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
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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
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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
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A stone wall provides a nice place to rest in this early 20th century photo titled “On the Road to Bernardsville.” The location may be North Finley Avenue on the curve near Fox Hollow Trail. The direction is looking south toward Basking Ridge. The stone wall is no longer there and may have been part
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Long before the Kiwanis Fair, there was the annual Basking Ridge Firemen’s Carnival. Beginning in 1910, the carnival was held on the grounds of the old Maple Avenue school (now site of the Bernards Township Library) and drew crowds from across the region. Beginning in 1912, the firemen hired a merry-go-round and it soon became
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During our continuing digitization efforts, we found this photograph of the Brick Academy in Basking Ridge, NJ, in a Fire Department scrapbook. The building started life in 1809, as the Basking Ridge Classical School and later became a Bernards Township public school. In 1904, it was auctioned off to the Ancient Order of United Workmen
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Editor’s Note: The Historical Society recently received an inquiry from a technician who services the commercial building at 125 South Finley Avenue in Basking Ridge. He reported seeing an apparition of a young boy in Civil War-period clothing in the basement. The technician was aware that a physician, who had served in the Civil War,
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In 1870, Mary (Lewis) Goltra (1832-1896), a recent widow, built the house at 156 South Finley Avenue, Basking Ridge, NJ, perhaps with the assistance of her father-in-law, James P. Goltra. A farmer and local builder, James constructed the Liberty Corner Presbyterian Church in the late 1860s. Eventually, the house was owned by Mary’s daughter, Margaret
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Maple Lawn, seen here in a c.1913 postcard, still stands at 30 East Craig Street in Basking Ridge, NJ. It is an impressive Victorian house in the Second Empire style featuring a Mansard roof. Architectural surveys (c.1990s) and John C. Smith’s historical map of Basking Ridge date the house to around 1865. However, the building
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Basking Ridge made big-time society news in 1901 when a runaway New York heiress hid out at the Washington House for several days. Helen Bloodgood, age 18, the daughter of William Bloodgood of the American Felt Company disappeared from her 83 Irving Place home in Manhattan on September 19, 1901. The New York World reported
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