Soldiers from Wenonah invade Mantua Township

Well, not really. But 107 years ago this week the determined troops of the Camden-based Battery B of the New Jersey National Guard's field artillery built a bridge from Wenonah into Sewell. They were intent creating a shortcut to their pistol range, which was on the other side of Mantua Creek in our township. 

The troops were tired of taking their horse-drawn wagonfuls of supplies to the range the long way around: across the Wenonah Avenue bridge to downtown Mantua; a hard left at the Mantua School onto Mantua Boulevard (the McCarthy Avenue cutoff was not yet in place); down to and over the bridge at Chestnut Branch; and from there to their destination on the Sewell side of Mantua creek.

Oregon Daily Journal article courtesy of Newspapers.com

Why would a Camden-based artillery unit care so much about the route from Wenonah to a gun range in Sewell? Two factors came into play: First, Battery B was at this point homeless. Three years prior its armory had been destroyed in a horrible fire. Second, while most of its officers lived in and around Camden, its captain Samuel Barnard lived on Cherry Street in Wenonah. 

Captain Barnard seems to have found a temporary spot for his battery's equipment in his hometown. Since his men could easily reach Wenonah from Camden via the West Jersey Railroad, creating a training location nearby would have made sense.  

In 1910, the year after they built the bridge, Battery B was given $100,000 to buy land to build and furnish a new armory in Camden, complete with "the necessary stables and range or ranges suitable for revolver and sub-calibre artillery practice."* Before long, the group was once again meeting in Camden and Captain Barnard was the one taking the train. The new armory was on Wright Avenue, near the current Mickle Street exit from 676, in a building that in the 1970s housed Camden's Department of Public Works.

What happened to the bridge? It does not seem to have survived the departure of the field artillery. Where was it located? My guess is it was somewhere in the area highlighted in yellow on the 1901 topographic map below. Any further upstream would have required bridging Monongahela Brook as well as Mantua Creek. Much further downstream the creek would have been too wide for such a bridge.

1901 map courtesy of the United States Geological Survey

It's been quite a while since Battery B went back over the border. If anyone reading this post has any clues about this short-lived bridge, or the location of the one-time gun range to which the bridge led, please let us know. I am curious!

Come visit the Museum this Saturday, July 2nd. We'll be open from 10 AM to 12 Noon.

*Compiled Statutes of New Jersey, Volume III, p 3393 - Newark, NJ, Soney & Sage, 1911. Available on Google Books.