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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
Right (straight ahead) on a macadamized road to RINGWOOD MANOR (L), 0.7 miles.
(grounds open; 25¢ parking fee includes use of picnic tables), owned by the State;
it is being developed as the 100-acre Ringwood Manor State Park. Lying close to the
mountain whose ore-laden veins supplied life blood to this community (see RINGWOOD, below), the great, rambling manor house of 78 rooms bespeaks the steady
growth of the wealth and the changing taste of its owners. The original building
(c. 1765) was a straight-forward mansion with a gambrel roof that is the only recognizable early feature left. From this have grown wings, massive and extensive;
and in the modest Victorian era the whole was veiled by covering the original bare
clapboards with a coat of white stucco, and trimming the structure with pseudo-Gothic bargeboards, bay windows, and Tudor cornices. The two-and-a-half-story
mansion stands today on a knoll surrounded by great oaks and overlooking artificial
pools fed by a cascade from a tile drain. In this big house the Erskines, Ryersons,
Coopers, and Hewitts lived and married and had children.
Ringwood Manor is the American scene, representing an era when a man's wealth
and prestige were measured by the size and elaborateness of his house. Here the
knickknack and the whatnot broke away from the interior of the house and ran rampant over the lawns and gardens in the form of statuary, Civil War artillery, historic
gateways, lamp-posts from New York, stone brackets from Rome, frogs from parts
unknown, iron shafts from steamboats, and pig iron from the mountain. The curiosa
amassed by Mrs. Abram Hewitt and other Hewitts includes (in part) statues depicting Africa and Europe, acquired from a bishop's palace in France; the former gate
posts of Columbia College; a small lead fountain removed from Versailles at the
time of the Commune and now mounted on a century-old New Jersey millstone;
Indian grindstones; millstones from Padua, Italy; a pink marble well curb, iron
ornaments, and lead bucket from Venice; stone columns from the New York Life
Insurance Co. Building formerly at Madison Square, New York; a yew tree grown
from a seed picked at the Abdul Hamud Palace, Constantinople; three entrance gates
from the Middle Dutch Reformed Church in New York; a Chinese vase standing
on a New Jersey millstone; a marble statue of Diana; another (French) of a small
boy playing with a rabbit; and ornamental ironwork from the house of the British
Governor-General of New York. The trees in front of the house were planted by
Mrs. Martin Ryerson to mark the Peace of Ghent ending the War of 1812. Placed
before the veranda are 25 links from the famous Hudson River barricade chain made
in part at Ringwood, the anvil used to forge it, a Constitution cannon, and a Vicksburg mortar.
Washington was a frequent visitor at Ringwood. He was here during the Pompton
mutiny of January 20, 1781, when between 200 and 300 rebellious soldiers were
cowed by the shooting of two ringleaders after a brief court martial. General Howe's
report of the mutiny and its suppression was written in the house. Later Washington returned with General Lincoln and others to celebrate the Declaration of Peace.
It was a gay party, with guests from New York and no lack of spirits. Washington
was so impressed by the Ringwood country that he is reported to have suggested
that 150,000 acres he set aside as a national park and recreation ground, which he
held would he valuable if New York should become the largest city of the continent, if not in the world.
Part of the mansion was burned by the British during the Revolution. They came
to destroy the forge, the story runs, but were sidetracked in the wine cellar. Revolutionary troops found them in their cups. Mrs. Erskine escaped from the burning
building in her nightgown, her watch safely stowed away in her slipper.
Near the house on the sloping bank of a willow pond is the BRICK CRYPT containing Robert Erskine's body; his wife is not buried next to him. A SECOND CRYPT
is the grave of Robert Monteith, Erskine's secretary. Erskine's ghost used to sit on
top of the tomb with a blue lantern for a few years after a brick fell out early in
the 19th century. The practice ended when Mrs. Hewitt had the brick replaced.
Closer to the pond are three MARBLE VAULTS containing the bones of John Hewitt,
his wife, Ann Gurnee Hewitt, and John Hewitt Jr. The elder Hewitt, born in 1711,
is described as "a man without guile" and "one of the builders at Soho, New Jersey,
of the first steam engine constructed in the United States." His son was less talented; all the stonecutter left for posterity to know about John Jr. was that he was
"for many years trustee of the Public School of the 5th Ward in the City of New
York."
Erskine was the last of his family to live in the now empty house. Locally, most
renowned of the Hewitts were his sisters, the Misses S. C. and E. G. Hewitt. That
is how they come down in official documents, and that is how they were known to
the natives. Ringwood residents remember Miss S. C. as something of a caution.
She rode all over the countryside on horseback at an advanced age, and the story is
that she could not tolerate trespassers – ran them off the property herself. Miss E. G.
was more the homebody, an excellent cook, whose crullers and doughnuts are still
talked about.
On the main road L. at the junction with the Ringwood Manor road
and across swift Ringwood Creek on a concrete bridge.
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