The Spicer House
Spicerville · 76 South Main Street
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Before this side of the creek was Mullica Hill, it was Spicerville, and this corner was the Spicers'.
The Spicers' claim to the south bank runs back to 1734, when 650 acres here passed out of William Penn's estate to the family; Jacob Spicer came into the land through his father's will. Tradition credits Jacob with the older, lower section of this house, raised near the middle of the 18th century. He grew into the south side's leading citizen, a Quaker of wide landholdings and wider trust, the neighbor other men chose to witness and settle their wills. The cluster of houses on his bank borrowed his name: Spicerville.
His generosity outlived him. The neighborhood's first school stood on ground he gave, and his 1779 will left the Friends the property where their burial ground, and later their meeting house, would rise. The debt was still remembered a lifetime later: when the township organized in January 1844, its founders reached for his name first and called it Spicer Township, a full year before politics renamed it Harrison.
The Folwells wrote the house's second chapter. Nathan and Rebecca Folwell raised the taller half beside Jacob's, and the join between the two sections is still the first thing you notice from the sidewalk. Few houses in the area are older. Spicerville faded from the map, but the gifts held: the school lot, the burial ground, the meeting house corner. The man's name left the signposts and stayed in the deeds.