Route 537 is a time machine, traveling through marvelous NJ history

• What is now called Route 537 dates to 1684, and is believed to have integrated a traditional Lenni Lenape footpath.
• A trip along the current road from Fort Monmouth to Freehold takes you along multiple historic sites.

A daytrip on Route 537 in Monmouth County offers a step back in time, as the road is lined with historic gems that date as far back as colonial times. Sections of the road itself are even older and were first beaten down by the feet of Native Americans.

In 1684, the deputy governor of the province of East Jersey, Gawen Lawrie, established a road between the two capitals of the provinces of East and West Jersey: Burlington and Perth Amboy. New Jersey was divided into East and West provinces from 1674 to 1702, when boundary disputes led to the provinces being united under Queen Anne.

Tradition is the colonial road integrated a Lenni Lenape footpath that followed a ridge line from present-day Mount Holly on the Delaware River to the Shrewsbury River. The road was called the Burlington Path and took four days to travel by stagecoach, More importantly, it would spur colonial development all along the route.

For example, in 1714, John Reid, who was a surveyor and commissioner of highways, sold a plot of land on the path to the Monmouth County freeholders for 30 shillings for the first county courthouse. A deed restriction required the property to function as a court house or the land would revert back to Reid or his future descendants.

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In 1796, by an act of the New Jersey legislature, the path was renamed Monmouth Road, a name is still carries locally, though is now also part of Monmouth County roads and is called Route 537. Here is a list of the historic sites to be seen on the road, starting east and traveling west.

Avenue of Memories, Fort Monmouth

Fort Monmouth was developed in 1917 by the U.S. Army for the Signal Corps. In 2016 Monmouth County extended Route 537 into the fort, thus incorporating the Avenue of Memories into the road. The avenue takes it name from the 117 monuments and trees placed in memory of the U.S. Army Signal Corps soldiers killed in action during World War II.

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Tinton Falls Ironworks, Tinton Falls

The Pine Brook waterfall is hidden from drivers from below by a short bridge that spans Tinton Avenue at the intersection of Sycamore Avenue and Water Street. The brook's rushing water powered the Tinton Manor Ironworks, started in 1676. Col. Lewis Morris of Shrewsbury, one of the three original towns of Monmouth County, owned the works, which relied on slave labor imported from the Caribbean.

On the west side of the bridge and next to the 19th century home of the Crawfords lies a burial ground for the slaves who labored at Morris' ironworks. A placard marks the site, which is roped off and maintained by the town. Another nearby site is a natural mineral spring at the base of the falls.

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Scobeyville

The settlement is named for the Scobey family, which has lived in the township since the 1700s. It once had a one-room schoolhouse, a post office and a general store. It is now an unincorporated community in Colts Neck.

Polhemus Farmhouse and Dorbrook Farm

The land here was once active farmland but is now part of the Monmouth County Park System and named the Dorbrook Recreation Area. The site contains the Polhemus Farmhouse, which dates to 1763, according Library of Congress records. A schoolhouse was built here in 1851 but was gone by the Great Depression. In 1937, Murray Rosenberg, the president of Miles Shoe Co., bought 80 acres of land here, named it Dorbrook Farm and raised prize-winning cattle. In 1985, a year after he died, his estate sold the property to Monmouth County for the park.

Lairds Apple Jack Cider

America's oldest native distilled spirit, applejack, is made on this road by the same family that started the business over 300 years ago. According their history published on the Laird & Co. website, William Laird emigrated to the colonies from Scotland in 1698, eventually settling in Monmouth County. Believed to be a distiller in his homeland, he applied his skills to apples, which grew abundantly in the area. This led to the production of applejack for his own use and for his friends and neighbors.

In 1717, the original Laird family distillery was built on land behind the Colts Neck Inn. The inn served as a stopping point for stage coaches. The applejack distillery flourished at the Colts Neck Inn site until 1849, when a fire burned the distillery to the ground.

Robert Laird, a fifth generation Laird, rebuilt the distillery at its current Scobeyville site. In 1851, expanded commercial production of applejack began.

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Colts Neck Inn and Huddy House

According to a sign marker, the Inn was established in 1717 as a tavern and stagecoach stop on the Burlington Path. It was owned the widow Catherine Hart, who remarried privateer Capt. Joshua Huddy. While no longer there, Joshua Huddy's house stood on the west side of what is now Heyers Mill Road directly behind the Inn.

Huddy, who had troubles with the law before the American Revolution, joined the New Jersey Militia and engaged in raids against British Loyalists in Monmouth County. In 1780, a party of Tories burned the house down. Huddy was captured twice by the British, escaped the first time and was hanged the second time.

Two other sites sit close by. The first, the Colts Neck General Store, was founded in 1849 by Levi Scobey, according to an undated pamphlet titled A History of Colts Neck. The store is celebrating 175 years this year and stands just a few hundred feet from the Inn on Route 537. The other site is directly behind the Inn on Heyers Mill Road — the Atlantic Grange 216, organized in 1931 and built in 1937, according to the pamphlet.

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Monmouth County Courthouse

Several courthouses fronted the path. As mentioned earlier, the land was sold to the freeholders dirt cheap by John Reid, who hoped the courthouse would make his other properties more valuable. The first one was built in 1715, but according to a story in the colonial paper the New Jersey Gazette, two prisoners escaped from it shortly after it was built, so it was replaced.

A wood frame courthouse was built in 1719 but was burned in 1727. A third courthouse went up in 1731 and lasted until 1808. This one was where the Declaration of Independence was read allowed and also served as a hospital during the Revolutionary War. A fourth courthouse was constructed in 1808, but burned in the great fire of Oct. 30, 1873. The fifth courthouse was built and was the site of the trial and the execution by hanging of Louis Harriot, a French immigrant found guilty of the murder of Anna Grover Leonard, the wife of Charles T. Leonard, the family for which the Leonardo section of Middletown is named for.

An expanded courthouse was built in 1954 to the north of the site, and the previous courthouse right in the middle of downtown Freehold became the Hall of Records. However, one room still functions as a court at the Hall to satisfy the deed restriction.

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St. Peter's Episcopal Church

This active Episcopalian church at the corner of Throckmorton Street in Freehold was originally the Quaker Meeting House in Topanemus in present-day Marlboro. Topanemus has a Leni Lenape root and roughly translates to "a place of plentiful fish and fowl."

The first service of this congregation was held on Oct. 10, 1702, in Marlboro. The congregation was led by the Rev. George Keith, a surveyor who drew the Keith Line, which separated West Jersey from East Jersey when New Jersey was divided into two proprietor groups from 1664 to 1702.

Keith however, fell out of favor with the Quakers and was kicked out. Back in England, he converted to Anglicanism and returned to the colony on a missionary mission. He failed to convert the Crosswicks Meeting House in Burlington County to the Anglican faith, but was successful at Topanemus.

The congregation received its charter from King George II in 1736. The land for the church was purchased in 1738, but construction did not begin until 1771. The architect was Robert Smith of Philadelphia, who had designed Nassau Hall at Princeton University and Christ Church and Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia. Construction was interrupted by the Revolutionary War but was completed by 1794. It opened for worship in 1797.

The Topanemus site remained an active cemetery into the 19th century, before it grew neglected. In the 1970s, the remaining tombstones were removed from Topanemus and placed at St. Peter's Church, where they remain behind a gate but viewable to passersby.

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Covenhoven House

Route 537 used to run in front of the Covenhoven House. William and Elizabeth Covenhoven built this Georgian house in 1752-53. British Gen. Henry Clinton occupied it as his headquarters just prior to the Battle of Monmouth in 1778. Local lore says Elizabeth buried her valuables in the ground but was forced to unearth them by Clinton. 

When Jersey Shore native Dan Radel is not reporting the news, you can find him in a college classroom where he is a history professor. Reach him @danielradelapp; 732-643-4072; [email protected].