Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2003

1. The COUNTY BUILDINGS, Main St. between Garden and Union Sts., are grouped as a unit with the large COURTHOUSE, erected 1796, in the center and the smaller SURROGATE'S OFFICE and ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, built 1807, on either side. The courthouse in particular is an outstanding example of Georgian Colonial design adapted to a public building. It is a two-story, yellow brick structure, with white trim, green shutters, and a well-proportioned tower. The entrance is lighted by a Colonial lantern; over the great oak door is the coat of arms of New Jersey in granite, and a graceful fanlight. The surrogate's office and the administration building are both one-story structures of brick, painted yellow, with green shutters and white trim.

2. FRIENDS MEETING HOUSE (not open to public), 77 Main St., is a red brick building of severely plain design, with white trim and a slate roof, erected 1775 and enlarged in 1850. The enlargement accurately follows the simplicity of the original style so that the new portion of the rectangular box is indistinguishable from the old. Two large sycamores and a growth of ivy soften the exterior. Within, the old benches show marks left by the butcher knives of the British commissary department at the time when enemy troops were quartered in the town.

3. The BRAINERD SCHOOL (private), 35 Brainerd St., is a small, one-story brick building, brightly painted in yellow with solid shutters of green and white trim. Crowded between adjoining houses, the school is built flush with the red brick sidewalk and shaded by a large maple. In this building, erected 1759, the Rev. John Brainerd taught in 1767. From the nearby church the missionary made such fiery denunciations of British rule that the Hessians burned the structure before evacuating the town in 1778.

4. The STEPHEN GIRARD HOUSE (private), 211 Mill St., is a twostory, gray clapboard structure with heavy green shutters. Additions, making up about two-thirds of the house, largely spoil the charm of the original two-room structure, which is marked by a wide end chimney. Girard, remembered for the fortune that helped to finance the War of 1812 and that established Girard College, a Philadelphia school for orphan boys, came to Mount Holly in 1777 from Philadelphia. He brought with him his young bride of a few months, Mary Lum, daughter of a ship's carpenter. In the basement of this house he opened a shop for tobacco, tea, rum, sugar, molasses and raisins. "He is said then to have been a little, unnoticed man, save that the beauty of his wife ... worried and alienated his mind." Girard returned in 1778 to Philadelphia, where he entered foreign trade with a fleet of vessels named after his favorite philosophers and accumulated the fortune that made him a power in banking. It was the wife, not the financier, who ultimately died as a hospitalized mental case.

5. The MILL STREET HOTEL (open), 67 Mill St., is the last remnant of the Three Tun Tavern of Colonial times. A "tun" was a hogshead or measure for liquor, and a tavern was known as a one-tun, two-tun 'or three-tun inn depending on its size. Erected 1720, it is one of the oldest buildings in Mount Holly. The original brick walls, revealed in places through a crumbling coat of stucco, were incorporated in the present structure which, altered many times, is still used as a hotel. A covered cobblestone driveway leads to the rear where stagecoaches once stopped in the carriage yard.

6. The JOHN WOOLMAN MEMORIAL BUILDING (open daily except Tues., March-Oct.), 99 Branch St., was built in 1771 by the noted Quaker as a home for his daughter. Maintained as a tearoom by a memorial association, and attracting hundreds of pilgrims from the United States and abroad, the small red brick house of two stories with a white clapboard addition recaptures with startling realism the atmosphere of Colonial days. Beyond the white pick et fence lies a fragment of old America, complete with narrow brick walk, well with sweep, formal garden edged with boxwood, sundial and old trees. Indoors the smell of decades of wood fires permeates the house. From the hand-hewn beams of the low ceilings sage and gourds hang drying. A great corner fireplace has a blackened kettle hanging from the crane. Behind the dwelling is a small frame guest house, with limited overnight accommodations.

   Born near Rancocas in 1720, John Woolman settled in Mount Holly at 20 "to tend a shop and keep the books" for a shopkeeper and tailor. He later became a successful merchant but gave up merchandising and confined himself to his tailoring trade because "Truth required me to live more free from outward cumbers." Woolman was also a conveyancer, but he refused to draw a will or write a bill of sale in which a slave was involved. He traveled extensively among wealthy slaveholding Quakers to urge the liberation of their slaves, and he was instrumental in awakening the Society of Friends to the evils of slavery. During a religious mission to England in 1772, he died at York.

   Woolman is known today chiefly for the spiritual and literary beauty of his journal, the second book selected by Dr. Charles W. Eliot for the Harvard Classics, and pronounced by Henry Crabb Robinson "a perfect gem!" Of Woolman, the English critic and diarist said: "His is a schone Seele, a beautiful soul." In the world of religious thought, appreciation for Woolman has grown steadily. His religion was one of love for God and for his fellow men of all races and creeds. "To turn all the treasures we possess into channels of universal love," he wrote in his Journal, "becomes the business of our lives."

7. The RELIEF FIRE COMPANY HOUSE, 15 Pine St., is the headquarters of what is perhaps the oldest active volunteer company in the United States. The original company was organized July 9, 1752, as the Britannia ; in 1787 the name was changed to Mount Holly Fire Company. In 1805 the firemen adopted the present name of their organization. The company has the original articles of agreement and a number of old leather buckets bearing the name "Britannia" and the date 1752. Behind the firehouse stands the original engine shelter, a small one-room building of hand-sawed boards, the inside blackened with age and the exterior painted a brilliant green.

8. MOUNT HOLLY PARK, N. end High St., surrounds MOUNT HOLLY (good path to summit), a distinctive bump in the low terrain. Barber and Howe observed almost a century ago that the hill was "said to be the highest land in the southern portion of New Jersey. From its summit an uninterrupted prospect is had, in every direction-where no Alps o'er Alps arise." Many other parts of southern New Jersey, however, have elevations exceeding that of Mount Holly.

   On December 23, 1776, Count von Donop and a large force of Hessians engaged in an artillery duel here, directing their fire against some 500 American troops under Colonel Griffin on Iron Works Hill, S. Pine Street. Griffin lured the Hessian force from Bordentown to cut off support for Colonel Rall's garrison at nearby Trenton, which was overwhelmed by Washington's surprise attack 3 days later. On the flatlands immediately to the west of the Mount stands the old grandstand of the Mount Holly race track, its huge ornate structure reminiscent of the pre-war decade when this race track figured importantly in turf events of central New Jersey. The race track has not been used in recent years except for occasional motor races.

Mount Laurel State Park, 11.3 m., ruins of Hanover Furnace, 15.7 m. (see Tour 26).

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