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Camden County History Trail
Item 11 of 12
The Borough of Laurel Springs is located in Southern New Jersey about 14 miles from the Walt Whitman Bridge that connects Philadelphia to New Jersey. Its main roads were once the only way from Philadelphia to the shore and many people stopped and stayed in Laurel Springs instead of continuing on south. Walt Whitman frequently visited here and the Borough maintains two Whitman historic sites. Whitman Walk at Crystal Springs takes visitors along the path of Whitman’s Timber Creek days highlighted in “Specimen Days”. The other, The Whitman Stafford Farmhouse, circa 1785 has been lovingly restored and also exhibits the Borough’s colonial history.

IN WALT'S OWN WORDS . . .
Domicil'd at the farm-house of my friends, the Staffords, near by, I lived half the time along this creek and its adjacent fields and lanes. And it is to my life here that I, perhaps, owe partial recovery (a sort of second wind, or semi-renewal of the lease of life) from the prostration of 1874-'75. If the notes of that outdoor life could only prove as glowing to you, reader dear, as the experience itself was to me.” - - Walt Whitman