The non-stop traffic and the general hustle and bustle of modern life swirl around the small historic cemetery next to the Pluckemin Presbyterian Church. Most of us rush by in cars without taking any notice. But men, women and children who helped create and shape New Jersey and our country as a whole inhabit that cemetery. Their voices can still be heard if we listen.
Johannes Moelich* and his wife Mariah Catherine came to America from Germany as a young couple with four children in 1735. They hoped to escape the seemingly endless wars and destruction in the Rhineland Palatinate. Their oldest son Aaron was just 10 years old. They found peace, tranquility and abundance in Bedminster where they built a farming and tanning business and the “Old Stone House,” which stands to this day. Johannes is the central figure in The Story of An Old Farm, Life in New Jersey in the Eighteenth Century written by his great-great grandson, Andrew D. Mellick. The book’s vivid descriptions transport the reader back to Bedminster’s-and New Jersey’s-earliest days.
Johannes and his wife died before the Revolutionary War saw rival armies crisscross his new home and surrounding areas. His children, however, were caught up in the struggle. Mellick’s first-hand accounts provide a unique perspective on the war’s impact on New Jersey.
The Pluckemin Presbyterian Church was originally St. Paul’s Lutheran Church built in 1756. Pluckemin tavern owner Jacob Eoff had donated to the church some of the 500 acres he had bought from John Johnstone’s estate. St. Paul’s was heavily damaged during the Revolutionary War. It did not prosper after that and was eventually replaced in 1851 by the current Pluckemin Presbyterian Church. The original burial ground is preserved next to the current church, although a more modern cemetery has been built nearby on Washington Valley Road.
See also article on the remains from Raritan in the Hills Lutheran cemetery reinterred in Pluckemin.
*Variations in spelling were common in Colonial times and the surname appears as Moelich, Maliek, Mellick, Melick and others.
Sources: “The Story of An Old Farm,” Andrew D. Mellick, 1889.
“Bedminster Township, 250 Years,” Prich Matthews, 1999.
“The Old Pluckemin Burying-Ground,” Somerset County Historical Quarterly, Vol. 1 (1912), p. 119-121.
