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Bedminster History – Look To the Old Mellick Farmhouses

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If you live in the Somerset Hills area around Bedminster and Tewksbury, you’ve probably heard the name Mellick. The Mellick name goes back to one of the founding family names in the area. In fact, the name Mellick has acquired three different spellings. In those days, the people in charge of registering land titles and other legal documents spelled names as they sounded. The Bedminster branch became Mellick, the Tewksbury branch Melick, and a few spelled it Malick. There was a standing joke in the Melick family that the Mellicks had enough money to afford 2 ‘l’s in their name.

Mellick ‘Old Stone House‘

The Old Stone House is one of the oldest homes in the area. Situated on a sloping hill near the Raritan River, the stoic home still stands today.

The Mellick boys followed their father’s way and were farmers and tanners. Gottfried later settled in Warren County. Johannes, who arrived here with his wife Mariah and children Aaron, Andrew, Fanny, and Maria Catherine, had a tannery North of Far Hills. They built the “Old Stone House” in 1752, on which the book, ‘The Story of an Old Farm,’ by Andrew Mellick is based.

Bedminster’s Old Stone House – the 1752 original Mellick home.
Willies Tavern - Delicious Heights
Delicious Heights dates back to the late 1700s. The No.1 Historic Business in the Somerset Hills goes to Willie’s Tavern. At the turn of the century, it was also known as the Bedminster Hotel, built by the Mellick family in the late 1700s. Rumor has it Willie Howard’s horse is buried in the back parking lot.

Several documents from the Mellick family were found in the attic of the house and turned over to the Somerset County Historical Society. But if you’d like to go back in time, Google has digitized the book “The Old Farm” – a great local read and one of our go-to books about life in early Somerset County. A highly recommended read.

Story of an old farm by Andrew Mellick - Nr. Local History
Story of an old farm by Andrew Mellick – Mr. Local History.
Available for FREE download

The Peapack Patent Includes Nearly all of Bedminster Township — Distinguished People Associated with Somerset Freeholds — Interesting Facts •

Concerning Governor Morris and the Duchess of Gordon: The First Real Estate Purchase in Bedminster: Daniel Axtell, a Son of the English Regicide Buys a Large Slice of the Peapack Patent: Some Corrections as to Generally Accepted Beliefs in the History of Somerset Land Titles. The Value of Bed minster Acres in 1726 a purchase from George Leslie, in 1744, receives a Grant of 2,000 Acres Out of the Patent: Its Area Includes the present site of Bedminster and the Old Farm: the Deed from George Leslie to Johannes Moelich.”

Arron Mellick’s Book

Bedminster History – Mellick’s Windfall Home

Mellick Farmhouse / Blairs Pre-Blairsden / The White Cottage

In 1897, Mr. Clinton Ledyard & Florence Blair of 123 East 63rd St, NY, bought a 423-acre farm known as the Mellick Farm in Peapack. Called Windfall, the old Mellick Farmhouse (different from the Old Stone house above) was also known as White Cottage. (Photo- early 1930s, p. 98, A Journey thru Peapack and Gladstone)

View of an older Mellick Stone House in Bedminster, NJ
View of an older Mellick home. Bedminster, NJ
In 1897, before the Blairsden Estate was completed, Mr. Clinton Ledyard Blair lived in one of the original Mellick Farmhouses. Peapack was part of Bedminster then, but it’s now Peapack. This home was called the White Cottage (later Windfall).

The Blairs (including the daughters Majory, Florence, Edith, and Marise) spent their time in Peapack during the construction of Blairsden at the White Cottage.

C. Ledyard Blair built the famed Blairsden Estate in Peapack, New Jersey.
C. Ledyard Blair built the famed Blairsden Estate in Peapack, New Jersey. Learn more about the Blairs – Click Here

The Keith Family & the Manhattan Project

After the Blairs, the house was owned by the Percival Keith family. Percival C. “Dobie” Keith, from the engineering firm MW Kellogg Ltd, along with Crawford Greenwalt of DuPont, were noted for their work on the Manhattan Project and the development of the first atomic bomb.

The White Cottage was later separated from Blairsden when Percival Cleveland Keith, a chemical engineer famous for his work on the Manhattan Project, purchased the property in 1933. We spoke with Keith’s son, who said his father’s Manhattan Project involvement was very “hushed” and that no one knew about it. We discussed Windfall with Percival’s son, Dennis.

Manhattan Project atomic bomb scientist from Peapack, New Jersey
Manhattan Project atomic bomb scientist from Peapack, New Jersey
“Fat Man” atomic bomb on a trailer, produced as part of the Manhattan Project. (War Department)
Robert Oppenheimer worked to turn these materials into a workable atomic bomb. Early on the morning of July 16, 1945, the Manhattan Project held its first successful test of an atomic device–a plutonium bomb–at the Trinity test site at Alamogordo, New Mexico.

Altered by the Percival Keith Family, Ian McLaughlin purchased the house in the 1990s. The home then came up for sale in 2007 for $2,565,000. The listing agent was Ian McLaughlin of Far Hills, NJ.

Sadly, we heard that the home burned to the ground on December 24, 2009. The 16-room mansion on Highland Avenue was unoccupied at the time of the fire around 9 PM. Peapack-Gladstone Mayor William Horton, who lives next door, said he saw flames 50 feet in the air.

White Cottage after it burnt to the ground in 2009 – Source: NJ.com

Mellick Ties to Delicious Heights in Bedminster

Aaron Melick built the first Bedminster Hotel in 1780 for his son, John, who was returning home from the Revolutionary War. Since then, it has served as a pub, a polling place, a pool room, a package store, a political forum, a speakeasy, a hotel, and a restaurant. Numerous proprietors have served over the years, and we honor its most colorful owner, Mr. Willie Howard. In 1893, Willie came to Gladstone with Charles Pfizer and served as huntsman for Essex Hunt. In 1898 Willie and his wife, Bertha, purchased the Bedminster Hotel, as it was called, for $5,000. The hotel was renamed the “Howard Hotel,l” and in 1912 the first indoor plumbing was installed.

Delicious Heights was once known as Willies Tavern, Bedminster Hotel, Howard’s Hotel, and other names.

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Original Post: March 26, 2005
Updated: October 5, 2022

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2 thoughts on “Bedminster History – Look To the Old Mellick Farmhouses”

  1. duncan knobloch

    Thank you. My 5th Great Grandmother was Ida Mellick, married to Godfrey Kline. I did glean from the book His father was Christian, as was his son. So I add another 6th Gr Grandfather. Still looking for Ida in genealogies.

  2. Becky Storniolo

    I grew up ( as a LUZ ) on Old Dutch Rd. across from Perry and Ginny Hall’s house.( the story of the Old Farm) knew them quite well. Miss Far Hills ..i was there when they painted the mural on the inner hallway of there beutiful home.( any one who wants to know something about the old farm) i grew up loving their donkey FRANCES.. who lived to be 45years old. (listened to her neighing my whole life!) very wonderful people .please contact me about old time Far Hills, 1960’s -1980s! BECKY LUZ STORNIOLO

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