Big Distilling Business Once Thrived Along Laborious Wickecheoke Creek
\n\u201cJersey Lightning\u201d Makers<\/h4>\n
by Egbert T. Bush, Stockton, NJ<\/em> On that erstwhile laborious stream, the Wickecheoke Creek, about one mile southwest of Locktown, stands an old mill that has been there for generations. Who built it or when it was built, nobody appears to know, and no reliable records have been found, but it was evidently there much over a century ago. In truth there were in older times two mills running there, one cutting up logs and the other grinding grists for the community.2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n And still another industry was carried on at the same place. The surplus apples of the vicinity\u2014reputed to have been plentiful in those days\u2014were converted into that standard article of early commerce, \u201cJersey Lightning.\u201d Old people still tell of carting apples to this distillery and getting very satisfactory results therefrom. This branch of the business was carried on until near the end of the past [the 19th] century.<\/p>\n We find that by deed dated August 13, 1818, Andrew Bray conveyed to Elisha Rittenhouse 112 acres of land \u201cBeginning at a hickory sapling on the north side of the mill dam,\u201d and apparently including the mills, but mentioning only the Wickecheoke and the dam. It would seem from other references, that the mill was there before the year 1800.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This probably explains Mr. Bush\u2019s confusion. The property had gone out of the Rittenhouse family in 1801, when Elisha Rittenhouse and Thomas Opdycke did a land swap, and Opdycke got the mill. In 1818, Elisha Rittenhouse, John Opdycke and Henry Trimmer, as commissioners to divide the real estate of\u00a0Thomas Opdycke deceased\u00a0sold the mill property to Andrew Bray, the son-in-law of Elisha Rittenhouse, who promptly conveyed it back to him individually for the same price–$40\/acre. Back in 1790, Elisha Rittenhouse was taxed with his father Peter on 206 acres and a grist mill. In 1780, Peter Rittenhouse was taxed in Amwell Township on 206 acres and a sawmill. Peter wrote his will in 1791 and left to his beloved son Elisha all his lands and tenements. But the mill could go back as far as the 1740s. In 1767, William Rittenhouse, the first of the family to settle in Amwell Township, and the one who bought the land in 1734, bequeathed to his son Peter, in addition to lands already deeded, a sawmill and 100 acres along the Wickecheoke Creek, for a total of 240 acres.<\/p>\n April 1, 1847, John T. Risler, Executor of Elisha Rittenhouse, conveyed 7 acres and 10 perches of land to Tunis Myers; \u201calso the right to clean the tail race above the described boundaries as it runs at this date, to be included in the above described land as belonging thereto as part and parcel of the same, it being a Certain Mill Lot which the said Elisha Rittenhouse did order and direct his executor to make sale of in his last will and testament dated the 30th day of April, 1846.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Tunis Myers has long bedeviled me. I have yet to identify his parents. Keturah Rittenhouse, his wife, was born Sept. 1823 to Alanson Rittenhouse and Mary Ellen Sebold, and was the granddaughter of Elisha Rittenhouse, thus making it logical for Tunis Myers to become involved in the ownership of the mill. Tunis Myers was born November 1807 in Morris County, NJ. That is the birthplace given in the 1875 N.J. State Census. However, in his obituary of Sept. 5, 1901, he is identified as \u201ca native of this (Delaware) township.\u201d Even more annoying, in the 1880 census, the birthplaces of Tunis Myers\u2019 parents was left blank, which was very unusual. The 1900 census shows that they were born in New Jersey. There was another Tunis D. Myers, son of Peter Mires and Elizabeth Dilley, who acquired property on the South Branch, married Ann Naylor, and was about the same age as Tunis the miller, adding to the confusion. Much of the problem comes from the fact that many of the Myers who lived in Amwell Township in the first half of the 19th<\/sup> century did not write wills.<\/p>\n Here Tunis Myers carried on the varied industries until 1871. Then he and his wife Katurah conveyed the property as above to Anderson Bray and William S. Cobb.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Tunis Myers was listed as a miller in the 1870 census, but as a farm laborer in the 1880 census. Tunis and Keturah Myers remained in Delaware Township until 1890, when they departed for Waterloo, Nebraska, where Tunis Myers died on August 23, 1901, and his wife Ketura sometime afterwards. Anderson Bray was the son of Andrew Bray, mentioned before.<\/p>\n This partnership lasted only two years. March 25, 1873, William S. Cobb and Adelia W., his wife, conveyed their interest to Anderson Bray for $1,000.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Mr. and Mrs. Cobb seem to come out of nowhere. They appear in the 1880 census for Delaware Township, William age 48, a farm laborer, and wife Adelia 26; both of them born in Pennsylvania. A further search of census records was fruitless. However, William S. Cobb died on November 17, 1893, and was buried in the Sandy Ridge Cemetery. When his wife died or where she was buried I cannot say.<\/p>\n On the same day Anderson Bray conveyed the entire interest to Adelia W. Cobb for $2,000. Just why this was done is left to conjecture\u2014and conjecture is sometimes preferable to certain knowledge and often much more plentiful.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It should be noted that Anderson Bray made a cool $1000 on the transactions.<\/p>\n Robert Holcombe, who was Chosen Freeholder for Delaware Township over 40 years ago, whose re-election (as memory serves) occurred on the Tuesday following the blizzard of 1888, operated the mills and the allied industry for a long time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Robert M. Holcombe, born September 17, 1835 to George N. Holcombe and Matilda Case, married on October 9, 1858, Lydia Chamberlin, daughter of Sheriff Ampleus B. Chamberlin and Elizabeth Myers. There must be a relationship between Elizabeth Myers and Tunis Myers, the miller that Bush is writing about here, but I cannot explain it. Elizabeth\u2019s parents did not marry until July 15, 1808, which is too late for Tunis if he really was born in 1807 in Morristown.<\/p>\n Whether he actually ever held title to the property or not seems difficult to ascertain. Anyhow, he was so long and so closely connected with the place and its industries that it is still commonly called \u201cHolcombe\u2019s Mill.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In the 1880 census, while Mrs. Cobb owned the mill, Robert Holcombe was identified as a miller. I will have to do a deed search to find out who Mrs. Cobb sold it to. Robert Holcombe died in 1891. Jonathan M. Hoppock wrote that the mill was owned by Mrs. Mathias Pegg in 1906 and was still in working order, but had already been made unnecessary by technological advances. Mathias Pegg died sometime after 1900 (he was counted in the census that year as a farmer), but apparently before 1906. In 1910, the widow Pegg was living with her grandson John W. Pegg laborer. Mrs. Pegg was Rebecca Jane Carrell, daughter of John Arnwine Carroll and Amy Myers. Amy Myers was the daughter of John Myers and Sarah Rockafellar. Her sister was Elizabeth Chamberlin, mother of Lydia, and mother-in-law of Robert Holcombe, the miller. Which means that Mrs. Rebecca Carrell Pegg was Lydia Chamberlin Holcombe\u2019s first cousin. Got that? So although I do not have much information on Mathias Pegg, it is clear that Mrs. Pegg\u2019s ownership of the mill was all in the family, so to speak.<\/p>\n We find that letters of administration on his estate were granted February 9, 1892, to Anderson Bray and William B. Hockenbury. Since that time the property has passed through various hands and is now interesting, not so much for what it is as for what it has been, for its varied industries and the operators all now of the past.<\/p>\n Our aged friend, Theodore Holcombe, now living in Trenton, son of the old time Theodore Holcombe, millwright of Quakertown, tells of helping his father build a water wheel for this mill and make various repairs thereon, in 1864 or 1865. He says that about that time they also built a 24-foot, 60-bucket wheel for the grist mill at Green Sergeant\u2019s. This was evidently the wheel that lasted until recent years, gradually rotting and falling away.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Bush does not say whether Theodore Holcombe and Robert M. Holcombe were related. I have not found a direct connection. By this time, members of the Holcombe family were very numerous in Hunterdon County.<\/p>\n Theodore tells interesting stories of his experience while helping his father do work as a millwright, tho he himself never adopted this as his life work. He relates that soon after this they built two wheels, one 22 feet in diameter, and the other 24 feet, for Peter Shepherd and Son, to be used in their mills near Rocktown. For some reason these wheels were made in Quakertown, the home of the makers, and transported in the \u201cknock-down\u201d to the old mill of the Shepherds at \u201cOld Amwell,\u201d where they were set up for business, probably to be the last used there. For that interesting old place, like so many others, is now only the ghost of what it was in the good old days.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Old Amwell was a village on the hill south of Ringoes, just east of today’s Rte 31.<\/p>\n But the Holcombe Mill was far from having anything like a monopoly of the distilling business in its vicinity. Another distillery was on the farm now owned by Maxwell Snyder, only a short distance away. The foundation of the building is still easily seen by all who pass the spot in going along the \u201cPine Hill\u201d road, from Sergeant\u2019s Mill to Locktown. It was a neighbor so close to the Holcombe Mill that we might doubt about their being operated simultaneously. But it does appear that at least a part of the time, this was the case;\u00a0 and we must remember that there was then a wide and imperative demand for this particular product of the mills. It does appear that this had much to do with keeping up the spirits of many good people, thru all their contests and discouragements, from colonial days until\u2014well, almost until everything above one-half of one percent was driven out ten years ago.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Bush is referring to Prohibition; 0.5% was the amount of alcohol allowed in medications like cough syrup.<\/p>\n Among those remembered for making the precious stuff within the bounds of that old foundation is \u201cUncle John Hice,\u201d who bought the farm of Philip Gordon April 18, 1830, 72 \u00bc acres for $1,650.50.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This could not be the distillery lot, since Gordon advertised its sale in the Gazette on Jan. 3, 1838, on a farm of 110 acres.<\/p>\n February 3, 1849, after selling off 2 \u00bc acres, Hice conveyed the farm to Garret Bellis for $2,200. In 1856, this John Hice bought what has since been known as the \u201cHice Lot,\u201d near Headquarters, whereabout he is well remembered by old people.<\/p>\n March 18, 1857, Garret Bellis conveyed the distillery farm to Jacob C. Johnson for $3,500. In October of the same year, Johnson conveyed it to Peter Dalrymple for the same consideration. In 1905, Lucinda Dalrymple conveyed the same property to Maxwell Snyder for $1,200.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n A later deed refers to the stillhouse of Peter Dalrymple deceased, located on Plum Brook.<\/p>\n Maxwell Snyder doesn\u2019t seem to be part of the neighborhood, but he married into the Smith family of Locktown. Bush has left a gap between Peter Dalrymple and Lucinda Dalrymple. Peter Dalrymple (1815-1859) was a Kingwood farmer married to Lucinda Shepherd (1818-1906). He probably moved to the Pine Hill Road farm when he bought it, and died there at the age of 44, leaving five children and his widow Lucinda. She remained there until shortly before her death at age 88.<\/p>\n This deed says: \u201cBeginning at a stone for a corner . . . in the public road leading from Mier\u2019s Mill to Locktown . . . the same having been conveyed by Richard Shepherd and Andrew B. Rittenhouse, executors of Peter Dalrymple, to Lucinda Dalrymple April 1, 1862.\u201d The description came down from the deed of 1830, excepting 2 \u00bc acres sold by Hice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I have not identified the parents of Peter Dalrymple or of Richard Shepherd, but if they\u2019re not related to everyone who\u2019s come before in some way, I\u2019ll eat my hat.<\/p>\n We find that Samuel Williamson, \u201cacting as executor of William Williamson, deceased,\u201d conveyed 396.16 acres of land here, including the above farm, April 1, 1812, to Alexander Bonnell, Nelly Quick and Thomas Gordon, for $7,923.20.<\/p>\n This old deed is of special interest because of its lengthy explanations. One of these is that at the time of William Williamson\u2019s death, the property lay as containing 290 acres. This appears to have been long accepted as the true area; but there was a suspicion that the lengthy boundaries contained more land. A survey was accordingly made, and the true area was found to be 396.16 acres. No wonder somebody\u2019s eye saw the discrepancy; a 106-acre patch seems entirely too big to pass unnoticed as an attachment to a farm of 290 acres.<\/p>\n But this is not all that makes the deed interesting. It tells us that Samuel the executor, secured at one time a bid of 60 shillings per acre for the plantation; but the bidder insisted that the calculation be made on the old accepted area of 290 acres instead of the area newly found. The deal was never closed and Samuel took possession of the property as executor and guardian of the estate, managed it himself for some years, and then deeded it to a \u201cgo-between,\u201d who promptly conveyed it to Samuel.<\/p>\n This gave rise to a suit in Chancery, the result of which was that both deals were declared void, and the executor was ordered to sell the property to the highest bidder in open market. The sweeping opinion of the Chancellor with regard to the conveyance by an executor to a fictitious purchaser to be actually conveyed back to himself is of special interest. Whether the law in this matter is still as strict as seems to be implied in this sweeping opinion may well be left to those learned in the law; but there can be no doubt that all must be done openly and for the best interest of the estate.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\n published January 8, 1931, Hunterdon County Democrat<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/goodspeedhistories.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/RittMill-1024x521.jpg\" "\\"Holcombe")
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Myers Long An Owner<\/h3>\n
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Robert Holcombe and Mrs. Pegg<\/h4>\n
Tells of Working on Mill<\/h3>\n
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The Distillery<\/h3>\n
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\u00a0“Uncle John Hice” and the Dalrymples<\/h3>\n
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The Williamson Farm<\/h4>\n
The Court Intervenes<\/h3>\n