It Happened In Hillsborough: Clover Hill

Hillsborough became serious about preserving its past around the time of the township’s bicentennial in
1971. Some of the ways it did this were by enacting a historic preservation ordinance, adding a Historic
Preservation Plan Element to the Master Plan, and creating historic districts. There are six historic
districts registered at the state and national level: South Branch (1977), Neshanic Mills (1978), Neshanic
(1979), Millstone Valley Agricultural (1979), Clover Hill (1980), and Millstone River Road (1991). In this
column, we’ll take a look at one of these every couple of months throughout the year.

Clover Hill   

The Clover Hill Historic District, along Amwell Road at the border of Hillsborough and East Amwell,
actually resides in those townships as well as Raritan Township in Hunterdon County. At the time it was
entered onto the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, there were fifteen contributing structures,
about half in Hillsborough.

Clover Hill was first settled in the mid-1700s when Amwell Road was extended past Neshanic. Originally
known as Kough’s Tavern or Cuffstown, the hamlet was an important landmark during the American
Revolution was noted on several maps of the era.
In 1777, American General John Sullivan commanded a large army near Clover Hill to protect the routes
through west-central New Jersey and took part in at least one skirmish nearby.

After the war, Clover Hill grew into a self-sufficient village with various tradesmen, a general store, a
blacksmith, a chemist, a hotel, a post office, and a school. Most importantly, the villagers built a church
in 1834 and then petitioned to join the Dutch Reformed Church. The church and general store can still
be seen today. The original school was razed and rebuilt as a two-room school (now a private residence)
just outside the historic district in 1918.

Clover Hill, with its church and extant historic structures, surrounded by scenic farmland, remains a
good representation of a small 19th-century crossroads village.
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Gregory Gillette has been writing about local history for 20 years, starting with his Courier News column
‘Gillette on Hillsborough' and continuing today with a Facebook page of the same name. He was named
as Hillsborough’s first Local Historian in 2025.