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
part ten of The Route Not Taken
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.
part nine of The Route Not Taken
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.
This post returns to an article by Egbert T. Bush titled “Old Farms in Old Hunterdon,” published in 1931. I published large parts of this article before, in “The Moore Family,” in 2016. As the introduction to that article mentioned, two families were discussed in Bush’s article, the Moores and the Haines. Having discussed the Moore family at length, it is time to focus on the Haines family and their farm on the east side of Haines Road in East Amwell. This will conclude my study of some (but not all) of the farms located in the original proprietary tract of John Dennis.
There are two ways of writing about a cemetery. One is to portray the people buried there, which I attempted to do in my previous article. The other is to relate how the cemetery came to be—in other words, the history of the property where the cemetery is located. It usually makes sense to focus on the place since many of its early owners were buried in the cemetery. At first I thought that in this case, none of them were. But, research has changed my mind.
