Collings-Knight Homestead - Collingswood, NJ
N 39° 54.726 W 075° 04.857
18S E 493081 N 4418004
This landmark is located @ the corner of Collings Ave. & Browning Rd., across from Knight Park in Collingswood. It's a historic house museum deeply connected to the first settlers of the area & the families who developed the community surrounding it.
Waymark Code: WM4398
Location: New Jersey, United States
Date Posted: 06/30/2008
Views: 34
In 1824 Edward Zane Collings undertook the construction of a house for himself and his widowed sister, Rebecca Knight, on farmland north of Newton Creek that he had inherited from his father in 1820. The property had been passed down from his great-grandfather, Robert Zane, an original settler and member of the 1682 Newton Colony. Edward Collings, a young seed farmer, engaged the services of local carpenter John Ireland. He constructed a late Federal style home built to imitate early Colonial houses that evolved over time with added wings for family expansion. There are two other homes of this type still standing in neighboring communities: the Ephraim Tomlinson House, Lindenwold, 1790, and the Stoy House, Crystal Lake, Westmont, 1813. All three houses were built using at least two masses of different scale, with distinctly different window sizes, molding patterns, fireplace treatments, and staircases to convey the impression that the sections were built during two different time periods. Of the three, the Collings-Knight House is the best preserved, most sophisticated and convincing.
A further significance of the house is that it remained in the Collings and Knight families until nearly the middle of the 20th century. Only then was it sold out of the original bloodline. Fortunately, in 1967, the owner recognized the historic importance of the site and bequeathed the property to the Borough of Collingswood. Between 1825 and 1867 descendants of the Collings family used the farm for agricultural purposes. In 1868 the site took on a new focus. Edward Collings Knight, nephew of the original builder, purchased the farmland and placed it under the care of another cousin, Richard T. Collings. Richard developed a gentleman’s dairy farm and fostered horse and cattle breeding. At least two barns, a bunkhouse, and other outbuildings existed on the site. Knight, meanwhile established a real estate firm known as the Collingswood Land Company. He bought up neighboring tracts and began to lay out and subdivide parcels into development lots. The result was the creation of the Borough of Collingswood in 1888. One focus of Knight’s development plan was a 100 acre triangle – former farmland in front of the homestead – which he bequeathed as parkland to the newly formed Borough. When Edward Collings Knight died in 1892, the park was named in honor of his parents, Rebecca and Jonathan Knight.
Today the Collings-Knight House stands at the corner of Knight Park as a Federal style architectural tribute to descendants of the founders of of the 1682 Newton Colony, and the years of agrarian interests they upheld before the 19th century development of a planned suburb. Despite the fact that the barns and outbuildings have been demolished, this early brick structure retains simplicity of scale, design and detailing and stands as a dignified contrast to the large, asymmetrical Victorian mansions that Knight must have anticipated on the lots along his park. Preserving this house for its past associations with the Zane, Collings, and Knight families and its direct connection with Knight Park, is critical for an understanding of the development of Collingswood from a farming society to a planned Camden and Philadelphia suburb.
Source: (
visit link)