Historical John Hancock House

The eastern side of the Hancock House was built in 1728 and the western side in 1734 by William and Sarah Hancock. This 280 year old house is owned by the State of New Jersey and is a New Jersey State Historical Site. The house is architecturally and historically significant, reflecting the building traditions of English Quaker Colonists. The Hancock House was the scene of massacred patriots by a 300 man force of British troops who broke in the house at night and bayoneted everyone inside. This was done in retaliation of a battle the British lost at Quinton’s Bridge.

William Hancock was one of the investors in the Fenwick Colony. Shortly after the Colony became established in New Salem (1675) Hancock arrived and received his share of the land, 968 acres in Alloways Creek, just 5 miles from Salem. John Hancock (Williams’s nephew) inherited approximately half of the original 968 acres and built a log cabin on the corner of the property where the Hancock House was later built by his son William and William's wife Sarah. John built the first drawbridge over Alloways Creek now known as Hancocks Bridge creating the turnpike between Salem and Greenwich, 1708. John lived in the small cabin he constructed, raised 11 children and left his estate to his son William who is said was a shrewd businessman and later became a Judge for Salem County and served in the Colonial Assembly for 20 years.

William and Sarah Hancock designed the Hancock Mansion after a style popular in Essex England. The exterior incorporated a Flemish bond pattern of two types of bricks with nineteen zigzag lines of red and blue bricks on each end of the house. Blue bricks were made by adding Potassium Nitrate in the clay. The letters “H” for Hancock “W” for William and “S” for Sarah are seen below the peak on the north side of the house along with the date “1734”. The house was designed with two large rooms on the first floor, two bedrooms on the second floor, a full attic with two dormers and circular staircases from the cellar to the attic. Each room has a fireplace, the roof is cedar shingles.

The house is framed in mortised and tenoned white oak, inside heart pine paneled walls, mantles and floor boards are original. The window panes all used hand blown glass such as was being made by the Wistarburg Glass Works around this time. This house is a national and local treasure and a fine example of Quaker simplicity and beauty of design, somewhat austere in appearance with simple lines and little ornamentation but with the highest quality of workmanship.

A rebuilt (1931) Swedish Cabin using 400 year old lumber salvaged from the John Tyler property in Salem is found on the corner of the lawn where John's original cabin stood and is a fine (and rare) example of hand-hewn, white cedar plank construction typically used in the seventeenth century. The photos below show a 1932 photo of the cabin on the left and a newer photo on the right.

The Hancock House remained in the family until 1931 when the State of New Jersey purchased the property for $4,000. In 1932 it opened as a museum.

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