The Gutter Guys

The area now known as Cherry Hill was originally settled by the Lenni-Lenape Native Americans who coexisted peacefully with the first settlers from England, Quaker followers of William Penn who arrived in the late 17th century. The first settlement was a small cluster of homes named Colestown, in the perimeters of what is now the Colestown Cemetery on the corner of Route 41 (King's Highway) and Church Road. The municipality was founded on February 25, 1844, in Gloucester County as Delaware Township from half of the area of Waterford Township, and became part of Camden County at its creation some two weeks later on March 13, 1844. At its territorial peak, Delaware Township was composed of modern-day North Camden, present-day Cherry Hill, Merchantville, and Pennsauken (including Petty's Island in the Delaware River). The township grew explosively after World War II, and continued to grow until the 1980s. Today, the municipality's population is stable with new development generally occurring in pockets of custom luxury homes or through the rehabilitation and adaptive reuse of commercial and industrial areas.