Slave Cemetery, 'God's Neglected Acre,' Commemorated in Bedminster

After months of debate, Bedminster will commemorate and preserve a slave cemetery on Hillside Avenue.

The township committee passed a resolution at its meeting Monday night to dedicate the 0.1-acre plot, which was part of land that housed the municipal building until it moved in 2004 and was demolished in 2011.

“I for one, am very happy we’re giving attention to this matter,” Mayor Steven Parker said.

The resolution is slated to “designate, preserve and subdivide the property,” Parker said. “We live in the here and now. What we can do with the site is extrapolate (it) … and commemorate it with a marker.”

Now, the Somerset County Culture and Heritage Commission will take the lead on placing a marker at the site, and the town’s Historic Preservation Commission will oversee the burial ground’s status.  

'Site is so Important'

Before reaching a unanimous decision of approval, Parker read from a first-edition manuscript written by Andrew Melick, a 19th-century Bedminister resident with a deeply rooted history in the Hillside Avenue area.

On a carriage ride through the town’s main thoroughfare, Parker read, Melick took note of his surroundings in his writing, “The Story of an Old Farm” circa 1883. He came across "God’s neglected acre," which is believed to be the burial place of slaves. Headstones had "long since disappeared" and there were "weeds and creeping vines" in the location. But “God’s acre,” would eventually become the site of Bedminster’s Town Hall.

The township obtained ownership of the tenth of an acre in 1935, purchasing it from the estate of James B. Dow, the mayor added. In 2010, a subcommittee was formed to try and formulate a plan to get rid of the property, after the municipal building had moved. But, citing a tanking real estate market at the time, administrators decided there would be no sale of the property.

Instead, they threw the debate to the townspeople, who fiercely declined the idea of turning it into a pocket park.

“They just wanted the land to be back to nature,” said Parker. “So they took the old building down, plowed it under and had it seeded.”

But now, residents such as Democratic candidate for township council Basil Scaperdas say that the 1935 sale of the property was improper, because a century’s worth of misleading surveying led to errors in the total acreage of the plot.

Residents turned out Monday to hear a presentation from Somerset County Historical Society Vice President Thomas Buckingham on the property’s history, before a vote was held.

“The site is so important,” Buckingham said. “It helps educate the public about slavery, and it’s a crucial part of the county historically.”

He maintained that the burial ground is astonishingly unique because it is one of the first places in New Jersey in which black men could purchase property. Before the Revolutionary War, this practice was illegal, but afterwards, states gradually relented.

Buckingham proceeded to relay a comprehensive history of the site: In 1801, Aaron Melick sold a 66 x 66 foot plot to three black men (including Robert Aaron, a freeman) and trustees “for the black people in the neighborhood,” for a sum of $3.

In 1833, David Melick sold 16 of his 147 acres to John Poulson. In 1849, Poulson gave some of his property to his daughter—for the sale, a deed of .67 acres was filed with the county, but because of surveying issues, the transaction was incomplete.

In around 1855, Poulson’s daughter sold her property to Folkert P. Dow, who himself did not file a deed for the property. Although the Scotsman appears on the 1860 Census as a shoemaker, his operation is largely unknown.

An 1881 mortgage of the property indicates that Dow owned .84 acres, but in 1918, F.P. Dow’s daughter-in-law Maggie sold the property to J.D. Dow, though the deed is confusingly backdated to 1892.

“It really is a puzzle with the Dow family and their deeds,” sighed Buckingham humorously.

Though the metes and bounds of the property are still shaky, it was sold in the J.D. Dow estate as .84 acres to Bedminster Township in 1935.

'Riveting Report'

Now that the area is free from traffic and its history has been fleshed out, people are pleased by the efforts set forth to commemorate the land. The mayor of Plainfield even appeared at the meeting to voice her approval.

“That was a riveting report,” said Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs. “Thank you for such a kind resolution.”

Concerned citizens such as Robinson-Briggs flocked to the meeting from many surrounding towns, and most seemed to look forward to monitoring the cemetery’s status in the coming months.

“(Aaron) Melick must’ve had a high regard for those buried at the site,” said Buckingham.