OLDER, PRE-COMPUTER 1970's AND 1980's ARTICLES:
ANDREW KENZIE ROWAN - BROAD STREET PARK
DECEMBER 22, 1915
"I predict a great future for Trenton, said Andrew Kenzie Rowan, the sage of Broad Street Park. I am optimistic but not visionary. Years ago, I forecast-ed Trenton's future progress commercially and her great possibilities, which have all come true. I now make the further forecast that this beautiful city with a great ship canal assured, will soon become a Manchester."
Mr. Rowan. who is nearly 88 years old, is quite feeble and is growing perceptibly weaker. Despite the fact that, his body is racked with rheumatic pains, yet as he sits and talks with his well thumbed Bible open before him his face wears a smile as he says, "I am fast nearing my heavenly home and I am happy, oh so extremely happy, for I know In whom I trust. I am ready for the summons at any time."
Continuing, the aged mad said: "Yes sir, I have passed the eighty-seventh milestone in the Journey of life and I feel that my stay here Is fast drawing to a close. But before I pass away I should like to have the dreams of my life realized and to close my eyes on a greater and grander Trenton. I am wealthy in so far as money and lands denote wealth and all of my belongings I am proud to say, were acquired by honest toil and frugal living. Many who were my associates in the olden days and who by ceaseless labor and frugality became wealthy, have all passed away and I think t today we are the better for their going, for they were set and stationary in their ways. They did not believe in advancement and progression. They much preferred to live their lives on the set line and in making and hoarding their money."
In giving his views as to Trenton’s future progress and possibilities, Rowan said: "If the City Commissioners want to see a greater and more progressive Trenton, let them get busy at once. Delays as you know are dangerous. Do not let us be too stringent and penurious in our ideas. Don't let us select a small strip of ground adjacent to the city that is already built and say, "We will now annex this to Trenton." This is only child's play.
No one ever heard of a real live progressive city booming on so small a plane.
EXTENSION IDEA
"Let me suggest this idea to our City Commissioners, who to my mind are a fine body of upright business men. The drafting of a bill for a greater and better Trenton and the extension of our boundary lines to the agricultural district. Let them begin at the White Horse Road. at Crosswicks Creek, the boundary line of Mercer County, and thence northerly to Coleman's Mill, and the old Sammy Hutchinson mills, which necessarily takes In Mercerville, thence to Whitehead Road and Miry Run Creek. Then we would have territory for a big city."
In commenting upon his plans, Mr. Rowan said: "The city authorities should not anticipate gaining a large revenue by the proposed annexation, but, on the contrary, they should have appraisers who are capable of making a fair appraisement of the value of such unimproved land, assessing it according to location and also encourage property owners to build at once. Trenton is quite a business city, but we are always behind the age."
When Mr. Rowan was asked about the proposed annexation of Broad Street Park to Trenton his eyes flashed as he said: "I know that such a project has been on foot for some time, but old and feeble as I am, I will fight such a measure if it is ever attempted. We are not willing that a few of our lawmakers should get together and say because the little strips of improved land, known as Broad Street Park, looks good and the taxes will help our city treasury very much, that It should be taken in. I want to say to those city officers and others that we are going into this fight from the start to the finish.' We will be glad to go in whenever the city gets ready to take in the outlying districts. We believe in progression, but we do not consider it progress in any sense of the word when Trenton simply wants it to take in a section of improved land at its convenience and with only one thought in view, to add to the city treasury and not to boom the city from a commercial standpoint. We will ask the projectors of such a scheme to take in our whole territory including the agricultural district, or let us remain as we are."
For the past eight years, Mr. Rowan has been confined to the front room of the Rowan mansion in Broad Street Park. He was stricken with rheumatism twenty-five years ago and has been using an Invalid's chair ever since. He was born on a farm near Mercerville, August 25, 1828. He bought the farm where he now resides In 1863 for $15,000 and the tract, about 163 acres, today is worth $200,000. The aged man remembers when the old borough of Chambersburg was corn fields, and apple and peach orchards and Captain William E. Hunt owned a mile tract of the land, where the Roebling mills, the Trenton Iron Company's plant, and the High School are now located.
That Mr. Rowan believes in advancement along civic lines is attested by the fact that it is due to his generosity and progressive ideas for the fine boulevard on South Broad Street. A few years ago this street was but 60 feet wide. Then Mr. Rowan donated 34 feet off his farm front and owners on the north side of the road gave six feet off their land, making the street just 100 feet wide.
Mr. Rowan smiled as he related how in the old times Mill Hill, Bloomfield and Lamberton were inhabited by firemen and stone hackers. The latter,. he said, were men who made a living by gathering boulders from the Delaware and. loading them in scows, and taking them to Philadelphia, where they were sold to the city authorities to be used in paving streets.
Mr. Rowan styles himself a natural born missionary. He has built seven mission churches in China at his own expense and today he is giving support to several Chinese missions. He gave Bishop Hartzell, who succeeded the late Bishop Taylor, the great South American missionary and religious worker. His personal check for $3,250 in payment for 1,000 acres of' land in Kambani, East Africa, where he has already founded' a mission school. He bought 1,400 acres of land in South Africa and presented it to the late Bishop Taylor and he also erected on it, at his own expense, a mission school and started an industrial farm. The school and farm are in operation and there are 1,100 negro pupils now enrolled, learning trades and acquiring a general education.
Mr. Rowan built the Chambers Street M E. Church on Liberty and Chambers Streets, and induced the late Samuel K. Wilson to donate the plot of ground upon which the church stands. He was one of the founders of Broad Street M. E. Church, and he also started the M. E. Church at a Minneola, Florida, where he, until recently, was the owner of 5,000 acres of land.
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