Evesham

The area now known as Evesham Township was originally settled by Quakers in 1672. The township was named either for the town of the same name in England or for prominent English settler Thomas Eves.

Evesham Township was formed on November 6, 1688, as Eversham (with an “R” in the middle of the name that was lost in subsequent years) in the Province of West Jersey before the county was formed. It was incorporated by the Township Act of 1798 of the New Jersey Legislature on February 21, 1798, as one of New Jersey’s original group of 104 townships. Parts of the township were taken to form Washington Township (November 19, 1802), Medford Township (March 1, 1847) and Mount Laurel Township (March 7, 1872).

The Township was substantially larger than it is today, originally including what are now Mount Laurel, Medford, Lumberton, Hainesport, Shamong, and Washington Townships. The South Branch of the Rancocas on the East Side and Cropwell Creek on the West Side bound this area. Evesham Township was eventually incorporated in 1692 as one of the thirteen Townships in Burlington County. In 1802, a tract was cut off for Washington Township; in 1847, the Township was then divided in half, with the eastern half becoming Medford Township; and in 1872, Evesham was divided again, for the last time, with the northern part becoming Mount Laurel Township.

Marlton is a name commonly associated and interchangeable with the name Evesham, derived from the census-designated place within Evesham. The name Marlton came about in the early 19th century and stems from the word “marl”, a naturally occurring mixture of green clay with remnants of shells used as a fertilizer, like manure. Its discovery helped local commerce and fueled the first “building boom”, which took place in the 1830s and 1840s. Marl was mined locally until 1930, when the pits were closed.

The Marlton area was recognized as a village in 1758. The village was named Marlton in 1845. The same year the “Evesham” Post Office and the “Evesham” Baptist Church both had their names changed to “Marlton” Post Office and the “Marlton” Baptist Church. The names remain the same today. Most maps and directional signs refer to Marlton instead of Evesham. The historic village, Olde Marlton, remains mostly intact and is a locally regulated Historic District. Full-time police services began in 1966.

Evesham remained mostly unchanged until the 1950s, when developers began buying farms and building the township’s first housing developments. Today, no significant farmland remains.

In 1955, the United States Army opened the PH-32 Nike Ajax facility on Tomlinson Mill Road. This battery was one of twelve used to shield Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from aerial assault during the Cold War. The base was decommissioned in the mid-1960s and used for various functions, including a civil defense center. The site is now a housing development which was built in the mid-1990s.