There are a lot of interesting “facts” about South Jersey that many people who live and work in our region don’t know. Some are marginal. Some are remarkable. But most are really pretty interesting.
   1.  For example, did you know that:
        Haddonfield, founded by Elizabeth Haddon founded Haddonfield in 1701, is the only colonial New Jersey town to be settled directly by a woman.
  2.  The blood of Abraham Lincoln is on file at the Camden County Historical Society?
  3.  Barnegat Inlet was supposed to be spelled “Barendegat,” but an English cartographer’s misspelled the Dutch word, which meant “inlet with breakers”?
  4.  The world’s first boardwalk was built in 1870 in Atlantic City?
  5.  According to “legend, the Jersey Devil was born near a swamp along the Mullica River?
  6.  The world’s first drive-in theater was built in 1933 on Admiral Wilson Boulevard in Pennsauken?
  7.  When it first opened in 1922, the White Horse Pike (Route 30) was the longest concrete-paved highway in the world?
  8.  “Legend has it” that Elk Township was named after the local roads, which were said to follow the paths taken by indigenous elk?
  9.  Europeans called American Indian chiefs “Indian Kings” (thus the name of Haddonfield’s famous Indian King Tavern—where New Jersey was transformed from a “colony” to a “state” in 1777?
  10.  The tiny borough of Westville (formerly known as “Buck Tavern”) is named for Quaker landowner and Philadelphia emigre Thomas West, whose 1746 home still stands as a private residence…although it has been altered many times. West owned a shad fishery along Big Timber Creek?

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SJ Facts are compiled by Haddonfield marketing executive Michael Willmann. You can reach Mike at WMSH Marketing Communications at 856-616-2886 or at
michaelwillmann@wmsh.com