USA > New Jersey > Warren County > History of Warren County, New Jersey > Part 16
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Mr. Henry, the inventor of the hot blast for iron furnaces, went from Oxford to what is now Scranton, to build a new furnace in the coal fields. His partner dying, he secured assistance from the Scran- tons, P. H. Mather, of Easton, and Sanford Grant, of Belvidere, to found the great Lackawanna Iron and Coal Company there, and gave the city its name, Scranton, which is thus a daughter of Oxford. The business at Scranton prospered so that G. W. and S. T. Scranton moved to that place, and their brother, Charles, in 1847 took over the
Plant of Empire Iron and Steel Co., Oxford, N. J.
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business at Oxford, buying in 1849 all the interests of the Hon. Will- iam P. Robeson, who then owned the land. In 1858 G. W. and S. T. Scranton bought the Oxford property and came back to Oxford, and in 1863 incorporated the Oxford Iron Company, which built a new furnace with a capacity of 12,000 tons a year, a nail factory with an output of 240,000 kegs a year, a foundry, and a rolling mill. The company became a wreck after the hard times of 1873, and for over twenty years Oxford felt the effect of the blow. The Empire Iron and Steel Company bought all the property in the nineties, and have cperated it successfully ever since.
Shippen Mansion, Oxford, N. J.
Dr. William Shippen, one of the owners of Oxford Furnace, was a descendant of Edward Shippen, a Quaker, who fled from England to Boston in 1675, and for merely being a Quaker was publicly whip- ped. He went to Philadelphia, and was chosen the first Mayor under the city charter of 1701. He was grandfather of Chief Justice Ship-
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pen, of Pennsylvania, and amassed a large fortune. For thirty years the furnace, when owned by Dr. Shippen, was under the management of his son, Joseph, who was a second cousin of Peggy Shippen, who married Benedict Arnold.
The Second Presbyterian Church of Oxford is one of the daugh- ters of the old Oxford church at Hazen. It was organized May 8, 1864. Previous to this a stone chapel had been erected, and this served the new congregation as a place of worship until January, 1866, when the present church edifice was erected.
The Oxford Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in 1867, and soon a frame building was dedicated. In 1872 the present edifice was dedicated.
The first Catholic church in Warren County was erected at Oxford in 1858, by Father Mckay. Previous to this it was served by Rev. Father McMahon, from Newton. The mission at Oxford was suc- cessively under Hampton Junction, Phillipsburg and Washington until 1873, when it became a separate charge. The church building was burned on Easter Sunday, 1900, but was rebuilt in another location in 1902. Rev. Peter Kelley is in charge of Oxford and Belvidere.
Buttzville is on the Pequest, five miles from its mouth. Here the D., L. & W. railroad crosses over the L. & H. railroad and the Pequest' Creek by a stone triple arch bridge built in 1855 by Anthony Robeson. A new culvert is being made by the railroad company to accommodate the tarviated county road from Belvidere, thus eliminating a dangerous crossing.
The town is named from the family of M. Robert Buttz, who came here about 1839 from Portland, Pennsylvania, and took charge of the hotel, and with Zachariah Jones conducted the store. John R. Buttz bought the mill property in 1839, and sold it to Elisha Kirkhuff in 1854. It has been owned by Linaberry and Anderson, and now by Thomas Craig, who has added a wood working factory, and for many years has owned the store and been postmaster.
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A spur from the L. & H. railroad runs from Buttzville to the mines of the Basic Iron Company, who operate mines of iron and manganese on the lands of John H. Dahlke, the John Hixson estate and others.
The Buttzville Methodist Episcopal Church was built of stone about 1840. Before this time services had been held by the itinerant ministers in a house in "The Beech," in which a board on two chairs served as a seat. During the dedication "the soul of Brother Blamie, assistant pastor, passed to his eternal rest." In 1876 the present struc- ture was completed, and greatly improved about 1895. The original stone building was partially destroyed by fire in the nineties, and was finally taken down.
Bridgeville bore its present name before 1824, although it was better known as Hunt's Tavern for some years later than that. The tavern was located just south of the present graceful bridge across the Pequest, which was built in 1857, or the year in which the old stone
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Stone Bridge built in 1836 at Bridgeville.
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school house was built. A splendid hotel property was built here in the days of the stage coach by Sheriff George . Titman, about 1846, who also began the development of a magnificent water power, which was never completed, owing to his death. A creamery on the Lehigh and Hudson River railroad is the only present activity besides farming. The station on the D., L. & W. railroad is one-half mile from the old village, and now has most of the population. Here are a creamery and two coal yards.
The first settlers in this vicinity were George Titman, John Hixson and Michael Banghart, all of whom had lived elsewhere in New Jersey before settling here.
George Titman, Jr., the first of the family to settle in Oxford Township, was the son of George Titman, who, at eleven years of age, came with his father, Lodewick Titman, from Germany, and settled in 1737 on 400 acres of land at the very foot of the Kittatinny Moun- tains, six miles from the Water Gap. George Titman, Jr., settled on 266 acres of land at Bridgeville, a part of the great Coxe tract, bought by his father in 1775. It is now the Wyckoff, West and Flummerfelt farms. To this was added in 1793 two hundred acres more of the . Coxe tract, on the south side of the Pequest Creek. George Titman, Jr., died in 1796, and willed the land north of the creek to his son, George (3rd.), who was father of Benjamin Titman, Sheriff George Titman and Lanah (Wilson). Sheriff George Titman had two sons, who lived a great part of their lives at Bridgeville. One was Marshall Titman, father of Dr. George Willis Titman, late of Hackettstown, and grandfather of Willis Stevens Titman. The other was Jesse Tit- man, father of George B. Titman, of Chicago. George Titman, Jr., willed the land south of the creek to his son, Jacob Titman, who died in - 1864, leaving the property to his son, Gwinnup, who married Mary Ann Blair, a cousin to John I. Blair. Gwinnup Titman died in 1889, leaving one child, William Blair Titman, who, at the time of his death in 1902, was president of the Washington National Bank. His only
T
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child is Annie Blair Titman, wife of Dr. G. W. Cummins, of Belvi- dere, who still owns the old homestead.
Michael Banghart was one of a family that came from Rhinebeck, Germany, to Hunterdon County in 1740. As a shoemaker he earned enough to buy a tract of 500 acres of land at Bridgeville, which is now the Bartow, Prall, Willett and other farms. He built his log cabin where the Prall barn now stands, at Cedar Grove. He was twice mar- ried and had ten children. One of his sons and the most noted of the family was the Rev. George Banghart, a Methodist itinerant minister, who traveled as far as Philadelphia and Wyoming on his circuits, preaching in houses, barns or in the woods, to eager listeners. His home was across the creek from Cedar Grove mill, and hither came young couples for miles to be married by the one they had known so well. The greatest gatherings for any purpose in Warren County in the early days were the Methodist Camp Meetings held in Butler's Grove, only a mile from the Banghart home, and he was one of the ablest and most frequent speakers.
Another son of Michael Banghart was Michael, Jr., born 1774, died 1846, who lived all his life on the ancestral acres, having his home where his son, Wesley, lived, on the farm now owned by Edward Willet. Michael Banghart, Jr., married Elizabeth, daughter of Philip Cummins, and was the father of George, Mary (Flummerfelt), Philip, Josiah, Wesley, Catherine (Flummerfelt), Sarah (Misner),. Jacob, Barnabas, Ann (Van Allen) and Bothia (Davidson).
The Boyer family of Warren County is descended from Michael Boyer, father of George Boyer, who was born at Durham, Pennsyl- vania, in 1776, and settled in March, 1800, at the Boyer homestead on Lopatcong Creek, two miles from its mouth. This property he bought of John Welsh, who obtained it from the original owners, John and Allan Turner, in 1769. George Boyer was the father of Catherine (Shimer) and of Michael and David W. Boyer. Michael Boyer was born in 1804, and in 1840 bought a farm on Beaver Brook, above
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Sarepta. His son, John, remained on the homestead farm in Lopat- cong, and was father of John C. and Annie E. Boyer. Another son, Thomas Boyer, married Elizabeth Titman, a niece of John I. Blair, and is the father of George Boyer, Mrs. George Lantz, Mrs. Kiefer, Oscar Boyer and Alice Boyer. Still another son of Michael was George Boyer, born 1833, died 1895. He settled on part of the Sarepta farm, and was the father of W. Irving Boyer, of Kansas, and John D. Boyer.
John Hixson came to Bridgeville about 1793, from near Trenton, where his father, Noah, was a miller. During the Revolution Tories raided the mill and bore away all the seives, thus disabling the mill. Of John Hixson's five sons, only one remained on the homestead. He was also named John, and was the father of Jasper, Samuel, George and Richard.
Hope Station, just west of Bridgeville, was the junction point of the D., L. & W. railroad with a stage line from the uncompleted Penn- sylvania railroad at Belvidere for several years. At the dangerous crossing several people have lost their lives, the first being Mrs. Wesley Banghart; another, Mr. Kinney; and still others, the Devore family in 1892.
Sarepta has a fine water power on Beaver Brook, which runs a grist mill owned by the estate of John R. Buttz, who bought it in 1855 from David Shannon. In early days it was called Raub's Mill, from its owners, whose family burying ground is not far from the school house.
P. P. Campbell conducted an iron foundry here as early as 1825, and here Michael B. Bowers learned the trade that resulted in the Bowers Foundries at Hackettstown and Washington. Jacob Bowers, his father, was a farmer at Bridgeville, where he lived all of his mar- ried life, dying in 1818.
The stone quarry near Sarepta was operated till recently by in-
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terests connected with the D., L. & W. railroad as a source of limestone for furnaces in Scranton.
Manunka Chunk tunnel is a double opening through Manunka Chunk Mountain, at the west end of which the D., L. & W. railroad connects with the Pennsylvania railroad. Along the river and on Thomas Island are many fine camping sites, which are enjoyed to the fullest from early spring to late autumn.
The site of the old Oxford meeting house has been occupied by a church longer than any other spot in Warren County. Other churches may have been built earlier than this one, but they no longer occupy their original sites. Meetings had been held for some years before any church was built, and the circuit riding minister would preach now at this house and now at that. There was a great rivalry between the present site and another at the cemetery near White Hall when the time came to choose a location for the church. As early as 1744 the Rev. James Campbell preached here and baptized some children, and the Rev. David Brainerd, the missionary to the Indians at Mount Bethel, only six miles away, also preached in this church. In 1749 the congregation came under care of the New Brunswick Presbytery, and supplies occupied the pulpit more or less regularly thereafter.
The first stated pastor in the county was Rev. John Roseborough, who was pastor of the first three Presbyterian churches; viz .: Green- wich, Mansfield Wood House and Oxford, from about 1755 to 1769. He then became pastor of the two Scotch-Irish communities known as Craig's Settlement and Hunter's Settlement. He served these until 1777, when, in the darkest hour of the Revolution, he led a battalion to Washington's camp near Coryell's Ferry, just before the battle of Trenton. A few days after the victory he was surprised by some Hes- sians at a farm house near Pennington and stabbed to death.
Supplies served this church from 1769 to 1787, when Rev. Asa Dunham became pastor of this church and Mount Bethel, and served for ten years. The Rev. Isaac N. Candee was pastor from 1829 till
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1834, when he and a large part of the congregation formed a new congregation at Belvidere. Rev. James McWilliams, pastor from 1842 until 1853, established a parochial school, which became a great success under his successor, the Rev. Frederick Knighton, D. D., who served for nineteen years and then went to Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, where he made a fortune in business after he was seventy years of age. Rev. John T. Pollock served the church from 1874 until 1883, when Rev. S. Nye Hutchinson succeeded him and was pastor for seventeen years. Rev. W. B. Sheddan was pastor for four years, or until 1904, when the present pastor, Rev. Robert Robinson, was called.
From the old Oxford church came the Harmony church in 1807, the First Presbyterian Church of Belvidere in 1834, and the Oxford Second Presbyterian Church in 1863. At least three edifices have occupied the site of the old Oxford church. The first was doubtless of logs. The predecessor of the present structure was a substantial build- ing, the frame of which is now used as a barn near Zion Chapel. The brick church was erected in 1850 and redecorated in 1910. In the cemetery adjoining lie many revered dead, among them the father and grandfather of John I. Blair. The new cemetery was purchased in 1850.
Foul Rift, on the Delaware, just below Belvidere, has long been noted as the most dangerous quarter of a mile in the whole river. In a survey of 1716 it is referred to by John Reading as "A rocky falls in the Delaware River." On a map of 1769 it bears its present name. William Penn early realized its value as a power site, and had sur- veyed to himself five thousand acres in Pennsylvania and a large tract in New Jersey at Foul Rift as early as 1716. The earliest inhabitant was Johannes Vannatto, who in 1744 gave a deed for one acre of land to Jonathan Robeson. On this acre was built the wharf at which for a hundred years the Durham boats received their loads of pig iron for shipment to Philadelphia from the furnace at Oxford.
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Chimney Rock : a natural formation at Foul Rift.
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Nicholas Dupuy, of Pahaquarry, cleared a channel through the Rift before 1787 to enable his boats to take grain to market, and Major Hoops, of Belvidere, was enlarging the channel in 1790. A safe chan- nel for motor boats could be made for its whole length at a small expense. At the foot of Foul Rift is a sandy beach, on which a numerous summer colony of campers gather and enjoy nature's charms to the fullest extent. The most noted event of the season is a carnival on the river, at which remarkably beautiful effects are produced. At a recent carnival it was said that "Foul Rift has given rise to more notable people than any place of its size in the United States." Here in a log cabin near the big spring was born, August 2, 1802, the Hon. John I. Blair, noted as the wealthiest native Jerseyman. Here was born Post- master-General Hazen, the father of two-cent postage; here William Shippen owned 200 acres of land, which he gave to his daughter, Susan Blair, whose husband was president of Princeton College.
Rifton is another name for the vicinity of Foul Rift, and the Rifton Mills were built here in 1814 by William Sherlock, as the first and only attempt to utilize the magnificent water power at this point. The mills were destroyed by fire in 1856, and were never rebuilt. At that time they were owned by Sherrerd & Company.
The Lomasson family of this county is descended from one Lam- bertson, who settled before the Revolution on Scott's Mountain. One of his grandsons, Lawrence Lomerson, settled at Broadway, and another grandson, Thomas Lommasson, near Belvidere. Thomas's son, George, lived on the farm at the foot of Foul Rift, where was the birth place of John I. Blair. His children are Thomas, of Belvidere; William, Jesse, of Bangor; Mrs. Carhart and Mrs. Fry. Andrew Lomasson, another son of Thomas, lived on the George Fitts farm, near Shoemaker's mine, and was the father of Sheriff George Lomas- son, John, James, Andrew and Marshall.
Two brothers, George and James Butler, came from Scotland and early settled in Oxford Township. James served in the Revolution and
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never came back home. George lived for a time at Foul Rift, where he married Isabella McMurtrie, daughter of Abram McMurtrie, who was a son of Joseph McMurtrie, one of the earliest land owners of the township. In 1828 George Butler bought of Morris Croxall a tract of 209 acres extending for a half-mile along the Bridgeville road, just east of Belvidere. At that time it was all covered with virgin forest, which was not all cleared away until 1860. A log house was the only dwelling on the property. In it Morris Croxall lived with "Old Ike," a negro coachman. Johnson Butler tore down the old log structure in 1861 and built on its site the house at the entrance to the Massénat property. The stone barn near it was built in 1830. In 1844 most of the property was sold to Charles Wurts, who built the mansion shortly thereafter. The property came into the possession of Charles Stewart Wurtz and of his brother-in-law, Robert S. Kennedy, from whose heir it was purchased in 1900 by Mrs. Morris, now Mrs. Massenat. The whole forms one of the finest country estates in Warren County.
The McMurtrie family was one of the earliest resident land owners in the vicinity of Belvidere. Joseph McMurtrie bought the Alford tract in 1746. This included all the farms to the south of Belvi- dere now owned by Lance, Mackey, Titman, Roseberry, McMurtrie, Wyckoff, Snyder, Fitts, Smith and Shoemaker. This land in part passed by direct descent to Joseph's son, Abram McMurtrie, to his son, James, and to his son, Abram, the estate of whose sons George K. and Abram still own the old homestead. George McMurtrie, Jr., is a son of George K. McMurtrie, and is associated with Oscar H. McMurtrie, a distant relative, in the flour mills at Belvidere, established by his grand- father, Abram.
The ancestor of the Burd family settled on Scott's Mountain right after the Revolution. He had been connected with the British army, and chose this strong Tory neighborhood for that reason. His son, Elisha, was grandfather of Dr. Burd, of Belvidere.
One of the earliest to settle in this township was Alexander White,
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who, about 1760, donated the land for the cemetery near his hand- some stone mansion, which is still standing. He had three sons- Will- . iam, Alexander and Samuel. Lieutenant William White by primo- geniture inherited the family mansion and was, with Captain John McMurtrie, the first of Sussex County to join the Continental army at Boston after the battle of Bunker Hill. His younger brother, Samuel (a lad under age) accompanied him and lost his life in the war, while William wrecked his fortune, and "White Hall" passed into ' the hands of his brother, Colonel Alexander White.
Oxford Township claims credit for the first two soldiers from our county to join the Revolution-Captain John McMurtrie and Lieu- tenant William White, both of whom were on the Sussex Committee of Safety, and joined the army at Boston right after the battle of Bunker Hill. White was the son of Alexander White, who bought in 1762 a part of the Van Etten tract of land, which has ever since been known by his name. He built a handsome stone residence, which is still stand- ing, called "White Hall." It is on the new macadam road between Belvidere and Roxburg. Here General Washington. is said to have . stopped on his journey from the Sun Inn, at Bethlehem, to his encamp- ment at Morristown, and from the balcony William Henry Harrison delivered a presidential campaign speech. It will be remembered that General Harrison married a daughter of John Cleve Symmes, of Sussex County.
Captain Joseph Mackey was an early settler in the vicinity of Roxburg, and was captain in the First Regiment of Sussex County' dur- ing the Revolution. After the war he became possessed of a great deal of real estate mostly in Oxford, which he left to his children, who are John, Joseph, William, Jeremiah, Lewis, James, Mrs. Hazel, Mrs. Michael Roseberry, Mrs. William Roseberry and Mrs. Lowe Miller. Some of his real estate is still owned by his descendants.
Aaron Prall, the ancestor of the family in Warren County, came
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to Scott's Mountain from Amwell, Hunterdon County. He had six children, one of whom was Aaron, Jr., who was father of Thomas Prall, who lived at Bridgeville and Hazen. Thomas had nine children. These were Mrs. Mary Jones, William Prall, John Clark Prall, Mrs. Rebecca Smith, Lieutenant James Prall, Mrs. Margaret Smith, Bartley B. Prall and George T. Prall.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
PAHAQUARRY.
Pahaquarry derives its name from Pahaqualong the Indian name for the mountain which forms its southern boundary. Before the formation of Warren County it was a part of Walpack, which was a township before 1738, when we find that Thomas Quick, Tunis Quick, Abraham Vanawken and Cornelius Aducher, from Walpack, voted in Hunterdon County (of which Warren then formed a part) for repre- sentatives to serve in the General Assembly. Pahaquarry as a township dates from November 20, 1824, when Warren was separated from Sussex. Pahaquarry. with the exception of a narrow strip of land lying along the Delaware, is occupied by the Blue Mountains, or Kittatinny Mountains, which are here composed of two ranges. One of these is Mount Tammany, named after the celebrated Delaware chieftain Tamenund, who also has given his name to a number of societies, the most famous of which is Tammany Hall, in New York. Mount Tam- many is six miles in length and, at its western extremity, guards the southern entrance to the Water Gap, together with Mount Minsi, on the opposite side. Mount Tammany rises from a height of 1,500 feet at the Gap to 1,625 feet two miles further east, and is more than one hundred feet higher than Mount Minsi, whose elevation is 1,500 feet. The southern slope of Mount Tammany seems almost perpendicular, falling as much as 600 feet to one-eighth of a mile of horizontal measurement.
Blockade Mountain is north of Mount Tammany, and is con- tinuous with the main range of the Blue Mountains, which extend north- eastward into the State of New York and southwestward through Penn- sylvania.
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In general the Kittatinng Mounutain slopes precipitately to the southeast and more gently to the northwest.
Buckwood Park is a game preserve of 8,000 acres, comprising the western half of Pahaquarry. It covers Blockade Mountain for six miles and takes in all of Mount Tammany. It is enclosed by eleven miles of fencing eight feet high, containing twenty strands of wire. The land for it was purchased by Mr. Worthington in 1890. Several hundred deer now roam at will through the many miles of forest- covered slopes or graze on the more open plateau.
A fine residence in the park was occupied by Mr. Worthington until he purchased of the estate of Robert Dupui the old stone mansion now called Manwalamink, and the hundreds of acres of level land at- tached to it, including Manwalamink and Shawnee islands, all in Penn- sylvania, opposite to Buckwood Park. As an entertainer, Mr. Charles C. Worthington is a worthy successor to the venerable Dupui, who, in 1730, entertained so hospitably the Pennsylvania officials sent for the purpose of getting evidence to indict him for "forcible entry and de- tainer," that, instead, they made a survey of his plantation so that they might protect him in the possession of it, and William Allen himself, father-in-law of Governor Penn, gave to Nicholas Dupui in 1730 and 1733 two deeds for the land that Dupui had already bought of the Indians in 1727. The Penns have been wrongly blamed for this gen- erous action. With this deed as a basis, it was claimed they had sold lands in the Minisink before these had been purchased from the Indians. It is true that the "Indian Walk," which gave the Minisinks to the proprietaries, was not made until 1737, but it is not true that the Indians were wronged in any way by this deed from Allen to Dupui.
Among the many treasures in Manwalamink are the original models of the "Monitor" and of the screw propeller presented to Henry B. Worthington by John Ericsson, the inventor.
All of the mountain in Pahaquarry is well wooded, and some of the trees in Buckwood Park are like those of a virgin forest. One hun-
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