Cumberland County Historical Society

Cumberland County Historical Society In 1905, at the same time plans were being made to erect a monument to commemorate the Tea Burning i
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Slavery was introduced to New Jersey in the seventeenth century, with Perth Amboy serving as the colony's primary port f...
08/13/2026

Slavery was introduced to New Jersey in the seventeenth century, with Perth Amboy serving as the colony's primary port for enslaved Africans. As the enslaved population grew, many resisted captivity through escape, sabotage, and organized rebellion. In 1734, officials uncovered a planned revolt in Somerset County involving about thirty enslaved people who intended to kill their enslavers, burn farms, and flee. Another uprising occurred in 1739 when an enslaved man killed an overseer's son and set fire to a barn before being captured and executed. In 1752, an enslaved man resisted his captivity by killing his captor, Jacob Van Neste, after a dispute over stolen to***co. Although he was executed, his actions were remembered by some as a symbol of courage and resistance. Resistance also took more personal forms, most notably through Silvia Dubois. Born into slavery in New Jersey, Dubois was eventually enslaved by a family in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, where she endured repeated abuse from her enslaver's wife. After being beaten for failing to scrub the floor to her satisfaction, Dubois fought back, striking her enslaver's wife and knocking her into a door. Believing she had killed her, Dubois fled to New York before eventually returning to New Jersey. She later settled on Sourland Mountain, where she cared for her grandfather and helped operate his tavern at Cedar Summit. Although these stories reflect the determination of enslaved people to resist oppression in many different ways, New Jersey remained one of the strongest supporters of slavery in the North. The state was the last Northern state to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment in 1866 after initially rejecting it. Because of its prolonged support for slavery and delayed recognition of Black civil rights, New Jersey earned the reputation as the "slave state of the North."

Source:
Miller, Rann. “Slavery and Rebellion in Eighteenth-Century New Jersey.” AAIHS, March 27, 2023. https://www.aaihs.org/slavery-and-rebellion-in-eighteenth-century-new-jersey/.

Slavery in New Jersey persisted far longer than is commonly recognized, making it the last northern state to abolish sla...
08/12/2026

Slavery in New Jersey persisted far longer than is commonly recognized, making it the last northern state to abolish slavery with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. Although many believe the American Revolution and the Gradual Abolition Act of 1804 quickly ended slavery in the state, abolition was instead a slow, contested process shaped by political compromise and the entrenched influence of slaveholders. It is argued that post-Revolution economic rebuilding, expanding industries, and the reluctance of lawmakers to challenge wealthy slaveholding interests allowed slavery to endure. Regional differences also played a major role in the persistence of slavery. West Jersey's strong Quaker presence fostered an active abolitionist movement that secured legal reforms restricting the slave trade and protecting free Black residents, while East Jersey's wealthier, more industrial economy remained deeply dependent on enslaved labor and resisted meaningful change. Despite determined efforts by Quaker abolitionists and African Americans, New Jersey's anti-slavery legislation often prolonged rather than dismantled slavery. The Gradual Abolition Act required children born to enslaved mothers after 1804 to remain bound for decades, delaying emancipation while allowing slavery to continue. African Americans also challenged slavery through court cases, self-emancipation, and other forms of resistance that exposed the institution's injustices and pressured lawmakers to act. Renewed abolitionist activism in the 1830s and 1840s led to the 1846 "Act to Abolish Slavery," but the law merely reclassified enslaved people as "apprentices for life," preserving slavery in practice. New Jersey's abolition movement achieved important legal victories and protections, yet its history demonstrates how economic interests, political resistance, and legislative compromise delayed the state's complete abolition of slavery until 1866.

Source:
Bennett, Eileen. “Slavery Slumbers in Cumberland’s History.” Cumberland County NJ. Accessed August 4, 2026. https://www.cumberlandcountynj.gov/content/22604/23487/23497/24143.aspx.
Hack, Timothy. “Janus-Faced: Post-Revolutionary Slavery in East and West Jersey, 1784-1804.” New Jersey History 127, no. 1 (June 18, 2012). https://doi.org/10.14713/njh.v127i1.1755.

The Cumberland Hotel was a prominent landmark in Bridgeton, located at the corner of Commerce and Pearl Streets. Constru...
08/10/2026

The Cumberland Hotel was a prominent landmark in Bridgeton, located at the corner of Commerce and Pearl Streets. Constructed at a cost of $400,000 in 1921, the eight-story hotel played a notable role during the Prohibition Era. During Prohibition, nearby Fortescue became an important port for whiskey smuggled into the region aboard ships from Canada and Jamaica. Ship tenders met the vessels in the Delaware Bay, where local captains took possession of the liquor and brought it ashore. The whiskey was then concealed in the surrounding marshes until it could be loaded onto trucks for transport inland. According to local accounts, the Cumberland Hotel served as a signaling point for the smugglers. A light illuminated from the hotel's rooftop when it was considered safe for the trucks carrying whiskey to pass through Bridgeton. Residents and law enforcement understood the meaning of the signal, yet the smugglers were rarely stopped.

Source:
Watson, Penelope S. “Cumberland County, New Jersey.” Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia. Accessed July 28, 2026. https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/locations/bridgeton-new-jersey/.

08/08/2026

Cumberland County is seeking your input on the proposed Potter’s Tavern Pocket Park! Join us for a public input meeting and learn more about the vision for this new community space while sharing your ideas, thoughts, and feedback.

📅 Tuesday, August 11, 2026
⏰ 5:00 PM
📍 Cumberland County Administration Building
164 W. Broad Street, Bridgeton, NJ

The meeting will be facilitated by the Cumberland County Department of Planning, Tourism & Community Affairs and J.W. Pedersen Architect.

We want to hear from you! Come help shape the future of Potter’s Tavern Pocket Park.

The growth of the British Empire shaped ideas of imperial identity by defining British subjecthood around liberty, freed...
08/05/2026

The growth of the British Empire shaped ideas of imperial identity by defining British subjecthood around liberty, freedom, and Protestantism. Because the American colonies were founded largely by English settlers, they were viewed as extensions of Britain rather than separate societies. Colonists generally considered themselves British, while doubts about their identity increasingly came from the metropole, where some questioned whether colonial settlers were truly British. Although Britain celebrated itself as a land of liberty, this identity coexisted with the expansion of Atlantic slavery. Slavery was portrayed as a colonial institution rather than a British one, allowing the metropole to preserve its image of freedom while benefiting from enslaved labor. Somerset v. Stewart (1772) ruled that slavery was unsupported by English common law and prevented enslaved people from being forcibly removed from England without legal authority, but it did not abolish slavery in the British colonies. It is argued that while the decision appeared to weaken slavery in England, it ultimately reinforced slavery within the empire by defining the colonies as the legal space where slavery could continue. In doing so, the ruling highlighted the contradiction between Britain's ideals of liberty and the realities of its empire and deepened the distinction between England and its colonies, a tension that later influenced colonial demands for equal rights under British law.

Source:
Greene, Jack P. “Empire and Identity from the Glorious Revolution to the American Revolution.” The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume II: The Eighteenth Century, May 28, 1998, 208–30. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198205630.003.0010.
“Somerset’s Case.” Lincoln’s Inn Rare Books and manuscripts online. Accessed July 21, 2026. https://archives.lincolnsinn.org.uk/the-archives/law-reports-and-case-papers/somerset-case.

On January 1, 1923, the Bridgeton Public Library officially became a department of the City of Bridgeton, but the city’s...
08/04/2026

On January 1, 1923, the Bridgeton Public Library officially became a department of the City of Bridgeton, but the city’s library story began more than a century earlier. Bridgeton’s first public library was organized in 1811, and was originally called the Bridgeton Library Company. General Ebenzer Elmer served as the library company’s first president, which was located on the second floor of his office at the corner of East Commerce and Orange Streets. The library was funded by 37 stockholders who each invested $8 per share, and raised $3,840 to establish the collection. The library has changed hands and locations over the years leading up to 1923. In 1854, the book collection was transferred to the West Jersey Academy. By 1894, the YMCA established a library and reading room, and the YMCA Ladies Auxiliary took over responsibility for its operation. With a community group called the “Friends”, they formed the Bridgeton Library Association. They purchased the former Cumberland National Bank building on East Commerce Street for $500, and opened it as the city’s public library. In 1922, voters in Bridgeton approved a referendum that transferred the Bridgeton Library Association’s building, books, and assets to the city. The association dissolved and the Bridgeton Free Public library became a municipal library on January 1, 1923. The library was governed by a five member board, which was appointed by Mayor Samuel Johnson. As the community grew, the library grew in turn to meet the community’s needs. A Children’s Room was added in 1943, which was later named the Dallas Lore Sharp Room. There was also a major expansion of the library, which extended the library to the corner of East Commerce and Orange Streets, bringing the library back to its original site in 1811.

Source:
“History.” Bridgeton Public Library. Accessed July 28, 2026. https://bridgetonlibrary.org/history/.

European settlers often imposed ideas associated with the enclosure movement in their colonies, replacing many communal ...
08/02/2026

European settlers often imposed ideas associated with the enclosure movement in their colonies, replacing many communal or Indigenous systems of land use with private property. This transformation was often coercive and justified through colonial ideology. John Locke argued that labor is the foundation of legitimate property rights, claiming that people gain ownership of land by improving it through their labor. Locke compared Indigenous peoples to poor rural commoners living in cottages in Europe, suggesting that they had not sufficiently developed or improved the land. As a result, Indigenous peoples were portrayed as lacking legitimate claims to their property because they were believed not to have enhanced the land through labor. Locke also erased the distinction between Indigenous commons, which were collectively managed by specific communities, and open-access land, which belongs to no one. By doing so, he treated Indigenous peoples as though they lacked legitimate property rights. However, the concept of "Indigenous commons" should be recognized because many Indigenous societies had well-defined systems of collective ownership and resource management rather than occupying unclaimed land. Systems of common land were not unique to Indigenous peoples, as commons also existed in New France, demonstrating that communal property arrangements were familiar within European colonial societies as well. The dismissal of Indigenous commons became a tool of colonialism, allowing settlers to justify the seizure of Indigenous lands despite their awareness of comparable systems of common land in Europe. To understand colonial property formation accurately, historians argue that we should reject the colonial myth of a universal open commons and instead view colonization as a conflict between different property systems, European and Indigenous, that confronted one another under unequal power relations.

Source:
Greer, Allan. “Commons and Enclosure in the Colonization of North America.” The American Historical Review 117, no. 2 (April 2012): 365–86. https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr.117.2.365.

08/02/2026

Cat, carved in cherry by noted Vineland artist, illustrator, and blacksmith, Donald D. Streeter (1905–1998) from the Vineland Historical Society’s collection.

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981 Ye Greate Street (P. O. Box 16)
Greenwich, NJ
08323

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Saturday 10am - 4pm
Sunday 1pm - 4pm

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