Lamington, New Jersey

Lamington is an unincorporated community located within Bedminster Township, in Somerset County, New Jersey, United States.[1] It contains the Lamington Presbyterian Church Cemetery and the Lamington Black Cemetery.

Lamington, New Jersey
Unincorporated community
Presbyterian Church
Lamington, New Jersey Location in Somerset County Lamington, New Jersey Location in New Jersey Lamington, New Jersey Location in United States
Coordinates: 40°39′39″N 74°43′03″W
Country	United States
State	New Jersey
County	Somerset
Township	Bedminster
Time zone	UTC-5 (Eastern (EST))
• Summer (DST)	UTC-4 (Eastern (EDT))
GNIS feature ID	877657

The name

"Lamington" is a corruption of the Native American word for the nearby stream, the "Allemetunck" or the "Loamatong". Its name means "the place within the hills" or "the place of paint clay." There are 113 recorded variations on the spelling of Lamington, including "Alamatunk," "Lametunk" and "Lamberton."[2]

The church

The Lamington Presbyterian Church was constructed in 1740. Church membership included Scots-Irish Presbyterians, Dutch and German settlers, tenant-farmers, large and small landowners, lawyers, teachers, millers, weavers, tailors, other craftsmen and workmen, slaves and freed blacks.[3]

National Register of Historic Places

The Lamington Historic District, which includes the Presbyterian Church and the Lamington Black Cemetery, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.[4]

Notable people

People who were born in, residents of, or otherwise closely associated with Lamington include:

• Joseph Caldwell (1773–1835), first President of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.[5]
• John Honeyman (1729–1822), alleged "spy of Washington" during the American Revolutionary War lived the last 30 years of his life in the Lamington area and is buried in the Lamington Presbyterian Church Cemetery (his original gravestone, as well as a document showing his assigned church pew, is exhibited inside the church building).
• Zebulon Pike (1779–1813), brigadier general and early explorer who was the namesake for Pikes Peak,[6][7] though the explorer is often erroneously said to have been born in Lamberton, a port community that has since been annexed by Trenton in Mercer County.[8]
• Jane McCrea (c. 1752–1777), colonist killed by a Huron-Wendat warrior associated with the British army, whose slaying led to outrage and an increase in Patriot military support.[9]
• John Van Dyke (1807–1878), represented New Jersey's 4th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1847 to 1851.[10]

Notable burials:

• James Linn (1749–1821), a United States Representative from New Jersey who was a member of the Provincial Congress of New Jersey in 1776, served in the Somerset County Militia during the Revolutionary War and is buried in the Lamington Presbyterian Church Cemetery.[11]

References

1. Locality Search, State of New Jersey. Accessed June 9, 2016.
2. Landers, R. Gloria. Pioneers, Pastors and Patriots: The 250-Year History of Lamington Presbyterian Church. (Bedminster, New Jersey: Lamington Presbyterian Church, 1990), p. 9 and front end paper.
3. Landers, p. 12.
4. Ashton, Charles H. (June 21, 1984). "NRHP Nomination: Lamington Historic District". National Park Service. Cite journal requires |journal= (help) "Accompanying 28 photos, from 1984". Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
5. Powell, William S. Joseph Caldwell, 1773-1835, Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, University of North Carolina Press, 1996. Accessed June 9, 2014. "Caldwell, Joseph (21 Apr. 1773-27 Jan. 1835), mathematician, Presbyterian minister, and first president of The University of North Carolina, was born at Lamington, N.J., in northeastern Hunterdon County, the youngest of three children of Joseph and Rachel Harker Caldwell."
6. Backes, William J.. "General Zebulon M. Pike, Somerset-Born" in Somerset County Historical Quarterly, Volume 8, p. 245. Somerset Historical Publications, Reprint Publishers, 1919. Accessed January 17, 2015. "If one will pick up almost any encyclopedia or biography he will find it stated that General Pike was born at 'Lamberton, now part of Trenton, New Jersey, January 5, 1779.' But this name has been confused with his real birthplace, which was not at Lamberton in Mercer County, but at Lamberton (now Lamington) in Somerset County."
7. Washington Irving, "Biographical Memoir of the Late Brigadier General Zebulon Montgomery Pike," The Analectic Magazine Volume 4 (November, 1814): 380.
8. Baldwin, Tom. "Where did Pike peak? Colo. explorer got start in New Jersey", Courier-Post, August 25, 2008. Accessed January 17, 2015. "Nineteenth century Jersey explorer Zebulon Pike was born in Lamberton, now a part of south Trenton, but gave his name to Colorado's 14,000-foot Pikes Peak."
9. Lamphier, Peg A.; and Welch, Rosanne. Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia and Document Collection, p. 274. ABC-CLIO, 2017. ISBN 9781610696036. Accessed October 6, 2018. "Jane McCrea was born in Bedminster (now Lamington), New Jersey, in 1752 to James McCrea and Mary Graham McCrea, both immigrants from Scotland."
10. John Van Dyke, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Accessed September 1, 2007.
11. James Linn, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Accessed December 21, 2012.