In the early 1700’s, what is now Wertsville was settled principally by three families: the Werts, Stouts and Manners. The town was always known as Wert’s Corner until a Post Office was established there and the postal department changed the name to Wertsville.The earliest store on the property at the corner of Wertsville and Lindbergh roads was a general store run by Andrew Wyckoff. By at least 1843 the store had been purchased by Charles Holcombe. When East Amwell was formed as a township in 1846, the first township meeting was held in the store. A post office was established there in 1854 and Charlie Holcombe was the first postmaster. The building remained the Wertsville Post Office through several successive owners until 1905 when postal routes changed, rural delivery was begun and several East Amwell post offices closed their doors. In 1865 the store was bought by neighbor Peter Van Dyke Manners. Manner’s first wife Rachel died and in 1883 Manners married his children’s school teacher Mary Katherine Shute. He tore down the old store and built a much grander store with the Manner’s residence above. This is the building we have all been familiar with.
The mid-1880’s saw Wertsville at its peak. The stone Baptist church had been built in the 1830’s and was flourishing (it closed in 1910 and was privately sold in 1936). The new two story school, presently a residence was built in 1853. There was a tavern/hotel (now a private residence), a wheelwright shop, shoemaker, and a blacksmith shop (all three buildings now gone). The buildings behind the store were stables and early on housed a horse drawn school bus and later a motorized bus.
Peter Manners died in 1886 but his widow Katherine and their son Jacob continued to run the store until 1915 after which it was sold. The many of the store ledges from the Holcombe era are in the Hunterdon County Historical Society and contain at least 1800 pages! They show an era long past when a general store was just that. The store sold butter, molasses, sugar, cheese, soap, eggs, buttons, silk, muslin, cotton, hats, shirts, socks, gloves, bags of tobacco, spellers for school, pens and paper, shovels, seed packets, animal traps, nails, strap hinges, paint brushes, sacks of salt, whale bone corsets and of course candy and soda! Apparently they were even open Christmas Day because on December 25, 1868, Rynear Quick came in and bought silver buttons and kid’s gloves for $10.48, while James Servis bought ladies drawers, a vest and a comb!
Throughout the early 1900’s the store was known as Stein’s General Store. The building continued to be used as a general store until 1982 at which time a giant auction was held and its contents, some of which went back generations, was sold. Next it became Gray’s Watercolors studios. Gray’s would have local artists paint scenes principally of Princeton University which would be sold to recent graduates and alumni. Sarah Peacock reopened the store in 1986. Most recent owners, Sheri and Khalid Maziri purchased the store in 2005.
After the disastrous fire of April 30th, all of us hope the building is rebuilt and the store reopens.
Jim Davidson