Handwritten Stoutsburg Cemetery Ledger
Item
-
Title
-
Handwritten Stoutsburg Cemetery Ledger
-
Description
-
This handwritten ledger was kept by Herbert Albert Hubbard (June 7, 1875-July 11, 1948), Beverly Mills's (co-founder of the Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum) great-grandfather, at the Stoutsburg Cemetery. It includes minutes from Stoutsburg Cemetery Association meetings, including hymns sung and fundraising efforts, from 1912 through the 1920s.
-
The ledger is 104 pages long, although a large number of those are blank.
The inside cover of the ledger reads: “Property of the Stoutsburg Cemetery.” Page 4 lists a few expenditures from August to September 1914. Page 5 was left blank. Page 6 contains meeting minutes from a gathering that took place on September 19th, 1914 at Herbert A. Hubbard’s house to discuss plans to purchase land to expand the cemetery. It names the opening hymn and lists the folks in attendance, including: Andrew Reasoner, David Hagaman, John Robinson, David Bergen, John Gover, Kate Grover, Henrietta Robinson, and George Lane.
Hubbard was the first Black graduate of Rider University (then known as Trenton Business College) in 1894, a talented musician and maker of the violin, and “a brilliant penman” (Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum 2014; Grybowski 2015). The penmanship in this ledger was likely a skill learned from his studies at Trenton Business College (Grybowski 2015). He was between the ages of 37-55 while keeping this ledger.
For a brief period of time, Hubbard worked a white collar business job “bucking the trend led by [Booker T.] Washington toward manual labor” (Grybowski 2015). However, he spent most of his adult life on the Pembleton family’s dairy farm in Hopewell, NJ after growing “tired of working out of sight in back rooms” as to “not offend white clients” (Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum 2014).
The Sourland region of central New Jersey is the largest contiguous forest between New York City and Philadelphia, a critical 90 square-mile oasis of nature for humans, animals, and plants alike (Heffler 2014, 4). Free and enslaved African Americans were present in this part (and all) of New Jersey since the 1600s where they labored on farms, in factories and homes, and “even made brandy and moonshine” (Katmann 2014, 5). In this region lies the Stoutsburg Cemetery in Hopewell, Mercer County, NJ– a cemetery that was established on land “purchased by African Americans in the mid-nineteenth century to bury people of color with honor and dignity” (Buck and Mills 2019, 12).
-
Map to Stoutsburg Cemetery in Skillman, NJ:
-
Contributor
-
Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum
-
Date Created
-
(c. 1912 - 1930)
-
Creator
-
Stoutsburg Cemetery Association
-
Rights
-
This work is not in copyright, but commercial uses of this digital representation are limited. For more information, contact info@ssaamuseum.org and see http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-NC/1.0/
-
Identifier
-
2024.3.1
-
Language
-
eng
-
Format
-
Text
-
Extent
-
104 pages, exclusive of covers and inside covers, with writing: 23, final page is the very last page after a large gap of blank pages. 24 pages if we include the photocopy of the Winfield Grove burial plot purchase
-
Spatial Coverage
-
Hillsborough Twp. NJ
-
Publisher
-
SSAAM
-
Is Part Of
-
2024.3.1
-
Subject
-
Sourland Mountain (N.J.)
-
Hunterdon County (N.J.)
-
African American businesspeople.
-
African American cemeteries
-
Penmanship
-
African American farmers.
-
transcription
-
3
September 28, 1912
Meeting held at Andrew Reasoner's Mr. David Hagaman Temp. Chair- man. H A Hubbard Secretary Motion made and carried that Andrew Reasoner be elected trustee of the Stoutsburg Cemetery for the term of 3 years John Robinson elected trustee for the term of 2 years David Bergen elected as trustee for the term of one year. David Bergen elected treasurer Herbert A Hubbard Secretary for three (3) years Therefore the officials elected at last business meeting as follows
Trustees:- Andrew Reasoner 3 years John Robinson 2 years David Bergen 1 year Treasurer David Bergen Secretary H A Hubbard
Money received at said meeting
David Hagaman $100 John Gover 50 Andrew Reasoner 50 David Bergen 50 George Lane 50 Henrietta Robinson 25 Kate Grover 25 $3.50
