The Courier-News from Bridgewater, New Jersey • Page 40

C-12 Saturday, May 21, 1988THE COURIER-NEWS 3 CENTURIES IN SOMERSET Immigrants' descendants uphold legacies begun by forefathers "If you're the one who gets there on Monday, then you're going to turn around and look down on the ones who arrive on Tuesday." Donald Esposito president, Somerset County Cultural and Heritage Commission HILLSBOROUGH NAMED: For Lord Hillsborough, secretary of state for the colonies in 1771. SETTLEDlBy the Dutch. FAMILIES: Sonmans, Beek-man, Royce, DuMont, Vroom. HISTORIC SITES: Neshanic Reformed Church, Am-well Road; Vroom birthplace, South Branch River Road; Gen. Frelinghuysen's Grave; The Duke Estate; Cattail Brook Bridge, Montgomery Road; Huff House and Farmstead, River Road; South Branch Historic District, River Road; Neshanic Mills Histric District, Amwell Road; Clover Hill Historic District, Amwell Road.

NOTES: The tract that became Hillsborough originally included Millstone, Manville and Montgomery. can parents and arrived in Manville in 1967. She figures she has the best of both worlds a Polish lifestyle with an American standard of living. Most important, she says, "I am living in a free country. It's a different life than in a country under Communist rule." Poplawski estimates that 85 percent to 90 percent of Manville's residents are of Polish descent.

"In the past 10 to 15 years, we have had quite a few newcomers from Poland. Somehow they ended up here. They have friends or family here and one person comes over and tries to bring out more," Poplawski said. Although not significant for their size, other settlements in Somerset County are nevertheless noteworthy for their homogeneity. One of them is a hamlet near Griggstown.

In 1925, Norwegians from Brooklyn began settling a 50-acre tract near Griggstown Canal that they called Norseville. Hjordis Mortensen's father was one of a handful of lay preachers from the Norwegian Seaman's Church in Brooklyn who bought acreage for summer cottages. "To be fair, they put numbers for each of the 50 acres in a hat and then you picked your number and that was your land," Mortensen recalled. In the early years, Norwegian families only spent summers there to escape the heat of New York City. It was only after World War II that the area became a permanent colony to accommodate returning Norwegian-American GIs and their families who badly needed housing.

Mortensen said people in the community try to keep Norwegian customs alive, especially for their Hillsboro: Oldest settlement in county? Tf- Although Hillsborough wasn't chartered until 1771, it may arguably I be the oldest settled area in Somerset i'- County: Archaeological surveys show that man has been there for the past n. 10,000 years. Artifacts found here, such as Clo-oi vis-type spear points, indicate that man settled in the Hillsborough area -t least 10,000 or 12,000 years ago, when the mammoth and mastodon 4, still roamed the land. Artifacts of all archaeological periods are present, indicating continuous occupation. Records of the Proprietors and vt Reed's map of 1685 show that large tracts of land were patented to shareholders at an early date.

In 1676, William Penn bought West Jersey, including Neshanic and South Branch. In 1710 a large interior tract, known as the "Harlingen Tract," was sold to Dutch investors by Peter Son-mans. A parcel was set aside for a but was not used until ter the Harlingen Church was organized in 1727. Grist mills were one of the earliest "industries. Records of mills in the Neshanic area go back to 1692.

As 'early as 1746, a mill operated on the Millstone River. Most of the main roads in Hillsbor- ough are those that early settlers laid out. A few have been abandoned or altered, but the basic network re- mains nearly original. The records of Hillsborough Township in Somerset County are complete from their inception in 1746 to the present. There are 10 volumes, each "of several hundred pages; they are -now kept in the rare-book section of Rutgers University Library.

The Dutch Reformed Church at was organized in 1752. It is the oldest church in the state that has JTbeen continuously in use in its origins nal building. The first public allowance for education was made in 1825. Until that time, education had been entirely at the expense of the parents of the "scholars. By 1825 the township was becoming prosperous, houses were enlarged in the Federal style and new homes built.

Many are now preserved in the nationally recognized historic areas of Hillsborough. By BARBARA BOWERS Courier-News Staff Writer Abram Suydam Jr. looks out his window at a field of timothy and sees his family's past and its future. Ever since his Dutch ancestors arrived in Somerset County in 1713, Suydams have been farming in Franklin. The clan's 300-acre-farm lies on both sides of Skillman Lane and fronts on Route 27.

The Suydams were part of the first wave of immigrants who came to Somerset County. Like the Scotch-Irish who settled to the north in Bernards and Bridgewater, the Dutch came to Somerset County to work its fertile land. Only a few years after the 1688 charter of Somerset County, Dutch farmers from Kingston, N.Y., began moving into the lands south of the Raritan River. They settled primarily in Montgomery, Franklin, Hillsborough and parts of Branchburg. In 1701, a Dutch company on Long Island bought 10,000 acres in Central Jersey.

The purchase paved the way for Dutch families from Gravesend, L.I., to journey to New Brunswick, then follow the Millstone River to the new settlements. Suydam says his ancestors left Flatbush, Brooklyn after word spread in the Dutch community there that good, reasonably priced land was available in Somerset County. "It's hard to believe that Flatbush could be crowded in 1713 but that's what they thought. They wanted more elbow room," Suydam said. He believes the Suydams fled their homeland following the Spanish defeat of the Dutch in the early 1600s.

"Afterward, the Spanish were going to send some folks up to Holland to straighten things out. Since my ancestors were Dutch army officers, they decided to gather up their families and put out to sea," Suydam said. The only full-time farmer in the Suydam family today is Abram's son, Ryck. The rest of the family pitches The word soon spread that they could maintain their value system and their culture in Raritan." While the Dutch settlers lived harmoniously with the Irish, there was friction between the Irish and the Italian newcomers, Esposito said. "This is often the case.

If you're the one who gets there on Monday, then you're going to turn around and look down on the ones who arrive on Tuesday," he said. Each wave of immigrants to Raritan founded its own church. There was the Dutch Reformed Church, followed by St. Bernards Roman Catholic Church for the Irish, St. Joseph's Church for the Slovaks, and St.

Anne's Church for the Italians. The Irish gradually moved out of Raritan after finding better jobs elsewhere, Esposito said. The Slovaks also pulled up stakes, many of them moving south to be nearer their jobs at the Johns-Man-ville plant in Manville. Opened in 1912, Johns-Manville became the largest producer of asbestos products in the world. It also drew many recently arrived Europeans from New England mills and Pennsylvania mines.

One of the now-defunct plant's legacies is the predominantly Polish population of Manville. Manville resident Elizabeth Po-plawski was born in Poland to Ameri Numerous historical events affecting the township, the state and the fledgling colonies have occurred in Hillsborough. Among the highlights: 1758 A treaty is made granting Indians hunting rights on lands "south of the Raritan." 1776 The Somerset Committee of Correspondence meets in Hillsborough to encourage trade, commerce and manufacturing, with the Honorable John Witherspoon presiding. 1778 The Colonial Council of Safety convenes in Hillsborough to decide the fate of Loyalists. 1779 The new Supreme Court meets in Hillsborough to consider the right and proper role of the legal branch: the judiciary has the right to pronounce upon the constitutionality of the laws." 1829 Peter D.

Vroom, a township resident, becomes governor. He served until 1832, and again from 1833 until 1836. He lived at South Branch and is buried there. Aug. 25, 1863 Hillsborough passes a resolution paying $300 to each man drafted into military service.

Hillsborough's quota was 47 men. The first Township Committee, chosen in 1776, consisted of nine members. The number was later reduced to three. In November 1961, by referendum, the number of committeemen was increased to five. in to help during the busiest months of June and July.

The elder Suydam vows never to sell the farm a rarity in Franklin, where the fastest-growing crop is housing. Although his grandson, Matthew, is only 14 months old, Suydam is determined that he, too, will have a stake in farming if he chooses. Around the time the Suydams settled in Franklin, other Dutch families were moving into what was to become Raritan Borough, where the land was fertile and the Indians agreeable. But little more than a century later, in 1840, their peaceful village changed forever. Vast numbers of Irish, Slavs and Asians, began arriving to help dig the Raritan Water Power Canal between Duke Island and the village.

Three decades later, Italian workers and their families began taking up residency. What was only a trickle of Italian immigrants in the 1870s turned into a steady flow by the turn of the century. In 1908, construction of the Beaux Arts Somerset County Courthouse in Somerville brought demands for Italian masons and stone workers. One of the stonemasons who found work in Somerville was the grandfather of Donald Esposito, president of the Somerset County Cultural and Heritage Commission. Esposito explained how the Italian community there took root: "Ten or 20 would come over and settle on one block.

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