USA > New Jersey > Somerset County > Within a Jersey circle : tales of the past, grave and gay, as picked up from old Jerseyites > Part 6
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Naturally, after what happened there, a kind of awe- some feeling among the neighbors made them stand aloof from the premises; so that grass and weeds were soon springing up in the yards and between the bricks and stones of the pavement in front of the house. In the late
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fall, when the wind has final tussles with the trees for possession of their last leaves and the sun begins to sulk behind cold, leaden clouds, almost making night of it about 5 P. M., it is a pretty bleak place around Cherryville. If a man has ridden far and has had little to eat since an early breakfast, he's apt to feel hungry and cold up here; something like the wolves did of old when they used to skulk down from these hills in great numbers, to the level where Flemington now stands so gracefully, or father on, down the sheltered vale of the South Branch River, for their suppers.
Not unlike one of these in the demands of his inner man was Richard, or "Dick," Loud, as he was called, an extensive cattle and horse dealer from Pennsylvania, who happened here one bleak day as he was passing through the State. It was one of "Dick's" boasts that he knew more of tavern life than any other man in New Jersey. "Big Bill" Armstrong and his tavern were a combination af- ter "Dick's" own heart. He knew them both well, though he had not seen one or the other for some years. On this occasion he rode eagerly toward the inn and fin- ally reached it.
"Hallo, the house!" the rider shouted as he reined up in front of the tavern. Then he noticed the closed blinds. "Hey! my man," he called to a farmhand passing, "What's to do here? Has Armstrong put up the shut- ters for the night already?"
"Armstrong, said ye?" asked the man; "why he's been dead more'n two year. Another falla, Abe Skinner, kept place since him. He's dead, too. Place has been shet goin' on six months."
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"Here! don't be in such an all-fired hurry !" demanded "Dick" as the stranger walked on. "I want supper and bed for myself and horse, and I'm bound to have it."
"There was light in the tavern last night," said the stranger, walking on. "Mebbe somebody's a-kepin' it again. Ye might get in if ye tried."
The fact was the young man thus questioned, Tony Trimmer by name, was so filled with superstitious fear of the inn that no money could have bribed him to stay longer. He really suspected that the mounted man was only a phantom of the haunted place.
"Well, I like this-over the left!" said "Dick." "Tom, my friend, this is tough," he murmured, addressing his horse as if he were a human companion. "Come, get up with you to the barn, Tom. You're the first to be con- sidered, anyway. We'll storm the old place for a night's lodging whatever comes."
Having found everything necessary and stabled his horse comfortably, "Dick" next thought of his own needs, and, with his big stock whip doubled up in his hand, he marched across to the inn he had known so long and liked so well. First he tried the front door, but, getting no re- sponse to his knocks, he went 'round to the back.
"By Jiminies!" he cried, at last, "I wonder if the old string arrangement is here still!"
He found that it was. Then he pulled the bobbin and . "open sesame!" in he walked, just as he had done many a time in former days.
All was quiet and as dark as pitch in the house, but out from "Dick's" capacious pocket came his portable tinderbox and steel, and a light was struck in no time.
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Candles of all lengths were there in their candlesticks, just as they had been blown out long months before. After lighting a couple of these he lost no time in making for the bar. There on the counter and tables stood stone and pewter mugs, covered with dust and dried-up dregs of long ago potations. Each vessel, when lifted, left a little circular island of clean wood amid the dust that covered everything. "Dick's" eye, however, wandered in search of something more potent than stuff usually slopped out in stone and pewter pots.
"Aha! here she is!" he exclaimed, bringing out a high- shouldered, green bottle from the dark recesses of a closet. Pulling out the cork, he sniffed at the contents and smiled. With this and a couple of silver-mounted horn noggins "Dick" made his way to what used to be his favorite table, where he and "Big Bill" Armstrong had sat many an hour together. He pulled up two chairs, for a strange fancy got hold of him to imagine that his old favorite, "Bill," sat there facing him, as of yore. Having wiped the thick of the dust away with his sleeve, he put on the table the candle, the green bottle and the two drinking vessels. Then, filling both measures to the brims, he raised one, tipped its top and bottom in a convivial way against the other and nodded smilingly across the table.
" 'Bill' Armstrong, mine old friend and host," he said, "your jolly good health." Then he drained his noggin to the dregs.
"You see, 'Bill,' we're mostly great fools in this stupid old world of ours," Dick went on pleasantly, refilling his glass; "but to me, now, the trifling fact of your having kicked the bucket needn't interfere at all with our socia-
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bility to-night. This house without you is an impossibil- ity- quite out of the question. If you've thought proper to change your coat, what of it? You're there, all the same. I cannot see you as plainly and distinctly as be- fore, but that's my fault and not yours. Here's to you again, my good old host, and may your shadow never grow less!" and again Dick's glass was emptied.
Then there came three loud knocks on the door or under the floor-Dick hardly knew which. But he went to the door and opened it.
"Come in, good friends," he called, being anything but averse to one or two more for company; but nobody was there, and the only response to his invitation to en- ter was made by a great gust of wind and pelting rain. It took all his strength to close the door again against the blast which whistled and whined through windows and keyholes like voices of goblins.
"That must have been old Simon, your cellarman, that knocked, 'Bill,'" Dick said, returning to his imaginary host. "I remember his knock full well, when he used to summon you below stairs. Never mind, 'Bill' just keep your seat; I'll run down for you. I'll wager Simon just wants you to stand me a magnum, eh? What! Excuse me, 'Bill,' I'll return anon." And away went Dick with the second candle.
"What, ho! Simon ! Didst knock, man?" he called, but he got no answer.
"Out on thee, thou baron of bungholes!" he shouted. "I believe thou livest and growest fat on the mildewed cobwebs and dust of thine ancient and fruity treasures down here."
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Then seizing the wooden hammer used by cellar-men, he hit a half-empty hogshead a few resonant bangs, sing- ing what was probably the fag end of some old bacchanal's sentiments :
O never a church bell sweeter rung
Than the sound of his hammer on a brandy bung- His old wooden mallet that so long he's swung- Sing ho! for old Simon the cellarer!
Walking forward he saw and seized a goodly sized wine bottle.
"See, mine host 'Bill,' " he shouted ; "a magnum, with the jolly old Simon's compliments. Good old port; im- ported port, of Oporto! Selah !"
By the time he had finished the port-all but the one glass duly set before his invisible host-"Dick" had jab- bered himself tired and somewhat sleepy. About mid- night, with many apologies for leaving what he called his "entertainer's very agreeable company," he took his candle and started upstairs.
"I know my old bunk, 'Bill.' Don't move a step!" "Dick" said at parting. "It's like going upstairs in my own home. I never had a real home in my life, though ; but that's the very reason I know so well what a home should be. A fair good-night to thee, friend 'Bill,' and happy dreams."
"Dick" Loud seemed to hugely enjoy his merry conceit of thus conjuring up his old host for company and chuck- led over it as he shambled a little unsteadily toward the hall leading to the stairs. He held in utter scorn all
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tales about ghosts and had many a time gloried in telling of things like what he had just done as a proof that all such beliefs were fit only for weak women and children.
From the room where "Dick" was to the hall, there was a drop of about two inches in the floor. This to most people is worse than a clearly apparent drop of three times that depth; and it proved somewhat of a pitfall to "Dick," for he stumbled to his knees and let his candle fall, extinguishing his light. Scrambling quickly to his feet, an imprecation died on his lips as he beheld a lighted candle in the hand of a thin, bent old man who was slowly mounting the stairs. Grabbing up his broken candle he hurried toward him.
"Hallo, there! friend Simon; stop and give us a light, won't you!" cried Dick; but the man took no notice and went on up the stair.
"Deaf as a doornail !" thought "Dick" as he rattled pell-mell up the stair in pursuit, "but I'll make him hear me!"
He reached the top step only just in time to see the old man disappear through a door a few feet away, leaving the hall in utter darkness. Lighting his candle in his own way, "Dick" determined to see more of the unsociable old man and proceeded to pound on the door. Stopping to see if there was any response and putting his ear to the door, he couldn't hear a sound within. Then reaching down to shake the latch, he found there was none there ; and more, a cold shiver ran through him to find that it was no ordinary door at all, but a dummy or blind door that had been nailed up and not opened for scores of years.
"By my halidom, Dick Loud; brave man as thou art,
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this seemeth to down thy proudest philosophy!" Dick muttered to himself, considerably sobered. "Through the very timber of this door that old man passed, as sure as I live and breathe the breath of a mortal man. Humph! methinks port on top o' brandy and no supper withal doth unman me! Sleep-sleep only will correct this brainless phantasy."
Another surprise awaited him, for as he approached the room he had formerly occupied, the door, which had been closed, slowly opened with a long "sque-a-k," of its own accord. "Dick" stared hard at the door, looked behind it and everywhere, to find if anybody had moved the door and hid afterward, but he could see nobody and nothing to account for it.
"Humph!" said he again in a dissatisfied way. "Enough of this. I'm in my own room of old now and there's my bed. A truce to this humbug!"
With that he banged the door shut, locked it, set the candle down on a chair and flung himself, all as he was, on the bed. He couldn't sleep, however. An unaccount- able restlessness so pervaded his whole system that sleep was impossible, excepting little cat-naps, out of which he woke every few minutes with a start.
This astonished him greatly, but it might not have done so had he known that the floor and walls of his room were stained with spatters and splashes of human blood. Of course he knew nothing of it, but that was the room where old Skinner's housekeeper was said to have been murdered. The very bed where he lay had been satur- ated with blood and remained as it was left after that
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" Bill Armstrong, mine old friend and host," he said, "your jolly good health."
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tragedy. But a half-drunk man with a broken, sputtering candle for light is not very discriminating.
One shadow on the white wall "Dick" had been watch- ing for some time. He thought it grew larger and larger, and he could have sworn he saw it move.
"Only the flicker of the candle," he thought at last, and dozed again.
Presently he awoke with a spring. Half conscious, he had heard a moan for some time; and now that shadow had turned into a crouching woman, evidently in an agony of fear at the sound of approaching footsteps in the hallway. Then, before "Dick" could collect his wits, the old man he had seen on the stairs burst into the room and while the woman dropped on her knees with clasped hands, he raised a heavy cleaver and dashed out her brains.
With cold beads upon his brow, "Dick" sprang from the bed at the ruthless murderer; but he grasped only empty air. His rage and horror turned to dread. He seized the candle and held it down to find the woman. She, too, had vanished; but there, where she fell was the mark of a pool of blood. Holding the light to the dark smudge on the wall, he saw that that was blood, too. Other stains were everywhere.
"Even on the bed where I've been lying; Zounds! it's a human shamble!" he exclaimed, backing out shivering and aghast. But once outside the door he stopped in breathless astonishment.
At the other side of the passage the same old man, now with a noose of stout rope around his neck, was in the act of tying the other end to the stair banister. The man then deliberately flung himself down the stairway. Dick
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was filled with horror. He rushed to cut the man down, but neither man nor rope was there; everything was still as the grave.
The first gray streaks of morning discovered a man on horseback, riding with all speed away from the haunted Cherryville Tavern. It was "Dick" Loud, and it was the last time he was ever seen in that vicinity.
WHEN TALMAGE WAS YOUNG.
INCIDENTS IN THE FAMOUS CLERGYMAN'S LIFE WHEN HE ATTENDED GREEN KNOLL SCHOOL, NEAR SOMERVILLE.
In the year 1817 only one lonely house stood facing the sea on that part of the Jersey coast now occupied by Long Branch. The inmates of the house, being fisher- folks, always cast their eyes to seaward with the first streaks of daylight, for they knew it was a treacherous coast, that often proved fatal to ships that tried to pass in the night.
One of the first of this family to be out on this morning was the old grandfather, who had been a sailor for many years. On a level spot commanding a good sea view he would walk up and down studying the wind and weather and watery horizon, just as he formerly did on the slip- pery deck of his vessel, and he as faithfully reported each passing craft to his family in the house, as he was wont to do to the captain in his cabin, when he kept larboard or starboard watch aboard ship.
"Ahoy, below there, shipmates! Slip your cables!" he sung out one morning before the others were astir: "Ship dismasted and driving ashore, going down fast by her head! Wind east, blowin' a whole gale!"
The son and son's sons were soon rushing down to the shore where the mighty breakers came bounding, roaring and hissing in. What were their little fishing boats among such raging billows? They could do nothing!
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But there was no signal of distress nor other sign of life on the ship. The waves broke in seething mountains over her and rolled her hull like a huge log before them. Evi- dently all on board had perished.
Presently a man was seen in the surf, buffeted by the waves, but clinging tenaciously to a broken spar. After many disappearances and reappearances, each time flung by the waves nearer land, he was finally seized and hauled ashore. Then it was found that he was lashed to the spar with a stout rope and that he was to all appearance dead. They, however, bore him to the lonely house, where kind, expert treatment restored him to life.
The rescued man proved to be Francis Hastings, about twenty years of age, a native of Cheltenham, Gloucester- shire, England. Having lost everything he possessed in the wreck, the young man, when recovered, was given food and clothes ; and as he was of superior education, he soon set about maintaining himself by teaching school. As time went on he enlarged his work and later he taught a goodly number of pupils in a building which stood near where the Green Knoll school now stands, about half way between Pluckemin and Somerville.
The late Dr. T. DeWitt Talmage was one of Mr. Hasting's pupils in that school. Living with his parents in the house now owned by Frederick Potts, on the Tal- mage road out of Somerville, until he was about fiftten, the doctor used to go across lots to the Hastings School. Dr. Talmage was born on a farm near Somerville, on the Pluckemin road. When he was about ten the family moved to and lived in the toll-gate house, on the old New Jersey turnpike from Easton to New Brunswick, where
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they kept the toll-gate. The boy, who afterwards rose to fame, used often to relieve his father by keeping the gate and taking the toll money.
For these and many other interesting facts I am in- debted to John A Powelson, a cousin of Dr. Talmage and a nephew of Francis Hastings. Mr. Powelson has a fine farm and a pleasant residence about a mile and a half out of Pluckemin on the Somerville road. Being intensely interested in the folklore of his native State, and of this section in particular, he desired some years ago to verify the statement as to Talmage and Hastings, and wrote the doctor asking if he remembered going to the Hastings school. To this a manuscript reply was received. It is said to be the last autograph letter that the doctor ever wrote. The missive is dated at Washington, April 10, 1901, and is addressed to "John A. Powelson, Esq." In it the doctor wrote:
"Your letter received concerning Mr. Francis Hast- ings. Yes, I remember Mr. Hastings as my teacher in the schoolhouse on the road between Pluckemin and Som- erville. It was then called Herod's school, a man by the name of Herod living near. I remember Mr. Hastings opened the school every morning with prayer, putting his foot on a chair and his elbow on his knee and his hand before his eyes, but often looking through his fingers while he prayed to see if any of us were behaving badly, so that he literally fulfilled the injunction, 'Watch and pray.'
"I am glad to know that he is being held in remem- brance, for he was a good man and faithful. Yours, T. DeWitt Talmage."
"Big Jim Quick," as he is called, one of Talmage's
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playmates and school-fellows, is now eighty years of age, and a resident of Somerville. "Big Jim" is six feet three inches in height and of proportionate build. He and De- Witt, as Talmage was called in those long ago days, at- tended the "Herod" school at the same time.
"He was a good boy, was DeWitt," Jim says, "but he was full of harmless mischief just like most other boys. He was a born leader, though, wherever he was."
It seems that old "Herod," who lived near the school and had a nice apple orchard, was a lame and crusty indi- vidual. It is broadly understood that this dangerous combination, coupled with a stout cane, such as lame men usually carry, probably impressed the cruel name of "Herod" upon many another boy's mind, as well as on that of the lad who, after rising to world-wide distinc- tion, so well remembered him.
The old man's name was not "Herod," however, any more that it was "Old Gooseberry," which the boys also called him. His real name was Herriot. But the nick- name "Herod," even in the great preacher's memory, seems to have outlived all others.
One night "big Jim" and his favorite playmate, De- Witt Talmage, were left alone at the former's home to amuse themselves, while David Talmage and Mr. Quick senior went to make a call. After many games and tricks, the irrepressible DeWitt inserted a lighted candle into his mouth and then dared Jim to do it. Not to be outdone, Jim grabbed the candle and did the same thing, intending to quickly withdraw it as DeWitt had done; but the latter, really with much greater force than he in- tended, struck Jim's hand and sent the blazing candle
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into his throat, quite severely burning his tonsils. That was one of the many Talmage stunts that old Somerville residents still talk about.
Another man who remembers Dr. Talmage's boyhood, though he was much younger than the doctor, is Van Nest Garretson. He well remembers a trip that DeWitt made with him and Mr. Garretson to North Branch in a wagon drawn by a team of oxen. The trip was made to get a load of wood. On the return journey the oxen be- came unmanageable and ran away. DeWitt and Van Nest were much alarmed, but the latter's father, who was quite calm, laughed at them.
"Never mind, boys!" he shouted. "We can ride as hard as they can run! Hold fast and let them go!"
At a turn in the road, however, the wagon was upset and they all went rolling into a ditch, but no one was injured.
When the Talmages kept the tollgate, the women folk sometimes took the money. One day when Mrs. Talmage was on duty, a Mr. Gaston came through. He happened to be carrying a cat in his wagon, intending to drop it somewhere to get rid of it. He was a droll man and ex- ceedingly fond of a joke, and so when Mrs. Talmage had politely opened the gate and reached out for the money, much to her horror, Gaston dropped his cat in her hand and drove off. Upon returning, however, he paid his proper dues and said the laugh he had had was good inter- est on the money. The old wooden cradle in which Dr. Talmage was rocked in his babyhood came into this Mr. Gaston's family and is still carefully preserved by them.
Francis Hastings, who so pathetically landed in this
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country, stripped by the merciless waves of all but life, had been given a liberal education before he left his native England. This was done in preparation for a high sta- tion which he was almost certain to succeed to, and it stood him in good stead in the profession he immediately . took up-that of teaching. After working at this calling for fourteen years he purchased a small farm in Bridge- water Township, on the Pluckemin road, and married Ann Powelson, who was a great-aunt to my informant, John A. Powelson. Hastings was a man of the deepest piety and never engaged in any undertaking without first seeking the Divine guidance in prayer. He was chosen one of the first elders of the Pluckemin Presbyterian Church.
There was an additional pathos added to the life of Francis Hastings in the fact that, through powerful oppo- sition and malfeasance brought to bear against his inter- ests in England, his legal heirship to titled revenues and valuable estates there was overridden and lost.
On the death of his uncle, the distinguished nobleman and soldier, Francis Hastings, Marquis of Hastings, Baron Rawdon, Earl of Huntingdon and Moira, etc., in the year 1825, William Hastings, brother of the deceased Francis and father of Francis Hastings, who taught school here, became the just and legal heir to the baronies of Hastings, comprising the earldoms of Huntingdon and Moira, but in consequence of the malversations then made use of he was deprived of his rights.
The claim stands recorded in the College of Heraldry in London and was prosecuted to the utmost of the heir's ability. It, however, failed, probably for lack of sufficient
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funds to set in motion the very cumbrous legal machinery necessary to be moved in his behalf. There were many personal letters on the subject from Lord Lyon, and all of them went to show the validity of Mr. Hastings's just claim. These letters are still among Mr. Hastings's pa- pers, which are now in the possession of his grandchildren in the West.
After his father's death, Hastings made several visits from his American home to England in the hope of es- tablishing his rights as direct heir, but these trips were all in vain. His first trip over on this special quest was made in the well-known first leviathan steamship Great Eastern on her first return voyage from New York to England.
After the death of his wife in 1854 Mr. Hastings moved with his family to Fulton County, Ill., where his children and grandchildren still reside. He returned to this State and died in Jersey City about fifteen years ago at the age of ninety-seven years. His remains and those of his wife are buried in the Pluckemin Cemetery.
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"PRINCE" GEORGE OF SOMERSET.
PICTURESQUE CHARACTER WHO WAS WELL KNOWN IN PLUCKEMIN AND WHO FOUND A BRIDE IN UPPER NEW YORK.
In his time George Van Nest, or "Prince George," as he was commonly called, was unquestionably one of the most picturesque figures of Somerset County. Born in 1736 he was the son of Peter Van Nest, after whom Peter's Brook, near Pluckemin, was named. He was also a great-grandfather of the Rev. Dr. Talmadge. Peter's father, also named Peter, was the original, or pioneer, Van Nest in America. He emigrated to this country from the Netherlands in 1647 and lived in Brooklyn, N. Y.
Peter Van Nest, the second in America, was the first of the family in New Jersey. He owned a large tract of fertile land along the north branch of the Raritan River, between the village of North Branch and Somerville, and in time his estate was portioned off among his sons, whom he left all well to do.
George, especially, lived so sumptuously, dispensed such a royal hospitality and moved at all times with so much pomp and dignity, that nothing short of the title of prince seemed to fit him. Naturally, it rose to people's lips in speaking of him. When he went out driving, one of his many slaves in high hat and stiff "choker," held the reins; another in equally correct garb sat by the driver with folded arms, bolt upright, ready at all times to get
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