Saving a home that witnessed revolution, Moorestown, N.J., looks ahead to America’s 250th

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A nonprofit in Moorestown, New Jersey, has acquired the historic Thomas Cowperthwaite House, built in 1742.

Developer Bruce Goodman donated the colonial-era brick farmhouse and the surrounding 1.5 acres at 85 Kings Highway to Saving Historic Moorestown this year.

“It brings the American Revolution alive for us,” said Julie Maravich, president of the nonprofit. “It seems like it’s so far in the past, but yet, we have tangible evidence of it to this day.”

The Cowperthwaite House is one of around 20 “witness houses” in Moorestown, or structures built before 1783 that bore witness to the events of the Revolutionary War.

Saving Historic Moorestown has been working to draw attention to the buildings in an effort to preserve them.

“Imagine what they experienced,” Maravich said of the witness houses. Moorestown was one of the first stops for British and Hessian troops retreating from Philadelphia in 1778.

A research group is currently conducting an archaeological study on the property, Maravich said. According to written records and oral histories, Hessian soldiers raided the house and camped out on the property during the war.

If researchers find artifacts there, that will help the nonprofit get the house listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Maravich said.

“That listing will qualify us for more grant money, for capital grant money,” she said. “Because it’s going to be expensive to restore it.”

Saving Historic Moorestown hopes to restore older, historic features of the home, including a beehive oven.

After the Cowperthwaite House and property are restored, Maravich said that she hopes it can serve as a “gateway to Moorestown,” complete with a welcome center, while drawing visitors as a historic destination in its own right.

Cowperthwaite descendants celebrate the house’s preservation

The Cowperthwaites were a prominent Quaker family, most of whom followed their faith and remained pacifists during the war. However, two Cowperthwaites took up arms: one for the British and loyalists, and the other for the Continental Army.

Jane Cowperthwaite, 67, of Lexington, Massachusetts, said she was “thrilled” when she first discovered the house while researching her genealogy. She is descended from Thomas Cowperthwaite’s nephew, Hugh Cowperthwaite, who fled north after the revolution.

While in the Philadelphia area for a wedding in 2017, she stopped by the vacant building to visit it from the outside.

Cowperthwaite made another journey to the house when Saving Historic Moorestown hosted a ribbon cutting on Dec. 4 to celebrate the acquisition.

“I love looking at history,” she said. “I love seeing what happened. I love the fact that the house remained in the family for well over 100 years, and that a woman who lived there voted in 1807.”

That woman was Anne Cowperthwaite, featured in the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, who, as a landowner, voted in New Jersey before women were prohibited from voting in the state.

Jane Cowperthwaite said she appreciates a new emphasis in historical preservation on showing the lives of women, servants, free and enslaved Black people and other communities that have often been left out of the narrative.

“There’s an attention to detail that was lacking, and they’re concerned about what normal history overlooks,” she said. “Now you’re seeing a lot more inference about what everybody’s life was like, as opposed to the male of the household … Everybody who was affected should be shown. Everybody who lived there should be shown.”

Moorestown is preparing for the semiquincentennial

Moorestown is preparing to showcase its Revolutionary War history ahead of the United States’ 250th anniversary next year, Maravich said.

An event in partnership with the Museum of the American Revolution, featuring George Washington’s headquarters tent, will be held in May, and Saving Historic Moorestown will continue to host ghost tours, witness-house tours and other events that will help the town’s colonial history come alive for residents.

Maravich said residents have already enjoyed delving into the past thanks to the nonprofit’s preservation work.

“I’ll bet you, there’s not a person in Moorestown who doesn’t know the revolutionary history now, which is really fun,” she said.