Camden County trolley tour traces Underground Railroad stops

On the Camden waterfront, near Cooper Street, enslaved Africans were once sold from ships that docked around a ferry depot.

A notice from May 27, 1762, matter-of-factly described one of the sales:

"Just imported from the river Gambia; in the Schooner Sally . . . to be sold at the Upper Ferry (called Benjamin Cooper's Ferry), opposite to this City, a parcel of likely Men and Women Slaves, with some Boys and Girls of different Ages."

That sad chapter of history is recalled by a simple street marker, but a fuller account of what happened there and the role of the Underground Railroad in freeing slaves will be told Oct. 19 in a first-of-its-kind themed trolley tour across Camden County.

Among those leading it will be Jason Allen, the first African American executive director of the Camden County Historical Society, which is sponsoring the event, called "Path to Freedom."

Three trolleys will take scores of people on a 25-mile journey through the city and county that will start at the society's headquarters on Park Boulevard and end there 31/2 hours later.

"There is a hidden history in New Jersey that we don't talk about," said Allen, former director of interpretation at Cliveden of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Germantown . "I think the tour is a response to that.

"We needed to create a narrative," he said. "There was enslavement in New Jersey, and it had a lasting impact on society."

The tour is part of the historical society's outreach to groups across Camden County that have been asked "to tell their stories," Allen said. Last month brought the unveiling of an exhibit of Latin American dresses called "Hilos del Ayer," or "Threads of Yesterday."

"We want to make history more relevant and tell the stories of all the people of Camden," Allen said.

This month's Underground Railroad tour begins with the sale of slaves in the 18th century, when the Cooper family owned and operated ferries between Camden and Philadelphia.

"To be seen at Mr. Daniel Cooper's Ferry, West New Jersey, opposite the City of Philadelphia, a Parcel of likely Negroes," said one notice from May 21, 1761.

Nearby is the tour's next stop, Ulysses S. Wiggins Waterfront Park on Riverside Drive, named after a son of former slaves. The park, "we believe, was another place where there was a slave auction in the 18th century," Allen said.

Wiggins came to Camden in 1928, became affiliated with Cooper Hospital, and served as a physician, school examiner, and highway department surgeon, said Allen, whose ancestors were slaves in Charleston, S.C., in the 1770s. Wiggins was also president of the Camden County branch of the NAACP for a quarter-century and served on the association's national board.

Farther south is the oldest black institution in Camden, the Macedonia AME Church in the 200 block of Spruce Street. Its cornerstone was laid in 1833 in the city's earliest black settlement.

Its link to the Underground Railroad comes through the Rev. Thomas Clement Oliver, possibly New Jersey's foremost Underground Railroad operative, who served as pastor during the mid-1840s.

"In 1847, slave catchers, having captured a runaway, put him in a wagon and headed toward the ferry, passing Macedonia during a prayer meeting," Allen said. "As he drew opposite the church, the prisoner raised the cry of 'Kidnappers!' which, in a matter of minutes, emptied the church of worshippers, who surrounded the wagon.

"One of the women, Hannah Bowen, is said to have cut the traces, and the horse, now minus the wagon, was driven away," he said. "The catchers eventually surrendered to the crowd and exchanged their prize for their personal safety."

The next stop is Dempsey D. Butler Cemetery on Ferry Avenue in Camden, established in the 1800s by Butler, an abolitionist and ardent supporter of the Underground Railroad. He's buried there along with many black Civil War veterans, Allen said.

In Lawnside, the tour stops at Mount Pisgah Church on Warwick Road North, which once claimed the founder of the African Methodist Episcopal denomination, Richard Allen, as its pastor.

The church was established in 1792, and "its cemetery holds the remains of history-makers, including preacher Jarena Lee. . . . In 1819, she became the first female minister in the AME denomination, ordained by Bishop Richard Allen," Jason Allen said.

At nearby Mount Peace Cemetery on Route 30 in Lawnside, visitors will see the last resting place of 108 Civil War veterans.

Also in Lawnside is the Peter Mott House at Kings Court, home of a free African American and an agent of the Underground Railroad. Built about 1844, the house is believed to be the oldest in Lawnside and one of the few extant Underground Railroad stations owned and operated by African Americans.

In Cherry Hill, tour-goers will also visit Edgewater at Croft Farm on Borton's Mill Road, a refuge for slaves in the 19th century. In 1918, Walter Evans, grandson of Josiah Evans, who lived in the house in the 1840s, wrote of the long oral history associated with Edgewater, Allen said.

It "was one of the stations to which runaway slaves were brought from Woodbury . . . then quickly hidden in the haymow or attic of the house . . . so none could find them," Evans wrote.

In Haddon Township, the trolleys will stop at Saddlertown, also known as Saddler's Woods, on MacArthur Boulevard, where runaway slave Joshua Saddler provided housing for freedom-seekers.

The journey ends at the Camden County Historical Society - and Pomona Hall, home to descendants of William Cooper, the first European settler in what is today Camden.

Built in 1726 by Joseph Cooper Jr., and doubled in size in 1788 by his grandson Marmaduke Cooper, it was the centerpiece of a 412-acre plantation worked by slaves.

Visitors to Pomona Hall will see a kitchen where slaves worked, an attic where they slept, and displays of artifacts, including shackles.

By at least 1792, Marmaduke had begun freeing slaves. "I, Marmaduke Cooper . . . do hereby set free my Negro Man Named Thomas, Age about twenty five years," Cooper wrote in one document.

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