“The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”
Robert Burns, To a Mouse, 1785
Maplewood had a long and diverse history in Blawenburg. It went from being uncultivated land to farmland to land used by the NJ State Village of Epileptics. When the state facility closed, Maplewood was slated to become a museum to tell the story of epileptics and their treatment. That plan never was implemented. In this blog, I explore the history of the Maplewood Farm, Maplewood House, and the museum that never was.
In its early years, all of Montgomery Township was owned by just three men, Peter Sonmans, Thomas Hart, and Walter Benthall. These men then sold off large properties to others. John Van Horne held six large tracts in the southern part of the township, including all of what would become the Village of Blawenburg. In 1705, just three years after Montgomery Township was established, the Van Horne family created the first farm on the tract that would become Maplewood. It was a 187-acre farm along Rock Brook, and Van Horne family worked it for over 30 years.
The Van Voorhees
The Van Voorhees family was one of many Dutch settlers who purchased land in Montgomery Township in the mid-1700s.The John Stevens Van Voorhees family moved to Montgomery Township in 1738 from Flatbush, Long Island, New York. They bought a farm southeast of Blawenburg from Nicholas Lake, the same realtor from New Brunswick that sold John Blaw his land nearby at about the same time. The Van Voorhees lived there for 16 years and then found a more desirable property not far away.
In 1754, John A. Voorhees and his wife Janette Kirshaw moved from their property near the South Branch of Beden’s Brook, and purchased farmland on a hill rising north of Burnt Hill Road with the North Branch of Beden’s Brook gurgling along at its southern base. Under John A. Voorhees’s ownership, houses and barns were built and orchards and field crops were planted. The farm remained in the Voorhees family for 144 years.
The Captain J. A. Voorhees farm, Maplewood, can be seen along the North Branch of Beden’s Brook on this 1850 map of Blawenburg. This waterway is now called Rock Brook.
In 1845, Captain John A. Voorhees, the grandson of the original owner, inherited the farm and reconstructed it. He named the farm Maplewood. His most prominent project on the farm was the construction of a new home in the Greek Revival style. Matching the name of the farm, he called it Maplewood House. In 1873, it was declared the largest house in Somerset County.
Maplewood Farm, residence of David C. Voorhees, circa 1881. Rock Brook runs on the south side of the property.
NJ State Village for Epileptics
When Captain Voorhees died in 1876, Maplewood passed to his son, David C. Voorhees. When David died in 1898, the family sold Maplewood Farm and house to the State of New Jersey, who was planning to build a village to treat epileptics. In the same year, Governor Foster Voorhees signed a law authorizing the establishment of the NJ State Village for Epileptics. Several years later, the state also purchased adjacent farms to expand the village to 1,000 acres.
The theory of eugenics prevailed at this time, and it was believed that epilepsy was best treated by separating patients from the rest of society to control their reproductive ability. Founders of the State Village also wanted to separate epileptics from the population of the insane asylums where they had been lodged.
Maplewood House was a large building, able to accommodate the first superintendent, Henry Weeks, MD and his family, the Village Steward and his wife, and eight patients. Over time, the patient population grew and buildings were built to house additional patients and to provide other services. Maplewood was then used exclusively as the residence of the Superintendent and as administrative offices. As the State Village
population grew, more buildings were added until it contained over 100 structures. The expanded village was self-sufficient, with dormitories, medical facilities, farms with orchards, police and fire companies, laundry, employees’ residences, an icehouse, and much more.
In 2000, Maplewood House was placed on the State and National Registers of Historic Places.
Maplewood House 1906
Village for Sale
As medical treatments for epilepsy were developed in the mid-20th century, the theory of eugenics fell out of favor. The village changed to a multi-purpose institution, treating patients with drug and alcohol addictions, mental health issues, and other diseases. In the late 1940s, the State Village was renamed Neuropsychiatric Institute (NPI), and then in the 1970s, it was again renamed to become North Princeton Development Center (NPDC).
In the early 1990s, treatments for many issues had changed, and in 1995, the state decided to close NPDC. All patients were removed by 1998. Montgomery Township wanted to buy 256 acres from the state to make it a town center. After lengthy negotiations, the township bought the property for $5.95 million in 2007. Most of the
buildings were demolished by 2012, and Montgomery Township sold the property to Somerset County Recreation to make a passive recreation park.
The Epilepsy Museum
By the fall of 2011, many buildings in the abandoned State Village, including Maplewood House, had fallen into disrepair, and many were damaged by vandalism. Almost all 100+ buildings were being demolished, and the associated asbestos covering the pipes from the central heating system were being remediated. Maplewood was not demolished because the Epilepsy Foundation of New Jersey planned to refurbish it to create an epilepsy museum. They also planned to have offices and store their archives there.
Maplewood House engulfed in flames
The museum that much planning had gone into would never be at Maplewood House, though. On a pleasant fall afternoon, November 19, 2011, Montgomery Township Fire Company No. 2 was called to a raging fire at Maplewood House. According to a report on NJ.com, “Police and firefighters were called out to the complex known as Skillman Village just after 3:45pm on Saturday after bicyclists in the park reported the house was on fire. Firefighters found heavy fire surging from the house and battled the blaze for
two hours before bringing it under control.” No one knew how it started, but it is believed to be caused by arson, since it was an abandoned building. No one was apprehended, and to this day it remains a cold case. The fire also crushed the dreams for the Epilepsy Foundation to have its museum on the site of the former State Village for Epileptics. What was left of the building was razed.
That promising museum was never established. The farm and administration offices that once stood along Burnt Hill Road are gone and soon will be forgotten. The land has returned to the way it looked when the Dutch arrived, and the brook on the south side of the road still gurgles endlessly as it meanders toward the Millstone River. Time goes on.
Site of the former Maplewood House today
FACTS
1. In Blog 62, you can read more about eugenics and the beginning of the State Village for Epileptics at Maplewood. Blogs 63-65 continue the story of the State Village, including the perspective of people who worked or grew up there.
2. In the early years, the farmland surrounding Blawenburg Village was also called Blawenburg. Maplewood used a Blawenburg address.
3. Van Voorhees in Dutch meant “from a farm named Voorhees”. Like other, but not all, Dutch immigrants, the Voorhees family dropped the Van by their second generation in America.
4. Maplewood was also known as the David C. Voorhees House or the John A. Voorhees House.
5. Both John A. and David C. Voorhees are buried in Blawenburg Cemetery.
6. Today, the Epileptic Village is known as Skillman Park. The only remaining buildings are the Montgomery Township School District Village Elementary School, a former employee’s home, and several outbuildings used by the farm.
7. Route 206 is also known as John Van Horne Road in honor of this early settler of Montgomery Township.
SOURCES
Information
Information Brecknell, Ursula C., Montgomery Township, An Historic Community, 1702-1972, Van Harlingen Historical Society, Montgomery Township, NJ, 2006.
Snell, James P. History of Hunterdon and Somerset Counties, New Jersey. Somerset County, Vol. 2, The History of Somerset County, Philadelphia, Everts and Peck, 1881.
Pictures
1850 map of Blawenburg, Public domain
Residence of David C. Voorhees – Snell, James P. History of Hunterdon and Somerset Counties, New Jersey. Somerset County, Vol. 2, The History of Somerset County, Philadelphia, Everts and Peck, 1881.
Maplewood 1906 - https://www.opengreenmap.org/ko/greenmap/montgomery-township-nj-green-map/maplewood-john-voorhees-house-24710
Fire at Maplewood House – Photo archives, Montgomery Township EMS
Maplewood House site today - public domain
Editor—Barb Reid Email: blawenburgtales@gmail.com
Blog website: http://www.blawenburgtales.com
Author site: http://www.dcochran.net
Copyright © 2025 by David Cochran. All rights reserved.
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