Next, the American Revolution and a secret town in the thick of the fight for freedom.

Find out what was happening at Batsto, and why friends and neighbors who lived there landed squarely in the crosshairs of the Crown.

- Oh, the British were well aware of what was happening at Batsto Ironworks, and they definitely tried to stop it.

- Okay.

Journey back to the 1770s, to a time when the Redcoats wanted nothing more than to obliterate an otherwise unknown American community.

Drive By History starts now.

[Music] Made possible by the Preserve New Jersey Historic Preservation Fund, administered by the New Jersey Historic Trust, State of New Jersey.

Also, the New Jersey Historical Commission, enriching the lives of the public by preserving the historical record and advancing interest in and awareness of New Jersey's past.

[Music] And, the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.

We explore, cultivate, and champion the public humanities in order to strengthen New Jersey's diverse community.

Every day, thousands of motorists pass by countless history markers and say to themselves, “One of these days, I'm going to stop and read that.

One of these days I'm going to find out what happened and why it mattered.” Well, this is that day.

- I'm heading to a history marker that reaches all the way back to colonial days.

- Now, there are lots of stories and events from that time period that have been forgotten, or almost forgotten.

- I can't wait to see what this history marker helps us remember - I'm Ken Magos and this is Drive By History.

[Music] Today's investigation begins in Medford Township, New Jersey.

Located about 25 miles east of Philadelphia, Medford is known for its wildlife refuge, its canoe trail, and its historic sites.

By some counts, there are over 60 history markers in Medford, spanning a range of events -- some widely known, others less familiar -- such as the one I'm stopping at today.

- And here's the history marker.

It says, “Aetna Furnace, started by Charles Read in 1766.

The Ironworks closed in 1773.

The site included sawmill, gristmill, smithy and 9000 acres of land.” - Now, I'm always fascinated by events that took place during the Revolutionary War, especially when they're a little bit off the beaten path.

I'm off to find out more.

[Music] We all know the popular history involving the Revolutionary War, but there's a lot more, stories that are less familiar and stories that are all but lost.

To find out more, Im off to the Guggenheim Library, housed in the former summer estate of Murry and Leonie Guggenheim on the campus of Monmouth University, where Drive By Historys Anthony Bernard is hard at work researching the history of a colonial iron master.

- Hi, Anthony, howre you doing?

- Ken, hows it going?

- Good to see you.

- Whats going on.

- I just came from a history marker that commemorates a furnace and ironworks that were started by Charles Read.

- Now, this was about a decade before we went to war with England.

- I find this period of American history particularly fascinating - What can you tell me about it?

- Well, first off I can tell you that there are a lot of facets to the American history narrative that don't get told.

- The story of Charles Read is definitely one of them.

- But, good news, Ken -- this is a local history that fits into a larger national narrative.

- Now that's what I'm looking for.

- It's not exactly something that played out the way Charles Read would have expected, but he definitely gave us a tale to tell.

- Can't wait.

- Okay, so Charles Read was born in Philadelphia in 1715.

- His family is reasonably prominent.

- We know where they lived: the corner of Front and Market Streets.

- Front and Market?

- Now, that sure sounds like they were living in the thick of things.

- I'm thinking of all the hustle and bustle associated with colonial era Philadelphia.

- Exactly.

- All that commerce might account for Reads interest in business, which history tells us, probably began as a boy working in his father's store.

- Fair assumption, I mean, that was pretty common at the time.

- It was, and his father, incidentally, was an early mayor of Philadelphia, one who sold all kinds of things in his store, such as everything from shingles to chocolate to fabrics.

- Imports.

- Exactly.

- But I'm going back to that address: Front and Market.

- The store had to be steps from the Delaware River.

- Philadelphia was a major port city.

- He must have had access to all kinds of imports.

- Exactly.

- Now, it's reasonable to think that some of those products were made out of metal: buckets and irons for the fireplace, ax blades... - To cut firewood -- cant survive without that.

- And we've spoken about how important metals and mining were at the time.

- And presumably that gives Charles Read an idea.

- He opens a series of iron- works, tries to corner the market on metals, so to speak.

- Well, not corner the market exactly, but you know where I'm going with this.

- So what Read does is he buys up land in South Jersey in the Pine Barrens.

- That's because the land in the Pine Barrens is not all that fertile.

- Except for cranberries.

- I remember that from a previous episode.

- So Read opens a series of ironworks in the Pine Barrens, hoping to manufacture and sell iron.

- That history marker that you visited commemorated one of them -- there were actually four in total.

- Okay, the history marker said that it closed in 1773.

- It did, and Charles Read died in 1774.

- And Lexington and Concord was in 1775.

- So what's the connection to the American Revolution?

- The connection, Ken, is that that's where the next leg of this investigation begins.

[Music] To find out more, Anthony sends me to Batsto Village in Hammonton, New Jersey.

- Hi Michelle, Im Ken.

- Hi.

Nice to meet.

I'm greeted by historian Michelle McDonald.

She's Director of the American Philosophical Society's Library and Museum, a scholar of 18th and 19th century America and coauthor of Public Drinking in the Early Modern World, Voices from the Tavern .

As you're about to find out, a lot of history happened here.

Batsto was a company town, established when professional life was closely intertwined with private life.

Although company towns were widespread at the time, they involved a way of living that has faded from the landscape and faded from memory too.

But before we get to that, first we step inside the Batsto Museum, where we get back to Charles Read and the twists and turns of an important history that you rarely hear about.

- So Charles Read was the founder of Batsto Ironworks.

- It was one of four ironworks that he opened between 1765 and 1768.

Charles Read saw Batsto as a maker of household products.

By the 1760s about 2 million people were living in the colonies, with the population growing rapidly.

Read was determined to supply many of those families with pots, kettles, and other metal objects that he was sure they would need.

- He really saw himself as the the iron magnate of South Jersey and at that point there was very little competition for that title.

In concept, the business plan made a lot of sense.

In practice, however, the scope of Read's vision was too grand.

- It got him into a bit of trouble, though.

- As one historian has very notably said, it was at least one forge too many.

- He was overextended.

- He was overextended.

[Music] As we said in the library, Charles Read died in 1774.

In fact, he was badly in debt when he died.

Looking back, we know that he was simply ahead of his time.

But, as they say, timing is everything.

Again, the concept was sound, with Reads vision having everything to do with the natural mineral deposits in and around Batsto.

And as we head outside to see more of the historic site, I'm reminded about the bogs that Anthony and I had spoken about, too.

- OK, Michelle, what's in front of us here?

Its got to be important because it's all fenced off here.

- It is.

This is really the reason why Batsto is here.

- So this is bog ore, which is a naturally occurring substance in this part of the state, in the Pinelands, generally.

The furnaces built by Charles Read transformed the ore into iron.

- Without this, you have no iron.

- And that's what makes this part of the state so important to the war effort.

[Sound of musket shot and yelling soldiers] When the American Revolution broke out, Batsto made a very strategic change to its product lineup.

Instead of pots and kettles, Batsto focused on firearms that, due to the war, were now in much higher demand.

- Oh, absolutely, they were producing weaponry, they were using shot, they were producing cannons -- cannons, cannonballs were what they were especially known for.

As the winds of revolution grew all the more threatening, production exploded.

A growing certainty that the British would march on Philadelphia stoked demand.

The colonists wanted to stockpile as much as they possibly could.

- And it created the perfect storm for Batsto to become the manufacturing center that it serves in the 1770s.

- And profitable, I bet.

- Extremely profitable.

Had Charles Read been able to hold on just a little while longer he might be remembered as one of our nations great captains of industry, a name that today would be on par with Cornelius Vanderbilt, or Andrew Carnegie, or John D. Rockefeller, whom you see here.

- He missed it by just... - So close.

- So close, so close.

Read achieved great wealth in his lifetime, and he was influential, too.

He held high level positions in government.

History is often focused on people just like Charles Read.

- In this circumstance, however, late in life, the money ran out and the power fizzled out.

- The story doesn't end well.

- Read died in poor health and nearly destitute.

- As a result, history chose to emphasize other figures from the era, people whose stories were more triumphant.

- But that doesn't change the importance of Charles Read's contribution.

- His vision factored into our nations ability to win the War for Independence.

- History celebrates Batsto.

- Unfortunately, it all but forgets Charles Read.

[Sound of military drums] As we said earlier, a short time after Charles Read died, Batsto began to flourish.

The importance of the work being done at Batsto at this point in history cannot be overstated.

- Think of it this way.

- The work at Batsto was so important to the revolutionary effort that the workers here were given a reprieve from being conscripted into the militia.

- Wow, but they were required to continue making munitions.

- Oh, absolutely.

- Without munitions, there wouldn't be anything for the revolutionary forces to fight with.

The munitions were mostly shipped to Philadelphia and then redistributed.

Batsto munitions allowed the Continental Army to evolve into a powerful fighting force.

- So I'm curious, then, did the British know what was going on here, and did they do anything about it?

- Oh, the British were well aware of what was happening at Batsto Ironworks, and they definitely tried to stop it.

- Okay.

Make no mistake, the colonists working at Batsto during the time of the Revolution sat squarely in the crosshairs of the British army.

And the wrath of the British during this time period was ruthless, brutal.

Horror stories of torture on prison ships were well known.

The people who worked at Batsto during the war were in constant danger, and they knew it.

- Indeed, in 1778, there was an effort to try to take this location.

- To actually take over Batsto?

- Absolutely.

They launched an attack.

- They didn't get this far, but they did destroy a nearby village in Chestnut Neck.

- So they were in the neighborhood then?

- Definitely in the neighborhood, and well aware of what was being produced here.

Times were tense.

Had the British not been stopped, things would not have gone well for the men working at Batsto or their families.

- Those that were working for it absolutely would have been considered to be working against the British and the Empire's interests.

And that brings me to another part of this history.

As we mentioned earlier, Batsto was a company town.

In other words, Batsto's employees not only worked here, they lived here, too.

And in many cases, so did their families.

[Music] - There was a series of workers homes that lived on this location.

- Okay.

- So it wasn't just the iron forge.

- There was also the village.

- And they lived as families, predominantly.

Just like many other towns that sprang up across the colonies, company towns also provided the necessities of settlement.

- There was available, if you were interested in religious services, a church here on site.

- The founder, Charles Read, was Quaker, so that was the religion that was on offer.

- There was also a store.

- There was a grist mill.

- There was a post office.

- And the reason why these are important, you need to think about this really as a community.

- It's not just an industrial complex.

Scholars talk about communities as places where people feel a sense of trust and belonging, where people care about one another.

All told, communities meet common needs.

That's something fundamental to human existence.

Company towns achieve that sense of homogeneity or sameness very quickly.

And it speaks to the importance of company towns in American history.

It's important to preserve this history because it gives us an authentic look into America's past.

To me, company towns also provide perspective on something else.

They give us a fascinating snapshot of a theme underway at the time, one that transformed our entire nation.

The transition from an agrarian society to an industrial society.

- Well, and in the 18th century, people were growing their own food -- if you didnt grow it, you didn't eat.

- Right.

- Here, they're actually bringing food in, so you can purchase it in the store.

- Exactly.

- So these families are not in the way we think of 18th century families self-sufficient themselves.

- They really are incorporated within the economy of the mill, not just for work, but for the rest of their livelihood as well.

- And building a sense of community as well.

- Absolutely.

In the 1780s, as the American Revolution drew to a close, people who had been closely involved with the war effort went back to their private lives.

For instance, George Washington famously resigned from the army and returned to Mount Vernon.

Now, here's what I find interesting.

At this point in time, Batsto soldiered on.

It remained a company town.

The community stayed intact, coming under the stewardship of William Richards and later his descendants.

The family would maintain the community for over 90 years.

- Absolutely, at the height in the, in the 18th century, several hundred people lived on this location.

- Even more came by the 19th century.

As we amble elsewhere in the village, Michelle explains that after the war, the current business plan didn't make as much sense.

Going forward as a company town presented serious challenges.

- There's two really big problems.

- The American Revolution was a boon in terms of demand, in terms of need.

- But after that war ends, there was a decline in the need for munitions from the American Government.

And there's increasing competition.

That competition largely came from Pennsylvania, where they were forging a more durable kind of iron.

As a result, Batsto made what today we might call a strategic realignment.

It shifted to glass production.

- A complete change of industry.

[Music] - A complete change of industry.

- It still requires water, it still requires charcoal, it still requires sand.

- So all of the natural ingredients besides bog ore that was necessary for pig iron are helpful for creating glass.

- And there was a rising demand for glass.

- That was going to be my next question -- because people were replacing the glass in their houses, or are they putting, yeah, more windows in?

- More windows in... in homes, in businesses in street lights.

Youre having increasing either gaslights and then ultimately electrification.

- And that's what Batsto specialized in.

For many years the business prospered, with Batsto achieving a new place in American industry.

It became a sought-after glassmaker.

In 1852, Batsto achieved a milestone in Camden, with the city purchasing thousands of lamp lights made with Batsto glass.

- We can find advertisements of Batsto glass being sold as far north as Albany, New York.

- Wow.

- It was a recognized name, it was a branded name.

However, after more than a decade of prosperity, boom times turned to bust.

Starting with the train accident that claimed the life of the community's most-skilled glassmaker, - Edward Plunkett.

He and his family were visiting Pittsburgh or on their way to Pittsburgh, and he fell off the train.

- Fell off the train?

- Did not survive.

- Did not survive.

- This was the first of a series of challenges that came to the glassworks.

- The glassworks is increasingly falling on hard time.

- I find it very interesting that in this iteration of Batstos existence they were able to keep going.

- It wasn't until the community fell apart that Batsto fell apart as well, and that was due to a disastrous fire that happened in the 1870s.

- Oh, it's a tragedy.

- It starts in the community and it really destroys the community.

- So the fire starts in one of the workers houses, in the foreman's house, as a chimney fire, but it quickly spreads until it takes out nearly a third of the workers homes.

- And it happened so quickly they could salvage almost nothing.

It's at this point in time that Batsto was largely abandoned.

Many of the structures standing today as part of the historic site actually come from a later time, a time when industrialist Joseph Wharton purchased the property.

You might know the name from the Wharton School of Business.

He made Batsto into his own private residence.

- This becomes not a company town, but a family home.

- This becomes where Joseph Wharton comes, where he raises his children, and his imprint is left throughout this property.

Wharton built the enormous mansion thats become signature to this historic site.

And he must have appreciated the legacy of Batsto because the mansion was constructed in an unusual way.

- If you can think about it this way, they're nested.

- So the original Charles Read house is inside and the footprint is still there, and then it's added to by the Richards family, and ultimately by the Wharton family out and up, as you can see.

- I noticed the cupola up there, what's the purpose?

- There isn't one, really, except for to show off, except for to show off, to show off the familys position, to show off their wealth.

Wharton used some of that wealth not only to restore the structures, but also to add a few more, rounding out the village and recreating the look and feel of Batsto in its heyday.

Now, make no mistake.

At the time, Wharton was not creating a public historic site.

The construction was for his own enjoyment, as much a work of art as anything else.

- Some of the buildings that surround the mansion were here already, and he helped to reconstruct and reinforce them.

- Others, he built to replicate what was there.

- So he was in some ways in his Victorian home reconstructing his vision of a colonial past.

- Remember that in the late 19th century, theres this romantic gardening movement, landscape movement that creates areas that are supposed to be of benign neglect.

- So you have some manicured areas, but you also have areas that are supposed to look historic, which means they need to look old.

- And don't forget, this is 1876 when he buys it.

- We've just... - The centennial.

- Exactly we've just celebrated 100 years as a nation.

- But he's preserving history.

- His version of history, absolutely, absolutely.

[Music] Joseph Wharton was a great philanthropist.

And as the day draws to a close, Id like to believe that he was also an aficionado of history, that he recognized the significance of Batsto Village.

And in some way, he was preserving the story of Batsto for future generations.

Wharton was an industrialist.

I think the concept of a company town would have resonated with him deeply, and he would have known that there were many company towns all over the nation that contributed significantly to our economic growth, as well as the American narrative.

A few of the more familiar names include: Hershey, Pennsylvania, a community built around the manufacture of chocolate; Pullman, Illinois, a community founded to build railroad sleeping cars; Steinway Village, New York, a community born from the vision of a 19th century piano man.

Maybe Wharton felt that Batsto should be counted among those ranks.

And it should be noted that company towns have come under scrutiny, viewed in some cases as a way to sidestep organized labor or, in other cases, control workers and make it extremely difficult for them to leave.

But unlike the photos you see here, I don't see events as black and white.

Rather, a little of both, but a history that must be preserved.

Because amid all these shades of gray are colorful stories and histories that collectively shaped the nation.

- So I have to ask, then, what is our take away from a site like this?

- That's a really great question - I think the reason, the takeaway for Batsto in general, is in looking at a location like this allows us to understand how national history happens on a local level.

Thank you, Michelle, for ending on such an important point.

See you next time.

[Music] Made possible by the Preserve New Jersey Historic Preservation Fund, administered by the New Jersey Historic Trust, State of New Jersey.

[Music] And the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.

We explore, cultivate, and champion the public humanities in order to strengthen New Jersey's diverse community.

Also, the New Jersey Historical Commission, enriching the lives of the public by preserving the historical record and advancing interest in and awareness of New Jersey's past.

- Have you driven past a history marker and said to yourself, “I should tell Drive By History about that”?

- Well, drop us a line.

- You can reach us through our website, which is DriveByHistory.org or through our Facebook page.

- Who knows?

- Your history marker could end up being our next investigation.