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 2003

Brooklawn-Malaga-Millville-Tuckahoe; State 47.
Junction with US 130 to junction with State 50, 51.8 m.
Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines parallel the route between Brooklawn and Millville.
Hotels in larger towns; numerous oil stations and tourist homes, except between Millville and Tuckahoe.
Concrete roadbed of two to four lanes.

State 47 runs south through a suburban commuters' section to the fruit- and vegetable-growing area of Gloucester County. The road passes through the large Vineland agricultural colonies to Millville, an industrial city, and then cuts through 18 miles of forest to Tuckahoe, a Colonial seaport. State 47 forms a junction with US 130 (see Tour 19) at BROOK-LAWN, 0 m. (20 alt., 1,753 pop.) a small suburb.

At 0.2 m., on the southern edge of Brooklawn, the road crosses BIG TIMBER CREEK. An earlier bridge that carried the King's Highway (L) was destroyed by local militia during the Revolution to hinder the advance of Hessians to the Battle of Red Bank.

Just S. of the concrete bridge is the junction with a dirt road running along the southern bank of the creek.

Left on this road to the KAY HOUSE, or Hospital House, 0.2 m. (private), near which Lafayette distinguished himself as a young volunteer during a skirmish in November 1778. With 300 men he defeated a British picket of equal strength which Lafayette distinguished himself as a young volunteer during a skirmish in November 1778. With 300 men he defeated a British picket of equal strength posted here to guard the enemy's main body at Gloucester (see Tour 19). Neighbors carried the wounded into the old brick house, the western part of which was built in 1685. The dwelling, badly damaged by fire in recent years, is a two-and- one-half-story brick structure, severely plain with narrow cornices, and chimneys at each gable and in the center. There are two narrow entrances on each of the longer sides.

WESTVILLE, 0.3 m. (20 alt., 3,462 pop.), is a commuters' suburb of middle-class homes banked by narrow lawns and shrubbery.

At 1.6 m. is old BUCKS TAVERN (L), now called Toppin's Inn. Much of the old tavern, built before 1755, remains. It is stucco-covered, with modern frame additions two and one-half stories high and has a wide glass porch across the front. The early interior is little changed.

The road rolls over low hills flanked by patches of thick woods, an occasional small farm clearing, tiny bungalows, and fruit orchards.

At 3.2 m. the highway passes through a vast piggery, where city garbage is used to fatten thousands of hogs. The sandy stretch is criss-crossed with high board fences.

At 5 m. State 47 curves slightly L. and widens to four lanes. Broad fields of tomatoes and other vegetables and large apple orchards line the road. There are pleasant odors of cider and vinegar in the fall.

HURFFVILLE, 8.2 m. (70 alt., 300 pop.), is a small community around a large canning factory. The most interesting local industry is the SPEAKER WAGON WORKS, for almost a century manufacturing vehicles that have hauled farm produce from this section.

South of Hurffville hen houses and long wire-enclosed runs filled with white and barred Rock poultry replace the orchards. Most of the farm- houses display neat little signs advertising "Day-Old Eggs," "Fresh Killed Chickens" and "Baby Chicks."

At 10 m. the highway crosses the main channel of Mantua Creek, named by the Mantua Indians for their brother and neighbor, the frog. An old MILLDAM (L) holds back the creek's waters.

At 10.1 m. is the junction with a hard-surfaced road.

Right on this road is PITMAN, 1 m. 130 alt., 5,411 pop.), whose population is almost tripled in summer by religious vacationists. One-story cottages for the visi- tors contrast with the solidly built homes of the residents of this prosperous town. ALCYON PARK, on the southern edge of Pitman, offers occasional horse racing, auto racing, and night baseball. ALCYON LAKE is popular for fishing, swimming, and rowing. The Gloucester County fair is held in Pitman every fall. Within a circular area of several acres enclosed by a paved road, known as Pitman Grove, is the TABERNACLE (R), in which the two-week meeting of the Pitman Grove Camp Meet- ing Association is held each summer beginning about August 1. Pitman Grove is a survivor of the camps established during the religious upheaval after the Civil War. From the tabernacle 12 streets radiate like the spokes of a wheel, following the plan of the holy city in the Book of Revelations. This summer path of earlier Meth- odists was carpeted with rustling leaves that blew into the tabernacle and were seized by the preacher as the likeness to fallen man, dead in sin.

At 11.9 m. is the junction with an improved road to Pitman.

GLASSBORO, 12.4 m. (130 alt., 4,799 pop.) (see Tour 25), is at the junction with US 322 (see Tour 25).

Orchards reappear south of Glassboro, with occasional patches of scrub pine and oak, common to the great waste area of southern New Jersey.

CLAYTON, 15.6 m. (130 alt., 2,351 pop.), is a bustling little community of freshly painted houses and well-kept lawns dependent on its several small industries. The town was settled before the Revolution.

FRANKLINVILLE, 18.6 m. (100 alt., 500 pop.), founded in 1800, is on the banks of Little Ease Run, which attracts many anglers. Practically all of the community depends on surrounding farms for a livelihood.

WILSON'S LAKE, 18.7 m. (L), is a fishing and bathing resort. A large factory here makes baskets for fruit and tomatoes.

Southward are broad acres of market gardens with overhead irrigation systems.

At 20.4 m. State 47 crosses Scotland Run, once a millstream, with several dams still standing near the highway. To the R. a broad cedar swamp lines the stream.

At 21.5 m. is IONA LAKE (R), 0.7 miles long, formed by damming the Maurice River. The lake once supplied power for early glassworks and gristmills. It now furnishes excellent boating and fishing; the State Fish and Game Commission stocks the lake each year with bass and perch.

At 21.8 m. is the junction with US 40 (see Tour 24). State 47 is united with US 40 for 0.6 mile.

MALAGA, 22.4 m. (90 alt., 410 pop.), is much the same kind of village that it was a century ago; but the window-glass works, founded in 1780, closed after 1840, when many of New Jersey's small glass factories were abandoned (see GLASSBORO, Tour 25). The origin of the name has been ascribed both to early glassworkers from the Spanish city of Malaga and to the planting of Malaga grapes. There are many fruit farms in the surrounding country, and four local families bear the names of Peach, Apple, Pear, and Plum. The Malaga-Newfield Farm Producers' Association buys and sells for 70 farms.

At Malaga US 40 (see Tour 24) branches (R) from State 47.

A grove of tall oak trees (R) at 23.7 m. marks the WEST JERSEY CAMP-MEETING GROUND, founded 1873, better known as Malaga Camp. Methodists from many Jersey towns spend vacations in the more than l00 cottages set along winding, shaded drives. Religious services are held from August 1 to August 15 in an auditorium seating Boo. Though many similar camp meetings that sprang up in South Jersey after the Civil War have disappeared, Malaga Camp has retained its popularity.

Small farms and poultry plants line State 47 in continuous panorama N. of Vineland. This is known as the Vineland Tract in Landis Township, a prosperous, slightly. rolling farming region.

At 27.8 m. is the junction with Almond Rd., a graveled highway.

Right on this road is (R) a large yellow brick COLONY HOUSE for Negro patients of the New Jersey State Home for Feebleminded Females.

The banks of Maurice River, crossed at 1.6 m., have recently been remodeled to provide a bathing beach and picnic grounds (adm, free).

NORMA, 2.3 m. (90 alt., 1,000 pop.), and its neighboring Jewish communities of BROTMANVILLE and ALLIANCE to the north, and ROSENHAYN and CARMEL to the southwest, form essentially a single community with a common historical background. These communities represent a successful experiment in social service undertaken by the Hebrew Immigrant Society of New York City. In 1881 many Jewish refugees from Russia and Poland arrived in New York without funds, relatives, or friends in this country to provide for their immediate needs. The Hebrew Immigrant Society planned agricultural communities for the newcomers and founded the colony of Alliance. Settlers turned to garment making and hand-crafts to, supplement their income from farming and their aid from philanthropic sources. The soil, however, proved favorable for growing vegetables and berries and second and third generation descendants of the original settlers are farming successfully. While few bearded elders with earlocks and long gabardines remain, many of the old Talmudic laws and Biblical customs are still retained, though some have been altered by the accelerated pace of modern living and the influx of other nationalities. A few modern homes stand out in sharp contrast to the small, weary beaten, architecturally diverse older houses. The synagogues and schoolhouses are attractive and well kept.

PARVIN STATE PARK, 4.8 m. (open all year), has been developed around PARVIN LAKE, 0.7 mile long. The lake was formed by damming Muddy Run, which once turned the wheels of sawmills and gristmills. Facilities for picnicking, swimming, and fishing are provided. The lake had been an excursion resort many years before its purchase by the State in 1931 together with 921 acres of land. Tall pines and dense swamp cedars tower above the slow-moving stream, and there is a fine growth of laurel and holly.

At 28.4 m., at a traffic circle, is the junction with Landis Ave., a broad concrete-paved highway.

Left on Landis Ave. is VINELAND, 0.9 m. (110 alt., 7,556 pop.), business and industrial center for the surrounding farm region. Vineland is a small city, a promoter's dream, with the fingerprint of the engineer upon it. It is laid out in a square exactly 1 mile on each side. The streets cross at right angles with no short cuts or curves. The frame houses are close together, and the trees that line the streets were all placed at equal distances. It is the egg, fruit, and vegetable basket of the farmlands around it, as well as the home of a glassworks with 1,500 employees, and of lesser industrial plants. Charles K. Landis, who came here in 1861, spent 20 years building the colony. He drew farm settlers largely from the Middle Atlantic States and induced many Italian peasants to immigrate to his farms. Vineland was so named by its founder. Grapes were grown in large quantities during its first 25 years, but grape diseases compelled the growers to abandon most of the vineyards. For several years semi-weekly auctions of eggs at wholesale and daily auctions of fruit and vegetables have been held in Vineland by two cooperatives with nearly 1,200 farmer members. The VINELAND TRAINING SCHOOL, Landis Ave., the first institution to use the Binet intelligence scale in this country, celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1938. Under the direction of Dr. H. H. Goddard (author of The Kallikaks, one of the earliest studies of heredity as a factor in feeblemindedness), the institution built a reputation for clinical therapeutics and research which placed it among the foremost in the world. At the Wistar Laboratory research into the causes, prevention, and methods of training mental deficients is carried on. Dr. E. M. Doll is in charge of research, and Professor Edward R. Johnstone is the director of the school.

The NEW JERSEY HOME FOR FEEBLEMINDED FEMALES, Landis Ave. opp. the Training School, is a State institution with more than 1,000 patients.

The massive OFFICE BUILDING OF THE KIMBLE GLASS FACTORY is a notable example of modern industrial design. Designed by William Lescaze, the building serves a plant that manufactures bottles, vials, glass rods, and miscellaneous small items. The office is constructed of brick and structural glass with limestone slab facing. The highly functional plan provides a spacious main office that serves as a core around which are arranged various minor offices, conference rooms, and lounges. The office furnishings were designed by the architect.

Right from Vineland on Landis Ave. 0.5 m. to Mill Rd.; L. on Mill Rd. a few hundred yards to PALACE DEPRESSION (open daily, adm. 10 cents). Its builder, George Daynor, purchased 4 acres of swamp in 1929. Using discarded material from an automobile junkyard, tin cans, and other flotsam and jetsam, he erected his palace. It is plastered with clay and resembles the gingerbread castle in Fairy Tales by Grimm.

At 20.5 m. State 47 crosses Tar Kiln Branch of Maurice River, where in Colonial times tar was obtained from pine trees. Destruction of forests killed the industry. The demand for wood fuel with the introduction of steam navigation was responsible for denuding the forests. In modern times Tar Kiln Branch has been reported as a haunt of the famous Jersey Devil, which frightened horses but ran from women, leaving cloven hoof-prints behind (see FOLKLORE).

MILLVILLE, 34.7 m. (30 alt., 14,705 pop.) (see Tour 29), is at the unction with State 49 (see Tour 29).

East of Millville the concrete highway unrolls for mile after mile through sparsely settled country, chiefly forest and cut-over lands. These are the Tuckahoe deer woods. During summer nights it is not unusual for the headlights of a car to outline a startled deer browsing at the roadside. Occasionally the deer, blinded by the lights, will stand motionless in the path of the car.

CUMBERLAND, 39.7 m. (30 alt.), a few scattered houses around CUMBERLAND LAKE, marks the site of a widely known bog-iron furnace and forge, Cumberland Iron Works, sometimes called Budd Iron Works, which produced iron from 1785 to 1840. On the L. at the lake-side is a marker erected by the State opposite the SITE OF THE FURNACE (R). Even the stone foundations are gone, but nearby are mounds of furnace slag. The lake was formed by damming Manumuskin Creek and using its power for the forge hammers and blowers. There is good fishing in the pond. At the foundry were made castings for the once famous 10- plate stoves and iron tombstones. In a small cemetery at Head of River (see below) some of these tombstones have withstood the weather more than l00 years without rusting; this resistance to rust is a property of bog iron.

At 45.3 m. a CRANBERRY BOG (L) edges the highway. On the bank of the bog, about loo yards from State 47, is the HUNTER HOUSE (private), evidently never painted, marking the SITE OF HUNTER'S MILL. The house was built by the Hunter family, who operated a sawmill on Tuckahoe River (R) prior to 1800.

The highway runs through scrub, close to the marshland along Tuckahoe River. In summer flowering plants and grasses with feathery plumes 4 to 6 feet high crowd each other, and water-loving trees grow thickly. Cinnamon ferns flourish on dry ground, and the shallow ponds are decorated with white water lilies. There are many songbirds, hawks, and pine-snakes; occasionally rattlesnakes are killed near the marsh.

HEAD OF RIVER, 48 m. (L), the remains of a Colonial town, has a METHODIST CHURCH, built 1792, in the middle of a burial ground that has been in use for 150 years. It is a square, plain wooden structure, once painted white, with wide floor boards and narrow, high-backed pews. The pulpit is raised only two steps from the floor.

Head of River received its name as the head of navigation on the Tuckahoe in the days when a coastwise trade was carried on in sloops and schooners. The people here were lumbermen, charcoal burners, tar boilers, and turpentine makers. Only two houses, modern structures built along the highway, can be seen within a radius of several miles. The rest is forest.

Left from Head of River on a graveled road to the RUINS OF ETNA FURNACE (R), 0.3 m., built in 1815 by John R. Coates of Philadelphia, land agent for William Penn's heirs, and Joshua and John Howell. The remains of the furnace are on a knoll 60 yards from the river. There are traces of a raceway, and the stack is still in fair condition. The furnace was filled at the top with charcoal, bog ore, and flux, wheeled up a ramp that has disappeared. Bar iron made here supplied blacksmiths at Tuckahoe and other small ports who made spikes 1 to 2 feet long for wooden ships, wharves, and buildings. The iron was worked into bars at Forge Pond, about 2 m. N. of the furnace.

MARSHALLVILLE, 51 m. (10 alt.), is largely a forgotten hamlet with a few farm-tenant houses and about half its surrounding fields abandoned and reverting to forest growth. The town was named for Dr. Randall Marshall, who built a window-glass factory here prior to 1840.

TUCKAHOE, 51.8 m. (20 alt.), lies on the south bank of Tuckahoe River. A white PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (R), built 1851, is the center of a cluster of small homes; other houses spread along State 50. There are a few small stores, a large cannery, and gas stations. Nearly two centuries ago Tuckahoe was an important seaport, with busy shipyards. Quakers had settled this section prior to 1700 and had built a meeting house here, long vanished. Tuckahoe is the center of a fertile area raising early tomatoes, which are canned and shipped in large quantities.

The woods around Tuckahoe (Indian, place where deer are shy) are known for wild deer. Heavy undergrowth and marsh offer some protection against hunters. A PUBLIC HUNTING AND FISHING GROUND adjoins the village.

At Tuckahoe State 47 forms a junction with State 50 (see Tour 34). 

Print Edition Now on Sale at Amazon Read Online at Google Book Search