Up until recent times the Sourlands were not only inhospitable but plain dangerous to wander around in. They did not get the name of “the hills of missing men” or “the Bermuda Triangle of Central Jersey” for nothing. In several articles about the area in the 1800’s terms such as “endemic thievery, lawlessness, degeneracy, ignorance, mental dilapidation, intemperance and poverty” were commonly used. In a 1917 article the author described the Sourlands as “no mountain in the United States bears such an evil reputation”.

In 1878, Dr. C.W. Larison of Ringoes interviewed the former slave Sylvia Dubois who lived on Zion Road. Said to have lived to be 120 years old, Sylvia ran the infamous Put’s Tavern on Zion Road, a place of total lawlessness and debauchery. Put’s Tavern, originally started by Sylvia’s grandfather after the American Revolution, was so deep in the woods that in its entire history it never bothered to take out a tavern license but still had a reputation of drawing people looking for adventure from both New York and Philadelphia. In a series of long interviews turned into a book, Sylvia describes the people on the mountain: “The Negroes marry the whites when they want to; but they don’t do much marrying up here-they don’t have to-and then it’s no use-it’s too much trouble. And children…there’s plenty of ‘em, and all colors-black and white, and yellow – and any other color that you have ever seen, but blue: there ain’t no blue ones yet”……….”These people up here live together; too many of them. Why! In some of them shanties there are a dozen or more-whites and blacks, and all colors-and nothin’ to eat; and nothin’ to wear; and no wood to burn. And what can they do-they have to steal…why you wouldn’t believe how much they steal.

And steal they did, down into the Amwell and Hopewell valleys. “They don’t steal much from one another; because that wouldn’t do; if they were caught at that they’d get killed damned soon, and then they ain’t got much to be stold. But they would go off from the mountain down into the valleys, and they steal everything they can find-sheep and chickens, and grain, and meat and clothes –and anything else that they can eat or wear……”.

Murders were common. In Sylvia’s words, “There are more folks killed up here than anyone knows about of”. Folks would just disappear. When the Burns Detective Agency entered the mountain in 1916 to find the murderers of Richard Wyckoff and his housekeeper in trying to solve the infamous Wyckoff ax murders, they discovered 9 other murders in the process. Charlie Sutphin a black man who grew up in the mountains in 1931 recounted all the ones he knew of: Sam Cruse-shot to death; Dory Cruse – beaten to death; Peter Nixon-head shot off over a matrimonial dispute; Clossy the fiddle player- missing after a dance; Aaron True -missing but his bones turned up in a load of animal bones taken to the grinding mill at Copper Hill; Tim Corbet – shot in the leg and bled to death; Jim Anderson- head blown off at close range. Another famous murder was that of Issac Smith who got caught stealing lumber from the Methodist Church that was under construction. Taken to Flemington where he paid for the lumber, he was shot at close range on his way home. The murder, like most on the Sourlands was never solved.

And there were many more. In the 1920’s two revenue agents entered the Sourlands looking for illegal stills – they were never heard from again. And then there was the small plane that crashed in the late 1940’s that was carrying money. The pilot was dead upon impact. The residents in the area supposedly stole the money and buried the plane parts in the vicinity of Zion and Long Hill Road.

Jim Davidson