Immediately adjoining the site of where the library was eventually to be some day, was the mansion of Mr Charles Rhoads.  This later became the Estaugh, a home for retired "Friends."  From that point, directly across Haddon Avenue on the corner of Lake Street, was a double red brick house.

One side, near the corner, was the residence of Mr and Mrs Martin Schlecht, and the other side was the Friends School with its several classrooms.  On the other corner of Lake Street was the beautiful white home of Mr and Mrs Elkington.  The house had bee built in 1799 by John Estaugh Hopkins.  Next to it was the residence of Mr and Mrs Rhoads, Evan's parents; now it is the Hinski Funeral Home.  Across the stream that was piped under Haddon Avenue, and which now is underground as far as Grove Street, was the old athletic field with the baseball backstop still visible from Haddon Avenue.  This was on Sam Wood's farm where the YMCA building was erected later.

On Tanner Street opposite to the point was Tanner Street joins with Haddon Avenue were the three little wooden "board yard row" houses that were the homes of the employees of the Willits Coal and Lumber Yard.  The rent was $6 per month.

Off Tanner Street toward what is now the speedline was the Thousand Islands section, so named because of the stream running through, that is now piped under the ground for the residential section of Wilkins Avenue, Allen Avenue and Rosedale Avenue.  At the rear of the triangle where the library now stands, was a vine covered cottage occupied by Mr and Mrs Smiley, every spring, had beautiful geraniums in his round brick flower garden.

On the very point of the triangle was a flowing spring that ran into a granite trough where horses could be watered.  A footpath was there for easy access to Haddon Avenue and Tanner Street.

When the library was built the Smiley cottage was moved to the Jordantown section of Pennsauken where Paul Smiley still has his home in it.  About the only sameness to the area is that Haddon Avenue and Tanner Street still run in the same directions that they always have.

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Unpublished version (ca 1976)
When Tillie Clement called to ask me to go to the library to tape my autobiography to file in the historical section, I though it would be fun to reminisce about what the area where the library is standing, used to be like.  Actually some of my earliest memories are closely associated with the area, as I was born down at 273 Lake Street and as a small child my mother frequently took me up to my grandparents home where they lived in one of the little board yard houses, as they were called, that stood on Tanner Street adjacent to the Willits Coal and Lumber yard.  These houses were so named as originally they had been built for the lumber yard employees.  Ben Wood owned them and they rented for $6 a month.  Grandmom and Grandpop Davis paid their rent out of the $30 Civil War pension which they received every month.  Coming up Lake Street on the right hand corner of Lake and Haddon Avenue was the beautiful white home of old Mr and Mrs Elkington.  On the other corner was the double brick house there Auntie and Uncle Mart Schlecht lived in the side near the corner and the Friends School occupied the other side.  Directly across Haddon Avenue stood the huge wood framed house of Mr and Mrs Rhoads.  This later became The Estaugh, a home for elderly Quakers.  Between the lawn to the Rhoads home and a vine covered cottage that stood on the triangle where Tanner Street and Haddon Avenue meet, was a path that connected Haddon and Tanner.  The path ran through a small pasture where there was always a cow grazing.  The cottage was where Mr and Mrs Smiley and their son, Paul, lived.  They were the servants of the Rhoads.  The triangle was owned by the Nicholson family.  Mr Smiley kept a flower garden in a raised portion which was surrounded by a low rounded topped brick wall.  His geraniums every spring were beautiful.  At the point of the triangle was a large hollowed out piece of granite which held water supplied by a pipe where horses could be watered.  Another path here gave access to the two streets.

Ten years ago I met Paul Smiley where he was living in a section called Jordantown in Pennsauken.  This is a district predominately colored that is on the Haddonfield Road near the Iron Rock Country Club.  We had a grand time reminiscing about the old days.  When the water trough was moved away from the triangle it went down, we believe, to Joe Briggs farm in Delaware Twp.  The fountain there now has an interesting background.  It originally was in a garden at E Cottage Avenue and Chestnut Street.  It was moved to the point of where Potter and Ellis Streets meet, down at the Point.  The Fire Company moved it to its present location at the library.

The cherry trees in the library lawn were planted by every social, service, church, and civic organization in town.  They are beautiful every spring.  The old athletic field with its still standing backstop was in evidence in the field at the rear of the present YMCA building.  Evan Rhoads' mother and father lived in the present Hinski's funeral home.  This has been an attempt to picture the library area as it was fifty-five to sixty years ago.  The library has the date in its side, 1917.  But seems that the building did not take place until after the War, but as the stone with the date had already been procured, it was used.  Miss Cawley was the librarian as she had also been in the old library when it was up on the bend of Chestnut Street by the school building.  A little old English lady, Mrs Walker, was the assistant librarian.  Adjacent to the library across Tanner Street was the Thousand Islands section.  These streets are almost all gone now having made way for the high speed line.  Thinking of the Elkingtons recalls that when Pop Ernest was their chauffeur the odor of his pipe followed him into the limousine and Mrs Elkington told him she would give him a dime for every bag of Granger pipe tobacco that he didn't buy.  Pop took the dimes but she never knew that he line his lip with snuff which didn't smell.  So the Henry D. Moore family declared another dividend as they owned the snuff factory.  The water trough also recalls another story that was often told of how the neighborhood boys in the summer, when the water was in the water trough, would press their finger into the open mouth of the pipe and direct a stream of water into the open summer trolley cars and hit the passengers.  The conductors would run after them and report them to the police.  Then Ted Hough, the police chief, would be seen riding down Haddon Avenue to get after the boys.  Ted always knew where to go to talk to the culprits.  The main offender later became the police chief in Haddonfield, but to name him would be a little embarrassing, don't you think?

This completes a word picture of the area surrounding the library as it looked about the year of 1916.  About the only thing that has not changed is that Haddon Avenue and Tanner Street still run in the same direction that they did then.