Our Rich History
It was Feb. 23, 1865, just a few months before the end of the Civil War, when the eastern section of Newton Township was split off and the Township of Haddon was created.
At the time, the area was mostly farmland with a small village located where Haddonfield is now. The newly created township was 5,286 acres and included land to the south and east of what is now Collings Road. The new township included land that would later become part of nine other municipalities: Oaklyn, Audubon, Audubon Park, Collingswood, Gloucester City, Woodlynn, Camden, Haddon Heights and Haddonfield.
Newton Township's first European settlers were Irishmen who settled in the area of Newton Creek in 1681. The community survived the Revolutionary War and the decision of Camden to incorporate as a city, but by the mid-1860s, Newton Township began to unravel.
Historians say the township may have split into two because of changes enacted by the New Jersey Legislature in the mid-1840s.
The new statute changed the old practice of holding general elections on two days in different locations in a township and forced many townships to break into smaller units. The purpose of the statute was to reduce costs and the likelihood of fraud by providing for a single voting place in each township. Another reason may have been that residents who lived in the eastern portion of Newton Township wanted more control over governing their affairs.
The act creating Haddon Township provided that any money on hand, property and indebtedness of Newton Township was to be divided between the new and old townships based upon the 1864 taxable valuations of property in each township.
Although the area that remained Newton Township had about a thousand more people than Haddon Township, its property values were only 44 percent of the combined townships' assessed value.
Officials of the new township worked closely with the town fathers in Newton Township on such matters as the collection of delinquent taxes and repayment of "old" Newton Township bonds. They also met for several years to resolve such issues as maintenance of Collings Road, which divided the two towns, and to establish a border between Haddon Avenue at Collings Road and Coopers Creek.
The township's name comes from John Haddon, whose daughter, Elizabeth Haddon Estaugh, came over from England in the 1700s and settled on his large landholdings. Haddon's property included what is now Haddon Township.
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 Long before European settlers came to the region, the area of Newton Creek was inhabited by the Arowman and Erinwoneck Indian tribes. An Indian trail followed what is now Haddon Avenue. At the end of the trail was a fishing area used by the Indians.
When some of the early Europeans arrived, they were told by the local Indians that there had been several sailors murdered at Newton Creek. The murdered sailors had been part of an exploring party sent by the governor of Virginia to explore the Delaware River.
 In 1836, the first horse racetrack in South Jersey was built in what was then Newton Township. The racing circuit included the Long Island track and several others in nearby states. The area is now the Bettlewood section of Haddon Township.
Col. William R. Johnson and a group of Southern gentlemen bought a farm owned by Samuel C. Champion to create a racetrack. The one-mile track was surrounded by a large hotel, grandstands and stables.
The new track opened in 1844, and was known as the Camden and Philadelphia Race Course. It brought hundreds of spectators, many riding in carriages, to watch the races. But public drunkenness and fights over the horses caused the popularity of the track to quickly decline. It closed in 1847, shortly after the grandstand collapsed and injured many people.
 In the late 1830s, a fugitive slave came to New Jersey from a Maryland plantation. The slave, whose name varies in historical accounts, had a wife and two daughters. They took two days to travel to the Garden State, and the man took a job with Cy Evans, a local Quaker farmer.
After learning that Evans was opposed to slavery, the slave confided to his boss that he had fled the plantation. Evans gave the slave 50 acres to farm, and he was able to live there peacefully.
The area where the slave settled became a predominantly black area known as Saddlertown and was a stop on the underground railroad. Today, the community is racially diverse.
Credit: By KATHY HENNESSY
Courier-Post Staff
SOURCE: Down a Country Lane by Dennis Raible. |
