August, 1920 
47 
If the end. of travel 
is to arrive some¬ 
where, as Stevenson 
says, surely the mo¬ 
tor pilgrim could 
desire no more pleas¬ 
ant arrival than at 
this ancient hostelry 
WHERE THE SIGN 
STILL 
SWINGS 
In Many a Countryside, as These Motor Pilgrims Found, There Still Remain 
Vestiges of the Old-Time Hospitality of the Road 
GRACE NORTON ROSE 
Sketches by Jack Manley Rose 
“VOUTL find 
X nothing in 
New Jersey and the 
Post Road is in a 
fearful condition,” 
seemed the consen¬ 
sus of opinion when 
we sounded out our 
motoring friends on 
the “inn” situation. 
Our own motor ad¬ 
ventures have been 
so scarce and so 
feeble that we 
sought advice eager¬ 
ly, the while poring 
over road maps and 
searching through 
musty volumes for history of the old post 
roads and turnpikes across the state. 
A maddening 
hunt for a still 
better place for 
a picnic one day 
in May, took us 
miraculously into 
the neighborhood 
of several back- 
country taverns, 
with Dutch gables 
and stone ends still 
in evidence despite 
the many attempts 
to reduce the archi¬ 
tecture to cheap 
and more modem 
lines. 
It was along the 
route of Washing¬ 
ton’s withdrawal to 
Morristown that 
our first search 
actually started. 
Armed with a 
No roadside hotel is 
complete without its 
swinging sign 
vague and somewhat jumbled idea of our fa¬ 
mous general’s campaigns but hot on his trail 
with maps, camera, sketch pad and note book, 
two congenial souls and an adequate luncheon 
tucked in the tonneau, we swung up the Pas¬ 
saic Valley to pick up at Basking Ridge one 
of the little markers erected by the D. A. R. 
to commemorate his passing. 
Not far from the beautiful old church, there, 
hangs an inn sign, impartially placed between 
two buildings; one a delightful, rambling old 
white house of quite evident Revolutionary 
vintage, and the other, a creation of scarce 
forty years ago. We learned upon inquiry of 
a person evidently somewhat suspicious of us, 
that the modern edifice was now the inn. Its 
charming old neighbor for a hundred years 
or more had had that distinction until the 
proud new hotel had been built, whereupon it 
retired into private life. 
We sketched the sign, as it swung there over 
the road, adored the church and its guardian 
oak, and pressed on searching for the trail. 
We detoured up the road and had a look at 
the place where Lee was captured, now a pri¬ 
vate residence, then went on to have a look 
at Liberty Corner, a white spire among the 
hills, pointing the way, and being distant now 
from Morristown, sped on to Far Hills and 
Chester, through Peapack and Gladstone. 
A search through the empty halls and stiff 
parlors of the Chester House Hotel, towards 
the swinging door of the bar-room, unearthed a 
discouraged youth with no information to offer, 
except that he thought Dr. Green, down the 
street, would be able to tell us something of 
the Tavern’s history. 
A strange sign, reading “Flagstaff Inn”, at 
a cross-roads, sent the brakes shrieking again, 
and the author, armed with her note book, 
hopped out to con¬ 
tinue investigations 
of the township of 
Chester. “An oldest 
inhabitant” was 
only too delighted 
to chat awhile. The 
courteous raconteur 
led her inevitably 
towards the tap- 
room, to show off 
old door casings, 
but the startled 
( Cont. on page 68) 
Before the motor 
came Black Horse 
Inn was famous. 
Its history goes 
back to 1735. The 
house seems haunt¬ 
ed by ghosts of 
erstwhile teamsters 
reveling in the 
tap-room 
