Woods Tavern (circa 1738 - 1932)

Let's begin by lamenting that the one singular iconic structure that identified historic Hillsborough Township, New Jersey was lost in a fire 89 years ago. Variously renamed by owners-of-the-moment as the Union House Tavern, or Hall's Hotel, it was best known by its first and last moniker, Woods Tavern.

Illustration of W. W. Hall's Hotel
from the 1860 Farm Map of Hillsboro'

After a bridge was built across the Millstone River in 1720, the Amwell Road became an important thoroughfare between the port city of New Brunswick and the Delaware River. While not primarily a stagecoach route - that privilege went to the Old York Road - Amwell Road was used by farmers and drovers to bring their grain, produce, and livestock to the markets in New Brunswick. There they would fill their wagons with "city goods" for the return trip.

The rutted dirt road and the heavy loads conveyed generally made these trips a multi-day affair. The first inns were built along the route in 1738 at Millstone, Flaggtown, Neshanic, Clover Hill, and "in the woods" midway between the first two. The location for Woods Tavern was somewhat of an odd choice as it was not at a major crossroads. Today, of course, the site is THE major intersection in Hillsborough - Amwell and 206 - but in the 18th century, there was no north-south road at that spot. Travelers coming north from Princeton made a left on Homestead Road and then a right at Amwell Road and then a few twists and turns to get back on the road to Somerville.

Clockwise from top left:
1850 Somerset County, 1860 Philadelphia and Vicinity,
 1873 Atlas, and 1860 Farm Map

Nevertheless, Woods Tavern proved to be one of the best hostelries along the route. With stables for the horses, acres of fenced pasture for cattle, and a comfortable room for the weary driver, the inn on Amwell Road was a popular choice. So popular that even the dining room and kitchen might be made up for overnight guests on busy days. Woods Tavern was also a popular meeting place for groups, and a provider of food - and especially drink - for special occasions. No social event, from a church raising to a funeral, could take place without the proper libation - especially rum - and the local inn was the place to get it.

Music, dancing, boxing matches, even cockfights, were some of the early entertainments offered to guests as Woods Tavern remained popular for well over a century.  By the time William W. Hall bought the tavern from Isaac Bennet in 1860, railroads were already beginning to make the traditional roadside tavern obsolete.  Indeed, by the end of the decade, Woods Tavern had given up its liquor license and was sold and resold many times over the next six decades. 

Horace Greeley

The most famous visitor in the nearly 200-year history of Woods Tavern was undoubtedly newspaper publisher Horace Greeley. One of the founders of the Republican party in the 1850s, Greeley was running for president in 1872 as a "Liberal Republican" against incumbent Republican president Ulysses S. Grant. Greeley made a campaign stop at Woods Tavern that year on his way from Jersey City to Lambertville.

One last bit of excitement occurred in 1927 during prohibition when the Somerset County Detective and the State Police raided the tavern and charged the owner with selling intoxicating liquor. An additional charge of "conducting a disorderly house" and the fact that a woman from New Brunswick was taken into custody and a young man was held as a material witness begs the question as to what else was taking place at the old inn. 

16 January 1932 Courier News

On the evening of January 15, 1932, firemen from Millstone, Somerville, and Neshanic responding to a call found Woods Tavern engulfed in flames. With a strong wind blowing, they concentrated on saving the buildings on the opposite corner of the highway. At that time the inn was operating as a general store, and the caretaker, Mrs. Matilda Kleyling, was able to save herself, her son, and the cash register. Everything else was completely destroyed.

Plaque at the "Shoppes at Woods Tavern"

In 2011 an interpretive panel was installed at the site during the renovation of the Shoppes at Woods Tavern. 

The Hotel Asbestos (1919 - 1929)

Hear the phrase "asbestos hotel" in 2021 and you might be inclined to shout, "Yikes!" But to Hillsborough Township, New Jersey residents of the 1920s, those words provoked an entirely different reaction. 

The Hotel Asbestos in the 1940s

It was in 1917 that the Johns-Manville corporation - who had relocated their asbestos manufacturing plant from Brooklyn, New York to the northeast corner of Hillsborough in 1912 - decided to build a hotel near the site of their factory complex. At that time the only other hostelries in town were the Weston Hotel (the converted Captain Davey mansion) which had a small number of guest rooms and the Neshanic Hotel which had even fewer.

The rear of the Hotel Asbestos, under construction in 1917.

The excavation work and foundation were completed between October and December 1917 at a site on the east side of Main Street - still called Millstone Road in those days - right at the intersection of Brooks Boulevard and conveniently near the Lehigh Valley Railroad station. Construction continued throughout 1918. The $75,000 hotel - $1.7 million today - included seventy guest rooms with private baths, two dining rooms, a large lobby, a ballroom/auditorium which could accommodate 500 people for dinner (350 couples for dancing!) a barbershop, a club room, recreation rooms, and the Manville Post Office. The grand opening of the two-story brick building formally named The Hotel Asbestos, took place on February 1, 1919.

19 June 1919 Courier News

The guest rooms were primarily reserved for the use of Johns-Manville traveling employees and those visiting the factory on business. The first-floor ballroom and dining rooms, however, were occupied by all manner of charitable and civic organizations - from the local political parties to the Elks to the nurses of the Somerset Hospital - to hold their annual dinners, fundraisers, conventions, and the like. 

The Vincent Lopez Orchestra circa 1924

An invitation to one of these events might include dancing to the Dixieland clarinet of the Louis Nelson DeLisle Band or the proto-Big Band stylings of the Vincent Lopez Orchestra and dinner provided by the award-winning chefs. Another popular entertainment was motion pictures. Silent movies were shown in the ballroom and the public was often welcomed at no charge.

26 November 1926 Home News

The Hotel Asbestos was a "big-city" hotel in nearly every way except that private events were severely discouraged. While the big local organizations had the inside track on booking their banquets, it was nearly impossible to reserve the Hotel Asbestos for a wedding reception or anniversary party. Consequently, the hotel constantly operated at a loss. This changed in 1927 when new management changed the policy and actively encouraged public use of the hotel.

The hotel closed in 1929, reportedly for renovations. It was soon learned that all of the first-floor rooms were converted to Johns-Manville office space and the Post Office was relocated to Washington Avenue. The Hotel Asbestos never reopened to the public and the building was razed in the late 1990s a few years after the plant was closed.

Foothill Acres Rehabilitation and Nursing Center (1954 - present)

Foothill Acres Nursing Home - early 1960s

Dr. Samuel H. Husted received his medical degree from the University of Maryland in 1929. In July 1930, he opened his own practice on North Bridge Street in Somerville. He was just 30 years old.

15 July 1930 Home News

The Cumberland County, New Jersey native chose the right time to move north. In 1930, Dr. John E. Anderson of Neshanic was finishing up his 45th year as Somerset County's quintessential country doctor - and he was worn out. Beginning in the horse and buggy days of the mid-1880s, Dr. Anderson estimated that he regularly drove 30,000 miles a year over the unpaved country roads and byways of Hillsborough and the surrounding area caring for the sick and delivering babies - more than 2,000 of them. He didn't switch to an automobile until 1914.

The "Doctor's House", Neshanic

He put out the word that he was looking for a young doctor to join him with the idea that this partner would take over the practice upon his retirement. Dr. S.H. Husted fit the bill perfectly, and by January of the next year he had taken over much of Dr. Anderson's work. In fact, by May Dr. Anderson and his wife had moved out of their home on Main Road across from the Neshanic Dutch Reformed Church - and Dr. Husted and his wife moved in.

28 October 1954 Home News

Dr. Anderson continued seeing patients right up until his death in 1936 at the age of 74. For the next 17 years, Dr. Husted continued in much the same fashion as his predecessor - then he had an idea. 

What Hillsborough and Somerset County could really use was a new modern nursing home. Not a convalescent home repurposed from an old house with substandard facilities, but a brand new building with the latest state-of-the-art equipment to care for the elderly and infirm.

In 1953 he partnered with Somerville pharmacist Milton Kahn to build Foothill Acres on 8.5 acres on the Old Amwell Road (now designated as a continuation of East Mountain Road). The general contractor for the construction of the 76-bed facility was Walter Dietz. Jr.

When Foothill Acres opened in October 1954, the Home News hailed it as "New Jersey's first completely fire resistant nursing and convalescent home. Dr. Husted saw Foothill Acres as not just a building, but as the embodiment of his philosophy that "the ill, the aged, and the infirm should have the opportunity to live as full a life as possible." His 90-year-old mother moved in as one of the first residents.

It was important to Dr. Husted that Foothill Acres be as "homey" as possible. They provided comfortable common living rooms, outdoor patios, and liberal visiting policies to try to make the residents comfortable. You can see some of the amenities in the series of postcards from the early 1960s.

Foothill Acres underwent an expansion in 1958 and again in 1964 - two years after Dr. Husted's death. Amazingly, in 1962 - just a few months before Dr. Husted's passing - the Hillsborough Township Committee was desperately seeking another doctor to locate in Hillsborough as Dr. Husted was the only doctor servicing western Hillsborough.

For the next 45 years, Foothill Acres remained frozen in time. While upgrades occurred inside, there was no major construction at the facility until they broke ground on a completely new building in 2009. 

The new two-story building expanded capacity from 122 to 200 beds and included many new features such as a subacute and rehabilitation area for people requiring a short-term stay and an Alzheimer's wing. Director of Admissions Mary Ann Siebert told The Courier-News, "We're established and we've had a great reputation over the years. That's something we're trying to maintain as we move into our new facility - that family, the homeyness, the great care." Dr. Husted couldn't have said it better himself.

Belle Mead Farm Colony and Sanatorium - Carrier Clinic (1910 - present)

Two hundred years ago, at the base of the Sourland Mountain on the border of Hillsborough and Montgomery Townships where the East Mountain Road met the road to Blawenburg, there was a tiny hamlet by the name of Post Town - so named because this was a place to send and receive mail. By the 1850s the name of the little village had been changed to Plainville and soon boasted a store, two blacksmith's shops, schoolhouse, hotel, and several residences. Today they are all gone.

 

Advertising postcard for the Belle Mead Sanatorium

The demise of Plainville can be traced to two events. The first was the arrival of the Delaware and Bound Brook Railroad with their Van Aken (later Belle Mead) Station exactly one mile due east. The second was the arrival of Dr. John Joseph Kindred in 1910 with plans to build a sanatorium on the site.

1850 (top left), 1860 (top right),
and 1873 (bottom) maps of Plainville

Kindred was born in Virginia in 1864 and had been practicing medicine in New York since 1889. He became interested in mental illness - picking up a degree in the specialty from the University of Edinburgh (Scotland) in 1892. In 1896 he opened the River Crest Sanitarium in Astoria, Queens. Looking to expand into New Jersey, he was drawn to the scenic beauty and convenient transportation available near Belle Mead. In 1910 he purchased 211 acres - buildings and all - essentially the entire hamlet of Plainville.

15 April 1912 Trenton Evening Times

The Belle Mead Farm Colony and Sanatorium was incorporated in June 1910 with Kindred, his cousin James E. Gillette, and Ward Sampsell as principals. He installed Gillette as the superintendent - a position he had served in at River Crest - and they began with the first of the two missions laid out in their 1910 charter, "to deal in farm and dairy products, breed cattle, and conduct a general agricultural business."

John Joseph Kindred (1864 - 1937)

In 1912 they applied for a state license for the second mission, "to establish and maintain a colony for the care and treatment of the sick, particularly those suffering with nervous and mental diseases." At the time of the application, Kindred was halfway through his two-year term as a United States congressman from New York's 14th district. He later served four terms between 1921 and 1929 from the nearby 2nd district. In between these two stints in Congress - and while managing the River Crest and Belle Mead facilities (and at least one other in Connecticut) - he attained a law degree and passed the bar in 1926.

Advertising postcard for the River Crest Sanitarium
and Belle Mead Sanatorium.
Despite the different spellings,
a sanitarium and a sanatorium are exactly the same thing.

24 April 1947 Home News

Long before John Joseph Kindred died in 1937, the management of the Belle Mead Sanatorium fell to his son, Dr. John Cramer Kindred. By all accounts Dr. Kindred the younger was absolutely dedicated to his patients. For proof, we need look no further than the events of April 24, 1947, when a fire that began in the basement of the women's dormitory quickly filled the upper floors with choking black smoke. Two died in the fire (one later in the hospital), but not before the brave doctor personally saved 34 patients by going back into the burning building again and again at great risk to his own life.

25 April 1947 Courier News

Kindred spent two weeks in the hospital in Somerville, most of that time in critical condition in an oxygen tent. If that wasn't bad enough, his 76-year-old widowed mother, upon visiting him in the hospital five days after the fire, was so anxious about his condition that she had a heart attack upon seeing him and died in the hospital the next day. 

28 August 1947 Bernardsville News

In the years after the fire, the Belle Mead Farm Colony and Sanatorium started to get out of the farming business - beginning with selling all of their prize-winning registered Holsteins on September 10, 1947. 

After Kindred's brother-in-law, Russell N. Carrier graduated medical school he thought of becoming a surgeon. Kindred convinced him instead to take a position at the River Crest facility.  It was there that he learned electro-shock therapy (known today as electro-convulsive-therapy). In 1951 he came to Belle Mead as the medical director.

12 December 1956 Courier News

Dr. Kindred suffered for six years from the after-effects of the 1947 fire and finally succumbed in 1953. In 1956 Dr. Carrier purchased the Belle Mead Sanatorium from his sister and changed the name to Carrier Clinic. At that time the capacity of the clinic was 89 beds, and most of the buildings were quite old. Before he retired in 1973, Dr. Carrier began a building and modernization program which swiftly led to a doubling of capacity. Today, there are nearly 400 patient beds at the facility which is a licensed psychiatric hospital, a detoxification and rehabilitation center, and an adolescent residential facility that includes a fully-accredited middle and high school.

The Carrier Clinic today.

In 1936, the Somerset County road department eliminated a sharp curve where the Belle Mead-Blawenburg Road used to meet East Mountain Road, thereby erasing Plainville's "Main Street" for good. 

Lawson Goat Dairy (1954 - 1960)

A year after their marriage in 1937, Thurman and Mary Lawson moved to a 4-acre homestead on North Willow Road in Hillsborough. It was there that they raised a family that eventually grew to include three daughters, several cats, and 65 dairy goats.

9 September 1957 Courier News

Thurman Lawson had no notion of dairy goats when he moved to Hillsborough. A mechanic by trade, and a World War II veteran, he worked for more than a decade after the war as the chief mechanic at the Belle Mead Supply Depot. In 1952, to supplement his family's milk supply, he purchased a pair of goats. In the normal course of events, as nature dictates, he soon had a couple of dozen. In 1954, the Lawsons decided to make a business of it. And in 1955, he was able to quit his day job.

9 September 1957 Courier News

At the peak of operations around 1957, the Lawson herd was comprised of 34 milkers, 4 bucks, and 26 kids (not including their own!). Theirs was one of only two certified goat farms in Somerset County at that time. The other was Muntener's Forest Hill Goat Dairy in Belle Mead. Forest Hill's operation included a processing plant - and the Lawsons delivered about 100 quarts of milk a day to Forest Hill to be processed and bottled for sale. 

9 August 1957 Courier News

All three of the Lawson girls - June, Louise, and Mary Ann - helped with the chores and raised their own goats, which took many ribbons at 4-H competitions and other shows. They were especially interested in contradicting the negative publicity surrounding goats by helping people to learn about their true nature. Their goats were calm, graceful, and smart - each responding to its own name when called for milking.

And then, as quickly as it began, it was all over. The Lawsons quietly folded their dairy operation in 1960.

DeCanto Shopping Center, Inc. (1961 - ?)

The reason for the question mark in the title of this piece is that much like the Ship of Theseus, DeCanto's is a paradox. With but one plank remaining from its earliest days (the barbershop) we can hardly still assert that Hillsborough's first shopping center is the same one that residents knew and loved in the 1960s. Or can we?

DeCanto's in the 1970s
(Photo courtesy of Joan Allisen Villa York)

Ralph DeCanto - who passed away in 1993 - was a longtime Hillsborough builder and general contractor whose name appeared on two iconic local businesses - DeCanto's Banquet Hall which was located where the Doctor's Way medical offices are today, and the DeCanto Shopping Center, Inc. located near the northwest corner of Route 206 and Amwell Road.

Ads from 1977 and 1981

The shopping center - popularly known as simply DeCanto's - opened in 1961 and expanded a few times during those first years. Popular establishments taking up residence at DeCanto's in the 1960s and 1970s were David's, a clothing store, and the Amwell Bakery.

Amwell Bakery - perfect for any holiday, 
ads from the 1970s

Other early tenants included the Hillsborough Deli, the aforementioned Hillsborough Barber Shop, a luncheonette, and the Cumberland Farms convenience store.

DeCanto's circa 1979

Although it was possible to get pizza at the Amwell Farms Inn in the 1960s, Hillsborough's first true "pizza place" was Nino's. Honestly, can you even imagine a time before Hillsborough had pizza joints?

Nino's ads from 1976, top, and 1990

Around 1966 DeCanto's added storefronts behind the building. Two popular early tenants "in the rear" were Serova School of Dance and Hillsborough Academy of Music.

Ads from 1966

Even before the Hillsborough Library moved to the A&P Shopping Center - where Bottle King is today - they opened at DeCanto's in 1966.

10 October 1966 Courier News

Perhaps no other DeCanto's business - or Hillsborough business for that matter - is remembered as fondly as the Hillsborough Pharmacy. 

1991 ad

Throughout the 80s and 90s new stores  - Redelico's Paint and Decorating Center, Chicken Holiday, etc. - replaced the old and a major facelift in 2010 completely changed the look of the shopping center.

2010 construction

Yet, like Theseus's ship, DeCanto's still essentially occupies the same space and serves the same purpose. And we might say its mere existence serves another purpose - to remind us of a simpler time and a simpler Hillsborough.

Camp Ajaybe - Princeton Hills Golf Club - Hillsborough Golf Club (1947 - present day)

What would you do if it was time for your annual summer vacation and you realized you just didn't have enough money to go anywhere or do anything? That was the question facing employees of the ABC Freight Forwarding Corporation in the years immediately following World War II. Many of them ended up going to the president of the company, Arthur J. Brown and asking to simply work through their vacations.

31 July 1961 Courier News

Brown, who credited much of the early success of the six-year-old company to good employee relations, didn't think that was right. All employees needed time off with their families, relaxing at a place they could afford. In 1947 he purchased 180 acres on Wertsville Road in Hillsborough Township right on the border of East Amwell. The location was convenient for Brown as the company also owned a stable of standard-bred horses - most of them trotters with the word "Freight" worked into their names - which he kept at a farm three miles down the road in Ringoes.

He built a vacation resort on the property which included a comfortable motel known as the "State House", as well as a basketball court, baseball diamond, volleyball court, horse stables, a casual dining room, and a lighted swimming pool for moonlight dips. And it was all free for his employees and their families - about 1,000 people in all - who reserved week-long vacations about 100 at a time during the summer months. One of the few amenities not provided at Camp Ajaybe (A.J.B., get it?) was golf. That all changed in the late 60s when Brown sold the camp just as he was starting New Jersey's first professional basketball team the New Jersey Americans of the ABA (who later became the New York Nets, and then the New Jersey Nets, and now the Brooklyn Nets).

ads from 1969 and 1970

In 1968 the Neshanic River Holding Company purchased the property and built a par 72, 6,500-yard golf course. In the summer of 1969, they opened the Princeton Hills Golf Academy. This was a golf training academy for boys ages 13 - 18 which was held over two-week sessions between the end of June and the end of August. The Academy made good use of the motel and recreation facilities left from Camp Ajaybe.

29 June 1969 Home News

Operating concurrently during those years was the membership-only Princeton Hills Country Club. By 1973 they had changed their name to the Neshanic River Country Club and advertised that they were now "Open to the Public".

Clockwise from top left,
 the evolution from Princeton Hills to Hillsborough Country Club.
1971-1974

The Princeton and Neshanic names were ditched for good in 1974 when the club was renamed Hillsborough Country Club. As the club changed ownership and management through the ensuing decades the name changed along with it. For instance in 1978 - after some renovations to the property - it became the Hillsborough Resort and Country Club.

24 April 1978 Courier News

Facing bankruptcy in 1983, the owners floated the idea of developing part of the property with 200 condominium units. Development plans were shelved when new owners acquired the club in 1985.

10 April 1985 Courier News

In recent years the property, with both its name and golf course slightly trimmed (it's now simply Hillsborough Golf and Country Club and 70 is par), but remaining in its beautiful setting in the hills of western Hillsborough, has been the host of the Sourland Mountain Festival and other special events. While there will always be development pressures for any large piece of land in Central New Jersey, for now, Hillsborough is fortunate to have this golf course that bears the name of the township within its 54-square miles.