Richard Edwards, at Taunton Iron-Works.

The family of Kaighns and the Kaighn estate came down through the line of Joseph and Mary. Joseph in his will, dated May 7, 1749, says, in defining a boundary between part of his lands, "Beginning at the Delaware River, thence east up the middle of the lane." This lane was afterwards extended, and is now Kaighn Avenue.

The children of Jos. Kaighn and Mary Estaugh Kaighn, who succeeded to the estate, were Joseph, James, John, Isaac and Elizabeth. To James was left part of the estate south of the lane (Kaighn Avenue), to Joseph part of the land south and to John, Isaac and Elizabeth, the land north of the lane. Elizabeth married ----- Donaldson. Joseph, the eldest son of Joseph, upon receiving the land on the south aide from his father, in 1749, built, a few years later, the house long known as the Ferry House, yet standing, but is now devoted to other uses. He married Prudence Butcher, by whom he had four children, but one of whom, Joseph, arrived at maturity, and in 1795 married Sarah Mickle, a daughter of Joseph Mickle. A man of ability and positive convictions he early became a prominent citizen, being frequently elected by the Whig party, to which he belonged, to the State Legislature, both to the house of Assembly and to the Council. He was one of the small band of far-seeing people who believed in the feasibility, as well as the desirability, of a railroad between Philadelphia and New York, and in the Legislature became a most earnest advocate of the granting of the charter for The camden and Amboy Rail Road, and largely through his efforts its passage was secured, he being one of the incorporators and a director till his death, and one of the party who first went over the proposed route of the road. While in the Legislature he was an influential member of the committee that built the State prison Trenton. Early interested in ferries he was prominent in the establishment of the first steamboat running from Kaighns Point to Philadelphia, and was a director in the Federal Street ferry from its organization until his death. Throughout his life he was a most public-spirited man and widely known throughout the State. He died February 23d, 1841, his wife surviving him until 1842. Their children were John M., who married Rebecca, daughter of Benjamin Cooper; Charles, married to Mary Cooper, of Woodbury; William R., married Rachel Cole (Burrough), widow; and Mary, who married John Cooper, of Woodbury. The children of James were Isaac; Mary, died young; John, married Elizabeth Bartram; Elizabeth, married Jonathan Knight; James; Hannah, married Benjamin Dugdale; Sarah; Mary; Ann, who died in 1880, aged eighty-eight years; and Charity and Grace (twins), both now deceased. The lands of James that lay north of the dividing line and on the river, were laid out into lots in 1812 and from that time to the present, adjoining lands have been gradually laid out and built upon until the entire Kaighn estate is now laid out into streets and lots.

The land now in the city of Camden, lying south and east of Kaighns Run and to Newton Creek, was located by Robert Turner, of whom an account will be found in the history of Haddon township; four hundred and twenty acres adjoining Newton Creek, and two hundred acres on the river were located by Richard Arnold, which was surveyed March 1, 1700. He sold it to Martin Jarvis, who, in the same year, sold two hundred and eight acres to John Wright, who sold to John Champion; the rest of the tract passed to Jacob Coffing. In 1790 the greater part of the land became the estate of Isaac Mickle, Jr. A portion of the land lying on the Delaware River, south and west of Kaighns Run, was sold by Turner to Archibald Mickle, then of Philadelphia. He was a native of Lisburn, a town in the county Antrim, Ireland, and a member of the Society of Friends. With many others of the same faith, he left his native land and came to this country and landed in Philadelphia August 2, 1682. He was by trade a cooper, and probably remained in that city several years, as coopers were in considerable demand along the sea-coast. In 1686 he married Sarah Watts, in the Philadelphia Meeting, of which he was a member.

In 1690 he purchased two hundred and fifty acres of land in Newton township of Robert Turner. It was near the head of the south branch of Newton Creek, adjoining land of Francis Collins. It afterward passed to Joseph Lowe, who settled upon it. The meadow lands on Kaighns Run passed from the original proprietor to others, and that on the south side of the run was conveyed with other lands to Robert Turner, at one time the largest land-owner in Newton township. On the 16th of May, 1697, Archibald Mickle purchased of Robert Turner four hundred and seventy-six acres of land and thirty-two acres of the meadow lands. The purchase fronted on the Delaware and extended along Kaighns Run. A house occupied by Thomas Spearman was on the land at the time of purchase and it is shown on the Thomas Sharp map of 1700 as being on the bank of the river between the meadow lots and the south line, and where the old Isaac Mickle house is situated. At this place Isaac Mickle resided until his death, in 1706. By his will the estate was left to his widow, Sarah, and to his children - Samuel, Daniel, Archibald, Joseph, James, Sarah (wife of Ezekiel Siddons), Mary (wife of Arthur Powell) and Rachael (wife of Benjamin Cooper). The widow bought the rights of Samuel, Daniel, Sarah, Mary and Rachel, and upon her death, in October, 1718, the real estate, by her will, was devised to Archibald, James and Joseph, who, by quit-claim dated March 20, 1727, conveyed to each other these lands in severalty in equal division. The eldest son (John) of Archibald married Hannah, the daughter of Wm. Cooper (2d), and in 1703 settled in Gloucester township, where he died in 1744. He was appointed judge of Gloucester County in 1733, and served several years.

Of the lands now in Camden City, the portion inherited by Joseph passed to the Kaighn family, and the land of Archibald and James in later years came to Isaac Mickle, Sr., a grandson of Archibald and Sarah, who married Sarah Burroughs and in 1780 conveyed the land to his nephew, Isaac Mickle, Jr.

This last-mentioned property remained in the Mickle family many years and is now the southern portion of the city, and laid out in avenues and town lots.

Isaac Mickle, author of "Reminiscences of Old Gloucester," was a descendant of the family.

The fisheries along the Mickle lands were in 1818 conducted by John W. Mickle, one of the descendants.

Martin Jarvis, of whom mention is made, was a son of John Jarvis, of Roscoe, Kings County, Ireland, and a Friend, who, in 1688, with his son Martin, came to New Jersey to avoid the persecution of the Papists. They first stopped at the house of George Goldsmith, in Newton township, but in 1691 the father settled in Cape May County and in 1701 returned to Ireland, and Martin purchased land on Newton Creek, as mentioned. In 1705 he bought a house and lot In Philadelphia, on the west side of Second Street, between Market and Chestnut, where he resided until his death in 1742, aged sixty-seven years. He married Mary Champion, a daughter of John, who settled on Coopers Creek.

Prior to 1761 the only roads that led to Coopers Ferries were mere bridle-paths, but on the 8th of June in that year commissioners laid out on the line of Cooper Street a road from the King’s Highway leading from Haddonfield, four poles wide, to Cooper’s Ferry - it being the old Roydon ferry near the foot of Cooper St., then kept by Daniel Cooper, son of William, the grandson of Wm. Cooper, the first settler. In the next year the bridge was built across Coopers Creek at the eastern end of Federal Street and the road widened and improved to the Cooper Street Ferry. This was the Great Road to Burlington. In the same year Benjamin Cooper laid out a road from his ferry, now the Camden and Atlantic Ferry, to the new bridge over Coopers Creek. That road was later Main Street and is now mostly occupied by the track of the Camden and Atlantic Railroad. The Haddonfield road joined the road from Coopers Creek bridge to the ferry at what is now Fifth Street. On December 7, 1763, a road was laid from Coopers Point to the bridge over Timber Creek. It left the ferry road below Front Street and near the old Ferry House. Federal Street was laid out asa road about 1764 (when the ferry was established), Plum Street in 1803 - all converging towards Coopers Creek bridge.

Jacob Cooper, in his town plan of 1773, laid out as the north line the old Ferry Road and called it Cooper Street, and also laid out Market Street.

These streets extended from the river to Pine or Sixth Street. The Chews Landing road was laid about 1800, and the Kaighns Point road about 1810, soon after the ferry was established at that place.

When the town was incorporated as a city, in 1828, all the old streets, Cooper, Market, Plum (now Arch), and Federal Streets centred on the old road to the ferry at Twelfth Street. Several of these early roads within the bounds of the city have been vacated and entirely lost sight of.

FIRST TOWN PLAN OF CAMDEN. - Jacob Cooper, a son of William and Deborah (Medcalf) Cooper, was a merchant in Philadelphia, and conceiving the idea that at a future day the great crossing-place on the Delaware known as Cooper’s Ferries would be a town of considerable importance, obtained of his father, April 23, 1764, one hundred acres of land lying on the river north of a tract of one hundred acres owned by his brother Daniel. The north line of the tract was the old bridle-path to the ferries, and which, in 1761, was laid out as part of the road from Haddonfield to the ferry, then at the foot of Cooper Street.

In the year 1773 he laid out forty acres of this tract into streets and lots, and named it after the Earl of Camden, who was a firm friend and ally of Lord Chatham in the struggle for constitutional liberty in the colonies. The old road on the north side he named Cooper Street. Market Street was also by him laid out from the river to what is now Sixth Street. The south line of the plot was midway between Market Street and Plum (now Arch). Streets were laid out from Cooper Street eastward as follows: King (now Front), Queen (now Second), Whltehall (now Third), Cherry (now Fourth), Cedar (now Fifth) and Pine (now Sixth). The names were changed to the present at the incorporation of the city, in 1828. The Public Square located at the intersection of Market and Third Streets, was at the same time laid out. The lots were one hundred and sixty in number. The first eight lots fronted on the river and extended back to Front Street. No. 1 was on Cooper Street. One hundred and twenty-aix of these lots, with the exceptions of Nos. 24, 30 and 32, were sold by Jacob Cooper. The names of purchasers, with number of lot, are here given:

1. Lyon and Falconer.	49. John Fenton.
2. Robert Parrish.	50-51. William Rush.
3. Andrew Forsyth.	52. Benjamin Town.
4. Robert Parrish.	53. John Porter.
5. Isaac Coates.	54. John Kearsley.
6. Thomas Mifflin.	55. John Shoemaker.
7. A. Todd and J. Hartley.	56. Joh Kearsley.
8. Barzilla Lipincott.	58. Moses Bartram.
9. Lyon and Falconer.	59. George Bartram.
10. Lyon and Falconer.	60. Barzilla Lippincott.
11. William Moulder.	61-62. James Cooper.
12-13-14. Samuel Noble.	63. John Eldridge.
15. William Wane.	64. Samuel Miles.
16. James Ark.	65. James Coffe.
17. David Dominick.	68. John Beedle.
18. Samuel Miles.	71. John Beedle.
19. Thomas Mifflin.	73. George Bartram.
20. Nicholas Hicks.	74. Moses Bartram.
21. Isaac Coates.	75. John Brown.
22. Israel Cassell and Jno. Davis.	76. Joseph Brown.
23. Allem Cathcart and Henry Casdrope.	77. George Naper.
25. Isaac Mickle (bought after Jacob Cooper’s death.	78. Samuel Powell.
26. William Adams.	79. Thomas Lewis.
27. Vincent Mari Polosi.	81-82. William Rigden.
28. Nicholas Hicks.	83. Samuel Powell.
29. Jonathan Shoemaker.	84. George Hopper.
30. V.M. Polosi.	85. Joseph Brown.
31. Christopher Perkins.	86. John Brown.
32. V.M. Polosi.	88. William Brown.
33. William Adams.	91. John Eldridge.
34. Samuel Noble.	92. James Reeves.
35-36. Aquilla Jones.	93 to 98. John Haltzell.
37. Samuel Bryan.	101. John Haltzell.
39. Jacob Speeder.	102-103. Benjamin Horner.
42. James Cooper.	108-109. Edward Gibbs.
43. Samuel Robins.	110-111-112. Samuel Hopkins.
44. Joseph Budd.	115-116. Martin Fisher.
45. James Channell.	120. Richard Townsend.
46. John Porter.	121. John Eledridge.
47. John Kearsley.	122. Mathias Gilbert.
48. Andrew Burkhart.	126. John Haltzell.
	127. For public use.

 

Lot No. 127, on the corner of Plum (now Arch) Street and Fifth Street, was reserved for public use, and on the 22d of April, 1776, Jacob Cooper conveyed it to Charles Lyon, Nathaniel Falconer, William Moulder and Nicholas Hicks, in trust for the inhabitants to erect a house of worship and make a burial-place. The north part of the lot was made a burial-place and a school-house in later years was erected upon the south part it is now and has been for many years occupied by an engine-house under the charge of the Fire Department. The most of the persons named in the list before given resided in Philadelphia. But little information is obtained of the progress of the town before 1800. In the year 1803 Joshua Cooper, son of Daniel, deriving the land from his father, laid out a street from the river to Sixth Street, which he named Plum. On the north side of Plum Street he laid out twenty-nine lots and on the south aide twenty-four lots.

VILLAGE OF CAMDEN. - Edward Sharp, in 1812, built the rough-cast house now standing on the southeast corner of Cooper and Second Streets (lot 42 in Jacob Cooper’s town plot), long known as the Dr. Harris house. On the 8th of June, 1818, he bought of Joshua Cooper ninety-eight acres of land lying on the river and south of the Lower Ferry road or Federal Street. In 1820 he laid out a part of this into streets and lots, and named it "Camden Village."

Edward Sharp had for some years been agitating the building a bridge across the Delaware River to Windmill island, and after the purchase of this land, and in 1820, laid out the land from the river to Cedar or Fifth Street, with a broad street through the centre, which was named Bridge Avenue, now the line of the Camden and Amboy railroad. The only buildings on this territory at that time were the stables of John D. Wessels, at the corner of Federal and Front Streets, and then near the bank of the river. Edward Sharp presented a petition to the Legislature asking for authority to build a bridge across the Delaware. A newspaper of that day says: "The Windmill Island Bridge Bill passed the Senate January 22, 1820, and the House February 18th following."

The eastern end of this bridge was to be at the foot of Bridge Avenue, and, although the bill authorizing its construction passed, yet the bridge was never built. Lots were sold as follows between the river-front and Queen Street (now Second): Nos. 1 and 2, to Samuel Lanning; lots 3 to 7 and lot A, to John D. Wessels; lot 16, southwest corner of Federal and White Hall (now Third) Streets, to Daniel Ireland; lot 28, southwest corner of Federal and Cherry Streets, to Reuben Ludlam. On Queen Street, north of Bridge Avenue and the alley, were six lots marked B, C, D, E, P, F2; they were sold as follows: B, to William Butler; C, to Samuel Smith; D, to Isaac Sims; E, to James Read; and F1 and F2, to David and Dorcas Sims. Financial reverses soon overtook Edward Sharp, and his land was sold by the sheriff, July 13, 1822, to Elihu Chauncey and James Lyle, who, on the 22d of July the next year, 1823, sold to Henry Chester. Part of this land, July 18, 1833, and August 31, 1836, came to Esther Nunes, who laid out one hundred and forty lots, the greater part of them water lots, and on the river-flats.

COOPER’S HILL. - That part of Camden known as Cooper’s Hill as applied to the ground then, rising from a marsh west of Fourth Street and south of Bridge Avenue, forming a knoll covered in part with stately oak and pine-trees and on the eastern part, beyond Broadway, was a magnificent apple orchard. It belonged to Richard M. Cooper, president of the State Bank at Camden, and shortly after his death his son, William D. Cooper, in 1842, sold the timber, cut down the apple-trees and laid out the ground in one hundred town lots, which, December 5, 1842, he offered for sale. They sold rapidly and at good prices, for the high ground made the locality desirable as a place of residence, and it now forms the bulk of the Fourth Ward, the most populous in the city, containing within its limits the City Hall, Cooper Hospital, three public school-houses, five churches with two thousand members, and ten thousand people. William D. Cooper made sale to Joab Scull of the lot on the northeast corner of West and Berkley Streets, upon which the latter built the first house in the new settlement. The only house on the tract, before Scull built, was the one Richard M. Cooper built in 1820, on the east side of the

Woodbury and Camden Academy road, and which was removed to make room for the row of three-story bricks on Broadway, south of Berkley.

Within the limits of what is known as Cooper’s Hill were formerly ponds, of which Mickle, writing in 1845, says: "There was in the olden time a pond about half a mile southeast of the Court-House in the City of Camden, which was much frequented by wild geese and ducks. Although the bed of the pond is now cultivated, there are those who remember when it contained several feet of water throughout the year. It was called by the Camden boys ‘the Play Pond.’"

This pond is said, by one of the boys who used to play there, Benjamin Farrow, to be where now stand the dwellings of the late John H. Jones and Jesse W. Starr. He says there were two ponds, one called the "wet pond" and the other the "dry pond," and that they were made in the time of the Revolution by the erection of redoubts.

The land en the north side of Cooper Street, and north of Birch, which was left to William Cooper by his grandfather, William, was devised to his sons, Daniel and Richard M. Cooper. The former dying intestate, his share descended to his three daughters, - Mary Ann (who married William Carman), Abigail and Esther L. Cooper, - and in the partition of his estate, which followed his death, the land mentioned was divided into alternate portions between these daughters by their uncle, Richard M. Cooper, and about 1842 laid out by William D. Cooper and sold.

On the 7th of February, 1858, Rachel Cooper, daughter of William Cooper (of the upper ferry), sold the land lying between Market and Federal Streets, above Eighth, to Charles Fockler, who laid it out into fifty-nine lots.

That part of the city north of Birch Street and to Main Street was laid out with streets and in two hundred and forty-five lots in 1852, by the heirs of William Cooper, and in January of the same year Joseph W. Cooper laid out one hundred and seventy-two lets north of Main Street, and advertised them for public sale February 5, 1852. These tracts comprise the plans and additions to the city on the old Cooper lands.

THE KAIGHN ESTATE.- The Kaighn estate, which was left by Joseph Kaighn by will, in 1749, to Joseph and James, John, Isaac and Elizabeth, extended from Line Street to Kaighn Run. The lane, now Kaighn Avenue, was the dividing line of part of the property left to Joseph and John, the former inheriting the south side and the latter the north side, including the old mansion built about 1696 by his grandfather, John Kaighn. Joseph built a house on the south side, known in later years as the Ferry House. After the death of James, in 1812, his property was divided by partition, and the lots at the foot of Kaighn Avenue were soon after sold.

There are a number of houses standing which were built by the Kaighns. The oldest of these is the one built by John Kaighn, the first settler, who, soon after his coming, in 1696, erected a one-story house of brick, on the river-shore, now on the southeast corner of Second and Sycamore Streets, a thousand feet from tide-water. It became the property of James, the grandson of John Kaighn, and on his death, in 1811, came through one of his children to Mrs. Hutchinson, a granddaughter, who, in 1864, sold It to Charles McAllister, who, using the old walls, made of it two three-story houses, in one of which he resides. Elizabeth Haddon, in 1721, presented John Kaighn with two box and two yew-trees, which he planted in front of his house. The yew-trees are still standing, having a girth of six feet, but the box-trees decayed and disappeared, the last in 1874.

The Ferry House, at the southeast corner of Front Street and Kaighn Avenue, was built by Joseph Kaighn, grandson of the first settler, between 1755 and 1760. Joseph Kaighn died in 1702, when his son Joseph, then residing in the farm-house on Quaker Lane, opposite Newton Meeting-house, moved into the homestead and occupied it until 1809, when, having built the spacious mansion on the south aide of Kaighn Avenue, above Second Street, which afterward became the property of his son Charles, he removed there and made it his home until 1831, when he built the brick house at the southwest corner of Third and Kaighn Avenue, and moved there, where he lived until his death, in 1841, when it became the home of his daughter Mary, afterwards the wife of John Cooper.

The house at Front and Kaighn Avenue was leased as a ferry-house to Christopher Madara, and in 1816 to George W. Hugg. In 1821 Joseph Kaighn sold the house, with the ferry, to Sarah, widow of Thomas Reeves, and after her death it was purchased by Ebenezer Toole. It is now the property of Edward Shuster. During the Revolution the house served as a target for gunners on British ships lying in the river, and the late Charles Kaighn had in his possession a spent cannon-ball which came down the chimney while his grandfather, Joseph Kaighn, and family were taking supper.

Another old house, built before 1800, is on the north aide of Kaighn Avenue, below Locust Street. It belonged to John, son of James Kaighn, who died in 1811. In 1842 It became a part of the Capewell glass-works property and was used as a finishing and packing-house. After the closing of the glass-works it was fitted up and divided into three dwellings, - Nos. 239, 241 and 243 Kaighn Avenue. On the northeast corner of Front Street and Mechanic is a large three-story brick house. It was built in 1824 by Joseph Mickle, who intended it for his residence, but he died before it was finished and it became the home of his widowed daughter, Priscilla Matlack, who married James W. Sloan, a leading man in municipal matters. Near the above, on Front Street, is the house built by Frederick Plummer, the Baptist preacher, in 1820, in which he used the brick composing the prison built at Gloucester in 1716.

The Little Newton Creek Meadow Company was organized to preserve the river-banks below Kaighns Point. In 1696 John Kaighn bought four hundred and fifty-five acres of land from Robert Turner, lying between Line Ditch and Line Street, and Archibald Mickle about the same time bought to the south. To construct a bank to reclaim the large expanse of low land lying between them was the joint work of the Mickles and Kaighns at a very early day, there being but a single owner on the north and on the south of the small stream that forming the dividing line, the maintenance of the bank was a simple matter; but when Joseph Kaighn died, in 1841, and his land on the north became divided among several heirs, while the same process was going on with the Mickle land, on the south, complications took place, and in 1844 the Little Newton Creek Meadow Company was organized, with William Mitchell, president, and John Cooper, secretary and treasurer. The company found the banks in need of repairs, which were made at a cost of three thousand dollars. The company performed its duty well until 1874, when the numerous new owners, ousted the old officers, and the new ones neglected their duty, and, when, the great storm of October 24, 1878, broke the bank and flooded the lower part of the city, Council was compelled to repair the damages.

FETTERSVILLE. - In 1833 Richard Fetters, a prominent citizen of Camden, purchased of Charity and Grace Kaighn a number of tracts of land between Line and Cherry Streets and between Third Street and the river. This land was laid out into lots, and offered for sale at low rates and easy terms, which attracted many purchasers, a large proportion of them colored persons, a number of whom are still among the most respected residents. Benjamin Wilson was one of the first. He was a local preacher, and built a house a few doors below the Macedonian Church. George Johnson, who, in 1835, bought a lot and built the humble home which now shelters him, was born in 1802. He has clear recollections of the events of nearly eighty years ago. His brother, Jacob Johnson, at the same time bought and built on the northwest corner of Third Street and Cherry, where, in comfort, he is spending the remainder of a useful life.

At 247 Spruce Street reside Mary E.S. and Neolus Peterson, educated and refined women, who for many years were school-teachers. Their father was Daniel Peterson, a Methodist preacher of ability, and their mother, Mary, was a daughter of Jonathan Truitt, a noted colored divine of Philadelphia. The Petersons settled in Fettersville in 1835 and built the house where the daughters now reside. Both were pious and educated, and did much to promote religion and education among their people. They were active in the organization of the Macedonian Church. Daniel died in 1857, and Mary in 1865. In 1838 Jacob Ham bought and built on the west aide of Second, above Spruce, where there was a cluster of large willow-trees, which furnished shade, while from the river came cool breezes, making it a favorite trysting-place for the people in warm weather. It has been called "Ham Shore" ever since Jacob Ham built his house there. In the days of slavery there were many scenes of capture and rescue of alleged fugitive slaves in Fettersville. Opposite the church, shortly after it was built, lived a colored man named John Collins, whom the officers claimed as a fugitive, and one night sought to capture, but the women, armed with clubs and pokers, drove them away. Collins, for greater security, removed to Westfield. On another occasion, the officers having captured a fugitive in the county, put him in a wagon, and were driving towards the ferry, passing by the Macedonian Church while a prayer-meeting was in progress. When opposite, the prisoner raised a lusty cry of "kidnappers," which, in a few moments, emptied the church of worshippers and surrounded the wagon with rescuers. While they were parleying, Hannah Bowen cut the traces, and the horse, minus the wagon, was driven away, while the officers were glad to exchange their prize for personal safety.

The colored settlement at Fettersville grew rapidly, and at one time figured largely in the census table, the colored population of the South Ward, in 1850 reaching nearly one-fourth of the entire population of the ward; but the proportion has since decreased, being slightly in excess of seven per cent in 1885. The actual number in 1850 was seven hundred and twenty-five, and in 1885 it was seven hundred and ninety-one, while the total population in the former year was four thousand one hundred and twelve, and in the latter year eleven thousand and sixty-four.

In 1835 Richard Fetters bought other lands of Charity Kaighn and her sister, Grace Kaighn, east of his first purchase and extending south to Mount Vernon, or Jordan Street. His first sales from this venture were to Joseph P. Hillman, Joseph Sharp, Aaron Bozarth, Josiah Sawn and Adam Watson, on the east side of Fifth Street, from Division Street to Spruce. This was in 1836, and the price was one hundred and twenty-five dollars for a lot forty feet front and one hundred feet deep. Fetters’ plan placed all the fronts on the streets running east and west, under the impression that the travel would be in those directions, and in this he would have been correct, had his design for a ferry at the foot of Spruce Street, for which he procured a charter, been realized. All of the plots above-mentioned were in the territory embraced in Camden at the time of its incorporation, in 1828. In 1815 there was but one house between Kaighnton and Camden, and that was the farm-house of Isaac Kaighn, a son of James, and which was on the old Woodbury road, near the river.

Camden, although laid out in 1773, was a town only in name until about 1815. The dwellings clustering around the ferries retained the names by which it had been known for over a century - "The Ferries," or "Cooper’s Ferries." A few lots had been sold and houses built, a post-office had been established, a store opened, but the main business grew out of the ferries. A stage line was established to Burlington, to Leeds Point, in Atlantic County, to Salem, Bridgeton and Cape May. At the beginning of the century there was not a house of worship in the area now embraced within the city, and but one school-house, which stood a distance out from the settlements on the Haddonfield road, and on the land of Marmaduke Cooper, now owned by Marmaduke C. Cope.

RICHARD FETTERS, who was in his day and generation one of the most prominent men of the city, the proprietor of that part of Camden known as Fettersville, a leading spirit in almost every large enterprise, a member of almost every corporation board organized during his business life and the holder of many public offices, was born January 19, 1791, of parents who resided at Coopers Point. His early life was spent for the most part in New Jersey. He removed to Camden in 1826 and opened a store at Third and Market Streets. It was not long afterwards that he laid out Fettersville, and entered upon land operations in North Camden. Almost from the start he held a position of prominence, being elected to the Council in 1828, and thus beginning a long and active public career. He was a lifelong Democrat of a pronounced type. He died July 8, 1863, after a short illness. The editor of one of the Camden journals, a short time before his death, in connection with an announcement of his dangerous condition, spoke of his character and usefulness as follows:
     "Mr. Fetters is one of the pioneers of this city and has probably done more for the advancement and improvement of the place than any other single gentleman. Always active, and possessing an energetic spirit, he made himself foremost in all enterprises conducive to the growth and prosperity of Camden, and took the initiative in all matters of essential public improvements. The conception and gradual increase of the advantages of our ferries was one of his practical theories, and from the first he was closely connected with them. His energy of character also infused life and spirit into the project of erecting works to supply the city with water, and, in fact, no enterprises of truly beneficial bearings have been started in Camden that have not received his fostering care and approval. He has held several important public positions and through indomitable energy and perseverance he acquired a competency. . ."

Mr. Fetters was three times married. His first wife, with whom he was united January 20, 1817, and who was the mother of all of his children, was Hope Stone, born April 27, 1797, and died December 18, 1839. His second wife, to whom he was married November 8, 1841, was Sarah L. Lamborn, and the third, with whom he was joined March 21, 1860, was Ellen B. Marter.

The children of Richard and Hope (Stone) Fetters were Elizabeth, Evaline, Hannah (deceased) and Caroline Elizabeth married the late Jesse Smith, of Woodbury, by whom she had two children - Charlena F., born November 29, 1841 (died in infancy), and Richard F. Smith, formerly city treasurer and now sheriff of Camden County. Evaline married the late Richard S. Humphrey.

They had two children - Richard F. (who died in infancy) and Harry, born March 2, 1855, now a lumber merchant in Philadelphia. Caroline married Charles S. Humphreys, an artist of Camden, now deceased. They had five children, viz., - Charles F. (deceased), was married to Ella Corson of Camden, Evaline L. (deceased), George W., an attorney, married to Mary Coy of Palmyra, and Louis B., a real estate dealer, was married to Jennie McM. Strong, daughter of the late Nathan Strong, one of the first attorneys of Philadelphia. George W. and Louis B. are both of Camden. Ella F. (Mrs. Dr. Pemberton), now of Long Branch, N.J.

STOCKTON. - In the year 1840 James D. Crowley, Thomas Phillips, George F. Miller and William Jones, as the Kaighns Point Land Company, purchased of Dr. Isaac S. Mulford a tract of land east of the West Jersey Railroad, for which they paid two hundred and twenty-five dollars an acre. In the two succeeding years they purchased of Colonel Isaac W. Mickle and other Mickle heirs the land lying between Ferry Avenue and Jackson Street, to within a short distance of Evergreen Cemetery. This land was part of the large tract purchased by Arcbibald Mickle about 1696, and which extended from Kaighns Run, or Line Ditch, to Newton Creek.

The Land Company laid out the land in building lots, and named the settlement "Centrevllle," which was subsequently changed to Stockton. Most of the tract was a cornfield and on it were two tenant-houses, both on Central Avenue, one at the corner of Master and the other on Phillip Street. South of Ferry Avenue was a forest of oak-trees, and north of Stockton was a dense thicket, where rabbits, quail and smaller game were sought after, and not in vain. The lots were sold on easy terms and the sales were rapid until the burning of the ferry-boat "New Jersey," in 1856 (a history of which is given on page 369), checked the inflow of home-seekers from the western shore of the Delaware. The company donated land for school and church purposes. That was the gift to the Stockton Baptist Society, on Vanhook Street, near Sixth. When William Jones built the "Flat Iron," at the junction of Ferry Avenue and Broadway, and applied for a license to sell liquor, the society remonstrated, for which he sought to take away the ground given them by the company, but was prevented by Mr. Crowley. In 1871 Stockton, forming a part of Newton township, was annexed to Camden as a portion of the Eighth Ward, when its growth received an impetus that still continues. The introduction of gas and water, with other advantages incident to city rule, led to the establishment of a number of manufactories, and these increase yearly, owing to the comparatively low price of land. With these advantages, this section of the city is rapidly increasing in population.

KAIGHNSVILLE was a settlement of colored persons, east of Seventh and south of Chestnut Street. Benjamin Vandyke was the first settler, an exemplary man, who built the small house now standing at Ann Street and Kaighn Avenue in 1838. There was no house near, and the lot upon which he built was part of John Kaighn’s cornfield. Shortly afterwards Daniel Wilkins bought the land bounded by Seventh Street, Ann, Sycamore and Kaighn Avenue, selling portions to Dempsey D. Butler, who, coming from the South built on Kaighn Avenue, and to Daniel Sullivan who built the house on the southeast corner of Seventh and Sycamore, now used as a store by Francis Crossley.

Anthony Colding built No. 736 Chestnut Street in 1848, and about that time Joshua Martin, Luke Derrickson, Henry Mackey, Charles Sobers, Sheppard Sample, the school-master, Harriet Gibbs, James Mosely, William Everman and other well-known colored people settled in the neighborhood, built churches and established schools. In 1854 a conflagration destroyed almost the entire settlement from Seventh to Ann, and Chestnut to Kaighn Avenue, but it was speedily rebuilt. In 1871 it was taken into the city, with part of Newton township, and forms a part of the Seventh Ward, the population of which was, in 1875: White, 3001; colored, 758; and in 1885, white, 4663; colored, 1142. The colored people of the Seventh Ward (formerly Kaighnsville) support three Methodist and one Baptist Church, and recently a colored Presbyterian Church has been added to the number.

In the early days of the settlement a meeting was held to select a name, and Vandykesville was proposed, after Benjamin Vandyke, the first settler, but that worthy man would not have it so, and the name of Kaighnsville was adopted.

SOURCE:  Page(s) 403-424, History of Camden County, New Jersey, by George R. Prowell, L.J. Richards & Co. 1886
Published 2010 by the Camden County Genealogy Project