Walker-Combs-Hartshorne Farmstead

About this property

The Walker, Combs, Hartshorne, Oakley Farmstead (also known simply as the Oakley Farmhouse) is located in the historic district of the village of West Freehold, a part of Freehold Township in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States. The house was built in 1686 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 14, 1990. As the English were beginning to have the tides in their favor against the Dutch during the Second Anglo-Dutch War, many religious dissenters from New England and other points north began to inhabit New Jersey and places south. Colonel Richard Nicolls granted a triangular tract of land called the Monmouth Tract (also called the Navesink Tract) on April 8, 1665. The original settlers were twelve men, most of whom were Baptists and Quakers from Long Island, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, whom purchased this tract of land that extended from Sandy Hook to the mouth of the Raritan River, upstream approximately 25 miles (40 km), and then southeast to Barnegat Bay. Of the three original towns in Monmouth County were, Middletown, Shrewsbury, and Freehold. By the 1680s, the Freehold area had become a place of refuge for Scottish settlers of Presbyterian faith. It was in the western section of the township where The Burlington Path traversed through, a stagecoach route meant to connect Burlington, which was at the time the Capital of West Jersey, and Perth Amboy, which was at the time the Capital of East Jersey. The proximity to various points of the state through this transportation artery along with the fertile soil that was optimal for cultivation, made the settlement of West Freehold an attractable place to live. Operating for centuries, The Walker, Combs, Hartshorne, Oakley Farmstead is the earliest remaining farmstead in Freehold and is one of the oldest preserved structures in Monmouth County. Settled in the 1680s, the property was originally situated on roughly 500 acres (200 ha) of land. The property was originally owned by East Jersey proprietors (whom were among the first to inhabit the Monmouth Tract), including John Barclay and Robert Barclay. Since then, the farmstead had been transferred/sold by multiple families including; Barclay, Reid, Bowne, Clark, Walker, Combs, Schanck, Hartshorne, and Oakley. In 1699, Robert Barclay sold the 500 acres to John Reid. In 1701, John Reid sold a portion of the estate, 200 acres (81 ha) of land to John Bowne. In 1706 John Bowne sold those 200 acres to the Clark Family, Richard and Anne Clark. The family built an 8’x10’ log cabin with a fieldstone foundation and enlarged the cabin to a 20’x25’ house with post and beam construction.

Location

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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