CHESTERFIELD: A love of history brings story home

By Charley Falkenburg, Special Writer
‘This needs to happen because year by year, things disappear, get lost or get thrown out. This is very important not just for this history of New Jersey, but the history of the United States.’
– Russell Caldwell
   CHESTERFIELD — When Chesterfield native Russell Caldwell was 18, he was itching to get out of what he considered a tiny one-horse town. So he packed up his bags, nabbed a history degree in South Carolina and put his passion for history to use throughout bustling cities in the United States and Germany.
   Little did he know that like a magnet, Chesterfield would pull him back 32 years later.
   Now, at age 50, Mr. Caldwell has come full circle and is back in his childhood home on Main Street in Crosswicks.
   A historical goldmine that had been under his nose his whole life, Mr. Caldwell is now on mission to pay homage to his hometown with the most thorough, in-depth compilation of Chesterfield’s heritage to date.
   Chesterfield, one of the original 104 New Jersey townships, was put on the Burlington County map in 1688. However, it goes back even further when the Quakers first settled in Crosswicks, the eldest of the three town communities, in 1677.
   ”I realized there was no history of Chesterfield out there and I was amazed,” Mr. Caldwell said. “This needs to happen because year by year, things disappear, get lost or get thrown out. This is very important not just for this history of New Jersey, but the history of the United States.”
   Only two books were written on Chesterfield’s history. One was by Evan Morrison Woodward in 1883 and the most recent was Gertrude Brick’s 1964 account. Mr. Caldwell plans to one up them both by going above and beyond to unearth discoveries that still lay buried.
   The opportunity for the project came to Mr. Caldwell unexpectedly. After living in Germany for five years, he went to Atlanta, Georgia, where he became the managing director of the historic Margaret Mitchell House and Museum for eight years. However, when the economy collapsed a few years ago, he found himself out of a job and a lot of time on his hands.
   Making lemonade out of lemons, he returned to his roots to put his expertise in research and history to good use. Since 2011, Mr. Caldwell has been spending most of his time scrutinizing archives, dusting off almost forgotten biographical tombs and becoming a regular at various libraries. Thus far, he has been mainly using document collections from the Chesterfield Historical Society, the Crosswicks Community Association and Quaker meetings, which Mr. Caldwell likened to traditional Protestant Christian Sunday services.
   Nearing two years in his endeavor, his progress is only just beginning. Currently, he is focused on transcribing the township government meeting minutes and is working on 20 years’ worth of minutes ranging from 1692 to1712. Following that, he aims on tackling a volume that ranges from 1798 to 1900.
   To Mr. Caldwell, the early government meetings reveal the town’s development starting in the 18th century when Bordentown was actually part of Chesterfield and Chesterfield was called “Recklesstown,” after one of its founders Joseph Reckless.
   Mr. Caldwell said Bordentown and Chesterfield parted ways in 1849 when the Chesterfield Quakers became fed up with what they thought were improper decisions made by the Bordentown folks.
   The minutes also give the historian a bird’s eye view into the different personalities of the clerks who wrote down the meetings according to what they considered important.
   Although eager to work on the transcriptions, Mr. Caldwell has found the early minutes very difficult to read, especially the ones written by the clerks who weren’t quite grammatically inclined.
   He laughed as he recalled one clerk who, “could not write or spell for his life.”
   ”He had beautiful penmanship, but could not spell anything,” Mr. Caldwell continued. In a twist of irony, he added that clerk went on to become the assistant secretary of the town’s Board of Education.
   Legible or not, Mr. Caldwell found that the minutes revealed town business was much different back then.
   Instead of bond resolutions for capital projects, most of the minutes in the 18th and 19th centuries boiled down reimbursements to well-to-do farmers who housed the town’s paupers and repaying residents for sheep damage, caused by dogs of fellow neighbors. According to Mr. Caldwell, most farmers received $20 to $30 for their maimed or killed sheep. That sum may barely fill a tank of gas now, but it was a big payday back in the 1800s.
   Other matters of business consisted of different road developments that still exist today, such as Bordentown-Georgetown Road, and the construction of five one-room public schools. Some of those buildings also still exist, such as the firehouse on New Street in Crosswicks and the municipal building.
   He has yet to dig up any major skeletons, but did say there was some interesting inner feuding going on between some of the committee members. In one instance after the Civil War, one committeeman, who was so dead set against funding $20 for Decoration Day, now known as Memorial Day, forced citizens to sign a petition to prove they needed the celebration. After the entire town penned their names, the committeeman admitted defeat.
   In the Quaker Meeting minutes, Mr. Caldwell said the men and women would separate and write two versions of records concerning births, deaths and marriages, making somewhat of a collection of vital records of the town’s social history. The records date all the way back to very first files in 1684.
   With Mr. Caldwell quest increasingly becoming like a full time job, he’s hoping to snag a $3,000 to $5,000 mini grant from the New Jersey Historic Commission to aid his efforts. If awarded, the money would be used to help pay for things such as copying and traveling costs – all which have been coming out of Mr. Russell’s own pocket.
   With a few extra bucks, Mr. Caldwell hopes he can make even bigger trips to colleges that have repositories of Quaker items. He aims to fill in the missing pieces from the years 1956 to the 1990s — a period where the committee didn’t meet as often, making records scarce. However, he’s hoping to fill that gap by locating people still alive, who might still possess those minutes.
   Mr. Caldwell estimated his work would be finished sometime in 2014. From there, he plans on writing and publishing a book so Chesterfield students can use it as a resource, the public can access it in various libraries and newcomers, such as residents in the new Old York Village, can learn about where they’ve landed.
   He’s not quite sure about the details of his impending book, but knows one thing is certain.
   ”I want something available to other historians and make it so it’s readable by everybody — not in some dry, dusty tongue only historians find interesting,” Mr. Caldwell added.
   Although eager to provide something the public can benefit from for years to come, Mr. Caldwell’s project is also a personal labor love. Since his return, he is a far cry from the teenager who yawned every time he rode past the acres of farmland.
   ”I came back to Chesterfield and saw how special it was in the grand scheme of things – going away has helped me come to respect it,” said Mr. Caldwell. “Crosswicks is very idyllic; I didn’t think that at 18, but now I consider myself extremely lucky to be part of the town.”