Lawnside, NJ
N 39° 52.014 W 075° 02.052
18S E 497075 N 4412985
Lawnside is a Borough in Camden County, NJ, United States. As of the US 2000 Census, the population was 2,692. The land that became Lawnside was purchased by Abolitionists for freed and escaped slaves, as well as other African Americans in 1840.
Waymark Code: WM4ENQ
Location: New Jersey, United States
Date Posted: 08/13/2008
Views: 24
"Lawnside, 50.5 (90 alt., 1,379 pop.) is the only Negro-owned and Negro-governed borough in New Jersey and one of the few such towns in the United States. It was founded during antislavery agitation of a century ago. Purchased for Negroes in 1840, the tract was sold on long-term payments and appropriately named Free Haven. The place grew between 1850 and 1860 when neighboring Quakers were operating the New Jersey division of the Underground Railway. After the Emancipation Proclamation more Negroes arrived from Snow Hill, MD., and the community became known as Snow Hill. When the Philadelphia and Reading R.R. built a station, the town was renamed Lawnside.
Since incorporation in 1926, Lawnside has had Negro officials exclusively, from mayor to dog catcher. Its 155 white residents have left the town management exclusively in the hands of their 1,224 Negro neighbors. Stores are mostly owned and operated by Negroes, but two chain groceries employ Negroes clerks under white managers.
Although these conditions have existed nearly 100 years, intermarriage between the two races is rare, and there is surprisingly small number of Mulattos. Some of the dwellings are attractive in appearance, but modern comforts are lacking in most of them. Kerosene lamps and stoves are commonly used. There is a volunteer fire department and a police department with seven members who receive no salary and buy their own uniforms.
Heavily in debt, the borough holds tax title liens on 75 per cent of all properties. Foreclosures have not been executed because the municipal government cannot afford the expense. At one time 75 per cent of the town's population was aided by the ERA. Many homes are shacks, unfit for habitation. Most of the men are laborers and the women domestic servants when the depression arrived, and almost the entire community found itself without work. Under the WPA the men have been employed in road building and the women in sewing.
The people are still able to support three beauty-culture parlors, licensed by the State, and there are many used cars in service. The town attracts Negro picnic parties from nearby sates to its recreation center, Lawnside Park. Negro students and research workers have been drawn to lawnside from all parts of the Nation. Tourists stop for chicken dinners at the local inn.
The highway enters a district of suburban homes northwest of Lawnside."
--- New Jersey, a Guide to Its Present and Past: Page 600, 1939
From
Wikipedia:
"On April 20, 1926, an "Official Special Election" was held in the Borough of Lawnside. Just one month earlier, on March 24, 1926, Governor of New Jersey A. Harry Moore signed into law New Jersey General Assembly Bill 561, dissolving Centre Township, of which Lawnside was a part, and incorporating the Borough of Lawnside, which also included portions of the borough of Barrington. With its first election, Lawnside became the first independent self-governing African American community north of the Mason-Dixon line. Lawnside is home to a massive United Parcel Service depot."