Freehold Borough
RECORD GROUP: Municipalities
RECORD SERIES #: 8600.08
SERIES: Freehold Borough
DATES: 1869-1995
VOLUME: 97 volumes and 11 cartons (30 cubic feet)

Freehold has been a town longer than America has been a nation and its history as a town mirrors with remarkable accuracy the history of the nation.
The first Dutch and Scottish settlers arrived in the 1680s when the Lenni‑Lenape Indians sparsely populated the rich and fertile land. The settlers established a village on the Burlington Path, an Indian rail that crossed New Jersey along the corridor that Route 537 follows today. The village sat at the center of what was soon designated Monmouth County, one of the colony’s original four counties. Here a courthouse was built on the same spot where the Hall of Records now stands.
During the American Revolution, the Declaration of Independence was read to a crowd of patriots gathered in front of the courthouse. This was also the location for occasional hangings of unrepentant Loyalists. On the morning of June 28, 1778, the entire British Army, on its way by foot from Philadelphia to New York, was camped in town. The entire Continental Army, led by George Washington, caught up with them.
The first shots of the Battle of Monmouth were fired close to where the high school stands today. The fighting raged back toward Tennent Church, all through the day, resulting in the single largest land battle of the Revolution. When Washington arose the next morning to fight again he found that the British had escaped during the night. Although neither side could say it won, the Americans proved what many had doubted before–that they were equal to their enemy.
Freehold was the trading center for a wide and fertile swath of the county where farmers came to sell what they raised and buy what they didn’t. The railroads that arrived in the middle of the 19th century carried out trainloads of potatoes, the main local crop. The railroads that transported the potatoes also brought in some industries later in the century and at the beginning of the next. The largest by far was the A & M Karagheusian rug mill, whose products adorned floors as illustrious as the United States Supreme Court and Radio City Music Hall.
During the Civil War, the local men raised a regiment and drilled and trained out on the old battlefield. When they returned home, they marched up Main Street in the first of the town’s Memorial Day parades. The regiment was led by the horse that their commander, Major Peter Vredenburgh, was riding when he was killed charging over a ridge against the Confederates at the Battle of Opequon Creek in Virginia. Soldiers marched up Main Street again after the Second World War to which Freehold sent almost 1,000 men and women; proportionately more than any other town in Monmouth County.
After the war, Freehold began to assume the shape it has today. It produced its most famous native Bruce Springsteen, in whose songs the town’s stories have come to life so vividly and poignantly. The rug mill moved out, replaced by other less dominant businesses. The potato fields were plowed under for housing developments, as the New York metropolitan region gradually wrapped the town in its embrace, and the shopping district dispersed from Main Street to the surrounding highways. But everyone who passes through the downtown today follows a path well worn by three centuries of traffic, three centuries of history.
Series 1
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Minute Books, May 8, 1869 – September 12, 1919; September 15-1995, April 17, 25 volumes
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Series 2
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Ordinances. 1864, May 19 – 1916, October 2
Volume 1 Ordinances, #1 – #395 (1919-1962)
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Series 3
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Tax Duplicate Books, 1900-1902, 1904, 1913-1919, 1921 – 1969, 69 volumes
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Series 4
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Water Commissioner Minute Book, January 1907 – November 1919
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Series 5
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Water Board, Minutes, 1890
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Board of Elections, 1877, 1880-1882, 1888, 1891-1895
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Box 1
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Board of Health, 1933, Venereal Disease Control Law
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Box 1
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Board of Health, 1935, Letter concerning death of John Leming
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Box 1
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Board of Health, 1936, Public Heath News
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Box 1
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Board of Health, 1882, Payments made to vendors for merchandise purchased
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Box 1
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Bridge Expenditures, 1877-1882, Payments to Overseers of the Roads
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Box 1
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Oaths, 1874-1879, Oaths of Township Officials
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Box 1
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Resolutions, 1892, 1919, 1927, 1937
(1927 Acquisition of Lake Topanemus land)
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Box 1
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Road Assessments, 1873, 1886, 1887
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Box 1
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Overseer of the poor, 1877-1889, 1891-1896, Names of Poor persons and expenses paid for poor
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Box 2
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Overseers of the Roads, 1871-1896, expenditures for road repairs for 11 districts
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Box 3
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Township Committee Rough Minutes, 1884, 1887
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Box 4
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Tax Collector, 1871-1888, 1891, 1892-1893, 1939
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Box 4
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Schools, 1873-1895, Expenditures for repairs & maintenance of schools
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Box 5
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Schools, 1890-1897, Teacher salary vouchers, names of teachers & districts
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Box 5
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Schools, 1874-1891, Miscellaneous records
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Box 5
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Sheep Bills, 1872-1880, 1882-1883, 1885-1891, 1894-1895, Individuals pay for sheep killed by dogs, etc.
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Box 5
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Township Vouchers, 1869, 1871-1898, Payments made by Township to vendors
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Box 6
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In addition to the above, five more boxes were transferred in 2016:
Real Property Lists, 1976 | Box 1 |
Property Lists, 1980-1981 | Box 2 |
Town Taxes, 1894-1897, and 1899-1909 | Box 3 |
Town Taxes, 1910-1919 | Box 4 |
Tax Sale Certificates & Register, 1932-1942 | Box 5 |
Tax Title Lien Ledgers, #45-#350, 1931-1953 | Box 5 |
Tax Title Lien Ledgers, #0025-0000, 1926-1991 | Box 5 |
12 Symmes Drive
Manalapan NJ 07726
Tel. (732) 308-3771