Cornelia Hancock was born & raised in Hancock’s Bridge, NJ.  She was the Great Granddaughter of Judge William Hancock, Jr. who was massacred in the Hancock House in 1778.  Cornelia’s Mother, Rachel Nicholson H., was a strongly opinionated lady who imparted her ambition and her Quaker views to her daughter.  Cornelia was educated in Philadelphia as were many of the Nicholsons.  In 1863 Cornelia and her parents were living in Hancock’s Bridge and Cornelia taught school at the Buttonwood seminary on the grounds of the meetinghouse.  When the Civil War began, Cornelia waited a year before going to Philadelphia to travel to Gettysburg.  She would not be turned away by Dorothy Dix or anyone.  When denied, she refused to leave the train & traveled, not as a “nurse” but as an assistant to her brother-in-law Dr. Henry Child. 

 

Two thousand seven marks the one hundred forty fourth year since Cornelia left on her amazing life’s journey.  Cornelia’s letters from the battlefields of the Civil War and from the Mount Pleasant, SC “Freedmen’s” school she directed, were edited & published by a cousin, Henrietta Stratton Jaguette in a 1937 book titled “South After Gettysburg”.  Cornelia did not stop.  She went on to become an early social worker in Philadelphia. She was a founder of the Children’s aid Society of Philadelphia. and after traveling to England to study factory workers housing, Cornelia help plan Wrightsville in Philadelphia.  Come learn all of the other jobs Cornelia did to support herself as a single female in the late 19^th & early 20^th C.

 

The Sons of the Union Veterans of the Civil War will be in camp with displays, Civil War Medical items, operations; medical and otherwise.  The auxiliary, named for Miss Hancock, the Cornelia Hancock Auxiliary of Lyons Camp # 10 will be in camp to recreate the atmosphere that Cornelia experienced.  Plan to come to honor Cornelia and all of our veterans.

 

On Sunday, the public is invited to attend “meeting” in the historic Alloways Creek Preparative meeting house at 10:30 AM.   The 75^th Anniversary of the 1932 opening of the Hancock House as a NJ State Historic Site will be observed at 1 PM on the grounds the Hancock House.  The Post Mistress will be onsite Sunday to “cancel” a special envelope “cache” with a colored picture of the Hancock House.  The cancellation stamp is the Hancock shield with the new “forever” stamp.  The cache may be purchased for $ 2.00 each as a keepsake of the 75^th anniversary of the Hancock House NJ State Historic Site.

 

Lunch is available for purchase in the LAC Firehall.  Proceeds will benefit the LAC Ruritans.

 

The Friends of the Hancock House, Inc. program is free and open to the public.