History
Burlington County is in fact older than the country itself. While black slaves were indeed introduced to Burlington Island sometime between 1659 and 1664 when the island was part o f the Dutch colony New Netherland, it was not until 1676, well after the 1664 English seizure of New Netherland, that Burlington County was established. That Afro-Americans could be found on Burlington Island between 1659 and 1664 actually makes the island, and therefore the county, one o f the earliest places in New Jersey where a black presence can be documented.
Not only have African Americans been present in Burlington County for a long time, but their early presence involved significant numbers. By 1790 the county had the largest black population o f the state's five southern counties. But probably of greater import, it also had the largest free black population of any county in New Jersey . This fact may be attrib uted to its being located in the Delaware Valley , an area that has been termed "the Cradle o f Emancipation" because it was that part o f America where slaves were first manumitted on a large scale. It was the sizeable presence and influence in the Delaware Valley of Quakers, America's first organized group to speak out against the evils o f black bondage, that enabled this region to be the pacesetter regarding black emancipation.
The achievement o f freedom by Afro Americans eased considerably concerted action by them in the establishment of their own institutions and organizations. It is thus not surprising that some of New Jersey 's earliest forms o f black organized life can be found in Burlington County . For example, the Jacob's Chapel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Mount Laurel , initially known as the Colemantown Meeting House, dates to 1813 and is among the state's oldest black congregations.
Freedom also meant that blacks as individuals were afforded greater opportunities to fashion lives of decency and dignity for themselves. In this respect Cyrus Bustill (1732-1804) serves as a notable example. Born a slave in Burlington , he was manumitted in 1769 by his second owner, a Quaker, who taught him to be a baker. Bustill subsequently operated a successful baking business for many years before moving to Philadelphia , where he became a leader o f that city's black community. In 1787 he became a founder o f the Free African Society, one o f the nation's earliest black organizations, and he sub sequently built a free school in Philadelphia in which he taught. Bustill is often mentioned in connection with his great, great grandson, Paul Robeson, the great singer, actor, and political activist, who is arguably New Jersey 's most illustrious native.
Burlington County 's rich black history is reflected to a large degree in various extant historic sites. Sixteen of these physical reminders of the past, found in nine communities, are presented in this guide. These landmarks cover a period of over three centuries, a period extending from the late seven teenth century to the present. Since it is during this period that black life in Burlington County has undergone a profound transformation, these sites are invaluable treasures in helping to illuminate what both defined and distinguished this transformation. Through them, for example, one is linked to the successful struggles by Afro-Americans for freedom and civil rights; the rise and flowering of black institutional life; and the influx of black southern migrants beginning in the early twentieth century., The sites bear witness to African Americans as historical actors: to their accomplishments and achievements, their hardships and difficulties-to the simple joys and sorrows attendant to being black in Burlington County. And the black historical actors involved range from outstanding personalities like James Still, "the Black Doctor of the Pines," to those ordinary people whose strivings and yearnings for self improvement and racial betterment provided the underpinnings for the county's black communal and institutional life.
But black historic sites in Burlington County have an even larger meaning. In providing evidence that the county has long been ethnically diverse, they represent in microcosm the nation's history; they pro vide the physical evidence on which an inclusive approach in reconstructing America's past can be built; they evoke the realization of a multicultural heritage. And, of equal importance, these historic resources have the capacity to transcend racial boundaries; they can feature a meaningful white presence. Underground Railroad stations that belonged to whites are sterling examples of this. Indeed, part o f the clandestine network of people and places that aided fugitive slaves from the South during the antebellum period, these landmarks exist today as precious symbols of interracial cooperation and goodwill.
This guide is intended to serve as an introduction to Burlington County 's black historic sites , seeks to facilitate and enhance visits to the sites note through the provision o f information about their location, the order in which they might best be visited and their historical importance. In the process it is hoped that this guide will encourage the protection and preservation o f these landmarks, helping them to ensure that they will be part o f the county's heritage-its physical legacy-that is bequeathed to future generations.
Called the "Borden town School ," "Old Ironsides," and "the Tuskegee of the North,” this institution was the only one of its kind in the North: a state-sup ported, racially segre gated boarding school for secondary-level students. It was the most significant of all of New Jersey 's racially segre gated schools, the only one wholly state-supported. It was established in 1886 by Reverend Walter A. Rice, a minister in the AME Church . Specializing initially in vocational training, it first received state funds in 1894. It moved in 1902 to its present site, the former estate of Captain Charles Stewart, commander of the Constitution ("Old Ironsides"), the famed warship of the War of 1812. It closed in 1955. Among the black luminaries who taught at this institution are Judge William H. Hastie and Lester B. Granger. Its distinguished visitors included Booker T. Washington, Paul Robeson, Mary McCleod Bethune, James Weldon Johnson, Albert Einstein, and Eleanor Roosevelt.
The school also served as a social and cultural cen ter for the New Jersey Afro-American community. Its dormitories and cafeteria facilities, unequaled in the state for the black community in terms of size and quality, made the school a frequent site for meetings convened by the state's major African American organizations and institutions. Concerts by such leading black artists as Duke Ellington, Nat "King" Cole, and Count Basie were held at the school.
Its tennis courts, among the finest available to the black community nationwide, earned it the reputation as being the "Black Forest Hills " and often served as the site for the annual counterpart to the United States Lawn Tennis Association.
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New Jersey Manual training and Industrial School for Colored youth
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From 1900 to the late 1940s, this was Burlington 's racially segregated elementary school for black students. Owing to the practice of enrolling students in the neigh borhood school, it was an all-black school until its closure in the 1960s. Named for a well-known businessman and staunch Unionist mayor during the Civil War, it succeeded a black school built on the same site in 1870. This earlier woodframe schoolhouse figured in the celebrated Pierce Case of 1884 in which the state's Supreme Court ruled that the refusal of Burlington 's white schools to admit the four children of Reverend Jeremiah H. Pierce was a violation of the New Jersey School Law of 1881.
As a result of the influx of blacks into Burlington during the early part of the twentieth century, additions were made to the building in 1914 and 1924. The latter addition of three classrooms and a basement cafeteria essentially transformed the school into what was then a modern six classroom facility. It is this structure that stands today.
Built in 1731 and established as a pharmacy in 1841 ( New Jersey 's oldest pharmacy in continuous operation), this building, according to oral tradition, was used frequently to harbor UGRR fugitives. It was owned by William J. Allison, a Quaker, ardent abolitionist, and community benefactor, who also used it as a forum for anti-slavery ralliec The Greenleaf Whittier is said to have denounced the evils of bondage from the doorstep of this building.
Oliver Cromwell (1752-1853), born free in what is now Columbus, was a Revolutionary War soldier, one of roughly 5,000 African Americans who served the American cause; he served with the Continental Army throughout the entire war. He was among the troops who crossed the Delaware River with George Washington on the night of December 25, 1776, and engaged in the Battle of Trenton.
He saw service in the key battles of Princeton (1776), Brandywine (1777), Monmouth (1778), and the war's last battle: Yorktown (1781). The recipient of a federal pension, Washington personally signed his discharge papers. This house, constructed in 1798, was Cromwell's residence at the time of his death. Research indicates he was living in this house by 1840.
The significance of this island lies in the fact that records show a black presence as early as 1664, making it one of the earliest places in New Jersey where a black presence can be documented. The early blacks on this island were slaves belonging to a Dutch colonial official. They were seized by the English in 1664 when the English defeated the Dutch and took control of New Jersey . Some of these slaves were then sold to English planters in Maryland.
Organized in 1830, this is Burlington's oldest black institution and one of the oldest black churches in the state. A church has existed on the present site since 1836. In 1855 a new structure was built and it was remodeled in 1873. This edifice underwent significant structural change again in the early 1980s. The small cemetery on the side of the church contains a few of the graves of the 212,000 African Americans who fought for the Union (army and navy) during the Civil War.
Reverend Jeremiah H. Pierce was the pastor of this church in 1883 at the time he instituted successfully a lawsuit challenging the forced attendance of his four children at Burlington's all-black elementary school.
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Bethlehem African Medhodist Episcopal Chruch |
In 1688 the first anti-slavery tract written in the American colonies, a document prepared by Francis Daniel Pastorius of Germantown, Pennsylvania, was read at the yearly meeting of Delaware Valley Quakers at the Friends Meeting House on this site. That meeting house was replaced by the present structure around 1786.
This site is also noteworthy because the black watch and clockmaker Peter Hill (1767-1820) is buried in the cemetery in the rear of the meeting house. Hill is one of only a few Afro-American professional clockmakers active during the early part of the nineteenth century. As a slave he learned the clockmaking craft from his Burlington owner, Joseph Hollingshead, Jr. After gaining his freedom in 1795, Hill set up his own shop on High Street. His status as a freedman in a Quaker community permitted him to live comfortably. Only three of his tall case clocks are known to have survived. One (circa 1803) is at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D. C.; another is in the Westtown School in West town , Pennsylvania ; and the third is in a private collection.
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Burlington Friends Meeting House |
The congregation of this church was organized in 1844, making it Burlington 's second oldest black congregation, Burlington County's oldest AME Zion Church , and the oldest AME Zion church in southern New Jersey . Given the proximity of New Jersey to the two cities where the two oldest black denominations originated-Philadelphia ( AME Church in 1$16) and New York City (AME Zion Church in 1821)-some of the earliest churches of both denominations are in New Jersey .
The congregation has been at the present site since 1864. The initial edifice was replaced in 1898 with a building that was destroyed by fire in 1922. The present structure dates from that year.
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Wesley African Methodist Episcopal Church (Former Site) |
This all-black settlement bears the name of the famous West African city that is today located in the Republic of Mali, a city that flourished as a commercial (trans-Saharan trade) and intellectual center (Sankore University) between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries as part of the great medieval empires of Mali and Songhay. It is possibly the only all-black settlement in the nation carrying the name of an African community; there is uncertainty as to how it came to be called Timbuctoo.
Located along the Rancocas Creek about one mile from Mount Holly, "Buckto" or "Bucktown," as it is commonly called, was a community of freed slaves and a haven for fugitive slaves. In connection with the latter, there occurred in 1860 an incident called the "Battle of Pine Swamp" that was reported in the New Jersey Mirror, a local newspaper. This incident involved armed residents of Timbuctoo preventing the capture of Perry Simmons, a fugitive slave living in Timbuctoo, by a southern slave catcher aided by sympathetic local whites.
Timbuctoo seems to have been established around 1820; but, it may have been founded as early as the late eighteenth century with the support of local Quakers like John Woolman and Samuel Aaron. At its peak of prosperity in the mid-to-late nineteenth century (it appears on a 1849 map of Burlington County), it had more than 125 residents, a school, and an AME Zion church. It also served as a site for religious camp meetings (revivals) that attracted large crowds. Today the community has virtually disap peared. Perhaps the key remaining evidence of the existence of this community is a cemetery on Church Street ; it contains the graves of black Civil War veterans.
Quaker leader and tailor by trade who was born in Rancocas, John Woolman (1720-1772) was one of America 's earliest abolitionists. Believing that slaves should be freed by the personal action of their owners rather than by political measures, he traveled extensively on horseback and by foot in the colonies championing the cause of manumission. He also committed his abolitionist views to paper, his 1754 publication Some Considerations on the Keeping o f Negroes being one of America 's earliest anti-slavery tracts. His antislavery work contributed to the 1776 decision by Quakers to excommunicate any co-religionist who was a slaveholder.
This house, built in 1783, was designated as a memorial to Woolman in 1915. It is believed that it replaced a house that had been built in 1771 by Woolman's daughter and her husband. Sold by them in 1786, the house is situated on the land on which Woolman had a small farm. Woolman's own house once stood near the present corner of Branch and Lake Streets.
James Still (1812-1882), a notable member of the Still family (perhaps New Jersey 's most outstanding black family), was one of the state's earliest medical doctors, despite having only three months formal education. Initially apprenticing himself to a white doctor, he ultimately gained distinction as an herbalist at a time when many medical practitioners relied on patent medicines. Called "The Black Doctor of the Pines," he developed a large biracial practice and was one of the foremost spokesmen for the black southern New Jersey community during the second half of the nineteenth century. His autobiography, published in 1877, doc uments the basic details of his life.
In 1836 Still moved this small wood frame building, erected in the same year, to this site where it served for
about four decades as his medical office. It also served as a temporary residence while Still built his first home. Still had a larger house built on the adjoining lot in 1849. This residence next door was rebuilt a second time in 1869 and finally demolished in 1932.
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