The Van Kannel Estate on Church Street ~ Revisited

We are revisiting the Van Kannel Estate on Church Street. Most people living today do not realize what a beautiful estate this was. Many stories and rumors have been told, many are interesting, but most are lore.

I have been fortunate to have been contacted by Mr. Jack Van Kannel, nephew of Theophilus Van Kannel and been given some wonderful photos and some interesting facts about the man and the estate. I would love to have met this man; he must have been quite interesting.

One misconception, earlier I found that Mr. Theophilus Van Kannel was of Dutch ancestry, then today while researching him on Wikipedia; it stated that he was a Swiss-American inventor. The truth from Mr. Jack Van Kannel is that we are not of Dutch ancestry, but Austrian. Our original name was von Kanel. A spelling mistake was made when Abraham came over. Much to the dismay of his relatives in Europe, he kept the new name for "good luck in America.

Jack Van Kannel stated that Theophilus Van Kannel was a great uncle of his. Jack's father, Dr. Harvey Van Kannel, was mentored by Ben Van Kannel, the man Theophilus lived with before he died in 1919. The papers, documents and mementoes came down to him through that line. Jack's father was especially involved in those papers and published two books that chronicled Theophilus's journals.

Jack Van Kannel said that Theophilus Van Kannel kept notes, letters, drawings and almost anything of interest to him, these papers were saved by Ben Van Kannel who was a mentor for Jack's father, Dr. Harvey Van Kannel. Jack's Dad organized and published some these documents into two volumes called T. Van Kannel, The Inventor: His autobiography and Journal. Unfortunately, the journal itself does not take us up past the 1870's, long before his moving to New York in 1899. There are a number of personal letters and notes that have come down to me. For example, He wrote a letter to his wife in '06 finishing with "I hope all is well at Vanhurst with the farm and park, this was the first reference to the name “Vanhurst”, Jack states he does refer to the estate as Vanhurst several times after that.

In doing some research on my own, I found that the word “Hurst” translated into German or could be Austrian, it’s just over the border and spelled “Hyrst” means “Wooded Hill”, if this is right it would be quite appropriate.

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A little note about Mrs. VanKannel on July 21, 1939 Mrs. Elizabeth Van Kannel celebrated her 96th birthday at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Adelaide R. Powers of Reeder Ave, Bordentown. She was born in Salem, NJ in 1843 and spent 50 years of her life there. In 1893 she moved to New York City and remained there until 1911. Since 1911 she has resided with her daughter in Bordentown. Her late husband, Theopholis Van Kannel, was the inventor of the modern revolving door. The company in New york City is still doing business. There are four children, 3 daughters and 1 son: Mrs. Paul Miller of Philadelphia, Mrs. George House of Salem, Mrs. A. Powers of Bordentown, and Mark Fowler of Trenton.

The following are the photos that Jack Van Kannel sent to me, they are fantastic, quite an addition to this chronicle of history for our area, I can’t thank him enough,

This is the man that invented, among other things, the “Revolving Door”, something seen in every large building, I think of the joy he gave children, just spinning in a revolving door, who has not done that.

The following photos appear as snap shots, not posed, but if you notice in each of the photos, except one, there is a discretely placed white sign, leaning against the base of a tree. I could not read this sign and was about to inquire as to what was on it, when I received a set of photos with the sign visible if I enlarge the photo, it states “Sep 22, 1917”. Guess these photos were not as “Spur of the moment” as I thought.
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This entrance is on Church Street, the pillar on the left is the only surviving remnant of the Estate. At some later date a Pump House was erected blocking this drive, about where the men are standing. The Main Entrance was about fifty yards to the left and climbed the hill you see in the left side of this photo.

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If you enlarge this photo by clicking on it and look the the left of the two men, you will see a tree, a very Dark tree. If you look near the top of this tree you will see a set of steps coming down the hill, these steps led from the upper drive, near the garden, to the lower drive. I do not know what purpose these steps served as they were not near any of the houses, I do know we spent a lot of time running up and down these steps. These were very long and sturdy, decorative concrete steps.

This photo shows the Carriage House to the left, the main house is at the end of the straight drive in the trees past the car. This photo would have been taken if you were standing on the property with your back towards Bordentown and facing Church Street, Route 130 (if it was built) would be behind the Carriage House.

This is the main house on the hill, the porch seen in the left of the photo is the Carriage House, once again you would be standing with your back towards Bordentown and facing Church Street.

This is the Carriage House, the right side would have been the Chauffeur's quarters, the upper right side would have been for the stable help, the center and the lower right would have been for the carriages and horses,and later cars.

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I believe the horses would be in the far left, judging by the stable like windows and it would be best to have the horses as far from the Chauffeur's Quarters as possible

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Behind this building was the log cabin, Doctors Creek and later Route 130. When I was younger I was always amazed by the clock tower, visible from Route 130 and Route 156, protruding high above the tree tops. Its hands were still at that time, but at one time it was operational, visible then only to the Estate and the South Amboy - Bordentown Road

Carriage House, with log cabin in view behind, this taken facing south, towards Bordentown.

This is the log cabin behind the Carriage House, this was used as a "tenant House" for the hired help. This was build on a large stone structure which extender over the hill to "Doctors Creek". The lower floor served as the "Pump House"

This is the Log Cabin showing how high the stone structure was that supported it. You can see the rear of the Carriage house in the upper left of the photo. .

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Story has it there was a tunnel from the cellar of this building to the cellar of the main house to be used as an escape tunnel, should the house be raided during the thirty's when there was a large illegal liquor operation here during Prohibition, long after it left the Van Kannel's ownership.

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Most likely this was used to carry pipes to the main house to refill the water storage tank in the attic. I really like the escape tunnel story better. When I saw this building the Log Cabin had collapsed and had fallen in to the stone cellar, guess this is why I didn't see the tunnel.

This is the spring we all drank from, the pipe was shorter when we saw it. The spring was located along Doctors creek about fifty yards from the Church Street Bridge on the Groveville side of the creek.
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The girl is holding a glass and the boy is drinking straight from the pipe, as he should, that's the way we did it. When I was young people came for miles to fill their jugs at this spring. My Grandfather Fred Lippincott moved from Groveville to a farm in Georgetown, past Chesterfield, he still came back to fill his drinking water jugs.
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The Spring photo would be taken if you were standing with your back to Church Street, with Doctors Creek to your right. The bridge in the background is the Bordentown-South Amboy Turnpike, now State route 156, the State Route 130 bridge was not built till around 1950.

This photo was taken with the people in the photo either looking through an opening in the trees facing Yardville or Bordentown, my guess is Yardville due to the high hill in the distance.