As I was exploring Southern New Jersey, I happened upon a layout in an old cemetery that indicated that Civil War veterans were buried there. A flag pole, a cannon, and the distinct military tombstones, rounded on top, that former service members could be buried under. The Old Broad Street Presbyterian Church is at 54 West Avenue in Bridgeton, New Jersey. The Civil War graves are at where West Avenue and West Broad Street intersect.
When you drive up to the site, it looks like it comes from two centuries ago. The church was built in 1792 by the local Presbyterians and the congregation moved out in the 1830s. The Presbyterians have maintained the old church very well, but they have not put any additions on it and there is no air conditioning, central heating, or even water there. The cemetery still continues to accept the dead, and many go back to the days of the Revolution and the Civil War. This was the first church built in Bridgetown.
The site is free to visit, but the church is only open on special occasions.
Bridgetown is the county seat of Cumberland County, which before the Civil War saw considerable disharmony. For a small town, it had active Know Nothing, Democratic, and Whig factions. By 1855, many of the Whigs and some of the Know Nothings met together to discuss their opposition to slavery. They convened at the county courthouse in Bridgeton and decided to set up the Cumberland County Republican Party. The following year they agreed on a public declaration that “the monster, slavery, has ever been stealthily coiling it slimy folds around the dearest institutions of our country.” The declaration condemned for “corrupting” the Federal government and said that it led to the beating down of Senator Charles Sumner. It also highlighted the abrogation of the Missouri Compromise and the introduction of violence by slaveowners in Kansas. The resolution said that it was “the duty of every good citizen to resist by all just means the further extension of slavery.” The people of Cumberland indicted the “slave oligarchy” and Stephen Douglas for being behind these outrages.
The Democrats did not take the Republicans lightly. They said that the Republicans endorsed giving Blacks the right to vote, and their leader called the Republican ideologue a “negro worshipper.” They called the Republicans “wooly heads,” an allusion to the hair of African Americans.
While the Republicans ran candidates and backed Fremont in 1856, it was the next year in local election that they elected their first office holders when two Republicans were elected to the state assembly from Cumberland County.
By 1858, the Know Nothings were dissolving and many of their adherents joined the Republicans. After a meeting at the Bridgeton County Courthouse the two parties backed John T. Nixon for Congress and he won.
The Republicans were also aroused because an escaped slave, Robert Halford, was being sheltered in South Jersey and was arrested by officers of the law. Many of the Republicans were outraged that the Fugitive Slave Act was being enforced in Jersey. A meeting in 1860 issued this statement: “we consider the capture of a fugitive slave, Robert Halford, in our vicinity, as an outrage upon our neighborhood…” The people said that they blamed the slaveowners, the Federal officeholders, and local law enforcement for the “outrage.” They said that the “County jail was erected for the confinement of the guilty and not the innocent.”
In September of 1860, the Republicans met again at the county courthouse in Bridgeton where they were joined by the “Wide-Awakes.” Young men dressed in quasi-military uniforms. The Bridgeton men wore red caps and red capes. They called themselves the Wide-Awakes because they did not want to resemble the Democrats who had their eyes shut to slavery, said a local source. The Republicans formed a parade and made their way through town, with Democrats yelling at them, calling them “nigger lovers” and “wooly heads.” The Republicans won the county.
In April of 1861, Fort Sumter was fired on. A recruiting station was opened on April 23 in Bridgeton. On that first day, 101 men enlisted. This group was called the Cumberland Greys. They fought at the first Bull Run and stayed until Lee’s surrender. The Grays left for the seat of war on May 27, 1861.
The cannon is in the center of a large number of Union tombstones. I could not find where this cannon was from. It is carefully restored but has no marks saying where it was made.
In 1862, 120 women organized the Soldiers Relief Association to send supplies down to their men in the hospital. Throughout 1862, several companies were raised for the army.
Bridgeton had 6,830 people in 1870. It was settled by the English in the 17th Century, but it grew in the early 19th Century. In 1814 the settlers established an iron works. In March 1, 1865 the town became a city. During Reconstruction it became one of the most prosperous cities in Jersey.
Many men joined the 3rd, 12th, and 24th regiments.
While the church was not used anymore, burials still took place here. Most of the dead died between 1890 and 1930.
Typically this sort of arrangement of Union graves would have been carried out by the Grand Army of the Republic, the largest Union veterans organization, but I could not find out who had created this Union burial plot.
Cumberland County had a fairly large number of Blacks living there. According to the history of this era, “On the 28th day of June, 1863, the first colored volunteers arrived in Bridgeton…They numbered 29 stout, healthy young men…A large number of colored men from Cumberland County enlisted in United States regiments later on in the war.
The church as it looks today. I have seen photos of the church during the Civil War and it looks almost the same today. Of course, services were not held here during the Civil War.
There is an explanatory sign out side the building.
Note: All color photos in this post were taken by Patrick Young except as noted.
Sources:
Historic Days in Cumberland County, New Jersey 1855-1865 Political and Wartime Reminiscences by Isaac Nichols (1907)
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