Places and miscellany
Henry C. Beck on the old Tuckerton Road
Paraphrased route and place digest
Beck followed the former stage route south from above Marlton through Christopher’s Mill, Flyat, Oriental/Naylor’s Corner, Hampton Gate, and the ruins of Hampton Furnace.
Northern end and Christopher’s Mill
Beck located the old road at the second sharp turn above Marlton, where the paved route bends left toward Medford but an unmarked lane continues ahead. Pine Grove Union Church stood at the junction; he said it was remodeled in 1875, retained a Lincoln-Lee Legion temperance pledge, and had about 30 worshippers. Two facing farms followed. One, held for generations by the Wilkins family, occupied an Indigenous settlement site and contained pegged, hand-hewn framing.
Across the road, Jacob B. Braddock identified his property as Christopher’s Mill. He said John Hueling bought it from Indigenous owners, an 1875 survey divided about 300 acres, John Christopher and Amos Wilkins married Hueling daughters, and Braddock later married into the family. His roughly 90-acre house had served stage passengers while horses were changed. The sawmill stood upstream on a run behind the farm; boards still projected near its sluice and a cranberry storage house.
Flyat to Hampton Furnace
The route narrowed between drainage ditches and crossed bridges toward Piper’s Corner, where roads branched toward Atsion, Medford, Indian Mills, and Small’s. At Flyat, longtime McAndrews company president William Mackin remembered a former cluster and hotel, though only a pasture rise, filled cellar, brick, cedars, and a possible mounting stone remained. Beck could not explain the name.
At Oriental, resident Harvey Wells called the intersection Naylor’s Corner and described its stage stop. Hampton Gate, near the Vineland Hunting Club, was so reduced that residents disagreed about its boundaries. Turning toward Batsto brought Beck through cranberry bogs to Hampton Furnace. David Kell, overseer for the Wilkerson and Ryder bogs, pointed out the smelting site, vanished workers’ houses, buttonwood landmark, clear furnace stream, stonework, burned bridge timbers, and an old furnace hammer embedded in earth. Kell recalled one remaining house when cranberry operations began. Beck reported that he rarely traveled beyond nearby Atsion or Indian Mills and had not visited Camden in 16 years.
Source
Henry C. Beck, “The Tuckerton Road: Towns Along Old Stage Run Have Disappeared,” tenth and final article in a newspaper series on forgotten South Jersey towns. The source collection does not preserve masthead, date, or page. A photo caption identifies Braddock, Kell, Marlton Pike, Hampton Furnace, and the Mullica River; unrelated court and traffic columns are omitted.