LAWRENCE: Historian outlines development of town

By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
   If Thomas Stevens, John Smith, Henry Mershon III or Capt. John Anderson — all 18th-century farmers — could return to Lawrence Township, they would not recognize the place. The land where they used to grow crops has sprouted housing subdivisions, not grain.
   Sunday afternoon, Township Historian Dennis Waters traced the history of subdivisions in Lawrence Township for an audience of more than 130 people at the Lawrence Historical Society’s annual meeting at Lawrence High School.
   The story behind Lawrence Township and its housing developments “is not that special,” Mr. Waters said. It is a story that played out in thousands of communities across the nation, driven by what had become the American dream of homeownership, he said.
   The story really begins in the late 1800s, Mr. Waters said. Trenton was a manufacturing center, and as the city and its factories grew northward, residents who lived in the southern part of Lawrence Township could walk to work in the factories.
   It was also around that time — 1890 or so — that the development of Lawrence Township began, he said.
   Joseph Slack and William Wood, who owned land in southern Lawrence, joined forces and subdivided land in 1890 to create the Slackwood development.
   But it was the extension of the two trolley lines — the Johnson Trolley Line and the Trenton Street Railway Co. — from Trenton into Lawrence that opened the township for development, Mr. Waters said.
   The trolley lines were the mass transit of the day, which made Lawrence Township accessible to Trenton’s businesses and factories and which also encouraged land speculators to buy farms and carve them up into building lots.
   One of the earliest subdivisions that popped up by the trolley lines was Eldridge Park, which was developed by Jacob Wilbur, Mr. Waters said. Mr. Wilbur purchased land from farmer Stephen Eldridge in 1906, and Eldridge Park was born, he said. The developer quickly followed with two more subdivisions — Lawn Park and Trenton Terrace. The latter is in today’s Eggerts Crossing neighborhood.
   Spurred by the easy access provided by the trolley lines, more developers gobbled up land along the Lawrence Road corridor. Farmers began to catch “real estate fever,” which led them to sell to developers, Mr. Waters said. Plans were filed in 1911 for the Lawrenceville Manor development, which resulted in the creation of Millerick, Review and Wilson — now Pilla — avenues.
   A little farther north on Lawrence Road, the Long Acres development was created in 1927 on 217 acres that was known as the Parsonage Farm. The land belonged to the Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville, which sold it for development.
   Developer Alfred E. Robertshaw had plans for Long Acres to be a “high class” development, which was a departure from the other developments in Lawrence, Mr. Waters said. Those developments were geared for the working man, but Long Acres was aimed at “the boss,” he said.
   However, Mr. Robertshaw was killed in an accident, and the “bourgeois enclave died with him,” Mr. Waters said. Development of the Long Acres subdivision, which is located behind the Municipal Building, stalled until the 1960s.
   Cars were more commonplace by the 1920s, and that led to opportunities to develop in parts of Lawrence that were not near the trolley lines, Mr. Waters said. One such subdivision was Colonial Lake, which was developed by Benjamin Miller.
   Mr. Miller was more than another land developer, Mr. Waters said. He built a 500-foot-long dam and created Colonial Lake, which included a park that was intended for the exclusive use of the development’s residents.
   The Colonial Land Co. was the developer of the Colonial Heights neighborhood, which was created around 1917, Mr. Waters said. It was envisioned to be a mixed-use development, combining housing with industrial uses along the Delaware and Raritan Canal. Its location near the Trenton border allowed for a short walk to the Trenton factories.
   Developers are commonly thought of as homebuilders, but that was not true in the early days, Mr. Waters said. Before World War II, developers subdivided land and sold individual building lots. It was up to the buyer to build a house.
   ”It could take years or decades to build out (a development),” Mr. Waters said.
   The Great Depression put a stop to development. Most subdivided lots remained unsold until after World War II, which opened another chapter in Lawrence’s development. The creation of the Ewing Lawrence Sewerage Authority in 1947 spurred development by providing public sewers.
   One of the first major subdivisions after World War II was the Lakedale development, at the rear of the Colonial Lakelands development. The houses were modest, Mr. Waters said
   More subdivisions followed in the central part of the township — Nassau Estates, Nassau Estates II, Norgate and Pine Knoll. The building lots increased in size, and so did the houses and their prices. Those developments were not for the working man — they were “deluxe housing,” he said.
   Housing subdivisions spread throughout Lawrence Township. The Tall Timbers development, off Carter Road, was created in 1955. The Twin Ponds development, off Federal City Road, dates to 1961, Mr. Waters said. More developments sprang up along the Lawrenceville-Pennington Road, thanks in part to sewer expansion.
   And when I-95 and I-295 were built — along with the extension of the Trenton Freeway — in the 1970s, Lawrence Township suddenly became a “suburb of everywhere,” Mr. Waters said.
   It was no longer a suburb of Trenton.
   Images of some subdivisions are available at www.lawrencetwp.com. There is a link on the right-hand side of the main page entitled “Maps of Lawrence,” which will lead to “Other maps of Mercer County and New Jersey.”