The Fountain Terraces at Duke's Park (1912 - circa 1935)

The last great flurry of construction at the Hillsborough Township estate of tobacco tycoon James B. Duke took place between 1912 and 1915 and was to have concluded with the long-planned mansion on the hill. Already in the works for almost ten years by 1912, the project ultimately never got past the foundation and steel framework and was eventually abandoned.

The "Fountain Terraces" at Duke's Park, circa 1915.
The women in the image should give some perspective on the size.

Concurrently, Duke was working on another section of the estate which started to be laid out around 1912 and was finished by 1914. We might call this "The Fountain Terraces" as it was so described in a number of contemporary postcards.

The Fountain Terraces on the 1932 Map of Duke's Park

The completed formal garden of fountains, waterfalls, trees, flowers, and domed "garden temples" was featured prominently in the October 1914 edition of "American Homes and Gardens".

October 1914 American Homes and Gardens

We can see where the Fountain Terraces was located by overlaying the 1931 aerial view of Duke's Park onto a Duke Farms visitor map.

1931 aerial overlayed on Duke Farms visitor map

Perhaps the best view of the Fountain Terraces comes from a 1931 aerial news photo in my personal collection. In this photo, Turtle Lake is at the bottom and we are facing east. 

1931 aerial

In the next version, I have added a key for viewing the scans of the postcards from my personal collection which appear below.

1931 aerial with finding key

Here are seven postcards from the 1915 to 1920 time period - A through G.

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

I hope the postcards give some idea of the beauty and especially the work that went into creating this special place. But don't take my word for it. Here's a video of a ten-year-old Doris Duke circa 1922 riding her cart through the Fountain Terraces (relevant video begins at 1:07):

So, what happened to the Fountain Terraces? This blurb printed in the August 20, 1938, edition of The Courier News gives us a clue...

20 August 1938 Courier News

...and these photos from the Doris Duke Photograph Collection at Duke University seals the deal.

Doris Duke Photograph Collection,
David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University

After her marriage to James Cromwell in 1935, priorities at the old Duke's Park began to change. These changes included the destruction of the Fountain Terraces, and also the destruction of the massive fountain complex across from the Great Falls. And culminated in the construction of a Robert Trent Jones designed golf course which lay waste to the estate in 1939.

There is no trace of the beautiful Fountain Terraces at Duke Farms today.

Touring Duke's Park (1905 - 1915)

In 1893, when the tobacco magnate James B. Duke bought the first farms that would make up his Hillsborough Township, NJ estate, he didn't immediately think of building a public, or even a semi-public, park. His interests were in racehorses, prize-winning bulls, and farming. Nevertheless, because two major public thoroughfares - the River Road from South Branch to Harmony Plains (Manville) and Woodville Road (Duke's Parkway West) - ran through the estate area residents already had tantalizing glimpses of the grounds.

Heading east on Woodville Road (Duke's Parkway West) circa 1906.

It wasn't until 1902 that Duke began laying out the park in earnest, including importing a fortune in bronze and marble statuary from Europe, building dozens of magnificent fountains, paving miles of roads, and planting hundreds of thousands of trees and shrubs. Even after a freak storm uprooted trees and destroyed the electric light system in 1903, Duke was not deterred. He began work again - including excavating the first of the many artificial lakes.

26 March 1905, New York Times

Duke's Park, as it came to be called, became a tourist attraction that year - but didn't really become a hit until people started arriving in automobiles around 1905. Apparently, the size of the park was too great to enjoy by carriage. It wasn't long before enterprising entrepreneurs began to offer automobile tours through the park. Five and seven-passenger luxury touring cars could be seen navigating the macadamized roads on most fair days.

1908 ads from the New Brunswick Home News

The hordes of visitors - some from out of state - soon brought destruction and vandalism to Duke's showplace. He toyed with closing access, but as there were no gates at that time, that was problematic.

1 October 1906, New Brunswick Home News

Reporters toured the grounds many times between 1905 and 1915. Here are some excerpts from a Home News reporter's visit on September 30, 1906, illustrated with photos and postcards from the collection of this writer:

Auto Tour of Duke's Park circa 1907

"A $200,000 Italian fountain of stone and marble stands at the entrance, the central stream rising from a mammoth shell and smaller streams being sent gushing from the mouths of huge frogs of green bronze grouped about the central figure. At night the fountain is lighted with artistic electric lights. There are numerous other fountains about the estate, not as elaborate, but beautiful to behold."

Visitors at the Frog Fountain, Duke's Park

"A short walk brings the visitor to the carriage house, a handsome stone structure, with tower and clock, illuminated at night, tolling off the hours. The stables are models of luxury. They are adorned with rich rugs, with handsome oil paintings on the walls, and equipped with every kind of vehicle. Several of the mural decorations are 8 by 26 feet. Four of them represent the four continents."

The Carriage House and Stables at Duke's Park circa 1904

"A new part of the estate is now in the hands of the landscape artists, who are laying out roads and having them macadamized, building hills and cutting valleys, giving the land a rolling appearance, digging lakes, in short, transforming an ordinary stretch of farm into a beautiful park."

Lake construction at Duke's Park circa 1907

We can now jump ahead to June 1912 and follow another Home News reporter as he concludes his tour of Somerville and Raritan with a visit to Duke's Park.

8 June 1912 Home News

"We rode into Duke's Park by way of the Raritan entrance, that brought us to about the middle of the estate, which, by the way, occupies five square miles."

Arriving at Duke's Park from Raritan, the Nevius Street Bridge is in the distance.

The fountain with magnificent bronze statuary at the Raritan entrance to Duke's Park.
It was located was where today the road bends away to the west towards South Branch.

"The first glimpse we had of the park told us just what means of viewing it was properly due to its magnificence - a pair of prancing, pure-blooded horses, with tossing manes, a coachman and footman in livery, a large and rich carriage, upholstered and be-cushioned, might pass well, but the proper means is just what we had  - a luxurious automobile, massive and dignified."

Arriving at the East Gate

"No word-picture can describe this five square miles. It is one vast masterpiece of engineering, landscape gardening and building. It is wonderful."

The Hook and Eye Curve

At least two of our party had travelled [sic] in Europe as well as half over America, but those two admitted that they had bever seen a park to compare with it. [N]owhere that our party knew of is there the variety, the unexpected beauty breaking in at every turn - the hills with their wide-stretching views...

...the cool and sparkling fountains...

...the softness of the long reaches; the wealth of shrub and flower - that Duke's Park possesses. It is a revelation."

Relaxing by Duke's Brook

"We rode along avenues of overhanging maples, with their delicate green boughs...

...we passed through forests of rhododendrons...

...we skirted the fringe of thousands of beautiful Colorado blue spruce...

...we halted beside the artificial lakes, each with its great fountain throwing up volumes of spray which fell from dolphins held in the arms of mermaids or shot upwards from the basins of rock."

"At one of these fountains we stopped and walked up the pass to come to its edge. Here the spray sprinkled us and cooled us.

The Vista Lake Fountains circa 1915

As we looked into the lake beneath we saw the rainbow in all its lovely colors and tints. We looked to the sky but saw no rainbow there; the waters had caught the coloring and stamped them on its bosom."

The grotto below the Vista Lake Fountains

"We stopped again before the wide expanse of lawn, smooth as any carpet, and saw the great mansion, commenced for the new home of the proprietor, a wonderful home for any man, with its tunnels of concrete issuing into the wooded be-flowered park."

"It is good of the proprietor to permit the people to drive through and thus to give them a sight that they can never forget."

Unfortunately, not all guests were as appreciative as the Home News reporter. 

19 December 1914

In July 1915, three hundred farmers from Pennsylvania  - in 100 automobiles - descended on Duke's Park and did considerable damage to the grounds. Duke, who had been opening the park only Tuesdays and Fridays since earlier in the decade now decided to only open one day per month - a day that would be announced without much notice.

31 July 1915 Home News

Today [2020], although Duke Farms isn't the spectacular showplace it was a century ago, we are fortunate to be able to walk the grounds, take in the natural beauty, and imagine the scenes described above.

Easter Sunrise Service at Duke's Park, 1926 - 1969

In the winter of 1926, twenty-one-year-old Hillsborough resident Evelyn Funkhouser had an idea to bring the youth of Somerset County together to celebrate Easter. As president of the County Young People's Inter-Sunday School Council, she was well-placed to achieve her goal.

 [Doris Duke Photograph Collection,
David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.]

Miss Funkhouser's plan was for an early morning sunrise service open to all of the various Protestant denominations of the county which would include music and an inspirational speaker. The early start - six o'clock that first year and typically five-thirty in subsequent years - meant that the festivities would not interfere with Easter services at the area churches. She quickly received the endorsement of local pastors, and more importantly of the managers of the desired locale - Duke's Park.

26 March 1930 Home News

Duke's Park, the sprawling Hillsborough, NJ estate of tobacco tycoon James B. Duke was an inspired choice, especially considering that after Duke's death in October 1925, the future of the park - which he began to assemble in 1893 and opened to the public around 1902 - was uncertain. The estate offered a near-perfect venue for such an event - the lawn in front of the abandoned foundation to the never-completed Duke mansion.

"The Foundation" Duke Farms, May 2012

The speaker that first year was Rev. Frank Hunger, pastor of the Spring Street Presbyterian Church in New York and a Marine Corps veteran of the first World War. After that first year, Boy Scouts of Raritan were enlisted to help with directing automobiles through the entrances off of Duke's Parkway and River Road. By 1932, the sunrise service was regularly drawing crowds of over 1,000 attracted by the beautiful scenery, the music - typically cornet ensembles, local church choirs, and soloists - and the inspirational messages delivered by speakers from New York, Philadelphia, and all around New Jersey.

28 March 1932 Courier News

After the first decade - as responsibility for the event passed from the Young People's Council to the Somerset County Christian Associations - with attendance still regularly reaching 1,000 people, visiting "the foundations" on Easter morning became an eagerly anticipated ritual for the believers of Somerset County.

 [Doris Duke Photograph Collection,
David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.]

The service was canceled at the height of World War II in 1944, and then again in 1947 and 1948 because of extreme weather. After that, the event continued yearly for another two decades until the final service in 1969.

J. B. Duke's McKinley Bronze

On February 27, 2013 a crane carefully lowered the refurbished nine foot tall 20 ton bronze statue of President William McKinley onto its base in front of the brand new Niles, Ohio High School. The statue of America's 25th president had stood in front of the recently demolished previous high school since the early 1960s when it was given as a gift by heiress Doris Duke.

Refurbished statue of President McKinley at the new Niles, Ohio High School

Tobacco magnate James B. Duke was a great admirer of McKinley. Some time in 1906, Duke contacted Italian-American sculptor Gaetano Trentanove to commission the larger-than-life-sized tribute to the president, who was assassinated in September of 1901. The sculpture was based on a favorite portrait of McKinley that hung in Duke's New York office, and was cast in Florence, Italy in January 1907. It was intended to be displayed at Duke's Hillsborough, New Jersey estate on the site of the large greenhouses that were built between 1909 and 1912.

"The Orangery" at Duke's Park - later part of Duke Gardens

The casting of the bronze was an event in itself with the American Consul in Italy and other dignitaries present for the event.

Headline from the Baltimore Sun 5 January 1907

The McKinley statue arrived in Hillsborough later that year, and was eventually placed on a sixteen foot marble and granite base. Below is a newspaper photo from 1909 showing the statue in Duke's Park without the base.

Photo from The New York Herald 30 May 1909

In 1958 Doris Duke formed Duke Gardens, Inc. to transform the greenhouses into what would become the famous display gardens. William McKinley did not fit into her plans. She began looking for someone who would accept the statue as a donation. She was even willing to pay shipping costs. In March of 1960 the city council of Niles, Ohio - McKinley's birthplace - accepted the donation.

Courier News 11 October 1960

Transportation arrangements took seven months. On October 11, 1960 an over-sized rail car was moved onto the private siding off of the South Branch Railroad that runs through the Duke Estate. The marble and granite base was separated into five segments, and McKinley himself was lowered intact into an open gondola. At nine feet two inches square, the massive base of the monument just barely fit railway requirements.

Two years after arriving in Niles, the McKinley statue was still in the railroad yard awaiting funds to be raised to have it erected.