Announcement Date: November 21, 2015

After the beginning of the second half of the nineteenth century, many events affected the daily lives of Pre-Barrington and South Jersey residents. Some of these events were the creation of Centre Township, free public education, government aid to farmers and stimulation of agricultural education. The population exploded in the Philadelphia and Camden area, due to the industrialization of these communities. Railroads were built between Philadelphia and Atlantic City and this helped spur real estate development in South Jersey. Better transportation provided opportunities for closer participation in county government by local individuals.

Within the new Camden County the pattern of population suggested another local government change, and accordingly, Centre Township was created in 1855. It was composed of farmlands in and around villages known at that time as Snow Hill (Lawnside), Greenland (Magnolia) and Mt. Ephraim. Officers of the township government were, naturally enough, local farmers, merchants or professional men from the farms and villages. The creation of that government gave Pre-Barrington farmers, township officials and neighbors of such officials a political identity. It enabled them to express the interest of the farm community in such questions as local roads, tax assessments and schools.

The elementary school system in New Jersey made substantial advances after 1868. In 1874 assistance was given to smaller townships in rural areas to build schoolhouses and many were constructed between 1868 and 1872. About fifty elementary schools accommodated pupils in Camden County and outside the city of Camden by the end of the century. School for the Pre-Barrington area was the Mt. Ephraim School, constructed in 1825. A school was built in 1853 at Irish Hill in present Runnemede and was occupied until 1891 when a new structure was erected. In 1855 a public school was built in Greenland, an area which is now Magnolia, at White Horse Pike and Davis Road.

Railroad investors and real estate promoters entered into an undertaking that seemed hazardous at the time. They built the Camden and Atlantic Railroad in 1854 which ran through Haddonfield and Long-a-Coming (Berlin) to the ocean. Their expectation was the development of a seashore resort, which would attract thousands of business executives and workers, mainly from the Philadelphia area and that both railroad and real estate promoters would profit. A competing line, the Philadelphia and Atlantic City Railway, passing through Pre-Barrington (the railroad station was called Dentdale), was completed in 1877. The name of the line was changed in 1883 to the Philadelphia and Atlantic City Railroad and was controlled by the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company. Barrington residents called it the Reading Railroad and Reading Avenue went directly to the station. As the railroad tracks were being laid, and even before, farm lands along the Philadelphia and Atlantic City railway were bought up by investors who saw bright prospects in laying out towns and selling lots mainly to people from Philadelphia who wanted to get away from the crowded city and move “to the country.” Competition for the purchase of farmlands brought about increases in the value of those lands. Investors and land speculators evidently believed the building of towns was good business. As a result of those activities, small residential communities sprang up in the 1880s and 1890s along the railroad.

Shortly after 1880, residents could tell their friends they lived in Barrington. In 1880, Burr Haines acquired a large tract of land on Clements Bridge Road and sold part of it to a syndicate. The name “Burrwood” was proposed for the sold portion. William Simpson, however, a member of the syndicate impressed with the beauty of Great Barrington, his former home in Massachusetts, won over his colleagues, naming the tract “Barrington.” In the first few years of development lots on Clements Bridge Road and on Barrington, Second, Reading, Kingston, Austin, Albany and Haines Avenues were sold. About a dozen houses were built on them by the end of the century. The name of Barrington was applied not only to the lands developed for residences but also to those farmlands that extended farther west to what became Bellmawr and Runnemede and to the south which became Lawnside and Magnolia. The whole area was part of and governed by Centre Township. By the end of the nineteenth century, probably a hundred people lived on the farmlands and eighty people in “town.”

Clyde Clark might have thought how much better off he was than his ancestor, William Clark, whose household luxuries consisted of little more than a thermometer and a pendulum clock. Modern farmers could use disc cultivators, Portland cement and could fence in their property with barbed wire. They could write with a fountain pen, could shave with safety razors and wear celluloid collars to church. They could shop in retail stores in nearby towns or at department stores in Philadelphia for factory-made men’s suits and women’s coats. They could telephone from Haddonfield. They could order articles from Sears & Roebuck by mall and pick up the articles, when they arrived, at the post office in Mt. Ephraim. Sewing machines, carpet sweepers and cream separators were in use and Mason jars were available for preserving fresh fruits and vegetables for winter. Clyde Clark’s family took pictures with a camera and listened to the talking machine in the parlor. He surely was thankful for such a high living standard and wondered what further advances could possibly be in store for future generations.