John A Haring House

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	John A. Haring House & Barn (Nicholas Haring House) c. 1805-1806
	An early 19th century example of Dutch Colonial architecture erected by John A. Haring. Small wing added in 1808, rear stone section built by a Haring about the time of the Revolutionary War. Inherited in 1854 by son Nicholas L. Haring, the farmhouse remained in the family until 1969, ending four generations and 164 years of continuous Haring ownership. BCHS Marker
Site No. 1	5 Piermont Road
Links The Haring Family	This house (5 Piermont Road) is significant for its architecture and its association with the exploration and settlement of the Bergen County area of New Jersey. It is a extremely well preserved example of the Form/Plan Type. There are few modern intrusions. The structure faces southerly on a slight knoll on the left side of Piermont Road.

	The dwelling is an "L" shaped, 1 ½ story gambrel-roof Dutch colonial sandstone structure with upper exterior portions of shingle and clapboard. The main house (30' 0" x 32' 0") built c. 1805 is a three-bay, side hall with one front room with fireplace and two narrow back rooms, all built over a cellar, and with garret above. The west wing (22' 6" x 20" 0") is a three-bay, side door structure. The "old stone kitchen" (15' 1-" x 17' 2") is one room with a massive Dutch oven. There are other frame wings.

	The earliest section (above) is the small one-room stone kitchen built in the mid 1700's (likely circa 1755) with 1805-1808 sections adjacent to it. It has been described as a "fine old kitchen with typical hewed timbers, 'Dutch' oven and cupboard." There is no record as to who built this one-room sandstone dwelling that stood on Hering land. [Local tradition contends that this old kitchen may have been moved circa 1803, by disassembly and reassembly, from the older Abraham A. Haring property immediately to the north; if true, it possibly could have been the original Abraham A. Haring homestead on that site.] The Old kitchen has a split-leaf batten door. The roof of the old stone kitchen has no overhang.

	The interior floor plan documents the progression of the structure. The pre-revolutionary 'old stone kitchen" with beehive "Dutch" oven is shown. The 1805 sandstone section is of side-hall construction with large living room and two small rear bedrooms. The smaller 1808 wing to the west, likely constructed a new kitchen, is a gable-roof sandstone one-room structure with small garret above and no basement A frame structure joins the 1805 wing to the "old stone kitchen ." The 1870 additions to the "old stone kitchen" accommodated an extended family.

	The south, north and east walls are well coursed light-colored sandstone. West is roughly cut blocks with some chip coursing. Stone lintels in the main and wing, brick lintels on front of main. Windows are 9/6 sash in the main house and 6/6 sash in the wing and old kitchen.

	The clapboard gable-roof wing attached to the south side of the stone kitchen was added about 1870

	The main entrance is on the east end bay of south front, split paneled Dutch style door with transom. Flanking are the settees of the typical Dutch Stoop. "The low gambrel roof, semicircular window on the east gable, the fan light over the main door, the fine cut stonework of the walls, are all of the period 1800-1820."

	The roof on the main structure (1805) is gambrel with a sweeping overhang. The garret is large.

	The interior walls in the main section are plastered mud and animal hair. The original white pine floorboards are throughout the dwelling. The original Dutch-style hardware are extent in the main sections and present in the stone kitchen while earlier Suffolk type latch and "H" hinge hardware are present in the stone kitchen. The original interior of the 1805 and 1808 additions are Federal style.



	John A. Haring Barn c. 1806. Perhaps the most significant structure , however, is the traditional Dutch form barn which was built in 1806. It is of the traditional three-bay Dutch barn plan with wagon doors on both gable ends which open up to a threshing floor flanked by storage and animal isles originally entered from the outside by doors at the corners of the gable end.

	The only unusual feature of this Dutch barn is the height of the eves (12' 10"). Generally, the eves are barely the height of a man. The barn (36' x 40') is framed in four bents. The flooring is wood.

	As only a few of these barns still exist in New Jersey, particularly in this condition, the immediate association of this barn with the nearby John A. Haring house (1805) makes this farm an unparalleled document of a Dutch farm complex.


	Nicholas J. Haring Additions. c. 1838. Nicholas J. Haring, son of John A. Haring, rebuilt and enlarged his father's house in 1838 and added the bedchambers in the garret to accommodate his expanding family. Some interior renovations were made about 1838 exhibit embellishments of the Greek Revival period. The clapboard gable-roof wing attached to the south side of the stone kitchen was added about 1870. A shed dormer, added to the 1805 structure about 1940, was removed in the late 1990's.

	This structure is significant for its architecture and its association with the exploration and settlement of the Bergen County, New Jersey area. The structure has been included among the "Early Stone Houses of Bergen County, New Jersey" and the National Register of Historic Houses. The homestead sits on a slight rise of ground on the west side of Piermont Road, facing southward. While the original property was slightly over 100 acres that represented one half of the Haring farmlands in the hamlet, the property currently encompasses 1.99 acres.

	People who Lived There

	1805-1854	John A. Haring (1780-1854) & Brechye Ferdon
	1835-1896	Nicholas J. Haring (1814-1896) & Elizabeth (Eliza) Haring (1815-1899)
	1870-1926	Andrew Haring (1846-1926) & Martha Jones (c.1870 - ?)
	1926-1969	Harriet Haring-Duke (?-?) & Harry E. Duke
	1969-1971	Frobose Family
	1971-2002	John Heslin & Cathlene Heslin
	2002-	New Jersey Trust

	Map References
	Hopkins-Corey (1861)		N. Haring
	Walker's Atlas (1876)		Nich. Haring
	Rockland County Beers (1891)		N. Haring
	Bromley (1912)		Alan H. Lexom

	References
	"Two Haring Houses at Rockleigh", Reginald McMahon, 1973 (mms, Bergen County Historical Society, River Edge , NJ)
	Bergen County Historic Sites Survey, Borough of Rockleigh, 1981-1982 (Bergen County Office of Cultural and Historic Affairs, Hackensack, NJ)
	The Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) and the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) are among the largest and most heavily used collections in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress. It has always been the dream of the creators and keepers of these records to make them as accessible as possible, and numerous catalogs and publications have served that purpose. Early in 1998, the Library made the full catalog of the HABS/HAER collections available on-line to the public in a collections' "Preview " on its Web site. http://www.nr.nps.gov/nrloc1.htm