Pine Terrace (circa 1905 - 1943)

A drive today through the Hillsborough Township hamlet of South Branch gives only the barest hint of the lively little village that existed around the turn of the last century. We can still see the imposing South Branch Reformed Church and the Miller's Mansion - also known as the Vroom House - as well as a smattering of 19th-century homes along River Road and Orchard Drive, but gone forever is the mill itself with all of its storehouses, the general store - later a US Post Office - the homes on the west side of River Road, the wheelwright/wagon shop, and both of the blacksmith shops. Also missing is the impressive mansion on the lot to the south of the church known as Pine Terrace.

Pine Terrace, postcard circa 1907

Pine Terrace was built in the middle of the 19th-century by John and Gilbert Amerman - brothers who also were instrumental in the establishment of the church in 1850. In fact, the Amerman family donated the land for the church, owned the mill and a general store, and built other houses in the village, notably "Hilltop" - the house at the corner of River Road and Orchard Drive.

Ad for Pine Terrace from the 30 May 1909 Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Their mansion was actually two complete houses of ten rooms each, joined in the center by a large reception hall. The richest family in the village spared no expense in the construction or furnishing of the home with 14-foot high hand blown mirrors imported from France adorning the reception hall, fine marble mantels at the fireplaces, and ornamental hand-worked plaster on the walls throughout the house. 

The village of South Branch from across the river, postcard circa 1907

After Gilbert passed away in 1886, the village doctor William H. Merrell - who was in practice in the village for 40 years - made his office in Pine Terrace. When John Amerman died in 1904 the mansion was acquired by Charles S. Phillips and wife. The house had served sometimes as a boarding house and meeting place, but the new proprietor turned it into a full-fledged summer resort accommodating up to 35 guests.

Guests on the steps of Pine Terrace,
as reprinted in the South Branch Reformed Church 150th Anniversary book.

Ads taken out in New York newspapers promised "home cooking, fresh vegetables, eggs, milk", and most importantly, "no mosquitos". Activities included horseback riding, boating, fishing, and simply enjoying the beautiful scenery. Of course, a bath was included, and a piano was available in the parlor for rainy-day entertainment. All this at a cost of only $6 (and up) per week.

22 January 1964 Courier News

Pine Terrace quickly found its niche catering to religious and youth groups looking for a place in the country for a summer retreat. Rooms were always available for South Branchers out-of-town guests and many local residents had their special occasions catered in the Pine Terrace dining room.

20 March 1964 Courier News

Charles Phillips passed away in 1943, after which Pine Terrace fell into disrepair. In 1963, the South Branch Reformed Church began negotiating to buy the property, initially looking to repurpose the mansion for a new education center. They completed the deal but found that the building would not suit their needs. The contents were sold at auction - the imported mirrors that had cost $1000 a century earlier went for just $14 - and Pine Terrace was soon demolished to make way for the building that adjoins the church today.

Olympic Cyclists Summer in South Branch, 1972

In recent years, Hillsborough's weekend motorists have become used to navigating around bicyclists on the backroads of the "boro", but back in the summer of '72 cyclists had the upper hand. It was in July and August of that year that the US Olympic Cycling Team made their home base at the South Branch Hotel on River Road.

15 July 1972 Courier News

Coming out of the Olympic Trials at Lake Luzerne, NY in early July, coach Ernie Seubert took the top twelve road racers with him back to his native New Jersey, where they could train over the sleepy backroads of Hillsborough Township - and compete for the final eight spots that would comprise the Olympic team. 

The South Branch Hotel, photo circa 1970

The sprawling 19th-century mansion that became their home for four weeks that summer was once the summer residence of the flamboyant Diamond Jim Brady and was lately owned by Mr. and Mrs. David Weiss. The hotel catered mostly to Jewish youth groups for summer retreats and the like. 

27 July 1972 Courier News

A typical workout that summer consisted of a 50 or 60-mile ride before breakfast, then another three or four-hour session in the afternoon. The sleepy back roads of Somerset County were specifically chosen because, according to Coach Seubert, "There are no outside distractions here." To stay sharp, the team competed in a 50-mile race in Nutley and made a trip out to Milwaukee for the National Championship. The standouts that summer were future bicycling Hall-of-Famers John Howard and Ron Skarin. Howard had already competed in the 1968 Olympic Games, and he and Skarin would each go on to be members of the cycling teams in Munich in 1972 and Montreal in 1976.

28 May 1974 Courier News

Skarin returned to the area less than a year later to win the first of his two consecutive titles at the Tour Of Somerville. No word on whether or not he stayed at the South Branch Hotel!

27 May 1974 Home News

Hillsborough Presbyterian Church

The Presbyterian Church has a long, and more than a little disjointed, history in Hillsborough stretching all the way back to 1759. It was in that year that congregants borrowed a pastor from Bound Brook and met for the first time at the home of one of their members in Millstone. The next year they built their own church, sharing it with members of the Dutch Reformed Church until they built their own church in 1767.

18 November 1961 Courier News

In 1777, during the British encampment at Millstone, the English set fire to the Presbyterian Church, damaging it beyond repair. After the Revolution, the Reformed Church in New Brunswick and the Presbyterian Church in Princeton agreed that no new Presbyterian Church would be formed between Princeton and Pluckemin. Aside from a foray into Presbyterianism by the Clover Hill Church between 1840 and 1862, this agreement held into the middle of the 20th century.

Headline from the Courier News, 20 September 1961

In 1961 Rev. Dr. Orion Hopper got permission from the New Brunswick Presbytery to survey Hillsborough residents about a new church. Of approximately 450 households surveyed, nearly 200 expressed interest in joining a Presbyterian Church if there was one in the township. With this good result, a church was unofficially organized and the first Sunday service was held at the Hillsborough Consolidated School (now Hillsborough Elementary School) on September 24, 1961.

24 September 1962 Home News

The Consolidated School made a good initial home for the church - especially after they were able to negotiate the Sunday rental fee down from $240 to $148 a month - but what was needed was a site for a church building. Longtime Hillsborough resident Clifford Cunningham owned 8 1/2 acres at the northwest corner of Route 206 and Homestead Road. For years he had been trying to get suitable zoning to operate a number of small businesses on the property but was continually stymied by the Planning Board. He did have one business there - selling log cabins to Boy Scouts and other outdoor recreation concerns - and to further that enterprise he built a model cabin on the site that also served as his office. By the end of 1961, Cunningham agreed to sell the property to the church, thereby providing them not only with the space to construct a new building but also, with the addition in 1962 of a proper steeple, a building to hold their Sunday service and other activities. This became known as the Log Cabin Chapel.

3 April 1967 Home News

The church was officially organized with a service at the Log Cabin Chapel on May 12, 1963. Groundbreaking for the current familiar church building took place in April 1967.

The Hillsborough Presbyterian Church celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2013, becoming one of the longest enduring congregations in Hillsborough, whichever way you count it!

Mt. Zion AME Church

For a great part of its history, going back to colonial times, New Jersey was a slave state. Africans labored on the farms, worked at the ports, and were employed as domestics. So important was slave labor to the economy that New Jersey was the last of the northern states to abolish slavery in 1804 - and then in a piecemeal way that left many blacks with the status of indentured servants.

Mt. Zion AME Church October 2018

Hillsborough Township did not escape the scourge of slavery. But to find evidence of Hillsborough's black history today sometimes requires looking beyond the city limits. On Hollow Road in the Skillman section of Montgomery Township stands the Mt. Zion African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. Engraved on the front right cornerstone of the church is the marking "Nov. 19, 1899", representing the date that the church building was moved from its original location in Hillsborough and placed on a new foundation in Montgomery.

Historic maps dated, clockwise from top left, 1850, 1851, 1860, and 1873,
each showing the location of the Mt Zion AME Church

Because we know that freed slaves and their descendants lived in the Sourland Mountain region of Hillsborough going back to the 18th century it is not surprising to see the Mt. Zion AME Church shown as "African Church" on area maps as early as 1850. The church, originally located on Zion-Wertsville/Long Hill Road near the intersection of Spring Hill Road, became part of the African Methodist Episcopal denomination in 1866.

October 2018

Not much is known about the church or its congregation before it moved to Skillman in 1899. In the first decades of the 20th century, the church was known as the Skillman AME Church. The "ladies of the church" regularly organized fish pounds, oyster suppers, and strawberry festivals - but by far the most popular event was the annual Camp Meeting. Held each year over four consecutive Sundays from mid-July to mid-August at Brophy's Grove near the church, the Camp Meeting was a festival featuring religious speakers, gospel music, and of course, their famous chicken dinners served from noon to five each day.

Research project created by Hillsborough High School history students
on display in the church October 2018

The Mt. Zion AME Church continued to serve the African-American community until disbanding in 2005. Today the church building is owned by the Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum. As of 2019, rehabilitation and restoration of the building has already begun, and there are plans to include a museum of African American history on the site.

October 2018

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.

Koinonia Comes to Neshanic, 1957

On February 6, 1957, Mr. and Mrs. Rufus Angry packed up their seven children and what possessions they could fit into a truck and fled north. Their destination: Neshanic Station, New Jersey. The African-American family was one of ten white and black families who lived and worked together communally on Koinonia Farm in Americus, Georgia. The 1,100-acre commune was founded peacefully in 1943 but by 1957 they faced increasing racism, and were subject to, in the words of founder Rev. Clarence Jordan, "a reign of terror."

6 April 1957 Courier News

In the past year, shots were fired at the buildings of the compound, the roadside produce stand was dynamited, a cross was burned on the property, and farm products were boycotted locally - all because group membership had no racial barriers. If that wasn't enough, a grand jury in Sumter County was busy hearing testimony that the group was a Communist Party front and that the violence might have been perpetrated from the inside in order to gain sympathy!

24 July 1957 Courier News

All of this led Rev. Jordan to seek placements for some families in other parts of the country where they would be safe from persecution. He found what he was looking for at Hidden Springs Farm in Neshanic Station. The 130-acre farm had also been founded as a commune of sorts by members of the Society of Friends, commonly known as Quakers, who moved from Paterson, New Jersey, in 1946. With membership at Hidden Springs dwindling due to, as The Courier-News reported, "changes in business and family interests", the group was looking to sell the property on Fairview Road.

21 August 1957 New York Times

The Angrys were soon joined by Mr. and Mrs. Harry Atkinson and their children, and by June, with the sale of the property completed, the group officially incorporated as Koinonia Farms, Inc. The group quickly grew to four families comprised of nine adults and thirteen children. The property contained a house, an apartment over the garage, and an apartment over the carriage house.

26 May 1958 Home News

It wasn't long before the group ran into trouble - not of the racial kind, but of the Jersey kind - zoning. In order to make a go of the colony, Koinonia Farms sought a special use permit from Branchburg Township to process and package peanuts and pecans that would be shipped from the operation in Georgia. The application was denied in September. Families drifted away from the farm over the next several months until by the spring only the Angrys were left. By May 1958 Hidden Springs Farm was sold to a neighboring landowner, and the Koinonia commune experiment in Neshanic was officially ended on June 28, 1958. 

Bound Brook High School

The Bound Brook Board of Education began to contemplate providing a high school for area students soon after the town seceded from Bridgewater Township and incorporated as an independent boro in 1891. Somerset County's commercial and transportation hub had been sending children who wanted to further their education to Somerville, which had opened a public high school in the previous decade.

Lafayette School, postcard circa 1906

Bound Brook's single consolidated educational institution was the Lafayette School which served students in 1st through 8th grades. By the end of the century, the school board made some improvements to the school which allowed them to accept their first high school students. The first graduation was on June 23, 1904.

18 September 1907 Home News

In 1907 the school board borrowed $60,000 to build Washington School exclusively for 9th through 12th graders. The Democrat's candidate for mayor, who was also on the school board and who had opposed the school, used his opposition to the necessary tax increase to make a surprise upset in the November election. Too late to have any influence on the school, however, which was formally dedicated on September 11, 1908.

An early view of Bound Brook's high school - Washington School

With the new high school complete, Bound Brook was able to attract students from Hillsborough, Montgomery, and other Somerset County towns who had mostly been attending Somerville. During this period, the school boards in the various towns could send students individually to either Somerville, Bound Brook, Flemington, or another high school. Some consideration was given to the program of study that the students were inclined to pursue. At Bound Brook, degrees were offered in commercial, modern language, English scientific, and Latin scientific.

Bound Brook High School students pose in front of Washington School, 1916

Consideration might also be given to where a student lived. A Hillsborough student who resided in the southeast quadrant of the township might very well have chosen to go to Bound Brook because transportation was easily obtained by way of the Reading Railroad, whereas students in other parts of town would have easier access to Somerville via the South Branch Railroad.

The 1916 graduates of Bound Brook High School,
including four from Hillsborough and three from Montgomery.
George Prove is the boy on the left, second row from the bottom.

One Bound Brook graduate who had a remarkable, if ultimately tragic, story was Hillsborough native George Prove. Orphaned at a young age, he boarded, and labored, at the Wyckoff farm at the crossroads of Hillsborough and Willow Roads. He attended school at the one-room schoolhouse there - when he could find time away from his chores. It would have been easy, and expected, for George to quit school early and remain a farm laborer, but his teacher Miss Ferguson encouraged him to continue on to Bound Brook. There he was a serious student - one who the girls found popular because of his wavy hair. He graduated in 1916, went on to Rutgers College, then spent time in France during the war. When he returned, he picked up his studies in chemistry at West Virginia, ultimately landing a job with Standard Oil of New Jersey. Sadly he was killed in a car crash in 1928 at the age of 32.

1923 class ring

In the decades that followed wings were added to each side of Washington School to keep up with increasing enrollment, particularly from booming towns such as Manville who were sending all of their high school students to Bound Brook.

The expanded Washington School, post World War I.

By 1954 enrollment had increased to the point that if something wasn't done, the 1,000 capacity school would soon be up to 2,000 students, necessitating double sessions. Ultimately two things were done. Firstly, in 1956 and 1957 voters approved bonds of $675,000 and $110,000 to provide for a new heating plant, seven new classrooms, a double gym with locker rooms, and conversion of several existing spaces. This construction brought the footprint of the school to basically its present size. Secondly, Manville built its own high school, removing hundreds of students.

It seems fitting that today Bound Brook is the only high school in Somerset County designated as a "school choice" school - meaning that students from outside the district can enroll in one of its two academy programs.

The Murder of Jack Morton - 1971

It is doubtful that killers Freddie Cisson and Henry Molka knew anything of the man they murdered in the early morning hours of Saturday, December 11, 1971, except that he had some money and they wanted it.

Jack Andrew Morton

Could they have known that 58-year old Jack A. Morton of Hillsborough Township was a vice-president at Bell Labs where he had been employed since 1936? That he was a gifted electrical engineer who first worked on microwave technology and radar which led to innovations that changed the course of World War II in the Pacific? 

Jack Morton's 1971 book Organizing for Innovation

That in 1948 he led the team that improved upon and produced the first useful transistors - an invention that has made our modern electronic world possible?

1 June 1960 Home News

That among his many honors was the coveted David Sarnoff Medal for "outstanding leadership and contributions to the development and understanding of solid state electron devices" - or that he held 24 US patents?

3 February 1948 Courier News

That he moved with his family to Hillsborough in 1944, purchasing the famed "Humble House" on Riverside Drive - and that he volunteered on the local Planning Board, Industry Board, and anything else that his busy schedule would allow? Or that he had just published a book - Organizing for Innovation - detailing the best practices and leadership required for success in the age of technology?

Jack Morton, William Shockley, and Addison White of Bell Labs -
the men who gave the world the transistor.
Fortune Magazine, 1953

All the two unemployed mechanics from Reaville knew was that he was an amiable man who bought them a few drinks at the Neshanic Inn where he had stopped on his way home from a business trip. The three sat together until closing time and were seen leaving together. Morton's car was reported on fire on Woodfern Rd. at 4:30 a.m. where firemen found Morton's lifeless, bruised, and badly burned body in the backseat. 

13 December 1971 Courier News

When Cisson and Molka were seen driving past the scene of the ongoing police investigation several times later that morning they were arrested, and later identified.

13 December 1971 Courier News 

Both killers were convicted in 1972 and sentenced to life imprisonment, where presumably they had plenty of time to contemplate the life they took.

Piggeries at the Polls, 1939

When heiress Doris Duke presented plans to construct a massive piggery on her Hillsborough, NJ estate in 1950 township residents and officials were suddenly confronted with an issue that they thought had been put out to pasture a decade before.

16 March 1939 Courier News

It was in September 1938 that Henry Krajewski and family purchased farm property on Amwell Road in the Woods Tavern area east of today's Route 206.  The first red flag should have gone up when neighbors learned that the twenty-six-year-old was from Secaucus - New Jersey's pig capital during the first half of the 20th century. 

Henry Krajewski and friend,
31 October 1958 New York Daily News

Hillsborough farmers had always raised pigs, but no one had ever contemplated an operation of the size soon endeavored upon by Krajewski. By March of 1939, the piggery was already 400 strong, with plans to grow to 4,000. It wasn't the actual pigs that so distressed Hillsborough residents, but rather the smell of the refuse they fed on and the generally unsanitary conditions of the farm.

1 July 1939 Courier News

Hillsborough's most recent sanitary code dated from 1907 and was wholly inadequate to deal with large-scale pig farms. A new ordinance was quickly passed requiring those who wished to keep more than 50 hogs to obtain a $10 permit and submit to inspections by the Board of Health. In short order, Krajewski was issued several fines which he refused to pay. When a second large piggery opened on Amwell Road that summer, and then a third, piggeries were thrust to the forefront as an issue during the campaign for township committee.

6 November 1939 Courier News

J. Irving Stryker of South Branch, the Republican challenger against incumbent Democrat committeeman J.V.D. Drake, pledged that "Undesirable enterprises such as piggeries, where thousands of swine are fed on garbage under filthy conditions, must not be permitted." Other campaign issues check the usual boxes - rateables and road conditions.

8 July 1939 Courier News

In probably the closest election in Hillsborough history, Stryker defeated Drake by two votes.

In March 1940 the New Jersey Supreme Court upheld a Hillsborough ordinance, challenged by Krajewski, forbidding the dumping of garbage in the town. The next month, Krajewski announced that he was ceasing operations and moving back to the pig-friendly environs of Secaucus. Two other piggeries in Hillsborough closed at the same time. 

New Jersey and the nation would hear a lot more from Henry Krajewski in the coming decades!