Next time you’re in downtown Bernardsville, NJ, take a look at 35 Mill Street. The building was built in 1906 as the new firehouse to replace the old one at 1 Anderson Road (site of the current Bernardsville Library). Frederic P. Olcott (1841-1909), Bernardsville’s great benefactor, donated funds to purchase the land. The real photo
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In 1918 with World War I raging in Europe, the world suddenly faced a global influenza outbreak. New Jersey and the Somerset Hills were soon impacted and hospitals in Morristown and Somerville were crowded with seriously ill patients. Local organizations needed to step up to meet the public health emergency. In the Somerset Hills, the
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Ann Baumgartner, who lived on Mt. Harmony Road in Bernardsville, NJ, during her teens and 20s, became a Woman Airforce Service Pilot (WASP) in World War II and the first woman in America to fly a jet airplane. Born in 1918, Ann learned to fly in 1941 in a yellow Piper cub airplane at Somerset
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Parking your carriage on Olcott Square in Bernardsville, NJ, around 1908 was apparently no problem. These two are shown in front of the Westlecraft Block, named for local builder Charles Westlecraft. The site is occupied today by The Coffee Shop, Buona Pizza, and other businesses. The Westlecraft Block was built around 1904 and contained businesses
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THSSH has released another Online Collection of documents—this time featuring Bernards High in Bernardsville, NJ. Bernards High was built in 1905. Two years later a class of two–Effie Beekman and Florence Rowell Conklin–became the first students to graduate. Until construction of Watchung Hills High and Ridge High, Bernards was the only high school in northern
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The October issue of Inside the Brick Academy is available now and includes a page-one article on the Fenner House in Pluckemin, NJ, where General George Washington is said to have written his report on the Battle of Princeton. The article is the first in a series covering Pluckemin historic houses. For the Bernardsville Centennial,
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Mount Vernon was the name of an area in northern Bernards Township (now the Borough of Bernardsville, NJ). It stretched from Lloyd Road, where there was a little settlement at the junction of Hardscrabble Road, north to the Mendham border. In the 1840s, a school called Mount Vernon School was built on the north side
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The intersection of Pill Hill Road and Mount Airy was once called Oak Stump Corner and has a rich history. [1] On the northwest corner in Bernardsville was the long-time home of the H. W. Alward construction company. Founded by Henry W. Alward (1905-1971), the company provided employment for many in the area, and its
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Many estates in the Somerset Hills were grander, but few had as colorful a history as Bernardsville’s Stonemere. The mansion was built around 1905 for James E. Hulshizer (1869-1921) of Jersey City, president of the New Jersey Title Guarantee and Trust Company. Hulshizer and his family vacationed at the Somerset Inn on Mendham Road north
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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
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