‘We could have stepped into a Constable painting, lacking only the cow in the water.’
By Carolyn Foote Edelmann Special Writer
Every day is a history festival at Walnford mill and village, just east of Allentown, in Monmouth County. To walk through Walnford’s expansive grounds is to inhabit other centuries.
Walnford was established in the 1770s by a very successful Quaker merchant by name of Richard Waln. The manor, mill and outbuildings have been impeccably restored. Edward and Joanne Mullen — owners of Fairwinds Farm, a thoroughbred breeding center — saw to it that this agrarian treasure was named to the New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places before donating the site to Monmouth County in 1985.
Walnford’s most startling feature is the color of its gristmill, called “haint blue” in the American South. Across the water, whence the practice came, residents of Devon, Cornwall and Brittany still choose this shade to repel evil spirits. The paint choice was no designer whim. It exactly matches a still visible periwinkle swipe on an upper mill wall where a mid-19th century painter cleaned his brush. He was completing the 1873 replacement of the previous grist mill, which had burned.
Walnford’s stately home reminds visitors what “mansion” really means. One is welcome to use a rocking chair upon its broad front porch to watch the currents along the shimmering water of Crosswicks Creek, which once connected Walnford to Bordentown’s tidal Delaware, then Philadelphia and the world. The creek now winks sleepily beyond the mansion’s rippled original windowpanes. No structural changes have been made since the 1700s, except to add heat, light and plumbing.
This jewel in the crown of the Monmouth County Park system charges neither admission nor a parking fee. The simplest route is 539 east of Allentown, then right on Walnford Road. Site interpreters are on duty each day from 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. On weekends, the blue mill still grinds corn.
Walnford has been preserved through state and county farmland preservation programs. Timelessness is the order of the day, partly due to its setting within the 1,098-acre Crosswicks Creek Park. Ironically, Crosswicks Creek itself ended two centuries of water-borne commerce and the use of the mill. In the late 19th century, severe silting gradually hampered, then stopped navigation and mill wheels throughout inland New Jersey.
Walnford is impeccably tended, excluding disorder, dust and rust. The ice house and smoke house are clean as a whistle. The potting shed looks utilized. A generous photographic record illustrates the site’s history in a building to the north of the corncrib. The former dairy barn is used for teaching. Numerous picnic tables await visitors under towering trees.
The gravel apron before Walnford’s 1879 carriage house is raked to zen-garden standards. Inside, shadows gradually reveal a commanding carriage, drawn even in early days by the region’s highest stepping steeds. Horses of differing spirits were chosen for different excursions. Horsewoman Sarah Waln’s 19th-century journal reads: “A fine ride – The $1000 horse, Empire, — fastest trotter and one of the gayest horses that has been in Freehold this winter.”
Behind an imposing sled, draped with a thick and vivid carriage robe, rests a gleaming sidesaddle, with a pommel polished by the sure hand of Sarah in her hurtling rides. Tack hanging on paddock partitions is burnished and elaborately tooled, marrying beauty and practicality, as has Walnford itself since its founding.
The handsome Quaker-built manor, begun in 1773, remained in the Waln family for five generations — more than 250 years. Grace and balance prevail in rooms retaining their original floor plans and floor boards. Honeyed random- width pine is downcurved with wear in front of each fireplace, evoking centuries of foot traffic bearing logs. Square, dark hand-made bricks may have been shipped to Walnford from the Trenton Marsh, not far away, also at the hem of Crosswicks Creek. Gleaming iron firebacks reveal German mottoes, reminding visitors that the founding Walns were loyal to the Crown and proud of Hessian soldiers, who are also honored in striding andirons.
Monmouth County’s largest home at the time of the Revolution, Walnford had been built as the country retreat. Richard Waln soon used his rural property as a production source. Flour ground at the mill, feed grown in far-reaching fields, cloth spun from the wool of Walnford flocks, and pork in the form of smoked hams and bacon, traveled to the Bordentown confluence of the Crosswicks and Delaware. These vital stores were then shipped to the family wharf in Philadelphia and on to Spain, Portugal and the Caribbean.
As a Quaker, Richard Waln took no part in the slave trade, being one of the first to speak out against its evils. When the Colonies rose in rebellion against George III, Richard’s loyalty to the Crown impelled the family to cross the Atlantic, far from the mill village which would ultimately employ and house 50 people. Some conclude that their 1770s move up-creek was triggered by Richard’s determination to remove his wife and six children from Philadelphia, hotbed of revolutionary fervor; Tom Paine was writing incendiary pamphlets in nearby Bordentown.
The manor’s broad front hall was planned for commerce. Guests who passed muster might have been invited to tea in the front parlor. The honored few would have been guests in generous bedrooms, to which visitors are now guided up a staircase made for lordly descents. Portraits of Waln matriarchs and patriarchs grace the gray- white walls. All china and porcelain on display was actually used by the family. The stately original wallpaper has been matched and installed.
After the war, Richard’s son, Nicholas, would purchase five nearby farms, increasing the family’s landholdings to more than 1,300 acres. In the 1800s, lumber would come to Wanlford’s new sawmill. Soon, however, changes in milling and farming practices would bring hard times to the village. Sarah Waln and her daughter, Sarah Waln Hendrickson, could crisply manage the family homestead, but neither could reverse Walnford’s declining fortunes. Childless following her husband’s death after only 17 months of marriage, Sarah was a woman of prodigious energy, but she couldn’t turn the economic tide.
In a controversial bequest reminiscent of that of certain local families in the 20th century, Sarah left Walnford to farm manager John Wilson in lieu of unpaid wages. Richard Waln Meirs and his wife, Anne, then purchased the family farm from John Wilson, who remained working on the estate until 1915 or so. Nowhere in Walnford literature is it mentioned that John Wilson was black.
At Walnford, except for corn-grinding demonstrations, silence, not commerce, now reigns. The mill presides with queenliness above its gentle mill race. Cricket songs vie with kingfisher rattle. The creek whispers beyond its scrim of flag leaves and fall asters. We could have stepped into a Constable painting, lacking only the cow in the water.
Every weekend the blue mill springs to life, filling the air with thunderous sound and the mill’s cavernous spaces with golden cornmeal dust. “Historic Walnford” cornmeal, available for $1 per bag, sports a handsome mill wheel icon. The honor system serves as cashier. As we purchased ours, the almost forgotten sound of a sudden rain thudded along the mill roof and splashed along rigorously swept floors.
“Historic Walnford Day” has come and gone, without my participation, due to a scheduled Pine Barrens hike. So I missed flute and harpsichord duets in the front parlor, horse and wagon rides on the manicured grounds, and, especially, the shake, rattle and roll of the gristmill in full operation. Re-enactments are frequent at Walnford, however, so these opportunities are not irrevocably lost.
Historic Walnford Mill and Village is located at 78 Walnford Road, Allentown, 609-259-6275. On the Web: www.monmouthcountyparks.co m/parks/walnford.asp.
Nearby attractions
Guests are welcome at a B&B of irresistible name, mood and setting — Peace Fields Inn. Formerly the Nicholas Waln Jr., house, the building has been restored by innkeepers, Bill and Cathy, who cut their hospitality teeth at the Shore. They are gold mines of information about memorable sites in the area, such as that larger old mill town, Allentown, prize-winning wineries and legendary horse farms. Quiet and authentically rural, Peace Fields Inn introduces its patrons to a world still ruled by seasons, crops and currents. Peace Fields Inn, 84 Walnford Road, Allentown, 609-259-3774.
Unfortunately, Allentown’s more famous restaurants have seen better days. A fine place before or after visiting Walnford is La Piazza, located at 11 Church St. With a capacious parking lot, La Piazza lures customers with wood-fired pizzas of imaginative combinations, a broad range of more complex meals, and a generous array of smiling, actually helpful “help.” 609-208-0640.

