In March and May, 1808, Nathaniel Saxton and George Holcombe bought the two moieties or half shares in the 10-acre mill lot and the 30-acre lot that consisted of the southern half of Bull\u2019s Island. Previous articles about the mill property can be read here<\/a>\u00a0and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n In 1809, Nathaniel Saxton was in business, running the mill, making deliveries to his agent Albertus King in Philadelphia, and persuading his brother Ananais to come from Shamokin, Pennsylvania to help run the mill. He had also settled with Moses Quinby on acquisition of the 15+acre lot where Quinby was living, which today is known as the Saxtonville Tavern. I don\u2019t believe Saxton actually moved into Quinby\u2019s house on that lot. Quinby had probably used it as a home and store. The Quinby Genealogy states that Moses Quinby had attempted store-keeping after he sold off his farmland, so that may have been the use to which the house was put, with the family living in part of it, and the store in another part. I had hoped to find some evidence in the Saxton papers on file at the Hunterdon County Historical Society that Saxton converted the store to a tavern, but so far there is no such smoking gun. It seems clear that Saxton himself maintained his residence in Flemington, where he was pursuing his legal practice in partnership with George C. Maxwell.<\/p>\n Even so, Saxton\u2019s interest in the Raven Rock neighborhood grew stronger, and he turned his eye to the remainder of Moses Quinby\u2019s land, the 40+ acres he had sold to Robert Nailor.<\/p>\n On July 20, 1810, Saxton purchased 37.25 acres from Robert Naylor, for $1500.1<\/a><\/sup> This was actually a sort of land swap, since Saxton sold to Naylor at the same time a lot of 38 acres on Strimples Mill Road, which Saxton had acquired from the estate of Isaac Van Camp dec\u2019d in June 1810.2<\/a><\/sup> But Naylor only paid $700 for his lot. Perhaps it was actually worth less than the Raven Rock lot, but it might have been simply Saxton\u2019s eagerness to acquire properties in Raven Rock that led him to take a loss. Perhaps to help finance these purchases, Saxton sold a lot of 3.1 acres out of the Naylor lot to Joseph Rodman on July 21, 1810.3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n This 37.25 acres ran from today\u2019s Quarry Road northwest to encompass the farm that later on was owned by George & Edna Lazlo.<\/p>\n Nathaniel Saxton was not entirely invested in Raven Rock. He had some other irons in the fire. For instance, in 1808 he bought from the executors of Stephen Yard deceased a farm located on \u201cthe road from Flemington to New Brunswick\u201d on the northeast side of Amwell Township. From 1808 to 1811, Saxton managed to sell off four parcels out of the original 87.5 acres, to Thomas Williams, Cornelius Wyckoff, James Clark Jr. and George Rea.<\/p>\n He also invested in a couple lots in Flemington close to the court house, which he sold to Neal Hart, also in 1811. But back in Raven Rock, Saxton was eyeing the small lots created by Jacob Hunt, who had bought the 19+ acres sold to Benjamin Longstreath in 1806, and had sold off lots to Jonas Lake (3+ acres),4<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0 Andrew Price (1.13 acres) and James Snyder (13.84 acres). Nathaniel Saxton bought the lot sold to Andrew Price in 1810 for $150. He also bought a lot from Joseph Rodman that year, over the township line in Kingwood.<\/p>\n On December 29, 1812, with the War of that year just warming up, Nathaniel Saxton finally acquired the remainder of Bull’s Island. The 60+ acre island had been divided in half, with the southern half being connected with Cooper & Curry’s mill, now owned by Saxton & Holcombe. The northern half had remained with George Wall, but after Wall’s death it had come into possession of the Townsend brothers, Joseph and Jonathan, of Solebury, Pennsylvania. They sold the upper half of the island to Saxton for $1750, or about $58 per acre.5<\/a><\/sup> \u00a0Once again, Saxton was paying top dollar for his real estate. This deed excepted out the right of the heirs of George Wall Esq. to have access the river side of the island so that they could continue to maintain\u00a0the Prime Hope or Snap Jaw fishery, which was located at the northern end of the island.<\/p>\n I have searched available records looking for the first mention of Saxtonville, and the best I can do (so far) is a deed dated July 1, 1814, when Nathaniel Saxton sold his moiety or half share in the mill lot of 10 acres to George Holcombe, owner of the other half.6<\/a><\/sup> This made Holcombe sole owner of the mill lot. Despite that, it was \u201cSaxtonville\u201d from then on, not Holcombeville. The name Saxtonville was used in deeds that Saxton was concerned in until Saxton had sold his last lot in the village in the 1830s.<\/p>\n Addendum, 3\/31\/12: \u00a0A mortgage given by Mindert Wilson Jr. to George Holcombe for purchase of the mill lot described the\u00a0“lot or parcel of Land whereon the said Mindert Wilson now dwells situate at Saxton Ville in the Township of Amwell.” It was dated July 3, 1814.<\/em><\/p>\n Addendum, April 2014: \u00a0It appears that Dennis Bertland has located the earliest use of the name Saxtonville. Dennis examined the daybook of William Dilworth, a merchant who rented a store in the village from Nathaniel Saxton, and found a notation dated August 14, 1810 in which Dilworth recorded that he moved his business from New Hope to “Saxtons Ville.” The Dilworth Daybook can be found at the Bucks County Historical Society. Information on William Dilworth can be found in the application for the National Register prepared by Dennis Bertland in April 2014. Aside from Cooper & Curry’s Mill, the Dilworth store must have been the only commercial venture in this place in the first decade of the 19th century.<\/em><\/p>\nRaven Rock Land Transactions<\/h3>\n
When Did Raven Rock Become Saxtonville?<\/h3>\n