Gesner Homestead Site

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	John Henry Gesner Homestead Site pos. 1725, by 1749
	31 Rockleigh Road
	On 1 Jun 1749, John Henry Gesner came into the property southeast of Tappan, possibly purchased in 1725 by his father, Johan Hendrick Gesner, a mile and one-half southeast of Tappan Town and close to the disputed New York-New Jersey boundary line in what is then Tappan, NY, but now present-day Rockleigh, New Jersey. John Gesner & Famitcha Brower lived their entire married lives in a house built to the west of Sneden Landing Road, The site of the house is shown on Robert Erskine's Revolutionary War Map, Number 110, 1788-80 and is the oldest habitation in Rockleigh. The house is located on the present DuBois House property on Rockleigh Road, about 100 yards to the west of (behind) the Joseph DuBois Barn and about a 200 yards southeast from the present James Gowdy House on Piermont Road. The Gesner farmlands included the large area to the north of present Willow Avenue extending north of the present NY-NJ boundary and West from Rockleigh Road to the Sparkill Creak close to the Northvale boundary. These lands ultimately were handed down to his daughter Elizabeth Gesner Conklin and thence to several great grandchildren. "...all that remained [in 1912] of the house [of Mary Quidor] was a depression in the ground." * *Winthrop Gilman quoted by Alice Munro Haagenson: "Palisades and Snedens Landing: From the Beginning of History to the Turn of the Twentieth Century." Pilgrimage Publishing, Tarrytown, NY, 1986

	Map References
	1774		An assembled list of "Possessions in Lockharts Patent" included fourteen families within the New Jersey gore in what is now Rockleigh: John Gissnar [Gesner], Jacob Concklin Jr., Geradus Ryker, John Ryker, Abraham Ryker, and Abraham Abm. Haring Jr.
	1788-80 Robert Erskine Revolutionary War Map, Number 110, 1788-80		Jno. Guessner

	People who Lived There


	1724-1745/48	Johan Gesner & Anna Elizabeth Schmidt
	1749-1796	John Henry Gesner (1724-1811) & Famitcha Brower (1723-1788)
	1796-1811	2^nd Jacob Conklin, Owner of record John Henry Gesner (1724-1811), life-right
	c.1812-1820	Mary Quidor (1775-1838), life right
	1820-1822	Mary Quidor (1775-1838) John Gisner Conklin (1796-1871) & Madeline Fortier
	1822-1832	Mary Quidor (1774-1838)
	1832-1835	John Whitehead, "coloured man"* [*Gesner Diary entry of November 7, 1835]
	1835	Joseph Dubois [owner or record] Demolished homestead in 1935 and used lumber to build central addition to the Joseph Dubois House

	References
	Bergen County Historic Sites Survey, Borough of Rockleigh. 1981-1982. Bergen County Office of Cultural and Historic Affairs, Hackensack, NJ