Hometown History: Mendham

By: Ryan Ross and Katie Feather
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  • A podcast about the historic places and events that make a town someplace people call home.

    hometownhistory.substack.com
    Katie Feather
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World Social Sciences Travel Writing & Commentary
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Episodes
  • Episode 6: Mendham’s Municipal Madness

    Episode 6: Mendham’s Municipal Madness
    Jun 12 2024
    Listen on your favorite podcast player:iTunesSpotifyOvercastHeartRadioAmazon MusicBibliography:Karcher, Alan; (1998). New Jersey’s Multiple Municipal Madness. Rutgers University PressTranscriptWhen choosing a new hometown, it’s probably a good idea to know which town you’re choosing.When I first purchased a house in Mendham, I didn’t quite realize that it was one of two towns. Yes, there were two Mendham’s on the map, but I came from California where I didn’t have townships or boroughs, and hadn’t really any thought to the names of towns, or their boundaries, or how that might affect how they operate. So when we bought our house in Mendham, I thought it was just in Mendham, and that Google Maps was just a little bit confused. Until recycling day…When we moved here we had a surplus of cardboard and styrofoam. So I googled “styrofoam recycling Mendham”, and was pointed to a recycling place very close to my house. This is the Mendham Borough Public Works Garage. I pulled up, and asked where I could drop off my styrofoam. And they answered: “Do you live in the Township or the Borough”? I wasn’t quite sure. I told them I lived in the Oak Knoll neighborhood.“Oh, that's the TOWNSHIP,” they said. “This is only for BOROUGH residents. You’ll have to leave your recycling on the street and the Department of Public Works will pick it up. But that's only for cardboard and cans. Styrofoam has its own recycling day.” And, of course, they didn’t know when that was. So I left the recycling center with more questions than answers. What was Mendham Borough and what was the Township? And why was there a difference? Had it always been this way? And most importantly, I still wondered, when is styrofoam recycling day?(Theme)Welcome to Hometown History. A series about the iconic places and events that make a town someplace people call home - stories that people can tell to their friends old and new about the place they live, did live, or will live: In my case, Mendham TOWNSHIP, New Jersey. Because there are indeed TWO Mendhams, Mendham Township and Mendham Borough. And in THIS episode, we talk about the Township and the Borough, and the real reasons behind how and why…more than 100 years ago…they split. If you’re not from New Jersey, the whole Borough / Township thing can be a bit confusing. If you look at a map of Mendham, you’ll notice that the borough is sitting inside of the township, like a fried egg: the borough (the yolk) is surrounded by the township (the egg white). Easy enough, right? But while it’s pretty easy to picture a fried egg, in reality the lines between Mendham Borough and Mendham Township are extremely subtle. Many people, myself included, might not even know which one they’re in. There’s a few hints, like the Abner Doubleday sign welcoming you to Mendham Borough, and the fact that homes in the township are often farther apart than they are in the Borough’s center. The biggest giveaway might be the fact that Katie’s kids, who live in Mendham Borough, will attend Hilltop Elementary School in the dead center of Mendham, but my kids, who live in the Township will attend Brookside Elementary school, even though that’s WAY over on the other side of the egg white.But while this sort of municipal structure might be a headache for parents, it’s not really uncommon here in New Jersey. Like, for example, Princeton, New Jersey. Liz Lempert is the former mayor of the Municipality of Princeton. LIZ: I served two terms for a total of eight years, from 2013 to 2020.Liz explained the most basic differences between boroughs and townships, which come down to governance. LIZ: The Township form of government has five elected officials, and the mayor is chosen by the five people amongst themselves. The Borough has a directly elected mayor and then six council people. But outside of the way you elect your government, there's really no rules as to how boroughs and townships relate to each other. Liz told me that Princeton’s borough and township essentially worked together across a lot of different departments. LIZ: So, we had a shared Recreation Department, a shared library. We had a shared Planning Department, shared court system. In Mendham, things are slightly different. Clearly as I discovered when I tried to go to the recycling center. It would have been much easier if I could have just gone to the place right around the corner from my home. Or if my kids could go to the elementary school that’s closer to where they live. Now that I understood better the way things worked in Mendham Township and Mendham Borough. I wanted to understand why.A few weeks after my conveniently inconvenient trip to the recycling center, I learned that a neighbor of mine was a council member for Mendham Township. JORDAN: My name is Jordan Orlins. I was elected for the Mendham township committee for the years 2020, '21, '22.Jordan was the perfect person to go to for...
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    18 mins
  • Episode 5: The Black Horse

    Episode 5: The Black Horse
    Jun 5 2024
    Listen on your favorite podcast player:iTunesSpotifyOvercastHeartRadioAmazon MusicBibliography:Martha G.; Edward W. Roessler & Wallace G. West Hopler (1964). The Mendhams. Publisher: Mendham Township Committee.Foster, Janet W. (1986). Legacy Through the Lens: A Study of Mendham Architecture. Mendham Free Public Library.Transcript:Outside of New York City, New Jersey has some of the oldest restaurants in the U.S. Sitting near the top of that list is an institution that started out as an Inn waaaay back in 1743, but has weathered more than one storm to become an icon of Mendham: The Black Horse.For those who don’t know, the Black Horse Tavern and Pub is essentially the geographical and cultural center of Mendham Borough. You can’t drive down Main Street without noticing the big white colonial era building at the northwest corner of Mountain Avenue. I arrived in Mendham in the midst of the pandemic. Restaurants were closing everywhere. Businesses were struggling. But The Black Horse was still open, thriving even. And then I find out that it has been operating since before we even had a constitution. How is this possible???The answer has to do with consistency. The story of humanity is the story of consistency. When life changes, consistency sets you at ease. Sad events like funerals, happy ones like marriages - world-changing events like 9/11 or local events like a hurricane - these things all drive a need for consistency. Nowhere in Mendham is this felt more than at the Black Horse, where this town was essentially founded. Where weary travelers stopped on their journey west. Where a future president (whos name rhymed with Florge Floshington ) maybe stopped to discuss revolutionary matters. Where a modern-day diva came for a night out with her family and enjoyed the bubbly shrimp. According to menutiger.com, three out of five restaurants won’t make it past their first year. But somehow, The Black Horse managed to beat the odds again and again, for 275 years., making it the oldest continually operating restaurant in New Jersey. Perhaps the original proprietor, Ebenezer Byram, read this statistic from menutiger.com and thought “Good sir, those facts are preposterous and must be fixed…I’ll mend ‘em!” (Theme)Welcome to Hometown History, a series about the iconic places and events that make a town someplace people call home. Stories that people can tell to their friends old and new about the place they live, did live, or will live: In my case, Mendham, New Jersey. And today we talk about the unique recipe that one of Mendham’s iconic institutions - a Tavern, Inn and Pub - used to stay in business for 275 years.–It started as a farmhouse. In 1743, Fifty two year old Ebenezer Byram moved his large family - five sons and three daughters - from Bridgewater, Massachusetts to the backwoods of New Jersey. There’s no record of how many times Byram endured the phrase “Are we there yet?” as he underwent this arduous family trip. Undoubtedly the Byrams were relieved to arrive at their new home - a large farmhouse that was situated along an ancient Lenape trade route. Today, we call it Main Street. In the 1964 book, The Mendhams, the authors note “It seems a mystery as well as legend that a man of considerable means and religious fervor should travel into a far country to set up a tavern in sparsely inhabited hills.”It does sound strange, but from the little we know about Byram, perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising. Byram was a devoutly religious man, civic minded, with a pioneer’s spirit. He was a risk-taker, and was prescient about the future of his new hometown and the significance of his position within it. In 1749, just a few years after Byram arrived, Mendham was officially incorporated as a Township in New Jersey. And this, my dear listeners, is perhaps what you’ve been waiting five episodes to hear about: Where does the name Mendham come from?Well, there are several different theories. Some have said that it was the anglo saxon term for “my home”. Another source claimed that the words “I’ll mend ‘em” were spoken by Rev. Eliab Byram in reference to some unruly customers at his father’s tavern. But the most likely origin story is that it was named after Byram’s ancestral home in Mendham, England, or perhaps borrowed from a town close to Bridgewater, Massachusetts named Mendon. But if it were up to me, I’d prefer to believe in option #2. Byram converted his farmhouse into an Inn, naming it “The Black Horse“ which, metaphorically and literally, put Mendham on the map. The Inn became the township’s center, sitting at the crossroads of two popular trade routes: One from Morristown, New Jersey to Easton, Pennsylvania and another south to what would become Bernards Township. At the onset of the American Revolution Mendham was a small but thriving little village. As travelers underwent the journey from New York to Pennsylvania by horse and ...
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    21 mins
  • Episode 4: When Apples Were King

    Episode 4: When Apples Were King
    May 29 2024
    Listen on your favorite podcast player:iTunesSpotifyOvercastHeartRadioAmazon MusicBibliography:Okrent, Daniel. (2011). Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. Scribner.Mockridge, Ella. (1961). Our MendhamEmmonds, Kate. (1973). Through the Years in Mendham Borough. Self-Published.Theme Music:Howard Harper-Barnes / La Danse Timide / courtesy of www.epidemicsound.comTranscript:In the fall of 1919 Thomas Loughlin was tired and worried. In all his years of selling cider in New Jersey - first in Newark, now here in Mendham - it had never been harder to turn a profit. Twenty years ago, business had been booming. The year 1904 in particular had produced a bumper crop of the best apples New Jersey had ever seen. Not so great for the farmers who had to sell their apple crops at record low prices - but great for cider manufacturers like Loughlin. From the pomace of those superior New Jersey apples, Loughlin was able to bottle and distribute quality hard cider and applejack - the American name for apple brandy. 1904 was also the year Loughlin got an opportunity to expand his business, eventually moving his cider press from its original location in the center of town, into the old Nesbitt grain mill three miles west on Mendham Road. It had been a calculated risk to convert a grain mill into a cider mill, but it had paid off for over a decade. But then there was the 18th Amendment, which had been ratified earlier that year, in January of 1919, making the manufacture, sale and transportation of alcohol illegal. Prohibition would soon be in effect. But as Thomas Loughlin reflected on the events that brought his business to its knees, he undoubtedly wondered what the future looked like for his mill in Mendham. What would happen to this building that he had painstakingly converted, maintained and operated? Would it even make it past the next decade, or would the wheels of his cider mill stop spinning for good?–(Theme)Welcome to Hometown History…A series about the iconic places and events that make a town someplace people call home - stories that people can tell to their friends old and new about the place they live, did live, or will live: In my case, Mendham, New Jersey. And today, today we talk about how one of the icons in that town - a cider mill - evolved with the times, through legislation meant to dry up all the fun. –Fall harvest is a very special season for Mendham. It’s like this area’s superbowl. Porches explode with pumpkins, leaves on the trees of Jockey Hollow sparkle golden in the sunlight, and tourists flock from all over for apples. (Apple crunch) You can pick them, bob for them, eat them candied or caramelized - but in this town, you can also press them. Every year in early October, the Ralston Cider Mill, in Mendham Township, holds a pressing event (one might even call it a “press conference”).Located on the south side of Rt 24 between Mendham and Chester, the Ralston Cider Mill stands like a large but unassuming sentinel. Its worn wooden stairs and slightly ill-fitting door suggest that this place is original to the era in which it was built.JAMES: So, underneath this wooden piece, you see there's a big vertical rod there that's called the main shaft that went from a turbine…James Malchow, the director of the Ralston Cider Mill Museum in Mendham, gave my producer Katie and me a tour of the inside of the cider mill earlier this spring.Now, the first thing you have to know is this place didn’t always used to be a cider mill. Instead of crushing apples, this mill once used water power to crush grain.In 1848 John Ralston Nesbitt, grandson of the first Ralston to settle here, borrowed money from his mother to build a house and a grain mill on this site. And I say that because nearly every history book mentions this strange fact. Poor guy will forever be known for borrowing money from his mom.But, hey, it was a good investment! Because this 175 year old mill has withstood a retrofit, two gruesome deaths, prohibition, two World Wars, and a family of racoons. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. JAMES: In any case, when you start up the equipment, which I can do, if you like…James has me reach down, and turn a wheel 180 degrees, which starts the apple pressing process. The various belts and wheels, once powered by water from nearby Burnett Brook, kick into gear. Today, everything works using electrical power. As we walk around the mill, James points out the belts and wheels turning slowly but surely to move a giant apple press down.JAMES: The apples come into the building from outside on that conveyor, which is controlled off this shaft. The grater that turns the apples from whole fruit into a mush called pomace is controlled off here. And then when the apples and that pomace are made, they come in down from one floor to the other. Now they are under just the power of gravity…I didn’t realize it until I was doing research for this episode, but New Jersey is, ...
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    17 mins

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