By: Michelle Jones, Follow South Jersey Community Journalist
Editor’s Note: As part of the commemoration of Salem City’s 350th Anniversary, Follow South Jersey and the Follow Salem Podcast will offer 350 stories about the past, present, and future of Salem throughout 2025. We’d love to hear your story. Please contact Dean Johnson, Editor-in-Chief of Follow South Jersey, at dean@hopeloft.com.
SALEM, N.J. – Jobs and transportation were major themes in Salem County around the time of World War I, as it was in many American industrialized towns. With people needing to be shuffled from ferries to factories while navigating treacherous roadways, a new system needed to be devised to help the influx of workers to the relatively new Dupont Power Plant.
With the war effort taking place and people needing a steady source of income, Salem residents were more than happy to find a steady income that could help support their families. The ideal job for this was Dupont, but it was located in Carney’s Point which is far more than a walk away. And it wasn’t just Salem residents who wanted the opportunities Dupont offered. People came from all over the region including across the river. According to author Robert Stanton, people “traveled by steamboats, ferry boats, motorboats, tug boats, wagons, trains, private autos and on foot.”
With this huge influx of transportation needs, the roads in and around Pennsgrove were being destroyed and became impassable. In fact the main access road was known as “shell road” for all of the crushed oyster shells that were used to make the road more stable, but when wet, the road was extremely dangerous. This quickly led the towns to realize that a trolley line system would be more effective for the communities involved.
Salem City was the oldest of the communities in the area and was already connected to northern areas of the state by the West Jersey Railroad. The river side of the county, one would find Pennsgrove along the Delaware River making it a great access point for commuter boating. In between the two were many little communities of homes where the workers chose to settle. To give one an idea of how many workers commuted each day, approximately 1,500 workers in the county with an estimated 2,500 coming in from Delaware daily.
In 1916 the beginning stages of construction were underway with an estimated cost of $500,000 with Dupont contributing $100,000 alone. Not only was the cost a hurdle but getting electricity to the trolley cars was a non negotiable arduous task. Neil C. Miller wrote in Today’s Sunbean 1976 that “the Delaware Power and Light Company would provide an 11,000 volt cable under the river to the station, however due to trouble laying the cable, power had to come from Bridgeton.”
According to Neil C. Miller’s article in Today’s Sunbeam, the first trolley cars came from the St. Louis Car Company and were painted green with yellow accents. The cars were 40 feet long with motors powerful enough to travel 40 miles per hour. The seats ran parallel along the walls of the car with overhead bars and straps for passengers. The service began August 16, 1916, by the Salem and Pennsgrove Traction Company at 6:05 a.m. On the first day over 4,140 passengers were transported every fifteen minutes between wharves, stops, and Dupont. The fare was $.05 and the first day’s total was $207.
You can find all of this information and so much more in the book The Trolley that Replaced a Bus by Robert A. Stanton (1998) in the reference library at The Salem County History Museum. It offers a unique look into Salem’s past and its growth during WWI. The book also has a fabulous collection of historical photographs.
Visiting the museum is easy. The Salem County History Museum is open Tuesday through Friday from 12pm-4pm. The admission is $5 per person, or $35 for an annual member’s pass. You can even schedule a private tour of the collection at no additional cost.
The museum is located at 83 Market Street in Salem City. For additional information call 856-935-5004 or visit their website at www.salemcountyhistoricalsociety.com.
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