County House series, Part One, Chapter Three. 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.
architecture
The County House
Part One, Chapter 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.
Pittstown Inn, part two
I ended part one of the Pittstown Inn when the Revolution came to an end. The Treaty of Paris was finally signed on September 3, 1783, thanks to the efforts of America’s representative at the negotiations, Benjamin Franklin.
The next stage in the history of the Pittstown tavern should cover the years from 1783 to 1800, when the tavern’s owner, Moore Furman, began thinking about replacing the old tavern house with a new one.
The question becomes—what was going on with the tavern between those years? Much to my dismay, I can say next to nothing about what was going on with the tavern. Clearly, there were tavernkeepers at work there while the owner, Furman, had returned to his home in Trenton.