According to my great-grandmother, whom I never met but whom everyone I know called Grandma Dee, this house originally stood on the farm rented by "Uncle Jesse" Leonard (1787-1849) in the early 19th century, located where the Big Swing Golf Center is today. The original house was built out of wood in 1791. In 1823, Uncle Jesse added a brick wing to the house in order to entice Mary Springer Chew (1801-1864) to become his second wife after the death of his first wife, Mercy Collins. In that same year, another small house on the property was moved further down on Salina Road to its present location, where it eventually became the home of James Murphy (c. 1812-1867) and his wife Jane Ann Murphy (c. 1817-1900).
"Aunt Jane," as she was known to everyone in Hurffville, took in orphaned and unwanted children and raised them as her own. In addition to their five biological children, at least twenty to twenty-five other children grew up in the Murphys' little two-story plank house on Salina Road over the years. After their deaths, the property was sold to a traveling umbrella mender, under whose ownership the condition of the house deteriorated such that his wife was forced to store valuables in empty lard tins to prevent them from being damaged by the leaks in the roof, earning him the mocking sobriquet, "Tin Can" Kelly. Mr. Kelly in turn sold the property to my great-great-uncle, "Uncle Clift," in 1913. The property has remained in my family for over a hundred years, and in all that time, the ruins of "Aunt Jane's House" have stood here where they have been for just shy of two hundred years.
Sources:
Historical Society of Washington Township. Memories of Washington Township, Vol. 1, 2nd Ed. Washington, NJ: The Historical Society of Washington Township, 2011.
McCart, Constance L. Washington Twp., Gloucester County. Mount Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2009.