Lawrence Township’s history can be summed up in one word — “between.”
By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
Lawrence Township’s history can be summed up in one word — “between.”
That is, between New York City and Philadelphia; between Princeton and Trenton.
But it is also between the Raritan River and the Delaware River, said Lawrence Township Historian Dennis Waters. The creeks and streams that meander through Lawrence Township empty into those two rivers, he said at the Lawrence Historical Society’s annual meeting last week.
Historically, those streams and creeks played an important role in Lawrence Township. Although most of them are not navigable by boat — other than a canoe, perhaps — some do serve as boundaries between towns and even counties, Mr. Waters said at the historical society’s meeting, which was held at Lawrence High School.
The Assunpink Creek does not flow through Lawrence, but for almost five miles of its 25-mile total length, it serves as the boundary between Lawrence and Hamilton townships, Mr. Waters said. Motorists who cross into Hamilton from Lawrence on Quakerbridge Road, Youngs Road and Whitehead Road are driving over the creek.
”The use of the Assunpink Creek as a civil boundary is as old as Lawrence itself,” Mr. Waters said.
When the colonial Supreme Court at Burlington created the Township of Maidenhead in 1697, it defined its citizens as those living north of the Assunpink Creek, he said. In 1714, the Assunpink Creek was chosen as the boundary between the newly formed Hunterdon County and Burlington County.
Another creek that serves as a municipal boundary is the Shabakunk Creek, Mr. Waters said. It forms about a mile-and-a-half of the border between Lawrence and Ewing townships, from the Eldridge Park neighborhood south to Notre Dame High School.
The Shabakunk Creek crosses Route 206/Lawrence Road near Notre Dame High School, and then crosses Princeton Pike near the Lawrence Shopping Center, Mr. Waters said. It continues across Brunswick Pike/Route 1 near the Colonial Lanes bowling alley. On the east side of Brunswick Pike, the Shabakunk is dammed to form Colonial Lake. From there, it is mostly invisible.
The Shabakunk Creek travels under the Trenton Freeway and the Delaware and Raritan Canal to join the Assunpink Creek, near the Ewing Lawrence Sewerage Authority wastewater treatment plant at Whitehead Road, he said.
The early settlers in Maidenhead Township — which is Lawrence Township’s original name — depended on the streams to provide water for crops and for livestock, Mr. Waters said. They were also the only source of reliable power for operating gristmills and sawmills.
”The farmers’ crops of wheat, corn, buckwheat and rye were not of much value if there were no mills to grind grain into meal and flour. Rapid, inexpensive construction of buildings was only possible if a sawmill were available to turn logs into boards,” he said.
The first mill in the area was Mahlon Stacy’s gristmill on the Assunpink Creek in Trenton, which was built in 1679. In 1698, the Burlington County Court ordered John Brearley to lay a road from Worth’s Mill on the Stony Brook in Princeton to Mahlon Stacy’s gristmill on the Assunpink Creek, Mr. Waters said.
But getting their crops to the gristmill in Trenton or to the mill on the Stony Brook was not practical. That’s why gristmills and sawmills sprouted along the Assunpink Creek as it traveled through Lawrence Township — at Lawrence Station and Whitehead Pond.
Early roads were built to reach the mills. The modern-day Carr Avenue and Cherry Tree Lane were laid out to Whitehead Pond in1772. John Phillips established the first mill at what would become Whitehead Pond on the Assunpink Creek in 1770. The pond was created in the 1800s by damming the Assunpink Creek.
Franklin Corner Road, Baker’s Basin Road and Youngs Road were laid out to the Lawrence Station gristmill in 1760. John Reed built the last gristmill in the area in 1855, which continued to function until 1920. Each new mill incorporated the latest improvements in mill technology.
A large pond was created at Lawrence Station in the 18th century, Mr. Waters said. In the late 19th century, the pond — known as Bahrenburg Ice Pond — was used to make ice. The shallow pond would freeze in the winter, and ice was harvested and sold in Mercer County. The proximity of the Pennsylvania Railroad allowed the ice to be shipped to Newark and New York City.
But the advent of refrigeration closed down the ice business. John W. Bahrenburg, who owned the ice pond, moved his business to Trenton. The complex at Lawrence Station operated until 1926, when the ice business could no longer support the maintenance of the dam. The pond was drained in 1931.
While streams are considered to be important for practical reasons — gristmills, sawmills, transportation and industry — they may offer many forms of recreation and add beauty to the landscape, as well, Mr. Waters said.
In the 20th century, Whitehead Pond was a swimming hole, a popular fishing spot, a place to ice skate in the winter and a place for boating in the summer. It was “a little piece of nature” on the border between Lawrence and Hamilton townships, he said.
Other ponds and lakes have been created over the years, Mr. Waters said. Colonial Lake was created in 1923 as the focal point of the Colonial Lakelands development by developer Benjamin Miller. He built a dam on the Shabakunk Creek to form the lake.
Colonial Lake was originally owned by Mr. Miller. He tried to hand it off to the residents of the development, with little success. In 1955, the development company gave the dam and the lake to the Colonial Lakelands Lakedale Civic Association. Lawrence Township eventually agreed to take ownership of the lake in 1965.
Rider University’s Centennial Lake was created in the late 1950s by damming Five Mile Run, and in the 1960s, Bristol Myers-Squibb Co. — then known as E.R. Squibb and Sons — created the lake in front of the pharmaceutical company’s campus on Route 206 by damming the Shipetaukin Creek.
Naturally, all of the streams in the township were prone to flooding from time to time, Mr. Waters said. Those floods were “little noted by farmers, who were usually sensible enough to build their homes on high ground,” he said.
Flooding became more of a problem as Lawrence Township was developed and houses were built on the flood plain — the area closest to the stream. Because of the development, rain had nowhere to go so it would flow directly into the stream and not seep into the soil. The result was occasional flooding.
Records of major floods along the Assunpink Creek go back to the 19th century, Mr. Waters said. But it was not until after World War II that flooding in Lawrence became a serious problem — beginning with Hurricane Connie and Hurricane Diane, which struck one week apart in 1955.
Hurricane Doria, which occurred in 1971, caused the Shabakunk Creek to flood the Westgate Apartments on Route 206, opposite Notre Dame High School. The Lawrence Shopping Center also was flooded.
”But of course, the flood we all remember most clearly was just over two years ago. That was Hurricane Irene, which dumped almost eight inches of rain on the area and turned Route 1 into a river,” Mr. Waters said.
Efforts have been made over the years to build dams that were intended to help control flooding, he said. But none of those plans came to fruition, mostly because of “pushback” from landowners that would have been affected by them, he said.
”I wish I could tie this all out with some good news about flood control in the future, but as Hurricane Irene demonstrated, it is a problem a long way from solution. But it is a problem that has been studied extensively,” he said.
”If there’s any lesson here, it’s that water has been sloshing back and forth across Lawrence for millions of years, and this century is no different,” Mr. Waters said.

