An early photo (c.1906) of the teacher and class from Burnt Mills School in Bedminster Township, NJ. The photographer was Peapack-Gladstone resident, Edythe Lane Van Doren (1885-1974).
Burnt Mills school was a one-story school in the hamlet of Burnt Mills near the intersection of Burnt Mills and Cowperthwaite roads.
On a map of Somerset County published in 1850,[1] an early schoolhouse [S.H.] appears on Cowperthwaite Road. Bedminster continued to maintain a school (District #10) at Burnt Mills until 1927. The last schoolhouse (built 1893) still stands and is now a private residence.[2]
The students included both whites and African Americans. African Americans are documented living around Burnt Mills, likely as enslaved people, as early as 1763.[3]
[1] Map of Somerset County, Lloyd Van Derveer, Surveyor, Camden, NJ, 1850, Library of Congress.
[2] Bedminster Township Master Plan 2003, Appendix A-Description of Historical Resources, p. 310
[3] Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New Jersey, Vol. 24, Extracts from American Newspapers relating to New Jersey, Vol. 5, 1762-1765 (1902), pp. 238-239.
