By: John Fabiano
Allentown, N.J. its Rise and Progress (Part 48)
Charles R. Hutchinson located Isaac Stelle’s tavern near Peppler’s where Upper Freehold was formed in 1730/31a foundation wall of its westerly neighbor is said to be extant.
About the year 1830, that part of Allentown on the westerly side of the bridge contained not more than a dozen houses. On the northerly side of West Main Street, at the junction of the Yardville road [142 S. Main], George Ford had built the house now [1914] occupied by Josiah S. Robbins, and he was still there in 1860. He was a carpenter, and his shop stood to the easterly corner of his premises. About where Mrs. Mary Pumyea now lives [114 S. Main St.] was an old unpainted house and outbuildings occupied by James Davision as a tavern, and which I believe to have been the first settlement on the 300 acres patented to Anthony Woodward in 1697, where lived successively John Page, John Dewildy, John Leming, Isaac Stelle, Elias Smith and others. These buildings remained until Aaron Robbins built the present house about 1850, and it was then known as the "David Holloway property." East of this, about where the late Nathaniel R. Sinclair built a bungalow now in the possession of John Shaffer [108 S. Main], was another old house, of which I can give no definite account. Then came what was formerly know as the Peter Vanderbeek property [104 S. Main], the same where Walter Vanskyver once lived, and which, in 1830, was occupied by Samuel Bunting, "constable." Peter Vanderbeek lived there many years, and his shoemaker’s shop stood on the street, in front of the house which his son, the late George H. Vanderbeek, built on the westerly part of the premises, and which is now owned by Harrison G. Wright. The easterly part, on which is the Peter Vanderbeek dwelling, is now owned by Emerson Yard [102 S. Main]. Next easterly, on the premises now Dr. H.P. Johnson, lived Garret P. Wikoff, the uncle and father in law of Garret R. Wikoff who also afterward lived there a number of years as did Forman Hendrickson, Daniel Barcalow, Wilson Miller, and his daughter Sarah A. Darnell, who recently sold it to Dr. Johnson [98 S. Main]. The small house belonging to D.B. and F.E. Idell, in which George A. West now lives, was occupied in 1830 by one Thomas Robbins [92 S. Main, rear]. At the foot of the hill, in front of the Creamery [76 S. Main], was a house occupied by Robert Parent, whose daughter Lucy married George C. Meyer. In 1860, Christian Houseman lived in the easterly part of this house and Isaac Stanhope, his stepson in the westerly part. The present double house owned by John W. Burtis is the same building [70-72 S. Main]. This comprises all the houses existing in 1830 on the northerly side of the street, from the Yardville Road to the bridge. On the southerly side of the street, nearly opposite the Peter Vanderbeek property, was a house in which lived Elijah P. (Phares) Terry, a shoemaker. That was the only house on that side of the street west of High Street, excepting that on the corner, where Elias B. Rogers lives [1 High], was an old house which, in 1860, was owned by Dr. William A. Newell and occupied by "Aunty" Allen. Beyond this, on the westerly side of High Street, were two houses, the first being that of John McCabe, a weaver, now owned by Benjamin F. Rogers [5 High], and the other, occupied by William I. Brown, schoolmaster and justice of the peace, now in the possession of David Mount [19 High]. The house at the easterly corner of [81 S.] Main and High Streets, which was formerly for many years the residence of Dr. William A. Newell, and is now owned by Sarah V. Satterthwait, was occupied by Hetty Imlay, the widow of George W. and Burnet Montgomery or his daughter. Sarah Rogers lived where William Lawrence’s house once stood [73 S. Main], at the foot of the hill, now owned by heirs of Augustus R. Cafferty, deceased. The Rogers family was there in 1845.
On the easterly side of the bridge and northerly side of Main Street, about where is the easterly end of the present grist mill, was the house which had once been the old fulling mill. My grandfather commenced housekeeping in this house and my mother was born there in 1812. It is now a double house at the westerly side of the bridge hole, and is probably the oldest building in the borough. In this house, in 1830, lived William Bruere, blacksmith, and his shop stood opposite, on the easterly bank of the bridge hole. Elisha Robbins later occupied both house and shop until the building of the brick mill, when they were removed [1855]. The grist mill was on the easterly side of the old raceway, a little northeast of the present mill, and the sawmill was at its westerly end. The brick house in the rear, built by Aaron Steward, was occupied in 1830 by his son Lewis [38 S. Main]. Letitia Steward, the widow of Aaron, lived in the old Davenport house, a landmark in the early deeds for the mill property, and which was removed in 1862, when John C. Vanderbeek erected on its site the dwelling now owned and occupied by Evans R. Ford [36 S. Main]. In 1858 it was occupied, the easterly end by Mrs. Elizabeth Gulick and the westerly end by Charles Taylor, carpenter. This too was one of the very oldest buildings in the village, and it still exists in two parcels, in other loca[tions]. One of these is the dwelling now owned by Mrs. Matilda S. Lutes, on the westerly side of Church Street, and the other is contained in the residence of James H. Gordon, on the southerly side of upper Main Street. David McKean Jr. lived in this house, in its original location, at the time of his tragic death in 1837. Next to it, where John C. Vanderbeek built a little later the present dwelling of Henry A. Ford, was a building in which Stout & Fisk had a general store [34 S. Main]. In 1855 this was unoccupied except as private boozing quarters by Richard M. Stout [town’s richest citizen], to whom it belonged. Then came the dwelling of the Misses Robbins, unmarried daughters of Vanroom, the last of whom, Sarah, died January 15, 1863. Miss Lydia Ford, a niece, lived with them, and carried on a millinery there for many years. In 1872 this house was gone, and John C. Vanderbeek had erected there the building now owned by Mr’s Caroline T. Worden, which he occupied as a store and dwelling [30 S. Main]. Next to this was the Imlay mansion, now in the possession of Miss M.E. Gordon, and then the Moses Robins house, occupied from 1813 to 1863 by Joseph Robbins, tailor, (now gone). In the brick house occupied now by the Misses Newell in 1830, Nathaniel Britton lived and kept a drug and hardware store; and the brick store was occupied by McKean & Newell. Where the Baptist Church now is was the old Newell house, then still occupied by some of the members of that family. It passed into the hands of John Palmer, whose son, Aaron S. Palmer, lived there about 1858-60, then Samuel C. Davis, and then Jacob Waker, its last owner and occupant. On the adjoining lot, extending to Church Street was the Perseverance Fire Engine House, and in front of it in the street, the public hay scales, both of which remained until about 1862, when William Bunting built the house now owned by Edward H. Hendrickson and occupied by George A. Longshore [Post Office]. Between there and the corner was an old frame building which in 1830 was occupied by William Imlay, Esq. as a drug and hardware store and post office, and which was subsequently at different times a school room, tin shop, oyster saloon, general store and shoemaker’s shop. It is now a stable on the Hendrickson property adjoining, and its former site is occupied by the store building erected by Miller Coward and Charles R. Hutchinson [Sr.] in 1863, now occupied by a second Miller Coward, a nephew of the former. It narrowly [missed] destruction in 1844, when Stout’s store, on the corner, where Spaulding’s store now is, was burned, as the charred boards on its easterly side always therafter testified, but was saved by old Perseverance Fire Engine. With these exceptions, the lot, from the Newell property to Church Street, and down that street to the northerly line of the lot [26, a public driveway] on which the Grange Hall [stood], was vacant and enclosed in a board fence.
Historically Speaking is a regular column presented by John Fabiano, MA, designated historian for Allentown Borough.

