Editing Allamuchy Township, New Jersey (section)

==History==
Prior to European settlement, what is now Allamuchy Township was inhabited for centuries by the [[Lenape]] [[Native Americans in the United States|Native Americans]], until they were forced west by 1742.<ref>Helen R. Johnson, ''History of Allamuchy Township, N.J.'' (Allamuchy, NJ: Allamuchy Historical Society, 1973), p. 4.</ref> The Bird House Archaeological Site is located within the Township.<ref>Susan Morgan and the Warren County Cultural and Heritage Commission, ''Historic Sites of Warren County'' (Belvidere, NJ: Warren County Cultural and Heritage Commission), p. 123. http://www.co.warren.nj.us/download/historic.pdf {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200113155247/http://www.co.warren.nj.us/download/historic.pdf |date=January 13, 2020 }}. Access Date: 25 November 2020</ref>

===Quaker Settlement===
Acting as a surveyor, [[John Reading (New Jersey governor)|John Reading]] laid out a tract of land for [[William Penn]] in 1715 that became the Quaker Settlement, the first non-Native Americans to live in Allamuchy.<ref name="Johnson, 1973 p. 4">Johnson, ''History of Allamuchy'' (1973), p. 4.</ref> By 1752, the [[Society of Friends]], or Quakers, established a community in the northeast corner of what is now Allamuchy Township.<ref name="Johnson, 1973 p. 5">Johnson, ''History of Allamuchy'' (1973), p. 5.</ref> The settlement was chartered in [[Kingwood, NJ]], and the first [[Quakers]] to arrive in Allamuchy brought with them the materials to build their homes.<ref>Snell, James P., ''History of Warren and Sussex Counties, New Jersey'' (Philadelphia: Everts & Peck, 1881), p. 743.</ref> The land controlled by the Quaker Settlement spanned an area not just in Allamuchy, but what is now considered [[Green Township, NJ]] as well.<ref>Snell, ''History of Warren and Sussex'' (1881), p. 744.</ref> This settlement was known as the "Hardwick Friends," because what is now Allamuchy Township was then a part of Hardwick Township.

In 1735, Quakers selected a plot of land for use as a burying ground with accompanying stone wall and first constructed a wood meeting house in 1752, replacing it in 1764 with a stone building.<ref>Johnson, ''History of Allamuchy'' (1973), p. 5-6.</ref> The Hardwick Meeting sided with a branch of the Society of Friends known as the [[Hicksites]] in 1827, an event that compelled many of the Settlement's residents to leave for other Quaker communities.<ref name="Johnson, 1973 p. 5"/> On February 2, 1854, the last Quaker meeting took place in the Settlement; it was formally dissolved in 1855.<ref name="Johnson, 1973 p. 5"/> The Friends' Burying Ground was used until 1918, when its stone wall was repaired and a small monument installed; it was later restored in 1940.<ref>Johnson, ''History of Allamuchy'' (1973), p. 6-7.</ref>

The location of the Quaker meeting house was later used as a public school.<ref name="Johnson, 1973 p. 6">Johnson, ''History of Allamuchy'' (1973), p. 6.</ref> There, in Fall 1921, the Quaker Grove School served as an experimental research station for rural education by researchers Fannie W. Dunn and Maria A. Everett from [[Teachers College, Columbia University]].<ref>Johnson, Helen R. ''History of Allamuchy Township'' Allamuchy, NJ: Allamuchy Historical Society, 1973, p.11</ref> The result of their fieldwork was the book, ''Four Years in a County School'', which detailed their findings with regards to the single-teacher model, curriculum, and observations about rural education in general.<ref>Fannie W. Dunn and Maria A. Everett, ''Four Years in a Country School'' (New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers' College, Columbia University, 1926)</ref> In 1940, the Township consolidated its four public schools into a single location, the present-day Allamuchy Township School, and the Quaker Grove school reverted to private ownership.<ref name="Johnson, 1973 p. 6"/>

===Grand Estates===
In the late 1700s, [[John Rutherfurd]] began construction of his vast home in Allamuchy.<ref>Johnson, ''History of Allamuchy'' (1973), p. 12.</ref> [[Lewis Morris Rutherfurd]] later occupied the estate, where he took the first telescopic photographs of the Moon from his home at Tranquility Farms in 1865.<ref name="Rutherfurd Hall History"/> His son, [[Rutherfurd Stuyvesant]], raised [[Holstein cattle]], [[Dorset sheep]], English [[pheasant]]s and hunting dogs on the estate, which included a {{convert|1000|acres|adj=on}} deer preserve.<ref name="Johnson, 1973 p. 4"/> Under [[Rutherfurd Stuyvesant]], the 47-room house was known as the Stuyvesant Mansion, and was decorated with imported and [[Duncan Phyfe]] furniture, Ming Dynasty pottery, and 15th and 16th century suits of armor.<ref>Hoff, F. David, and Mrs. Ernest Johnson, "Allamuchy Township," in ''Historical Sites in Warren County,'' ed. Richard E. Harpster (Belvidere, NJ: Board of Chosen Freeholders, 1965), p. 6.</ref> The Stuyvesant Mansion was last occupied in 1947 and its contents sold in 1951 and 1955.<ref>Hoff and Johnson, "Allamuchy Township," in ''Historical Sites in Warren County,'' Harpster, ed., (1965), p. 6-7.</ref> The Mansion was destroyed by fire in September 1959.<ref>Hoff and Johnson, "Allamuchy Township," in ''Historical Sites in Warren County,'' Harpster, ed., (1965), p. 7.</ref>

[[Winthrop Rutherfurd]] commissioned [[Whitney Warren]], architect of [[Grand Central Terminal]], in 1902 to design [[Rutherfurd Hall]]. Completed in 1906, the Hall served as a hunting lodge family residence where prominent guests could be entertained, most famously U.S. president [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] who was a close friend of Winthrop's second wife [[Lucy Page Mercer Rutherfurd|Lucy]].<ref name="Teaching Eleanor Roosevelt">{{cite web|title=Lucy Page Mercer Rutherfurd (1891-1948)|url=http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/teachinger/glossary/mercer-lucy.cfm|work=Teaching Eleanor Roosevelt|access-date=29 October 2012}}</ref>

The eponymous family later gave [[Rutherfurd Hall]] to the [[Catholic Church]] in 1959 after the completion of [[Interstate 80]] brought more traffic and noise to the area. The Church changed the Hall's name to Villa Madonna and used it as a convent for an order of nuns for five decades before selling it the town to be used as a museum and community education facility. Now listed on the National Historic Register, Rutherfurd Hall first opened to the public in 2012.<ref name="Rutherfurd Hall History">{{cite web|title=A Few Facts About Rutherfurd Hall|url=http://rutherfurdhall.org/history.html|publisher=Rutherfurd Hall|access-date=29 October 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121017002438/http://www.rutherfurdhall.org/history.html|archive-date=17 October 2012|url-status=dead|df=dmy-all}}</ref>

The Panther Ledge Farms estate was owned by [[Clendenin J. Ryan]], former secretary to New York Mayor [[Fiorello La Guardia]] and politician who later ran an unsuccessful campaign for New Jersey Governor in the 1953 election.<ref>Hoff, F. David, and Mrs. Ernest Johnson, "Allamuchy Township," in ''Historical Sites in Warren County,'' ed. Richard E. Harpster (Belvidere, NJ: Board of Chosen Freeholders, 1965), p. 4.</ref> Ryan's estate acquired this name due to a rock bluff on the property, where local legend holds as the location the last [[mountain lion]] was hunted in the state.<ref name="Johnson 1965 p. 3-4">Hoff and Johnson, "Allamuchy Township," in ''Historical Sites in Warren County,'' Harpster, ed., (1965), p. 3-4.</ref> Panther Ledge Farms featured a private zoo, pheasant hatchery, helicopter, greenhouse, bloodhound kennel, and a collection of paintings Ryan bought from [[William Randolph Hearst]].<ref name="Johnson 1965 p. 3-4"/>

In 1972 a left-wing group called the Allamuchy Tribe, led by activists [[Rennie Davis]] and [[Jerry Rubin]] and funded by ex-[[The Beatles|Beatle]] [[John Lennon]], met at the [[Peter Stuyvesant]] Farm in Allamuchy to organize protests against the [[1972 Republican National Convention]].<ref name="Post FBI">{{cite news|last=Feinsilber|first=Mike|title=FBI Puts Bizarre Cases on Internet|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/govt/fedguide/stories/ap061798.htm|access-date=October 29, 2012|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|date=June 17, 1998 <!-- ; 2:41 a.m. EDT --> }}</ref> [[FBI]] surveillance of the Allamuchy Tribe led to the bureau putting pressure on Lennon to divest from political activity by threatening to [[deportation|deport]] him.<ref name="Gimme Some Truth">{{cite book|last=Wiener|first=Jon|title=Gimme Some Truth : the John Lennon FBI files|url=https://archive.org/details/gimmesometruthjo00wien|url-access=registration|year=1999|publisher=University of California Press|location=Berkeley, CA|isbn=9780520222465}}</ref>