The Ringoes Historic District [‡] was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.
The Ringoes Historic District possesses significance in the areas of settlement pattern, architecture, education, communications, transportation, commerce, agriculture, and industry. The village exemplifies the small agglomerate settlements that proliferated throughout the region in the 18th and 19th centuries to serve its dispersed agricultural population, and whose moderate later growth later reflected their limited access to 19th-century transportation innovations. The Ringoes Historic District has architectural significance as an assemblage of modest, mostly 19th century buildings whose construction, form, detailing, and spatial organization are representative of the rural region's vernacular architecture in that era. Significance in the area of education stems from its two 19th century private schools: the Amwell Academy, typical of the many private schools providing a classically based education established throughout the region in the 19th century, and the Academy of Science and Art, whose founder, local physician Dr. Cornelius W. Larison (1837-1910), sought to provide interested youths with an education in the natural sciences. Besides his work as a physician and educator, Dr. Larison was active as an author, editor, publisher, and exponent of phonetic spelling, writing on a variety of subjects including health, education, and local history, as well as phonetic spelling, and operating a "Fonic Publishing House" at Ringoes for many years. His efforts in these fields give the Ringoes Historic District significance in the area of communications. Ringoes has transportation significance because of its railroad station, one of the few surviving Hunterdon County examples, and the only one to retain its original function. The Ringoes Historic District possesses commercial significance because of its store, lodge halls and tavern, physical documents of the important economic and social roles of such establishments in small rural communities. Agricultural and industrial significance are due to the milk station/dairy and the tomato cannery, which are representative of the small plants established throughout the region in the later 19th century, usually in locations with rail access, to process local agricultural products. Additional industrial significance comes from the blacksmith shop, the last survivor of the artisan shops once such a feature of the village and vital in establishing its role as a rural service center. Archaeological resources relating to the area's 18th- and 19th-century material culture also may be present in the environs of district buildings and sites.
Attracting one or more taverns and a church in the first decades of the 18th century and several artisans and a storekeeper by the 1750s, the crossroads settlement that became Ringoes emerged early on as an important local service center. Favored by its location at the intersection of two major roads and surrounded by a fertile agricultural district, the settlement grew by the early 1800s into a dispersed village of perhaps two dozen dwellings, with several stores and artisan shops, as well as a post office, tavern and private academy. At a time when the movement of people and goods was largely limited to horse-drawn conveyances, such small communities provided the region's rural population with almost its only centers for commerce and social activity. Little additional development occurred at Ringoes, however, until after the construction of the Flemington branch of the Belvidere and Delaware Railroad in the 1850s with a station on the line a half mile north of the crossroads. The community's rail connections encouraged the establishment of such enterprises as lumber and coal yards, a mattress factory, dairy, and tomato cannery in the subsequent decades; new churches, schools, and fraternal groups were organized during the period, and several dozen houses built. Although it never became a major regional manufacturing or commercial center like the neighboring towns of Lambertville and Flemington, Ringoes retained its role as local service center into the early 20th century and continued to experience modest residential development. The subsequent decline of railroad transportation, however, brought an end to the community's importance as a commercial center, and the village has grown little since the 1920s until recent years.
As a result, Ringoes has managed to preserve much of its 19th/early 20th century character despite the loss of many of its historic commercial and industrial resources and the intrusion of several modern commercial and institutional buildings. A majority of the Ringoes Historic District's buildings were erected c.1850-1930, although several are earlier or later and one house dates to the middle of the 18th century. The distinctive historical character of the village results from the survival of these buildings, their linear organization with varied spacing and set back, and their juxtaposition with the surrounding open countryside to the south and west. These resources — mostly dwellings with attendant outbuildings, but including a number of commercial, institutional, and industrial buildings as well — are in general well preserved and exhibit relatively few modern alterations. Collectively they possess architectural significance. Their form, construction,, detailing, and siting provide a representative illustration of the rural region's essentially vernacular architecture in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The tavern, lower store, grange hall, dairy and tomato cannery buildings, typical of the area's small rural commercial and industrial buildings, are all small-scaled buildings of unadorned utilitarian design. The influence of popular architectural styles is readily apparent in the design and/or detailing of many district buildings. Many houses are essentially vernacular structures of traditional or popular type embellished with detailing associated with the Federal, Greek Revival, Italianate, Gothic Revival, Colonial Revival, or other styles current in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Several district buildings are of individual architectural note and testify to the relative prosperity of the village, particularly in the later 19th century. The Henry Landis House (1066 Old York Road), the Ringoes Historic District's oldest extant building, is a stone mid-18th century dwelling distinguished by its Germanic central-chimney plan and distinctive gambrel roof. One of the only surviving early Hunterdon County houses with such features, it is an important document of the region's ethnically diverse architectural traditions. The 1811 Amwell Academy (1039 Old York Road), is an outstanding example of the Georgian center-hall-plan house type, notable for its Georgian/Federal style detailing and the quality of its stonework. The mid-19th century A.H. Landis House (106 John Ringo Road) is distinguished by its pedimented front gable and paired side wings, a rare local interpretation of the Greek Revival temple front type, as well as its Italianate U-shaped porch. A much smaller dwelling (10 Wertsville Road) is notable for its elaborate detailing, somewhat pretentious relative to its size, which also combines Greek Revival and Italianate motifs. The exuberant eclecticism of the Victorian era had a marked impact on village builders and their clients, as can be seen in an elaborately detailed dwelling like 20 John Ringo Road which reveals Greek Revival and Gothic Revival influences, and the rich combination of Italianate and Gothic detailing exhibited by dwellings such as 41 John Ringo Road, 47 John Ringo Road and 49 John Ringo Road. The 1868 Kirkpatrick Memorial Church (37 John Ringo Road) is notable for its relatively sophisticated Gothic Revival design. A substantial stone building with corner buttresses and pointed arched windows, it was one of the first academic design attempts in Hunterdon County to evoke medieval ecclesiastical architecture in contemporary church construction, an achievement more impressive before the loss of its original 120-foot high spire.
According to local tradition John Ringo was the pioneer settler and tavern keeper at the wilderness crossroads where the village arose that bears his name. According to what is perhaps the earliest written recounting of the tradition, which appears in an 1844 history of New Jersey, the village "derives its name from John Ringo, who about 1720 settled in this place, then a wilderness. He built a log cabin, where he was obliged to entertain travellers, there being no house near, and he at a point where the paths crossed, along which travellers occasionally passed from some settlements in Pennsylvania to the eastern parts of New Jersey. After a while this became a noted resting-place for travellers, and the public house known as "Ringo's Old Tavern, "was, according to tradition, kept by John Ringo, his son, and grandson, for about 70 years."
No documentary evidence, however, has been found establishing any member of the Ringo family there before the 1730s when Philip Ringo, whom genealogical records establish had an uncle named John, purchased property on the east side of the crossroads and received a license to keep a tavern subsequently inherited by his son John. European settlement of the Amwell Valley began early in the 1700s, initiated primarily by pioneer agriculturists of English, Dutch, and German stock. The crossroads neighborhood, no doubt, attracted settlers at an early date, quite possibly including squatters with neither lease nor title to their land, as was often the case throughout northwestern New Jersey during the frontier period. Unlicensed taverns apparently were common in early Hunterdon County, and the John Ringo of tradition could well have been a squatter keeping a tavern without the benefit of a license.
The site of Ringoes forms part of a 3,000-acre tract of land granted and surveyed under New Jersey's system of proprietary landholding to Andrew Hamilton, then proprietary governor of both East and West Jersey, and Benjamin Field, a "yeoman" of Burlington County, New Jersey and large landowner, in 1701. After Field's death in 1702, his widow and heir sold 1,650 acres of the large tract to her brother Nathan Allen, another Burlington resident, for 300 pounds to fulfill arrangements made by her late husband. This conveyance encompassed the site of the future crossroads village, and over the next quarter century, Allen proceeded to subdivide and sell parcels of land in the vicinity for himself or his sister, ranging from 100 to 300 acres in size, to individuals who evidently settled on them. Among these pioneer freeholders were William Lummix of Monmouth County, who purchased 300 acres including the northeast corner of the district in 1714, Philip Peters of Somerset County who in 1720 acquired 150 acres north of the crossroads between the two roads, German-born Henry Boss who bought 150 acres west of Peters in the same year, and Somerset County resident Rudolf Harlie who acquired 176 acres west of the crossroads, south of Boss in 1721. Three years later Francis Moore "late of Amwell" purchased a 100-acre parcel on the east side of the crossroads opposite the Harlie tract from Allen.
Subdivision of these lands continued in following years, and from the surviving deeds of conveyance and other records, the beginnings of the crossroads community can be traced. In 1725, for example, William Lummix conveyed eleven acres located about a half mile north of the crossroads to trustees for the construction of an Anglican church. The nascent congregation, which adopted the name Saint Andrews, is thought to have built a log church, replaced by one of stone construction in 1753, around which a graveyard was established. The crossroads neighborhood also attracted tavern keepers. In 1726 a 25-acre portion of Rudolf Harlie's land encompassing the southwest portion of the future village was purchased by Theophilus Ketchum, "innholder." Ketchum, who evidently conducted a tavern on the property, received a tavern keeper's license in 1729, reputedly the first ever recorded for Hunterdon County. Joseph Inslee purchased a 3-acre lot just north of the crossroads (50 John Ringo Road) in 1734, and a 1738 tavern license renewal application survives for him. Philip Ringo acquired a 5-acre lot on the east side of the crossroads at what is now the Wertsville Road intersection in 1736, the unrecorded deed for which conveyance describes him as a resident of Amwell Township and an "inholder." Like Inslee, he received a tavern license renewal in 1738. Artisans and merchants also settled in the neighborhood. Nicholas Shoemaker, a weaver, purchased the Inslee lot in 1745 and sold it to George Trout, a "saddletree maker" or saddler, in 1757. Another saddler, German-born Henry Landis acquired a 7-acre parcel to the north of Ringo's land in 1747, and three years later, according to 19th-century historians, began construction of the stone house (1066 Old York Road) which is the Ringoes Historic District's oldest building. A cooper, Henry Gans, bought an 8-acre lot adjoining Ketchum's lot on the south in 1743. In 1757 Garret Williamson, a "shopkeeper," purchased a 14-acre lot located on the road to Pittstown (John Ringo Road) north of what is now Larison Lane.
Philip Ringo (1682-1757) was of Dutch descent, and before moving north to Amwell Township in the early 1730s, lived in Hopewell Township, where he had owned a gristmill, and before that in Trenton where his family had emigrated from New York in the early 1700s. Ringo evidently prospered in Amwell, acquiring several other parcels of land around the crossroads and amassing a personal estate valued at 582 pounds, 16 shillings at the time his death. Ringo held a number of township offices and served as a Justice of the Peace, and his conveniently located tavern became a venue for court sessions and other public business. He was buried in the family graveyard located at the northwest corner of the 25-acre Ketchum lot, which he acquired from Ketchum's son, and bequeathed the tavern property to his son John.
The tavern remained at the center of community life under the proprietorship of John Ringo (1736-79} who operated the hostelry until his death. It continued to figure prominently in public affairs, most notably as the venue for local elections and meetings held by local patriots during the Stamp Act crisis and the Revolutionary War. Both British and American army troops passed through the neighborhood during the war, and two maps made at that time for army use identify the tavern by name, reflecting its status as a local landmark and neighborhood focal point. Both maps locate the tavern on the east side of the crossroad's northern fork (1084 Old York Road) and, depicting only a few scattered buildings in its vicinity, indicate that the community was still a small dispersed settlement. While ownership of the tavern passed from the Ringo family in 1782, and the property had a succession of owners and tavern keepers, the association with the departed family remained, and despite the efforts of some of its proprietors to change its name, the hostelry continued to be known as Ringo's Tavern or "Ringoes Old Tavern." The establishment of a post office in 1802 under the name of Ringo's with tavern keeper Nathan Price as postmaster reinforced the identification of the community with the name and its landmark tavern.
Although the community had acquired a post office, only the fifth place in Hunterdon County to do so, it appears to have grown slowly during the early 19th century, and as late as 1819 still exhibited a low density development pattern. A survey map drawn around that time depicts a scattered settlement of fifteen buildings, at least seven of which survive today, located with one exception on lots of several acres or more. Ringoes, nevertheless, must have been a place of some prosperity, as evidence by the construction of a substantial stone private academy in 1811 (1039 Old York Road). One of the founders of the school, Captain David Bishop was active as a merchant during the period. He appears to have lived and operated a store on property located on the Pittstown road (106 John Ringo Road) which he purchased in 1792, but shortly before 1810 built a new house at the crossroads, within its northern fork, on the site of what was subsequently known as the "upper store." Bishop's "new built house" is mentioned in the 1810 agreement he made with Isaac Landis, then owner of the tavern, for a "viaduct" to bring water from a spring on his property to the two buildings. In 1811 Solomon Landis, Isaac's brother, erected a substantial brick dwelling (35 John Ringo Road) across the Pittstown road from Bishop's new house, and in 1814 he purchased "Ringoes Old Tavern" from his brother. Solomon lost the tavern at a sheriff sale in 1818, the successful bidder being Isaac Lowe, who owned and operated the tavern until the 1830s. At the time of this conveyance, as documented by the above mentioned survey which accompanied the 1819 deed, the Henry Landis House (1066 Old York Road) was occupied by the Rev. Jacob Kirkpatrick, for many years the minister of the Presbyterian church on the Old York Road about a mile north of Ringoes. Dr. J.A. Henry occupied a dwelling (43 John Ringo Road), and Dr. Craven resided in a house, no longer extant, on the south side of the village on the Trenton road. The survey also records that Larison Lane existed by that time, as well as three nearby houses (1 Larison Lane, 1053-1053A Old York Road and 1055 Old York Road). A small lot with a building located on the west side of the crossroads perhaps represents the beginnings of the small lot subdivision that subsequently was to characterize much of the village.
Thomas Gorden's 1834 Gazetteer of the State of New Jersey describes Ringoes as containing: "1 tavern, 3 stores, 1 Presbyterian church, an academy, and 26 dwellings, saddlery, and a smith shop, cotton and woollen [sic] factory, and a grist mill. This is a delightful village, lying in the valley immediately at the foot of the Rock mountain, and upon a soil of loam, very deep, and highly cultivated in grain and grass. Lands immediately round the village readily bring $100 the acre, and those more distant in the valley, $50 the acre."
While this description includes the Presbyterian church and nearby mills not actually located in the crossroads settlement, it makes clear Ringoes' role as a service center for a rich agricultural district. Modest development occurred in the 1830s with the opening of Wertsville Road in 1837 and the construction of another tavern, the Washington Hotel (26 John Ringo Road), and a new store, later known as the "lower store" (28 John Ringo Road), on adjoining lots just south of the new road acquired by William L. Skillman from Isaac Lowe by separate purchases, the tavern site in 1833 and the store site in 1837. Ringoes Old Tavern, which closed shortly after the opening of the Skillman's tavern in 1838, was destroyed by fire on April 18, 1840. A newspaper account of the event noted that the old tavern was believed to have "been standing upwards of one hundred years."
Although the village was served by stagecoach lines operating on both east/west and north/south routes, the opening of the Delaware and Raritan Canal in 1834 put it at a competitive disadvantage with Lambertville, located on the new canal at the Old York Road crossing of the Delaware River. Flemington several miles north of Ringoes had the advantage of being the seat of county government. Whereas Lambertville experienced explosive development between 1834 and 1844, Ringoes grew little, if at all, during the period and was described in the 1844 Barber and Howe state history as containing only twenty dwellings.
The situation changed markedly upon the construction of the Flemington Branch of the Belvidere Delaware Railroad in 1853-54 and the establishment of a station a half mile north of the Ringoes crossroad. The third quarter of the 19th century witnessed considerable residential, commercial, and institutional development in the village, and Ringoes almost doubled in size. Lots were subdivided and houses erected throughout the village, particularly at its southern end along the Old York and Wertsville Roads. Two small carriage and wagon factories were established by W.S.C. Pittenger and J.L. Weber and Brothers, both located on the west side of the Old York Road north of the crossroads, complexes which included blacksmith and harness shops. Carpenter and blacksmith shops were also located on the Wertsville Road, as was merchant tailor William Case, Jr. In addition to the three stores near the crossroads, Alexander H. Landis had a store next to his residence (106 John Ringo Road) across the road from Ringoes station. Across the road from the hotel, Joseph Servis operated a restaurant and conducted business as an "oyster dealer." The building known as the Lecture Room was erected by the "Trustees of the Hall Association at Ringoes" on the west side of the Pittstown road on a lot purchased by them in 1850. In 1868 two churches were built. A new Presbyterian congregation formed by members of the old church at Larisons Corners who lived in Ringoes erected the substantial stone Gothic Revival sanctuary (37 John Ringo Road) on the Lecture Room lot, naming it in honor of their deceased former minister Rev. Jacob Kirkpatrick. A newly formed Baptist congregation built a much more modest frame church on the opposite side of the road, just south of Larison Lane. The new Baptist minister, Rev. Andrew B. Larison, revived the old academy as "The seminary at Ringoes" in partnership with his brother Dr. Cornelius W. Larison, beginning its first session in 1870. The community also acquired fraternal organizations. In 1872 Ringoes Grange No. 12, the oldest in Hunterdon County, was organized, and in 1872 the Powhattan Lodge, originally chartered in 1848, was resuscitated after a fourteen year abeyance.
Born on January 10, 1837 some miles west of Ringoes on a Delaware Township farm, Cornelius W. Larison was the third son of farmer Benjamin Larison and his wife Hannah Ann Holcombe. After a varied education interrupted by work as a school master and raising nursery stock, he received a medical degree from the Geneva Medical College in January, 1863. In the following month he established a medical practice at Ringoes and subsequently became the partner of local physician Dr. Cicero Hunt. He married Mary Jane Sergeant, a Hunterdon County native and graduate of the New Jersey Normal School, on March 26, 1863. They boarded at the local hotel until March of the following year when Dr. Larsion bought the house (1055 Old York Road) which was to be their home for the rest of their lives. Dr. Larison taught natural science at the Ringoes Seminary until his brother's death in 1872, whereupon he replaced his brother as principal and teacher of Latin and Greek. After serving on the faculty of the University of Lewisburg, Pennsylvania as professor of natural science for the 1874-75 school year, Dr. Larison returned to Ringoes. Responding to requests from several young men for instruction in the natural sciences, Dr. Larison opened his Academy of Science and Art, in the building (9 Larison Lane) which he erected to the west of his house on Larison Lane. With a faculty of one or two teachers besides Dr. Larison, the school remained in operation until his death in 1910. In addition to his work as an educator and physician, Dr. Larison was active as an author, editor, publisher, and exponent of phonetic spelling, writing on a variety of subjects including health, education, and local history, as well as phonetic spelling, and operating a "Fonic Publishing House" at Ringoes for many years. From April, 1889 until March of the following year, he published the monthly journal "Ringoes" devoted to the history and current affairs of the community. Among the other ephemeral journals published by him using phonic spelling were the "Jurnal of Health," and "The Spelling Reformer." Longer-lived and with some influence in the world of spelling reform was "The Journal of Orthoepy & Orthography" which he published from 1883 until 1909. The Fonic Publishing House was established in 1885 and also lasted until his death; its bibliography included a considerable number of titles, primarily on the subjects of education, local history, natural science, and spelling reform, in addition to his journals. Dr. Larison remained active until his death, and according to his biographer Henry Weis, it was his successful medical practice that allowed him to pursue his other endeavors. Despite his devotion to the cause of phonetic spelling, he is remembered more today as a local historian and genealogist.
For the May, 1889 issue of "Ringoes" Dr. Larison wrote an extensive article on the history of the village including a description of its present condition. Among other observations he noted that after the construction of the two churches in 1868 "other improvements followed, [and] the village became a more inviting place, and several very substantial people built residences and fixt [sic] their homes here." In the 1870s and 1880s residential development continued up the Pittstown road towards the station, where a number of relatively large and elaborately detailed dwellings were erected. Joseph Chamberlain Sutphin, a retired farmer from Delaware Township, who bought a lot and built a new house (49 John Ringo Road) in 1877, was representative of the newcomers. Several village residents installed flagstone sidewalks and planted trees along their road frontage, and a village improvement association sponsored the installation of a flagstone sidewalk from the southern end of the village along the west side of the road to the depot, a project not completed until 1889 (and not paid for until 1896). The Powhattan Lodge erected a new Odd Fellows Hall in 1886 near the north end of the crossroads. Dr Larison also commented on the new businesses established near the station where a new depot (105 John Ringo Road) was erected in 1872-73. A.H. Landis expanded his enterprises to include a large lumber and coal yard, as well as a mattress factory (which in 1889 had a production of twelve tons a day) and a furniture store. In the same year, Dr. Larison noted, J.M. Burrows kept a hardware store and "tinker shop" in Landis's "new building north of the depot," where Henry Brittain conducted a grain market in Landis's grain store, and R. William operated a pork and poultry market. The Ringoes Canning Company was incorporated on March 21, 1893 and proceeded to built a large tomato cannery on the south side of the depot, completed later that year "in time for the season's tomato crop." In 1900 the plant canned about 130,000 pounds of tomatoes, and in 1901 had 15 male and 30 female employees. It remained in operation until at least 1905 or 1906. A dairy owned by Jacob Stover and William Strouse, evidently located on the Old York Road, also began operation in 1893. An 1896 newspaper article commented, "Our popular and well conducted creamery has taken in over 9,000 pounds of milk daily for the past months paying 70 cents per 100 pounds."
In 1906 a milk station was constructed on the north side of the tracks at the depot. In addition to these enterprises the depot was a shipping station for a variety of other farm products. According to newspaper accounts 300,000 baskets of peaches were shipped from the station in 1882, and "44 loads of hay were brought to the Ringoes Hay press for sale" one Monday in 1890.
While scattered residential development continued around Ringoes in the first decades of this century, business activity gradually declined, most notably around the depot where the once thriving enterprises gradually disappeared. The creamery, for example, eventually went out of business as farmers switched to selling milk to large dairies that used truck transportation. Freight and passenger traffic declined on the railroad as motor traffic increased. The improvement and paving of local roads beginning in the early 1900s and the construction of the state highway through Ringoes in the 1920s, however, did result in the conversion of a blacksmith shop (48 John Ringo Road) in the automobile repair garage and dealership. As residents could more easily travel elsewhere for shopping and entertainment, local stores and social clubs declined. While the Presbyterian church and the grange hall continued to be centers of community life, the Baptist church and Odd Fellows lodge disbanded. The "upper store" was destroyed by fire sometime around 1900 and not rebuilt. The hotel closed around World War II; the "lower store," however, remains in operation today. In the late 1940s, a gas station replaced the old hotel stables torn down in the 1920s. A volunteer fire company, organized in 1923, erected a fire house, now much enlarged and remodeled, in 1927 to the south of the hotel. Increased appreciation of the community's heritage led to the organization of a memorial association in 1932, which erected a stone monument in honor of the community's traditional pioneer settler, John Ringo, in the abandoned Ringo family plot. The Black River and Western Railroad, incorporated in 1960, began passenger excursions on the old Flemington railroad branch in 1965. The company, which purchased the line in 1970, has made Ringoes station its headquarters and carefully preserved the depot there.
Ringoes exists today as a largely residential community whose late 19th/early 20th century character survives substantially intact despite the intrusion of modern residential and commercial development in and around the village in recent years, stimulated in large part by the completion of the Route 202/31 bypass. Although many historic nonresidential uses in the village have disappeared, the buildings that once house them, with a few notable exceptions, mostly remain. Modern alterations and deterioration, however, threaten a number of district buildings, and the remaining open lands surrounding the village are subject to increasing development pressure. Local officials and residents alike recognize both this threat and the special qualities that establish the historical character and significance of Ringoes and make it worthy for listing on the New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places.
References
Books, Pamphlets & Reports
Barber, John W. and Henry Howe. Historical Collections of the State of New Jersey. Newark, NJ: Benjamin Olds, 1844.
Boyer, Charles S. Old Inns and Taverns in West Jersey. Camden, NJ: Camden County Historical Society, 1962.
Breed Publishing Company's Directory of Lambertville, Flemington, and Stations on the Line of the Pennsylvania Railroad, Belvidere division, Phillipsburg to Trenton, also the Flemington Branch. Newburgh, NY: Breed Publishing co., 1897, 1899, 1901 and 1905.
Business Review of the Counties of Hunterdon, Morris and Somerset, New Jersey. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Publishing Co., 1891.
East Amwell Bicentennial Committee. A History of East Amwell 1700-1800. Ringoes, NJ: East Amwell Bicentennial Committee, 1976.
East Amwell Bicentennial Committee. Old Ringoes Highlights of Ringoes History. Ringoes, NJ: East Amwell Bicentennial Committee, 1976.
Farm and Business Directory of Hunterdon and Somerset Counties, New Jersey. Philadelphia: Wilmer Atkinson Company, 1914.
Gordon, Thomas F. A Gazetteer of the State of New Jersey. Trenton: Daniel Fenton, 1834.
Hutchinson, Elmer T. (ed.). Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New Jersey. First Series, Vol. XXXIX, Calendar of New Jersey Wills, Administrations, Etc. Vol. X , 1801-1805, Trenton, NJ: MacCrellish & Quigley, Printers, 1948.
Hunter, Richard W. and Richard L. Porter. Hopewell: A Historical Geography. Titusville, NJ: Township of Hopewell Historic Sites Committee, 1990.
Hunterdon County Master Plan, Sites of Historic Interest. Flemington, NJ: Hunterdon County Planning Board, November 1979.
Kay, John L. and Chester M. Smith, Jr. New Jersey Postal History. Lawrence, Massachusetts: Quarterman Publications, Inc. 1976.
Lee, Warren F. Down Along the Old Bel-Del, the History of the Belvidere Delaware Railroad Company, a Pennsylvania railroad Company. Albuquerque, New Mexico: Bel-Del Enterprises, Ltd., 1987.
Morrow, D. H. (ed.). Traditions of Hunterdon County. Flemington, NJ: D.H. Morrow, 1957, (originally published as a series of articles entitles "Traditions of Our Ancestors" in the Hunterdon Republican in 1869-70 and believed to have been written by John W. Lequear.
Nelson, William (ed.). Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New Jersey. First Series, Vol. XXV, Extracts From American Newspapers, Relating to New Jersey. Vol. VI 1762-65, Paterson, NJ: The Call Printing and Publishing Co., 1902.
Quick, Edward H. Recollections of a Church, 1968.
Ringo, David Leer. The Ringo Family History Series, Vol. II, The First Five Generations of The Ringo Family in America. Alhambra, California, The Freeborn Family Organization, Inc., 1982.
Schmidt, Hubert G. Rural Hunterdon: An Agricultural History. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1945.
Sims, Mary B. History of Commercial Canning in New Jersey. Trenton: New Jersey Agricultural Society, 1951.
Snell, James P. (ed.). History of Hunterdon and Somerset Counties, New Jersey. Philadelphia: Everts & Peck, 1881.
The Grange — Hunterdon County's Heritage, (no date).
The Industrial Directory of New Jersey. Trenton: Bureau of Industrial Statistics, Department of Labor, State of New Jersey, 1918.
Wacker, Peter. Land and People. A Cultural Geography of Pre-industrial New Jersey: Origins and Settlement Patterns. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1975.
Wilson, Thomas B. Notices from New Jersey Newspapers, 1781-1790. Lambertville, NJ: Hunterdon House, 1988.
Weiss, Harry B. Country Doctor Cornelius Wilson Larison of Ringoes, Hunterdon County, New Jersey, 1837-1910. Trenton, New Jersey: New Jersey Agricultural Society, 1953.
Maps and Atlases
Author's Concept — The Crossroads at Ringoes, Amwell Township, Hunterdon County, New Jersey Showing Original property lines and Early Owners as of the middle of the 18th century. History House Press, 1975.
Beers, F. W. County Atlas of Hunterdon, New Jersey. New York: F. W. Beers & Co., 1873.
Beers, S. N. and D. J. Lake. Map of the Vicinity of Philadelphia and Trenton. Philadelphia: C. K. Stone and A. Pomeroy, 1860.
"Deed James S. Manners Esq. high Sheriff of the county of Hunterdon to Isaac Lowe for Ringoe's Tavern of 13 acres of land in Amwell." Manuscript deed including survey map recorded June 29, 1819 in Hunterdon county Clerk's Office, book 30, page 167 but without the survey. (Printed in David Leer Ringo's. The Ringo Family History Series, Vol. II, The First Five Generations of The Ringo Family in America. Alhambra, California, The Freeborn Family Organization, Inc., 1982).
Dewitt, Simon. "From near Ringoes towd the Union." Series No. 119C. New York Historical Society, New York.
Erskine, Robert. "Crossing Correll's Ferry towards Morristown to Ringoe's Tavern." Series No. 73 3rd. New York Historical Society, New York.
Erskine, Robert. "Road from Ram Garrison's to Near Pennytown." Series No. 87A. New York Historical Society, New York.
Cornell, Samuel C. Map of Hunterdon County, New Jersey, Philadelphia: S.C. Cornell and Lloyd Vanderveer, 1851.
Hammond, D. Stanton. Hunterdon County, New Jersey, Sheet G, Map Series #4. Genealogical Society of New Jersey, 1965.
The Crossroads of the Village of Ringoes — Author's concept of the buildings Surrounding Ringo's old Tavern when it burned on April 18, 1840. History House Press, 1975. (Printed in David Leer Ringo's. The Ringo Family History Series, Vol. II, The First Five Generations of The Ringo Family in America. Alhambra, California, The Freeborn Family Organization, Inc., 1982).
Manuscripts
David L. Ringo Papers, Hunterdon County Historical Society, Flemington, NJ, Manuscript #0059.
Deed from Nicolas Shoemaker, weaver, to George Trout, saddletree maker, 1757. Hunterdon County Historical Society, Flemington, NJ, Manuscript #0018/1-195.
Edwards H. Quick Papers, East Amwell Historic Preservation Committee, Ringoes, NJ.
Periodicals
Democratic Advertiser. Flemington, NJ.
Hunterdon County Democrat, Flemington, NJ, 1854-1999.
Hunterdon Gazette, Flemington, NJ.
Hunterdon Republican, Flemington, NJ.
Ringos, A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the History of Ringos — Past and Present — And to the Current News of the Village and Vicinity. Ringos, New Jersey 1889-1990.
State Gazette and New Jersey Advertiser. Trenton, NJ: 1796-1799.
Public Records:
Hunterdon County Court House, Flemington, NJ: Hunterdon County Deed Books; Hunterdon County Incorporation Books; Hunterdon County Mortgage Books; Hunterdon County Road Returns; Hunterdon County Special Deeds; Hunterdon County Will Books.
New Jersey Archives, State Library, Trenton, NJ: Amwell Township Tax Rateables, 1780-1803; Colonial Conveyances; Historic American Building Survey, NJ-513; Hunterdon County Tavern Licenses; Hunterdon County Tavern Applications, 1783-1800, Vol. III; New Jersey Wills; West Jersey Deeds.
United States Census: Population Schedules, East Amwell Township, 1850-1880; Industrial Schedules, East and West Amwell Townships, 1850; Industrial Schedules, Delaware and East Amwell Township, 1860-1880.
‡ Adapted from: Dennis Bertland and Sally Bishop, Dennis Bertland Associates, Ringoes Historic District, Hunterdon County, NJ, nomination document, 1999, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, Washington, D.C.
Street Names
Boss Road • John Ringo Road • Larison Lane • Old York Road • Route 179 • Route 579 • Wertsville Road