We received the following picture from The Eagle’s Nest Camp Historical Foundation in October 2011. (letter from Albertson researcher Bill Kelly)
Our interests overlap in the
Aten-Albertson reunions around the turn of the last century, especially the
first two. These were held at the house Nicholas and Japie Aten Albertson
built, at the top of a steep climb from Delaware, NJ.
The house was passed from Nicholas to his youngest son Henry, who like Nicholas
raised a large family in it. After Henry's death in 1853, by some process of
auction and buy-back it came to be owned by Henry's eldest son, William F.
Albertson. William had married Maria Ribble. They had 4 daughters, 3 of whom
are mentioned in Nicholas Harris' letters - Mary Ellen, Sarah Elizabeth
and Emma Frances Albertson. The 4th daughter lived with her cousin in
Belvidere.
Another piece of Henry's property was bought back after the auction by William
Albertson's brother in law, Matthias Cummins. He and his wife Sarah Albertson
Cummins had 2 daughters, of which the younger, Ellen Cummins, survived to
adulthood. She is mentioned in several of Nicholas Harris' letters. She lived
"next door" to the Albertson House, maybe 1/8 mile away.
The Albertson House was the subject of an architectural study conducted by the
WPA in 1937 at the behest of the Interior Department. The drawings are on line here.
After Mary Ellen died in late 1898 (news of her illness in the Harris letters
is fascinating!) Sarah became the owner of the house, and all the land. In
1922, having no heirs, Sarah Albertson and Ellen Cummins donated 180 acres,
both on the hill top and on the flat land below, all the way to the river, to
the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, who operated a camp and conference center
there until 1979. I first set eyes on the Albertson House in 1964, by which
time it was in danger of collapse, having last been lived in in the 1930's. The
church failed to make the necessary repairs, and by the 1970's the house had
collapsed.
A bunch of us ex-campers and counsellors hiked up to the site this August. All
that's left of the fabulous old house is a few sections of the foundation.
There are a few bricks from the chimney lying around, and shards of window
glass, but most everything has rotted and been buried by decades of vegetation.
Very sad!
I'm attaching a photo of the house from an Eagle's Nest Camp brochure from the
1930's.