barkers mill road,mill pictures
was wondering if any body had any pictures of the old mill that is on barkers mill road.i believe it was also called gibbs mill.i believe it is about 200 years old.any information ?
mel I would try google starting with
- Independence NJ History
- Vienna NJ History
etc.
Might get lucky.
What's your interest in this vs. other area historical hot spots?
strangerdanger 
Bug3
Frank Dale wrote a bunch of 30-40 page small paperbacks about various places in Warren County, rich with pictures and historical information. I luckily was able to meet him before he passed at age 91.
https://www.insidewarren.com/late-county-historians-work-part-of-county-history/
I purchased some of the books that I found to my interest, and I happen to own this autographed copy, which contains one picture of Barkers Mill from long long ago.
The Rhyme Animal 
Here is the pic of Barkers Mill from the above mentioned book. I know many of these Frank Dale works used to be available in the Warren County Library.
mel
There are (or were) actually 3 Mills in close proximity on the same stream according to the Independence Twp. section of my copy of Snell's History of Warren County. (page 741) which you can probably find on google books if you wish to read it directly. It says the Barker Mill was one of two grist mills in the Twp., though it doesn't state who built it. It was believed to have been built about 1815 and was owned by Charles Barker. At the time the book was written (1881) it was said that the mill was in good repair. Nearby, and downstream from there were two other mills an old feed and plaster mill and a saw mill, both built by William W. Wilson in the 1820's
Sorry but I couldn't find any pictures in there, nor in my copy of "Historical Sites of Warren County". The Independence Twp. section doesn't even mention it in HSoWC.
Your' best bet locally is either to check the Hackettstown Free Public Library's local history collection or the Hackettstown Historical Society. Local Historian Ray Lemasters is at the Society on Wednesdays, from either 12 or 2 until 4 He's the man to see!
If you want a place with more accessible hours, then check the HFPL's local and NJ history section. Take the stairs up from the main floor and make a left at the top of the stairs. Most of that left wall is local and NJ History with Township specific histories, etc.!
I wouldn't waste my time at the Warren County Branch on 46 as their collection of local history is almost shameful in its absence. I mean, they MAY have something, but if you check it out you'll see what I mean. They're great folks there, but they have little to offer in that area. I've gone to the Warren County Main Branch to do research before and I'd say there and the Warren County Historical Society may be your last resorts if you can't find anything locally.
PS I type slowly, so I missed The Rhyme Animal's posts while I typed. Thanks for that! If you're looking for more info on it, I think reprints of those books are also in the HFPL collection.
Phil D. The branch in belvidere has the warren county history books....you have to order them in independence
thanks for all the info.the only mill I see these days is the one that's about 1/4 south of Johnson road and barkers mill.there is still a bit of a old building.if you look above the building and to the right there seems to be a large pipe that goes to a one time old holding pond on barkers mill.
mel
Here's a link to a map in the Princeton online collection that shows Charles Barker's house, just across the road and up a bit from his mill. You can also see where the "S"aw Mill is Clicking on the map enlarges it (as does using a scroll wheel)and you can click and hold to move from place to place too.
Many interesting sites on here, especially "Mammoth Pond" and the fact that the triangle formed by the railroad, the canal and High Street (aka M&M property) are an area shown as "Large Quantities of Mammoth Bones found here", also "S.C. Larrison Cider Mill & Distillery" nearby.
https://library.princeton.edu/njmaps/counties/warren.html
Nice maps!
The first 1850's version has both mills, but under different names like Bulains (could be wrong, hard to read) Grist Mill and the other is Beatty and Fleury Mill. Barker is not to be found. Cummins are everywhere. Guess that's why they have the bicentennial home! Looks like tween that version and the one you're using, which I think is the 1871 Beer's, changed ownership and many more houses sprung up.
By 1871, there are Flemings and Cummins everywhere :>) Old hotel on the Pequest has not burned yet..... the foundry and tannery are there. Danville is a place, not just a mountain, named for Revolutionary hero Daniel Vliet, but by 1871, can't find the Vliet's anywhere. Today, Danville has morphed into Great Meadows further erasing Vliet's history in the area. Only his mountain remains. Townsbury is happening place back then, not anymore.....
Having walked most of the rivers n creeks around here, can't say I ever saw any remains of the saw mill. Above Townsbury, the creek is pretty steep, the mill must have really hung off the hill. Usually, in NJ, you can find remnants. Maybe a wood structure, like Barkers Mill, and maybe they carried off the foundation to make something else.
A Vienna Mastodon is still at Harvard I think. For fun, check out the history of the church on 46, across from the school complex. If memory serves, one of the original fathers was a mother and a bit of a controversy re: women's rights...….or something like that. Can't find it right now, but remembering smiling at that women, being ahead of her times, way out here near the mucklands.
One last question that I can never figure out: what was the name of the creek that fed these mills? Today we know it as Barker's Mill Creek, but given the timing of Mr. Baker ------ that just can't be right.....
One of the things I love about our area, and NJ, is the comings and goings of civilization. I think it's really cool that many, if not most, of our first settlers came up the Hudson to Kingston and then down to Port Jervis, down the river and then East to us!!! I just figured they walked West from the beach.... Or where's the town that supported the church on Mt. Bethel Road? Certainly didn't walk up Snyder Road each Sunday.... I think it's exciting to discover the why's n wherefore's in history. Or how about the English guy, taken prisoner in the Revolution, marching past a rock outcropping near Panther Valley, he decided to duck behind a rock and the rest kept marching. When caught, apparently we just accepted him into the community. So they say...…
Good luck finding more out about the mills.
phil d thank you that map is great.it pinpoints everything.do you know anything about the old hotel in great meadows .I believe it was called reeds hotel.while attending a wedding at L DAVIDS in Hackettstown I saw a very old bar.i believe the owner said it came from the old hotel in great meadows.any insight into this story.
The old bar at L. Davids was purchased from the Great Meadows hotel during the renovation of the Warren House tavern.Lou Falzarano the owner bought that bar in the late 1970s. I did some work on that property when Lou was renovating the place.
murof
Cool info there, thanks!
mel
The pic posted by The Rhyme Animal appears to be the same as the one I just found in my copy of "A Look at Warren County", which says it was originally Barker's Mill, later became Gibb's Mill and the site "was now owned by a real estate agaency." That was in 1991 when the book was published. On the same page (54) is a picture of the Great Meadows Hotel, that it mentions was built in 1855 and was remodeled a few years before the book was written.
strangerdanger
According to Snell, it was Philip Hoffman, who was the escapee, which makes me wonder if he was the progenitor of the Hoffman of the Hardware store and Presidents' House fame.
Several sources say that James Egbert was convinced to buy land in Mt. Bethel around 1790 by Dr. Robert Cummins, a Surgeon in the Revolution and an early settler of the area. Egbert was a devout Methodist Episcopalian and started to have meetings at his house, later buying the log church the Baptists in the area had been using for worship. In 1845 he built the stone church and donated it and the cemetery property to the small congregation. I did read that Mt Bethel was originally called "Egbert's" after him, but maybe piety took over and it was renamed. There's actually mention of a Post Office in the area that was later closed too. Just because the church is decently sized, doesn't need to mean that the congregation had to be, especially since it man funded and built it. Perhaps he was also making an effort to bring more people into the area and that way also entice a regular minister. Snell also says it was part of the Philadelphia Convention, so its preacher-led services were irregular and far between.
Also 3 brothers named Cummins were apparently early settlers and/or founders of Vienna, hence the widespread progeny. Not sure if they're related to the previously mentioned Surgeon though.
I believe they are related, but can't remember from what source. Yes, I have seen much of that and can add:
Egbert's had a schoolhouse, a post office, a store (I think)
Egbert lived across the street --- I am guessing catty-corner and still there.
Egbert/Cummins both buried there
I think Karrsville Road was the thoroughfare used to get to Egberts, it being a flatter way to get to Washington. I do believe there was a village here and the church was filled.
Here you go --- welcome to the archive.... Here's the history of Cummins, by Cummins. Try searching on Egbert, then try Vienna, etc. I think you will find all you need re: the mills, the hotels, and the great stories. Be sure the catch the Cummin's one where he almost died for mouthing off at the tories…… Enjoy the archive, it's deep.
https://archive.org/stream/cu31924010411118/cu31924010411118_djvu.txt
Egberts original house burned down and was replaced by the house currently on the corner atop Parke road nearer the Church. He also had a tannery on the property and sold spring water labeled "Indian Spring" from a source on the other side of Parke.
Parke is named for the Parke family which occupied the farm on the namesake road. I knew old Mrs. Parke as a kid.
Eperot 
OnTheEdge Great thread! Think about how many mills used to be here. I love imagining how this was. Farmers brought their grain to the grist mill to be ground and then.. what? Farmer took it back again and sold the flour, or grist mill sold the flour? Perhaps farmer paid the miller with a certain % of the bags. For sure farmer would keep some bags to family use.
We do as much as possible to grow our own and make our own food, but grinding our own flour hasn't been attempted - yet!
And then there is the history of the bags themselves. In the 1930s the bags were printed with pretty patterns so they could be repurposed and sewn into clothing for the family. https://www.littlethings.com/flour-sack-dresses/
hktownie As a kid I would come to Great Meadows with my dad to visit Charley Barker. His barn and farm house was across rte. 46 from the motorcycle shop near Maria Bonita. This was the late 50s I wonder if he was related any way to the mill Barkers?
Indie wow I recall that old house from over 50 years ago.i think it burned down in the 60s.i believe Charlie barker was friends with a old farmer that used to make the rounds in a old blue pickup selling produce.his name was phil quick.on the side of his pickup was the name P.QUICK.
hktownie
Yes, usually the farmer would pick up the bags of grain and the miller would take his "cut" in terms of a percentage of the bags. The farmer would then sell some and store some, depending on how large and productive their fields were, plus some of the grain wouldn't be milled, since it was set off originally to seed next year's crop.
It's interesting to see a mill operating and if you haven't seen one yet, it's definitely a neat experience. You get to see what kind of "drives" they have and how they can take the power off for other things, or change speeds, either by switching to a different primitive "cog", which is mostly a wooden wheel with dowel teeth set in it sticking outward or sometimes the later ones have a belt take off too. It all depends on the usage of the mill too. I'm simplifying, but I'm sure you get the idea.
McConnell's Mill State park, near where I went to college in PA was awesome. Of course we have an operating mill close by to check out too:
https://chestertownship.org/township-committees/parks/morris-county-parks/the-cooper-mill/
Good stuff.
Like I said, I am amazed by the history left in old buildings, foundations, and the like. And by the changes over time establishing the future and erasing the past. For example, like I said, I think there was, at minimum, a hamlet at Mt. Bethel, Townsbury too. Karrsville Road, Townsbury Road, pretty major thoroughfares. Vienna (Cumminstown), Great Meadows (Danville), Townsbury, Karrsville, all little towns.
1827: "Two long distance routes run through our county. One is from
New York to the Water Gap, Pocono and Scranton, by way of Hack-
ettstown, Vienna, Great Meadows, Townsbury, Belvidere, and either
Myers' or Boardman's ferry. The other is from the east to Easton by
way of Hackettstown, Washington and Phillipsburg, over what was
once called the Great Western Turnpike. Both of these routes are
nearly all macadamized or tarviated, and offer great temptations to
violation of the speed laws." Tarviated…. cool. Danville already gone: think how 46 changed that route.... two years after this was written, the Morris Canal changed everything.....
"Townsbury is on land originally surveyed to Coxe, from whom
John Meng bought the site of the town . He developed the water
power and built the old stone gr^t mill, so that the place for many years
was known as Meng's Mill. John Town and Benjamin Town owned
the property for a few years in the seventeen-eighties, and from them
the town is named.
And from Snell: ""Moody spent much of his time in hunting up unprotected
patriots and making them swear allegiance to the Crown. Moody
would call on Philip Cummins at regular Intervals and make him take
the oath, although it was well known among his relatives that his sym-
pathies were with the colonies. These visits would generally occur in
the night, and Moody was often accompanied by some of his Tory
associates, one of whom, on one occasion, discharged his gun at Philip,
but Moody struck up the barrel arid saved his life." Now, that's really cool.
"The first thing looking like a bicycle in the county was a two- wheeled "velocipede," as it was called, built by Benjamin Hall, at
Vienna, about 1873."
"Nelson Vliet came here in 1854, and with his family was active
for many years. He had a distillery, a store, a mill and other interests.
In 1850 Van Why operated the saw mill and grist mill. Adam, and
Andrew Stiff had them later, as also Frome, Henry' and Anderson.
John Green for many years ran the saw mill. Samuel Wildrick owned-
the grist mill until 1910, when he sold it to G. C. Ehman, who installed
new machinery."
History of Warren County
Cummins
I will leave you with this: Vienna/Great Meadows "White Pilgrim," it's a fascinating story in which a unique woman is featured: http://www.njchurchscape.com/index-June08.html Such controversy.....in Vienna....in Great Meadows.....
I collect NJ Mill postcards and Billheads. While I do not have any photos of the Barker Mill, I was able to find this billhead from 1908, which I assume is from the mill, or a store connected with it.
Bill Walsh Leave a Reply
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