Duke Farms Bronzes, Then and Now

A small blurb in the May 3, 1902, issue of the New York Tribune contained the news that 200 pieces of bronze statuary - three railroad cars full - had just arrived at the James B. Duke estate in Hillsborough. The pieces included vases, allegorical figures, many animals, and an $80,000 ($2.5 million today) fountain of marble and bronze.

Duke's Park postcard circa 1905
(Collection of Gillette on Hillsborough)

The statues were chosen by Duke when he visited the du Val d'Osne foundry in Paris that winter. In a full-page story four months later the Herald declared them to be "The Most Imposing Private Collection of Bronzes in America".

14 September 1902 New York Herald

This was the year that Duke first fully committed to turning his estate into a magnificent public park, and he spared no expense. Many of the animal figures were placed in the woods that used to be near the coach barn. Visitors, accustomed to the crude cast iron statues they might see at a municipal park or ordinary private home, marveled at the beauty of the bronzes. More than one person was reported to be startled at the sight of deer in the trees, or a hunter with his dogs.

Duke's Park postcard circa 1905

Deer, and Lion Killing a Snake,
14 September 1902 New York Herald)

Allegorical figures such as the four graces were placed on the lawn near the conservatory - today's Orchid Range. 

One of the Four Graces. Postcard circa 1903.

Today, most of the bronzes are long gone - auctioned off in just the last 15 years, although many were removed from the grounds decades ago. Those that remain have appeared in this series - Lo Spinario, The Farnese Bull, The Urchins' Band - and I have also written about a few that are no more - Flying Mercury, The Sower, The McKinley Bronze. Still, taken altogether, this only accounts for a handful of the many dozens of bronze statues that once adorned the Duke's Park.

Most of Duke's bronzes - including the pair of torchieres above that used to stand in front of the Orchid Range, and the dogs below - were auctioned in 2009 and can be found in the usual locations such as Pinterest.

And if you peer keenly into the thicket of the Internet, you just may find the image to complete your Then and Now post!

Family Feud at Frankfort, 1907

In the late afternoon of January 22, 1907, Morris "Max" Breen took a break from his chores to regale his friends with stories of his ongoing feud with Thomas Cox. Breen and Cox were rival shopkeepers in the hamlet of Frankfort, New Jersey - a small postal village in Hillsborough Township that up until 1878 had been named Flaggtown.

23 January 1907 Home News

Farmer Nicholas Ernest and laborers Crook Sutton, David Dilts, and Clarence Miller relaxed on cracker barrels around the heat stove in Breen's store and listened as the Russian immigrant and former house painter poured out his troubles.

 

23 January 1907 Courier News

The feud had been going on for quite some time. According to Breen, it all started when Cox - who was also the Frankfort Postmaster and whose store was on South Branch Road about opposite of where Longfield Drive is today - had Breen arrested on a charge of "cruelty to dumb animals". Not long afterward Breen sent one of his friends to accost Cox and frighten him by pretending to rob him as he drove his cart over a lonely country road at night. Because Cox pulled his revolver in the incident, Breen had him later arrested on a serious charge of carrying a concealed weapon.

22 January 1907 Home News

According to an account in the Plainfield Daily Press, relations between the two continued to sour after Breen - whose store was on Amwell (now East Mountain) Road near Mill Lane - held a house party and invited everyone in the vicinity except the Cox family. To make room for all of the horses (kind of like finding room for street parking today) Breen moved his own horses out of his barn and took them to Cox's stables. This was a regular courtesy offered to each other by area folks - but not between these feuding families. Cox refused to release the horses back to Breen, compelling Breen to initiate a legal proceeding which cost him $3 paid to Cox for the board of the horses.

23 January 1907 Plainfield Daily Press

Hearing all of this, the four friends decided to pay the postmaster a visit. They entered Cox's store that evening and each, in turn, asked for his mail. As Cox slid the mail through the slot in the window he sensed trouble. He came out from behind the counter and asked the men to leave. When they didn't go, he took a step towards his gun in the corner of the room. It was at this point that the gang knocked him down, stomped on him, and dragged him by his heels out to South Branch Road.

24 January 1907 Courier News

Cox's wife Mary and sister-in-law Dora Mutchler heard the commotion and came running out to help. Mrs. Cox wound up getting her fingers smashed by a boot heel and then fainted. Cox called out for store clerk James Martin to come quickly and retrieve his gun from the store. But as Martin reached the door he was jumped. The Cox family managed to escape to the neighbors - and Cox ran up to the telegraph station at the Flagtown Depot to call for help.

1 February 1907 Courier News

The four assailants were rounded up the next day by county detective George Totten and appeared before Justice Sutphen where they were charged with assault and robbery - it seems that Cox noticed $19 was missing from his pocket after the melee. 

This story was prominent in the newspapers for about ten days back in 1907, then promptly disappeared as journalists turned to new and shinier distractions, so we may never know how the feud turned out in the end!

The Enduring Mystery of Millstone's Secession

The Hillsborough Township Committee meeting minutes for June 7th and 8th, 1894, barely hint at it. Local newspapers published that spring are silent. The well-researched 1976 history "Portrait of a Village" gives the topic half a paragraph then throws in the towel - for good reason. There just doesn't seem to be any good information out there - either now or then.

The reasons for Millstone, New Jersey's secession from Hillsborough Township and incorporation as an independent boro on May 18, 1894, remain a mystery. 

It is often said that Hillsborough is a township of small villages. That was never a good description - Hillsborough was a township of farms, with a few small villages at major crossroads, and is now a township of residential developments with a few shopping centers along the highway. But in acknowledgement of that first description, it is important to say that among Hillsborough's villages Millstone stands apart.

Situated on the major north-south road between Bound Brook and Princeton at the intersection of the road that leads to New Brunswick, it is no wonder that Millstone was settled early and was the seat of Somerset County government during the Revolution. 

After the Delaware and Raritan Canal opened in the 1830s, East Millstone - across the river in Franklin Township - gained in prominence while its sister village declined. 

So what happened in 1894? After years of looking into this the only clue that I have turned up - and it's merely circumstantial evidence - is that exactly two months after Millstone Boro's incorporation, the brand new Central New Jersey Traction Company announced plans to extend a trolley line south from Finderne through the sleepy boro and on to Trenton. This project - and by the way it was never built - must have been in the works for months in 1893 and 1894, with inquiries about land purchases and surveyors out on Millstone River Road.

I wrote about the trolley line here. But this certainly isn't the end of the line for this mystery. 

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.

Farm Barn Stone Well House, Then and Now

Nearly all of the stone structures built at Duke Farms over a century ago - well houses, spring houses, summer houses, bridges, etc. - still exist today. They were a favorite of photographers in the early years of the last century and turn up frequently in published postcards.

 

Postcard circa 1912

The well house depicted in the bottom right of the three-scene postcard above is decidedly underrepresented in the historical record. In fact, this small image is the only early professional photograph I have been able to find of the structure located in the field to the east of the Farm Barn/Orientation Center.

Postcard Detail

It is similar in design to the Lovers' Tower located in the historic core of the James B. Duke estate shown in the top right of the three-scene postcard - just not elevated.

Privately printed postcard, 1908
(Collection of Gillette on Hillsborough)

The only other representation of this scene that I have been able to locate is a privately printed postcard photographed in an inadvertent double exposure by a shaky-handed tourist in 1908.

March 2021

Today, work is almost complete in repurposing the well house as a birding platform. This summer, perhaps?

March 2021

His Visitor Was Dead...

Friends of Stephen P. Tallman began arriving at the foot of Liberty Street before 9 a.m. on the morning of June 25th, 1897. As they waited for the Central Railroad of New Jersey ferry that would take them across the Hudson to Jersey City, they spoke to each other about their friend's tragic passing. 

The Central Railroad of New Jersey Ferry Terminal, NYC
circa 1900

Tallman was an attorney working in the railroad business. He was also an inventor who held several patents around stock car improvements, and an entrepreneur who turned some of those inventions into businesses of their own.

Tallman's automatic brake - 
illustration from the September 28, 1883, Science Magazine

One of his first successful enterprises was the Tallman Automatic Car Brake Company which was incorporated in 1881 with a capital stock of $2 million. In later years he took his expertise to the Burton Stock Car Company. Lately, he had retired to Flagtown where he purchased a stock farm.

Illustration from the July 1897
Official Railway Equipment Guide

Tallman's friends must have been shocked when they picked up their daily newspaper on March 8, 1897. The Sun, The Telegram, The Herald - they all carried headlines such as the one below. On the morning of the previous day, Tallman was cleaning a double-barreled shotgun at his farm when some mishap caused the firearm to discharge directly into his hands. The newspapers reported that Tallman was known for his cool reserve - which he displayed by walking calmly to his bathroom and placing his arms in a bowl of water. 

8 March 1897 New York Evening Telegram

He called out for his farm manager James Painter. When Painter got to the house, he removed his hands from the water, held them out, and said, "Jimmy, please cut off these fingers for me." After Painter removed four of the most mangled fingers, he harnessed the fastest horse on the place and they drove the seven miles to Somerville over the rough country roads. 

Office of Dr. William J. Swinton, Main Street, Somerville,
circa 1891

By the time they reached Main Street the men and the wagon were covered in mud and blood - shocking the townsfolk who were on their way to church. They pulled up at the office of Dr. W. J. Swinton - an ear and eye specialist who Tallman was acquainted with when Swinton was a physician for the Jersey Central Railroad. Swinton did what he could with what he had to work with - it was reported that Tallman left the office that day in a cheerful mood, but missing half his fingers.

Tallman's New York friends were certainly relieved. And that would have been the end of the story if real estate broker William Tunis had not decided to pay Tallman a visit at his farm some week after the incident. As Tunis and his driver approached the Tallman farm, Tunis asked for the carriage to be stopped so he could look around. When he stepped down, he collapsed from a massive heart attack. The driver put him back in the carriage and drove with all speed up to the farmhouse. 

7 June 1897 New York Sun

Tallman had been sitting on the porch with Dr. Swinton. When they saw the agitated state of the driver, Swinton ran out to meet them and found that Tunis was dead. This was such a shock to Tallman that he immediately collapsed and died two weeks later.

Flagtown Station

The New York friends changed trains at Somerville and were met by carriages at the Flagtown Station to take them out to the farm for the funeral. Stephen P. Tallman was reported to be 61 years old.

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.