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The Elm Tree Tavern
of Woodbridge, NJ, 1739-1823
©2010-2024 Doug Wilson

1781 map of Woodbridge VillageColonial Woodbridge had a choice of taverns dotting the thoroughfares, ready to serve civic affairs and wayward travelers, alike. Woodbridge, strategically located near ferry docks across the rivers and bays from New York and on the most direct path to Philadelphia, saw it's share of travelers. The map (right) is an extracted from a 1781 Middlesex County map available at the Library of Congress American Memory collection.

Likely it was the thirsty needs and civic functions of the township inhabitants that welcomed the first ordinary, as they were known. "In 1686, Samuel Moore was by unanimous vote, made choice of, to keep an ordinary, that is, an inn, for the town. ... Between the buildings [in 1946] occupied by Greiner's barber shop and Janni's store on the corner of Green Street and Rahway Avenue, stood this historical tavern." (Breckenridge, p4) According to Dally's 1870 report of the town, the tavern "probably occupied the site upon which Dr. Samuel E. Freeman's drug store now stands, as that is the spot which both the record and tradition assign as the residence." (Dally, p101)

On the southwestern edge of the village was the Cross Keys "situated on the main post and stage road between Philadelphia and New York. It was first maintained as a hostelry by William Manning" and served the Revolutionary cause as described further here. After the war, "the first liberty pole, or flag, erected in Woodbridge, was placed in front of the tavern across the street" by Janet Gage. April 22, 1789, George Washington overnighted there as he travelled to New York for his inaugauration. He was accompanied by Governor William Livingston and welcomed "by the Woodbridge Calvary, Captain Ichabod Potter, commanding." General Lafayette was also entertained there in 1824. It served as "the place of the Town Meeting from 1824 to 1848" when it "ceased to operate as a tavern." (Breckenridge, p4; McElroy, p23)

Around the corner from the Cross Keys Inn was "the famous Pike House, so called because the turnpike roads to Rahway and Blazing Star (Carteret) passed its front door at the southwest corner of the road (now Green Street) to Uniontown." While this description places the tavern on the southwest corner of Rahway Avenue and Green Street, the 1781 map above clearly marks the Pike House across the street, southeast of the intersection. From 1848 the Town Meetings were held at the Pike House "where this annual meeting was to continue to 1874. The Pike House eventually became known as the Woodbridge Hotel until it was demolished in the 1920's. In 1955 the site was occupied by a gas station. (McElroy, p23) By 2011 that corner has become the location of a strip of retail stores.

North on Turnpike Road (Church St.), before you get to the old White Church, and set back from the street behind a great, old elm was "the tavern conducted by Thomas, James, and Charles Jackson on the road to Rahway and Blazing Star (Carteret). This tavern, the Elm Tree, was located on the west side of the road to Rahway, now known as Rahway Avenue, a part of which is still standing at No. 531, a few feet north of Grove Avenue." (McElroy, p23)

Hosted by three generations of Jacksons from about 1739 to 1820, this was the location of town meetings for decades and important Patriot activity during the Revolution and the War of 1812. After 80 years with a host of the same family, the inn must have been synonymous with the family. However, the records are sparce due to a county courthouse fire that engulfed the only copy of US Census and other civil records prior to 1830. I endeavor here to retrieve all relevant records to the tavern and its keepers so as to construct a historical record that may help reveal the family history of the Jacksons of Woodbridge, New Jersey, innkeepers.

Click on a section title below to learn more about the next events in this adventure or open all sections and browse.

Colonial Years

The Revolution

Early American Period

References

1664 - 1964 An Historical Sampler Woodbridge, Edna Oberlies Jost and Margaret Krewinkel Jost, 1964.
American Genealogical-Biographical Index (AGBI), Godfrey Memorial Library.
Annals of our colonial ancestors and their descendants ..., Ambrose Milton Shotwell, 1895-97.
Contributions to the Early History of Perth Amboy ..., William A. Whitehead, 1856.
Disappearing Landmarks of Woodbridge, Amy E. Breckenridge, 1946.
Documents Relating to the Colonial, Revolutionary and Post-Revolutionary History of the State of New Jersey v.16, New Jersey Archives v.1, 1880.
Documents Relating to the Colonial, Revolutionary and Post-Revolutionary History of the State of New Jersey v.22, New Jersey Archives v.1, 1880.
Documents Relating to the Colonial, Revolutionary and Post-Revolutionary History of the State of New Jersey v.23, New Jersey Archives v.1, 1901.
Documents Relating to the Colonial, Revolutionary and Post-Revolutionary History of the State of New Jersey v.30, New Jersey Archives v.1, 1918.
Documents Relating to the Colonial, Revolutionary and Post-Revolutionary History of the State of New Jersey v.32, New Jersey Archives v.1, 1924.
Early History of the Thorne Family of Long Island, Christian, NYGBS Record, 1962.
The Descendants of Edward Fitz Randolph and Elizabeth Blossom 1630-1950, Louise Aymar Christian and Howard Stelle Fitz Randolph, 1950.
History of Middlesex County, New Jersey, 1664-1920, Volume I, John P. Wall and Harold E. Pickersgill, Associate Editors, 1921.
History of Woodbridge Township, Leon McElroy / Woodbridge High School, 1955.
History of Union and Middlesex Counties, New Jersey with Biographical Sketches of many of their Prominent Men , W. Woodford Clayton, Editor, 1882.
Nathaniel Fitz Randolph of Woodbridge, N.J., Quaker, and his Descendants, Louise Aymar Christian, NEHGS Register July 1943.
New Jersey Revolutionary War Sites, Al Frazza, 2009-present.
Quartermaster and Commissary Generals' Records, United States Continental Army, 1776-1789 , NJDARM, 2009.
Records of Rahway and Plainfield [N.J.], Monthly Meeting of Friends (Formerly held at Amboy and Woodbridge), From 1687 to 1825, NJ Friends / Hugh D. Vaile, 1877.
Spying in America, Michael J. Sulick, 2012
The Record, NYG&BS, 1870-present.
The Record [Member's Area], NYG&BS, 1870-present.
Valley Forge Legacy, Valley Forge National Historical Park
Woodbridge and Vicintiy, Rev. Joseph Dally, 1873.

 

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