Albertson Memorial Drinking Fountain

Albertson Memorial Drinking Fountain. . , The Albertson Memorial Drinking Fountain first stood at this intersection in 1903 when it was erected by John J. Albertson in memory of his father, Chalkey Albertson (pronounced “Awl-bert-son). Practicing Quakers, the Albertsons were descended from William “Alberson” (d. 1709), a Dutch immigrant who settled in Newton Township (now in Magnolia) in 1682. Chalkley Albertson served in the State Assembly in 1863, 1864, 1867, and 1873. He helped to establish and incorporate the White Horse Turnpike Company, and introduced a bill in the State Assembly to incorporate the Camden and Philadelphia Bridge Company. He helped initiate the Philadelphia and Atlantic Railroad, and was one of the commissioners who arranged for the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. His son John Jarrett Albertson (1858-1928) served as the Camden County Engineer from 1892-1928, and was the Borough Engineer for Haddon Heights, Audubon, Barrington, Magnolia, Oaklyn, and Collingswood. , The six-ton Barre granite memorial was installed as a public drinking fountain/water trough for horses, the primary source of transportation at the time. It was located here (but closer to the road), at the intersection of Kings Highway and the White Horse Pike, between Camden and the stagecoach stop at the White Horse Tavern in present-day Stratford. The tavern served as the namesake for the White Horse Turnpike when the toll road was laid out in 1806. Kings Highway was laid out in 1760 as a straightened version of the 1686 “Great Road from Burlington to Salem.” After automobiles came into use, the White Horse Pike became the first paved concrete road in New Jersey in 1922, and was the “longest stretch of hard surface in the world.” In 1928 John Jarrett Albertson bequeathed the property to the Borough of Haddon Heights. After travel by horses declined, there was no need for the fountain and it was moved in 1938 to a local park and Eighth and High Streets. In 2003 CVS returned the fountain here, to its original location, as a permanent monument to Haddon Heights rich social history.