SKYLANDS - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• George Washington 's Personal Physician

The Jacobus Vanderveer house is the only surviving building associated with the Pluckemin encampment.

The town of Lambertville, along the banks of the Delaware River in Hunterdon County, traces its beginnings back to the early 1700s. The area was divided into northern and southern segments by the Bull Line which ran from the river between what is now Delevan and Jefferson Streets, northeastward to the Old York Road, now Route 202. Portions of the northern land were purchased by John Holcombe, who built a stone house there in 1724. The house still stands, now known as Washington's Headquarters, and is located on North Main Street. The John Wey homestead, circa 1711 and now part of the Holcombe-Jimison Farmstead museum, was also a part of this northern section. The portion of the southern section, purchased in part by Emanuel Coryell in 1732, included the charter to run a ferry across the Delaware. Settlements on the New Jersey and Pennsylvania sides of the river became known as Coryell's Ferry. The area played a strategic role in the Revolutionary War, and Washington's troops encamped in a field outside of town while the General and his officers were housed by the Holcombes. After the Coryell land was subdivided around 1802, residential development began in earnest. Some of Lambertville's oldest homes are located along Coryell and Bridge streets. The original post office, run by John Lambert, nephew of the United States Senator, opened around the same time in the present-day Lambertville House hotel. The tiny city's classic mystique is, in part, due to the presence of these historic sites; these and the James Marshall house. By the mid 1800s Lambertville was a burgeoning industrial center. The frontier had moved west, and James Wilson Marshall, from Lambertville, NJ joined a wagon train in 1844 hoping to make a fresh start by farming the fertile land of the California valleys. After arriving in 1845 Marshall established a farm, but left it to take part in the fight for Californian independence from Mexico. When he returned he found his farm ruined and sought employment from John Sutter who was in need of lumber to supply his mill. It was agreed that Marshall was to venture into the mountains, find a suitable site and build a sawmill in the area known as Coloma. And it is here that James Wilson Marshall struck gold. On January 24th, 1848, during his routine check of the new mill race, he found some gold flakes. And thus began the California Gold Rush. James Marshall's boyhood home, a modest building at 60 Bridge Street, is now home for the Lambertville Historical Society.