Kitchen Cabinets and bathroom vanıtıes ın Lakewood, nj

When the first settlers came they found the Lakewood of today a dense forest, situated on off-beaten Indian trails, during the days when Freehold, Tennent, and Toms River were focal points in the American Revolution. The settlers gradually cleared the land, built their homes, and created small hamlets, which they named after families or events which identified the particular localities.

The first recorded history of present Lakewood began with the “Three Partners’ Mill,” an area running parallel with the present State Highway 88, in the area of the South branch of the Metedeconk River. In this area, three Skidmore brothers John, George, and Henry, settled. They dammed the stream and built a sawmill; in fact, lumbering continued to be the main source of income for the settlers until it was discovered that the soil was rich in ironstone, a brown lumpy ore, hard and studded with gravel.

In 1814, Jesse Richards moved here from Washington Township, Burlington County. He came from a family of blast-iron furnace operators and with a partner, William Irwin, organized a company to develop ironstone. They purchased large tracts of land to get water sheds for their mill ponds, ore for their smelters and timber for their fuel and built a blast furnace. Soon the settlements of “Three Partners’ Mill” became known as “Washington’s Furnace.” In addition, Richards organized Lakewood’s first mail service.

He employed one man, who drove to and from Freehold with letters and other valuables where they were picked up by the stagecoach, which ran between New York and Philadelphia. The iron ore business of Richards and Irwin was very successful until 1832 when it began to fail and was finally purchased by Joseph W. Brick, another resident of Burlington County. Brick revived the blast-iron furnace business and organized the Bergen Iron Works, and within the next several years, the iron works business grew rapidly.