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Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2003
In 1676 Thomas Rudyard and John Ridges purchased a share of land from Edward Byllynge and the, trustees of West Jersey. In 1701 Edward Gaskill and Josiah Southwick bought Ridges' 871 acres, on part of which the town now stands. In 1723 the North Branch of Rancocas Creek was dammed for a sawmill and, later for a gristmill. An iron works was established about 1730 by Isaac Pearson, Mahlon Stacy and John Burr; British raiders later destroyed the works, which had been supplying cannon and shot for the Continental Army.
During the Revolution Mount Holly was occupied at times by British troops, who converted the old Friends Meeting House into a commissary. In 1779 the same building was used for sessions of the legislature when, during November and December, the town was the temporary capital of the State. Gov. William Livingston at that time named Thursday, December 9, 1779, as the first Thanksgiving Day to be officially observed in the State, in accordance with a Congressional resolution.
An act of the legislature transferred the county seat from Burlington to Mount Holly in 1796, and the courthouse was erected in that year. Construction of the Burlington and Mount Holly Railroad half a century later strengthened industrial enterprise. By then the town had five mills, a woolen factory, nine stores, a bank, two newspapers and a boarding school.
In 1865 the population of Mount Holly was 3,878, and the town enjoyed steady progress as a small manufacturing and trading center. Some years later Hezekiah Smith built his locally famous bicycle railway, a monorail line, to Mount Holly from nearby Smithville (see Tour 26).
Since 1915 there has been little increase in industry or population. Most of the workers are employed in a score of small factories, chiefly knitting and weaving mills with leather goods manufacturing also important.
For many years Mount Holly has been publicized for the activities of Ellis Parker, former chief detective of Burlington County, who enjoyed a reputation as a suburban Sherlock Holmes. The bizarre climax of Parker's career was his conviction in 1937 on a charge of kidnaping Paul Wendel and obtaining by torture a confession of the Lindbergh murder. The false confession was used to delay the execution of Bruno Richard Hauptmann for the Lindbergh crime.
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