![]() Prospering at the butchers trade, Cochran settled in Newton where he married Lydia Hunt on May 7, 1831. ![]() While contractors were building the Morris Canal through Waterloo and Stanhope in 1827, Dennis Cochran sold meat in the shanty camps of Irish laborers who were engaged in the digging. As a young boy he went to the city of Sligo and learned the butchers trade, then embarked for New York City in 1818. Nathan Drake purchased the tavern on March 23, 1818, and continued as its proprietor until 1831 when the hotel passed to an Irishman named Dennis Cochran.ĭennis Cochran was born in Manor Hamilton, County Leitrim, Ireland, on March 5, 1800. Basset was proprietor until November 6, 1817, when he sold to Frederick Ransier, a grocer, for $2,100. In September of that year, the firm of Luce & Hanna, stage proprietors, dissolved when Mr. On March 11, 1816, John Rorbach, then a dry-goods merchant on Pearl Street, New York, sold the Tavern Lot to Isaac Basset for $3,000. Hall, proprietor of the Sussex Register, took Luces place as tavernkeeper. The trip, including overnight lodging at Morristown, cost $3.00. At this time, Zephaniah Luce and James Hanna operated the Sussex & Morris Mail Stage which departed weekly for New York from Mark Luces tavern. It was operated by Mark Luce in January 1815 when John Rorbach again advertised it for sale or rent. Pemberton leased the hotel to Samuel Lane for an annual rent of $80, but sold it only three weeks later to John Rorbach for $2,100. Pettit Brittin opened a stage hotel to accommodate his traveling clientele.Ī tavern on the site of the Cochran House, managed by Matthias Little, was purchased by Charles Pemberton, merchant and postmaster, from John Gustin on March 5, 1813. ![]() ![]() They paid three tolls (12-1/2¢ each) to travel the Morris Turnpike between Newton and Elizabeth. Basset, Brittin & Hinchman opened regular mail-stage communication between Newton and New York City on August 15, 1808. The earliest record of an inn standing at the confluence of Spring and Main Streets is found in a bar book, kept by Pettit Brittin, beginning with October l807. But it is more than the story of a lost landmark because the origin, expansion, and demise of this hotel disclose strong, sub-currents in the general history of our community. Here, as best I can tell it, is its history. Standing at the very heart of the community, it had been a social oasis for generations of townsfolk, travelers and summer visitors. Historically, that brick hotel at the foot of Main-Street was scene to festive, political and social gatherings for 160 years. There are innumerable stories of Newtonians being confronted at some distance from home by strangers who asked about the Cochran House, its blueberry muffins or its pumpkin custard pie. The Cochran House was a source of pride, a dispenser of hospitality. It also certifies that our landmarks are more than the sum of their parts, however plainly or fashionably arranged those parts may be. That a beautiful facsimile of the Cochran House should arise on the urban renewal tract opposite the Court House some thirty years alter the demise of the original is testimony to a stubborn affection for this emblem of a lost way of life. When I turned back to the crumbling hotel, I felt that a terrible mistake had been made, that something more than bricks and mortar had come undone. Grandpa remarked how Newton had changed more in the past five years than it had in all the previous years of his life somehow, I didnt think he meant it had changed for the better. Turning and looking up, I saw in the stricken faces of those old-timers a sense of loss as deep-seated as any occasioned by the death of a close friend or relation. Wide-eyed, I watched the dusty work of demolition for some time before I noticed a profound silence in my immediate circle. We halted at the corner of the Green in the budding shade of a tall elm, where my grandfather joined several of his friends and contemporaries. One Saturday morning in the spring of 1961, when I was nine years old, I accompanied my grandfather downtown to retrieve a souvenir from the sinking hull of the Coch ![]() She met and dated my father and well, as they say, the rest is history. A generation later, my mother worked a summer job as waitress there, while attending New Jersey College for Women. My great-grandfather, (John) Edward Brink, was the carpenter hired to install the much-admired Log Cabin Dining Room (or "Slab Room as he called it) back in 1925. It seems nearly everyone who has lived in and around town carries some fond remembrance or personal association with that convivial institution which stood at the business center of Sussex County. Its funny what sticks in your mind as a child, but I can easily remember a large shaggy dog who sunned himself by the porch of the Cochran House, seemingly oblivious to the press of time and traffic. ![]()
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