Hunter Research is proud to announce the successful listing of two historic properties on the New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places.
Working with Connolly & Hickey Historical Architects for the Town of Boonton, Hunter Research detailed the archaeological potential of the Boonton Ironworks Historic District through the use of historic maps, photographs, GIS, and historical and archaeological research. This site includes the remains of an important, fully integrated ironworks that underwent the conversion from charcoal to coal furnaces in the mid-19th-century. At its peak in the 1860s the ironworks employed over 600 workers and was producing 200,000 kegs of nails a day. The district also includes elements of the Morris Canal, which supplied charcoal, coal, iron ore and water power to the early ironworks and the Morris & Essex Railroad, which supplied the works with iron and coal later in its history.
The Mount Pleasant School, also known as the Richwood Academy, was built in 1870 in Harrison Township in Gloucester County. The schoolhouse is an excellent example of a two-story, two-room schoolhouse. It represents a model type of rural and small town school that was popular in New Jersey during the mid- to late 19th century. The building features two exterior doors that could serve as separate entrances to upstairs and downstairs classrooms and featured minimal ornamentation in a vernacular Greek Revival style. Of note are two fluted, cast-iron, interior columns that have structural and aesthetic characteristics.
