The Cato Hoagland House

The Cato Hoagland House was originally located along the main road from New Brunswick to Trenton, now called Route 27, near the community of Six Mile Run, now Franklin Park. The house was constructed about 1770, likely by the Manley family. It was acquired by Peter Pumyea in 1792 and used as a tenant house.

Unlike many of the other houses at East Jersey Old Town, the Hoagland House was not a farmhouse. It stood at the edge of a crossroads community and was home to schoolteachers, innkeepers, carpenters, butchers and even a bacteriologist in the 20^th Century.

The longest tenured owner of the house was Cato Hoagland, a free Black man who purchased the house in 1862 and lived here until 1899. For much of his ownership, Hoagland split his time between his house and family at Six Mile Run and his work as a porter in New York City.

The Cato Hoagland House exhibit focuses on Cato Hoagland, his family and time residing in the house, as well as African American History in Middlesex County.

Exhibit highlights include the history of slavery in the County and Thomas Mundy Peterson, the first African American to cast a vote in the United States under the 15^th Amendment.

East Jersey Old Town has been designated as a New Jersey Black Heritage Trail site by the New Jersey Historical Commission. 

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