ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF HISTORY
OF
The Old Malaga Road

BY WILSON J. PURVIS
ROSENHAYN, NEW JERSEY

Introductory

My object in writing these memories, traditions and stories of the old line of human activity is to preserve the foot prints of those who have gone and to foster a love of history. It is a notable incident in this connection that but two persons are now living who passed over this highway when I first knew it in 1854, sixty-six years ago. They are Miss Anna B. Mayhew, wife of the famous old stage driver of that name, and Mrs. Hughes of Millville.

From Mrs. Mayhew now living at Cape May at the ripe old age of ninety who yearly visits her neice Mrs. Victoria H. Purvis at my home I have obtained some of the facts herein presented.

It is a sad thought that not one of the many families whose names will appear in this sketch are now living, and were you to follow the line of this old road from Port Elizabeth to Malaga, you can find no one to tell you its history, all are gone and the highway once alive with their coming and going, know them no more and their secrets are well kept.

The story of this old thoroughfare and the memory of the sturdy people who in life followed its wanderings leaving their footprints here and there, and who in death were reverently borne over it on their last journey will be recorded in the pages of this Magazine!

Wilson J. Purvis.

In the survey for a road from Millville to Malaga the old Indian trail which ran near the river was not followed as in its course six or seven stream were crossed at their widest point.

To avoid this and take advantage of the high ground and the gravel found in the soil, which makes a natural roadway as well as for more room the present route was chosen.

The Red Men and the early white settlers found very good crossings on the Beaver dams along the streams, but as population and travel increased and ox-teams came into use the old trails were abandoned.

Between Millville and "Mollago" Mills, the name from which Malaga is derived, where a road crossed, there stood a two story house on a hill about one and a half miles from Millville.

This house is said to date back to the Revolution and became a place of much importance as it is near Union Mills one of the largest Mills in this section. Several streams united at this spot and a dam across gave it not only a mill site but a mill pond to float logs to the saws which at that day were of the up and down kind.

It was at this house that one of the first Methodist Episcopal classes was formed, and from this grew other classes at Woodruffs and Parvins' Mill in the fall of 1798. It was at this place that Francis Asbury the famous Methodist preacher held a meeting. From these beginnings have arisen a succession of Methodist classes in Cumberland County.

This high house with its stables was a relay house where horses for the stage were changed until it was superceded by the Doughty house.

From the old house, whose builder is unknown, to the glasstown of Malaga is about ten miles and when I first saw the road in 1854 it was still the broad highway of a mighty traffic.

In the fall of that year I went with my father by stage to locate a store on the recommendation of Richard Wood and I have a very clear recollection of the long line of log and lumber teams that filled the road, sometimes a dozen of them together, with the drivers on the big logs cracking their whips and calling to their horses and oxen, a sight long to be remembered by a boy of eight or nine years. In the road were three tracks which accommodated the travel going and coming, right and left, while the middle was by common consent left for horse back riders, the stage and light gigs.

The sides of the road were used by the many pedestrains, for the people walked in those days, and there was much shouting, laughing and chaffing among the travellers. I remember the long log watering place at the Coney house, a big forty foot oak log hollowed out so that a whole team could draw up for water without losing their place in line. On market days when the farmers took their produce to the public market on South and Market Streets in Philadelphia the road presented a most lively sight, for then the farmers wives and daughters accompanied them and were constantly greeting one another. In those days every one seemed to be acquainted and it was like an Irish company going to a county fair such as we read about, a repetition of England and Ireland in Jersey.

Richard Wood in his talk with my father while going from Woodbury to Millville, said he had seen hundreds of people coming and going in a day's walk and at least a hundred teams.

After 1812 Philadelphia became the market for charcoal and lumber and while all the cord wood went by vessel from Millville and Bridgeton, charcoal and cedar boards found their way over Malaga Road which was part of the road from Gloucester to Cape May, one of the longest roads in the State as maybe seen by consulting an old map.

Along this road from Millville to Malaga there was living from 1854 to 1864 about sixty families of the original stock, not counting the new settlers on the Vineland tract. From Millville to Port Elizabeth were about half that number. This does not include the charcoal burners and lumber men in whose shanties could be found large families of children. In our present calculation, while the number of families between Millville and Malaga is double, there is only one third of the children.

An interesting feature of these old times is the remedial value of the smoke and gases from burning charcoal in lung and throat troubles, which was then so well understood that sick people so afflicted were frequently seen inhaling the fumes.

The names of the people living along the old road I still remember at least in part. Commencing at or near the high house on the Millville line, were the Higby's, D. P. Cawman, Sawyer, Wallace, Brandriff, Loper, Hays, Thomas', Riddle and five families of Garrisons. Where Parvin's branch crossed the road were a number of families of whom some of the men working at Union Mills.

In the school house and church in which school was held, N. Henry Stevens, father of the present Mayor of Vineland taught after Vineland was started. Along the road in the Garrison neighborhood were fifteen houses in 1863. Stephen Garrison was a local preacher and a M. E. Class leader with Ackley, Cawman and Wolford. He was the father of Rev. S. 0. Garrison who established the Feeble Minded Home in Vineland.

Early Vineland settlers located on or near this road, the Sigafoo's on whose farm was found the fine quartz glass sand which led to its being called "Acres of diamonds," the Cornell, Steels, Clapps and others who came after the romance of the olden time was passed. Of these Vineland pioneers Albert Arnold is the only one at present living along the old road.

Near where Oak Hill Cemetery now is were several families who farmed small patches of land and worked in Millville. After crossing the Little Robin Stream lived a widow of a Revolutionary soldier who devoted her time to knitting blue yarn socks and giving spring water to the stage passengers and logging team drivers.

Further on, crossing the brook that flows from the Black bird spring on Col. Pierson's land you come to the Coney Tavern and road house, which has a history all its own. Mr. Coney had a large family of children and grandchildren. Up over the hill to the fields adjoining the Black Water were in 1864, the two Martin Luther boys. Across the road was R. A. Williams, the wood engraver, with a family of six or seven children - and a young man named O'Neal. South of the Williams' house was the Yoders, one young man with long locks of hair being known as the man of only "one square meal a day." This young man was considered a crank and four of us young fellows decided to crank him up, so we .took him up to Burnt Mills to wash and scrub him, but when we put him in the Mill pond he pulled us all in with him and we all had a bath. Passing on we come to John Cawman's family, six men and women and seven children. John Cawman was a singer at the Methodist Class Meeting. The saw mill was run by the Garton boys and a gang of men. A store did a lively business when I first saw it in 1864. Others in this locality were James Loder, wife and seven children; widow Brown and two children; William Ackley and son John, now well known in all South Jersey as an auctioneer, his sister Lizzie and a brother Frank; the Yager family; Wm. Doughtey, whose wife was Mary Cawman, daughter of John and Esther. With the Doughteys were several laboring men, one of whom was August Lutz who forty years ago became one of the pioneers of Rosenhayn. With the Cawmans lived Nathan Creamer who lost an arm at Gettysburg. Across from the Martin Luther place, corner of Wheat Road, was the Hanchett family with seven children, then Elder Hubbard, Deacon Powers, John S. Dodge and William E. Raymond, the father of Mary H. Raymond.

Crossing the Black Water we see the dairy farm of the Gilletts who had a big double deck barn so that they could drive in to the second story and drop a two horse load of corn into a big stone silo. Beyond Gillett's was Capt. Harris' brickyard with a gang of men making brick; then came the Ackley School and Chapel, the one that was moved down to the site of the present brick school house across from E. A. Neff s place, then comes the Burnt Mill property and beyond the Hartman's, and Scott's.

Other residents were Bennet Richman, grandfather of Gilbert and K. Richman of Malaga Mills; Samuel Woolford, across from the school house, who was a preacher. He had a Cooper's shop in which his two sons worked; then at the village at the cross roads were John Nichols, John Kandle, one of Vineland's early collectors; G. A. Matthews, A. Leonard, J. Doughtey, L. Garrison, A. Shull, Stewart and some others. Passing the Camp Meeting ground and the stream beyond we are in what was at that time one of the most important glassfactory towns in this section, Millville and Glassboro excepted. Here in this closely built up community the glass industry was under the control of the Rosenbaum family, giving employment to one or two hundred men. Beyond this point the road passed through Franklinville, Clayton and Glassboro to Gloucester on the Delaware River.

(TO BE CONTINUED)

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