New Jersey's First City

Jersey City / Hoboken Real Estate Ads

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 2002

Shiloh-Roadstown-Greenwich; unnumbered roads.
Shiloh to Greenwich, 6.8 m.
Partly graveled, partly oiled roadbed.

The road runs through undulating farm country toward the Delaware River, penetrating an area where Quaker settlements were made by John Fenwick in the 1680's. There are many eighteenth-century houses along the route.

The Roadstown Rd. branches south from State 49 (see Tour 29) at SHILOH, 0 m. (120 alt., 401 pop.) (see Tour 29) and winds past fertile farm lands tilled by Seventh-Day Baptists. Houses are usually of brick, sometimes coated with paint or stucco.

The HOWELL HOUSE (private), 1.5 m. (R), was the rendezvous of the young men of Cohansey who organized the Greenwich Tea Party to destroy a British cargo (see below). This stone dwelling was occupied just prior to the Revolution by the twin Howell brothers, later active in the Continental Army. One of them, Richard, became Governor of New Jersey (1792-1801).

ROADSTOWN, 1.6 m. (110 alt., 220 pop.), is the home of the Ware family whose hand-made chairs, widely known for more than a century, are popular with collectors of old American furniture. The method of weaving rush seats is a closely guarded secret. At the center of Roadstown is the COHANSEY BAPTIST CHURCH, founded about 1737, a brick structure in a grove of sycamore trees. This structure replaced a former log building erected near Sheppard's Mill (see below).

SPRINGTOWN, 3.8 m. (30 alt.), together with the neighboring hamlet of OTHELLO (R), has been a Negro settlement for more than a century. Amateur architecture and carpentry prevail in the small, weather- beaten, unpainted homes. The small wooden school and still smaller church at the crossroads are the only buildings that bear evidence of continued use. Each house is surrounded by fields where farming is intermittently attempted. The residents are practically all workers on the nearby farms. Springtown was established shortly after the Revolution to provide living quarters for the Negro farm hands coming in from the South. It was a station on the Underground Railroad during slave days.

Left from Springtown on a graded road is SHEPPARD'S MILL, 0.7 m., where a large, white MILL beneath old trees has been in continuous operation for more than 125 years. It obtains power from a large millpond (L) and an overshot water wheel.

At 6.4 m. the road turns L. becoming a wide, graveled highway, the "Great Road" included in the original plans of Greenwich made by surveyors for John Fenwick in 1683. The road is about 2 miles long; for much of its length it is l00 feet wide.

GREENWICH, 6.8 m. (10 alt., 1,472 pop.), has at its northern end a small CANNING PLANT (R), occasionally operated; it is the only evidence of modern industrial activity. Old trees line the highway on both sides, flanked by delightful little old houses, set well apart. There are one or two boat landings on Cohansey Creek, ship chandlers' stores, and boat-gear establishments. Roadside stands and tourist homes are nonexistent The cosmopolitan influences experienced by an early seaport and trading center is reflected in the variety of architecture, and in the materials used

At 7 m. is (L) the STONE TAVERN (private), built 1734, which looks much like the Dutch Colonial houses in northern New Jersey. It is believed that the cut stone of which it was built was brought to Greenwich as ballast in the hold of a trading vessel. The tavern originally dispensed hospitality and, on occasion, legal correction until the county seat was removed to Bridgeton. The building bears little evidence of its age. One hundred yards past the tavern is (L) the GIBBON HOUSE (private}, erected 1730, of local brick in the usual checkerboard pattern. It is three stories high, narrow, with two dormer windows. The interior, in splendid condition, is essentially as it was when the house was built.

At 7.2 m., on the crest of a slight knoll, is (L) the QUAKER MEETING HOUSE (apply for key at the Sheppard House just beyond), erected 1771. The SHEPPARD HOUSE (private), facing Cohansey River, is a large brick farmhouse, almost square. A part of this pre-Revolutionary home is said to be the original building erected 1683. John Sheppard obtained a franchise in 1767 to operate a ferry across the Cohansey at this point for 999 years, but the ferry was abandoned in 1838.

In December 1774 the brig Greyhound unexpectedly put in at Greenwich with a cargo of tea owned by the East India Company. It was consigned to Philadelphia, but the skipper decided that the Greenwich cellar of Tory Van Bowen would be a safer storehouse. Local Whigs, angered by the arrival of the tea, met in Bridgeton to discuss action. Before any decision was reached, a group of younger men rounded up a band of 40 from Bridgeton, Fairfield, Shiloh, and Roadstown. Disguised as Indians, they marched on Greenwich, broke into the cellar and carried the chests to a bonfire on the square. The crackling flames and fragrant smoke aroused the whole town. Patriot exultation was not unmixed with regret at the loss of millions of good drinks ; indeed, one of the tea burners, named Stacks, could not help stuffing handfuls of leaves into his close-fitting breeches. Before long his added bulk was noticed, and from then on to the end of his life he was known as "Tea" Stacks. Tory sympathizers complained bitterly about the tea burning, and the English shippers finally started a court action against half a dozen of the young Whigs. The early local historian, Johnson, relates that Chief Justice Frederick Smyth twice charged a grand jury on the tea burning, but each time the jurors reported no bills "for this plain reason – they were Whigs." On the SITE OF THE TEA PARTY in the market square the State erected a monument in 1908. Names of 23 of the tea burners are inscribed on the stone shaft.

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