WALTER REEVE

and

Mount Holly, New Jersey

"The English colonists who arrived on the "Kent" settled Burlington in the autumn of 1677, but several years elapsed before any of the pioneers branched out into the surrounding wilderness. The distinction of being the first white settler in the vicinity of Mount Holly belongs to an Englishman who sailed up the Rancocas, Walter Reeve[s].

Summarizing many years of research shortly before his death H. C. Campion, of Swarthmore, Pa., wrote: ‘He (Walter Reeve[s]) was living on the south side of the north branch of the Rancocas Creek before the Friends made a settlement in Burlington in 1677¹ ...Reeve[s] married about 1670. His first wife, Susannah _____, died before 1682, as in November of that year he married Ann Howell ‘in open court.’ He had many difficulties with his neighbors, usually over boundaries, and ‘appears to have been a very plainspoken and independent man.’

Campion employed a title searcher for several years, but the exact location of the Reeve[s] farm, situated slightly more than a mile and a half west of Mount Holly, has not been discovered. A resurvey made for Walter Reeves, Jr. in 1742, found difficulty in determining boundaries. Among named owners of adjoining lands were Nathaniel Cripps, Thomas Shinn and William Haines.

A bill of lading, preserved at Trenton, reveals that in April 1691, Reeves exported beef, cheese and flour from his plantation on the Rancocas to Bridge Town in the Barbados on The ‘Robert and William.’ He was named constable for Northampton Township in 1692, but tradition relates that he declined to serve.²  He died between May 16, and June 18, 1698.

The population of Northampton Township in 1709, which then included all four of the ‘amptons,’ north, east, south and west, was 231. The few dwellings scattered irregularly about the countryside in 1723 could scarcely be called a village, but the nucleus of a town had been established, and the growth of Mount Holly actually began with the erection of the tavern and mills.

As towns commonly adopted names of an early settler or some distinguishing characteristic it was natural that the settlement should first be called Bridgetown. Haviland F. Reves, of Detroit, has suggested that the name might have been proposed by his ancestor, Walter Reeve[s], a constable of the township, who traded with Bridge Town in the Barbados.

The Bridgetown Library was chartered by King George III on June 11, 1765. It is the fifth library established in the state, and the second oldest in Burlington county, the Burlington Library Company having received its charter in 1758. Several prominent names are found among the incorporators. Included are Rev. John Brainerd, Dr. Alexander Ross, Col. Thomas Reynolds, Samuel Reeve, William Claypole, father of John Claypole, the third husband of Betsy Ross. And for good measure Howell Davis, a notorious pirate from the West Indies, whose mother is believed to have been a daughter of Walter Reeve[s], the first settler along the Rancocas near Mount Holly."