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Community Corner

How a Town in N.Y. Caused Troy to Become Troy Hills

Historic homes on Beverwyck Road part of Troy's past.

How did Troy became Troy Hills?

The town of Troy was centered on Beverwyck Road at the intersection of Troy Meadow Road and Troy Road.

There is still a cluster of very old houses there, as well as the archaeological remnants of a water-driven industrial area that contained a grain mill and a saw mill in the 1800s, when water power was the only source of energy for industry.  The small house at the corner of Troy Road dates to 1723.

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There was a town jail in Troy and a post office. That is how Troy became Troy Hills: The U.S. Postal Service wanted to reduce confusion between Troy, N.Y., and Troy, N.J.

In those early days, people in Parsippany and Troy knew each other as neighbors and socialized. In the Presbyterian Church, where the line between Troy and Parsippany ran through the building, Parsippany people sat on the west side and Troy residents sat on the east side.

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Troy Forge located on Troy Brook at the Forge Pond Dam was an important source of iron for the Continental army during the Revolution and continued forging until 1860.

It was a bloomery forge, which used a trip-hammer to pound the iron ore after it was heated, to give it the ability to be worked into nails, horseshoes and tools by a blacksmith. The iron was first heated in a fire, powered by a charcoal made from trees harvested in the Troy Meadows. Two bellows intensified the heat.

The Parrit-Smith House was built at the right-angle bend in South Beverwyck Road, almost to Hanover. Although the house burned in 1969, it is the location of “Washington’s Spring," where the Continental Army often stopped for water on the route between West Point and Morristown.

The Benjamin Howell House (1765), a red house on the bend where South Beverwyck begins to climb a hill up to Reynolds, hosted Washington—he wrote a letter of thanks for a “delicious dinner.” 

Cameron Hutchinson House, near Pathmark, belonged to a Tory (British sympathiser) before it was the property of Abraham Lott.

Beverwyck Plantation, at the corner of Route 46 and Beverwyck, at 2,000 acres, was one of the largest plantations in New Jersey at the time of the Revolution.

Troy Meadows was a source of hay for livestock and wood  for fuel and heat.

Troy Road was the main road between Troy and Newark until the Newark Turnpike (now Route 46) was built.

The Morris County Grange sponsored the Morris County Fair on a large plot of land near the Chinese Church. Every August for a week, the area was filled with midway carnival rides, food vendors, animal tents and shows, displaying the agricultural nature of the area.

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