Hancock House
About this property
The Hancock House is a historic structure in the Hancock's Bridge section of Lower Alloways Creek Township, Salem County, New Jersey, United States. It was the site of the 1778 Hancock's Bridge massacre. The site is on the National Register of Historic Places. The house was built in 1734 for Judge William and Sarah Hancock and features Flemish bond brickwork detailed with blue-glazed bricks, which gives the year of construction (1734) and the initials of the couple for whom it was built: W S for William and Sarah. William died in 1762 and passed the house to his son William, also a judge. During the American Revolutionary War, British forces under Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Mawhood launched a successful raid on Salem on March 18, 1778. Three days later on March 21, Major John Graves Simcoe led approximately 300 troops of the 27th Regiment of Foot and Queen's Rangers through a marsh and across Alloway Creek in a surprise attack on Hancock House. At approximately 5 a.m., they entered the house, surprising and killing between 7 and 30 American militiamen sleeping there. Simcoe's troops, reportedly exclaiming "Spare no one! Give no quarter!", allegedly killed several militiamen who were attempting to surrender and fatally injured Loyalist judge William Hancock Jr., the owner of Hancock House before American forces commandeered it, who Simcoe and his troops mistakenly believed was away from the house for the night. All remaining American soldiers in the house were captured. National Register of Historic Places listings in Salem County, New Jersey Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) No. NJ-54, "Hancock House, Locust Island Road & Main Street, Hancocks Bridge, Salem County, NJ", 7 photos, 1 color transparency, 20 measured drawings, 7 data pages, 1 photo caption page "Revolutionary War Sites in Hancock's Bridge, New Jersey". Hancock House
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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).
Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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Questions about this property
When was Hancock House listed on the National Register?
Hancock House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 17, 1970.
What type of historic resource is Hancock House?
Hancock House is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.
What is the period of significance for Hancock House?
The period of significance for Hancock House is recorded as the industrial era.
Can I research the history near Hancock House?
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