It is time to return to the Tavern Lot north of the Courthouse, and its owner George Alexander.
My previous article (Part Seven, Stockton & Anderson, continued) was an epilogue for the lives of Lucius W. Stockton and Jacob Anderson, two men who did not own the County House tavern lot but spent a lot of time in the Flemington courthouse and were very significant to the history and politics of Flemington in the 1790s and early 1800s.
Part Six ended with an Epilogue describing the last years of people involved in the election of Jacob Anderson as Hunterdon County Sheriff in 1794 and his legal troubles in 1795: John Anderson and William Lowrey; also Anderson’s successor as sheriff, Elias Phillips.
The Epilogue did not include the two most important people in that story, Lucius W. Stockton and Jacob Anderson himself. Part Seven is reserved for them.
Part Five concluded with the election of October 1794 when Jacob Anderson was chosen as Sheriff, despite being attacked by his opponent William Lowrey. In addition to maligning Anderson, William Lowrey had actually taken him to court, claiming he was not a qualified freeholder. The court affirmed Anderson’s standing, but the case is especially interesting because of the people who backed Lowrey’s claim and because opposition to Anderson was rooted in political differences.
When researching history, I find that you can start off with a plan, but before long one thing will lead to another, or even several ‘anothers,’ that are completely unexpected. Which makes it challenging to stay on course. That was definitely the case while I was preparing this chapter.
This is technically part four of the County House series, even though it does not directly concern the old tavern/hotel.
Samuel Stewart and Anna Smith had an interesting connection with each other and with Flemington’s courthouse and Alexander’s tavern, as well as other 18th-century residents of the town. If you haven’t yet read PART THREE of my series, The County House, I strongly recommend that you do that first.
During the years 1791-1793, a new courthouse for Hunterdon County was constructed in Flemington. Before it was finished, a complication emerged that connected the courthouse lot with Alexander’s tavern on Main Street.
Construction began after June 1, 1791, when a large gathering took place in Flemington to celebrate. The event was reported on June 22, 1791 in The Gazette of United States.1
The history of a hotel that once stood on the west side of Flemington’s Main Street has quickly turned into something much more. Part One began with Flemington’s first European property owners and ended with the Revolution. This article goes on from there, but only as far as the 1790s, when Hunterdon County acquired a new courthouse.
Part One of a series on the origins of the west side of Main Street, Flemington, from the courthouse, north.
This is one of my favorite photographs.1 The building is Mount’s Hotel on Flemington’s Main Street, across from and a little north of the Union Hotel. It was replaced in the 1970s by the group of shops called ‘New Market,’ built by Don Shuman.
