There is a legend that Washington once rested at the grist mill, and that here his troopers purchased feed for their horses. This was probably during the retreat from Fort Lee.
Somewhat south of the mill stood the miller’s house; in fact the building is still standing on its old foundations, at the southeast corner of Summer and Sylvan avenues. Here was born Col. Henry Benson, whose accidental death at Malvern Hill during the Civil War furnished Belleville with its first military funeral.
THE OLD BLOOMFIELD ROAD.
The Old Bloomfield Road in 1903. Looking north to houses at the corner of Clifton and Berkley Avenues. This part of the old road is now obliterated. Those who laid out this hill top had no appreciation of the fact that a crooked road is a line of beauty, both this and Murphy’s Lane having been suppressed in favor of a series of right angles. What would New York above 59th street be if the curves of Broadway were straightened?
The old Bloomfield or Long Hill road is frequently spoken of by the older inhabitants as a former Indian trail “from the mountain to the river”. This may have been one of the many paths which intersected the great Minisink trail extending from the Shrewsbury river to Minisink Island, in the Delaware river below Port Jervis, where the council fires of the Leni Lenape constantly burned. This particular branch probably passed through Great Notch on the First mountain, meeting the main path near Little Falls.
The white man’s road began where what is now Second avenue joins Belleville avenue, and labored up the grade to the present Prospect place, where it turned toward the north for Bloomfield. The old road is less prolific in story and incident than any other part of this region. Those interviewed have invariably wished that I might be able to talk with some one now gone who was full of ancient lore, but as dead men tell no tales I have found myself at a disadvantage.
Not only have the inhabitants gone, but the old road itself is largely a memory, for those who are now exploiting this region have almost obliterated the former highway, finding that its meandering course interfered with their straight lines, and not having in mind the attraction that a bend in the road, the curving line of beauty, with its mystery of a fair, unknown country beyond, has for the stroller.