The History of Elsmere: African American Life in Glassboro, New Jersey

By Robert P. Tucker

Communities in the United States are chapters in the great story of this country. And while many of these chapters are well known in our history, there are a great many that need their stories to be told by the people who lived there.

 

In The History of Elsmere: African American Life in Glassboro, New Jersey, author Robert P. Tucker describes middle-class life in a small, semirural South Jersey minority neighborhood, offering a history that spans over three centuries. From the clearing of land for farming to the building of segregated schools and housing developments just twenty miles southeast of Philadelphia, Tucker chronicles the history of the neighborhood as only a lifelong resident could. He also speaks to the harrowing experiences of escaping the Ku Klux Klan and living through the poverty of the Depression, sharing the story of minority life in the community.

 

The history of this small community is an important part of the story of America, and the experiences of the men, women, and children who lived in Elsmere can come together to reflect the spirit of a time and a place. Much of Elsmere has changed, but the memories now live on and can teach us about where we came from—and where we are going.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Jan 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781480865020

Robert P. Tucker

Robert P. Tucker is the preeminent African American historian of Glassboro, New Jersey. A retired educator, he taught chemistry and served in the guidance department of Glassboro High School before his appointment as superintendent of Lawnside Public Schools. Since retirement, Tucker has spent more than twenty-five years researching and writing about the history of Elsmere, Glassboro’s oldest African American community.

Book preview

Copyright © 2018, 2019 Robert P. Tucker.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Archway Publishing

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.archwaypublishing.com

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-4808-6501-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-6503-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-6502-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018949856

Archway Publishing rev. date: 01/21/2019

Contents

Preface

Chapter One In the Beginning

Chapter Two Building a Community

Chapter Three Elsmere School

Chapter Four The Railroad

Chapter Five The Ku Klux Klan in Elsmere

Chapter Six: The Great Depression

Chapter Seven Social Life in Elsmere

Chapter Eight A Supportive Community

Epilogue

References

Interviews

Acknowledgements

Preface

This book has been in the making for more than twenty-five years. It has been an effort of deep and abiding love. At least seventy-five personal interviews were conducted in the writing of this book. Research was exhaustively checked and rechecked against those interviews and with personal recollections. Why write a book requiring so much time and energy about what some would consider an insignificant green ghetto or slumburbia in southern New Jersey? The answer is quite simple — my love for this community, the history, the cultural blending, the flora and fauna, and most of all my youthful memories.

After living in Baltimore for six years as a child, I found that my longing for the days of unlocked doors and pets running loose in Elsmere had not diminished, nor had my need to recognize both the edible and the poisonous plants along the rural roadside, nor the ability to pick medicinal herbs like cow mind as needed from any neighbor’s yard.

Baltimore was indeed a cultural mecca when compared to my neighborhood in Glassboro. Wafting in from the Royal Theatre, we would hear the sounds of Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Billie Holliday, and other performers. There was indoor plumbing, paved roads, and electricity. Yet, this mecca could not compare with my beloved Elsmere even though it was lacking many of these urban advantages.

You learn to love and respect those with whom you share so much of life. My respect for my neighbors has grown exponentially as I know now that they were survivors — some building their own homes, some growing their own food and canning it for the winter, some slaughtering their own meats, and one even growing her own tobacco. Yes, finding a way to make a way.

With so many others in positions of power who see no reason to maintain this community, perhaps these personal stories may live beyond the wrecking ball. I have included voter registration lists and obituaries in separate documents to give names to these neighbors and to build pride among the descendants of the Elsmere survivors.

1ElsmereMap1.jpg

1856 Railway Map of Elsmere, N.J., and Environs showing railway rights-of-way.

History and Genealogy of Elsmere

CHAPTER ONE

In the Beginning

To say that the Indians were the first to live on the Elsmere acres may not be completely correct. The archaeological evidence shows that before the Lenape Nation left the Mississippi River and moved to what they called the land of the rising sun or, as we call it, the East Coast, others had inhabited this area of South Jersey. The early 1600s Swedish settlers in Salem County tell of finding evidence of earlier settlements. While digging wells along the Raccoon Creek, they unearthed fired clay brick and clay vessels along with straw and seashells as deep as thirty feet below the surface. Archaeologists know of no Indians on the eastern seaboard who fired the clay brick. Where did these artifacts come from? One view is that they were brought here by people living on the west coast of Africa or even as far away as Egypt. African pottery or the remnants thereof have also been found along the Atlantic Coast in the areas of North and South Carolina. Could the Nubians have sailed here? Why not? In 1970 in the shadow of the great pyramids, Thor Heyerdahl constructed a boat of reeds and sailed it to Barbados. From 1982 to 1984, South Jersey’s own Marvin Creamer sailed around the world without the aid of instruments. Pushed along by the prevailing winds or using dead reckoning, someone from somewhere was here before the Dutch, Swedes, or Indians.

The early Dutch, Swedish, and English settlers have left us a very good record of the people that they fought, enslaved, and eventually forced out of old Gloucester County. These native people called themselves men of men, or Lenni Lenape. The first Europeans entered the Delaware Bay in 1610. But it was not until 1653 that Peter Martinson Lindstrom recorded what he saw along the river. The people, he said, had long, coarse black hair. They lived in bark-covered houses. While they planted crops, they preferred to hunt for their food. As a youngster walking through the woods in Elsmere, I often wondered whether Indians had lived in these woods. Did they hunt where I stand? Did they walk through here? Later, as an adult, I found a stone axe head in a plowed field. George Harris Sr. showed me a number of stone tools or at least stones that could have been tools that he found in Elsmere, not too far from a shallow stream in a field that had been farmed for a number of years. On the south side of Ellis Street, Dr. Lewis DeEugenio has found a number of Indian stone axes and arrowheads, all within a short distance of Elsmere. The last discovery really brought me to the conclusion that if native peoples had not lived in Elsmere, they at least had hunted here.

2indianTool.jpg

Stone axe head found on Honeymoon Lane.

Photo by Robert Tucker.

On April 22, 1995, I found a second axe head in my flower garden. The soil in this garden was taken from what would have been a hedgerow along Honeymoon Lane. Before 1951, the field was farmed by the family of Troy Howell that lived on the corner of Kentucky Avenue and Honeymoon Lane. Like most other farmers, the Howells left a narrow slip between the field and the road which was called a hedgerow. In 1969, I took soil from this hedgerow and made a small, elevated flowerbed in my yard. This axe head had been there for at least thirty-four years, only to be discovered after I started research for this book.

3TheHowells.jpg

Mr. Troy Howell and children (l to r) Jesse, William, Helen, and Lula. Mrs. Howell is partially obscured at rear.

Photo courtesy Jesse Howell.

So, did Indians live in Elsmere? We know that they had camped in what is today Glassboro. There may not be enough evidence to establish permanent residence, but there is evidence to show that they did hunt or gather food here. In his journals, local historian Frank Stewart gives a detailed description of their food, living habits, and travels. The Yacomenshacking and Unalachtigos lived in small groups made up of 50 to 125 men plus women and children. They built their villages along rivers, streams, and springs usually near swamps and lowland areas. Their homes were made of saplings tied together at the top with cross braces along the sides, the whole thing covered by tree bark. They clothed themselves with robes made from the pelts of deer, elk, or puma. The topography of Elsmere is ideal for a hunting village. It is made up of a series of shallow depressions holding water year round or drying up only during the hottest weather.

These areas were also rich in plants used by the Indians as food: Jack in the pulpit (Arisaema Triphyllum) and Calamus, God knows there was a lot of it (Acorus Calamus). If it were not for Calamus, I don’t believe my acid sensitive stomach would have survived my adolescent years. My mother had learned from my grandfather that calamus is good for an upset stomach. She pointed it out to me and told me to chew the root whenever I felt the need. During the summer of 1949, I soon learned that nearly every Elsmere house had some calamus growing in the yard from Georgia Avenue to New Jersey Avenue. Solomon’s seal — Polygonatum biflorum — was another native plant harvested by the Indians who dug it up and buried the root under the floor of their wigwams. During the winter, they would uncover the root and use it as food. They gathered huckleberries, blackberries, and raspberries while they were in season. All of the above were plentiful in the Elsmere of my youth. I have a vivid memory of Miss Sara Bennet, after working all day for one of the nearby farmers, going out in early evening and picking wild berries in large enough quantities to feed herself all winter. I still have some of her canned fruit that I believe was put up around 1955 or ’56. Other evidence that leads me to believe that Indians lived or hunted in Elsmere is the quantity of Lenape arrow heads that have been found on the south side of Lincoln Boulevard, not too far from Langley’s corner.

As stated earlier, I found two stone axe heads in the area where I live. In Hurffville a few miles north of Elsmere, a dugout canoe was found, and in Fries Mill a few miles to the southeast we know there was a large village. Evidence has been found to support the view that there were large Indian villages at the mouth of the Mullica River and another along the river’s edge. It follows that the Yacomenshackings would have walked upstream to the headwaters of Still Run in Elsmere to hunt and fish. Moreover, the woods in Elsmere are rich with hickory, persimmon, and oak trees, all of which are sources of food. They would have gathered and stored fruit and nuts for food during the winter.

The staple of the Lenni Lenape was maize corn, however. The low ridges or high ground in Elsmere could have been cleared for corn, squash, and pumpkins to be planted. The natives would plant clearings and grow crops until the soil was exhausted then move on to clear a new field. To me, clearing a new field seems like a major task, but the Indians had been doing it for centuries. They developed a method that was quite simple. I watched my neighbor, Mr. George Bell, as he burned down an oak tree that was about 30 inches around. It took three weeks with a small fire going all day and most of the night. To clear a large field using this method would have taken months. While this method may have been employed to fell the large trees that were used to make dugout canoes, to clear a field for planting was done much more efficiently. In the fall, the men would simply skin the bark off the trees, thus killing them and allowing the sun to shine through the dead branches.

CHAPTER TWO

Building a Community

4DrawingOfNeighborood.jpg