The cow and the calf: evolution of farmhouses in Hopewell Township, Mercer County, New Jersey, 1720-1820

Abstract

Beginning in the 1750s, folk builders and farmers in Hopewell Township, Mercer County, New Jersey began to construct durable housing of four distinct traditional types of one, two, three, and four rooms. Issues of land ownership, agricultural production, and the rise of a market economy permitted their construction, and, not surprising, the first to build durable farmhouses possessed considerable political, economic, and agricultural power. These dwellings helped landowners define the world around them by meeting their traditional economic, social, and cultural priorities. In the post-revolutionary period, these houses underwent a spatial and functional transformation as owners used a local module of construction equal to the traditional one-room house to create buildings consisting of a large main block with separate entry and an attached service wing. Ultimately, the transformation signaled changing social and economic attitudes about public and private space, form and function.