The Creation of a Landmark: The Bishop House of College Avenue

Abstract

DU R I N G the early 19th century New Brunswick was a thriving manufacturing and shipping community, and among its most prominent citizens was M r . James Bishop Jr. , a wealthy merchant who made his fortune importing and exporting between South America, Africa, Europe and New Brunswick. James Bishop Jr. , born on May n t h , 1816, was fifth-generation American and the first of two sons of James Bishop Sr. and Ellen Bennett Bishop, who married in 1816. James Sr., born in 1788, had migrated from his family's home in Woodbridge, New Jersey, to enter the shipping business in New Brunswick. In 1830 he owned a large grain depot and a dozen sloops that brought the grain from New Brunswick to New York. James Sr. also imported rubber and owned several local rubber goods factories.1 In 1839 James Jr. married Harriet McCleland, daughter of a Rutgers College professor. James Sr. died soon after, in 1845, a n d James Jr. took control of his father's enterprises. Shortly thereafter Harriet died childless. In 1850 James married 19-year-old Mary Ellis of Sing Sing, New York, and also transferred his shipping business to New York, as the railroad had made shipping from New Brunswick obsolete. Nevertheless, Bishop remained fond of his hometown, and in 1848 he purchased a desirable ten acre site along the Raritan River, between the present day College Avenue, Bishop Place, George Street and Senior St. According to a 1951 paper by William Sherman;