The Van Campen Inn

While its not really an abandoned structure, it a very historic one. We went by it today to find out the building was open to the public and they were giving tours. Grabbed my camera and tripod and got a few interesting shots from the place.

Some history

The Inn is among the most prominent "official” destinations along the Old Mine Road, but it is not at all apparent how many features actually wait here for discovery. Van Campen Inn sits on the unpaved portion of Old Mine Road at the lower end of Shapanack Flats directly west and over the ridge from Walpack Center. From Millbrook Village drive north to the bridge over the Big Flatbrook, turn left and follow the road along the river’s "S” curve known as Walpack Bend. At the intersection with Pompey Road, bear left onto the gravel road, crossing a small stream and continuing beside Walpack Mountain to your right. To explore the inn and the area around it, pull off Old Mine Road into the parking field across from the inn.

Despite its name, the Van Campen Inn was never really used as an inn, at least not as we know them today. This "inn” was actually a "Yaugh house”, a rural house in a remote area that was required by early colonial law to provide shelter and food to travelers.

The Rosenkrans family began farming in this area around 1730. After acquiring the property around 1742, Harmon Rosenkrans, son of one of these earliest Dutch immigrants, constructed the house’s first section, later called the "kitchen wing”. In 1754, Harmon sold the property and house to his brother in law, Isaac Van Campen, who probably then built the larger main house that we see today. In 1917, the kitchen wing was torn down but its outline is still visible on the end wall. There remains some disagreement, however, about which wing was actually built first and by whom.

About 1811 Abraham Van Campen sold the house to Henry DeWitt of Rochester, N.Y., for his son John H. DeWitt, who then moved in. He built a "peculiar long-roofed barn” that stood, along with other outbuildings, in the grassy area across the road from the inn. The barn was destroyed by fire in 1971.
Van Campen Inn
The white coating on the north end of the Van Campen house end wall has been applied to show where a kitchen wing was once attached.

Over the years the inn has suffered various problems with its structure. In the 1980s, most of the front wall and one end wall were completely dismantled, a new foundation constructed and the walls rebuilt with the original stones. Today the Walpack Historical Society uses the inn as a museum and conducts tours on certain weekends during the year.

Until the 1970s another house stood on the knoll behind the Van Campen house. In the 1700s John Rosenkrans’ home apparently stood there. In 1850 a second house, the Hull house, was built on that site, possibly using the original foundation. Some years later a third home, later called the Schnure house, replaced the Hull house.

Information from here:
www.njskylands.com/hsoldmine072.htm


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place looks cool

Very nice find, it seems they took good care of that facility.

Cool house! I love old houses!! If you are familiar with the friar tuck inn. You know that there is a house adjacent to it that was built in 1772 or 74. My family had owned the friar tuck and I used to so fascinated with that little house. It had that old house smell, that reminds me of a camp fire. I want to own an old house like that before I die!

LithiumBaby wrote: Cool house! I love old houses!! If you are familiar with the friar tuck inn. You know that there is a house adjacent to it that was built in 1772 or 74. My family had owned the friar tuck and I used to so fascinated with that little house. It had that old house smell, that reminds me of a camp fire. I want to own an old house like that before I die!

its 1771, i have been in there

nice place, super clean.

This is the house your talking about Lith