During 1777, soldiers were quartered in this building in Haddonfield, where they protected New Jersey's rebel government from attack and guarded prisoners whom the Council of Safety sought to question. On March 15, 1777, the New Jersey legislature reauthorized the Council of Safety's charge to apprehend any person disaffected to, or acting against, the government, and the council remained busy in March and May, questioning almost fifty individuals. Most were judged not dangerous and allowed to return home after pledging allegiance to the rebel government, while others were required to post bond and some were remanded to the Guard House. On May 23, 1777, twenty-six prisoners guarded by Lieutenant Andrew Irvine and eleven men of the 7th Pennsylvania Regiment crowded the Guard House, and many other prisoners passed through Haddonfield on their way to imprisonment in Pennsylvania or North Jersey. During Lord Cornwallis' occupation of Gloucester Town, November 24-27, 1777, these captives included sixteen British soldiers and seven Hessian riflemen. Alexander Morgan, Esquire, constructed the house shortly before his death in 1751 as a scaled-down version of his mansion on the Delaware River at the mouth of Pennsauken Creek, and both dwellings had facades with pent roofs, interrupted balconies, and gambrel roofs with dormers.