Tag: Schools - The Official Site for The Historical Society of the Somerset Hills (THSSH)

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.