What You May Have Missed

If you're not following the Gillette on Hillsborough Facebook page here, you may have missed some photos and stories that don't appear as posts on this blog - like my recent post about Miss Cora Wyckoff, the Lehigh Valley Railroad station agent at Flagtown in the 1890s.

You may also have missed all of the "extra" photos I took at Duke Farms this year while researching the Then and Now series.


Follow Gillette on Hillsborough by "liking" the Facebook page here - you'll never miss a post.

Turtle Lake, Then and Now

There is no question that James B. Duke loved flowing water. He created his Hillsborough, N.J. estate, now known officially as Duke Farms, with this in mind - constructing nine lakes at various elevations so water could flow and cascade down from one to the other.

Turtle Lake at Duke's Park, postcard circa 1907

There were also dozens of free-standing fountains, and fountains whose overflow spilled down into the lakes. If that wasn't enough, fountains also rose up from the lake themselves - as you can see in the postcard view above of Turtle Lake in 1907.

What is left of the Eagle Gate fountain at Duke Farms, September 2015

Although nearly all of the lake fountains have been decommissioned and removed over the years, if you look closely you may spot the remnants of one or two. Click on the photo below to get a better look at one of J.B. Duke's last remaining, albeit inoperative, water features.

Turtle Lake, August 2015

Evening at Duke Farms

Muddy Duke's Brook

Heron Over the Reservoir

Sneaky Geese

Lion in a Reflective Mood

Last Rays on the Bridge

Bandit's Hideout

Shooting Up the Park, 1907

By 1907, James B. Duke was used to receiving phone calls at his New York office about some sort of trouble at his Hillsborough, N.J. estate popularly known as Duke's Park. If it wasn't a serial arsonist firing one of his barns, or hundreds of trees being uprooted by the 1903 tornado, it was damage from unruly picnickers or boys shooting craps at midnight under the glow of the electric lights at the Raritan Gate fountain. We can almost imagine this conversation from July 1907, "What is it this time - are those boys from Raritan making havoc in the spring house again?"

New York Herald headline July 13, 1907

"Yes, Mr. Duke, something like that. Only two boys this time....and one of them is your son."

In 1902, tobacco tycoon James B. Duke decided to turn his country retreat in Hillsborough Township, N.J. into a magnificent country estate. He began purchasing lots along the Raritan River in 1893, eventually accumulating hundreds of acres where he bred horses and cattle and engaged in general farming. He now endeavored not only to plant hundreds of thousands of trees and shrubs, excavate enormous lakes, throw up grand mountains, and import a fortune in European bronze and marble statuary - but also promised to open the grounds of his park to the public.

The Raritan Gate Fountain at the Hillsborough, N.J. estate of James B. Duke, circa 1905,
 [Doris Duke Photograph Collection, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.]

He made good on that promise the next year - even as construction was ongoing. In these early years there were no actual gates at any of the many entrances to the park. Visitors were expected to be courteous and respectful. For the most part they were - until around 1906. Contemporary newspaper accounts from that year speak of everything from simple flower-picking to shattering of electric lights, the aforementioned nightly gambling, and automobiles run amok over lawns and footpaths. The tobacco tycoon went so far as to close the park from time to time - and indeed would eventually go to two days a week beginning in 1910, then once a month from 1915 until the park was permanently closed to the general public in the mid-twenties.

Doris Duke and Walker Inman, Sr. circa 1944,
[Doris Duke Photograph Collection, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.]

Still, nothing could have prepared him for the news that his soon-to-be stepson Walker Inman - Duke was engaged to Walker's mother Nanaline Holt Inman - and a friend, both twelve years old, had walked over to Somerville that July morning and purchased an air rifle and enough ammunition to get in some serious trouble.

Swans on Boathouse Lake, postcard circa 1907

By way of target practice, the boys shot out electric street lights all the way back to Hillsborough - and once back on the estate proceeded to take aim at Duke's prize ducks and swans! If that wasn't enough, they took potshots at the statuary - and at the Italian laborers who were working about the grounds.

The New York Herald reported that Walker and his buddy "were finally disarmed after breaking nearly every pane of glass in the conservatories and other buildings, besides doing other damage."

Orchid Range/Conservatory

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

There is no report as to the young Mr. Inman's punishment for engaging in such depredations - but we can only hope that he was made to pay for repairs out of his allowance.

Winter at Duke Farms

Pet Cemetery

Frozen Vista Lake View

Chilly Reservoir Falls

Vista Lake Fountains Site

Under Great Falls Lake Bridge

Frozen Vista Lake Falls

Baby Memorial

Spring at Duke Farms

Dragonfly Creek

Lesser Celandine along the banks of Duke's Brook

Oak Way Stone Bridge

Vista Lake

Mermaid Pool

Duke's Brook Bridge

Summer at Duke Farms

Black Eyed Susan

The Falls at Duke's Brook

Vista Lake

Vista Lake

Rose Mallow

Black and White Bridge

West Way Drive, Then and Now

When Simon Morley needed to travel back in time to 1880s era New York City in Jack Finney's 1970 novel Time and Again, he holed up in the Dakota apartment building - a place unchanged since that time - where he could convince himself that he was on the upper west side of Manhattan in January 1882.  At Duke Farms, the former Hillsborough Township, NJ estate of tobacco tycoon James B. Duke and later his daughter Doris, one can almost accomplish the same by taking a stroll along West Way.

West Way Drive looking north at Duke's Park, postcard circa 1915

With Vista Lake and the Mermaid Pool on your right, and Duke Reservoir up the hill to your left, the scene in 2015 is much as it was in 1915, when the postcard view above was photographed. Yes, bicycles have replaced autos - the favored way to tour the massive Duke's Park a century ago - but when I went back this week to get a better photo than the one originally slated for this post, I found many happily strolling the promenade as they might have done in the heyday of public access to the estate from 1905 to 1915.

West Way at Duke Farms, August 2015

More Duke's Brook, Then and Now

As we near the end of our photographic journey into the past life of Duke Farms, let's return to one of the hidden gems of James B. Duke's magnificent Hillsborough, NJ estate - Duke's Brook.

Duke's Brook postcard, 1906

I call this minor tributary of the Raritan River a hidden gem because within the current configuration of Duke Farms, there are only a few spots to get close to the waterway - at the entrance on Duke's Parkway, which I photographed for the first installment of this series, at the old railroad bridge, and at the bridge near the Eagle Gate entrance.

Each of the two bridges can be accessed from Habitat Lane which parallels the river along the southern boundary of the historic core of the property.

Duke's Brook at Duke Farms, April 2015

When I snapped this photo back in April, it wasn't for this series. I didn't realize until months later that I had come very close to capturing the scene from the same vantage point as the postcard photographer 109 years ago.

More Vista Lake Fountains, Then and Now

A couple of months ago I posted about the fountains that once cascaded down from the plaza between the two bridges into Vista Lake at Duke Farms.  Today I present two more century-old views of this spectacular set of waterworks commissioned and built by James B. Duke at his estate in Hillsborough, N.J.

Vista Lake Fountains from below the bridge, postcard circa 1915

Even in the winter, or in this case the first day of spring, it is extremely difficult to capture the scene as depicted in the postcards. There is just too much vegetation! In any case, I think you get the idea.

Below Great Falls Lake Bridge, March 2015

 Below is the view as you cross the bridge heading towards the Great Falls.

Vista Lake Fountains from the bridge, postcard circa 1915

View From The Hill, Then and Now

What do you do if you want to build a mansion on a hill overlooking the water, but there's no hill - and no bodies of water - on your property? If you're tobacco tycoon J.B. Duke, you simply excavate an enormous lake and use the tons of removed earth to create a hill. That's exactly what the millionaire entrepreneur accomplished at Duke Farms more than a century ago. excavating not one, but nine connected lakes, transforming the farmland of Hillsborough Township, New Jersey into Duke's Park.

Excavating Vista Lake, circa 1907

Duke didn't let the lack of a perfect vista get in the way of siting his never completed mansion exactly where he wanted it. Temporary railways, steam shovels, and hundreds of laborers were employed in creating the million dollar view.

The view from the Old Foundation, postcard circa 1920s

As I attempted to duplicate this postcard scene a few months ago, I had to wonder how the photographer was able to capture the fountain and lake from such a high vantage point. I held the camera way over my head, but it wasn't nearly enough.

The view from the Old Foundation, 2015

Could this brief news item from the July 22, 1922 edition of the New Brunswick Daily Home News provide a clue?

New Brunswick Daily Home News, July 22, 1922

Mermaid Pool, Then and Now

The Mermaid Pool has been an attraction at Duke Farms for more than a century. Part of J. B. Duke's interconnected lake system, water flows down from the Duke Reservoir and under West Way to fill the pool, which at one time featured six smaller water spouts surrounding a large central fountain.

Mermaid Pool at Duke's Park, postcard circa 1915

Water then flows through the watercourse pictured in the postcard above and under the bridge where a young Doris Duke can be seen admiring her reflection, eventually cascading down into Vista Lake.

Doris Duke at the Mermaid Pool, circa 1922

Today the well-kept  Mermaid Pool lawn is a favorite picnic spot.

Mermaid Pool at Duke Farms, April 2015

Although the smaller fountains are no longer present, I am happy to report that the central fountain is once again operational! See for yourself below.

Lover's Lane, Then and Now

Old postcards are not only a great resource for discovering what Duke Farms looked like a century ago, but can also reveal long forgotten names of lanes, and bridges, and bodies of water at J.B. Duke's "Duke's Park".

Lover's Lane at Duke's Park, postcard circa 1907

I previously took note of "Hoo Doo Bridge" on Habitat Lane - but a study of the postcards in my personal collection provides us with "Swan Falls", "Woodville Falls", "Silver Cascades", "Shady Nook Drive", "Willow Lake", and other disused monikers.  This week, we have the practically unchanged view facing west on Overlook Way, formerly named "Lover's Lane" - at least at the time the original postcard view was printed in 1907.

Overlook Way at Duke Farms. April 1915