Visiting the Governor's house in Perth Amboy

A few years ago, we were absolutely blown away by the history we found nestled among the old industrial grittiness of Perth Amboy. Once the capital of East Jersey, the city is home to the oldest public building still in use, the state's oldest Episcopal parish, what was arguably once the oldest corporation in America, and the vestiges of a once-busy port. We barely scratched the surface on our visit and vowed to return sometime to see more.

The opportunity came with the arrest of a governor. Well, the reenactment of an arrest -- of William Franklin, the last Royal Governor of New Jersey. As befits his title, Franklin was a Loyalist allied with the government of Great Britain during the time of the American Revolution. His home, known as the Proprietary House, survives, representing the only royal governor's home still standing on its original grounds.

I'd seen photos of the house's exterior, but I was still taken aback when we pulled up. This was a massive pile of bricks in a residential neighborhood, a real survivor. How could it have been there all these years without being more widely known?

The inside, what we could see of it, was just as impressive. We walked in to find a spacious center hall flanked by two parlors, one of which was decorated as a stately dining room. One of the basement rooms was interpreted as the kitchen, complete with massive hearth, while a barrel-vaulted storage room was set for a future event. Upper floors were off limits, but a view up the center of the staircase sent the imagination reeling. How many rooms are up there, and how many stories could be told in them?

No doubt, the awe we felt was exactly what its architect intended for the home of a provincial leader. Construction on the first portion of the house began in 1761, funded by the Proprietors of East Jersey as the official residence for the Royal Governor. The design, while somewhat severe on the outside, was grand: constructed of brick imported from England, its two stories, plus an attic and full basement made it one of the largest houses in the 13 colonies. Four chimneys served its many fireplaces.

Franklin was appointed governor in 1763 but didn't move into the Perth Amboy mansion until 1774; he'd lived at his Burlington estate until funding issues for the home could be worked out. While he sometimes gets a bad rap due to his loyalist leanings, Franklin enjoyed moderate popularity in the early years of his tenure, developing a welfare program of sorts to help farmers during lean years, and running lotteries to fund bridges and roads. After the start of the Revolutionary War, he supported a reconciliation with Great Britain, a stand that eventually led to his arrest on June 17, 1776. While his wife Elizabeth remained at the Proprietary House until escaping to New York in 1777, Franklin was imprisoned in Connecticut. Neither ever returned to the Perth Amboy house.

Wow, that's a lot of stairs!

Reportedly the house was used by both the American and British forces at various points during the Revolution; what's known for sure is that it suffered a near-devastating fire. A merchant and real estate investor named John Rattoon bought the property in the 1790s, repaired the damage and sold it to New York hotelier Richard Woodhull in 1808. Renaming it Brighton House, Woodhull envisioned two new wings for the house, which, with its location on a bluff above Raritan Bay, became what was arguably one of New Jersey's first seaside resorts. However, he only managed to get one wing built before the War of 1812 prompted an economic downturn. By 1817, he'd sold the property to Matthias Bruen, one of the wealthiest men in America, who made it his family estate.

Following his death in 1846, Bruen's heirs made the property a hotel once again, later donating it to the Presbyterian Church as a retirement home after another financial downturn in the 1880s. Ultimately, the Proprietary House became a rooming house known as the Westminster, the spacious land surrounding it sold as separate lots, and Kearny Avenue run through what had been its front yard. Conditions deteriorated in the early 20th century, but local historians raised hopes that the building would eventually be restored to tell the story of Franklin and the turbulent Revolutionary years.

Today, the Proprietary House is owned by the State of New Jersey and managed by the local Proprietary House Association, which is responsible for raising the funds to restore and interpret the ground floor and first floor of the building. A separate organization is managing the restoration of the 1809 wing and the upper floors of the main structure as offices, reflecting the realities of historic preservation today. While the dream of any historian would be to restore a building to its original condition, the economic realities of managing such a large structure usually point to finding tenants. And buildings nearly always fare better when they're occupied.

Walking around the house, I could understand why the Proprietary House Association folks are proud of the building and eager to tell the story of Franklin and his arrest. The Revolution was more complicated in New Jersey than most people realize, and Franklin seemed to be doing the best he could in what quickly became a no-win situation for him and his family. While he supported reconciliation with Great Britain, his own Assembly pushed for independence, a force too powerful for him to deny. It's a story not often told, and fortunately the Proprietary House still stands to help tell it.

Loyal to a fault: finding conflict in Hunterdon

In New Jersey, as in the other 12 original states, there are plenty of places and things that use the word patriot in their names. Businesses, sports teams, streets, grammar schools -- I'll bet you can easily come up with something in your town that evokes the spirit of the Revolutionary War.

Loyalist, well, that's a different story. Go to Canada and you'll find a ton of places, businesses and other entities named to memorialize the folks who stayed true to the Crown during the war (for example, the Loyalist Humane Society offers adoptable cats fit for a queen). In New Jersey, where the battle for independence was also a civil war, it's virtually, if not totally impossible to find evidence of those who didn't at least remain neutral, let alone join the patriot cause, and for good reason. Revolutionaries made life exceedingly hard for many with sympathies for the British cause, seizing their property, jailing many and even resorting to tarring and feathering as a device of humiliation. Some loyalists escaped to British-held New York until the end of the war, while others fled north to the Canadian provinces or to England. When you don't stick around, your descendants don't get much of a chance to tell your story.

We've roamed thousands of miles around the state without running into a place that labels itself as a loyalist hot spot. Now we've found one, awaiting restoration next to a new middle school on the outskirts of Clinton. It was home to a family whose men not only sided with the British, but actively fought their neighbors to maintain the status quo.

The heavy-timbered wattle-and-daub Vought House was built in 1759 by Christoffel (Stoffel) Vought on a 258 acre farmstead in what was then Lebanon Township. Of German heritage, the family ancestors were part of the exodus from the Palatinate to the New World, traveling first to New York and then to western New Jersey. By the early 1770s, Stoffel had married, established a strong reputation in his community and had transferred ownership of his land and home to his son John.

As the Revolution started in 1775, New Jersey's population was substantially loyalist or ambivalent about the idea of independence from Great Britain. It wasn't until the winter of 1776-77 that the state's residents' sympathies began to turn, prompted by the looting, pillaging and physical attacks of British and Hessian troops on civilians. The Voughts, however, started making their mark months earlier, when John reportedly convinced several local men to refuse to serve in the local militia.

While the Continental Congress was debating independence 60 miles away in Philadelphia in June 1776, the British were preparing to invade New York City, perhaps a sign to the Voughts that their opportunity had come. Not content to simply affirm his loyalty to Great Britain, John turned violent, leading a band of loyalists in a raid of militia Captain Thomas Jones' tavern, violently setting on the officer, threatening his young family and looting the bar. By the time John Witherspoon and the rest of the New Jersey delegation were signing the Declaration of Independence, both John and Stoffel Vought were in the Hunterdon County jail. In fact, it's quite possible they were there when the Declaration was read on the nearby courthouse steps.

Their time behind bars, however, was brief, and six months later, as the British pursued the Continental troops across New Jersey, the Voughts saw another opportunity. As some of their fellow New Jerseyans were actively declaring allegiance to the crown in hopes of keeping their property and avoiding personal injury at the hands of the invading troops, John and Stoffel gathered allies and headed east toward New Brunswick to enlist with the New Jersey Volunteers loyalist troops.

This was the start of the Voughts' active attempts to quell the fight for liberty, which ultimately cost them their property, including the house and farmland auctioned in the spring of 1779. John Vought eventually rose to the rank of captain in the Volunteers, an honor that did him and his family little good once the war was over and the British left the newly-formed United States. Finding themselves homeless at the close of the war and their Lebanon Township neighbors unwelcoming to their potential return, they settled in Nova Scotia, where much rockier and less arable land made farming difficult. They finally returned to the U.S. in 1792, taking up residence on land they'd long held in New York State.

After being confiscated from the Voughts and sold, the farmstead stayed largely agricultural well into the twentieth century. The house was last occupied by a renter in 2003, until the Clinton Board of Education acquired the property for the construction of a new school. The impending construction attracted the attention of historians and landed the property on Preservation New Jersey's 2010 list of the state's 10 most endangered historic sites, based in part on its role in 18th century events and unique decorative ceiling plaster, including an intriguing serpent design.

Fortunately, concerned residents created the non-profit 1759 Vought House organization to purchase the house with an eye toward restoration and interpretation to tell New Jersey's complex Loyalist story. The timeline appears long, as with most grassroots preservation projects, but the group has already held several events, including public participation archaeology digs to broaden interest in the effort. I'm personally waiting for a chance to get inside and see the plasterwork, including the serpent featured on the sign advertising the cause in front of the house.

Cut... and print! An Episcopal priest invents film in Newark

Newark has attracted more than its share of creative thinkers who've made huge contributions to their professions and industries. As we learned earlier this year, scientist James Jay Mapes revolutionized agriculture through experiments on his farm in the current-day South Ward. The prolific Seth Boyden had his own lab in Newark to develop new methods of producing patent leather and malleable iron. And, of course, New Jersey's most prolific inventor, Thomas Edison, set up shop in the city before moving operations to the more rural Menlo Park.

Rev. Hannibal Goodwin

A less likely Newark inventor came to mind on my recent stop at the Plume House, now more familiar to Newarkers as the rectory of the Episcopal House of Prayer. Reverend Hannibal Goodwin lived in the home during his service as the church's rector from 1867 until his retirement in 1887. No doubt he served the congregation well, but he's better known for his work outside the ministry.

Like many inventors, Goodwin was driven by a problem in need of a solution. Wanting to make Bible lessons more interesting to his congregants, he started using images printed on glass plates, projected through a stereopticon or "magic lantern." The plates were subject to cracking and breakage, leading him to seek out another transparent material that would be more flexible and immune to damage. Rev. Goodwin took to the workshop and lab he'd assembled in the attic of the Plume House, looking for a solution. He wasn't a chemist by training but taught himself sufficiently to work on a solution without blowing the roof off the rectory.

Newark was already becoming a center for the development of plastics, but apparently none with the properties Goodwin sought. Celluloid pioneer John Wesley Hyatt had relocated to Ferry Street in Newark in the 1870s to manufacture false teeth, billiards balls and other durable solids, but apparently hadn't seen the potential for photographic use. Amateur photographer Rev. Goodwin did. After some experimentation, he developed cellulose nitrate photographic film, also known as flexible celluloid film.

House of Prayer: birthplace of flexible film.
Courtesy Historic American Buildings Survey

Goodwin quickly realized that he hadn't just solved the problem of cracked Bible illustrations, he'd also opened the door to a new trend in photography. Upon his retirement from the Episcopal church in 1887, he filed a patent application for a "photographic pellicle and process for producing same," noting that the invention was for a "transparent sensitive pellicle [membrane] better adapted for photographic purposes."

Though he was first to the U.S. Patent Office with the concept, Goodwin's application wasn't immediately accepted. His lack of formal training as a chemist showed in the lack of detail and need for further clarification and amendments. Meanwhile, others, including George Eastman, came forth with more nuanced and complete petitions for patent. By the time Goodwin was awarded the patent in 1898, Eastman Kodak had been manufacturing and selling flexible film using its own processes for several years.

Goodwin unfortunately lost the opportunity to make up for lost time. Patent in hand, he incorporated the Goodwin Film and Camera Company in 1900 but died in a street accident before production started. His wife sold the company to Anthony and Scovill (later known as Ansco) which sued Eastman Kodak for patent infringement. After more than a decade of dispute in the courts, Goodwin's rightful place as inventor of flexible film was confirmed.

Consider that within the radius of just a few miles, New Jersey holds three locations crucial to the birth and growth of the film industry: the attic of a small Dutch colonial house in Newark where the film itself was born, Edison's West Orange lab where the motion picture was invented, and Fort Lee where the studio system grew from infancy to a major industry. Rochester, Hollywood, eat our dust!

Hessians in the Ice Box: the hidden history of one of Newark's oldest homes

People sometimes tend to forget that New Jersey's largest cities are among our oldest. Take, for example, Newark. Gleaming new buildings are being constructed along Broad Street downtown, but if you look carefully around the city, you'll also see sandstone structures that were built before the American Revolution. One of the oldest, if not the oldest, stands precariously between an Episcopal church and an overpass for Interstate 280.

Built around 1710, the Plume house is remarkable for more than its age. Originally, I stopped by to track down its 19th century acclaim as the birthplace of an new technology that spurred the development of the entertainment industry. Then I discovered that it has the distinction of playing a small but telling role in the American Revolution. Today, we'll focus on that part of its history.

The land on which the sandstone house sits was deeded to early Newarker Samuel Plum in 1673 as part of the original partition of the region. A large farm with orchards, it was then well outside the heart of Newark, which was far smaller than it is today.

Annetje Van Wagenen Plume came to live at the house after her marriage to Samuel's grandson, Isaac Plume, in the mid 1700s. Together with Isaac's children and their mutual offspring, the pair kept the farm going until 1776, when Isaac joined the patriot cause as part of the Essex County Militia.

Ann and the children were on their own during the winter of 1777, when Hessian troops made their way to Newark after the Battle of Long Island. Located on the northern edge of town, the Plume farm and homestead was an easy and quick target. Hungry from the march, the enemy troops pushed their way into the house, demanding food for themselves and their horses.

Washington's troops had already retreated westward, leaving the area undefended and the Hessians emboldened. Figuring they'd encounter little resistance, they rummaged about the house, but when they started chopping her furniture for firewood in the main room, Ann had had enough. According to legend, her demands that they stop were countered by an officer's threat that he'd shoot her unless she shut up and left them alone. Angered, she let loose what was then a raunchy phrase for what might have been termed a proper woman: "Ram's horn if I die for it." The officer laughed in surprise and relented, telling his troops to move out to the yard.

Ann's frustration grew the longer the Hessians stayed on her property. A few days after the wood chopping incident, she saw a chance for revenge. Noticing one of the soldiers venturing into the ice house for some fresh milk, she quickly shut the door behind him and barricaded it. Muffled by the thick walls of the ice house, the soldier's protests and cries for help went unanswered by his comrades, who left in haste the next day when rumor spread that Continental soldiers were on the way. As the story goes, she turned the milk thief over to the Jersey Blues a few hours later, receiving his metal helmet as a reward.

Even without her daring during the Revolution, Ann was a remarkable woman for her time, having inherited substantial land holdings from her father. All of the properties became Isaac's at their marriage due to estate laws of the time, but she regained them all after his death in 1799. As a property-owning widow, she was entitled to vote before the right was taken away from women in New Jersey in 1807. By the time of her death in 1816, she was worth more than $100,000, a significant sum for the day regardless of one's gender.

As for the house, there's much more to be said, both of further history and of an uncertain future. Stay tuned for more...

Back to school in Montague: the Nelden-Roberts Stonehouse

Delaware Water Gap National Recreational Area is loaded with them: old houses and buildings that largely stand empty, the silent tribute to faulty government planning and successful public outcry. Many had been in the same family for generations before the Army Corps of Engineers set out to flood much of the Water Gap as part of the Tocks Island Dam project. In preparation, the federal government purchased acres of farmland and forest plus the structures that stood on them.

Public opinion ultimately trumped the dubious need for the project, but the impact on the area was profound, nonetheless. While the National Park Service assumed ownership and management of the land from the Army Corps, the families were not allowed to return to their ancestral homes. What's left in many cases is the puzzling sight we discovered at the Westbrook-Bell House: a nicely maintained but tightly shut colonial-era stone house with a decidedly 21st century satellite dish. If you're like me, you salivate a little as you drive past buildings like that, wondering how much of the average stuff of daily life is left in them and whether you'll ever get to find out.

More rarely than most of us wish, you may drive past one of the old houses to find it's open. That was our luck as we approached a small stone structure not far from the Milford-Montague Bridge on Route 206. The Nelden-Roberts Stonehouse was accepting visitors, as it does, two Sundays a month in warm weather.

As we discovered from our friendly volunteer docent, farmer George Nelden held the property as early as 1817. It was a schoolhouse until about 1865, one of a handful located in the area in a time before free public education. The Roberts portion of the house's name came from a family who owned a farm across the road; tenant farmers were among the many families that used it as a dwelling until the federal government acquired the property. One gets the feeling that rather than being a beloved homestead, the stonehouse was more like an accommodation that came along with local employment. Still, or maybe because of that status, it has a valuable story to tell.

It's likely that when it was originally built, the building was a lot like others in Montague and surrounding communities, but circumstances have a way of making the ordinary truly special. Vandalism and the loss of nearby Brick House village to the Tocks Island project encouraged concerned citizens to form the Montague Association for the Restoration of Community History (MARCH) in 1979 to save some of the remaining historic properties. A federal grant paid for adaptive restoration, which led to the building's reopening in 1982. MARCH now has an longstanding agreement with the National Park Service to maintain and interpret the Nelden-Roberts Stonehouse and the nearby Foster-Armstrong House, a wooden homestead first built in the late 18th century and enlarged in 1820.

They've done an admirable job. Walking into the stonehouse, we discovered a one-room schoolhouse, complete with some of the primers, slates and other items rural students would have brought for a day of study. A small side room was set up like an early 20th century general store that was, no doubt, a very welcome amenity for the rural community.

Upstairs was an attic room for the teacher, large though the walls were slanted. In addition to curating it with spartan bedroom furniture, MARCH uses the space to exhibit other artifacts representing community history. When we were there, it held a World War display saluting local veterans, as well as a number of Native American objects reflecting the area's Lenape past.

With the coming of colder weather, the unheated Nelden-Roberts Stonehouse will be closed for a few months, but it's well worth putting on the to-see list for the spring. Just as important as any "Washington Slept Here" attraction in the state, the stonehouse is a refreshing look into a community's past, lovingly perpetuated by neighbors who see the importance of preserving local history.

A variety store of history: the King Homestead in Ledgewood

Our visit to Ledgewood's historic King Store opened our eyes to the retail world of a small community along the Morris Canal in the 19th-early 20th century timeframe. A walk next door to Theodore King's Queen Anne/vernacular style homestead led us to an experience which, if it were a shopping destination, would be a mall with surprisingly varied stores. I expected it would give us a view into the merchant class, much as the store had represented the community and transient customers, but the mix of exhibits led me to think about a lot more than that.

This view of the King family home shows the front porch
to the right, side porch to the left, with Mr. King's office at center,
probably added on after the house was built.

One of the things I love about local house museums is the stories they tell through the hodgepodge of artifacts they display, and the King homestead is no exception. The buildings themselves are sometimes the only place where small historical societies can show their diverse collections or share what's remarkable about the community. From their perspective, I'd gather the arrangement is often a blessing because they don't have the resources or sufficient artifacts to interpret an entire house for one given era. In my eyes, museums like these are one-stop wonders where I can learn what local residents find most remarkable about their own communities.

The King homestead is kind of like that. Built in the mid 1880s with the proceeds of the entrepreneur's many businesses, it now serves two purposes. Walk up across the broad, inviting porch and into the house, and you can turn to the left to learn about the King family and their life there, or check out the rooms on the right for a view into the history of the Roxbury area. Or both.

Heading to the left, we were greeted by Roxbury Historic Trust President Miriam Morris, who led us through the house, narrating its history and the Trust's efforts to bring it back to its former glory. The Roxbury Rotary stabilized the home after they finished work on the King Store, upgrading utilities and fixing the chimney before turning the property over to the Trust. As you walk around, you see places where more work needs to be done, but the overall impression is of visiting a very much lived-in older relative's home, complete with vintage and antique furniture.

Theodore King's small office stands just off a corner of the parlor, ready to receive business, but the home feels more like the dominion of his daughter Emma Louise, the last of the family to live there. There's even a collection of Depression glass laid out on the dining room table, a temporary exhibit that underscores another facet of life in the community over the years.

The dining room offers a pleasant surprise: a wrap-around mural of a pastoral scene, with lovely trees and some grazing cattle. Painted by British artist James W. Marland in 1935, it may include elements of the scenery that once surrounded the house, though it's more reminiscent of English countryside. Not much is known about the artist, who first arrived in the United States in the early 1900s and seems to have settled in Morristown and Budd Lake several years later, returning to England just before his death in 1972. As part of its research on Marland, the Trust is looking for additional surviving examples of his work in the area. Miriam mentioned that he'd done some additional work in the bathroom and had stencilled the upper walls of one of the upstairs bedrooms.

Heading to the other side of the house, we got another surprise. A full room contains an exhibit inspired by the Minisink Trail, the Lenape thoroughfare that predates Main Street, the road on which the house and store now stand. As one of the signatories of the 2010 Treaty of Renewed Friendship with the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania, the Trust is committed to sharing the tribe's history and relationship with the region. In particular, the room's exhibit covers the forced departure of much of the Lenape population from New Jersey and the re-emergence of the community despite the common belief that no natives live here.

Closer to the front of the house, the rest of the Ledgewood/Roxbury area gets its due through the "Heels, Wheels and Keels" room. Drawn on the walls is a representation of the transportation routes through the area: the Minisink Trail, early 19th century turnpikes, the Morris Canal and current-day highways. Reflecting the "innovation" portion of the theme for New Jersey's 350th anniversary, a temporary exhibit highlights the inventions and technology developed in the area and by local residents, a good part of it from AT&T and Bell Labs.

Like the King Store, the homestead is open only once a month, on the second Sunday afternoon of the month from April through December. It's well worth a visit, not just as a symbol of how New Jerseyans lived and worked, but as a great example of the classic community museum. Stop by and tell them Hidden New Jersey sent you!

A time capsule view into the past: Ledgewood's King Store

Morris County's old Ledgewood Circle is no more, but if you follow a couple of small brown directional signs to the Drakesville Historic District, you'll find one of the earliest remnants of what made this crossroads the focus of a rural community from the heyday of the Morris Canal until the early 1900s.

Just off the intersection of Routes 10 and 46, the Roxbury Historic Trust is in the process of restoring the King Store and Homestead. Hidden New Jersey friend Kelly Palazzi suggested we check it out, but it wasn't easy: the property is open only on the second Sunday of the month and is closed entirely from January through March.

It's easy to imagine a few neighbors trading news
on the porch of the old King Store.

Our welcome to the King Store was probably a lot like the one a canal boat crew would have gotten in the 1800s: the proprietors were standing in the doorway of the stone building and called out a greeting as we pulled up. Walking onto the porch and into the store was like stepping back in time: the interior was lined with wooden shelves, groceries and sundries of a previous age stocked here and there. A cast-iron stove stands in the center of the room, just in front of a large scale, and a tall set of cubby holes near the door sufficed as the community's post office. In the back room, the wooden doors of a large icebox are open to help visitors imagine how milk and other perishables were kept fresh in the days before refrigeration.

Our friendly guides explained that the store was built around 1826 on what was then the Essex-Morris-Sussex Turnpike, one of the first roads chartered by the New Jersey Legislature at the start of the 19th century. The original owners, the Woodruff family, operated the store until 1835 before closing it for unknown reasons. Two years later, canal boat owner Albert Riggs bought the property and reopened it to serve the local community and the increasing traffic through the nearby Morris Canal lock and two planes. Riggs transferred ownership and operation of the store to his son-in-law Theodore King in 1873, and the new storekeeper and his wife Emma moved into the living quarters above the mercantile.

Brands of the past find their homes on the King Store shelves.

Though competition from the railroads was already digging into the canal's business, King was on his way to prosperity. Besides the popular general store, he got into the mining business and bought significant tracts of land, some of which he sold at a handsome profit while retaining the rest as vacation rental space. He also operated hotels and a steamboat company to cater to the tourist trade at nearby Lake Hopatcong. The proceeds from all of these businesses enabled him to build a comfortable Victorian home on the lot next to the store, where he could keep an eye on business while enjoying time with his wife and their daughter, Emma Louise.

King died in 1926, and with him the store. His daughter simply locked the door, leaving the goods sitting on the shelves. Dwindling traffic on Canal had ended with its termination a few years before. According to our guide, family members would come in from time to time to take items they fancied, but for the most part, the building was a de facto time capsule. Louise King divided her time between New Jersey and Florida until her death in 1975.

Fresh milk, anyone?

A few years later, the Roxbury Rotary Club took on the store as a civic project, clearing the overgrown, weeded lot and acquiring state Green Acres funding to buy the property for the township. Now the responsibility of the Roxbury Historic Trust, the King Store is slowly being restored; a new slate roof is the latest improvement, along with a refurbished scale sitting next to the porch.

While work clearly needs to be done to stabilize the structure to prevent further decay, there's much to be said for keeping a good part of the current look. Too much paint and varnish would take away the character of a classic general store. As it stands, it doesn't take much to imagine a local farmer or canal mule tender at the counter, ordering supplies and settling his bill.

The next stop on our visit to historic Drakestown was the King house, just next door... but that's a story for our next installment.

Would Peter Stuyvesant live here? Discovering Teaneck's Warner District

Take a drive around Bergen County, and you're likely to pass a few Dutch Colonial houses that predate the founding of the United States. Built of sturdy stone, many are still occupied as private homes, maybe even surrounded by a development of houses of more recent vintage.

That said, we were kind of surprised to see a small enclave of them on busy Cedar Lane in Teaneck, near the corner of River Road. Had they been moved there in some sort of preservation effort like East Jersey Olde Towne in Piscataway or maybe as a real estate scheme like Wychwood in Westfield?

Actually, no. Despite their aged appearances, the structures are less than 100 years old. And when you study the development a little more closely, you start noticing similarities in construction, reminiscent of 20th century tract housing.

We'd stumbled on the Fred T. Warner Historic District, an early 20th century attempt to recreate the charm of Teaneck's rural Colonial past while meeting the community's evolving housing and commercial real estate needs. Between 1926 and 1938, architect and Teaneck resident Warner constructed a miniature village of homes, garden apartments and even office space for a rapidly growing town. It might not have been as expansive or ideologically-driven as Radburn, but it was unique in its own way.

The Cedar Lane boundary of the 40 building development includes several Dutch Colonial structures, including an office building that the casual observer might think was converted from a large old house. Garden apartments are nestled off the main road, arranged to create a cozy courtyard. Houses in a variety of sizes, some wood or brick, line narrow, winding side streets to create what looked like a storybook setting in the snow.

Like Radburn, the Warner district addresses several housing needs with apartments, small rental houses, duplexes and dwellings for larger families. Proximity to New York was quickly transforming Teaneck to a commuting town, and this mix of housing options provided a necessary stepping stone to support growing population density while retaining the town's intrinsic charm.

Warner bought the land from the estate of William Phelps, which generously agreed to a repurchase and rent-back arrangement when the onset of the Great Depression threatened the project's completion. And as it turns out, his choice of building materials was based on thrift as much as on a dedication to authenticity. He'd bought more than $35,000 worth of stone ahead of another venture he'd been commissioned for, and when that project failed to materialize, he found himself with tons of construction material crying for a use.

Absent the blue historic marker or local knowledge, the average passer-by would have a hard time differentiating the Warner District from its much older, more storied stone brethren, and perhaps that's a good thing. In a time when McMansions and cookie-cutter construction seem the norm, it's nice to run into more authentic-looking replicas of our past. Even if some of them might be a little cookie-cutter themselves.

Here's to you, Dr. Robinson: finding the 17th century in Clark

One of the fascinating aspects of Northern New Jersey is how history is sometimes obscured within the community that's developed around it. You can walk or drive past a centuries-old building and not realize it, given how it's seemingly shoehorned between a gas station and a Dunkin Donuts. I'm struck by this every time I drive through an intersection where the Merchants and Drovers Tavern stands in Rahway. Several buildings nearby look distinctly Colonial and old enough to be authentic, but there's no signage to confirm it.

Not far from the Merchants and Drovers is a house that had already been standing a century when the tavern and those other structures were built. In fact, the house in question was built in the days of East and West Jersey, 85 years before the start of the American Revolution.

The Robinson House, 21st century...

Now that's OLD. It's so old that when it was built as a farmhouse for physician and surgeon William Robinson and his family, the surrounding land wasn't known as a farm but as a plantation. Today, it's still got a nice piece of land around it -- by Union County standards, at least -- but much of the plantation has been replaced by a much newer housing development. And for a period of time, it was seemingly just another house, maybe appearing not so remarkable in context with its neighbors.

Dr. Robinson came to East Jersey in June 1684, as part of a movement of Scots encouraged to settle in the English colonies of the New World. Finding the area suitable, he returned to Scotland to retrieve his family to settle here in 1686. He'd bought a parcel of land on the Rahway River and built the a house in 1690, eventually expanding his holdings to nearly 750 acres.

... and a century ago.

Viewing the house from the street, it's difficult to believe that people lived there until 1965, a feeling that's perpetuated when you go inside to discover a rustic interior with authentic wooden beams and floors. However, it changed with the times, and archival photos show the exterior with additional windows and a dormer on the roof, suggesting that the interior was likely remodeled extensively over the years.

After gaining possession of the house in 1973, the Township of Clark restored the building to its original rustic, New England style look, eliminating extra windows and other features that had been added since Dr. Robinson's day. It's been lauded by historians as a superior example of early American architecture, one of the few still existing in the country that incorporates aspects of medieval architecture.

Likewise, the Clark Historical Society has assembled a fun collection of artifacts from Dr. Robinson's era and beyond. Regular visitors to Colonial house museums will recognize some of the staples -- spinning wheel, candle molds, butter churn, bedwarmer -- but the Medicine Room is a special treat. Besides a representative sample of herbs used by physicians of Robinson's day, artifacts include a blood-letting knife that would have been used to draw the "bad blood" from an ailing patient.

When you visit, be sure to check out the cellar and the attic, too. Upstairs, the Historical Society maintains a wall-mounted, poster-sized scrap book that includes photos of the restoration process, along with maps, an inventory of Robinson's property at death, and documentation on the house's provenance. The cellar, once the probable shelter protecting livestock from bad weather and predators, now holds an assortment of items that range into the 20th century. Depending on your age, you might remember some of them from your grandparents' garage or basement, or possibly from the Smithsonian.

Step outside and you're back in the 21st century, wondering about the mysteries other houses might hold. Could there be a home in your own neighborhood, older than it appears to be?

Woodstown: an architectural gem in Salem County

I've driven through enough small towns in the rural reaches of New Jersey to know they can be anything from run-down shells of their former selves to quaint and overly precious scenes out of a Thomas Kinkade painting. After my stop to admire Earl L. Erdner's edge-of-town warehouse-side wit and wisdom during a road trip in November, I wasn't sure what to expect from Woodstown. It's located at the intersection of U.S. 40 and State Route 45, a logical point for commerce, yet in sparsely-populated Salem County, one can make no assumptions. It might be vibrant and well kept... or maybe not so much.

Indeed, Woodstown is one of those 'donut-hole' communities, a municipality completely surrounded by its larger neighbor. (Metuchen is another example that comes to mind, surrounded as it is by the much larger Edison.) In Woodstown's case, Pilesgrove's acres and acres of farmland (and the Cowtown Rodeo) are the moat which separate it from the rest of the world. I'd driven around the donut many times in the past, but it never occurred to me to find out what was in the center.

I had reason to be hopeful about what I'd find. The WPA Guide to 1930s New Jersey describes the town as having "many old houses, including fine examples of Colonial architecture." With development pressure far less prevalent in Salem County than it is in Northern New Jersey, I had to believe that few if any of the structures referred to would have been torn down or modified negatively.

What I found was a classic, almost frozen-in-time community, in a good way. Route 45 evolved into Main Street, and with it, an exhibit of vintage homes of Federal, Victorian, Italianate and, yes, Colonial style. It reminded me in some ways of a less-traveled Haddonfield, or maybe a more rural but slightly more modern Burlington City.

Just a few of the Colonial-era houses in Woodstown.

While I could find no markers to note significant past residents or historic events at any of the homes I stopped to admire, I came to realize that the structures themselves are the stars, specifically because they've survived to be appreciated over the years. Each was clearly cared for by its owner, but they're definitely homes, rather than museums.

Just past the point where 40 and 45 converge, I came upon the Woodstown Friends Meeting House, built in 1783. Enlarged several times since then, it retains its classic, simple Colonial look, and one could easily imagine parishioners from any era -- late 18th century to early 21st -- entering its doors for meeting. Across the street, a simple yet rambling brick building once held the Friends Infirmary, the community's primary acute healthcare facility before the Elmer and Salem hospitals were built in the 50s and 60s. Though there haven't been overnight patients in the building in some time, its larger purpose remains to be care of those in need: several medical professionals and related agencies have offices there.

With evening approaching and a long trip ahead of me, I reluctantly left Woodstown before exploring all of its charms. I'll definitely be back, with the Historic Preservation Commission's helpful map in hand. And hopefully I'll time the trip to get to the Cowtown Flea Market when it's open, too.

Little house on the move in Mountainside

So often we find interesting stories because of a proposed, epic change to a historic property. Earlier this year, we learned about a groundbreaking African-American journalist through the campaign to save Red Bank's Thomas Fortune House. And just recently, we were introduced to the surprising, lifesaving history of the Levi Cory house, which now stands on pilings on its longtime lot in Mountainside.

I'll admit to having driven through the intersection of Mountain Avenue and New Providence Road countless times without giving much thought to the small brown house on the northwest corner. Sure, it looked old -- perhaps Colonial vintage, but so do a lot of other houses in New Jersey whose only claim to distinction are their ages.

Thus, I was a bit surprised to pass by recently and find the house elevated and festooned with several banners. One, in particular, caught my eye: a sign proclaiming the simple structure to be the original home of the Children's Country Home, now better known as the Children's Specialized Hospital which operates just down the road.

Now that's pretty distinctive.

A bit of research found that the house was built in 1810 by a prominent Elizabeth resident, Jonathan Woodruff. His family lived there until 1851, when the property was sold to Levi Cory, who also owned a farm about a mile down Mountain Avenue. Influential in his own right, he became the first mayor of Mountainside when the community separated from Westfield in 1895.

Before that separation, though, Cory played a supporting role in improving the lives of countless children. Moved by the plight of poverty-stricken boys and girls living in the slums of New York City and Newark, several Westfield residents organized to offer them a summer respite. Cory rented the house to the group, and by 1892, the Children's Country Home was welcoming needy kids for two weeks of fresh air, sunshine, nature and plenty of room to play. Nearly 60 youngsters stayed at the home that first summer, and when they went home, they brought new clothes and shoes back to the city along with their memories.

It didn't take long before the home's managers realized that many of their guests needed more than a break from city stress. Coming from poverty, many of the kids required medical attention, and several local doctors and nurses volunteered their services. The need was so pronounced, in fact, that when the home was incorporated in 1893, its leaders defined its purpose as "the care, nurturance, and maintenance of sick, injured, infirm, indigent, orphaned, and destitute children and the training and education of persons, both male and female, to act as nurse."

The need for medical care among these children soon outgrew the Cory house, prompting the Home organization to buy property a few hundred yards down New Providence Road and build a proper hospital. Known as the Children's Specialized Hospital since 1962, it's still changing the lives of boys and girls for the better.

As for the house, it's changed several times since Cory's widow Harriet died in 1905, most recently housing a realtor and an interior decorator. The desirable corner property was sold to a developer who fortunately agreed to give the house to the Mountainside Historic Restoration Committee, provided they could raise the funds to move it.

Mountainside is no stranger to historical structures on the move, having witnessed the relocation of the 1760's era Deacon Andrew Hetfield house in 1985. When the Cory house leaves its longtime lot, it will cross Route 22 to join the Hetfield house and the Borough Library on Constitution Plaza. Once it's there, the Historic Restoration Committee plans to honor the spirit of the Cory house's most notable contribution to the community: serving children. Instead of providing medical care, though, it will be home to a museum dedicated to telling the story of the town's kids, from scouting and sports to education and, yes, the role of the Children's Country Home.

If you've ever been interested in seeing a house travel down a road, you still have a chance. The house's planned October 5 move was delayed due to structural issues that came to light less than a day before it was to happen, and the Committee will be announcing the new date on its website. In the meantime, you still have a chance to contribute to the move and the eventual restoration.

Drawing the line in Rockleigh

I love a good border dispute, and New Jersey has had its share. The most recent reached the U.S. Supreme Court, when New Jersey won bragging rights to a portion of Ellis Island in 1998. A hundred and thirty years earlier, the state of New York basically appropriated a tract of oyster bed on our side of Raritan Bay and gave it to the federal government for the construction of Great Beds Lighthouse.

Then there's Rockleigh, the tiny Bergen County village. It's so close to the border that some might think it's actually in New York, and for a time many years ago, it was.

Where the Ellis Island and Great Beds issues might be perceived by Jerseyphiles as yet another example of our larger neighbor throwing its weight around, the Rockleigh story is based in bad mapping. We're talking about the 1600s here, an age where surveying equipment left a lot to be desired.

When the Duke of York issued the charter for New Jersey in 1664, he was working with bad information. He declared the boundary with New York to start at latitude 41 degrees, 40 feet to the west and conclude where a southern branch of the Delaware River fed into the Hudson River. You can see the problem: nowhere do the two rivers meet.

Though settlers faced a degree of uncertainty when they applied for land patents, they came, nonetheless. London physician George Lockhart seems to have taken the safe route in his approach to owning land in the area. Having received a patent of 3800 acres from the East Jersey Proprietors in 1685, he sought further confirmation of his ownership from the Province of New York when that government claimed the tract within its jurisdiction. The guy really covered his bases, even though he never settled the land, himself.

It wasn't until 1769 that the current boundary line was settled by royal commission, frustrating both colonies. New York had wanted the land as far south as Closter, and New Jersey had claimed additional land up to Haverstraw in Rockland County.

Either way, Rockleigh's status was settled: it was in New Jersey to stay, first as part of now-dissolved Harrington Township and eventually as part of Northvale. As was once the fashion among certain communities in the state, residents seceded in 1923 over a dispute with the larger township (this one over water lines) and formed their own borough.

The community proudly preserves its historical district, which includes several 18th and 19th century homes, many of Dutch architecture. In all, Rockleigh's population is just over 500, living in fewer than 70 homes, each standing on at least two acres of land. It seems that the town has remained true to the description it provided to the National Register of Historic Places: "represent[ing] a way of life which appears to have disappeared from the New Jersey culture: an area settled by a small number of families, enlarged by family intermarriages and an occasional local settlers and stabilized by the mid-19th century."

Imlaystown - a piece of 19th century rural life, waiting for preservation

After my visit to the Old Yellow Meeting House, I took a look at my trusty DeLorme road atlas and the 1939 WPA Guide to New Jersey to figure out how to get myself to downtown Imlaystown. It wasn't as easy as it should have been.

The atlas was helpful to some extent, but it lacked labels for some of the roads. As for the WPA Guide, well, let's just say that using it was akin to riding one of those big wheel/small wheel velocipede bicycles backwards, using a hand mirror as guidance. Reflecting the state of the road system in Depression-era New Jersey, the guide tends to reference routes by their respective surfaces: dirt, oiled or paved. This once-useful system leaves the present day traveler wondering whether the dirt and oiled roads are now paved or no longer exist. The book's Imlaystown route referenced a few of those. Consider that along with the fact that the stated directions were to the meeting house, not from, and you can see where things could get a little challenging without a navigator.

Fortunately the guide offers very accurate mileage estimates, and I was in Imlaystown proper much more quickly than I'd expected. Had I been a bit more patient on my drive in from 195, I would have found it fairly easily before detouring for the Meeting House.

The modest town hall
is a notable fixture in the middle
of Imlaystown's downtown.

True to the guidebook description, the community is densely built along the path of Doctor's Creek. It's said that the community superseded a former Indian settlement, and from the placement, I wouldn't doubt it. A series of small, old houses lines the road, packed closely together and seemingly near enough the street to make sidewalks unnecessary. Driving farther along, I found a broad intersection where the Upper Freehold borough hall and the Happy Apple Inn seem to be the major attractions. Make a turn toward Imlaystown Lake, and you'll find a picturesque pond full of lily pads, as well as a spillway that was once part of the adjacent Salters Mill and ice-harvesting operation.

In a lot of ways, Imlaystown is much like any number of small villages dotting the more rural parts of New Jersey. If it hadn't been for the rolling landscape and condensed building pattern, I'd have thought I'd been transported to a town off the beaten track in Cumberland County. It's places like that which many out-of-staters would never believe exist in New Jersey.

Spend a little time walking around, though, and you get the feeling that the place has seen better days. In fact, I didn't take any pictures of the closely-packed buildings because I didn't want to appear to be a morbid curiosity seeker. Most of the buildings are well over 100 years old, having replaced structures that burned down in the devastating fire of 1898. Preservation New Jersey listed Imlaystown on its Ten Most Endangered Historic Sites roster in 2004, citing its importance as a "mid-nineteenth century streetscape that appears to have been almost frozen in time."

Despite a partial revitalization about 20 years ago, the community's buildings continue to deteriorate, partially due to issues related to their proximity to the creek. My research revealed some continuing efforts by local residents to drive further restoration, but it appears that the work is moving slowly, if at all. The area has been designated a historic district, and we can only hope that preservationists find a way to work out the issues blocking further action.

Heading to the Meeting House in Imlaystown

A few weeks ago I got a message from Hidden New Jersey reader and renowned bird blogger Rick Wright, asking whether I'd ever written about Gilbert Imlay. No... I'd only heard the name Imlay in reference to Imlaystown, a section of Upper Freehold and the supposed home of Hannah Saltar and Mordecai Lincoln, the New Jersey ancestors of our sixteenth president.

It got me curious, so I took a drive through the countryside of Monmouth County to find the tiny community.

You'd never know it once you're there, but Imlaystown isn't far from I-195, and as the crow flies, it's practically next door to Six Flags Great Adventure. Rather than using the GPS, I was going slightly less high tech: directions jotted down from a Google Maps search. I hadn't looked up a specific address, so I was hoping it would get me to the center of town, such as it was.

Thing was, I got distracted along the way. Sure, I got off 195 and rambled down country roads, but then I saw a sign for the Yellow Meeting House staring at me from the other side of a T intersection. From my earlier reading, I knew this was the oldest house of worship in the area, having been built in 1737 on land donated by the Saltar family. There was nothing else of note within eyeshot, so I figured that if I found the Meeting House, I might find the town nearby.

An arrow on the sign pointed left and said "Three miles," so I took note of the odometer and made the turn. A shade less than three miles later, I came to an intersection with Yellow Meeting House Road. Gotta take it, right? Regrettably, a fair number of widely-spaced McMansions had been built on either side of the road, followed by some older split-levels and ranch homes as I drove along. Could I even hope that the view of my destination was unspoiled, at least a little bit, by 20th and 21st century housing?

Then, as advertised, I found the Yellow Meeting House, far back in a field dotted with gravestones, seemingly untouched by modern life. The WPA Guide to 1930s New Jersey notes that "a side door is kept unlatched so that anyone may try out the white box pews or climb to the large balcony in the rear." I didn't find this to be the case, but a glance through one of the many windows revealed a simple yet impressive interior.

Now worshiping in a newer church in Imlaystown proper, the congregation of the Upper Freehold Baptist Church has its roots at the Yellow Meeting House and still holds an annual gathering there on the last Sunday in July. Working with a local friends organization, church members keep the building and grounds well cared for, and it's not hard to imagine the faithful arriving on horseback, on foot and in carriages. The graveyard contains burials from the 1700s to the present, with a fair number of war dead. Decorated with a weathered flag and presumably replacing a worn, unreadable stone, one granite block reads:

"Bordentown January 6, 1777 

'Honored and dear father, I have this day joined the Light Horse.' 

Jonathan Holmes died in service, Aug 4, 1777."

Indeed, one of the church's early ministers was a strong advocate of American independence and may have influenced Holmes' decision to join the army. Reverend David Jones was ordained at the Yellow Meeting House in 1766 and continued preaching there until late 1775, when his sermon "Defensive War in a Just Cause Sinless" became a widely circulated message of patriotism. He soon took a chaplain's post with a Pennsylvania regiment and accompanied troops to Brandywine, Germantown, Valley Forge and Monmouth. Like Reverend James Caldwell, he became well known to the British, to the point where General Howe put a price on his head.

Perhaps it was Jones' spirit that drew a wary presence during my visit. As I walked from the graveyard toward a historical sign nearer the parsonage, I heard a hawk screech in the near distance. Looking up, I saw three red tailed hawks circling above, as if to warn me: show respect for our dead!

I may have overstayed my welcome. It was time to make my way back to Imlaystown proper and find what I'd originally been looking for. That's a story for next time... and I'll eventually get to Gilbert Imlay!

A home away from home: the house dorms at Douglass College

Pick any four-year college in New Jersey, and it's likely you'll find a bunch of old houses on campus, renovated for educational purposes. Some are grand, like the Guggenheim mansion that now serves as the Monmouth University Library. Others are are more modest Victorians or Colonials converted to office space as the school grew around them.

Then there are the houses that were built by schools expressly for the purpose of, well, housing students. Why would a college build a bunch of what look like one-family center-hall Colonials when they could build a big dorm instead? Good question. The story goes something like this:

When New Jersey College for Women was founded in 1918, resident students lived in the large house on George Street which is now known as College Hall. Dean Mabel Smith Douglass knew that the school would grow, so she and the board started exploring housing options for the anticipated student body. However, the search for funding to build dormitories was difficult. No lending institution would extend credit to a women's college, fearing that the school would fail to attract students and would be forced to close before paying its debts.

One bank, however, agreed to an innovative solution: build housing that litterally was houses. By constructing what was essentially a subdivision, NJC would gain a substantial number of dormitory rooms for its students. If the school defaulted on the loan, the bank would have a much easier time unloading individual houses than it would face in selling a large building.

A few of the Corwin houses on the second horseshoe.

Two residential campuses were built, both a fair distance from the college's academic buildings on George Street. Each of the campuses - now known as Gibbons and Corwin - is comprised of several houses containing at least nine bedrooms, plus a kitchenette, living room and basement study rooms. A central lodge on each campus acted as a meeting place and communal lounge. Corwin houses were built on two semi-circular roads, with larger 40-woman houses at each end of the two "horseshoes." True to the plan, each of the houses could easily be sold to private owners as cozy one-family homes, should the bank need to take possession. Each of the nine-bedroom houses had virtually identical floor plans, but the exteriors came in several varieties, just enough to add a little individuality for a potential buyer.

Renamed Douglass College in 1955, the school continued to grow and prosper, prompting the construction of more traditional dorm housing closer to the central campus. Expansion also meant that additional academic buildings were built closer to the Gibbons campus, making that housing more desirable. Corwin, on the other hand, was separated from the rest of Douglass by several Cook College buildings. While generally considered 'last resort' housing, those relegated to living in Corwin were fiercely loyal to their homes on the horseshoes. The coziness of the houses, plus the familiarity that comes from living in close quarters with 16 other students, engendered a unique kind of camaraderie among housemates.

Though the Gibbons houses are still in use as housing, Corwin stands largely vacant. A handful of the houses have served as offices for various university departments, but for the most part, the campus looks like a dated subdivision awaiting its first families to move in. Given the costs of retrofitting more than 20 houses with fire suppression systems and internet access, and the university's zeal in building new housing, it's not likely that Corwin will ever serve as dorm space again.

Saving Rambo's: a last vestige of Fort Lee's movie-making history

In our last post, we talked about Fort Lee's history as the world's first moviemaking capital, and the near absence of any visible relics of that past. A series of devastating fires reduced many of the studio facilities to ashes and rubble following the production companies' moves to California. Other historic buildings were repurposed and eventually torn down. And, of course, time and the inevitable development after the construction of the George Washington Bridge obliterated the rustic scenery that had made the town such a great substitute for any number of remote movie settings.

Fort Lee's Rambo's, as seen in one of the many silent movies
filmed outside its doors.

There is one structure left to represent both the business of moviemaking and the versatile Fort Lee scenery: Rambo's on First Street in the Coytesville section of town.

An unassuming old two-story building with a porch, Rambo's stood on a dusty road and could easily fit into just about any story a producer could conjure. Need a Western saloon or a stagecoach stop? How about a New England tavern? Rambo's was it. With no utility lines to mar the scene, viewers could be easily convinced that they were transported to 1867, the year Rambo's was built.

Scores of films were shot outside and around Rambo's, including Mack Sennett's A Grocery Clerk's Romance, and Friends, starring Mary Pickford and Lionel Barrymore. Many more silent movies shot there have been lost over time, through fires or deterioration.

Rambo's today: an uncertain future.

Perhaps even more important to cinema history, Rambo's was an industry gathering place where crews and actors could exchange ideas and expertise. Sitting at long tables in the grove outside of the saloon, they'd lunch on the daily ham-and-eggs meal (it was always ham and eggs) and work through innovative filming techniques. Every day offered the opportunity for new breakthroughs in moviemaking, and Rambo's was the incubator. You might say that it was to film what the garage was to Silicon Valley pioneers Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard.

What's more, the property had sufficient room to accommodate many of the off-screen necessities of moviemaking. Production companies capitalized on the second floor for dressing rooms, and auditions were regularly held there. One can only conjecture how many careers were launched there, whether they be as short as one film or decades-long success in entertainment. In fact, a child actor named Milton Berle got his first movie role after being chosen during a cattle call at Rambo's. The movie? The 1914 classic The Perils of Pauline.

New Jersey's filmmaking history is popularly known to have been launched in Edison's labs, but the Black Maria studio on his West Orange property is but a re-creation, built in 1954. That would make Rambo's even more notable to the history of film here and globally.

Unfortunately, Rambo's faces an uncertain future. Last serving as multi-unit housing, it's now in danger of being torn down and replaced by a new two-family home. The Fort Lee Film Commission and Historical Society would like to see it preserved, purchased by the local government and used as office space for the Commission and an educational resource to teach residents about local film history. The previous owner left the building in excellent condition, eliminating the need and expense of making it habitable.

Before the current owner/developer can move forward with demolition and construction, the Fort Lee Zoning Board must issue variances to allow the planned structure to be built. The issue will be discussed at a meeting on April 4 (the publication date of this article), and the Historical Society will be representing public opinion through their online petition. You have the opportunity to influence their decision, whether you live in Fort Lee or not.

Rambo's is a truly Hidden New Jersey gem, and we can't afford to have it fade from view, its site hosting only a commemorative sign. Drop by the petition at http://thefortleehistoricalsociety.org/saverambos.html to support the effort. 

Lights, camera.... Fort Lee!

Keep your eyes open when you drive around Fort Lee, and you'll see something curious. Instead of the usual nondescript signs, some street corners boast black and white markers bordered with sprocket holes. They're emblazoned with names like Theda Bara, Carl Laemmele and Universal Studios, and a closer look reveals the logo of the Fort Lee Film Commission.

Indeed, the town was Hollywood before Hollywood was Hollywood. Though it's fairly common knowledge that scores of TV shows and contemporary movies have been shot in New Jersey, few realize that a century ago, Fort Lee was the movie capital of the world. I got an eye-opening education in film history during a recent visit to the Fort Lee Museum, courtesy of Film Commission Executive Director Tom Meyers and Commission member Donna Brennan.

Before there were coming attractions, lantern
cards like these advertised upcoming movies.  

The roots of the film industry run deep through New Jersey, starting with Newark resident Hannibal Goodwin's patent of nitrocellulose film in 1887. Thomas Edison's West Orange team developed the kinetoscope between 1889 and 1892, building the Black Maria as the first true film studio. Once the American public got a look at moving pictures, it didn't take long before they clamored for productions that left fake studio backgrounds for more realistic open-air settings.

Considering how built-up Fort Lee is today, it's hard to believe that filmmakers once saw it as the perfect setting for Wild West movies. In the early 1900s, the town's dirt roads and rustic buildings were apt substitutes for the great frontier, just a subway and ferry ride away from downtown Manhattan. Plus, the nearby Palisades offered irresistable opportunities for suspenseful plot twists (cliffhanger, anyone?). Before long, emerging film moguls like Carl Laemmle (IMP and its successor Universal Studios), William Fox (Fox Entertainment) and Samuel Goldwyn (formerly Goldfish, in a predecessor to today's MGM) were building studios along the Hudson River.

Along with them, naturally, came actors, some of whom bought or built houses in the nearby Coytesville settlement. Most notably, Maurice Barrymore settled his family in town; his son John made his acting debut in a benefit for the local fire department. Silent screen legends like Fatty Arbuckle, Mary Pickford and Mabel Normand were regular sights in and around Fort Lee.

Filmmaking got so big that virtually everyone in Fort Lee worked for one of the production companies, one way or another. The studios didn't just shoot scenes in town, they essentially built factories where movies were duplicated and stored, and promotional materials were created and printed. Carpenters built sets that transformed empty lots into medieval cities. Actors and crew had to be fed, creating jobs for cooks and service staff. Even the kids got involved: schools were sometimes closed to allow students to serve as extras in crowd scenes.

If things were working so well in Fort Lee, then why did the business move to California? Weather is often cited as a reason, but as with most situations, there were several contributing factors. Residents were increasingly frustrated by the noise and inconvenience caused by large-scale outdoor shoots, leading local officials to wonder whether the entire town might be blown up during a battle scene. After fires decimated their Fort Lee facilities, some film companies chose to relocate in warmer climes, encouraged by a very welcoming Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. Fort Lee, on the other hand, did nothing to encourage rebuilding. One by one, the studios left for Hollywood, leaving only their film vaults behind.

Of the many buildings that supported Fort Lee's film industry, only two still stand. We'll be visiting one of them in the next installment of Hidden New Jersey.

The Botto house: uniting the workers of Paterson

It’s hard to imagine, but an unassuming century-old house in a cramped Haledon neighborhood was once the epicenter of a broad movement to improve industrial working conditions. The Botto house at 83 Norwood Street is now the home of the National Labor Museum, memorializing its role in the 1913 Paterson Silk Strike. On my recent visit I learned why silk workers stopped work and why Haledon became the nexus of the labor movement.

The Botto house on Norwood Street in Haledon

When I walked up to the porch and through the front door, I was struck by how cozy and welcoming the house is. Its original owners, Pietro and Maria Botto, were skilled silk workers who came to the United States from northern Italy in the 1890s. First settling in Union City, they bought five 25x100 lots in Haledon in 1908 to build their own house. The structure consisted of a ground floor with bedrooms, a parlor, kitchen, dining room and bathroom as well as a central hall. Upstairs, two railroad-style flats of three rooms and bathroom each were constructed to provide the family with rental income. A door at the front end of the upstairs hallway led outside to a porch that afforded a nice view of then-undeveloped land. The backyard included an arbor for grapes, plus a chicken coop, pigeon cage and rabbit hutch for meat and eggs.

While Maria inspected silk at home, Pietro worked in the Paterson mills, which were easily accessible via the Belmont Avenue trolley a few blocks from the family's house. The factory environment was a new experience for him, as most European weavers owned their own looms and consider themselves to be craftsmen rather than factory workers. 

The porch where labor organizers spoke to crowds
as large as 20,000

Labor unrest had a long history in Paterson, with strikes occurring as far back as the early 1800s. When mill owners converted to high-speed power looms in the late 1800s, they sought to increase productivity by having employees manage two of the new looms rather than just one. In 1913, the workers walked out when owners sought to double production once again, expecting weavers to manage four looms rather than two. The strikers called for improved conditions, an eight hour work day and an end to child labor. More than 23,000 employees left the factories, including broadloom and ribbon weavers, and dyers.

If all of this was happening in Paterson, why, then did Haledon play such a vital role in the strike? Over time, Silk City had become increasingly more hostile to worker protests, with the police becoming more allied with the mill owners. The mayor forbade the strikers from assembling within city limits, and the police were poised to enforce his will with violence, if necessary.

Haledon, however, was a far friendlier environment. Its mayor, William Bruekmann, was sympathetic to the mill workers, and the town had but one police officer, who was described by one newspaper account as “a slip of a man.” The strikers had already committed to a non-violent work action, and Haledon seemed to be an ideal place to gather.

Striking workers brought
their message to New York
through a pageant at Madison
Square Garden

Already familiar with labor struggles from his youth in Italy, Pietro Botto invited the strike organizers to hold rallies at his home. The house’s upstairs balcony made a great platform, and the land beyond was a natural amphitheater. Strikers could easily travel from Paterson on the trolley for the weekly rallies. The strike became a cause celebre for Greenwich Village intellectuals and union organizers. Speakers like Upton Sinclair, Big Bill Haywood, Carlo Tresca and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn gave rousing speeches before crowds of up to 20,000 supporters, speaking in German and Italian as well as English. The gatherings often took a festive air as singers and musicians performed between speeches.

After five months, the workers went back to the mills, lacking the funding to support their families any further. Though the manufacturers denied their demands for an eight-hour work day, they agreed to limit the workers to two looms. The strikers had achieved a great deal, nonetheless: they proved that non-violence and a democratic approach to labor organizing could bring them the visibility and progress they sought.

There’s a lot more to the story than we have room to spare. The American Labor Museum is holding a series of events to recognize the 100th anniversary of the strike, the perfect time to learn about this fascinating element of our immigrant and labor history. Check the museum's website for details.