den's Maple Shade History Website

Learning the history of the township of Maple Shade, N.J.



1922- 2022
100th Anniversary


Maple Shade Historical Society

den's Town Write up-

Maple Shade history
Chester Township
Researching

Good Books-

Cowboy Mission, Tiver farm
Emma Brooks' childrens book
Phil Flanders Moorestown books
Dennis Weaver's history books
They have been printing light printing a lot. If you get a light printed book ask for a replacement.
Den's Books as free PDFs
I really recommend people buy the Schoolhouse book from Lulu or at a Schoolhouse Open House.

John Flack's Evesham book

Corrections to Dennis' books
Corrections to Arcadia book

Maple Shade Historians:

Matlack Family Historians
Asa Matlack Notes
Den's History Talks

Maple Shade Nostalgia:

Maple Shade Police Dept.
Maple Shade Fire Dept.
Maple Shade School names
Custard Stand lot
Oldest Church Building in MS
Arthur Tippett, Christ Free Church
Arthur Tippett, Hustling Parson
Loux Theatre
The 1930s- The Depression
Jaycees Carnival

Township Historical Sites:

The Maple Shade Train Station
The Collins Lane House
Chesterford School
Old Burl. County District Schools

Pioneer Families:

Pioneers Lands page
Roberts Memorial book
Chalkley Matlack talks Ben Stiles Family
Thorne Family and Perry Frisby
Roberts-Lippincott-Mason farmhouse

From Farmland to Suburb:

Alden Park- Tiver farm
Maplewood Apartments Land
Maple Shade Village- a German Town
Maple Shade Timeline 1900-1950
Thomas Barlow and Barlow & Co.
Barlow & Co. Advertisements
Margaret Brown Subdivision

Stores and Business:

MS Stores Over The Years
Maple Shade Brickyards
Parade of Business
Olt family
Snyder Amusement Co.
Coat Factory- Municipal Bldg.
Barlow Mansion Over Years
Villa Capri Fire
Maple Shade Gambling Casino

Links to Other Websites-

den's OneDrive cloud
densdoor YouTube videos
Picture Puzzle Pages!
den's Bindery pages
den's Microscope Adventures
Maple Shade on Flicker
Air Victory Museum
Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields
Burlington County Historical Society
Evesham Township Nostalgia
Griffith Morgan House
Phil's Camden, NJ Website
DrivingJersey.com
Maple Shade Alumni
Moorestown Historical Society
N.J. State Archives
Prison Museum (Mt. Holly)
West Jersey History Project
Old Bench Marks
Talk and early actions of Public State Aid paid roads. (The Moorestown and Camden Turnpike was purchased by the County in 1907 due to Trolleys.)
Travels and Events of
Nathan Perkins Book

Search the NJ Mirror

Maps-

Old NJ Maps- Rutgers
Villanova Library 1877 Atlas
1847 map with Maple Shade area
1853 map with Maple Shade area
1877 map with Maple Shade area (But can get whole map image from Villanova College site)
Some Sanborn Insurance maps in color. Has Maple Shade 1923
Here is just MS Sanborn- MS 1923 Sanborn maps

Other Historical Projects-

Moorestown- Out In The Country
Back To The Country
200th Anniversary of a 21st Birthday

(pdf books and movie slideshow)

Moorestown Related pages-

Moorestown Our Neighbor
Mill Street houses
Old House Shed Additions
Lenola
Rogers/Collins Dev. Moorestown
More For Phil (Moorestown Tidbits)
Moorestown Separates in 1922
Moorestown Pre Separation Elections
The Hooton or Hooten Page

Other Items-

Williamsburg section Edgewater Park, NJ
Horace Roberts PDF EXTRACT files
Nathan Perkins Vs. Turnpike Co.

Welcome!


Brickyard Page fixed-

I have been going over the Maple Shade Brickyards page. Much of it was from around 2005 so there was facts to fix, links to repair or eliminate etc. Making a better version in PDF form and most likely a book which will be about the brickyards or have a full chapter on them.
-Dennis


Open Houses-

The Little Red Schoolhouse (on West Main Street near Coles Avenue) will be open on December 7 and December 21 from 1-4 pm. This is the first and third Saturdays of the month. If raining or snowing then it will be cancelled.


Join the Maple Shade Historical Society-

Membership form for 2025


Arcadia book on Maple Shade partially corrected-

I asked to correct the book's incorrect captions. They said I could only correct 10 captions so I said please do these 12. It should take months probably before the various sellers sell out the already printed editions (even Arcadia still has a stack waiting for vendors) Here are my 12 selected caption corrections which they said they made for upcoming newly printed copies.

-Dennis Weaver,
President of the Maple Shade Historical Society,
November 22, 2024




Detail from a J.D. Scott's 1876 Burlington County Atlas, colorized- Princeton University- Burlington County, NJ maps)




From a book written in 1877-
The History of New Jersey From Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time ยท Volume 1

Benjamin Stiles moved from the Old Place of the Stiles which was at the end of Stiles Avenue, then a lane to the house, to the corner of what would soon be in 1850 the "Moorestown and Camden Turnpike" and Fellowship Road. Across the road from his farm was one of the two tollgate houses. The other on what is now Federal Street in Camden.

He had a blacksmith shop and house on the property which went through several owners until Christian Frech bought it in 1871. There were other Stiles family farms in the area as well. When the railroad purchased the land at Forklanding Road in 1869 the station was named Stiles Station. The hamlet started to be called just that or "Stiles."

The railroad company renamed the station "Maple Shade" in 1874.

Charles Shuster began the development of Maple Shade with the "Shuster Tract" in 1887 dividing into lots the old Benjamin Stiles (then son Benjamin J. Stiles) farm which went out to the train station, exempting out the lots of the tollgate house and Christian Frech's and Johnathan Winter's land. (Houses between Spruce and S. Maple Avenues on Main Street plus bank land on other side of Spruce.)

Soon other German people, primarily related to Christian Frech's wife Louisa Fahr, came to live on lots.

Now we are in the Village of Maple Shade time...


New Book is out now!

This book is about the Little Red Schoolhouse and the beginning of the Maple Shade Historical Society.

To order go to the Lulu link on the sidebar. (Dennis Weaver's history books)

Source information for the book can be seen and downloaded from den's OneDrive cloud space

Schoolhouse articles

Schoolhouse chain of title


Maple Shade in the 30s and 40s movie-

That is what we have been calling the movies ran by the Maple Shade Cable Company in probably the 1980s and it is one of the most watched videos at my Youtube channel. It looks like it is really "Maple Shade in 1941."

1941 newspaper articles

At a March or month's prior 1997 Women's Club Meeting, Joe Johnson of the Maple Shade Fire Dept. presented pictures and a film entitled "Maple Shade As It Was." Hmm. wonder if he was showing the same movie.


Main Street and Forklanding Road, guessing late 30s to 40s

Main and Forklanding

Thanks George Conley for the image.


Stores in 1933-



From the Courier Post newspaper, Sept. 6, 1933
Thanks George Conley for the image.


Liquor Licenses in 1938-



From the Evening Courier (Camden) newspaper, July 2, 1938
Thanks George Conley for the image.












Maple Shade Traffic Circle-

Here is about all I have. If anyone has anything to add- email den.-
Maple Shade Circle at my OneDrive cloud

For my pictures at my Microsoft OneDrive cloud best to go to upper right corner and click thingy lines between "Sort" and "Details" and choose "Tiles" view instead of "List" which only gives a bunch of names.


When Maple Shade's Fire Department was No. 2-

1918 Fire Dept. Bond

Update- I changed the text file concerning the size of the vault to 6 by 6 instead of 8 x 8.

The Police and Fire Departments began in the village of Maple Shade in Chester Township then including the villages of Moorestown and Lenola.

The first Maple Shade Municipal Building, (now Fontana's) built in 1927, contained them and the new government. A few committeemen had already been on the old Chester Township committee which met in the old town hall in Moorestown.

The land for the old municipal building was prior owned by the Maple Shade Fire Department to build a new fire station. It would happen in 1927 but with the Police and government offices.


Maple Shade Historical Society photos-

MSHS Related Photos

Go back a link to "Public" and download the whole folder. (Can right click on folder and choose Download) Less than a GB !

Update- I updated the ReadMe.text file to say not everything is strictly to do with the Maple Shade Historical Society but I included a few historical places which were recently demolished as well.

-Dennis Weaver



"Yesterday, December 7, 1941- a date which will live in infamy- the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan."

WW2 touched many a local family, including my Uncle Buddy who served in the Navy.

I came across this about my old neighbors. I think they have his father's name incorrect. It was Stanley. Putting this up for Eddie Woyonski-



Larger image- Woyonski_July_12_1945.jpg


Schoolgirl Samplers-

Sampler images at den's OneDrive cloud


Maple Shade in October 1908-

Article from the Moorestown Republican newspaper October 21, 1908

Senator Robbins visits Maple Shade. (Headline cut off of scan) Eugene Hill was on the Chester Twp. committee which was mostly of Moorestown people and met in Moorestown. The old Moorestown and Camden Turnpike was discontinued in 1907 when bought by the County.


My bike rides observations of East Main Street-

I saw a old photo of the Roberts monument on its 1/8 acre lot with level ground with grass surrounded by a wrought iron fence.

The South side of Main Street down to about Givnish Funeral Home is higher that the north side of Main Street so originally there was a slope there where Main Street is cut out of the side of the hill.

Everyone knows the gun club is up on a hill and the Roberts monument is up on a hill, but look they're at the same height as the VFW.

The parking lot for Givnish Funeral Home has been somewhat flattened out compared to when the American Legion was on that corner with its uphill yard with two cannons on it.

Let's look at the area where the Roberts family bought a 1/8 acre lot across from the brickyard house on John Mason's farm. The brickhouse is like 2 feet below street grade on the north side of Main Street.

I don't bike up the hill into Maple Shade from Moorestown. It was hard when I was a kid but at least then I could make it. That was referred to as "brickyard hill" for a while in the past. I saw at least one newspaper article where they said pranksters greased the trolley tracks up brickyard hill and then the trolley slipped and couldn't make it up the hill.

Now picture the land was grooved out in the side of the hill when they put Main Street in. (The Market road was laid out as a straight line from Moore's Town to Cooper's Ferry in 1794.) We do not know all of the geometry of the land due to the brickyard which owned the land on both sides of Main Street which it bought from Joseph Walton (Cabinet maker) who's brother-in-law Thomas Lippincott (A Roberts) was a brickmaker. The brickyard had to have removed much clay from the land then the highway did more. But the top of the ridge looks closer to Main Street perhaps than from the top of it all on South Pine Street where the old farmhouse of the Roberts was.

It was a ridge so John Mason's farm on a 1877 Hopkins map is called "Pleasant Ridge Farm."

-Den


Here is quoted from Asa Matlack Sr.'s notes on Colestown-




Summer Cottages-

To get out of the cities part of the year many people had summer cottages. Most of Maple Shade's Barlow Built Bungalows were mostly built in 1922, 1923, and some in the following few years. I do not know how many were used as summer cottages. I would imagine there was a time during the One Acre farm years there were many "shacks" first used before a bungalow was built.

Summer cottages were anything from a shack to a mansion. I couldn't find it last time I looked but I remember seeing in a Camden newspaper that Alexander Mecray was staying at his summer house in Maple Shade. My one grandmother was from "money." (They didn't do the dishes. The help did them. They had a car when hardly anyone else did. etc.) I saw an old photo of her as a kid on the porch of a bungalow in Pennsauken. I said Grandmom I thought you said you were rich. That bungalow looks like mine. She said I didn't understand. That was her Aunt's summer cottage house who lived in Philadelphia. I have a few photos from my other grandparents of a house they built in Cinnaminson in the early 1920s which sat on a few cinder blocks at each corner and clearly had many building issues which would not pass inspection today!

I saw a few mentions of summer cottages in Maple Shade in newspapers. I did oral history of the east Moorestown area and the Miller family would come in the summers and had a shack with bunk beds and would drink beer and the kids soda and they would stake out the area where their "dream house" would be built.

Another topic- There is also Camden's industry which helped early Maple Shade's population to be addressed.


New Jersey State Board of Education Reports from the 1800s-

Some selected passages at den's OneDrive

We learn many things from these school reports. We learn that the front small room at the Little Red Schoolhouse was a coat room. (Then called a cloak room)

Coat rooms, no out houses and ventilation were several issues in the 1800s.

Another "conclusion" people would have is debunked. It has in the roots truth but when we see blacks attending school with whites in the late 1800s photos one would "conclude" that this was due to many Quakers in the area and also several teachers known to be Quakers so that is the reason. Wrong. It was the law. When the school was in the Township of Chester tax district after 1894 Moorestown was also in Chester Twp. and had a "Colored School."

It was considered honorable for a town to have a colored school and even Quakers thought so. That law was actually brought up later many years later in a court case which ended segregation. one source

Also in records is the people in each school's tax district starting in 1871 after the Free School law (Public School system). I got the 1873 list from the 1873 Chester Township Tax Assessor's book which years ago was at Moorestown Library. When I was at NJ State Archives in Trenton I read the list of the books they have on microfilm and that was one of the few books they were missing and I told them it was at Moorestown Library and the lady didn't look happy at all with that.


Mark K. Lewis at Phil's Camden website

A plaque for an addition to the school that was on North Poplar Ave. has in the center- Mark K. Lewis.

I already knew of this name due to many of one lot of the first year of the Maple Shade Progress said Mark K. Lewis on them in hand writing. The other half had copies with Theodore Sauselein written on them. There was even mentions of Mark K. Lewis in a copy or two. But this must be for the father- The newspapers are from 1916 and 1917.

They have been published in "The Progress of Maple Shade" book.

It's the son who was killed.


Early Barlow & Co.-

This letterhead or billhead paper is in an old MS Fire Company Treasurer's book. This is the early Barlow & Co. pre Barlow Building and Barlow Built Bungalows. Most all of the tracts listed are not owned by the Barlow family.-
Barlow/BarlowCoEarly.jpg

600 DPI version- Early Barlow & Co. Letterhead


Historical News-

Historical Society member Mike Geden (who is also in the VFW) had his old dog tags from the Air Force returned to him. Someone found them at the beach with a metal detector and mailed them to him.


Two Subdivision Extensions-

When you are on Frederick or Thomas Ave. and at the point where they curve at an angle toward Center Ave., you are entering the "Orchards Extension." When you are on South Forklanding Rd. between Crawford Ave. and Mill Rd. you are on what was referred to as "New Forklanding Road" and Crawford "Old Forklanding Road" as Crawford Avenue was S. Forklanding Road on the Shuster Tract until the plan of the "Shuster Extension."




South Fellowship Road, Maple Shade from a Chalkley Matlack note book.


New pages-

Pioneers Lands page
Maplewood Apartments Land

I Had to re-do some of my Perry Frisby page (top write up)
Cause originally done in 2008.
I could trace title chains but didn't have right focus in the page. Something like that.
Thorne Family and Perry Frisby

-den


I was looking at West Jersey History Project and downloaded the Clement re-drawn old surveys and found this and extracted the PDF page- Reuben Burrough land in 1828

Rose Ave. is where the "Old Moorestown Road" is which was the road from Schoolhouse Lane at Kings Highway to Cooper's Ferry referred as the old Market Road. The map shows the Chesterford Schoolhouse on the "New Moorestown Road." The grist mill at the end of "Rose Ave" although the Alden Park segment is probably curved a little. It shows Joseph Burrough's old saw mill near the creek that crosses Church Rd near the school. It shows the Custard Stand lot once the tollgate house lot was originally Burrough's land but Charles Coles sold it to the Stiles family who owned the Levi Lippincott and high school land. This happened after a road would go through as to clean up the boundaries, and not have a small portion of one person's land on the other side of a road. It shows Thorne land owned by Perry Frisby a colored farmer and Asa R. Lippincott- a Thorne descendant. This is a redrawn survey with update notes done by John Clement.

As Jackie Gleason would say, "How sweeeeeeet it is!"

Here is another John Clement survey drawing of the Samuel/ Enoch Roberts land. The Public Road is Mill Road and right where it meets the creek near Rt. 38 was the Roberts' saw mill. Nearby was Leconey's grist mill.- Roberts land

That is about the two best pages which pertain to the Maple Shade area. Both are in Book 4. There is a few more Burrough land pages (also in Book 4). Clement's surveys are mostly all Camden County. Well he does have a few Burlington County ones in the Pines area I believe.




From Moorestown Historical Society's Facebook site. The current bridge is now being repaired.






The coat factory was the building rehabbed into the Maple Shade Municipal Building.


From the New Jersey Mirror newspaper, March 29, 1922-

A referendum election which has been called for April 25, at which time the voters of Moorestown, Lenola and Stanwick will decide whether they will secede from old Chester township and form "Moorestown township." If the voters decide in favor of secession, Maple Shade will be the only town left in Chester township. The legislature passed a law giving Moorestown, Lenola and Stanwick the right to call a referendum to decide on forming a new township.

The action of the legislature was greatly opposed by residents of Maple Shade, but they have not requested the right to participate in the impending election, because it appears that voters are somewhat divided on the proposed change. Thomas J.S. Barlow, one of the founders of Maple Shade, says that the town might have a hard struggle at first but must face the inevitable. The town is developing at a rapid pace. an evidence of which is the fact that more than 100 new houses will be erected in the town this year. Many persons feel certain that the town will become self-supporting quite rapidly.

From the Camden Post Telegram, Friday December 1, 1922-

Maple Shade-
Oscar Anderson, local contractor for Barlow and Company, Inc., has completed the erection of 74 houses here and has the contracts for 100 additional ones to be built in the spring.








First Maple Shade Police Headquarters


Burlington County old photos-

Courier Post photos

Really great photos Historical of area towns including Maple Shade.


Main Street Diner-

There was first a diner at the NW corner of Main St. and Forklanding Road as seen on a 1929 Sanborn map.
Then it appears to have been moved by 1944 and looks like the same diner in 1953 photos. There was another diner later on at the corner owned by George Madias.

Diner Pictures at OneDrive Cloud



Turkey Farms

There were two turkey farms in Maple Shade. One was on Orchard Ave. owned by John and Therese Martin. (Swiss French) Another was on Kings Highway owned by the Martinovich family.

Across the street from the Martin's turkey farm on Orchard Ave. was Rudy Zillincar's farm where he sold eggs. He was known as "the egg man." He left the eggs out and you took them and paid by the honor system.

The Evan Martinovich turkey farm was on Kings Highway just west of Lenola Rd. aprox. where the Iron Hill Restaurant is now.

Here are some newspaper articles on the Martinovich turkey farm-
den's OneDrive cloud





Burlington County Twps. Population for 1950, 1940, and 1930

Compare Maple Shade esp. to 1930 and see how early we turned mostly suburban! Be sure to think of the land area sizes of each of the Twps. as well!




  den's email addy is DenMSHistory@outlook.com