With the end of 2025 just around the corner, here’s a look back at the top stories of the year in Haddonfield.
Movement on Bancroft
The borough’s board of commissioners named Woodmont Properties the conditional redeveloper of the vacant Bancroft property during a work session on March 10.
The property – which once included the Bancroft School and its historic mansion building – has been vacant since the school relocated to its Mount Laurel campus in 2014. In the years since, it has drawn several development proposals rejected by residents and commissioners.
The original plan for Woodmont’s redevelopment would have seen the construction of 120 units across four buildings. An updated proposal presented to the commissioners in February featured 98 units, of which 86 would be priced at standard market rates and 12 set aside as affordable housing.
Roots in lacrosse
The Eagles’ Will Shipley catches a football at the Premier Lacrosse League at Haddonfield Memorial High School.
While he’s most well known for his football career with the Eagles, running back Will Shipley made an appearance at Haddonfield Memorial High School’s turf field on Aug. 20 for an event centered on lacrosse.
In a session sponsored by the Premier Lacrosse League (PLL) and including professional players Michael Sowers of the Philadelphia Waterdogs and Connor Shellenberger of the New York Atlas teams, Shipley took to the field for a skill session with the duo.
Before Shipley played football at the collegiate level, he was also a five-star lacrosse recruit and a state champion at Weddington High School in North Carolina.
“It was good just getting back to my roots of lacrosse out here with two of the best in the game,” he enthused, “and the ability to come out here and ultimately celebrate what we’re doing for the PLL (league) championship series.”
The borough visit was the first time Shipley returned to a lacrosse field since high school.
“We’re going to test out Will Shipley’s lacrosse skills, see if he’s still got it,” Shellenberger kidded. “And it’s really cool of him to come out. I know training camp, I think, just finished up for those guys (the Eagles). So for him to take the time to do this is pretty cool.”
Blazing a trail
Members of the Preserving Black Haddonfield History Project and the borough’s legacy families gathered around a new marker on Oct. 19.
In a continuing effort to increase visibility of the borough’s minority groups, the Preserving Black Haddonfield History Project hosted the Oct. 19 unveiling of a marker that designates the borough’s place on the New Jersey Black Heritage Trail.
Before the unveiling at Kenneth N. MacDonald Park, project members held a ceremony to introduce the marker and emphasize its importance. It featured several speakers, including C. Adrienne Rhodes, the project’s founding president, and several descendants of Black Haddonfield residents who have lived in the borough for generations.
Lisa Lacroce Patterson, another project co-founder, explained that the idea for the marker came during a virtual master class for Haddonfield Memorial High School alumni during COVID. Patterson noted then that Princeton, where she lives, has walking tours, plaques for historical sites and a web page to preserve Black history there.
Mayor Dave Siedell noted the significance of the marker as Haddonfield’s first on the Black Heritage Trail, and the first in Camden County.
“History is not only about where we’ve been, it’s about who we choose to remember,” he noted. “Sometimes we commemorate our past for its accomplishments, and sometimes we do so to measure our progress and renew our determination to keep moving forward.
“And today, we’re doing a little bit of both.”
