The Blachley Homestead History
Thomas Blachley, born in 1615, emigrated from northwestern England at the age of 20 and arrived in the United States in 1635. He then moved on to Hartford, Connecticut, which he, along with others from Cambridge, Massachusetts, founded in 1637. He is, to this day, considered a “founder” of Hartford, CT. His son, Aaron, born in 1644, lived in both Newark, NJ and Guilford, CT. Aaron’s son, Ebenezer, born in 1677, became a doctor and moved to Dix Hills, NY, on Long Island. His son, also Ebenezer, born in 1709, became a doctor, as well, and settled in a little hamlet named Mendham, in New Jersey, where he constructed, circa 1740, an “East Jersey cottage” on a large plot of land that he farmed. His son was also named Ebenezer and also became a doctor. This Dr Ebenezer Blachley III conducted a “college of surgery” on the premises of this same farm, now located at the intersection of Cherry Lane and Talmage Road, while General George Washington’s troops were encamped in nearby Jockey Hollow during the Revolutionary War. In fact, the home was also briefly “commandeered” during the war by General “Mad Anthony” Wayne, for whom Waynesboro, VA is named. Then, in the post-war economic “boom,” Dr Ebenezer Blachley III added a large center-hall colonial, circa 1790, onto his modest East Jersey cottage. All of this home stands to this day, on the corner of what are now Cherry Lane and Talmage Road.
The farm still stretched all the way to the top of the hill behind it, now bisected by Hardscrabble Road. The “salt box” styled main portion of the home faced a small country road that wound through what is now the backyard of the home at 610 Cherry Lane. In fact, the green barns that sit catty-corner along Hardscrabble Road across the street, which were converted into a single home about 50 years ago, were the original barns for his farmstead. Dr Blachley died in 1795, only a few years after vastly expanding his home. While living in this home, Dr Blachley was married on five occasions (yes, five different wives!). He had eight children with his first wife, Hannah (nee) Miller. It is not clear whether or not he had additional children with any of his four subsequent wives.
As legend has it, sometime in the 1800’s, the then resident of the homestead entered into a “land swap” with the local municipality, Mendham, that allowed the construction of the roads that now intersect at this property, Cherry Lane and Talmage Road.
This intersection just used to be “part of the homestead.” The home’s resident of greatest notoriety over the past 100 years was a fellow name Sid Doggett, a Stauffer Chemical executive, a “gentleman farmer,” and as an 85-year old, cigar-chomping contemporary of his recounted to me about 20 years ago, with clear respect and fondness for the committed bachelor, “queer as a three-dollar bill.” (I almost died laughing to hear such a comment come from such an “old salt.”) In fact, this home is still known to this day by many of the older residents in the area as the “Doggett estate.” Sid Doggett was responsible for planting all of the wonderful specimen trees that grace the property and he may have added the small wing by our Corey Lane driveway (yes, Cherry Lane in the Borough becomes Corey Lane in the Township right in front of our home).
The existing property is actually two lots, one located in the Borough, which includes the house, and one located in the Township, which includes the garage. My wife, Maria (who grew up in Mendham), and I purchased the home in 1993 and reared our family here. Nearly 20 years ago, we substantially expanded and modernized the home, adding the wing that fronts Talmage Road and adding porches and a terrace in the rear of the property to “open it up to the back,” because the vehicular traffic in the front of the home made me a little nervous, even back then.
I took a 2-year sabbatical from my career to serve as the general contractor on that project, and was blessed with 26 wonderful subcontractors and about 80 different suppliers of the unique materials required to keep the home’s new addition appearing “historically accurate.” I describe that project as my “mid-life crisis,” which I thoroughly enjoyed for 80+ hours a weeks for over 2 years, “sweating every detail.” It was a labor of love (and I wanted to avoid being “the guy” that screwed the place up.) Our custodianship of this property over 4 decades still represents nothing more than just being the “pimple on the tail of the back of the elephant” over the nearly 300-year history of this home. Maria, likely viewing this as the least objectionable type of “mid-life crisis” for her husband to have, put up with it :>) All four of our daughters have grown up in Mendham, attending the Borough elementary and middle schools, and Mendham High School. At least one of our daughters, and her husband, has already returned, buying a home in Mendham (Township), and blessing us with a grandson who celebrates his first birthday this month (October, 2025). So, now the next generation is starting to enjoy the same home that has graced Mendham for nearly 300 years!