Replica tables at the Indian Queen Tavern are set with dishes typical of those that graced Colonial tables. On the northern banks of the Raritan River — just below Rutgers University’s High Point Solutions Stadium in Piscataway — lies an archaeological treasure trove that for decades has been allowing history buffs to peer back into central New Jersey’s past.
“There was an entire Colonial community there that disappeared, with the exception of a few buildings,” said Mark Nonestied, director of exhibits and public programs for the Middlesex County Cultural and Heritage Commission.
“Most of it is gone, except for what was discovered archaeologically.”
Archaeologists began digging in 1978 after the state Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration and Middlesex County agreed to extend a portion of Route 18 just above the site.
Nonestied said work on the project unearthed hundreds of thousands of artifacts, each piece painting a clearer picture of what life in 18th-century New Jersey might have been like.
The Colonial community, which ran along the length of present-day River Road near its intersection with Route 18, was known as Raritan Landing, he said.
It was a busy trading hub that saw its heyday in the 1700s, but began to peter out by the middle 1800s when New Brunswick — at the time a burgeoning port city less than a quarter-mile to the southeast — started to grow into the attractive locale it has become today.
But where cities like New Brunswick demolished and replaced their Colonial-era construction, erasing a large portion of the historical record, the foundations of Raritan Landing’s centuries-old buildings and many of their contents remained preserved just below ground level. The artifacts, along with several buildings salvaged from across the county that date from 1740 to 1850, have been preserved for the public at East Jersey Olde Towne, a small community off River Road in Piscataway that mirrors the character of the original Raritan Landing.
The opening of “Raritan Landing — Uncovering a Forgotten Past” coincides with New Jersey’s 350th anniversary celebration. The town was reconstructed using archaeological data, artifacts and written documents from the era, Nonestied said. “It’s a good 100-year snapshot of central New Jersey from the middle 1700s to middle 1800s,” he added. “Some of the buildings here are farmhouses and schoolhouses, but others, like the tavern, would be found in an urban setting — in places like New Brunswick or Perth Amboy that had more industry and commerce.
For that reason, the Olde Towne draws dozens of local students each year.
“It helps ground them in their lives today. This is really history out of their own backyards,” Nonestied said.
And that history is anything but bland, he added, especially for hundreds of students who arrive at the Olde Towne each year from New Brunswick.
One of the Olde Towne’s most recent additions — the Indian Queen Tavern — was built in New Brunswick in the early 1700s and has roots that reach back to one of the nation’s most renowned figures.
“In December 1783, George Washington partied at the tavern. We don’t know if he spent the night, but we know that he was in there with a large number of people from New Brunswick, according to the newspapers at the time. He was there for a celebration because the Revolutionary War had just ended,” Nonestied said.
While it’s hard to say whether Washington traveled as far as Raritan Landing — only a short distance upstream and across the river — archaeologists were able to piece together evidence on the local celebrities who called the port town home.
One of the few extant buildings near the Olde Towne is the former residence of Cornelius Low, a prominent merchant who made Raritan Landing the headquarters of his trading empire, Nonestied said.
“He had offices in New York City, extensive family connections and relatives in Newark that were all within the merchant business,” he said.
Low was able to derive substantial wealth from the mercantile ships traveling up and down the Raritan.
“You have sailboats that are coming up the Raritan River laden with all kinds of goods, and they’re being offloaded and loaded up again with a lot of farm produce that’s grown in the region. That produce is then shipped out to the markets,” Nonestied said.
Many of the artifacts found buried underground at Raritan Landing are products of the worldwide trading market of the 1700s and 1800s, he said.
“You could be living on a farm in Piscataway in the 1750s and have Chinese porcelain on your table,” Nonestied said, gesturing toward authentic Chinese porcelain teacups and saucers excavated from the ground and displayed in one of the Olde Towne’s exhibits.
“You had the latest fashions, the latest news and the latest trends. I don’t think many people realize that — it wasn’t entirely isolated. The whole reason for its existence is because of its connection to the port.”
Its connection to the port was also one of the reasons Raritan Landing was occupied by British forces during the Revolutionary War.
The jacket buttons, shoe buckles, rusty bayonets, musket balls and muttonchops that littered the encampments are now preserved in the Olde Towne’s Revolutionary War room, where a British soldier — complete with replica redcoat, shoulder straps, cartridge bucket and stockings stands — waiting to greet those who enter.
Raritan Landing has certainly changed since the days when it was a bustling port town flanked by farmland and an important commercial river.
“You drive by today and you don’t really get a sense that it ever existed, but it was such a significant community with people and goods being brought in and out for more than a hundred years,” Nonestied said.
East Jersey Olde Towne is a permanent exhibit located at 1050 River Road in Piscataway. It is a project of the Middlesex County Cultural and Heritage Commission and the Middlesex County Board of Chosen Freeholders. Funding is provided in part by the New Jersey Historical Commission and the Federal Highway Administration.
East Jersey Olde Towne is open without charge 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday to Friday and 1-4 p.m. Sunday. Guided tours will be available at 1:30 p.m. on those days.