The dilapidated Joseph Cooper House is the oldest city structure. Like the nearby Benjamin Cooper House, another long abandoned and deteriorating historic home in North Camden, it was once occupied by the family of Camden’s first settler, William Cooper.

A longtime city redevelopment agency is taking steps to save both houses, previously listed by Preservation New Jersey among the state’s most endangered historic buildings.

But progress has been slow.

Cooper’s Ferry Partnership has secured grants from the New Jersey Historic Trust to eventually save the two homes. It has placed new metal fencing around the roofless Joseph Cooper house to discourage intruders.

“We are in the process of putting together an adaptive re-use study for what remains of the historic home and working with the city,” said Joseph Myers, vice president of Cooper’s Ferry Partnership, of the late 17th-century home. .

“The goal is to commemorate the important history of the house and the role it played, while engaging a decorative cornerstone for the park because it is the gateway into Pyne Poynt Park,” he added.

The historic trust gave $48,000 for the Joseph Cooper House, built in 1695, and $15,000 for the other Cooper house. The latter also has received money from the Camden County Open Space trust fund and the 1772 Foundation.

The Joseph Cooper House, at 7th and Erie streets, is where the Cooper Point Ferry was established for transportation on the Delaware River. The Benjamin Cooper House, built in 1734, is on 7th Street at the riverfront.

But as efforts are made for the Cooper properties, no one has come forward to rescue other forgotten historic sites in Camden, Gloucester and Burlington counties that have been neglected for various reasons.

They include Mount Peace Cemetery in Lawnside, the original Friends School of Mullica Hill, the Green Hotel in Woodbury and the Asher Woolman family house in Westampton.

The 207-year-old Asher Woolman farmhouse was the only tri-county site listed in this year’s annual Preservation New Jersey endangered list.

“Our goal is to bring awareness to cherished sites that have been a vital part of a community that, without intervention, would fade from existence,” said PNJ President Michael Hanrahan.

The Woolman site, vacant since the 1970s, is owned by a real estate developer who declined to sell it years ago to the Rancocas Historical Society. Now the building is enveloped by vegetation; its windows are broken and its roof leaks.

The house, on a hill surrounded by fields along a I-295 ramp at Rancocas Road, replaced an earlier Woolman home built in 1754. A dated stone commemorating the earlier house was incorporated into the present structure.

Asher’s brother, John, was an influential Quaker preacher and antislavery advocate in Burlington County.

“The plight of the Asher Woolman homestead is a reminder that many absentee owners allow valuable historic properties in New Jersey to deteriorate,” Hanrahan said.

In Lawnside, the Mount Peace Cemetery Association has been unable to clear and restore the 11.5-acre cemetery, where the remains of up to 125 black Civil War veterans lay..

“We are just limping along,” said Yolanda Romero, an association member whose father spent 22 years trying to restore the graveyard, an addition to the 2012 PNJ most endangered list.

“All we are trying to do right now is maintain what was already cleared.”

Acid rain, poison ivy and vandals have victimized the cemetery at Mouldy Road and the White Horse Pike. The exact number of veterans buried there is unknown because some stones are buried and others are unreadable.

Romero said the association was never able to locate the grave of Medal of Honor recipient John Lawson in the uncleared section but placed a stone in his honor at the front of the burial grounds.

“What little money we have has had to go to pay for liability insurance, because a few years ago a tree limb fell on a car next to the cemetery and did $1,600 in damage,” Romero explained.

Compliments of David Zallie, owner of several local ShopRite stores, the grass on the cleared acres of cemetery is now being mowed.

In Woodbury, Holy Angels Parish finally put the historic Green Hotel up for sale after PNJ listed it last year. The asking price is $250,000.

The hotel is a Second Empire-style building at Cooper Street and Railroad Avenue in the historic district. It dates to the 1880s, when then-Mayor Lewis Green built it.

Bryan Bonfiglio, a member of the Woodbury Historic Preservation Commission, said the once-magnificent hotel could be beautiful again and would make a wonderful bed and breakfast.

“The top 10 (PNJ) list brought attention and publicity to the issue and we were hoping we can find someone who wants to save it,” he noted.

There are no buyers for another threatened site, the original Friends School, also known as the Cope Building. It is owned by the Friends School Mullica Hill on Route 45 in the historic district.

“We are trying to identify any interested parties to put forth the funding to rehab it because it would be a significant expense to the school to do it, so right now we have no plans for it,” said Beth Reaves, head of the school.

Instead of rehabbing the structure years ago, the school administration decided to pursue new facilities.

The Harrison Township Historic Preservation Commission turned down a prior school administration request to demolish the building, citing its architectural significance and location in the historic district.

“The tricky part comes with enforcing the maintenance ordinance to get the building stabilized,” explained commission member Paul Showers.

The roof leaks, the windows are boarded with masonry and the wall bricks used were softer than most.

“There would be a significant amount of investment required,” Showers added.

Chris Knisely, another commission member and trustee of the local historical society, said the school was a “crowning achievement” of a community that could afford to build a modern school building at the turn of the last century.

“You need to know and appreciate the past and why things were done in order to make future decisions,” he noted.

“It’s an old and tired building that I would love to see restored to a modern usage.”

Reach Carol Comegno at ccomegno@courierpostonline.com