HUDNIT, Samuel – (1822-1873) was Frenchtown's first mayor, as well as its third and fifth – outdoing Grover Cleveland as a discontinuous chief executive. Here are pictures of his house and his current resting place.
Hudnit was born in Barbertown and learned harness-making in Lambertville before opening a shop in Frenchtown. In 1848 he bought a few lots on Upper Fourth Street and became the first resident of the stately home on the northeast corner of Harrison and Fourth.
In the 1860s he partnered with hardware merchant Gabriel Slater, combining their shops and buying 55 acres north of Fifth Street in 1866 and laying out the uptown streets and alleys. They left space at the bottom of Sixth for a factory and between Eighth and Twelfth for a railroad repair yard. Getting a little ahead of themselves, they built worker housing on Twelfth and Seventh streets. (I'm sitting in one of those houses now as I write this.)
Hudnit led the drive for boroughhood, and when it was achieved in 1867, he became our first mayor.
Slater & Hudnit's store was in the big building just west of the Frenchtown Cafe. They built a three-story factory behind their store to produce wagons, sleighs and carriages. (Now it's a parking lot.) Frenchtown Star columnist M.D.L. Shrope recalled: “A large stock would be made up, and with the opening of spring, a big sale would be held. The wagons were placed in a line along the south side of Bridge Street and the veteran auctioneer Robert L. Williams, would do the 'knocking down' act. These sales attracted a great many people from a distance; the sales were always remunerative and the hotels did a big business in 'tangle-foot.' Too much indulgence in the ardent ofttimes ended in fights and brawls of a serious nature in the streets, which caused the small boys to get up as high as possible and be out of danger.”
In 1870 Slater partnered with someone named Robinson and built an iron foundry on what is now Sunbeam Lenape Park, but they sold it in '72.
In 1871 Slater & Hudnit placed this eye-catching ad in the Hunterdon Independent:
TERRIBLE
but no
LOSS OF LIFE
The old
STOREHOUSE
DESTROYED
which belonged to Slater and Hudnit.
A mammoth building erected on old site.
Hardware from a carpet tack to a No. 10 Stove, mechanics tools, stoves and fixtures, roofing and spouting, paints, oils, varnishes, white lead, japan, glass, etc. Carriages, harness manufactory
Some notes: “Storehouse” was an old word for “store.” Also, Shrope wrote in 1890 that it was a remodeling. That suggests S&H were exaggerating, which fits with the cataclysmic tone of their ad. That building, new or remodeled, still stands at 34-38 Bridge Street. Back then it had a third story – a 60-by-32-foot room, which became the meeting hall for the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and later the Masons.
The planned-for railroad repair yard never happened, but some of the reserved space was used for the porcelain factory, which was built in 1910. A wheel factory was built on Sixth circa 1889.
Hudnit never lived to see those uptown factories. He died in 1873.
Like most of other Frenchtown luminaries, Hudnit was buried in the town cemetery. His headstone tallies his age in years, months and days (50, 6 and 22) and is inscribed “In the midst of life we are in death.” This passage came from the Anglican “Book of Common Prayer,” which contains readings for all occasions, including funerals. The rest of the prayer is even grimmer. The gist is that life is short and miserable, so God have mercy.
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