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Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2003
LARISON'S CORNER, 73.3 miles, is just that: a cornered junction of US
202 with two county roads (L). It is also known as Pleasant Corner. Here
is the abandoned old brownstone AMWELL ACADEMY (R), founded in
1811 as a school appendage to St. Andrew's Church, discontinued in 1828
and reopened as a seminary in 1870 by Cornelius, Andrew, Katherine,
and Mary Jane Larison. The tide of the nineteenth-century controversy between conservatism and science seems to have swirled to the doors of the
little seminary at Larison's Corner and engulfed the family; in 1876
Cornelius and Mary Jane Larison, unable to convince Katherine of science's importance in the modern world, withdrew and set up their own
school in the rear of their home. They called it the Ringoes Academy of
Arts and Sciences.
The ROCKEFELLER FAMILY BURIAL GROUND is at Larison's Corner.
About 50 feet from the highway (R), it is enclosed by a low stone wall
set into the UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH CEMETERY. Some of the
gravestones carry the name "Rockefellow." A granite monument, To feet
square, is inscribed: "In memory of Johann Peter Rockefeller, who came
from Germany about the year 1723. Died in 1763. He gave this land for
a burial place for his family, its descendants, and his neighbors. This monument erected in the year 1906 by John Davison Rockefeller, a direct de-
scendant." But according to George W. Tine, Rockefeller family historian,
Johann was not buried here, but on a farm in the vicinity. In this county
there are more living and dead Rockefellers than in any other locality in
the country.
At 74 miles is the junction with a tar and graveled road.
Right on this road, which winds to HEADQUARTERS, 2.4 miles, a commuJnity of five or six stone and frame buildings. A sign on a store front (R) reads
"Grover, N. J." This was the post office address of the village before the introduction of rural free delivery. Its present name derives from the local belief that Washington spent three nights here on his march to Trenton. An inclined dirt road (R)
leads down to a greensward behind which are the two-story red sandstone UPDYCK
MANSION and a stuccoed sandstone GRISTMILL and STOREHOUSE. The buildings
were erected in the 1750's by "Rich John Updyck," a man who measured his money
in half-bushel baskets. He quartered his many slaves in the basements of his buildings. It was at his house that Washington is said to have stayed.
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