Marshalltown is an
unincorporated community
An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
located within
Mannington Township, in
Salem County, New Jersey
Salem County is the westernmost county in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Its western boundary is formed by the Delaware River, and it has the eastern terminus of the Delaware Memorial Bridge, which connects the county with New Castle, Delaw ...
.
[ It has also been known as Frogtown.
The community is centered at Marshalltown Road and Roosevelt Avenue, located southeast of Glenside and east-southeast of Pennsville.N 39.6375 W 75.453333]
ACME Mapper. Accessed January 1, 2015.
History
Located near the
Salem River
The Salem River is a tributary of the Delaware River in southwestern New Jersey in the United States.
The course and watershed of the Salem River are entirely within Salem County. Tributaries of the Salem include Game Creek, Mannington Cr ...
, Marshalltown was one of five pre-Civil War communities developed along tributaries of the
Delaware River
The Delaware River is a major river in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States and is the longest free-flowing (undammed) river in the Eastern United States. From the meeting of its branches in Hancock, New York, the river flows for a ...
by
freedmen
A freedman or freedwoman is a person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, slaves were freed by manumission (granted freedom by their owners), emancipation (granted freedom as part of a larger group), or self- ...
.
It is named after Thomas Marshall (1803–1856), who purchased land here starting in 1834.
Before the abolition of slavery, these black-populated communities offered protection and aid to
fugitive slaves, and "the likelihood that there was antebellum Underground Railroad activity is high".
The settlement once contained many houses and gardens, a school, stores, and two churches. Mount Zion
A.U.M.P. Church
The African Union Methodist Protestant Church (AUMPC), abbreviated as A.U.M.P. Church, is a Methodist denomination. It was chartered by Peter Spencer (1782–1843) in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1813 as the "Union Church of Africans", where it beca ...
in Marshalltown is one of the earliest African Methodist churches.
By 2010, only a school house, a church, and two cemeteries survived, and "isolation, theft, vandalism, and lack of historic preservation planning threaten the surviving cultural landscape of Marshalltown".
Historic district
The Marshalltown Historic District is a
historic district
A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains historic building, older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal p ...
encompassing the community. It was added to the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
on July 17, 2013, for its significance in architecture, ethnic heritage - Black, community development, landscape architecture, religion, and social history from 1834 to 1951. The district includes 7
contributing buildings
In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic dist ...
and 33
contributing sites.
[ With accompanying 78 photos]
See also
*
References
{{NRHP in Salem County, New Jersey
Mannington Township, New Jersey
Populated places in New Jersey established by African Americans
Unincorporated communities in Salem County, New Jersey
Unincorporated communities in New Jersey
African-American history of New Jersey
A.U.M.P. Church