 The Charles Fish Family and
Farm
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The Charles Fish Family and Farm "Snapshots" of
the Charles Fish Family and Farm
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The barn raised on May 14, 2005 as an addition to the Howell Living History Farm visitor center is a 19th century English-style barn that once stood on Federal City Road just outside Pennington Borough on the farm of Charles Fish, today the Mercer County Equestrian Center. The oak frame stands over 30 feet tall and its five-bay floor plan measures 32 feet by 60 feet. To fully appreciate this structure it is important to know something about the family who built the barn originally and the kind of agriculture for which it was designed. Fortunately, records in the form of property deeds, maps, population and agricultural census schedules, and probate inventories exist to help us know this information. Charles Fish was a native of New Jersey , probably born in either West Amwell or Hopewell Township, and very possibly a member of a family that had lived in what is today Mercer County for at least four generations. He was the son of Joseph and Penelope (Young) Fish, a farm family living in Hopewell in 1830. Joseph was likely descended from Benjamin and Sarah Fish who came to the area of Trenton that became Ewing Township in 1745. The vital records to prove this have not been found as yet. The 1830 census shows the Joseph Fish family, including Charles and some of his siblings, at the stage of beginning to separate into a number of households as the children reach maturity. A brother, Palmer Fish, was already a Hopewell farmer and beginning what became a large family. Several of Charles' sisters would soon marry and begin their own families. On May 7, 1838 Charles and his
brother, Andrew, purchased a 140-acre farm outside of Pennington
for just over $5,000 from Benjamin and Emily Ogden. The deed is typical
in its description of the land, "Beginning at a white oak tree at
a corner of Peter S. Schenck's land .." It goes on to mention
boundaries, including "the road leading from Schenck's mills to Lawrence " (today's
Federal City Road ). Schenck's mills was a grist mill shown on the
1849 J.W. Otley and J. Keily Map of Mercer County just north of the
Fish farm on a millpond on Stony Brook. Today, Old Mill Road , just
across from the Equestrian Center , takes one to the site of this
mill which appears on maps of the area as late as 1903. The farm
was bounded by land owned by members of several old and prolific
Hopewell Township families - Daniel Blackwell, Noah Tindale, Anthony
Reed, Asa Hunt, Elijah Drake, and the "late" John Hart. It was on
this farm that Charles later built the barn that will become part
of the Howell Farm visitor center.
The 1840 census shows Charles Fish as the head of a family consisting of his aged parents Joseph and Penelope, 47 year old Andrew, 32 year old Charles, their 21 year old sister Margaret, and an unknown boy aged 10-15 who may be live-in help. This family structure sets the pattern seen for at least the next 40 years on this farm. After the death of Joseph and Penelope, the three siblings, Andrew, Charles, and Margaret, never married and continued to live together, usually accompanied by one or several young people helping with the farm and house work. Sometimes the young person is the child of a neighbor and sometimes it is a young immigrant. The three siblings also raised a boy named Joseph Fish, born about 1841, whose relationship to them is unknown. He married in 1867 and worked a 98-acre farm owned by Charles Fish just west of Harbourton in Hopewell Township for a few years before moving away. The three Fish siblings appear to have operated their farm as relatively equal partners although on maps and in census records Charles is usually given as head of the household. In 1850, the approximate date of the barn's construction, the Fish family was in its prime. Charles was in his early 40s, Andrew mid-50s, and Margaret early 30s. Young Joseph Fish was 9 years old and coming into the time when he would be most helpful with the farm work. They had two live-in helpers - William Casshman, a 19-year-old from Holland , and Grace Howell, the 15-year-old daughter of a neighbor. The farm was doing well and had a cash value, in 1850 dollars, of $7,000 for the land and buildings along with $320 worth of farm machinery and implements. To improve the farm further they built the barn now being re-erected at Howell Farm as either an additional barn or replacement for an older barn. Farmers don't go to the trouble and expense to build a barn unless it will serve a needed function on their farm. Understanding the diversified type of farming practiced by the Fish family helps to appreciate why they built this barn. Diversified 19 th century farming meant that they had a variety of livestock and raised a variety of crops. This type of farming called for a barn that would serve to process crops, store crops, and house some of the animals. The 1850 Agricultural Census, giving statistics for the 1849 agricultural year, gives us a snapshot of the Fish farming operation at about the time they built their barn. From this information we can deduce how they would use their new barn. They had livestock valued at $590 and in 1849 earned $120 from animals that were slaughtered. They also produced 500 pounds of butter from the milk of their six milch cows, i.e., cows kept for milking. They also had four other cattle that were either being raised for meat or to replace any aging milch cows. There were also 18 sheep and the flock produced 60 pounds of wool in 1849. The 14 swine were raised for their meat and the money earned for slaughtered animals probably came mostly from the swine herd. All of these animals played a direct economic role by producing saleable farm products. Of these, though, probably only the cows had accommodation in the new barn. The family owned four horses to pull the equipment and machinery to work the fields and provide power for the farm wagons, carriages, sleighs, and sleds. It is likely that they were housed in the barn along with their harnessing. The barn also housed the 50 tons of hay used for horse feed, along with at least some of the 657 bushels of oats they harvested. The field crops the horses helped to produce by pulling the various machines and implements, such as plows, harrows, rollers, cultivators, reapers, and powering the thresher, included 155 bushels of wheat, 71 bushels of buckwheat, 20 bushels of rye, 600 bushels of "Indian corn", and the 657 bushels of oats. They also produced 30 bushels of Irish potatoes, 12 bushels of clover seed, and 5 bushels of other grass seeds. The new barn may well have played a role in the processing of these crops for use and sale, as well as providing either short term or long term storage for some of them. Although Andrew and Charles owned the property jointly, when Andrew died in 1873 he willed his half-share to his sister. After Andrew's death, the 140 acre farm was sold in 1878 and Charles and Margaret moved to a 28-acre farm on South Main Street in Pennington they had purchased together in 1865. When Charles died in 1891 he left his share to Margaret so that she became the sole owner. In the 1900 census, even at age 81 Margaret listed herself as a farmer. She died at this small farm in 1905. The three siblings who operated the 140-acre Fish farm where the Charles Fish Barn was located are all buried together, with their parents and another sister, in the cemetery of Ewing Presbyterian Church in Ewing Township . Nest to them are buried members of several generations of a Benjamin Fish family which does descend from Benjamin Fish who came to Trenton in 1745. It is this association with a prominent Fish family of Mercer County that indicates a biological connection. One has to wonder why the family wasn't buried in the cemetery of the Pennington Presbyterian Church that is only four houses away from the South Main Street farm they lived on for forty years. Unless there was a strong connection to the Ewing family. Five years after Margaret's death, in 1910 a man newly arrived in Pennington bought what was then known as the Fish Farm on South Main Street to establish a nursery farm. He had an eight year old daughter named Inez. Although William P. Howe only owned this small farm for about three or four years before buying something larger, they were impressionable years for young Inez. When Inez grew up she married Charles R. Howell and in their later years they purchased a farm in Pleasant Valley . Remembering her childhood on her father's nursery farm, she gave the Pleasant Valley farm to Mercer County so children could experience a turn of the century family farm as she had. It is now the Howell Living History Farm. After being sold to the Baldwin family in 1878, the 140-acre farm the Charles Fish Barn passed through several owners until being acquired by Mercer County and being transformed into the Mercer County Equestrian Center . Although the idea of relocating the Charles Fish Barn to Howell Farm originated in the mid-1990s, the poor condition of the barn led to its being sold to the New Jersey Barn Company, a Princeton company specializing in dismantling, restoring and re-erecting antique barn frames. The barn was dismantled in the winter of 1996-97 and the frame put in storage. In 1999 renewed interest in the Fish barn developed from planning for the Howell Farm visitor's center. The barn was viewed as a perfect component for public programs, exhibits, workshops, and for new and expanded programs for school groups. In 2004 the Mercer County Park Commission hired the New Jersey Barn Company to re-erect the frame in accordance with the design of Pickell Architecture. In May the barn will take its place as part of the visitor center and play a new role helping the Mercer County Park Commission and Howell Living History Farm to carry out the vision and dream of Inez Howe Howell by providing visitors with programs to help children, and their parents, experience something of family farming history. |
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