LAMBERTVILLE, once known as Coryell’s Ferry, until 1814 when a post office was established there. It was a part of West Amwell Township until it was incorporated in 1849. The D&R Canal and the Belvidere-Delaware Railroad have given this town much of its life and history. But it was also an important place during the Revolution as the Continental Army moved back and forth between New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Two Letters Written by Sen. John Lambert
Senator John Lambert of Amwell is one of Hunterdon’s most interesting historical figures.1 He served in the state legislature during the Revolution and afterwards served as Acting Governor before being elected to Congress and then to the U.S. Senate.
Last Sunday, I gave a talk to the Lambertville Historical Society about how to research one’s property in Hunterdon County, with a special focus on Lambertville. It was a great group of people, and I got a chance to appreciate how awesome old photos look when projected on an enormous screen. It was also nice to show many more pictures than I can reasonably do on this blog.
Sometimes in my researches on Hunterdon people of the past, odd things turn up. Something very odd turned up when I came across Cornelius H. Barber, who lived from 1804 to 1884. I had been asked about the Prall tanyard, which was located a short distance south of Sergeantsville in the early 1800s, and discovered that Barber had briefly been an owner.
So let me tell you a little about Cornelius Hoppock Barber before describing the odd thing I found.
A continuation of the article on Sen. John Lambert’s home farm.
Having discovered which of two farms belonged to Sen. John Lambert, I realized how amazingly interconnected the Lambert family was. That will hold true even more so here in part two. However, I have not done all the research that could have been done before publishing this article. It was a question of when to stop.
In 1878 when the bridge on Raven Rock Road was built, the Freeholder Director of Hunterdon County was Joseph H. Boozer of Lambertville. He was one of the six freeholders who were charged with overseeing construction of the bridge spanning the Lockatong Creek. With such an unusual name, he certainly stands out, and I could not resist the urge to learn about him and his family.
In my previous post I wrote about the history of the Lambertville Iron Works, the company that constructed the Lockatong bridge. At that time, after several months of work and an initial bridge opening, the bridge was closed again in order to repair the repairs. It has since been reopened, and is definitely worth a visit. It is not exactly the bridge it used to be, but it has been beautifully restored, and all concerned should take pride in it.
Hunterdon County probably holds the record for the most 19th century iron truss bridges that are still in use. In Delaware Township alone there are nine iron truss bridges, not including the Covered Bridge, which is also a truss bridge. The most important of these iron truss bridges is the one crossing the Lockatong Creek on Rosemont-Raven Rock Road. That bridge is an outstanding example of the urge to lend some grandeur to a very functional structure. None of the other township bridges quite matches it.
Now the fun begins–the 1826 Celebration of the Fourth of July in Flemington, NJ. (Part Two of the reprint of my article in the Hunterdon Historical Newsletter, Spring 2006. You can read Part One here.)
This year residents of Delaware Township in Hunterdon County celebrate the 175 years since the township was created. The story of how this came about is a surprising one, and a little disheartening.
The following is an update of a speech I delivered at the Locktown Stone Church in May 1997. I thought it would be a good idea to archive the speech here on my website, especially since it makes a nice short history of Delaware Township. When I gave the speech, I had two large maps showing locations of mills, taverns, ferries, the oldest roads. One map showed the 18th century version of Delaware Township, and one showed the 19th century version. Whatever happened to those maps? If I find them, I’ll turn them over to Marilyn Cummings who has been working hard on just such a map project, one that can be seen on Google Earth.
