No. 65 January 2007
The authoritative source on early churches in New Jersey

ISSN 1543-3250

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— Highlights —

Last month's feature
Philadelphia's Old St.George's

Book reviews
The God Delusion

Can you identify this church?

Demarest - Methodist?

Vintage photo of the month

Pleasant Valley Methodist

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Feature of the month

Historic Churches of Somerset County

My latest book, an interpretative history of all the surviving eighteen and nineteenth century churches and meetinghouses of Somerset County has just been published by the History Press. The title is Historic Churches of Somerset County, New Jersey. It should now be in stock in all the bookstores in or near Somerset County, and is available from Amazon or directly from the History Press (www.historypress.net/catalogNJ.php).
The book contains 154 black-and-white photographs and illustrations, and a substantial essay on the architectural traditions and influences that gave shape to the county's churches. There are 192 pages, a glossary, an extensive biblio-graphy, tables and an index; it sells for $25, which is a very good price. I am delighted with the reproduction of the images—a function of paper quality and printing competence. The emphasis is on architectural traditions and social history; it was intended to be the definitive work on the topic and should be of interest to local historians and genealogists.

The book draws on material published here, of course, but goes well beyond the brief captions available on this site. In the opening essay I explore such topics as the early settlement of the county, construction practices, the role of the revivals and the itinerant preachers, social and economic factors, and the significance of the region's low density well into the nineteenth century. The dominant place of the Dutch Reformed church in the county's religious history comes through quite clearly—something that cannot quite be communicated on this website.
     The number and quality of Greek Revival buildings—a far richer tradition here than in any other county in the state— becomes readily apparent. There is relatively little Gothic Revival architecture in the county, but several of America's leading architects are represented by buildings, including Napoleon LeBrun, Jeremiah O'Rourke, William Appleton Potter (his design for Somerville's First Reformed church illustrated here), Oscar Teale, Horace Trumbauer, and Richard Upjohn, as well as regional architects of some repute like Aaron Hudson, Willam Kirk, the Graham & Sons firm, and Henry Leard.

It is widely accepted that Jersey was one of the most religiously diverse colonies and states, but what is less well understood is how different are the state's counties from each other. Somerset has relatively few Presbyterian or Methodist churches compared to other counties that were largely rural in the nineteenth century, no Quaker meetinghouses (although every adjacent county has at least one early Quaker congregation), and no early synagogues. The Clover Hill church pictured here was founded in 1834 as a Reformed church, then switched to Presbyterian, then back to Reformed over a period of about 30 years during the middle of the nineteenth century. And it is not the only one that changed affiliation more than once. There are numerous Christian/Campbellite churches in Hunterdon, Warren and Sussex, but only a single one in Somerset. There are three Congregational churches, a denomination that is otherwise fairly unusual in central and south Jersey. The relative dearth of Presbyterians is curious inasmuch as Scotch-Irish were among the very earliest settlers in the county.

I have now written eight books on the state's early churches (only the books on Hunterdon and Somerset have been published, but those on Warren and Sussex are available on CD-ROM) and am still astonished at how many differences there are even between two adjacent counties, differences in architectural styles and in construction methods, as well as a different profile of religious denominations. It comes as no surprise that the rising affluence of the state following the Civil War was not evenly distributed, a fact reflected in the pattern of construction and founding of new churches for each decade, as well as in the size and style of the churches. There is much that can be inferred from a study of the remaining churches about the social history of the state and of specific regions with in, and I expect people interested in those broader issues, not just religious architecture, will find much of interest in this book.

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