Charles Engelhard, Jr. (1917-1971) was an American industrialist and resident of the Cragwood Estate in Far Hills. Many writers mention that Engelhard may have been the model for Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger and recount the lavish parties Charles and his wife Jane threw for friends and neighbors. But Engelhard was a successful businessman and expanded the

Today’s photo shows Charles Pitman Bird (1856-1933) and his father John Watson Bird (1825-1902) checking out a new carriage around 1901 near Minebrook Road in Liberty Corner, NJ . The carriage was purchased from the Ballantine & Van Fleet Carriage Mfg. Co. of Somerville for $40 (see receipt). Ballantine & Van Fleet operated at 200-210

During the 1930s and 40s, Burnt Mills in Bedminster boasted a summer hotel, the Hartfeld House, run by Solomon Hartfeld / Hartfield (1866-1947) and his son Isadore (1890-1976), Jewish immigrants from Austria.  The hotel was built on the old Paulison farm along the North Branch of the Raritan River, above the current Burnt Mills Road

This old postcard from the Society’s archives tells a great story–more like three stories.  Back in 1906, someone named Mattie (probably Martha E. Boyle Fenner of Peapack) decided to write to her sister Mrs. Philip Koechlein (Floretta Boyle Koechlein, 1877-1966) in Liberty Corner where the Koechlein family later operated a store. Click on the photo

Sidney “Sid” Sussman (1919-2009) was a Bernardsville icon, who ran a small department store in town at various locations for over 60 years. He was also known for his work with the Bernardsville Kiwanis Club and the Fresh Air Fund of New York. From around 1953 to 1977, Sid wrote a weekly column/advertisement in The

During the 1940s, Vallacchi’s Garage at 55 Mine Brook Road (Rte 202), Bernardsville, N.J., was the place to go for a new Kaiser or Frazer automobile.  The Kaiser-Frazer Corporation, founded in 1945, was a successful company at a time when the big three automakers were slowly transitioning to a peacetime economy.   In 1946, while the

Driving east from Far Hills on Liberty Corner Road (before you get to I-287), the land drops off to the right into a deep gorge called Moggy Hollow.   This was once, 19,000 to 14,000 years ago, the outlet to Lake Passaic, a 30-mile-long lake, created when the Wisconsin Glacier blocked the area’s natural drainage system.

Lord Stirling Road in Basking Ridge was once called Building Lane after the ruins of Lord Stirling’s mansion which were known locally as “The Buildings.” The name continued into the 20th century although visible ruins of the mansion were long gone. The change coincided with the introduction of streetlights along the road in 1931. The

When my brother Stuart ‘Budge’ Booth (1939- 2002) was a kid in the early 1950s, he used to go across Maple Avenue and set traps over towards the Great Swamp.  We lived on South Finley Avenue.  In the morning before school he would check his traps, and if there was a fox caught, he would

During the early 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) reorganized in the South and spread north including to New Jersey.  In the Somerset Hills, there were demonstrations and cross burnings reported in Bernardsville, Basking Ridge and Far Hills in 1923.   The resurgent Klan opposed new immigration to the country, especially of Italian and Irish Catholics.