Batsto Village is located in Hammonton, New Jersey tucked away in the Pine Barrens. The village dates back to 1766 with a long history of industrialization. Located in the Wharton State Forrest, Batsto has its history tied in the iron and glassmaking industry. Batsto even created supplies for the soldiers in the American Revolution. The land was even owned by Joseph Wharton in the end of the 1800’s. Wharton is the namesake for U Penn’s business school. In 1954 New Jersey purchased the land and it now sits as a state forrest.
So grab your headphones, put on Florence and the Machine’s iconic 2009 album, Lungs, and reflect on the beauty of the historic Pine Barrens. Florence, famous for the amazing Dog Days are Over and her appearance on Gossip Girl, has soothing and emotion packed vocals totally put you in the right mindset to take in all the beauty Batsto Village has.
The Battleship New Jersey from afar. (Photo / Christoph Smith)
The Battleship New Jersey has a long history of war and battles. The battleship, located on the Camden waterfront, is currently open 7 days a week as a museum. Times vary with the seasons, but touring is now open daily at 9:30 a.m. with the last tickets being sold at 3:00 p.m. and the ship closing at 5:00 p.m. The tours are self guided with optional audio guided tour upgrade, and optional up-charge packages for time specific tours. Regular entrance fee is $21.95, with discounts for veterans and free admission for children under 4.
The Battleship NJ has been docked since 1991 after being used since 1943. Between wars the ship would be “mothballed“, which is a term I only ever use when referring to my sweater collection or my exes. Mothballing a ship entails shutting it down to keep all moisture out and prevent rusting, while keeping it as a possibility to bring back into commission. The Battleship NJ was active in “World War 2, Korea, Vietnam, as well as the 1982-1983 UN peacekeeping mission in Beirut” said Ken, one of the Battleship NJ employees, “during Vietnam she was the only active battleship in the world.”
The tour of the battleship went through two lower decks as well as the upper levels. The self-guided tour began with one of the ships turrets which had buttons and levers and switches and phones and blinky lights and doo-dabs everywhere. Ariel has nothing on the amount of thing-a-mabobs this room has. The periscope worked and looking through it you could see the great view of the stadiums across the water as well as the bridge into Philadelphia.
One of the periscopes inside of the gun turret. (photo / Christoph Smith)The view of the Philadelphia 76ers stadium through the periscope. (Photo / Christoph Smith)
Once below the surface of the ship you walk along port side, call me Rihanna cause I know my way around this battleship. You see lines of tiny bunks with some you can try out and lay in. The beds were alright for what they were, but so not the Four Season. There were checkers boards painted on the table tops throughout the area. And yes they are checkers boards, not chess boards cause this is the battleship and there are no knights involved. Double jump that.
Admiral’s bed in the admiral and captain portion of the ship. (Photo / Christoph Smith)
The admiral’s quarters were as decadent as it this ship got. But I do really have an issue with the HomeGoods wall decor going on. There is a seating area as well as a meeting room and a desk area. On the admiral’s desk is a section of books on
A portrait of a woman on the admiral’s desk. (Photo / Christoph Smith)
the top shelf and just phone and a picture frame. Inside the frame is a beautiful woman, and I really need to know her story is and what went down with her. In my mind she was the best damn telephone operator the Bell company ever had seen. After fighting with the long distance relationship with the admiral, she gave into her desire and took back her life and left the admiral to pursue her career and in doing so, she finally found a way to connect the telephone inside her heart. The admiral honored her with her photo beside the phone on his desk. Awaiting the day she would call once again.
A roped off section of hallway from the tour. (Photo / Christoph)
While touring the ship it would be very easy to get lost if not for the red line on the floor to follow. Hallways and corridors all blend together. This section of hallway was not part of the tour but almost seems like two mirrors reflecting the same route. If you look hard enough you can almost see the twins from the shining down the hallway.
The ship really is amazing to just look at with all of the artillery and artifacts. The views from the top of the ship of the Delaware river and into Philadelphia is a reason to go let alone all of the history of the ship.
*Sidenote* Once upon a time I was a boy scout and went on a trip to the Battleship NJ when I was about 10 years old. My troop and I slept overnight on the ship. In the middle of the night I got so antsy in the uncomfortable bed (the same beds the soldiers slept in) that I got up and walked through the ship. I ended up in the mess hall and played cards with some old men and full on thought they were ghosts for years after. If thats not a Disney Channel Original Movie, then I don’t know what is.
The top of the ship. (Photo / Christoph Smith)Side shot of the artillery. (Photo / Christoph Smith)
South Jersey Port – Camden (Photo / Christoph Smith)
Bonny Elwell, Library Director sits behind her desk at the Camden County Historical Society in Camden, N.J., Friday, October 13, 2017. (Photo/Christoph Smith) “This is usually where I am doing work,” Said Elwell.
Bonny Elwell, Library Director at the Camden County Historical Society, sat behind the desk speaking to a patron on the phone as I was led in by a co-worker of hers. She finished her call and came around the desk to great me with a smile and a hand shake. The Historical Society building is located at 1900 Park Boulevard in Camden, NJ with a museum, the library, the historic house, and the caretakers’ house all on the property. We go through a short tour of the property including the museum and the historic house, which are both currently closed for renovations. We pass through a breeze way which a handicap entrance was added and into the museum’s first and second floor. Everywhere you look there are original pieces and sections showing the history of Camden County. Once back into the library we sit at a table along the side next to one of the library’s shelves of records.
Christoph: What is your typical day-to-day?
Bonny Elwell: So we have a lot of visitors come in, usually people either researching history or genealogy. Don, one of our volunteers right now, is helping with a genealogy request for people who are unable to visit. Looking for obituaries, marriage information, where people live, burial location, things like that. Usually we get a lot of genealogists come in, right now it’s a little slow. Yesterday I think we had 6 people come in. So what I’ll do is assist them with locating our records. We have quite a bit of obituaries, we have a data base with over 220,00 names of deaths, obituaries, burial records, etc. in Camden County.
Is that all online?
No it is not online. It is a computer database indexing what we have here physically in our collection. For instance obituaries found in newspapers that we have on microfilms. It’s a lot of physical records.
One thing we do use online, we have the courier post achieves which cover from 1949 to present. That’s the only portion that’s been digitized, from 1949 to present. For the recent years we search that way. For the older years, the physically compiled database is the way we can locate obituaries and so forth.
Our city directories are used a lot, they cover from 1839 to 1947, so that’s a broad range of city directories. From that point we pick up with telephone books from 1940’s to 1998.
It’s crazy how media has changed and how it’s all been kept. Just looking at some of these, the bibles there.
We have family bible records from the 1700’s, as far as one of the earlier that ways people kept genealogy records.
A shelf of Bibles sealed for protection, some dating back to the 1700’s. Camden County Historical Society Library. October 13, 2017. (Photo/Christoph Smith)
I notice Robert and Mary Cooper Kaighn (on the one bible there).
Coopers, Kaighns, both very common names from the early days. Kaighn Avenue is named after the the Kaighns. This was a Cooper house; it was Joseph Cooper who built it, Marmaduke Cooper who added on the addition. These are long time names of Camden.
As far as the history and the museum, do you have records, do assist with or do any tours?
Normally the museum and the historic house are open for tours. We have individuals coming to tour, we have people interested in architecture, and we have school groups come tour. I don’t do as much with that, but we do have researchers come in to research local history not just genealogy. So they might want to know about historic houses in Camden, or they might want to know about the history about a racetrack or the history of a restaurant. Even things like information on the race riots of the 1970s. So I’ll assist them with that kind of information.
Here in the library we have also have documents, published books, pamphlets, other manuscript archival material that would be useful for people researching any kind of topic.
Yesterday we had someone looking up World War II ration books, another thing we have here in our WWII files.
Your files encompass all of Camden County, but being in Camden you must have a lot on the city itself.
We have Camden City items but we also have items from the rest of the county
Because of the population concentration we probably have an equal amount of Camden City items, and the rest of the county items.
We have an aisle of Camden County manuscripts, and an aisle of Camden City manuscripts, the fact that those are fairly even in content gives you an idea.
I saw on your website about the Underground Railroad and its relevance in south Jersey program.
So that is our educational program we take as a suitcase program to schools, and that is a particular program.
This was not an Underground Railroad site; this was actually a slavery site. Marmaduke Cooper owned slaves. We talk quite a bit about that in the story of Pomona hall as well as in the museum.
We are actually working on turning the caretakers house into an African American exhibit.
How is your storage facility for the library?
Besides what you see here and all these shelves, underneath this is where the main storage area is and under Pomona hall.
We also, of course, have a large collection of objects.
We have changing exhibits. Were putting up a temporary exhibit.
The main library area. Camden County Historical Society, October 13, 2017. (Photo/Christoph Smith)
Once the construction is done, you said later this year right?
Yeah, hopefully. Objects get switched out, for example posters are actually in the object collection.
We had a temporary World War I exhibit this spring, so items pertaining to WWI including posters, gas masks, and canteens were on exhibit for that.
How long have you been with the historical society?
I have been here 2 years. About 4 years ago we had a water leak and everything was kind of closed down. About 2 years ago, when I started here, everything kind of got re-opened at that same time because things were halted.
It wasn’t like a full collection was lost, it was more along the lines of the physical building had to be refurbished.
Is there any one thing you enjoy the most?
I love helping people research.
Another thing I’ve been doing is putting out a couple magazines a year and reinstating the newsletter, I also manage the membership and send out the mailings and the E-mails. I like being able to publish articles and get them out to people.
So, the newsletter is more recent?
Well the newsletter had been started in the 1950’s, actually I think it might date much earlier than that. With the chaos in the last couple years and earlier than that it had fallen off, it had been a while. I was just re-starting it. It was one of those things where were all getting a fresh start and get things rolling again.
Is the newsletter a subscription based program?
The news letter is just for members. Its just 4-8 pages of what’s new in the library and a feature article.
The other thing I’ve been working with is the Camden County History Alliance, pulling together all the historical organizations in the county to work together. That’s another one of my big pet projects.
With the Camden County History Alliance, we’ve been putting out the magazine. The magazine is different, we print out 10,000 of them and we distribute them for free throughout the county to everyone, more of a general public kind of thing. It’s paid for by ads.
Each [article] is submitted by one of the organizations. So that spreads it around the area and allows each organization to contribute.
I’m working on the third edition right now. This is the first edition on schools, the second edition on military. And each organization, like Indian King Tavern, will have them out on their bench when people first come in to pick up.
Magazines Vol. 1, Number 1 and Number 2 (Photo/Christoph Smith)
What is the third edition on? Is it a secret?
No, not a secret at all. Its on transportation in Camden County. So covering stage coach roots, and trains, and balloons, and airplanes.
Thats another of my big projects, other than helping researchers.
I would say on a typical day maybe 3 researchers, heavier days 4-6 which we’ve had a lot of recently. Very heavy days, 12 or something like that. It can get pretty crazy sometimes.
Is there any one moment that you were researching that stuck out to you?
It’s always exciting when someone comes in to research some bit of genealogy and they find exactly what they’ve been looking for all along. Thats always exciting.
They have all the time to dramatize it and set it up. At the same time I have had experiences that are just as serendipitous and unexpected just naturally so.
This summer I went to Maine on a genealogy road trip for myself. While I was there, in the span of only 30 hours, I found the family land, I found their graves in the cemetery. I broke through what we call a brick wall, in other words a mystery that had never been able to be solved, someone was able to solve it for me. It was not at all what I expected and completely destroyed my theories. I found a cousin. I even found the family homestead for another branch of the family, still standing. I walked around it and found pile of old books that had been left behind there. Which I opened them up and one belonged to my great great grandmother, it had her name in it.
Did you steal it?
Yes, I did in fact. Then another cousin called and said “Take them, take them, they were supposed to thrown out years ago”, so I was fine.
It was absolutely an incredible experience.
But I see things happen similarly here all the time. It’s just incredible. Things you never could plan.
From the revolution to revolutionary, the Indian King Tavern has been standing for over two hundred and fifty years. The site was originally built as three story building with a shop on the first floor and living quarters on the upper levels. The tavern also features an in-house kitchen, which the Gazette in 1773 really raved about as a selling point. The cellar, however is not open to the public, but is separated in to five sections and even runs under the sidewalk with vaulted ceilings parallel to the highway.
The state acquired the tavern in 1903, and it became the first state owned historical site.
The museum houses everything from original furnishings and pieces of similar time periods as well as reproduction pieces. The bar (above) is a reproduction piece made from the pews of a local presbyterian church. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirits.
Move over Chateau Shereé…
Hugh Creighton, who ran a small tavern down the street, bought this Tavern in 1777. Creighton then just transferred his sign from the small tavern down the street to his new location and forever dubbing it the Indian King Tavern. Moving on up for sure but keeping it on brand.
Assembly Room Desk, taken by Christoph SmithAssembly Room, taken by Christoph Smith
The Indian King Tavern really was the best place to be and basically 1776 Haddonfield’s version of Les Deux of The Hills infamy. The second level features a large assembly room which held some huge meetings. The Great Seal of New Jersey was finalized and paid for in this room. The vote for the State Constitution to change the word ‘colony’ to the word ‘state’ also took place in this room.
Timothy Matlack Jr, taken by Christoph Smith
Timothy Matlack Jr was born across the street from the tavern, and after leaving Haddonfield, and moving to Philadelphia his family became neighbors with the Franklins. Yes, those Franklins. Full on Real Housewives of revolutionary Philadelphia. This is a sitcom that needs to be pitched to a network right now because “Young Ben” would last at least four seasons. Matlack Jr will then go on to become a clerk for the Second Continental Conference under Franklin. Once working for the conference, Matlack Jr penned the Declaration of Independence which would be the copy used and signed and a few hundred years later hunted down by Nicolas Cage. The tavern then became the first place in which the Declaration of Independence would be read aloud in the meeting’s minutes. This was a request of John Hancock, who was in Baltimore at the time.
But more importantly I learned what a ratchet table is and I’m ready for it to make its big comeback. The table has an adjustable stand to raise for when your candle started to melt in order to keep the light at your level. Talk about style and function. Also like we should totally add “that’s such a ratchet table” into our vernacular…
Ratchet Table, taken by Christoph Smith
Some notable lore, Dolley Madison would frequent the Indian King Tavern. This would be before she married James Madison and became the First Lady. As the Indian King Tavern’s information pamphlet states, “[Dolley] did not dance, but she allegedly enjoyed watching the many dances that took place on the second floor.”
I also got pretty obsessed with the replica beds on the second floor which were called press beds and were basically antique murphy beds. The mattress was filled with straw and not hay, because hay would attract bugs. The mattress was then laid on interlocked ropes, which would stretch and have to be tightened over time.
Goodnight,
Sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite.
Women Sitting Outside of the Indian King Tavern, taken by Christoph Smith
Historic Reality 
