This article is my somewhat-delayed return to the subject of the grand old building on Flemington’s Main Street built by John C. Hopewell for Flemington’s first bank, the Hunterdon County National Bank. (See Flemington’s First Bank.)
Civil War
Summit School
Raritan Township was in the news not long ago for its effort to acquire and preserve a 48-acre farm to the west of Flemington. It is located near an area that has long been known as “Hardscrabble.”
Choosing Sides
My previous article discussed the evolution of political parties in the early 1850s, both nationally and in Hunterdon County. The Democratic party was still going strong, while the Whig party was fading away and two new parties had come on the scene: the Republican party and the American party, better known as the Know Nothings.
Political Turmoil
Hunterdon County Politics in the 1850s
I am going to step away briefly from the life of John C. Hopewell to shed some light on a political movement that Hopewell and many other Flemington notables got caught up in.
Hunterdon Divided
(Hunterdon’s Militias, part 2)
My previous article (Hunterdon’s Militia) included mention of the Locktown Volunteers and their Captain, John Bellis, who happened to be “an ardent Republican” in a neighborhood of equally ardent Democrats or Copperheads.1 How Bellis managed to get along with his neighbors is an interesting question.
Hunterdon’s Militia
Hunterdon County, like all the other counties in New Jersey, had a state militia system in place since before the Revolution. Gen. Washington relied on these volunteers as he fought the British in New Jersey, and they did their part during the War of 1812. But after that, there was little need for them—not until the mid 1850s, when they began to reorganize.
The Heaths of Locktown
The Heath family turns up fairly often in my articles without ever getting the attention it is due. They were ‘fruitful and multiplied’ and owned quite a lot of land in various parts of the county.1
Pole Raising in the Days of Lincoln
This article was originally published in “The Delaware Township Post” on March 1, 2009. The Post went out of business, and the articles I published there have disappeared. It seems appropriate now to republish this article, greatly modified, here.
On the Eve of War
Disturbing news of late, somehow reminiscent of the lead-up to America’s first Civil War. Whilst scrolling through the Hunterdon Gazette recently, I came across an item that caught my attention, published on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1859:
The Two John Barbers
In the early 1860s, two men named John Barber got involved on opposite sides of the question – should the country support Lincoln’s prosecution of the Civil War, or should it not?1