It Happened in Hillsborough: Gerritse’s Tavern

I couldn’t write about Hillsborough or Somerset County history without making extensive use of maps. I
have all kinds of digitized maps on the computer, and old-fashioned folded ones strewn about my office.
I am immersed in them. In a word, they are indispensable. Recently, a few Revolutionary War-era maps
have caught my attention. Let’s take a look at them over the next three weeks, beginning with one that
shows a direct connection between Hillsborough and George Washington.

“Gerritse’s Tavern”

“A Map of Part of the States of New York and New Jersey” was drawn by Robert Erskine in 1777, based
on original surveys by Major General William Alexander (Lord Stirling) and others. Erskine was actually
an employee of Lord Stirling’s, running an ironworks he owned in Ringwood, NJ. At the start of the war,
he organized the first militia in North Jersey and designed a defensive marine barrier to prevent British
ships from sailing up the Hudson River.

Erskine declined an appointment as Chief Engineer of the Continental Army, but was quick to offer his
service in a related skill, mapmaking. The map he produced in the spring of 1777 from Lord Stirling’s
surveys caught the attention of General Washington, who was desperately looking for accurate maps of
the area and someone who could produce them.

He was so pleased with the map (which can be viewed in full online) that he commissioned Erskine as
Geographer and Surveyor General. Washington carried the carefully folded map with him, and it
survives today, complete with sixteen annotations in the General’s hand.

We can see several of Washington’s additions to the map just in the small section reproduced here:
Cugh’s T. (Cough’s Tavern or Clover Hill); Verbryck’s Mill (on the Neshanic River); Froom’s Mill (South
Branch), among others. But the one with the greatest importance is Gerritse’s Tavern (Garretson’s
Tavern). The tavern, which was at the intersection of today’s South Branch and East Mountain Roads,
was the seat of Hillsborough Township government during and after the Revolution, and was well
known to Washington.

Although only a mile from the British picket line that extended out in a semi-circle from Somerset
Courthouse (Millstone), it was a place where messages could be sent and received between
Washington’s officers and possibly the general himself. Washington mentioned the tavern in a letter to
Major General John Sullivan on June 15th, 1777, writing, “Near the point of Sowerland Hills is Gerritsons
Tavern about a Mile from which the Enemy have a picket.”

Next week, we will look at a map showing the enemy picket line and discover what the enemy thought
of Hillsborough’s patriots!
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Gregory Gillette has been writing about local history for 20 years, starting with his Courier News column
“Gillette on Hillsborough” and continuing today with a Facebook page of the same name. A recipient of
the Somerset County Cultural and Heritage Commission History Award for Education/Leadership in
2018, he was named as Hillsborough’s first Local Historian in 2025.