Evesham, New Jersey, United States

🇺🇸 Evesham Township is a township in Burlington County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is a suburb of Philadelphia, the nation's sixth-most populous city. Colloquially, the area is referred to as Marlton, the name of a community within the township.

The township is part of the South Jersey region of the state and, along with all of Burlington County, is a part of the Philadelphia-Reading-Camden combined statistical area and the Delaware Valley.

History The area now known as Evesham Township was originally settled by Quakers in 1672. The township's name may have been inspired by the town of Evesham in England or possibly by a prominent English settler, Thomas Eves.

On November 6, 1688, Evesham Township was established as 'Eversham' in the Province of West Jersey, preceding the formation of the county itself. The extra "R" in the name was later dropped. It was officially incorporated as part of New Jersey's first 104 townships through the Township Act of 1798, enacted by the New Jersey Legislature on February 21, 1798.

Over time, portions of the township were sectioned off to form separate townships: Washington Township was formed on November 19, 1802, Medford Township on March 1, 1847, and Mount Laurel Township on March 7, 1872. The township was considerably larger than its present-day borders, initially encompassing what are now known as Mount Laurel, Medford, Lumberton, Hainesport, Shamong, and Washington Townships. Geographically, the South Branch of the Rancocas on the east and Cropwell Creek on the west originally bounded this area.

The township was incorporated in 1692, becoming one of the initial thirteen townships in Burlington County. Following subsequent separations, Evesham Township was divided for the final time in 1872, when the northern part of the township was designated as Mount Laurel Township.

Evesham Township is often referred to as Marlton, a name that is used interchangeably, originating from the place within the township. The moniker 'Marlton' traces its origins to the early 19th century and is derived from "marl", a naturally occurring mixture of green clay with shell remnants, which was used as a fertilizer. The extraction of marl, a significant economic activity, catalyzed the first "building boom" in the 1830s and 1840s. Local marl mining continued until 1930.

Recognized as a village in 1758, Marlton was officially named in 1845. That same year, both the "Evesham" Post Office and the "Evesham" Baptist Church adopted the "Marlton" name. To this day, most maps and directional signs use 'Marlton' rather than 'Evesham'. The historical village, Olde Marlton, largely remains intact and is recognised as a locally regulated Historic District. The township instituted full-time police services in 1966.

Until the 1950s, Evesham Township retained much of its original character. However, developers began purchasing farms and creating the township's first housing developments, eliminating significant farmland by the present day.

In 1955, the United States Army opened the PH-32 Nike Ajax facility on a 38-acre (15 ha) on Tomlinson Mill Road. This facility served as one of twelve defense installations protecting Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from potential aerial attacks during the Cold War. The base was decommissioned in the mid-1960s and subsequently served various purposes, including acting as a civil defense center. By the mid-1990s, the site had been repurposed into a housing development.

Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the township had a total area of 29.59 square miles (76.62 km²), including 29.16 square miles (75.51 km²) of land and 0.43 square miles (1.11 km²) of water (1.45%).

Marlton is an historic community, place (CDP) and unincorporated area within Evesham Township with 10,260 residents (as of Census 2010) that covers 3.235 square miles (8.38 km²) of the township. "Marlton" is often used in place of the township's name, even when referring to locations beyond the CDP's boundaries.

Other unincorporated communities, localities and place names partially or completely within the township include Berlin Heights, Cambridge, Cropwell, Crowfoot, Donlontown, Elmwood Road, Evans Corner, Evesboro, Gibbs Mill, Milford, Pine Grove and Tomlinsons Mill.

The township borders the municipalities of Mount Laurel Township and Medford Township in Burlington County; and Berlin Township, Cherry Hill, Voorhees Township and Waterford Township in Camden County.

The township is one of 56 South Jersey municipalities included within the New Jersey Pinelands National Reserve, a protected natural area of unique ecology covering 1,100,000 acres (450,000 ha), that has been classified as a United States Biosphere Reserve and established by Congress in 1978 as the nation's first National Reserve. Part of the township is included in the state-designated Pinelands Area, which includes parts of Burlington County, along with areas in Atlantic, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester and Ocean counties.

Education The Evesham Township School District serves students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. As of the 2021–22 school year, the district, comprised of eight schools, had an enrollment of 4,384 students and 348.0 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 12.6:1. Schools in the district (with 2021–22 enrollment data from the National Center for Education Statistics) are Helen L. Beeler Elementary School with 544 students in grades K-5, Frances S. DeMasi Elementary School with 283 students in grades K-5, Robert B. Jaggard Elementary School with 452 students in grades K-5, Marlton Elementary School with 430 students in grades K-5, Richard L. Rice Elementary School with 559 students in grades PreK-5, J. Harold Van Zant Elementary School with 573 students in grades K-5, Frances S. DeMasi Middle School with 732 students in grades 6-8 and Marlton Middle School with 772 students in grades 6-8.

Public school students in ninth through twelfth grades attend Cherokee High School, which opened a 210,000-square-foot (20,000 m²) addition in September 2001. As of the 2021–22 school year, the high school had an enrollment of 2,165 students and 174.9 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 12.4:1. The high school is part of the Lenape Regional High School District, which also serves students from Medford Lakes, Medford Township, Mount Laurel Township, Shamong Township, Southampton Township, Tabernacle Township and Woodland Township.

Students from Evesham Township, and from all of Burlington County, are eligible to attend the Burlington County Institute of Technology, a countywide public school district that serves the vocational and technical education needs of students at the high school and post-secondary level at its campuses in Medford and Westampton.

Private schools include St. Joan of Arc School, a Catholic school established in 1965 that serves students in preschool through eighth grade. The school operates under the supervision of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Trenton.

Transport: Road As of May 2010, the township had 183.43 miles (295.20 km) of roadways, of which 159.35 miles (256.45 km) were maintained by the municipality, 15.28 miles (24.59 km) by Burlington County and 8.80 miles (14.16 km) by the New Jersey Department of Transportation.

Route 70, which runs east-west across the northern part of the township, Route 73, which runs north-south along the township's western border, and County Route 544 (Marlton Parkway / Taunton Lake Road) are the major roadways in the township.

Evesham Township was the location of the Marlton Circle, which served as the junction of Route 70 and Route 73. In 2011, the circle, which handled 90,000 vehicles a day and was the site of as many as 175 accidents a year, was replaced by a grade-separated interchange that allows Route 73 to pass over Route 70.

Transport: Public NJ Transit provides bus service in the township on the 406 route that runs between Berlin and Philadelphia.

The Atco station, in Waterford Township just south of the township's border, provides New Jersey Transit train service to the 30th Street Station in Philadelphia and the Atlantic City Rail Terminal in Atlantic City on the Atlantic City Line.