f00157011f6b3e13823bae36885e965a.jpg

CRANBURY: Book on Cranbury history to hit shelves in April

David Kilby, Managing Editor
David KilbyManaging Editor
   CRANBURY — A local professor of history has used his expertise to demonstrate the significance of Cranbury because he believes the Colonial-era town is well worth a book.
   John Chambers, of Bunker Hill Road, is a professor of history and a former chairman of history at Rutgers University. He has lived in Cranbury since 1976.
   His book, “Cranbury: A New Jersey Town from the Colonial Era to Present,” will be available in April through the Cranbury Historic and Preservation Society.
   The Women’s Club of Cranbury hosted a presentation by Mr. Chambers on his book in the First Presbyterian Church of Cranbury on Feb. 1. A few dozen people showed up.
   He said his book, which will be published by Rutgers University Press, like Cranbury, has a long history itself — or at least for a book it does.
   The book was conceived and has been continually supported by William Bunting and other members of Cranbury Landmarks Inc., a preservationist organization that saved the historic old Cranbury School building.
   The organization later joined with the Cranbury Historical and Preservation Society in obtaining state and national recognition of Cranbury Village as an historic district. More recently, the society has preserved farmland in the western part of the township, such as the Reinhardt properties.
   Local historians and artists also helped with the book, such as Audrey Smith, Betty Wagner, Clara Amend, Ginny Swanagan and Nadine Berkowsky.
   Mr. Chambers has gone to a number of archives, such as the New Jersey State Archives in Trenton and Princeton Theological Seminary archives, to research for the book and try to reconstruct the past, then try to explain and interpret it, he said.
   In the archives in Trenton, he found an old black leather-bound handwritten document he discovered to be the record of the deed establishing Cranbury. The record was dated March 1, 1698. He said there were structures on the site dating back to at least the autumn of 1697, and the deed was written to acknowledge the establishment and transfer ownership.
   The deed says Josiah Pricket from Burlington sold the land between Cranberry Brook and Millstone Brook and existing improvements to John Harrison from Long Island for 25 pounds English sterling. This is the first recorded settlement of European settlers in Cranbury. But Lenape Indians already were there.
   Mr. Harrison later showed interest in building an inn for travelers from New Brunswick, Perth Amboy and New Brunswick, but before he built the Inn, he bought the land from Lenape Indian chiefs Hughon and Lumoseecon for 16 coats, 10 gallons of rum, four white blankets. four kettles, four guns, seven pounds of money, 10 shirts, eight pairs of stockings, 10 pounds of powder, 10 bars of lead for musket balls, eight Indian hatchets, 16 knives, 40 clay tobacco pipes, 10 pounds of tobacco and four bottles.
   Mr. Harrison never built the inn, but it was built soon after by George Rescarrick, who bought the land for “60 pounds current money in New York.”
   About a generation later, it is believed Benjamin Franklin made his way through Cranbury and stopped at the inn. After leaving Boston in his teen years, he came to New York City, but found no jobs there.
   Since he had very little money, he decided to walk across New Jersey, according to his autobiography.
   Oct. 3, 1723, at 17, Mr. Franklin noted in his journal that he set off from South Amboy on a very rainy day. He wrote he stepped into a poor inn, wishing he had never left home. There was suspicion he was an indentured servant. Historians believe the inn he mentioned was Rescarrick’s inn.
   Mr. Franklin is just one of many historic figures connected to Cranbury that Mr. Chambers uncovered more about for his book.
   ”One of my most exciting people I uncovered in my research was Hannah Garrison, a dynamic woman activist in late 19th-century Cranbury,” he said. “But she had disappeared from Cranbury’s history until I tracked down information about her in half a dozen widely scattered sources.”
   Ms. Garrison was the founder of the Women’s Club of Cranbury and many other women’s groups in the area. Originally from New Brunswick, she was born in 1844, the daughter of Charles Garrison, who was the minister of the new Methodist Church in Cranbury.
   ”People outside of Cranbury may ask ‘Is Cranbury really worth a book?’” Mr. Chambers said at the presentation. “Of course it is. Not only is it one of the oldest towns in New Jersey, it remains one of the best architecturally preserved 19th-century villages in the state. Although it remains unique in many ways, it is a microcosm of major trends in the history of New Jersey and in America.”
   In the book, he explains how Cranbury was part of the locomotive revolution. Starting in the 1830s, the John Bull locomotive from England, the first steam locomotive, came through Cranbury Station just a mile outside of Cranbury.
   He also demonstrates how the town was an agricultural community from the beginning while explaining the history of the Gristmiller House, built in 1737. He also tells of how Cranbury’s peaches, tomatoes, potatoes and other crops contributed greatly to the markets in New York City and Philadelphia, especially the Campbell’s factory in Camden when it came to tomatoes.
   He also tells stories demonstrating Cranbury’s contribution to the Civil War, such as with the story of the Stults cousins, Marcus and Symmes, two young cousins who were completely different in character, but achieved high ranks in the war and died in their early 20s.
   He said history textbooks generalize trends of the times they cover, but his book puts those trends into context and explains how they affected everyday lives, people and towns like Cranbury.
   ”Cranbury offers a model for preservation, planning and citizen activism,” he added. “Despite suburbanization that enveloped surrounding communities, Cranbury has been able to maintain its historic village and a good part of adjoining farmland.
   He added, “This was done through the concerted efforts of its individual citizens, voluntary organizations and government supporting historic preservation of the village and farmland. This made Cranbury unique.”
   He said Cranbury residents have successfully kept out a garbage dump and incinerator, a truck stop for 40 tractor-trailers and an elevated highway that would have cut through Stults farm.
   He said, “Its history offers a message of hope from a small town with a great spirit — ‘the little town that could — and did.’ It is a gift to the present from the past. And that is why Cranbury undeniably really deserves a book.”