The Bordentown Historical Society has received a county grant in efforts to restore and display an 1856 Thomas Hurley map of Bordentown City.
The Burlington County Commissioners approved the distribution of $19,150 in local history grants to three organizations preserving and promoting the county’s history and historic sites, according to a press release through Burlington County.
Also receiving grants were the Westampton-based National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the State of New Jersey and the Pemberton Township Historical Society.
The three awards are in addition to the $58,711 in funding awarded to nine Burlington County organizations during the first round of grants announced earlier this year.
The grants are made possible by the New Jersey Historical Commission’s County History Partnership Program to assist existing and emerging local history organizations and other nonprofits. Funding can be used for a variety of purposes, including general operations, development of museum exhibits and support for specific history projects.
The Bordentown Historical Society will receive $6,510 for their restoration efforts. Although its total area is less than one square mile, the small city of Bordentown holds a significant place in the cultural and commercial history of New Jersey, according to the Delaware River Heritage Trail.
Located between Trenton and Philadelphia on a bluff overlooking a bend in the Delaware River, Bordentown has long been a transportation hub. In 1831-32, Bordentown became the southern terminus of the first section of the Camden and Amboy Railroad, the third railroad built in the United States. The opening of the 44-mile Delaware and Raritan (D&R) Canal in 1834 made it possible to ship heavy freight by water between Philadelphia and New York. Bordentown served as the southern terminus for canal boats traveling to and from the Raritan River and New Brunswick. The D&R became one of the busiest canals in the country.
Today, the Bordentown station is on the light rail River Line connecting Trenton and Camden.
The National Society of Colonial Dames will receive $2,640 to support publication of an updated brochure booklet series on Henry Burr and his heirs, who owned the Peachfield estate in Westampton for more than 200 years before bequeathing it to the New Jersey society, the life of John Skene, a Scottish Quaker who founded the Peachfield estate, and Old Schoolhouse in Mount Holly, which was built in 1759 and believed to be the oldest surviving one-room schoolhouse in New Jersey.
The Pemberton Township Historic Trust will receive $10,000 to assist the organization with the preservation and archiving of materials, including hiring a part-time archivist. The grant will also support the preservation of an 1851 survey map of Jonathan R. Smith’s plantation in the Birmingham section of Pemberton Township.
