Delaware Street Historic District
The Delaware Street Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. Portions of the content on this web page were adapted from a copy of the original nomination document for the Woodbury Multiple Resource Area. [1]
Historic District [1]
The Delaware Street Historic District is largely residential, its period of greatest development being between 1850 and 1900. Delaware Street once ran through the three miles of marsh and pasture land to the west of Woodbury City, between Woodbury and Red Bank. One of Delaware Street's intersecting streets, Jackson Street, was put through by 1854, at which time only nineteen residences had been established in the area between Jackson and Broad Streets. A Hicksite Friends School was established on the site of what is presently 122 Delaware Street after Elias Hicks preached in the Woodbury area about 1829. His preaching caused a split between Orthodox and Hicksite sects of the Quaker congregation. Despite the separation of the schools, Woodbury's two Quaker sects were amiable enough to share the same meetinghouse for over a century.
During Woodbury's years of economic prosperity resulting from G.G. Green's patent medicine industry between 1870 and 1900, many Victorian houses were built along Delaware Street. In 1892, the Woodbury Improvement Company owned most of the undeveloped farm land south and west of Delaware and Horace Streets. It had been laid out with proposed roads and lots to be developed over the next thirty years. During this time, the north side of Delaware Street was also one farm, owned by the Twells family and known as Briar Hill Farm. A boatyard in this area, at the foot of Wood Street, was operated by the Twells family and a row of frame housing was built for the predominantly black farm laborers along the west side of Wood Street. G.G. Green also had a wharf in that area.
The four major housing tracts that developed were known as the Twells, Bell, Manley, and Schallioll tracts. A newspaper article in the Gloucester County Democrat on July 29, 1909 suggested the benefits of development of the western section of the city since it afforded "opportunity for development unhampered by old improvements." Cutler's Promotional Catalogue, from 1913, advertised house and lot combinations in this western section at values between $5,700, and $8,400. Newspapers heralded the new and modern conveniences offered with these new tract houses, such as wide streets, sewers, fireplaces, interior decoration and finish. The early 1920's continued the development trend in Woodbury as private contractors bought up the remaining farm land. The suburban shift from farmland to neighborhood development was one of the final uses of open space in the City of Woodbury and along Delaware Street.
- Woodbury Multiple Resource Area: Partial Inventory of Historical and Architectural Resources, nomination document, 1988, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, Washington, D.C.
Nearby Neighborhoods
Street Names
Delaware Street • Route 640
