AsaHunt1830Farmhouse

The Asa Hunt House sits on “Pennington-Lawrenceville Road” in Hopewell township NJ. In this part of the state, the roads all have common labels in addition to their official state number; our road is also NJ 546. If you travel our road just a couple miles east, you cross into Lawrence township, and though you are still on 546, the road name flips to “Lawrenceville-Pennington Road.” Or, if you travel west from our house, 546 heads towards a famous place on the Delaware River, and soon becomes “Pennington-Washington Crossing Road.” With road names like this, it’s easy to get confused and turned around.

As the “Garden State,” New Jersey has a well-earned farming reputation. Much of our area is still actively producing meats (mostly beef and pork, not chickens so much), and vegetables in all seasons. There are several farmer’s markets nearby, and at least four still-active farms with roadside stands that have probably been in operation for over a century.

Before World War 2, the Asa Hunt House was one of those farms. It had a a dairy barn and other structures out back, and sat on about 250 acres of land. So it would have been no surprise – sitting on a major road as it does – that it too would have once offered its products at a stand out front, to lure in travelers lost on our maze of confusing country roads.

Down in the bowels of the house we have a pretty creepy crawlspace. It has field stone walls, a dirt floor, lots of broken glass and crockery, numerous layers of wiring, plumbing and insulation, and – most disturbingly – the obvious diggings and chewings of several generations of rodents.

And sitting in the dirt is a very large and heavy piece of oversized plywood, which we always assumed was an ersatz floor put there for one to slide along, making the dirty crawl into the back of that creepy space a little easier.

But recently, with the renovation of the house underway, and needing to clean everything out, we decided it needed to be pulled. So we grabbed hold of that heavy wooden board. We hauled it into the basement. We leaned it up against the wall. And that’s when we saw the message on the other side.

“Flowers for all Occasions / Lenox China / Bluegate Candles / Pewter Brassware / Fruit Baskets”

Yep, it’s a timely message from the past. The old farmhouse is slowly coming back to life. And apparently it wants to show off its Garden State roots.

Now, we’re not gonna restart our Asa Hunt farm stand any time soon; the road these days is too dangerous and we don’t grow enough to sell. But we will clean up that old sign and maybe hang it on our back barn.

Once the renovation is complete it’ll serve as a nice reminder of where the old house comes from. And perhaps it will be a nice talisman for the future.