My last article was the first of the series I hope to write about Flemington’s 19th century buildings with arches on their rooflines. That last article featured the Clock Tower building at the corner of Main Street and Bloomfield Avenue, built in 1874 by George A. Rea. Now let’s stroll south along Main Street to visit the next building in this series.
One never knows when an article by Egbert T. Bush might come in handy. In this case, it turns out to be very handy for the research I am doing on Flemington in the 19th century.
The history of the town of Clinton is a fascinating one. The borough has so much character and charm, but it had a rocky start.
While working on a history of the Sergeantsville Inn, I realized that this would be a good time to publish Egbert T. Bush’s article about the places that made Sergeantsville such an interesting little town. Mr. Bush did not have the advantage of adding photographs the way I do. These pictures come from the postcard collection of Paul Kurzenberger. (Note that Mr. Bush’s article is in italics; my comments are not.)
This article by Egbert T. Bush answers some questions about the Bowne farm that were raised in the previous post, “Dr. Bowne’s Homestead.“1 Lora Olsen had pointed out that there were two houses on the property, one quite old, and one built in the mid 19th century. But it turns out there was a third house—one built for the slaves that lived on the farm.
Recently I attended a workshop given by archivist Don Cornelius on the holdings of the Hunterdon County Historical Society. They are extensive, far more than I realized. Among them are the original daybooks of Dr. John Bowne of old Amwell Township, filled with the names of his patients and their treatment. These Daybooks are so important to genealogists that someone at the Historical Society has gone to the considerable effort of indexing the names into a card catalog, and—primitive as it may seem to be today—it’s a very useful genealogical tool for the time period of 1791 through 1857.
by Egbert T. Bush, Stockton, N.J.
published in the Hunterdon Co. Democrat, September 5, 1929
This is another in a series of articles by Egbert T. Bush on the subject of Hunterdon County trees. Whenever Mr. Bush writes about an event, there is always an interesting back story—often more than one. This article about Stockton takes us north to Kingwood and Alexandria, and south to Lambertville. There are a few people of particular importance: John Finney, William V. Case, Edward P. Conkling and his father Rev. Cornelius S. Conkling. The biographies of Finney and Case can be found at the end of Mr. Bush’s article. The Conklings will appear in a subsequent post.
On Saturday, June 15th, a large group of people gathered to follow Dennis Bertland on his walking tour of Sergeantsville. It was fascinating and fun. Dennis showed us how the village evolved from its earliest days. And it was great to see so many people with memories of old Sergeantsville. Towards the end of the tour the subject of Skunktown came up. Sue Lockwood told a story about its origin (there are several versions; see What’s In A Name). She said the name came from the fact that there was once a tanner here who sold skunk pelts. I’ve heard that before, but this time I got to thinking.
This is another long post; it is the rest of a talk I gave in 1997 on Delaware Township villages (part one can be read here). Part two focuses on the villages in the 19th and early 20th centuries. There is far more to say about them, which I will attempt to do in future posts. Currently I have been researching the history of Raven Rock, which you can read about here and here.
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.
