Early Years

Early Years

                               Penns Neck Township

   The territory comprised of Upper and Lower Penn's Neck was originally included in one township, called West Fenwick, the name having been changed in honor of William Penn
which was at first part of Fenwick's Colony.

                                    Upper Penn's Neck Township

   This was the northern most township in Salem County. It is bounded on the north and northeast by Woolwich Township, Glouster County, on the southeast by Pilesgrove, on the south by Mannington, southwest by Lower Penn's Neck and on the west by the Delaware River. It is centrally distant from Salem ten miles; greatest length nine miles; breadth seven and a half miles.
   The surface of the township is generally level; it's soil, a light sandy loam, susceptible of the highest cultivation. It's principle products are rye and Indian corn, although the cereals grow to profusion, and fruit and vegetables and abundance.
   The township contains an area of about 21,100 acres, of which very little is unimproved and none that is not capable of redemption.
   A valuable bed of shell-marl lies in in the township near Pedricktown, which has yielded large quantities of that excellent fertilizer. It has been used advantageously in the neighboring townships, being found most beneficial to the light and sandy soils, in the culture of grass and grain, when applied in quantities of about ten Two Horse wagon loads to the acre.
   In opening the pits, a number of years ago, a bed of oyster and other shells,at irregular distances from the surface, from three to twenty feet, presented itself. This bed is about three feet thick. Beneath it is a considerable mass, composed of black earth and shells, known as gunpowder-marl, but it is not in as much repute as the stratum of the shells. These shells, when exposed to the air, disintegrate rapidly, and are considered, in their pulverized form, nearly equal to guano for the purpose of artifiicial fertilization.
   There are several promising villages in Upper Penn's Neck Township, prominate among them being Pedricktown and Penn's Grove.

                                      Pedricktown

Pedricktown is situated on Oldmans Creek, about eight and half miles from it's mouth. It contains a Friends-meeting house and a Methodist Church, the usual number of stores, a school, hotels, etc. It is in the heart of a rich agricultural district, and is an extensive shipping-point for marl. The Palmi Christi, or caster bean, is extensively produced here; a sufficient quantity of these being raised to manufacture about fifteen hundred gallons of oil annually. The town is distant fifty-four miles south from Trenton, and fourteen or fifteen mile from salem. There is a Post Office here.

                                                 Penns Grove

   This village and ferry is situated on the Delaware, nearly opposite Wilmington. Being delightfully located, and containing a very fine grove, it is quite a popular resort durring the summer months. There are a number of picnics and other recreative entertainments holden here each season. Ferry-boats from Wilmington pass accross three or four times daily during the summer, and the Philadelphia and Wilmington line of steamers touch here on both trips. There is a stage-line between Penns Grove and Salem, which city is distant fiffteen miles. The village contains the usual number of stores and other business representives. It is a post-town, receiving a general daily mail.

Historical Atlas 1876

Today,s Sunbeam. Salem County, New Jersey. September 12, 1975

PENNS GROVE WAS A FISHING VILLAGE WITH 4 TRAINS DAILY

     A view of Penns Grove in the early 19th century is given in Cushing & Sheppard's History published in l883, 11 years before the village was separated from Upper Penns Neck Twp. and incorporated into a boro.

     The only village in UPN is Penns Grove which includes the old village so called Helms Cove, or South Penns Grove. Previous to the year l829, Penns Grove contained one house, and that is now part of the store house on Main St. occupied and ownd by S.R. Leap. (demolished in l965)
     There was a frame house on what was known as Pogue's fishery, on the Pogue farm, at the upper end of P.G. now owned by Joseph Guest, and also a small cabin was situated near where Layton's Slaughter-house now stands. There was a landing about where the present bridge or pier stands,whence cordwood and other produce was shipped. The river-front above and below the landing was grown up with briers & bushes at high-water mark.
     There was also a public landing for the purpose of loading and shipping cordwood on Pogue's farm.
     During the winter of 1828 and 29 a company was organized, called the Wilmington & New Jersey Steamboat Company, of which Joseph Baily, of Wilm.Delaware, was the president. This company, the members of which were citizens of Del.& N.J., purchased a piece of land from Andrew Dolbow and others, on which they erected a bridge, by driving posts and planking them over, to enable steamboats to land, and the same year they built a steamboat called the "New Jersey",a sidewheel boat, which ran from Wilmington. to Penns Grove for a number of years. The first captain was Josiah Abbott, of Wilmington., who built the bridge for the company.
     The company erected the brick tavern-house now owned by C. Elkinton, and had it licensed as a hotel the same year, and Mr. Wolf, of Wilm. was the first landlord. About the same time a public road was laid out from the foot of the bridge to Pedricktown and Cove Road.
     The bridge was a frail structure and the ice carried the greater part of it away the first or 2nd winter after it was built. After rebuilding it, the company, in a few years sold the bridge and house to Isaac Hurff and in 1848 Charles Elkinton purchased them both and improved the bridge by sinking piers and building a solid stone wall a part distance from the shore; but during the winter of 1854 the ice swept away all the structure except the piers and the stone wall.
     Mr. Elkinton declining to rebuild the bridge, a stock company was formed for the benefit of the community, known as the "Penns Grove Pier Company," which bought the bridge on Oct.6, 1855, and it is still in the possession of the same.
     From the time of the foundation of the Wilmington and New Jersey Co. the village began slowly to improve. The land where the principal part of the village now stands was owned by Isaac Hurff & Joseph Guest, and on the death of Hurff, his heirs sold all the property belonging to them as building lots to diffrent individuals at a public vendue.
     There has been for a long time one licensed hotel in the place, and for a short period there were two. French's Hotel is a well-kept and popular house, and is filled with boarders in the summer season. It is a noted place for excursions from Philadelphia, Wilmington, and other places during the summer, there being a fine grove in connection with it. Joseph G. French, the present proprietor, took possession in 1869. The travel by steamboat to and from the place is very great. One boat runs regularly from Wilmington and makes from 1 to 4 trips a day.
     Two boats usually make daily trips from Salem to Phila., stopping at Penns Grove each way, and frequently there are several boats at a time landing excursionists upon the pier, Four freight-boats are engaged in carrying truck and different kinds of marketing from Penns Grove to Philadelphia. A railroad was built from Woodbury to Penns Grove in 1876, and there are 4 daily trains each way, carrying the mails twice . There has been a stage-line from Woodstown to meet the boats ever since the Salem boats have been stopping at Penns Grove.
     The fishing interest is a business of considerable importance, and brings a large amount of money into the place, and furnishes employment for quite a number of persons. The fishing is not confined to shad and herring, for quite a business is carried on sturgeon-catching, for which purpose a large house or factory has been erected where the sturgeon are prepared in a marketable form, frozen, and kept in a proper condition until shipped to the Phila. and N.Y. markets. Most prominent among those identified with the fisheries are Brukens & Dikeeman, William A. Sack,Torton & Blohm, and Charles A. Dolbow.                                                              This place contains several general stores, a hardware store, two carriage and wheel-wright shops, 2 blacksmith shops, 2 shoe shops, one bakery, two barber shops one tobacco store, four saloons, two coal yards, one limeskin, two livery stables, one butcher & in fall & winter 2 meat stands, 2 pool rooms, a ship-yard & 2 millinery shops.

                  History of Upper Penns Neck Township
                                                By W.W. Summerill. (1971)

    Preface: The sense of the past is latent in everyone. It is one of the facts of living. The most priceless thing our forefathers handed down to us is mental freedom but so many of us do not realize this and appear narrow because we do not have the proper perspective. I believe we can fully appreciate the present only if we have knowledge of the past and come to a realization of what our forefathers struggled for and did to insure our present day status.

    Upper Penns Neck got it’s beginning in 1721 when the court on July 13, 1721 adopted the following legal proclamation.
    “ This 25th day of January 1721 we the inhabitants of Penns Neck by a meeting appointed for the purpose as follows did about the Division of the Precinct into two it being so large and troublesome both on account of the overseers of the Roads and the inhabitants working upon them and likewise so in all other offices. We of our own free will and voluntary account have divided it followeth that is to say the lower part to account their offices in their Division from the line which runs from the lower end of Cornelius Corneliouson’s bounds so that his lower line is to be the Division of the Precinct and so straight over to Gabriel Peterson’s Island thence down the river. This being by our own free voluntary consents on both sides. Therefore the subscribers chosen by the majority of the peoples on both sides do humbly request ye Court to confirm it to us in witness we the subscribers have set our hands this day and year above written.
     Wm Hewes Jos. Granger
     Jos. Gregory Thos. Vickery
     John Pedrick Albert Bilderback
     Jordanier Vanhist JaCobus Vandereveer
     Recorded the 13th off July 1721
     L. Gandonett, Recorder”

     It is easy to see that Upper Penns Neck Township was originally part of Penns Neck Township and extended from Salem Creek on the south to Oldmans Creek on the north.
     Penns Neck got its name from William Penn because William became the owner in fee of the Salem Tenth in 1683 in West Jersey and was the first land that William Penn owned in America. How Penn got involved, I’ll try to give a thumbnail sketch of the situation.
     Sir John Berkeley and Sir George Cartarett were the recipients of a patent for New Jersey from James, Duke of York, with Cartarett taking East Jersey and Berkeley, West Jersey. Berkeley approached Edward Byllynge on buying West Jersey. He being practically bankrupt supposedly had sir John Fenwick act for him secretly. This state of affairs led to difficulty as Fenwick attempted to act as if he were the sole owner. He and Byllynge quarreled. These two and others interested were Friends (Quakers) so the partners were prevailed upon to submit their differences to the arbitration of William Penn. But he could not settle the dispute. In fact, during the arbitration, Sir John Berkeley had Fenwick jailed for debt. Byllynge and his creditors persuaded Penn to join with Gawen Lawrie and Nicholas Lucas to become Trustees to the untangle Byllynge’s finances. All these were Friends. The result was that a tripartite deed, signed by Fenwick, Byllynge and the Trustees reserving to Fenwick “ten equal parts” of 100 of “the whole undivided half” of West Jersey and the remainder was conveyed to the Trustees who then decided to undertake a Quaker Colony in West Jersey. Fenwick proceeded independently with his settling of the Colony and sailed with a company of people and landed at Salem in October 1675 and proceeded with settlements to the south of Salem Creek. The legal tangles and disputes were not settled until March 1683 just nine months before Fenwick died.
     The Trustees formed a joint stock company and the sale was mostly to Friends and the way was paved for the establishment of the first Quaker Colony in the New World. William Penn’s trusteeship expired and he purchased the shares of Daniel Waite, William G. Harge and John Fenwick, giving him title to Salem Tenth. When Penn died his three sons gave deeds in Salem Tenth. John Summerill had a deed from two sons and I have one from Thomas and Richard Penn to Peter Vanneman, the grandfather on my great grandmother Hannah Vanneman, the wife of Judge William Summerill, in whose home I now live. Also I have an original parchment deed from William Penn to Richard Pickman dated August 26, 1684 for 300 acres in Salem Tenth.
     Penn, when he first came to America after 1683 wrote a letter from Philadelphia saying “The Swedes inhabit the streams on both sides of the Delaware. They are plain, strong and industrious people. They received me kindly, as did the English who were few before the people concerned with me came among them. They are a people physical and strong of body, having fine children of which every house is full; some have as many as six, seven and even eight sons often as many girls and I must do them justice to say I see few young men more sober and industrious.”
     The only time William Penn came to Salem County was to meet the Swedish inhabitants and hear their complaints concerning title to their lands.
     That the Swedes were the original settlers of Penns Neck district (Salem to Oldmans Creek) is evidenced by the family names of the early period 1640-60 and later by records of the Penns Neck Church at Churchtown 50 years later. In fact the place names also attest to the fact: Elfsborg, Finns Point, Bout Town, Helms Cove, Oldmans Creek (Aldermans Kill).
     The Swedes first landed in Delaware at what is now Wilmington on the Christiana Creek in 1638 and shortly after some of them came over to the east side into what is now the Penns Neck area. In 1641 the Governor of the Swedes in this area was Ridder. He secured the title on the east side of the Delaware River from Narraticons Kill (Raccoon Creek) southward to Cape May from an Indian Chief named Wickusi. This included Salem County. The control of this part of the country came under English jurisdiction in 1664 after King Charles II of England made a grant to James, Duke of York ( All of the country from the west side of Connecticut River to the east side of the Delaware River) In August 1664 Peter Stuyvesant at New Amsterdam (New York as the English renamed it) surrendered. Thereafter the government of this area was through a commissioner subject to the English Governor at New York. He ruled through a court of five Justices of the Peace, two of which came from the Penns Neck area, and who had their headquarters in New Castle.