Step Back in Time at the Indian King

One of the most popular and important historical spots in the borough is the Indian King Tavern.

When you step through its threshold you are immediately transformed back in time from the 21st century to the 18th century. Except for the muffled sounds of traffic along the Kings Highway, you are in fact reliving that long-past era.

A guide helps transform the visitor through a time when the colonies were in turmoil and patriots were fighting to preserve a new way of life.

The building housing the tavern was constructed in 1750 by Matthias Aspden, a wealthy Philadelphia merchant and ship owner. It took its name from another tavern that was built in Haddonfield in the mid-1750s. Sarah Norris opened that tavern on Kings Highway East near Potter Street and called it the Indian King, after the Lenni Lenape chief.

Norris’ tavern was eventually taken over by Mary French, who later married local businessman Hugh Creighton. In 1777, the couple bought the present tavern on the other side of the highway and transferred the name to their new establishment.

Touring the public room, it is said that Federalist William Livingston, the first elected governor of New Jersey, met with Francis Hopkinson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and that the bar room where the public came and went was the news network of 1777.

In January 1777, the New Jersey Legislature moved to Haddonfield from Pittston, Hunterdon County, says state historian Garry W. Stone, a member of The Friends of the Indian King Tavern. "It moved here because of the British invasion of New Jersey." Stone points out that the Legislature occupied correspondingly little space. "Convening here on Jan. 29, they met in two rooms," explaining that "In 1777, our entire legislative apparatus could have squeezed into a Greyhound bus." He says at that time the state had 13 counties. Each county elected three members of the Assembly and one member of the Legislative Council, a total of 52 persons.

"We believe that the Assembly met in the large second floor room, the room that is now the tavern ballroom," says Stone, pointing out that at that time it probably was not a tavern ballroom. "More likely, it had been a shopkeeper’s storeroom." He says the Assembly paid the large sum of £3-9s-10d for "repairing the Assembly Room."

On Feb. 27, 1777, Stone says, the Declaration of Independence was read at the tavern and ordered entered into record there, and on May 18, 1777 the legislature adopted the state’s Great Seal after creating an independent state.

In the past Haddonfield was briefly occupied, successively, by the New Jersey Militia, Marquis de Lafayette’s platoon of Continentals, Hessian soldiers and then British regiments. In a letter to George Washington dated 26 November 1777, Major General Lafayette stated "I went down to this place (Haddonfield) since the day before yesterday in order to be acquainted of all the roads and grounds around the enemy."

Continental forces were here whenever the British were not in occupation, Stone explains. "Haddonfield’s strategic location made it a garrison town." Stone feels that the tavern was stuffed with soldiers or used as officers' quarters for much of late 1777 and the first half of 1778. The tavern would have been one of the largest buildings in the village. He points out that at that time New Jersey law required troops to quarter first in taverns, then in unoccupied buildings, and only with the permission of a magistrate in private dwellings.

During the Revolution, New Jersey suffered more battles and skirmishes and more lives were lost and property devastated, proportionately, than any of the other colonies. Washington spent four-and-a-half years of the eight-year-long Revolutionary War in New Jersey, which is why it is called "the Cockpit of the Revolution."

Betty Runge of Haddon Heights, and a volunteer at the tavern for 13 years, says visitors often ask about the use of the tavern as a stop on the Underground Railroad. People raised in Haddonfield say that teachers and textbooks pointed to the tavern as a stop. "Well," she says, "it is not true. We have a booklet at the tavern, which we hand out free to anyone who asks, that gives all the locations in the state of stops on the Underground Railroad, and Haddonfield was not one." The booklet, published by the New Jersey Historical Commission, is titled "Steal Away, Steal Away."

The tavern today has 18 rooms, eight of which are open to the public and furnished with both original and authentic reproductions of furniture. Over the years it continued to operate as a tavern until 1873 when a law prohibited the sale of alcohol in Haddonfield. For a time it was a general store. In 1903 New Jersey acquired the facility making it the state’s first historic site.

According to Linda Hess, house manager for the Indian King, the number of guests visiting the tavern varies. It depends on season, weather and local activities. "There have been days in which only three or four guests stop by and other days in which I never have the chance to sit down to work on a project," she says. "We do have guests that come from North Jersey, Pennsylvania and many other states and we have international guests as well. There are those that live in town that have never been to the tavern and just happen to be walking by (and stop in)."

Hess notes that the tavern is presently open on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to noon and from 1 to 4 p.m. "As we get closer to summer the tavern will be open more days of the week. Those days are yet to be determined," she explains.

Keeping the tavern alive today falls on The Friends of the Indian King Tavern. Joe Murphy, president of Friends, says the association is a group of volunteers who generously give their time to bring the tavern to life so that people can experience what life was like during the time of the Revolutionary War. "It is like having a little bit of Williamsburg right here in Haddonfield," he says.

Thomas A. Bergbauer is a retired journalist and can be reached at tbergbauer@verizon.net.