The Bonaparte house at Bordentown, as it appeared at about the year 1820.

The Chapel of the lnvalides in Paris contains numerous mementos of Napoleon Bonaparte, militaristic Emperor of France; and in Burlington County today may be found many of the effects of his older brother Joseph Bonaparte, once King of Spain and known locally as Count de Survilliers in the period 1816 to 1839.

He escaped from France under an assumed name after the Battle of Waterloo; and while Napoleon was dying in forced exile on St. Helena, Joseph was buying large acreage at Bordentown - on which he designed extensive parks and built an elaborate mansion, complete with statuary, exquisite landscaping, and an escape route to the river.

Joseph Bonaparte, ex-King of Spain, lived in voluntary exile in Burlington County.

His faithful steward Louis Maillard was sent quietly to Europe, and returned with a fortune in jewels and gold, hidden away during the Bonaparte years in power. Joseph Bonaparte proved to be a friendly and generous neighbor to the people of Bordentown. In Philadelphia, where he spent the winters, he struck up companionship with French-speaking Stephen (Etienne) Girard - himself once a resident of Burlington County - who designed for the ex-King an elaborate river-boat for traveling back and forth to Bordentown.

James Still, who "raised himself by his bootstraps" to become the celecrated Black Doctor of the Pines.

His stay was marred somewhat by the loss of his original mansion, destroyed by fire. His wife remained in Italy, and during a visit to England in 1839 he was given permission - in view of rapidly failing health - to visit his family in Florence. Never was he permitted to return to France, concern there being great that another Bonapartist uprising might occur; nor did his health permit return to the United States. In Italy Joseph Bonaparte died at the age of 76, in 1844.

He was born the son of escaped slaves Levin and Charity Still, at Indian Mills, in 1812. Raised in the most abject poverty, his formal education was virtually none until age 18 - when under contract he was "bound out" for two years of labor in return for $100 to his father and a few months of schooling for himself.

Dr. James Still's office building, standing today near the Cross Roads at Medford.

Making the most of his limited instruction at the Brace Road School, he moved in with his sister’s family in Philadelphia and worked a summer job in a glue factory, completing his own education by a lot of reading. Among his books were the ones recommended by a friendly Quaker at a Philadelphia bookstore, on herb medicines and practical physiology.

In 1843 he began to distill herbs at Medford, in a small building hauled to his plot near the Cross Roads over the objections of white neighbors. Selling his essences to druggists in Philadelphia, he graduated to a canvas covered wagon and peddled his herb remedies across the pinelands of the County. He next built a sizeable home and small office on his enlarged lands at the Cross Roads, brewed his medicines over the basement fireplace of the office building, and was besieged by patients who traveled from near and far for his famous cures.

Those from afar were so numerous that he bought up the old Schenck tavern at the Cross Roads and converted it into a waiting-hospital for out of town patrons. Many of his patients swore by him; a few established physicians swore in different vein over his practices - but James Still went on, raising his sons as doctors and attributing his own success to hard ingenuity and a kindly Providence, until his death in 1882. His grave is in Jacob’s Chapel Cemetery, Mount Laurel.

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