Structures like this one used to be common across the Somerset Hills. Does anyone know what it is? This photo is fairly recent—February 1971.

We’ll post the answer in a few days.

ANSWER:   The building is a wellhouse.  Wellhouses covered wells so no one accidentally fell in.  They also provided a framework for a crank to lower and raise a water bucket.

This wellhouse still stands on the historic Kennedy-Martin-Stelle Farmstead (Farmstead Arts) on King George Road in Bernards Township.

The Scout Cabin in the northwest corner of Liberty Park in Peapack, NJ, holds a rich history that reflects years of community service and tradition for the generations who have gathered within its walls. Built during the Great Depression, the cabin is believed to be the only Civil Works Administration (CWA) project specifically for the Boy Scouts. The log-cabin-style building consists of one large meeting area approximately 35 feet long by 20 wide, six 8-foot by 8-foot rooms and two lofts.

Background

The CWA was a short-lived jobs program established under the Federal Emergency Relief Administration during the Great Depression to rapidly create manual-labor jobs for about 4 million unemployed workers during the winter of 1933-34.  During the program’s five-month duration, CWA workers laid 12 million feet of sewer pipe, built or improved 255,000 miles of roads, and constructed 40,000 schools, 3,700 playgrounds, nearly 1,000 airports and one log cabin. 

Troop 57 Scoutmaster Harold Horton and county engineer and designer Oscar Smith went to Washington, D.C. to get permission to build the cabin with CWA funds. They received a budget of $2,500 for the project. Logs were harvested by CWA workers at the borough-owned water reservoir property in Chester, New Jersey.  The construction was supervised by Thomas Howard, who built and operated the Peapack Hotel (formerly the Howard House hotel), at the corner of Main Street and Holland Avenue, now the site of Hamilton Court. Construction began on March 12, 1934, and the completed structure was dedicated on June 9, 1934. Following a parade through town, Mayor Reginald B. Rives served as master of ceremonies and New Jersey Governor A. Harry Moore made the dedication.

The Scout Cabin was home for Troop 57 until the troop folded and merged with Troop 150 in Bernardsville around 1990. The cabin then served for a time as the weekly meeting place for the Lone Eagle Composite Squadron of the New Jersey Wing of the Civil Air Patrol. Following the departure of the air patrol, the cabin was used principally for storage by the borough.

Restoration 2023

While the borough had added a new roof to protect the structure, the Scout Cabin had not received much attention in many years and needed a makeover. Thirteen-year-old Gladstone resident and member of Boy Scout Troop 150, Thomas W. Whittle IV, approached the borough and proposed refurbishing the cabin as his Eagle Scout project.

An Eagle Scout project requires a scout to plan, manage and lead a project that benefits the community. A project typically includes identifying a community need, obtaining permission from the project’s sponsor, planning the project activities, raising funds, buying supplies and materials, recruiting volunteers, scheduling workdays, instructing the volunteers and assigning them tasks, demonstrating the safe use of tools, supplies and materials, answering volunteers’ questions, checking the completed work, and ensuring the project is completed on time and on budget to the satisfaction of the sponsor.

The Borough Council approved the Scout Cabin refurbishment project in October 2023 with the expectation that the cabin would be ready for the borough’s annual holiday event the first week in December.

The ambitious project encompassed work on the exterior and interior of the cabin. The exterior work included: removing chicken wire screens that protected the windows; taking off the broken shutters; cleaning out mud wasp nests from the exterior walls; and sanding, scraping, and repainting the outside of the window sashes and frames. The double set of front doors were also sanded and given a fresh coat of red paint to give the cabin a welcoming look.

Before getting started inside, the Peapack-Gladstone Department of Public Works (DPW) and Recreation Department removed items stored in the cabin. Once completed, the interior work included: removing trash and debris throughout the cabin; sanding, scraping, and repainting the inside of the window sashes and frames; washing the windows; and giving each room and loft a thorough cleaning from top to bottom including the wooden beams, walls and floors. An iron wagon wheel chandelier in the main room was taken down, stripped of its paint, and refurbished with new paint, wiring and lights. A new, secured box was built around the electrical panel. A display case was cleaned and filled with the Troop 57 memorabilia that was found in the cabin, including the troop flag and various awards.

Refurbishing the old building came with challenges too. The main room of the cabin features a large fieldstone fireplace and massive black oak mantel with a large buck mounted above them. Upon initial inspection of the cabin, it was noted that the mantel had pulled off the wall and the inset wooden posts holding it up had rotted, posing a hazard to occupants of the building. The DPW was asked to bring in a carpenter to reset the mantel properly. While the repair was a success, it resulted in a new layer of sawdust throughout the cabin that required a second top-to-bottom cleaning.

Completion

The project was completed with the assistance of 57 volunteers, including 22 adults and 35 youths, that put in approximately 325 manhours. Almost $2,700 was raised from donations for the refurbishment, a sum greater than the original cost of building the cabin. Excess funds were donated to the Peapack-Gladstone Environmental and Shade Commission to assist with plantings added to beautify the landscape around the cabin.

The project garnered a great deal of attention and excitement from visitors to Liberty Park. Each workday, people stopped by to see the cabin, ask questions about its history and the ongoing project, and to share their own stories about being a member of Troop 57 in the cabin.

The project was completed in time for Santa’s annual visit to Peapack Gladstone, hosted by the Peapack-Gladstone Recreation Department on Sunday, December 3, 2023. Santa greeted the children with candy canes and hot chocolate in front of a roaring fire in the fireplace. There was nothing more rewarding than seeing the whole community come together for this special event in a beautiful space. Most of those attending the event had never been inside the cabin. Since then, the cabin has hosted a dog show and other community events.

The project could not have been completed without the support of Councilwoman Jamie Murphy, who served at the project’s sponsor, and the rest of the Peapack-Gladstone Council and Mayor. Brad Fagan and the members of the Peapack-Gladstone Department of Public Works were instrumental in providing logistical assistance throughout the project. Daniel Dolan of the Peapack-Gladstone Recreation Department helped get the word out to the community about the need for additional volunteers.

Thomas W. Whittle IV completed his project in November 2023 and earned the rank of Eagle Scout in June 2024. He is currently a sophomore at the Kent School in Kent, Connecticut. Historic photos courtesy of W. Barry Thomson.

Scout Cabin Before Restoration

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Scout Cabin After Restoration

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A postcard from 1905 shows the Somerset Inn, located in Bernardsville, NJ.

The inn stood on Mendham Road, near Washington Corner Road and became a resort destination for the rich and famous in society after the railroad was extended (1872) to Bernardsville.  Many guests liked the area so much that they later built homes of their own in the surrounding hills.

This postcard is especially interesting because it was postmarked at the Inn, which had its own post office along with many other amenities like tennis courts, swimming pool, and a golf course.  The Inn could accommodate up to 500 guests.

The card is addressed to Miss Dora Satterlee, Big Indian, Ulster Co., NY.  Big Indian was and is a small hamlet in the Town of Shandaken in the Catskill region.  Dora Satterlee (1881-1966) was easily located there on the 1905 NY State Census.  She went on to marry (c.1905) William Lundergun.

The Somerset Inn burned to the ground in a disastrous fire in 1908.

The nooks and crannies at the THSSH archives often hold hidden gems, and this empty envelope addressed to Messrs. Honnell and Bunn is a good example.  Honnell and Bunn were grocers in Bedminster village (then called Lesser Crossroads) as early as 1850.  On the 1850 census, Benjamin R. Honnell (1818-1894) and Martin Bunn (c.1812-1887) were enumerated next to one another and both were listed as merchants.  An 1850 map of Bedminster shows the store located at the corner of Lamington Road and Hillside Avenue, across from the Bedminster Inn (now Delicious Heights).

The envelope’s postmark reads New York, but has no legible date.  The year 1880 is written in pencil on the envelope and that date is credible because the stamp is a blue Franklin 1 cent (Scott #182), first issued in 1879.  

Both Honnell and Bunn lived in Bedminster until their deaths and are buried in the Bedminster Reformed Church Cemetery.

Perhaps THSSH volunteers will someday find the letter’s contents.

Before the rise of chain pharmacies, the Somerset Hills had many small drug stores.  Somerset Pharmacy was founded in 1893 in Bernardsville, NJ, by George W. Burns (1865-1934).  The store was located on Olcott Square in the spot occupied until recently by Mediterranean Tile.  The original building burned in the 1960s.  This image of the storefront was taken around 1905 and was part of a larger postcard. 

The pharmacy’s customers came from a wide area.  The  bottle at the right was found on the Kennedy-Martin-Stelle farmstead (Farmstead Arts) on King George Road in Bernards Township.  The bottom has the lettering  “W T & Co, USA,” used by glassmaker Whitall Tatum & Company of Millville, NJ, until 1901. “Doc” Burns as he was known lost the business around 1920, reportedly because of a drug addiction, and thereafter worked for the Hemmendinger pharmacy in Bernardsville.

The February issue of Inside the Brick Academy, THSSH’s official newsletter,  was mailed to members last week.  In addition to the annual report covering 2025, the issue contains new research that’s worth a look.  On Page 5, W. Barry Thomson writes about Elias Boudinot, a founding father, who bought a farm in Basking Ridge (now Ross Farm) during the American Revolution.  What most people don’t know was that Elias’s great niece, Jane Boudinot was editor of Elias’s papers and lived in Bernardsville where her cottage still stands.

On Page 3, a feature article by Cynthia Crosson profiles the McDonald family of Bedminster during the Revolution.  The February issue also brings readers up to date with new members, museum acquisitions, and our successful “Save the Flag” campaign.

Read the full newsletter HERE.

The Memoir of Eliza Susan Morton Quincy (1773-1850) includes a vivid description of Basking Ridge, NJ, during the Revolution.  Excerpts from the memoir were published in the Somerset County Historical Society Quarterly (Vol. 1 & 2) in 1912 and 1913.  The Basking Ridge Historical Society reprinted these excerpts in a booklet for the Bernards Township Bicentennial in 1960.  But the excerpts in both reprints omitted some fascinating passages about a Morton family servant–a slave named Belfast.

From the Memoir of the Life of Eliza S.M. Quincy (1861), accessed on Internet Archive. See full text at: https://archive.org/details/memoiroflifeofel01quin/page/n5/mode/2up

[pages 19 and 20]
“There were several women employed as domestics in our family, and a negro man—Belfast—who deserves a particular notice.  He was a boy of nine years old when my father [John Morton] purchased him; a mode of securing service then considered as proper as by wages.
There is no subject on which the opinions of society have undergone so great a change as upon that of slavery.  The iniquity of the cruel treatment of field slaves, on plantations in the Southern States, was at that period acknowledged; but in the Middle and New England States, where they were domesticated and kindly treated, slavery seemed to have lost its horrors.  The owners of negroes appeared entirely unconscious of the guilt of bringing them forcibly from their own country to one where they were better off in some respects; and thought it was doing them a service, though against their will.  The fact was, their minds had never been turned to reason on the subject.  I remember the great surprise I felt, the first time I heard an intimation that it was wrong to hold a slave, although the truth of the proposition was so self-evident that it needed only to be stated to be allowed by an unprejudiced mind.
       Belfast was so named from the port to which the captain belonged who sold him to my father.  He was kindly brought up, instructed in reading and writing; was faithful, honest, and cheerful, and gratefully attached to his master and the family.  We children were very fond of him.  I was his great favorite; and he often carried me up and down the hill, and from school, in his arms.  He used to sing and dance for our amusement, and to play on the comb, for us to dance; in which accomplishment he was also our instructor.  Yet such was his respectful familiarity, that he never offended in either word or action.  He was an excellent cook, and ready at all kinds of work within and without the house.
       At a period and in a situation when assistance was difficult to obtain, Belfast was an invaluable domestic.  After our family returned to New York, he married, and asked and obtained his freedom.  He always sustained a good character, but did not long survive leaving his old home.  The change probably was not for the better, — for his comfort and happiness; but he enjoyed the gratification of being a free man.  A good man he certainly was, to the best of his knowledge and ability; and I never think of him, even at this period of my life, but with respect and affection.

[page 26]
The British Army never penetrated to Baskingridge; but there were repeated alarms of their approach with fire and sword; and the children were often sent in wagons to cottages among the hills, several miles distant, –considered places of safety.  On one of these occasions, I was sent at night, with my sister and my brother Washington, to a Mr. Gobles, in the woods.  We were placed on our beds in the wagon; and well covered up, as it was very cold, were driven by Belfast, who cheered and encouraged us in our darksome expedition.  At our place of refuge we were received very kindly by the good woman of the cottage, who gave us some bread and milk; and spread our beds on the floor.  But great was my astonishment at her arrangement for her own children: she raised some boards in the corner of the only room in the house, under which there was a bed of dried leaves, where they were placed, and covered with their clothes and a blanket.  I was very much afraid I was to be put in there too; but Belfast comforted me by saying he would take care of me, and sit up all night by the fire, which he did, with the hospitable owners of this humble roof.”

Belfast is also mentioned in passing on page 29.

The Basking Ridge Oak Tree next to the Presbyterian Church was perhaps the most photographed site in New Jersey’s Somerset Hills. Recently, an old image of the tree was discovered in a Basking Ridge Fire Company scrapbook at the THSSH Archives.     

The society was not familiar with this image.  It does not appear to have been printed on a postcard. Our best guess is that the photo was taken around 1905.  The Basking Ridge Fire Company was organized in 1904.  The photo was on a page just above the photo of the Brick Academy that we posted late last year.  The Brick Academy photo was conclusively dated to 1905 or earlier.

On the oak tree photo, notice the stone wall turns in along the lane leading into the churchyard.  There are hitching posts for horses and a telephone/telegraph pole along East Oak Street.

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.

The Olcott School (built 1905) is conspicuous in this photo that depicts eight men astride a 60-foot windmill, which they likely had just erected at 20 Olcott Avenue in Bernardsville, NJ.  The slatted fanwheel and tail are just out of view at the top of the frame. 

Windmills like these, a common innovation across the United States, powered pumps that filled attic cisterns, making a gravity supply of water available for early indoor plumbing systems.  This improvement probably predated the installation of a 6” water main in Olcott Avenue around 1908.

The Bernards Water Company was formed by a group of local citizens, led by Samuel Childs.  The Osborn Pond on Madisonville Road heading into Logansville (Harding Township), was its main reservoir.   In 1908, the Company added a 255,000 gallon tank above Old Army Road that served this part of the rapidly growing community.  In addition to domestic water use, the mains were an important feature for firefighting purposes.[1]

The owner of 20 Olcott Avenue, William Rayson Bromfield (1855-1911), operated a hardware store in Bernardsville located at the current Bernards Café.  His wife, Augusta “Gussie” Goltra Bromfield (1855-1941) lived in the home until her passing.   The residence, built around 1900, is a contributing site in the Olcott Avenue Historic District.