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The Old Stone House Essay
By Kyla Rayne Taub
Homeroom: Mr. A Cicenia, Grade 7
Hi there! My name is
Kyla, and I’m writing about the Old Stone House. A lot of us don’t
know what or where it is, including me until I went to a small
lesson at the South Orange Public Library. Once I actually did learn
about it, I became positively fascinated, as I’m sure you will be
too, once you read this essay. For starters, before I dive in to a
history of this marvelous house, I find it important to preserve our
landmarks, and believe it or not, this is a landmark of our town.
I’m not saying we can’t restore it, but we can not tear it down, and
if we do restore it, we must try to restore it as accurately as it
had been in the past. Well, prepare to be dazzled by this old
house’s long-lasting reputation, the reputation we hold in our
hearts.
I guess the first step in
the houses history would be how old it is. Right now we know it as
Jersey City, but hack then in 1633 it was actually known as
Communipaw. Then, in 1641 a land grant was issued to a man name
Myndert Mydertson Van der Horst. The land grant gave him the land
that was west of Newark Bay and North to Tappan, which would have
included South Orange. By 1680, we had it, that beautiful Stone
House we now love and cherish. The lucky man who was the first
recorded owner of the House was Nathaniel Wheeler, and he is also
the first recorded European settler in our area. The original farm
included about sixty acres, which is now Grove Park Maybe we should
skip ahead to the next owner of the house. His name was William
Augustus Brewer Jr. He bought the house from the developer, who was
John Gorham Vose, who had owned the land until 1866, which is when
Brewer bought it. Brewer owned the house until 1916.
During that time, he
extended on the house and essentially built a house in front of the
original one. The interior and exterior designs were expensive, and
they were made in 1877, then again in 18%. Brewer named his house
“Aldworth” which means “Old Mansion”. The only surviving house
associated with Brewer is-well what do you know? It’s our Old Stone
House!!! The Old Stone House is owned by the Township of South
Orange since 1953, but it has only been empty since 1983. Anyway, I
could use page after page on this houses exact details, and we’d all
stay entertained, but for a brief history summary, I guess this
alright, pretty much covers the overall house! Up next: What would I
do if! had a million dollars to use for that house and the land
surrounding it?
What would I do if I had
a million dollars to spend on that lovely old house? Well, I think
that first, we should restore it. We should restore it as accurately
as possible. We obviously can’t have the same furniture, but we
should try to track down the same sort of devices used in the
kitchen, the kind of radio system they listened to, the kind of
phone, and fill the house with items that were used when the house
had people living it. After that, I think we should interview people
who know a lot about the old house.
The person who knows the
most and wants the job should be a curator for the museum we could
build out of it.
Then there could be
people who also know a lot, and have them do tour groups, explaining
the history of the house and how to use the older machines. For
people who are interested, there would be an exhibit showing the
house in its building phases, and acknowledge the people who lived
in the house. If they did that to the old house, I would totally go
visit it. I also think there should be times where kids can come in
and try to use the devices. For example, I think there should be a
special tour group, (I guess they’d have to pay some sort of extra
fee) who could actually be taught to use, for example, a butter
churner. I think kids and parents would enjoy that, and it’s
educational. I would love something like that, and I know a lot of
my friends would too.
For me, I think it’s
important remembering and acknowledging this house. The Old Stone
House isn’t just a house, it's a part of our history, and it’s part
of South Oranges character. I really do think we should do something
to protect and restore this old house, before it becomes so
deteriorated it crumbles, and we definitely can’t rebuild it when
it's dust! Maybe not to use my idea, though it would be cool, but we
have to do something before this house falls. Think about all the
people who worked hard on this house, called it their home, and
loved it more than a lot of us do. Sure not a lot of people know it,
but if we fix it up, and made a program that brought in some sort of
income, we could use it to pay hack the money we used to restore the
house. And that’s an eleven year olds idea of what this house means,
what its history is, and what we could do to make it even better. |
