Summer25Web - Flipbook - Page 35
Hank9s ancestor, Abraham Bonnell Jr. (1732-1797) was already
a zealous Patriot and a member of the secret political society
known as the Sons of Liberty, when he left Ringoes in 1767, and
purchased Nehemiah Dunham9s house and farm in what is now
Clinton, New Jersey. Dunham was licensed to operate a tavern in
his home since 1764, and Bonnell continued the tradition when
he was granted his own license there in 1768. The tavern was a
hornet9s nest of revolutionaries where Bonnell and Colonel
Charles Stewart raised and organized the region9s first minutemen
in 1775, a year before New Jersey officially declared its independence from British rule (see main article).
Despite the incongruity and the grumbling of the interstate,
the lofty, three-story building still commands the corner of West
Main Street and Pittstown Road, and the rambling interior, with
its skeleton revealed like the ribs of a giant whale, seems to loom
even larger. Rooms cluttered with derelict artifacts and relics date
the main building9s two-century evolution like tree rings. The Revolutionary War is at its core. But recently, metal detectorists documenting a series for public television, unearthed two Civil War
uniform buttons from an era when the tavern was known as
