Browns Mills

By Marie F. Reynolds

Halfway between the bustling streets of Philadelphia and the serenity of the New Jersey Shore lies Browns Mills, New Jersey. Nestled within its rich pine trees and dark lakes is the legacy of those who sought nature’s healing properties, social status, and a summer refuge for more than two generations.
Their stories and faces make up the exciting collection in Browns Mills. Tales of those who came seeking natural spring waters to avoid le grippe became the foundation for the grand hotels that existed in the early nineteenth century. The annals of others in search of a lakefront lot as their own private hideaway create the framework for a modern town that remains dotted with quaint summer cottages.
Their stories, at last, are combined in Browns Mills to form a chronicle of life in this Pinelands community from 1820 through the 1970s.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Jul 28, 2000
• ISBN: 9781439610558

Marie F. Reynolds

In Browns Mills, author Marie F. Reynolds reveals layers of history through a compelling compilation of photographs spanning more than one hundred-fifty years. Shared from public and private scrapbooks, many of the images are rare and previously unpublished. Coupled with informative text culled from historic records and precious personal recollections, they provide a visual tribute to the community.

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indebted.

INTRODUCTION

I saw there an infinite quantity of swans, geese and fowl. There are barren grounds that have four kinds of grapes and many mulberries with ash, elms, and the tallest and greatest pines and pitch trees I have seen. In four and twenty hours, you may go by sea to New England or Virginia, and with a fair wind you may have cattle, or from the Indians two thousand barrels of corn at twelve pence a bushel. Neither do I conceive any great need of a fort or charge, where there is no enemy.

—Robert Evelin, writing to England in 1703

There is a unique constancy to Browns Mills that breeds familiarity. Whether one is a lifelong resident or a returning visitor, there is no doubt that a trip across the dam will bring the island into view. No matter how much development occurs, it is certain that a strong breeze will carry at least a faint scent of pine. It is faith in this sameness that has endeared so many to the town.

Historians have been unable to confirm Elizabeth Brown Scattergood’s assertion that the first boarding home in the United States existed here, but there is documentation that a hotel was in operation by at least 1820. Providing a perfect resting point from the city to the shore, Browns Mills soon earned some notoriety for its hospitality. An 1861 advertisement for the Browns Mills Boardinghouse promised visitors healing spring water, unparalleled fishing, and an atmosphere in which the utmost order and decorum would be preserved.

At its height as an exclusive and secluded resort, Browns Mills sometimes strained the social mores of the day, however. The most notorious scandal was the death of Col. James Fisk in a New York City hotel on January 6, 1872. Fisk was shot in a jealous rage by Edward Stokes, who was competing for the attention of Josephine Mansfield, a famous actress at the time. Fisk and Mansfield spent many vacations secluded in the hotels of Browns Mills.

Meanwhile, the Rancocas Creek spun the iron waterwheels at the sawmills and gristmills on the main road. Iron from the bogs was smelted at Hanover Furnace under the direction of ironmaster Clayton Earl as early as 1793, and the cannonballs produced went into service during the War of 1812. The water bubbling freely from cedar, chalybeate, swamp, and sulphur springs had not only been declared of the purest form by expert analysts, but had been found to contain medicinal properties. Free enterprise thrived for those with a good hack as the Delaware and Jobstown Rail or McAdamized Road Company pushed farther toward the shore.

The railroad’s extension was announced by the newspaper account of a procession of twelve stout draught horses attached to as many carts filled with spades from Mount Holly toward Pemberton. It brought hope that access to the resort town of Browns Mills would improve beyond the 11-hour trip up the Delaware River to the Rancocas Creek by boat and a stagecoach ride from Lumberton. All the while, hotel owners and potential developers settled in to build.

The Newell and Ridgeway Hotel of 1880 touted new furnishings and the addition of a park and an observatory. The dining room seated 300, and a private water tower helped to supply the hot and cold water available on all three floors. Board was $1.50 per day or $8 per week. The Forest Springs Hotel was five stories tall and hosted grand and elaborate balls. Some weekends, town residents would open their homes to hold the overflow of guests who could not bear to miss a Browns Mills social event.

Twenty years later, as the country braced for war and Camp Dix gates opened, the town was host to families seeking that one last weekend with their sons. I have seen in my own house all rooms filled to overflowing, wrote M. Warner Hargrove at the time, and a half dozen sleeping on the floor. At Pointville Church, they made beds on the pews, and many slept in automobiles.

Characteristically, when tuberculosis sent America’s afflicted into seclusion, Browns Mills responded by advertising sanatoriums designed to heal the disease with restful repose in the fresh pine air.