In her excellent book All Roads Lead to Pittstown (2015),1 Stephanie Stevens called attention to the early roads that converged on the village of Pittstown. Roads were certainly important, but just as important were creeks in creating the locations of Hunterdon villages.
In the 18th century, there were very few power sources. It was basically wood (a lot of it) and water. The water powered sawmills for shaping lumber into wood for building, grain mills to turn wheat into flour, and fulling mills to clean and prepare wool for spinning into yarn.2
It was the fulling mill of Edward Rockhill that gave Pittstown its start.
or “Peter Cherry’s Inn”
on the Klinesville-Cherryville Road,
in Raritan Township
“Point Tavern” is surely one of the oddest names for a tavern. When Egbert T. Bush wrote his article, Klinesville Once Had A Tavern, he pointed out (sorry) that
. . it was a place of note in its day, and reference was made to the old “Pint Tavern” and to some of the doings there, long after it had fallen into disuse. The name is said to have been given because of its location on the point. But everybody called it the “Pint Tavern,” and as such it is remembered.
My last article concerned an old restaurant on Main Street (today’s Higgins News Agency) that long ago sported a lovely arch along its front roofline. Previous to that, was the George Rea building, that had a similar arch on all four sides. Looking for the next building on Flemington’s Main Street with that unusual feature, we come to none other than the Union Hotel.
Some time ago, I began to write about a road in Raritan Township that originated as a private lane used by the Carman and Hoagland families to get from their farms to the main road from Flemington to Ringoes. That private road eventually became Johanna Farms Road. In my previous article, I had gotten to the point where the farm on the south side of Johanna Farms Road was owned by Cornelius Voorhees in 1852 (see Hoagland’s Road, part one). Voorhees bought the farm in 1840 from the assignees of John S. Rockafellow.
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
My previous article about the planned route of the Delaware-Flemington Railroad Company ended at the property of Samuel M. Higgins on the west side of Johanna Farms Road. The route then proceeded across Higgins’ farm in a northeasterly direction, passing not far north of a house near a branch of the Neshanic River.
As I wrote in my previous post, the farm just east of the Swallow farm was owned by John Lequear in the 18th century. I was delighted to discover the location of his home farm.
In this episode of the saga of the unbuilt rail line we travel from Sand Brook into Raritan Township, on our way to Walnut Brook. Here is a detail of the railroad survey map.
Recently there has been much discussion on the Facebook page “Historical Kingwood Township” about the history of Baptistown. So, it seems appropriate now to publish this article by Egbert T. Bush with his memories of the ancient village.
Part one focused on the family of Judson Rittenhouse and Martha Bodine, who lived on the farm now known as the Sarah Dilts Farm Park in Delaware Township for most of their lives. The farm was purchased by Judson’s father, Wilson Bray Rittenhouse, in 1844. This article will first describe Wilson and his family, and then will trace the history of this property back to the first European owner.
