\n<\/em><\/strong>Efforts to Find How Long It Has Stood Have Been In Vain<\/em><\/strong>
\n Dr. Pyatt\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s Varied Career<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n
By Egbert T. Bush, Stockton, N.J.<\/em> On the east side of the Trenton Road, less than a mile below Croton, stood the Boarshead Tavern. Efforts made many years ago to find how long it had stood there were all in vain. Nobody knew and no records could be found to settle the question. The building was venerable with age from the writer\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s first recollection of it\u201a\u00c4\u00eeabout 1855. Tradition has all along maintained that it was the first tavern established in this community.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n As a center it seems to have been well known from the earliest days of which we have records, being often mentioned in land titles and other documents. The first proprietor is said to have been one Joseph Smith. But what particular Joseph Smith is meant we cannot tell. <\/i>It may have been any one or a number by that name. Anyhow, names in themselves have little value. Unless there is something distinctive about the name, it is as easily lost as any of our playthings.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Like Mr. Bush, I cannot say who this Joseph Smith might have been. There was a Joseph Smith who witnessed the will of William Forman of Amwell in 1775, and was taxed in Amwell in 1780. However, my research shows that the likely first owner of the Boarshead Tavern was Philip Bevin, born about 1730, and present at the Boarshead possibly as early as the 1750s. I will follow up this article by Mr. Bush with a history of the early tavern owners that I have been able to find. Mr. Bush observed above that the Boarshead may be the earliest tavern in the vicinity, and I believe he is right. It certainly predates Buchanan\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s Tavern.<\/p>\n Among the later keepers of the Boarshead we find Samuel Trimmer; after him, Josiah Rounsaville was there down to 1833. In that year Andrew Emmons took possession, holding it until 1844. Sometime later he removed to Cherryville\u201a\u00c4\u00eethe \u201a\u00c4\u00faDogtown\u201a\u00c4\u00f9 of earlier days\u201a\u00c4\u00eeserved as postmaster for many years and died there in 1875. Emmons was followed at the Boarshead by David Geddes and Geddes by William Nixon in 1847. Jacob Bush kept the house in 1851 but how long is not known. William Mettler took charge in 1854.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Samuel Trimmer may have been the son of John H. Trimmer and Maria or Martha Thatcher, who was born October 3, 1795 and died March 29, 1880 in Franklin twp. Josiah Rounsavel (1786-1877), son of Henry Rounsavel and Elizabeth Clara Heath, married Margaret Bearder, daughter of Jacob Bearder and Elizabeth Trimmer. These families all lived in the vicinity of Route 579, the Locktown-Flemington Road, and Boarshead Road.<\/p>\n The Emmons family was numerous in 19th<\/sup>-century Hunterdon, but I have not yet linked this Andrew up with known members. His wife was Catharine Reed. In the 1820 manufacturing schedule of the census, he was listed as a cabinet maker, producing desks, bureaus, tables, etc.<\/p>\n David Geddes is another mystery to me; perhaps he was the son of James Gaddis and Hannah Wanamaker, who married in 1802. William Nixon is better known. He was the son of an innkeeper, William Nixon Sr., who ran the tavern at Point Breeze in the 1830s and died in 1839. William Jr. was all over the place. He was a hotelkeeper in Readington Twp. in 1860, and in Cherryville in 1870. By 1880 he was a veterinary surgeon in Locktown. Bush neglects to mention that Jacob Bush was his grandfather. I have no information on Wm. Mettler. (Note: When I state that I have no information on someone, I mean that I have not researched that person, and don\u201a\u00c4\u00f4t plan on doing so anytime soon.)<\/p>\n Bar Closed in 1874<\/strong><\/p>\n Moses Lake, for many years well known about Croton, is listed as being at the Boarshead in 1857. Quite likely he was, as a tenant. We find that he bought the property of Elisha Warford in 1857 and held it until 1874. He is said to have been the last licensed keeper of the house. Memory says, however, that various things were sold there after that \u201a\u00c4\u00ee tobacco, cigars, soft drinks, etc. We had not yet reached the refinement of the cigarette.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Moses Lake was probably Moses Godown Lake (1823-1904), the son of Evan Godown Lake and Margaret Moore Petty. He applied for tavern licenses in 1859-61, but the census shows him living in Flemington in 1860. In 1861, the Annual Meeting of the Boars Head Vigilant Society was \u201a\u00c4\u00faheld at the inn of Moses Lake.\u201a\u00c4\u00f9 I am confused by Bush\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s statement that Lake was present at the Boarshead in 1857 and bought the property from Warford that year, and that he was \u201a\u00c4\u00famost likely a tenant.\u201a\u00c4\u00f9 Perhaps Bush meant that Lake was a tenant before purchasing the property.<\/p>\n Amos Robbins and Elisha Warford owned the place in 1830; after that it was shifted about, but how many times Warford owned it cannot be determined. He was always dealing in real estate. But the records afford little relief in tracing his holdings. Many deeds of those days were never recorded, and Warford seems to have been especially indifferent to this important precaution.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Amos Robbins was a great grandson of the original Daniel Robins<\/a>.\u00ac\u2020 In 1806, the heirs of John Robins petitioned for a division of land where Amos Robins lived. In Bush\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s article on the Harmony School neighborhood (to be published here in the near future), he wrote that Amos Robins \u201a\u00c4\u00faoccupied the old tan-yard, which he appears to have built up out of smaller tracts. Here he carried on tanning to the end of his days.\u201a\u00c4\u00f9 I believe his tannery was located on Boars Head Road.<\/p>\n Elisha Warford may have been indifferent to the precaution of filing one\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s deeds, but he was not indifferent to those who bought property from him and failed to pay their mortgages. He quickly took them to court. A collection of his papers has recently been made available at the Hunterdon Co. Historical Society, and the number of court actions Warford was involved in is extensive.<\/p>\n When Warford sold the property on March 5, 1858 , the description was as follows: \u201a\u00c4\u00faBounded on the north by lands of James Pyatt, on the east by lands of James Pyatt, on the south by lands of James Pyatt and Theopholus Titus, and on the west by lands of Henry T. Housel and Hugh Webster.\u201a\u00c4\u00f9 This unsatisfactory description of the property containing 35 acres was used down through the various Gilrean deeds of recent years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n By unsatisfactory, Mr. Bush means that there was no metes and bounds given for the 35 acres, a highly unusual practice, but not surprising for someone like Elisha Warford, who was probably reluctant to spend money on a survey.<\/p>\n In 1873 the property was sold by John P. Rittenhouse, Sheriff, to Mary Ann W. Ellicott, administrator of Elisha Warford, her father. In 1899 it was sold by John Ramsey, Sheriff, to Peter Gilrean, and in 1912 by \u201a\u00c4\u00faJohn Gilrean, deceased,\u201a\u00c4\u00f9 to Frank Greco.\u00ac\u2020 Soon after this date the old house was torn down and a modern dwelling was erected near the site of the famous old hostelry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n When I moved to Hunterdon County in 1976, a Greco still owned the house where the Boarshead once stood. Mr. Bush had previously written that Moses Lake owned the tavern lot from 1857 to 1874. Then he wrote that Warford sold it in 1858 (presumably to Lake) and then it was sold by the Sheriff to Mary Ann Ellicott in 1873. To find out which dates were correct, I made a visit to the Search Room and found the two deeds in question. The deed to Moses Lake was dated March 5, 1858, and the deed to Mary Ann Ellicott was dated Sept. 15, 1873.<\/p>\n Mary Ann Ellicott was Elisha Warford\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s daughter, and widow of Benjamin Ellicott. She was suing Moses Lake as administrator of her father’s estate. Lake owed Warford something over $3000, and was sued in Chancery Court to recover the debt. Mary Ann Ellicott\u00ac\u2020died in 1892 age 76. The Boarshead lot of 35 acres was sold in 1898 as the property of George W. Ellicott, Mary Ann\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s son, who had also gone into debt.<\/p>\n Through all its \u201a\u00c4\u00fadry\u201a\u00c4\u00f9 years, the house was known as the Boarshead Tavern. The place is still known by that name and probably will be for generations yet to come. Let us hope so. For old historic and traditional names are valuable as well as pleasant. They help to keep alive something from the distant past and to recall old-time occurrences that would otherwise be forgotten.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I\u201a\u00c4\u00f4m sorry to say that very few people today know that there was an old tavern at this location, let alone that its name was the Boarshead. The name is preserved in the road\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s name, and I expect people do wonder how that name came about. For that matter, I wonder how the Boarshead Tavern was named. Given that it was such an early one, the name was probably borrowed from another Boarshead Tavern in a different location. As a tavern name, Boarshead is not uncommon. However, I doubt very much that there were any wild boars running about old Amwell back in the 1750s.<\/p>\n Rival Tavern Opened<\/b><\/p>\n About 1820 another tavern was opened to the public, scarcely a third of a mile north of the Boarshead. This was in the stately old farm house on the west side of the road built by Joseph Thatcher far back of 1800. Dr. James Pyatt was proprietor of the house known as the \u201a\u00c4\u00faUpper Boarshead Tavern.\u201a\u00c4\u00f9 The two houses seem to have been closely related in interest as well as in the name. Here the Dr. lived, dispensed the elixir and practiced his profession until about 1838. His son, King Pyatt, then married and took over the farm and the tavern. Dr. Pyatt moved to the corner afterward known as Pyatt\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s Corner on the other side of the road and less than a tenth of a mile northward.<\/p>\n King Pyatt kept the Upper Boarshead Tavern open up to 1842, after which date it was never a public house. But it remained an attractive farm home till October 5, 1895, when it took fire in the night and burned to the ground.<\/p>\n The fire was accompanied by one of the most tragic events that ever occurred in this vicinity. King Pyatt, who still owned the place and lived there, was then 78 years of age. Being aroused by the fire, which had already made dangerous progress, he evidently became confused by smoke and flames, opened the wrong door and fell into the cellar instead of making his escape. That was the supposition as given to the writer a day later, as he stood sadly gazing upon the few pieces of chared [sic] bone which were all that could be found as the remains of the good old man so long active in the life of the community and always so highly respected.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n King Pyatt was born Jan. 10, 1817 to Dr. James Pyatt and wife Sarah King. About 1830, he married Elizabeth Bellis, daughter of Matthias Bellis and Elizabeth Sutphen. She bore two children, Sarah and Emma, but died in 1842, only 24 years old. Pyatt then married, on Oct. 23, 1845, Elizabeth Laing of Quakertown in Bucks County, PA. She was born about 1818 to David Laing and Elizabeth Allen, and died on July 15, 1890. She had five children, from about 1846 to about 1855. Two were twins, Mary and Margaret, who had died tragically young, in 1872 and 1873. The other children were all living elsewhere at the time of King Pyatt\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s death. Afterwards, his son Albert, who ran a livery stable in Flemington, moved onto the property1<\/a><\/sup> and presumably rebuilt the house. Albert Pyatt and wife Henrietta had eleven children.<\/p>\n The \u201a\u00c4\u00faOld Fort\u201a\u00c4\u00f9<\/b><\/p>\n The Thatcher homestead was a half mile east of the Upper Boarshead on the north side of the road from that place through \u201a\u00c4\u00faBonetown\u201a\u00c4\u00f9 and thence by twists and turns to Flemington. This homestead was long known as the \u201a\u00c4\u00faOld Fort,\u201a\u00c4\u00f9 but why that name was ever given and why so persistently retained has not been explained to this day. Old people said in my boyhood \u201a\u00c4\u00faIt has been so called for generations,\u201a\u00c4\u00f9 and that was all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Mr. Bush is not referring to the \u201a\u00c4\u00f2stately home\u201a\u00c4\u00f4 built by Joseph Thatcher around 1800 on the west side of the road, but a much older dwelling, built by Joseph\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s father Joseph. The road he refers to is now known as Plum Brook Road, formerly part of Everitts Hill Road, which did in fact twist and turn before arriving in Flemington, although it\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s hard to see how it went through Bonetown today. The \u201a\u00c4\u00faOld Fort\u201a\u00c4\u00f9 is a beautiful stone house, still standing. In 1851, \u201a\u00c4\u00faM. King\u201a\u00c4\u00f9 was living there, as shown on the Cornell Map. That was Margaret Thatcher King, who died on Nov. 20, 1857.<\/p>\n Margaret Thatcher, daughter of Joseph Thatcher\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s son Joseph, who was then a merchant in Philadelphia, married Albertus King in 1808.2<\/a><\/sup> <\/i>The young couple went to Philadelphia for a short time, then came back and King began his operations at Croton. He built a part of the Ellicott house, later the home of Elisha Warford, and lived there a few years. Then they settled at the ancestral Old Fort, where King died in 1845 and his widow in 1847.3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n Tradition says that Margaret\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s grandmother Thatcher had a pet deer roaming at pleasure about the Old Fort. One day the deer was missing and search was vain. At last it came bounding home accompanied by a fine specimen lured from the forest. Grandmother Thatcher was alone, but her pet was in danger of being contaminated by bad company. Besides, a well-dressed deer in the larder was more to be desired than a frisky wild one in the forest. Seizing the old flintlock, she blasted away and quickly reduced the noble animal to ignoble venison.<\/p>\n No Game Laws Then<\/b><\/p>\n Opportunity was the only game law then, and a long time thereafter\u201a\u00c4\u00eekill what you please and what you can. I remember when the open season for rabbits began at the third heavy frost. Rabbits were not fit for eating till properly ripened by three frosts. Then kill as many as you could without regard to dates. Yet it does not appear that there was more disposition to shoot them \u201a\u00c4\u00faout of season\u201a\u00c4\u00f9 then than now, though the only penalty was what our neighbors would think of us. And that is perhaps a fair illustration of the little-disputed idea that what our neighbors think of us\u201a\u00c4\u00eeonly another way of saying \u201a\u00c4\u00fapublic opinion\u201a\u00c4\u00f9\u201a\u00c4\u00eeis the basic law governing a large proportion of human actions.<\/p>\n The families already mentioned are far from being all that figured prominently in the community life of the Boarshead region. About the old place were scattered the Websters, the Robbinses, the Bearders and others, all active and important in that early life.<\/p>\n Of the Websters I know little except what was told me in early boyhood. Hugh Webster was reputed to be prominent as a farmer and leading citizen of the neighborhood. I remember that two Webster women had a millinery shop in their home on the north side of the road running west from the tavern.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Hugh Webster\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s family has quite a history, which you will find at the end of this article.<\/p>\n Hiram Robbins lived on a farm south of that road.{south of Boarshead Road} He sold out in my early boyhood and moved to Flemington, where he spent the rest of his life.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The Cornell Map of 1851 shows that he ran a chair shop, and in 1852 he bought the old Besson sawmill from Daniel Carrell. In 1861, he was secretary of the Boars Head Vigilante Society. In 1873, his chair shop was still in business, as seen in the Beers Atlas for that year. Hiram Robbins was the son of John Robins and Elizabeth Risler. He married Catharine Trimmer in 1840, daughter of George Trimmer.<\/p>\n His son, George T. Robbins, who kept a store near P.R.R. station, and his son Sylvester who was station agent there both died between 40 and 50 years ago. Joseph Robbins owned a farm north of that road\u201a\u00c4\u00eea Robbins homestead as I have it in mind and the location of the old-time tannery of this vicinity. Later the farm came into possession of his son Ephraim.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This Joseph Robbins (1794-1858) was the uncle of Hiram Robbins, who was listed in the 1840 census as involved in manufacture or trade; that suggests the tannery. However, by 1850, he was counted as a farmer.<\/p>\n The Bearder Family<\/b><\/p>\n Many of the Bearders I knew very well. George T. owned the Old Ford property for many years including 1873. He was then an old man whose home farm was on the south side of the next road running westward below the Boarshead. His large tract of fine timber was a favorite place for holding picnics, harvest homes and outdoor meetings. William R. Bearder, a commissioner of deeds and fine insurance man, owned and occupied the farm for many years thereafter.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is the Locktown-Flemington Road. The farm is now owned by the Timko family. A section along the Locktown-Flemington Road is still heavily timbered, even though there are now houses in the woods.<\/p>\n Jacob Bearder owned a farm at the junction of the road with the Trenton Road. His son Amos married Lina Dilts, daughter of John Dilts, who bought the Dr. Pyatt lot after the death of John Pyatt; their son Charles Jacob is the musical professor of Sand Brook. Jacob\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s other son Andrew kept the Sand Brook store for a long time and died there a few years ago. I remember that the professor\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s grandfather Dilts was locally accepted as an authority on music.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The Bearder family began with Andrew Bearder (1741-1829), a German immigrant, and his wife Margaret; they had a son Jacob (1768-1838) who married Elizabeth Trimmer (1769-1832), daughter of George Trimmer and Anna Hoppock. The five children of Jacob and Elizabeth Bearder were Margaret (1789-aft 1850), wife of Josiah Rounsavel; Andrew (1794-1865), husband of Mary Besson; Sarah (c.1796-1855), wife of Benjamin Horn; George T. (1803-1881), husband of Mary Hann; and Jacob Jr. (c.1810-1882), husband of Jane Aller.<\/p>\n
\npublished in the Hunterdon County Democrat, November 14, 1929<\/em><\/p>\n![\"Detail](\"https:\/\/goodspeedhistories.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Cornell-Boarshead1.jpg\")
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