1922- 2022
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Welcome!Open Houses for July-July 5 and July 19 from 1-4 pm. Open Houses are held the first and third Saturdays of each month, weather permitting. I might also open it on the other Saturdays as well. The Little Red Schoolhouse is on W. Main St. near Coles Ave. Join the Maple Shade Historical Society-We desperately need new members. Membership dues is now half price because we are half way through the year. The Maple Shade Historical Society is not just a "club." It is a corporation registered by the state of NJ. (non- profit corporation) and as such we need so many officers etc. We have been basically running on the edge of survival. Be a part of something great. Join up. Books for Sale-I ordered 100 copies of the Little Red Schoolhouse and Maple Shade Historical Society book and will bring copies and sell them at Open Houses at the Schoolhouse. They cost me 6 dollars each by a bulk discount and combined shipping. The printing came out real nice. Your cost- 8-10 dollars (All money above the 6 dollars I paid goes to the MSHS.) -Dennis Weaver Maple Shade Brickyards-I went to the Maple Shade Township Committee meeting to bring up ideas- June 26 meeting Look at about the 48 minute mark for me. I made a PDF version (not exact but very close) of my Maple Shade Brickyard Deed History page at this website. I will probably combine that with the pages in the "Maple Shade, We Celebrate 100 Years" book and other newspaper articles I have also found over the years to make a book about the brickyards. Here is the PDF- Brickyards/MS Brickyards Deeds.pdf House Info Request-House information for 264 S. Maple Ave. House Made From A Barn-
22 Stiles Avenue said by the Tax Assessor's Office to be a 1952 home. The owner came to the 4th of July Maple Shade Historical Society Open House at the Train Station (2009). He asked how he could find out the real date which he thought to be in the 1920s because he found traces that it once had the old knob and tube electrical wiring.
Updated Municipal Building site page-A blessing to me was to find that the Philadelphia location of E.W. Twitchell was the building I worked at in the mid 1980s! Immanuel Baptist Church-I just fixed the link. It wasn't working. I guess nobody contacted me because it just said "The Oldest Church."
Oldest Church Building in MS Join the Maple Shade Historical Society-Why should people join? So sad these times are when people's "world" is more online. Example- You can buy every single thing off Amazon.com then wonder why the Malls aren't too good any more. You might think "Oh somebody is taking care of that." This could be a few people who if not for them it would not exist. Don't you want your local town to have culture? When I was a kid before moving to Maple Shade I knew one thing about that town- the Maple Shade Jaycees! People got together and did things back then. The whole town benefited. Learning history adds another dimension to your mind. Especially when you learn to actually be an historian. A historian does not read a book and then repeat the information without knowing first if that information is correct. Sometimes you will be surprised what you can learn.Be a part of saving the past for the future. The Graff family and the Little Red Schoolhouse-
For the Graff family- How they should rewire the Fire Alarm Box-What they should do is start all over from scratch instead of wires over ceiling in bathroom. And stop with the silver conduit wires! Make wire inside that square channel strips like light wires are under. Drill a hole through the floor near corner of room. Don't worry half the floor has been replaced. And worse than that is all that boxes up on the wall with wires through the walls. Okay now put one of those square wire strips which hide the wire and we paint to match the room go up from floor to the shut off box. Now ALL WIRES under crawlspace go to and back to box mounted on heater room wall in bathroom storage section and if any wires need to be on a wall run them INSIDE where the heater is. Exit the outer transmitter wire out where the PSE&G wire goes out rock foundation wall and NOT drilled through the brick wall. See pic for more- Fire Box relocation More from a recent email- Do it like I propose wires under floor. NOTHING but the switch in the schoolroom. My entire house was rewired by an electrician in the 1980s without disturbing anywhere the 1925 plaster and lathe. Well cut holes for new outlets and switches. They fished the wires. I don't want to see a patch job on a crap job with left over remnants of the crap job. OWN UP people need to do. WE DID IT WRONG. Our priorities were not enough to keep what you see historic. Every single thing find a way to HIDE IT is way to think. And never drill through walls. Half the floor has been replaced. Shoot and even the floorboard near the bathroom needs replacing now from the recent termites. It sometimes takes more work and more effort to do things NICE and GOOD and the right historical way which is the first consideration. Mayor please address and fix right. Susan Danson at the lease meeting acted well was like she never even heard of my plan to put on heater wall outside. The TWP planned how to do it WRONG!!! -Dennis Weaver Honoring Maple Shade's Brickyards-GrahamBrickdestroyed.jpg One year after the last brickyard closed in 1956 the Twp. started destroying what was left. I always thought it would be so great if the old kilns etc. were left as an historic site. We do have part of the clay pits undeveloped east of North Pine Ave. and south of the RR tracks. A few years back it was for sale and I'd hate to see it developed and will propose to the Twp. to have it Open Space as undeveloped land for a memorial. The brickyards were formally in MS from 1858 to 1956. Another thing is the John Muffet and Son Brick and Tileyard house built in 1863 now 119 East Main Street. A business is now there which zoning wise it is best not to allow commercial use for a property with historic buildings on it. Perhaps a marker sign could be placed along the sidewalk to honor the house and persaude its current owners to respect it. I have a few articles about the brickyard house over the years. There was a fire in the back that damaged the upper floors when Mr. and Mrs. Senior lived there. They were in bed sleeping at the time. A good article I have to find where I put it- John Pardee was living at the house and was going to sell it. The buyers wanted to tear out all the downstairs walls and make a big room I think for dancing and sell beer and for it to be a roadhouse and the Twp. said no. Transportation to Work in 1924-Many used the trolley to go to work in Camden Hours People Worked in Different Times-My Grandpop was born in 1902 in Philadelphia. He said his parents worked 10-12 hours a day (Mostly 10 hour days), six days a week. He quit school in the 6th grade to work in the factories and later on the ice wagon. Longer work hours and child labor were common in this time period. The Old Shade-What someone told me Maple Shade was like when he was a kid- All the bars up Main Street would have live orchestras and bands playing at them. It was like New Orleans. There were woods in a lot of places all over town. The kids would take wooden boxes and make scooters out of them. When all the kids got together it was like "Our Gang." My friend John Flack's Maple Shade Flicker photos-Fire Alarm Location Problem-Schoolhouse Fire alarm photos My report is also in there. Brickyard Page fixed-
I have been going over the Maple Shade Brickyards page. Much of it was from around 2005 so there was facts to fix, links to repair or eliminate etc. Making a better version in PDF form and most likely a book which will be about the brickyards or have a full chapter on them.
Arcadia book on Maple Shade partially corrected-I asked to correct the book's incorrect captions. They said I could only correct 10 captions so I said please do these 12. It should take months probably before the various sellers sell out the already printed editions (even Arcadia still has a stack waiting for vendors) Here are my 12 selected caption corrections which they said they made for upcoming newly printed copies.
-Dennis Weaver,  Detail from a J.D. Scott's 1876 Burlington County Atlas, colorized- Princeton University- Burlington County, NJ maps)  From a book written in 1877- The History of New Jersey From Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time ยท Volume 1 Benjamin Stiles moved from the Old Place of the Stiles which was at the end of Stiles Avenue, then a lane to the house, to the corner of what would soon be in 1850 the "Moorestown and Camden Turnpike" and Fellowship Road. Across the road from his farm was one of the two tollgate houses. The other on what is now Federal Street in Camden. He had a blacksmith shop and house on the property which went through several owners until Christian Frech bought it in 1871. There were other Stiles family farms in the area as well. When the railroad purchased the land at Forklanding Road in 1869 the station was named Stiles Station. The hamlet started to be called just that or "Stiles." The railroad company renamed the station "Maple Shade" in 1874. Charles Shuster began the development of Maple Shade with the "Shuster Tract" in 1887 dividing into lots the old Benjamin Stiles (then son Benjamin J. Stiles) farm which went out to the train station, exempting out the lots of the tollgate house and Christian Frech's and Johnathan Winter's land. (Houses between Spruce and S. Maple Avenues on Main Street plus bank land on other side of Spruce.) Soon other German people, primarily related to Christian Frech's wife Louisa Fahr, came to live on lots. Now we are in the Village of Maple Shade time... Maple Shade in the 30s and 40s movie-That is what we have been calling the movies ran by the Maple Shade Cable Company in probably the 1980s and it is one of the most watched videos at my Youtube channel. It looks like it is really "Maple Shade in 1941." 1941 newspaper articles and the movie as a MP4 At a March or month's prior 1997 Women's Club Meeting, Joe Johnson of the Maple Shade Fire Dept. presented pictures and a film entitled "Maple Shade As It Was." Hmm. wonder if he was showing the same movie. Main Street and Forklanding Road, guessing late 30s to 40sThanks George Conley for the image. Stores in 1933- From the Courier Post newspaper, Sept. 6, 1933 Thanks George Conley for the image. |
Article from the Moorestown Republican newspaper October 21, 1908
Senator Robbins visits Maple Shade. (Headline cut off of scan) Eugene Hill was on the Chester Twp. committee which was mostly of Moorestown people and met in Moorestown. The old Moorestown and Camden Turnpike was discontinued in 1907 when bought by the County.
I saw a old photo of the Roberts monument on its 1/8 acre lot with level ground with grass surrounded by a wrought iron fence.
The South side of Main Street down to about Givnish Funeral Home is higher that the north side of Main Street so originally there was a slope there where Main Street is cut out of the side of the hill.
Everyone knows the gun club is up on a hill and the Roberts monument is up on a hill, but look they're at the same height as the VFW.
The parking lot for Givnish Funeral Home has been somewhat flattened out compared to when the American Legion was on that corner with its uphill yard with two cannons on it.
Let's look at the area where the Roberts family bought a 1/8 acre lot across from the brickyard house on John Mason's farm. The brickhouse is like 2 feet below street grade on the north side of Main Street.
I don't bike up the hill into Maple Shade from Moorestown. It was hard when I was a kid but at least then I could make it. That was referred to as "brickyard hill" for a while in the past. I saw at least one newspaper article where they said pranksters greased the trolley tracks up brickyard hill and then the trolley slipped and couldn't make it up the hill.
Now picture the land was grooved out in the side of the hill when they put Main Street in. (The Market road was laid out as a straight line from Moore's Town to Cooper's Ferry in 1794.) We do not know all of the geometry of the land due to the brickyard which owned the land on both sides of Main Street which it bought from Joseph Walton (Cabinet maker) who's brother-in-law Thomas Lippincott (A Roberts) was a brickmaker. The brickyard had to have removed much clay from the land then the highway did more. But the top of the ridge looks closer to Main Street perhaps than from the top of it all on South Pine Street where the old farmhouse of the Roberts was.
It was a ridge so John Mason's farm on a 1877 Hopkins map is called "Pleasant Ridge Farm."
-Den
Here is quoted from Asa Matlack Sr.'s notes on Colestown-
To get out of the cities part of the year many people had summer cottages. Most of Maple Shade's Barlow Built Bungalows were mostly built in 1922, 1923, and some in the following few years. I do not know how many were used as summer cottages. I would imagine there was a time during the One Acre farm years there were many "shacks" first used before a bungalow was built.
Summer cottages were anything from a shack to a mansion. I couldn't find it last time I looked but I remember seeing in a Camden newspaper that Alexander Mecray was staying at his summer house in Maple Shade. My one grandmother was from "money." (They didn't do the dishes. The help did them. They had a car when hardly anyone else did. etc.) I saw an old photo of her as a kid on the porch of a bungalow in Pennsauken. I said Grandmom I thought you said you were rich. That bungalow looks like mine. She said I didn't understand. That was her Aunt's summer cottage house who lived in Philadelphia. I have a few photos from my other grandparents of a house they built in Cinnaminson in the early 1920s which sat on a few cinder blocks at each corner and clearly had many building issues which would not pass inspection today!
I saw a few mentions of summer cottages in Maple Shade in newspapers. I did oral history of the east Moorestown area and the Miller family would come in the summers and had a shack with bunk beds and would drink beer and the kids soda and they would stake out the area where their "dream house" would be built.
Another topic- There is also Camden's industry which helped early Maple Shade's population to be addressed.
Some selected passages at den's Google Drive
We learn many things from these school reports. We learn that the front small room at the Little Red Schoolhouse was a coat room. (Then called a cloak room)
Coat rooms, no out houses and ventilation were several issues in the 1800s.
Another "conclusion" people would have is debunked. It has in the roots truth but when we see blacks attending school with whites in the late 1800s photos one would "conclude" that this was due to many Quakers in the area and also several teachers known to be Quakers so that is the reason. Wrong. It was the law. When the school was in the Township of Chester tax district after 1894 Moorestown was also in Chester Twp. and had a "Colored School."
It was considered honorable for a town to have a colored school and even Quakers thought so. That law was actually brought up later many years later in a court case which ended segregation. one source
Also in records is the people in each school's tax district starting in 1871 after the Free School law (Public School system). I got the 1873 list from the 1873 Chester Township Tax Assessor's book which years ago was at Moorestown Library. When I was at NJ State Archives in Trenton I read the list of the books they have on microfilm and that was one of the few books they were missing and I told them it was at Moorestown Library and the lady didn't look happy at all with that.
Mark K. Lewis at Phil's Camden website
A plaque for an addition to the school that was on North Poplar Ave. has in the center- Mark K. Lewis.
I already knew of this name due to many of one lot of the first year of the Maple Shade Progress said Mark K. Lewis on them in hand writing. The other half had copies with Theodore Sauselein written on them. There was even mentions of Mark K. Lewis in a copy or two. But this must be for the father- The newspapers are from 1916 and 1917.
They have been published in "The Progress of Maple Shade" book.
It's the son who was killed.
This letterhead or billhead paper is in an old MS Fire Company Treasurer's book. This is the early Barlow & Co. pre Barlow Building and Barlow Built Bungalows. Most all of the tracts listed are not owned by the Barlow family.-
Barlow/BarlowCoEarly.jpg
600 DPI version- Early Barlow & Co. Letterhead
Historical Society member Mike Geden (who is also in the VFW) had his old dog tags from the Air Force returned to him. Someone found them at the beach with a metal detector and mailed them to him.
When you are on Frederick or Thomas Ave. and at the point where they curve at an angle toward Center Ave., you are entering the "Orchards Extension." When you are on South Forklanding Rd. between Crawford Ave. and Mill Rd. you are on what was referred to as "New Forklanding Road" and Crawford "Old Forklanding Road" as Crawford Avenue was S. Forklanding Road on the Shuster Tract until the plan of the "Shuster Extension."
A referendum election which has been called for April 25, at which time the voters of Moorestown, Lenola and Stanwick will decide whether they will secede from old Chester township and form "Moorestown township." If the voters decide in favor of secession, Maple Shade will be the only town left in Chester township. The legislature passed a law giving Moorestown, Lenola and Stanwick the right to call a referendum to decide on forming a new township.
The action of the legislature was greatly opposed by residents of Maple Shade, but they have not requested the right to participate in the impending election, because it appears that voters are somewhat divided on the proposed change. Thomas J.S. Barlow, one of the founders of Maple Shade, says that the town might have a hard struggle at first but must face the inevitable. The town is developing at a rapid pace. an evidence of which is the fact that more than 100 new houses will be erected in the town this year. Many persons feel certain that the town will become self-supporting quite rapidly.
From the Camden Post Telegram, Friday December 1, 1922-
Maple Shade-
Oscar Anderson, local contractor for Barlow and Company, Inc., has completed the erection of 74 houses here and has the contracts for 100 additional ones to be built in the spring.
Really great photos Historical of area towns including Maple Shade.
Compare Maple Shade esp. to 1930 and see how early we turned mostly suburban! Be sure to think of the land area sizes of each of the Twps. as well!
