The Hickories: Teddy Roosevelt Slept Here Too

Theodore Roosevelt was a colorful and celebrated American President whose vision and commitment led to the establishment of the National Parks Service and regulation of the food industry and child labor, among other achievements. It is less well known that he spent many happy days as a child visiting his Uncle Cornelius’s country home in Maplewood.

Roosevelts in Maplewood

In 1855, when Maplewood was still a remote country town, Cornelius Van Shaack Roosevelt Sr. (known as CVS) of New York City, grandfather of the future President Theodore Roosevelt, bought the first of two parcels of land on Ridgewood Road, eventually totaling about 100 acres, from the heirs of Capt. Isaac Smith, who had fought in the Revolutionary War. The property extended from what is now Durand Road to Curtiss Place, and from Ridgewood Road up the mountain.

In 1857, Cornelius Sr. conveyed the land to his son Cornelius Van Shaack Roosevelt Jr. “for and in consideration of Mutual love and affection and the sum of one dollar lawful money of the United States…”

CVS Jr., Theodore Roosevelt’s uncle, built a large, ornate mansion called The Hickories on the property in about 1863-65, with a gate at the Ridgewood Road entrance that is still standing. The lane that is now Hickory Drive was the carriage road up to the house; it continued around the mansion to the carriage house that still stands on Durand Road.

According to a news account in 1905, “the house was a great rambling structure, with labyrinthine halls, in which it was easy to get lost. It was finished in old woods and, in its day, was a fine mansion. Theodore Roosevelt was a frequent visitor there in his youth, and occupied a room in the northeast wing of the house. After the building passed out of the hands of the Roosevelt estate and became an inn, the brass bed he slept in was frequently exhibited to the curious as ‘the bed that Teddy slept in.’”

Teddy Roosevelt Visits Maplewood

Theodore Roosevelt, who grew up in New York City, had severe asthma as a child and visited his Uncle CVS’s country home in the summers to breathe the fresh air. He became interested in nature at an early age, and enjoyed exploring the woods and streams of the estate. A page in one of his natural history notebooks, dated Orange, NJ, Sept. 16th, 1872, lists a dozen animals and birds native to this area. Another entry reads, “Mr. C. Roosevelt informed me that a goshawk once swooped down on a rooster that was right by his house…Saw a specimen at Orange, N.J. on October 15th, 1872.”

Other Houses on the Estate

Thomas Sharp, superintendent of the estate, lived in a farmhouse still standing on the southwest corner of Curtiss Place and Ridgewood Road. A one-room schoolhouse built in 1833 stood near The Hickories’ entrance gates. When the town built a new schoolhouse in 1868, Mr. Roosevelt bought the old one and moved and appended it to the superintendent’s house.

The estate also included a gardener’s cottage and a carriage house, both still occupied (on Durand Road just below Wyoming Avenue), as well as barns, corn cribs, sheds and a pig pen, as described by Bessie Sharp, the superintendent’s daughter, in Maplewood Past and Present.

The gates at the entrance to Hickory Drive were erected c. 1862 using stones from a building on the Isaac Smith farm. One of the stones on the south pillar facing Ridgewood Road bears the inscription I.S. 1766.

CVS Jr. died in 1887, but his wife, Laura, continued to spend time at the house. After her death in 1900, the property was sold, first to developer William H. Curtiss and then to the T.B. Ackerson Company, which began its division into building sites.

The Roosevelts’ home became the Roosevelt Inn, and then the Hickory Inn, as housing lots and roads were plotted around it. Neither establishment prospered, and in 1905, the building burned to the ground.

The South Orange Bulletin of Nov. 30, 1905 reported, “The fire resulted in a total loss to [the proprietor] Mrs. Roy, who is prostrated at the home of Thomas Sharp, of Ridgewood Road…” An eyewitness account by Edna Farmer Miller, who grew up on Mountain Avenue, describes the scene: “The most spectacular fire of my childhood was the burning of the Roosevelt Inn, which stood in Roosevelt Park on the corner of Kermit Road and Hickory Drive…. The fire broke out during the morning school session and every child was dismissed to witness the blaze. The dwelling was one of Maplewood’s old landmarks and it was with great sorrow that we viewed its destruction.”

The Ackerson Company went forward with development of the 100 acres into the Roosevelt Park neighborhood we know today. The stone entryways at the foot of Curtiss Place and Roosevelt Road were built about 1905-6, during Teddy Roosevelt's presidency, and streets were given the names Roosevelt, Sagamore, Quentin and Kermit (two of TR’s sons) to reflect the TR connection to the property. Promotional brochures featuring sample designs were sent to residents of New York, and by 1906 the first of the lots were sold and construction had begun. Most of the houses – like most houses in Maplewood – were built by the mid-1930s, but a number of those on Hickory and Curtiss were completed before 1910.

New Jersey and the Underground Railroad

The history of slavery in New Jersey encompasses both the bad and the good. On one hand, the state enacted legislation in 1786 that banned importation of slaves, ending the African slave trade to the state’s ports.

But those who already enslaved people were permitted to keep them. In the ensuing 15 years, abolition was such a major and divisive issue that New Jersey was the very last northern state to outlaw it through a gradual process that began in 1804, freeing all Black children born after July 4, 1804 — but only after they turned 21 (for females) or 25 (for males). In 1846 a second law was enacted that made the state’s remaining enslaved people (all elderly) “apprentices” for life -- and still not free. The 1860 census recorded 18 enslaved people in New Jersey – the only state in the north to still have them.

Abolition of slavery started to become a focus of social and political change beginning in about 1830. It was strongly advocated in the southern half of the state, which was predominantly Quaker, and was resisted in the northern half of the state, populated by Dutch and English farmers and businessmen.

A committed group of people in Philadelphia and New Jersey, including free Blacks and abolitionists, were able to form a secretive but effective road to freedom that led from the eastern slave states — primarily Virginia, Delaware, and Maryland — to the farm houses of Cumberland, Gloucester and Burlington Counties through New Brunswick to Elizabeth, Newark and Jersey City, and finally to New York and often Canada. This was the New Jersey section of the Underground Railroad, which nationwide ultimately helped some 30,000 to 40,000 enslaved people to reach freedom.

New Jersey is associated with two of the leading figures in the Underground Railroad. Harriet Tubman, who escaped through the Underground Railroad from slavery on the eastern shore of Maryland, worked in Cape May during the summers from 1849 to 1852, and was responsible for guiding more than 300 slaves from Maryland to Ontario, Canada. Canada became a safe haven after Britain outlawed slavery in 1833.

Native New Jerseyan William Still, whose descendants still live in the largely Black community of Lawnside, in Camden County, was a key organizer of the railroad operations in Philadelphia, and wrote a book in 1872 about the experiences of the courageous fugitives he helped to bring to safety.

The free Blacks and white people who helped the freedom seekers – with whispered signals or with shelter and food – put themselves in great danger. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 gave the federal government responsibility for capturing escaped slaves, required their return, and punished those who aided or protected them with fines and imprisonment. (The U.S. Constitution prevented enslaved people from gaining their freedom by escaping to non-slave states.) Slave catchers were employed to bring back fugitives, and if they could not find those they were seeking, they would sometimes kidnap free Blacks and allege that they were escapees.

The start of the Civil War brought an end to the Underground Railroad, as Black people in the South joined the Union Army forces entering their region rather than journey to the North.

Gustav Stickley and the Craftsman Home

“Lifestyle” is a concept that seems very modern, but the work of Gustav Stickley, architect, furniture designer and manufacturer, publisher and social critic in the early 20th century, clearly strove to encompass and influence many aspects of life and living.

A slide lecture on the work of Gustav Stickley was presented in 2006 by Peter Copeland, who lived in one of two Stickley-designed houses in Maplewood. Mr. Copeland has been a Stickley collector and historian for many years, and owns The Parchment Press, publishers of twenty-two titles on the American Arts & Crafts Movement, including six books about Gustav Stickley and his work.

“My first exposure to Stickley furniture was a rocking chair that I found at a garage sale,” Mr. Copeland said. “Its straight lines and sound construction appealed to me.”

Stickley was the leading American proponent of the Arts & Crafts Movement, which arose in England and Scotland in the latter part of the 19th century. William Morris and others conceived of the Arts & Crafts Movement as a reaction against the industrialization of production and to the elaborate clutter of Victorian style. The Movement celebrated individual craftsmanship and a cohesive approach to architecture and design.

Gustav Stickley learned the furniture business early on, working for his uncle in Brandt, Pennsylvania. He and his brothers later established a furniture business in Binghamton, New York. Eventually, Gustav Stickley struck out on his own, inspired by a trip to Europe in 1895-96, where he met leaders of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Stickley returned to the United States determined to interpret their ideas in a uniquely American way.

Creating the Ideal Home

Stickley's interpretation for the American market was as a concept designed to improve the life of the middle classes. He focused on the creation of an “ideal home” – inviting, warm, facilitating family togetherness around the hearth, with broad porches for outdoor dining, sitting and sleeping – all designed to bring fresh air, sunshine, health and comfort to the family.

In 1901, Stickley began to publish a popular magazine called The Craftsman, in which he propounded his lifestyle philosophy, exemplified in sturdy, clean-lined furniture. The magazine began featuring house designs regularly in 1904.

The plans were created by professional architects and expressed essential features of Craftsman architecture, such as deep eaves, exposed roof beams and rafter ends, extra stick work on gables and porches, straight or tapered porch columns above solid piers or railings, dormers and multiple roof planes. Stickley offered detailed plans of the featured houses free of charge to subscribers, gave free advice to builders, and provided detailed instructions on furniture construction.

In the Craftsman house, first floor woodwork (quarter-sawn oak, chestnut, or other hardwood) was stained. In upper stories, inferior woods such as gumwood were used, and usually painted. The hearth was made of natural, preferably local materials, such as stone or brick, and the main rooms often had built-in bookcases, benches, and cupboards. Often “dark” interiors were counterbalanced by multiple windows and porches to bring in light.

Stickley’s concepts of home embraced a range of decorative elements as well, including lighting (sconces, chandeliers and table lamps), hardware, rugs, linens and fabrics as well as chairs, bookcases, cabinets, tables and other pieces.

Craftsman Farms

In 1908, he bought property in Parsippany to create Craftsman Farms, a compound dedicated to the expression of the Craftsman ideals. He completed it by 1911. (It is now the Craftsman Museum, open April through November and weekends in December).

In 1913, at the height of his success, he opened The Craftsman Building on 39th Street in New York City that offered all his merchandise. However, he was soon overextended and went bankrupt in 1915, eventually losing both his home at Craftsman Farms and his business. He then joined his brothers Leopold and John George in manufacturing “Stickley” furniture in the name of another company. Gustav Stickley and his work were largely forgotten by the 1930s, and he died in obscurity in1942.

After furniture in the Arts and Crafts style lost popularity in the 1920s, the L. & J.G. Stickley Company expanded its furniture offerings to include American Colonial and other period styles, enabling it to remain in business. In 1972, an exhibition at the Princeton Art Museum reignited interest in the style. In the 1980s, the E.J. Audi furniture company, capitalizing on this renewed interest, bought the remaining Stickley furniture business and once again began to offer classic Craftsman furniture.

Although the term “Craftsman” properly belongs only to the work of Gustav Stickley, there were parallel expressions of the Arts and Crafts aesthetic across the United States, including Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie Style, Spanish Mission in the Southwest, and California Arts & Crafts epitomized by the architects Greene and Greene.

The most popular house style that grew out of this movement was the American Bungalow, which was the most popular house style in the U.S. from 1900 to 1920. The bungalow, with a low, sweeping roofline extending over a front porch, and one or two dormers above, is fairly common in Maplewood and South Orange.