The December updates to the History Project featured research on the Brick Farm Market building, the Old School Baptist Church, and 1960s area maps, plus large photo collections from several contributors on St. Michael’s Orphanage, from the Hopewell Business Association, and of Titusville and Washington Crossing postcards. (See Site Updates for more.)
By the numbers, we finished the month with 310 files in the Archives, including 155 documents and 155 maps and aerials. The Image Gallery now has 4070 files, and the Panoramas Collection has 50 images. The Pamphlet Collection has 226 documents, and the Property Reports Collection has 88 documents. The interactive History Map includes 775 addresses with 102 historic places in Hopewell Borough. The History Project YouTube Channel is hosting 28 videos, plus 16 external local history videos, including 6 videos of History Project presentations. Please keep the materials coming!
65 East Broad, Hopewell – Markets and Autos
65 East Broad Street in Hopewell was built in 1933 as a combination garage, store, and apartment – and as the new home of the Arena family and their Italian-American grocery business.
The building was shared by multiple businesses into the 1940s, and then was the home of several auto sales and repair businesses until Malek Chevrolet closed in 2010. The Brick Farm Market then operated there from 2013 to 2023.
- See 2010 Malek Chevrolet photos from Furman Hendrickson
- See 1960s Malek Chevrolet sales material images from Dick Sudlow
Old School Baptist Church – Pictorial History
View a pictorial summary of the history of the Old School Baptist Church and its property. The historic building and cemetery are remarkably well preserved and substantially unchanged from over a century ago.
The Old School Baptist Church was the core of the historic settlement of Hopewell Borough in the 1700s and 1800s, as the settlement around the then Baptist Meeting House grew into a village and then into a town. The current church building was constructed in 1822 on the site of the first meeting house, which was built in 1747. The Baptist congregation itself was organized in 1715.
- See also the video of the December 2023 presentation on New Research, Investigations, and Plans for the The Old School Baptist Meeting of Hopewell.
- See Old School Baptist Church interior photographs from 2010 from Roger Labaw
- See pamphlets from the 1936 Historic American Building Survey of the Old School Baptist Church
1960s Hopewell Maps with Route 69 and I-95
These Esso maps from 1961 and 1969 tell the story of the good old days when our Route 31 was known as Route 69 – and the exciting new proposed route of I-95 was planned to be routed north up the Hopewell Valley through Mt. Rose.
There are two extracts from each map, one showing the Hopewell Valley down to Trenton, and the other showing a larger view of Mercer County and north.
St. Michael’s Orphanage Photo Collection
We have posted a new collection of some 180 photos of people and activities at St. Michael’s Orphanage in a album on the History Project site. This is in addition to the some 30 existing mostly postcards of the building, for a total of over 200 images now shared on the site.
These include over 100 images from the archives of the Sisters of Saint Francis showing activities with the sisters and the kids, over 30 images of the St. Michael’s farm courtesy of Rick Klevze, and family photos with views around the St. Michael’s property, including some 15 photos contributed by Madilyn Benrubi.
- New St. Michael’s Orphanage album
- St. Michael’s images from the Sisters of Saint Francis
- Images of the St. Michael’s Farm from Rick Klevze
- St. Michael’s family photos from Madilyn Benrubi
Hopewell Holiday Traditions – Snowflakes and Snow
Here are two sets of photos of snowflakes and snow that remind us of holidays in Hopewell, with local traditions including the snowflake lights in downtown Hopewell Borough and snowy scenes at Gazebo Park.
The snowflake lights that decorate Broad Street in Hopewell from November to February were a community project sponsored by the Hopewell Business Association. In 2018, the HBA donated the snowflakes to the Borough, and they have continued to glow since. These 2016-17 images are from the HBA.
These are part of a collection of 2016 – 2017 photos from the old Hopewell Business Association, including Pennington Day, Hopewell Harvest Fair, and other events.
- See 1955/58 Snowy Columbia Ave. images from Roger Labaw
- See Hopewell Gazebo Park in snow photos from Roger Labaw
Additional Photos
In addition to the above contributors who shared phots and materials, thanks also to:
- Tom Taylor for the postcard collection of Titusville and Washington Crossing
- Furman Hendrickson for 2010 Stonybrook Golf Club photos
Please contact us if you have – or know of – other images and materials that we can share to help illuminate the history of our Hopewell Valley.
