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Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2003
RALSTON, 26.2 miles, is little more than a one-story POST OFFICE (R).
That post office building, however, is the oldest in continuous use in the
United States. It was erected in 1775 as a store by John Ralston, and ever
since 1792 has served as a post office. Ralston built for permanence; the
frame is made of hand-hewn oak, held together by mortised beams and
wooden dowels, and the roof juts out a good yard past the front. Gray-brown color is the building's only sign of submission to time's slow fire.
The post office has fourth-class rating, and people in its district have to
come to it for their mail, though the regular route of the Mendham deliv-
ery service passes its very door. The government has paid rent for the use
of the building only since 1931. Adjoining it is RALSTON's HOME, built
in 1771.
The LOUGHLIN MILL (open), 26.9 miles (L), famous for its Colonial
applejack, is still making Jersey cider.
The road climbs steadily into a high farming region; L. is rugged MT.
PAUL. Apple orchards and rolling pasture lands are front lawns for red
barns and solidly built silos.
The scream of wind in wires and a sudden appearance of stunted telephone poles atop the embankment at 29.5 miles (R) call attention to an
AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH Co. EXPERIMENTAL STATION
(not open to public). Here, in a simple white shack that belies the imposing physics laboratory of its interior, the effects of weather on telephone
equipment are studied.
At 29.9 miles, on a L. bend, the roadbed changes to macadam.
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