12/6/2023 0 Comments Hamilton township mays landingPortions of Egg Harbor Township and Weymouth Township were acquired while the area was still part of Gloucester County. Hamilton was incorporated as a township by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on February 5, 1813. Iron was then substituted for ship hull construction. By the twentieth century, shipbuilding began to disappear with the decline in suitable resources. In nearby Weymouth, cannons and cannonballs for the War of 1812 were produced on the site of Atlantic County Park at Weymouth Furnace, until it was destroyed by fire. This part of town became known as Sugar Hill, a name still used to this day. His villa, the Sugar Hill Inn, sat perched on a high bluff overlooking the Great Egg Harbor River. Prized commodities of sugar, molasses and rum, arrived from the Far East by sailing ships and were stored in the walled foundation of the Inn, awaiting shipment to Philadelphia. In the 1850’s Senator William Moore owned a fleet of more that 50 sailing vessels engaging in commerce along the entire eastern seaboard. The early 1800’s saw Mays Landing become a thriving waterfront town with George Wheaton building over 100 sailing vessels with lumber harvested from area pine forests. During the Revolutionary War, a local innkeeper and militia privateer, Captain Samuel Snell, is said to have captured 19 British ships off the river’s inlet, selling their cargo and ships at the docks at May's Landing. George May, after whom the village of May's Landing was named, built a shipyard and trading post near Babcock Creek in 1756. Hamilton Township's origins are directly tied to the Great Egg Harbor River and the tributaries that run through it.
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