Cumberland - A County Born of Hope, Optimism
Judy Baehr
Staff Writer for The Daily Journal

George II was King of England. Louis XV sat on the throne of France. Benedict XIV was Pope. The Ch'ing Dynasty ruled China, and the imperial crown of Russia lay on the head of Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great.

The North and South Poles had yet to be discovered, and the seeds of the Industrial Revolution and the French Enlightenment were only beginning to sprout.

Such was the state of the world in 1748 when Cumberland County was created, partitioned from the vast Salem County.

This year, we mark the 250th anniversary of that event.

We celebrate a unique area, one that includes cities and villages, farms and forests, rivers and marshes. And, of course, there is the Delaware Bay.

We celebrate a diverse population, comprised of the original Native Americans and those people who came to these shores from every corner of the globe, bringing their own languages, customs, and skills.

We celebrate industry: fishing, farming, lumbering, milling, iron production, glassmaking, clothing and shoe manufacturing, food processing, bookbinding, buttonmaking, shipbuilding, and oystering.

We celebrate the schools, the places of worship, and the freedoms that attracted the early settlers and kept their descendants rooted here.

We celebrate not only who we were, but who we are now and what we will become in the future.

Ours is a county full of accomplishments.

Cumberland County has given birth to angel food cake, Mason jars, Hires' Root Beer, Welch's Grape Juice, and Skee-Ball.

It has been visited by former Presidents Ulysses S. Grant, Howard Taft, Theodore Roosevelt and George Bush, as well as Vice-President Al Gore. It also had been said, although not proven, that Abraham Lincoln might have owned land here.

The county's history is long and marked, as in any history, with tragedies and triumphs, failures and successes, greatness and absurdity.

It goes back to, perhaps, the years between 700 and 1400, when groups of people who came to be called Native Americans began to populate the mid-Atlantic region. Their ancestors had migrated from Asia across a land bridge in the area where the Bering Strait is located. They came in several waves over the thousands of years.

The area was home to the Unalachtigo Tribe, "the people living near the ocean." Within that group were sub-tribes: Naraticongs in the Upper Deerfield area, Kahansuk in Greenwich-Fairfield Township, Sewapois in Lawrence Township, and Tirans in Maurice River Township.

By 1675, the peaceful Indians were doing a limited amount of trading with white settlers from Europe, but colonization, disease, and some minor skirmishes decimated this population, and by 1700 most had left the area. Those who were left were given the name "Delaware" by the Europeans. They were referred to themselves as "Lenni Lenape," which means "the original people."

First to come from Europe were the Swedes and Finns.

The oldest building in the county, a Swedish log structures, dates from 1650 and once served as a granary. Now located in Greenwich at the headquarters of the County Historical Society, it came from Hopewell Township.

A few Swedes settled along the Maurice River. Early residents included people named Hoffman, Peterson, Errickson, Hendrickson and Riggins. The Swedish population was overtaken by the Dutch in 1654, but little remains of the Dutch holdings but the names -- Vanaman, Conover, and Polhamus.

Next came the English.

By royal patent dated March 12, 1663, King Charles II granted to the Duke of York (later King James II) the land between the west side of the Connecticut River in New England and the east side of the Delaware Bay. The following year, the Duke conveyed the title to John Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, who gave their land the name of Nova Caesarea, or New Jersey.

In 1676, a document called the "Quintipartite Deed" divided the land into East and West Jersey, with William Penn, Gaven Laurie, and Nicholas Lucas getting West Jersey, and Carteret and Berkeley getting East Jersey.

There already was a settlement at Salem, in what would be West Jersey. It was founded the previous fall by a man named John Fenwick.

The settlers had names like Smith, Reeves, Watson, Clark, Mason, Bacon, Browne, Hurlburt, Dennis, Moore, Holmes, and Alexander. Most were members of the Religious Society of Friends, now also known as the Quakers.

They spread out to Fairfield, Stow Creek, Hopewell, and Back Neck.

Captain William Dare came from Dorsetshire in 1695 to settle in Fairfield, and by 1698, Edmund Shaw was running an inn there.

The first person known to have settled in the Bridgeton area was Richard Hancock, Fenwick's surveyor-general, who built a saw mill there in the early 1700s.

The first bridge for which the town would be named was built in 1716. Before that, the only way to cross was to ford the Cohansey River at low tide.

Ephraim Seeley bought property around East Lake, built a dam, and put in a grist mill and a fulling mill, which is used in cloth processing.

John Purple was living in Port Elizabeth in 1720. Gabriel Glann settled in the Commercial Downe Township region in 1728.

William Dallas arrived in the area of what is now Port Norris about that same time, and established a ferry which gave the town its original name, Dallas' Ferry.

The region around Newport was originally called Autuxit. One early resident was Jeremiah Nixson, a shoemaker believed to be an ancestor of former President Richard Nixon.

William Rawson settled on the Menantico Creek and built a mill there before 1720.

When the county was organized, Greenwich was the only place that could be called a village. Fairfield Township was a neighborhood of farms with a church and schoolhouse, and there were other such neighborhoods at Cohansey Bridge, Deerfield, Indian Fields, Cohansey Corners (Shiloh) and Sayre's Crossroads (Roadstown).

The sites of Vineland and Millville were still primeval forest.

On January 19, 1748, the act creating Cumberland County was passed.

The boundaries of the new county were described was follows: "Beginning in the county of Salem, at the mouth of Stow Creek, and running up the same unto John Brick's mills, leaving the said Brick's mills within the county hereby erected; then continuing still up Stow Creek Branch to the house where Hugh Dun now dwells, leaving Hugh Dun within the new county; and from the said Hugh Dun's house upon a straight line to Nathan Shaw's house, leaving said Nathan Shaw's house within the new county; and then on a northeast course until it intersects the Pilesgrove line, leaving Pilesgrove within Salem County; then along the said line till it intersects the line which divides the counties of Gloucester and Salem; then running southeastward down Gloucester line unto the boundaries of Cape May County; then bounded by Cape May County to Delaware Bay and then up Delaware Bay to the place of beginning."

The county was named for William Augustus, the second son of King George II. As the Duke of Cumberland in 1746, he had defeated the Stuart Pretender, Charles Edward (Bonnie Prince Charlie), at the battle of Culloden and established the House of Hanover on the British throne.

The act also divided the county into six townships: Greenwich, Hopewell, and Stow Creek on the west side of the Cohansey; Deerfield, Fairfield, and Maurice River on the east side.

It was assumed that the county seat would be at Greenwich, but an election in 1748 established the county's headquarters at Cohansey Bridge, later Bridgeton.

By the 1770s, the inhabitants of the new county had begun to join the growing resistance to taxation without representation.

The British brig Greyhound landed at Greenwich Wharf when the captain was informed he could not land the shipment of tea he carried at Philadelphia. On December 12, 1774, a company of men disguised as Indians broke into the home of a British sympathizer who had the tea stored in his basement. The tea was burned in the Market Square.

During the following winter, copies of a broadsheet known as The Plain Dealer began to appear in Potter's Tavern in Bridgeton. Stories and editorials dealt with the choices people had to make: loyalty to the crown, support for the patriot cause, or neutrality.

The Declaration of Independence was read at the County Court, and the courthouse bell (later to be known as Cumberland County's Liberty Bell) was tolled.

Cumberland County men went to war as members of the Third Battalion, called by George Washington "the flower of all North American forces." The commander in chief also stated that he would have had no army with which to fight the war had it not been for the provisions sent by Cumberland and Salem counties during the Valley Forge encampment.

County soldiers went to New York and fought on Long Island. The only skirmishes in the county came at the end of the war.

In August 1781, 15 Tories fleeing to New York attempted to board a boat in Port Norris. Captain James Riggins and his troops took action, and seven Tories were killed. On January 31, 1783, Captain William Low and his Downe Militia, numbering 19 men, captured the armed British privateer Blacksnake near Newport.

While the great majority of the county were ardent Whigs, who favored separating from England, some refused to take action against their mother country. But while some did nothing to support the patriot cause, most did nothing to defeat it, either.

The 1880s saw a growth in manufacturing along with the rise of the county's three major cities: Bridgeton, Millville, and Vineland.

The first industries were the mills, foundries, forges, and glassworks. Bridgeton became known as an iron and glass production center. The city also soon acquired factories for food processing.

Millville as a village came into being in the 1790s when Joseph Buck began to lay out streets and lots. He envisioned bringing water from Union Mill Pond to fuel saw and grist mills, but he died in 1803 without bringing that plan to fruition. James Lee established a glassmaking business in 1806, but the town's most spectacular development came after 1815, with the building of the dams and canals on the Maurice River and the creation of Union Lake in 1869 to supply water to R.D. Wood's iron and cotton factories. The glass industry flourished, with Whitall Tatum and T.C. Wheaton joining Lee as major glass producers.

Vineland was established as a planned community by Philadelphia lawyer Charles K. Landis, who already had founded Hammonton. Landis purchased land from R.D. Wood in 1861, and by 1866, the new city boasted 1,200 buildings.

Settlers came from New England and the Northwest, attracted by Landis' advertising campaign. They were joined in the 1870s by Italian immigrants who settled in the East Vineland and began operating family farms, many of which continue today.

The planned community had strict building codes: roads were built at right angles, houses were set back off the streets, and trees and lawns were required.

Education began in the county in one-room schools, which were supported either by residents or by the churches. Early academies were designed to prepare young men for college. Bridgeton's public school system began in 1847, Millville's Central School dates back to 1849, and Vineland boasts the county's first public high school, established in 1870.

Water was the earliest form of transportation. Horses and stage coaches followed, and 1859 saw the building of the Millville & Glassboro Railroad, which was later extended to Bridgeton on one side and into Cape May on the other.

The bombardment of Fort Sumter on April 12-13 of 1861, which started the Civil War, saw a rise of patriotic fervor in Cumberland County. The Stars and Stripes fluttered from poles in Bridgeton and Fairton during public flag-raisings, and soon thereafter, similar events took place in every portion of the county.

On April 23, Captain James W. Stickney arrived in Bridgeton and began raising a company of volunteers. The name Cumberland Grays was adopted and soon became a household word. The men who enlisted gave up their employment and spent their time drilling and preparing to depart. A relief committee was founded to raise funds to support their families.

The Board of Chosen Freeholders allotted the sum of $2,158.50 to equip the Grays, and they left Bridgeton on May 27, mustering in as Company F, Third Regiment. They carried the national flag through 43 bloody battles.

No other companies left the area until September of 1862, but men continued to enlist. in the Olden Legion, Tenth New Jersey, about half the troops were from Millville; half of Company D was recruited in Shiloh; about 30 men from Company K came from Port Elizabeth and Bridgeton.

Company K of the Twelfth Regiment was recruited in Bridgeton and mustered in August 1862 in Woodbury. More companies were filled by men from Millville (Company B, 24th Regiment), Bridgeton (Companies F, G, and H, 24th Regiment), and Fairfield and Downe townships (Company D, 25th Regiment). They left Bridgeton on September 1, 1862.

By the end of the war, New Jersey had supplied 76,814 men to the cause; 6,300 of them did not return. For its size, Bridgeton had contributed one of the highest numbers of enlistees in the entire North.

The years between the end of the Civil War and the outbreak of World War I in 1917 were years of growth for the county's industries. They were good years for agriculture, with Charles "C.F" Seabrook establishing Seabrook Farms in 1912 and eventually having 19,000 acres under production. Hundreds of oyster boats plied the Delaware Bay. Sturgeon and other fish were also plentiful, and the local economy flourished.

That the enormity of World War I could not be ascertained in spring of 1917 did not deter county support. By the time this conflagration ended, more than 2,000 county citizens had served in the army forces. Nineteen Millville men and 33 Vineland men were among the 3,836 New Jerseyans who died.

Millions of dollars were subscribed in Liberty loan drives, and food and materials for winning the war were sent overseas. At home, people endured a severe coal shortage and a deadly worldwide outbreak of Spanish influenza.

More than 17,000 New Jerseyans died in the epidemic, including 89 from Millville and 104 from Bridgeton.

Just 23 years after the war to end all wars, Japanese bombers attacked Pearl Harbor and brought the nation into history's greatest war.

The citizens of Cumberland County geared up for the effort. Shipbuilding, food packaging, and clothing manufacturing were dedicated to the victory campaign. Civil defense posts were set up in Bridgeton, Millville, Port Norris and Shiloh; the minesweeper U.S.S Peerless set sail from the Delaware Bay Shipbuilding yards at Leesburg.

Wheaton glass turned its attention to plasma bottles; Owens Illinois to packaging atabrine and sulfa drugs. Seabrook Farms and Riverview Farms joined in a project to grow belladonna, which was needed to treat wounds.

Tons of scrap metal and paper were collected; millions of dollars in War Bonds were purchased; and tomatoes, potatoes, beans, apples, and a variety of other crops became part of military menus.

By the time of the victory in 1945, more than 8,300 people from this area had served their country, and more than 200 - including 86 from Vineland, 63 from Millville, and 75 from Bridgeton - had made the supreme sacrifice.

The 1950s were marked by the economic boom of the Eisenhower Era. The glass, garment, and food processing industries were thriving, and 1958 saw the building of Prudential's multi-million dollar regional headquarters in Millville.

The political and social upheavals of the next decades did not leave Cumberland County untouched. Men and women from the area served in Korea and Vietnam, and many years later in the Persian Gulf. A contingent from the county went by bus to the nation's capitol for the historic March on Washington for civil rights, and in April 1968, Bridgeton experienced several days of rioting following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Those decades also saw declines in the area's industrial base. There was a reduction in glass manufacturing, the clothing manufacturing industry was almost completely disappeared, and the oystering industry was nearly obliterated by a series of diseases which decimated the oyster beds.

But those years also saw the establishment of Cumberland County College, which recently named a new president, Kenneth Elder.

Bolstered by a record of consistent progress which parallels that of the United States, 20th century Cumberland County's three largest cities, 10 townships, and the borough of Shiloh continue to demonstrate a propensity for growth and prosperity.

As the millennium approaches, Cumberland County, boasting an honorable tradition and a well-diversified economic base, promises to continue the standard of excellence nurtured by the initiative, ingenuity, creativity, and ambition of its residents.

Taken from The Daily Journal;
Special Commemorative Section - 7/1/98