When the Assunpink was known as the Assanpink
By ruth calia Stives
Staff Writer

As you ride or hike through the Assunpink Wildlife Management area along the few paved roads and many dirt roads and trails, a natural environment that is basically unaltered by man and technology surrounds you. Even the still-existing farmhouses and working fields seem to be of another time.

The area takes its name from Assunpink Creek, which meanders westward through the park’s center toward the Delaware River, and which is named for the Assanpinks, a tribe of the Lenni Lenape or Delaware Indian nation.

Formerly spelled Assanpink, after the Indian tribe, the creek forms the northern boundary of Upper Freehold with Millstone and Roosevelt.

After the land was acquired through the state’s Green Acres Program in the 1960s, the creek was dammed at several locations to provide flood control. The resulting lakes were stocked with a variety of fish and have attracted migrating waterfowl.

A look at the land’s history, as researched and recorded by John R. Hutchinson in the early part of the 1900s, shows that the area where Assunpink Lake now exists was part of a parcel of about 1,230 acres purchased by Zebulon Clayton in 1706. The area closest to Old York Road (Route 539) consisted of 1,150 acres and was bought by Benjamin Lawrence in March 1710.

According to Hutchinson’s research, in 1697 a parcel of undetermined size was purchased by Thomas Fox in the area now known as Pine Drive in Roosevelt, and apparently encompassing a portion of Chestnut Brook within the Assunpink area.

Daniel Robins is listed as having made two separate purchases, in 1695 and 1696, which gave him a total of 810 contiguous acres to the east of Imlaystown-Hightstown Road, and including what is now Stone Tavern Lake.

That area also contains the "Robbins Burying Ground," with approximately 200 grave sites and which is a source of information and inspiration for today’s historians. The majority of the gravestones have no markings, while some are crudely marked. Rusted cast iron fences surround some of the plots. One of the gravestones is dedicated to "Debora Lincon," who died as a young child in 1720 and is said, despite the spelling discrepancy, to be the daughter of Abraham Lincoln’s great-great-grandparents.

An examination of atlases printed in 1873 and in 1889 shows a number of changes in land ownership, although familiar family names continue to dominate the area.

By 1873, the land once wholly owned by Zebulon Clayton was owned by the Hutchinson, Hendrickson and Norton families, and by 1889, maps show that the Hutchinson families continued to live there, along with members of the Robbins family.

The land near Old York Road, belonging to J.D. Hall, continued to be owned by members of the Hall family, and the plot of land earlier recorded as belonging to Thomas Fox became home to members of the Polhemus family, as well as the Ely, Carr, Cox, Taylor and Silvers families between 1873 and 1889.

By 1873, the area around what is now Stone Tavern Lake belonged to various members of the Hutchinson family, the Hendricksons and J. West. By 1889, members of the Polhemus family owned land in that area as well.

Most people who lived in the area at that time were farmers and livestock raisers, dealers in horses, blacksmiths and general merchants. Through the passage of time, much of what had been farmland or open meadowland was gradually covered in brush and trees. As the topography changed, the types of wildlife changed to fit the new habitat.

Because one of the goals of the wildlife management area is to preserve what is there, and to let the area evolve naturally without interference, any future history of the area won’t include changes in ownership, just changes in plants and animals. No cell towers, not even a picnic table — just pure nature.