The industrial history of this site began with early colonists who established sawmills and gristmills powered by the Rancocas Creek. In the 1830s, Jonathan and Samuel Shreve purchased the land for a textile manufacturing facility called Shreveville, and although the village first prospered, a slump in the cotton industry during the 1850s forced them to shut down operations and abandon the property by 1857. In 1865, H.B. Smith moved his company from Lowell, Massachusetts, to this rural location near major East Coast cities, where abundant natural resources made it an ideal place to produce his patented woodworking machinery. He bought 45 acres and a village full of buildings for $20,000, then improved and expanded the town into the model industrial village of Smithville. Hezekiah and Agnes Smith came to Burlington County in 1865 with a vision of a community that promoted worker welfare to increase productivity. Smithville became a major production center shipping to Philadelphia, New York, Washington, and beyond, and during the late 1800s about a quarter of all woodworking machines sold in the nation were made by the H.B. Smith Machine Company. In shaping the village, H.B. Smith emphasized social and cultural values to create a healthier and happier workforce than was typical in the grim, crowded industrial urban centers of the nineteenth century. Jonathan and Samuel Shreve had originally built the Greek Revival mansion in 1841, and Smith enlarged it extensively, adding rooms such as a billiard room, bowling alley, poker room, and bar. Across the main road from the mansion grounds stood H.B. Smith’s large farm complex, which included barns, wagon sheds, tool houses, stables, corn cribs, a slaughterhouse, and a 120-foot-high tower with an observation deck.