Barclay Farmstead Museum

Historic Barclay Farmstead, Cherry Hill’s “Living Heritage,” offers visitors an opportunity to observe and participate in Early American Quaker farm life. The centerpiece of the property is a restored, fully furnished federal-style brick farmhouse built in 1816 by Joseph Thorn for his family of eight. In 1826, Joseph W. Cooper, a sixth-generation descendant of the founder of Camden and the owner of Camden’s Cooper Ferry, acquired the 168-acre property as a retreat to escape the city’s hot summer days. Eventually, “Chestnut Grove Farm,” as it came to be known, was passed along to Joseph Cooper’s great-granddaughter, Helen Champion Barclay, who sold more than 100 acres of the property to developer Bob Scarborough in the 1950s, resulting in the surrounding Barclay Farm development. Helen Barclay sold the remaining 32 acres of the Farmstead property to the Township of Cherry Hill in 1974, where it has since been maintained as a park and history museum.

Now listed in the National and New Jersey Registers of Historic Places, the Barclay Farmstead offers public tours, programs & events throughout the year. The Farmstead is also home to Cherry Hill Township’s unique “Living History Education Program,” through which costumed guides educate visiting school groups about early 19th century Quaker farm life and demonstrate traditional crafts such as spinning and weaving, blacksmithing, quilting and more. A true treasure of the past, the Farmstead is owned and maintained by the Township of Cherry Hill, with the assistance of the Friends of Barclay Farmstead, a volunteer organization devoted to continuing restoration and support of historic programming.