MATLACK’S
GRAVE
By TILLY SPETGANG
(Reprinted with permission of the Courier-Post)
The kids used the plot, older than
our country, as a place to smoke pot.
It used to be a hangout. Even in daylight, it was impossible to spot in the middle of overgrown weeds and that clump of sassafras trees. So Cherry Hill kids — the ones who wanted to smoke pot or down some beer and had nowhere to do it without it being chancy — went to Matlack’s grave.
They leaned against the tombstone. Sat on it. Broke parts of it and picked at the inscription with pocket knives. Some genius even started to dig, but Jersey marl being what it is, he didn’t get too far.
And, up until the first stakes were laid for Woodcrest houses edged smack up to the iron fence around the grave, there were fires lit there at night. Small fires, so as not to attract unwanted attention.
In those days, if you asked any adult in the neighborhood where Matlacks was, they would probably steer you to a nearby ice-cream palace. But most kids could point to that tangle of woods.
So there was the Matlack grave sitting in the middle of all that golden land, land the builder was planning to dot with the usual Cherry Hill dream of four bedrooms, central air-conditioning, and the other expecteds for hefty money. The grave being very old, something like 300-plus years (older than our country), the builder took 50 by 120 feet of the land surrounding it and gave Matlacks to Cherry Hill Township then he went ahead and built his houses. And people moved in. Like Catherine and Michael DeCicco and their kids, who live right next door to the grave (which is at 535 Balsam rd.), who are very aware of it because that clump of sassafras now stands all by itself in the middle of suburbia. It looks kind of funny. People still come to the Matlack grave, but there’s no more pot and beer. "Nobody just hangs around the grave anymore," says Catherine DeCicco. ‘Probably because we’re here." And their dog is a barker. "Towards the end of the school year we get classes of children with teachers coming in to look," Catherine explains. "On Sundays, elderly people out for a stroll stop at the grave for a moment. And one night we saw a bunch of cars drive up and out came girls and boys, the girls in long dresses obviously from a prom."
WITHIN THIS INCLOSURE
LIE THE REMAINS OF WILLIAM
AND MARY MATLACK WHO
CAME TO WEST NEW JERSEY
FROM ENGLAND, WILLIAM IN
1677, MARY HANCOCK IN 1681,
THE FIRST OF THE NAME, AND
THE ANCESTORS OF THE FAMILY IN AMERICA.
"HERE AlSO LIES THE REMAINS OF RICHARD MATLACK,
A SON OF WILLIAM AND MARY,
AND PART OF HIS CHILDREN.
ALSO A NUMBER OF THE SERVANTS AND SLAVES OF THE
FAMILY."
"It’s so interesting, and there’s been barely anything written on it", enthuses James Rottler, principal of the Hinchman School. "The people in that old family grave site lived and dealt with the ‘Original People,’ the Lenni Lenape Indians." Rottler did his Master’s thesis at Glassboro on The Historical Development of Cherry Hill.
William Matlack (according to Rottler’s research), a carpenter from Cropwell Bishop Nottinghamshire, England, sailed over on the Kent in 1677. He was indentured, probably for five years (which was the practice then) to one Thomas Ollive, who paid his fare and used his services to build houses.
Mary Hancock (probably Matlack’s girl back home) waited out his indenture period in Brayles, Warwickshire, England, then sailed on the Paradise in 1682. They were promptly married and moved to a 100 acre tract of land on the north branch of the Pennsauken Creek. Their final resting place, with one of their sons, some of his children and the family’s servants and slaves, is in the community of Woodcrest, right next door to the DeCiccos, a modern American family with a backyard pool. "I don’t mind living next door to the grave," the woman of the house says, softly. "It’s a reminder of how old this neighborhood is, really..." Her husband adds. "When some of our friends saw we were moving next door to a grave, they asked if we were going to get a thousand knocked off the price of the house. I told them," and this with a wicked grin, "we had to pay extra for the privilege of being a neighbor to history." The DeCiccos have been the unofficial caretakers of Matlack’s grave. Their 12 year old Michael mows the lawn in front and back because the township’s attention has been, up until recently, rather casual. At Easter, Catherine DeCicco places flowers on the grave. "We’ve always thought of it as something special," she says, "but we really would like to see the entrance to the grave face the street, rather than our house, because now we have people walking on our lawn, cutting across it, making the dog bark. .. it’s a bit of commotion. The way it’s set up, anyone wanting to read the tombstone MUST come up alongside our property." There are other neighbors in the area who would like to see the grave shut off permanently, with permission given only to historians and such willing to get written permission and a key to the lock on the gate. Why? Well, for one thing, kids still muck up the place somewhat. And, unlike the DeCiccos, these Woodcrest residents would prefer the anonymity of a suburban community, rather than having strangers pulling up, anxious to view a very old piece of Americana. They prefer the Matlack’s resting place to rest. But with the Bicentennial around the corner, and with William Matlack’s grandson, Colonel Timothy Matlack (who also lived in what is now Cherry Hill) having penned the Declaration of Independence (after Thomas Jefferson did the original draft) and George Washington’s commission as commander in chief of the Continental Army, it appears that the venerable grave may be on its way towards becoming a special place for more than just Catherine DeCicco. There’s a gal who lives in Cherry Hill, one Bonnie Cocchiaraley, a member of the Board of Trustees for the Camden County Historical Society, who’s becoming very interested in Matlack. Bonnie’s the prime mover behind Cherry Hill Township’s recent purchase of the old Barclay Farm house to be readied for the Bicentennial as a museum and educational-cultural center.
"We hope Matlack’s grave will be one of the historical points of interest by 1976," she says. "I’m volunteering to do the historical research on the family, to find whatever is available on them, and to attempt to get it registered as a National Historical Site." Dealing with the practicalities, Richard Rohrbach, Director of Public Works, had six men at the family grave site the other day, cleaning up, picking up, pulling out the poison ivy, and fixing the old iron gate... again. Without its underbrush, Matlack’s grave looks like a plucked rooster. Rohrbach plans to put in a budget request for plantings, but that will take time. In the meanwhile, visitors will see bare history.
