Haddonfield - A Quaker Village Engulfed by War

Haddonfield - A Quaker Village Engulfed by War. . , Haddonfield , Haddonfield served as northwestern Gloucester County's market town. The town stood where the region's main highways crossed, roads bringing travelers to its three taverns and customers to its shops and craftsmen., The chatter of buyers and sellers in the market house and the noise of blacksmiths’ hammers, wheelwrights’ and coopers’ mallets, and the paddles of tanners filled the town on the eve of the Revolution. , On its northern edge, Cooper’s Creek turned the wheels of grain, saw, and fulling mills. , War Comes to the Pacifist Town , Most of the residents held membership in the Religious Society of Friends, a sect of determined pacifists. Their convictions did not shelter them from war., Haddonfield served as the normal rendezvous for the South Jersey militia, and during the British occupation of Philadelphia, from September 1777 until April 5, 1778, American troops garrisoned the town., Enemy forces occupied Haddonfield October 21, 1777 and late February 1778. British light infantry raided the town April 5, 1778, as did Loyalist soldiers on May 9., June 18-20, an army of 21,000 persons inundated Haddonfield as the British marched from Philadelphia to New York. Soldiers robbed houses, gardens, hen houses, and barns, while thousands of horses devoured crops., Militia units passed through Haddonfield into 1783., A Diverse Soldiery , Haddonfield residents endured visits by English Welsh, Scots, Irish, German, and Loyalist enemy soldiers. The men of the rebel militias and Continental units were largely of European descent, but the men serving in the 2nd New Jersey regiment included two Native Americans and one man of mixed race. , When the 1st and 2nd Rhode Island regiments marched through Haddonfield enroute to Fort Mercer, they attracted notice. About 60 of their men were of African American and Native American ancestry., [Captions:] , In March 1778, a Scots officer estimated that the town contained forty families. John Hills, A Sketch of Haddonfield, West Jersey County, March 1778 William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Four Continental Army soldiers sketched by a French lieutenant in 1781. Left to right, a private, 1st Rhode Island Regiment, an infantry man, a frontier rifleman, and an artillery gunner. Anne S.K.Brown, Brown University Library