Bergen County, NJ
THE HERMITAGE
The Hermitage, a National Historic Landmark
Is located on five acres of lawn shaded by centuries-old trees. The site is listed on the State and National Registers of Historic Places. The fourteen-room Gothic Revival home was built in 1847-48 from designs by William H. Ranlett for Elijah Rosencrantz Jr. The house incorporates portions of a historic 18th-century house.
The Hermitage is owned by the State of New Jersey and operated by the Friends of the Hermitage, Inc. The Friends of the Hermitage, Inc., a private, nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation, was founded in 1972 to restore, maintain, and interpret the site.
The museum has two main collections: The Hermitage, or State of New Jersey Collection, and the Friends of the Hermitage Collection, developed largely by donations. In these collections, the museum acquires, preserves, and conserves objects from 1750 through the 20th century. The museum collections are noted for their range of historic clothing as well as personal items and papers relating to the Rosencrantz family who inhabited the property for 163 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell-Christie_House
The Campbell – Christie House
Jacob Campbell, a stonemason, constructed a store southeast of the intersection of River Road and the highway leading from Old Bridge to South Church, now Henley Avenue, in New Milford, NJ, about the time of his marriage to Altche Westervelt in 1774. It stood on land owned by his father, William Campbell, who kept a tavern on the north side of the road. Private Jacob Campbell served with the Bergen Militia during the American Revolution. His property was damaged during the war, but tax records for 1780 list him as a merchant. After his father’s death in 1793, Jacob sold to Abraham Brower, whose brother, John, a blacksmith, operated a roadside smithy until his death a year later. Blacksmith John D. Christie purchased the house for £250 in 1795 and operated a tavern. When he died in 1836, he bequeathed his residence to son John J. Christie, a farmer. It next passed to Jacob Brinkerhoff Christie, manager of the Comfort Coal & Lumber Company.
J. Walter Christie, born here on May 6, 1865, achieved fame as a mechanical genius and inventor. At 16 years of age, he worked on pioneer submarines and developed turret tracks and gun mounts for battleships. He built and raced cars, holding American and world speed records before being severely injured in a crash in 1907. He later invented automotive front-wheel drive, used in the manufacture of fire trucks. but is best known as the “father of the modern tank.” He died at Falls Church, Virginia, in 1944.
