Department of Military and Veterans Affairs

New Jersey Historic Trust Affiliated with the Department of Community Affairs

True Farmstead

Preserve New Jersey Historic Preservation Fund
Historic Site Management Grant
Grant Award: $75,000 (2022)
Grant Recipient: Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum
County: Somerset
Municipality: Montgomery Township

The True Farmstead is certified eligible for listing in the State and National Registers of Historic Places for its significance as an early Black farmstead in the Sourlands region of Central New Jersey. The period of significance is from 1881 to 1950, and the New Jersey Historic Preservation Office recommends it be listed as the “Reasoner-True House” to incorporate the name of the original Black owners and ancestors of the Trues. Corinda and William Reasoner, an African American couple, purchased the property in 1881. Their farmstead stood at the center of a burgeoning Black community until 1950, when census records indicate, the African American community had decreased to a grouping of no more than half a dozen families in the Eastern Sourland Mountain region. However, ownership of the house remained in the True family until 1994.

The 2022 Trust grant will help fund the preparation of a Historic Preservation Plan, Landscape Stewardship Plan, and National Register nomination.


Back
to top