Harrison Township Historical Society

10/14/2026

Some of you met him here in May. The man in the photograph who was shot in the head by a sniper on Okinawa, relearned to read and write, and came home to Richwood for another fifty-three years. His name was Major Louis Reuter, Jr., and he founded this Society.

On Wednesday, October 21 at 7 PM, you can hear his whole story told in person, in the building he helped save.

Laura Shaban, a History and Education major at Rowan University, chose Reuter as her subject for the first lecture in a new series we have built with Rowan's Department of History. She came to local history through the Lindbergh trial in her own hometown of Flemington, and she sees Reuter's life of service, first in uniform and then for decades in Richwood, as exactly the kind of story worth telling in the country's 250th year.

The lecture is at Old Town Hall Museum, 62 to 64 South Main Street, Mullica Hill. It ties to our current exhibit, Hometown Revolutionaries, and there will be time before and after to see the Reuter display in person, including the oil lamp a fellow soldier painted for him: "Maj. Louis Reuter, Jr., 96th Division, 381st Infantry, Co. G, always a Deadeye." Admission is free.

If his story resonated with you in the spring, this is the night to hear the rest of it.

10/08/2026

Four young men who robbed the bank on North Main Street in 1932 and got away with $8,370. A congregation that moved up Main Street and brought its dead along. A row of brick houses already standing in the town's earliest picture, from 1844. A tractor-trailer that came through the wall of the feed store in 1964 while the feed counter stayed open.

If you have ever slowed down on Main Street and wondered about a building, the answer could now be standing in front of it.

This spring, the Society put five signs on Main Street as a pilot and asked whether Mullica Hill wanted more. Enough of you walked it and shared it that we kept going. There are now twenty-six stops with 17 having physical signs. To everyone who walked those first five, thank you.

Scan the code on any sign with your phone, and that building's story opens where it happened. There is nothing to download. Several of the buildings are homes, so please enjoy them from the sidewalk.

The loop runs a little less than a mile, up one side of South Main Street and back down the other, beginning and ending at the Old Town Hall Museum, 62 South Main. Give it about an hour at a reading pace. An optional half-mile extension goes up North Main to the town clock at St. Stephen's.

The tour is free, and the signs stay up through December 5. The museum is open Saturdays and Sundays, 1 to 4 p.m., through the same date.

If you know someone who would want to walk it, tag them in the comments.

The 54th Annual Fall Festival & Living History Weekend is October 10 and 11, with Civil War encampments and battle reenactments at 2 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday. If you are coming, walk the tour as well.

10/05/2026

Seven hundred and fifty people walked South Main Street on Saturday night, the biggest turnout we have had, and it sold out a full day early.

Thank you. To everyone who came out, to the shop owners and the homeowners who let us stand be on your property, and to High Street Delicatessen, who gave us the start of the night and then fed volunteers.

And to the volunteers. Eight storytellers told the same story to every group that came through, by lantern light, for three and a half hours. Guides walked a group out the deli doors every ten minutes from six o'clock until after nine. Other people checked tickets, painted faces, ran the parking lot and kept Old Town Hall open all evening. It took 50+ volunteers to pull it off and we are truly grateful.

Thank you Harrison Township Police Department for keeping everyone safe throughout the evening.

We hope you had a great time with us. Next October is the twenty fifth Ghost Walk and we hope to see you there.

Big shout out to all of our sponsors that truly helped promote this event - The Pennsville National Bank, Serendipity XIX, The Langmore Salon, Eagle Wealth Strategies, Firenze Capital Advisors, First Class Travel, Mullica Hill Family Dental, Sisters Fun to Fine Jewelry, Sorbello's Landscaping LLC, and Wingate's Tree Service LLC.

10/02/2026

Come join us for the 24th annual Mullica Hill Ghost Walk tomorrow evening! We only have 10% of tickets left, so make sure you purchase them while they last. All proceeds go to our non profit, Harrison Township Historic Society.

09/28/2026

Richwood got its name from a carriage maker known as Fancy Joe.

Joseph A. Jackson built carriages beside the general store in a village that was then called Five Points. His neighbors listened to him, enough that he talked them into a new name. The one he chose belonged to his nephew, G. Richwood Marshall.

Five Points became Richwood, and it has been Richwood ever since.

Richwood's newest neighbor started out in a trailer. On June 23, 1969, PNB opened for business in what the bank still describes as a relatively muddy field off South Broadway in Pennsville. Fifty-seven years later, its main office is still on South Broadway. The bank has grown across South Jersey to Carneys Point, Woodstown, Elmer, Pedricktown and now Richwood, with Upper Deerfield on the way.

When PNB came to Richwood, it chose to hang the village's own history on its walls. This photograph of Jackson's carriage works, taken around 1900, is one of six images from the Society's collection now on display in PNB's Richwood office on Mullica Hill Road. Every one of them is Richwood.

PNB is also presenting this year's Mullica Hill Ghost Walk on Saturday, October 3. Every ticket supports the Society's museum at Old Town Hall and its free programming at Richwood Academy, a short walk from the bank's front door.

The 2026 Mullica Hill Ghost Walk is presented by Platinum Sponsor PNB Financial Service Center. The Pennsville National Bank

Tickets and details are in the first comment.

09/27/2026

👻 DO YOU KNOW WHAT LURKS ALONG MAIN STREET AFTER DARK?

One of Mullica Hill’s favorite fall traditions is back! Join the Harrison Township Historical Society for the annual Mullica Hill Ghost Walk on Saturday, October 3.

Take a 1½-hour guided walk through historic Main Street and hear the chilling stories, local legends and haunted history hiding behind some of Mullica Hill’s most familiar homes and buildings.

🔦 Tours depart every 10 minutes beginning at 6 PM
📍 High Street Deli | 46 S. Main Street
🎟️ Tickets: $13 per person
👻 Children in strollers do not require a ticket

The Jersey Unique Minds Paranormal Society (JUMPS) will also be joining us, and Doug Hogate Jr. will broadcast his paranormal radio show, Paradelphia, LIVE from the Ghost Walk!

Bring your flashlight, camera and comfortable walking shoes — because you never know what you might encounter along the way.

And while you’re coming out for a little spooky fun, guests are encouraged to bring a nonperishable food donation for Your Place at the Table (YPATT).

🎟️ Tour times can fill quickly, so get your tickets early!

👉 Get all the details and purchase tickets:
https://harrisontwp.us/event/mullica-hill-ghost-walk-2026/

History lives here. Some of it may still be hanging around.

Explore Mullica Hill’s haunted history through chilling tales and spooky secrets hidden within Main Street’s historic buildings! Tickets are $13, with proceeds supporting the Harrison Township Historical Society.

09/26/2026

His grandfather ran delicatessens in New York. Now he runs one here.

John Lynch is the man behind the counter in the first photograph, taken in 1983, a few years before his grandson Nicholas Giovinco was born. Nicholas never worked for him. What came down to him was not a business. It was his own love of food, and what his grandfather taught him: that there is pride in serving people well.

He took the long way back to it. Construction, high-rise jobs in Brooklyn and Manhattan, and in 2018 a move to Mullica Hill with his family. In 2024 he bought the corner store at South Main and High, spent more than a year rebuilding it, and opened a delicatessen.

That corner has fed this town before. Now it does again.

Inside, on the walls, are his grandfather's photograph and his two children.

This year he has opened his doors to the Society as the starting point of the Ghost Walk. Every tour begins in the room where his grandfather's photograph hangs.

On Saturday, October 3, the 24th annual Mullica Hill Ghost Walk begins inside that building, at High Street Delicatessen, 46 South Main Street, Mullica Hill.

The 2026 Mullica Hill Ghost Walk is presented by Platinum Sponsor PNB Financial Service Center.

Tickets and details are in the first comment.

09/24/2026

"We have also the Patent Co**se Preserver."

That line was printed in Mullica Hill on New Year's Day, 1889, by a man named James M. Wolf. He was the first person in this village to call himself a funeral director, and his rooms stood on Main Street directly across from the Town Hall. Before him there was no such thing here. When someone died, the family handled it themselves, at home, and the man who built the coffin was very often the man who had built the furniture.

So what was a Patent Co**se Preserver, why did a town of a few hundred people suddenly need one, and how did a trade nobody had heard of end up in the big house at 30 South Main with the horses and the hearse out back?

That is the theme of this year's Mullica Hill Ghost Walk: South Main Street, from the front parlor to the funeral home. How a small town used to handle its dead, and how that changed, told at seven stops by the people who lived it. You will stand in front of Wolf's house. What you hear there, we are keeping for the night.

Saturday, October 3. Tours leave High Street Delicatessen, 46 South Main, every ten minutes from 6:00 to 9:00. $13, children 6 and under free, and the early departures fill first. Presented by PNB Financial Service Center.

Tickets are in the first comment.