It Happened In Hillsborough: Frederick Theodore Frelinghuysen

On the morning of August 9, 1894, friends, family, and dignitaries, both local and national, gathered at
Newark's Military Park to pay tribute to and unveil a statue of one of the 19th century's most prominent
Americans. The keynote speaker was US Ambassador to Germany Theodore Runyon, who spoke for a
full thirty minutes on the extraordinary life of Hillsborough Township native Frederick Theodore
Frelinghuysen.

Frederick Theodore Frelinghuysen

Frederick T. Frelinghuysen was born on August 4, 1817, in Millstone, NJ, into one of the most storied
families in Somerset County history. He was descended from Rev. Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen,
who emigrated from Holland to America in 1720 and organized nearly all of the early Dutch Reformed
Churches in Somerset, Hunterdon, and Middlesex Counties.

The Reverend's second son was Rev. John Frelinghuysen, who was instrumental in starting the school that became Queen's College, now known as Rutgers University. John Frelinghuysen's son, the grandfather of our subject, was General Frederick Frelinghuysen, a graduate of Princeton University in 1770, was an artillery commander at the battles of Trenton and Monmouth, and a member of the Continental Congress.

General Frelinghuysen had three sons. The youngest, Frederick, our subject's father, was educated at
Princeton and practiced law in Millstone. He died suddenly in 1820 at the age of thirty-two, leaving his
widow, the former Mary Dumont (daughter of wealthy Hillsborough landowner Peter B. Dumont), three
daughters, and two sons - the youngest being Frederick Theodore Frelinghuysen, just three years old.
The young boy was soon adopted by his uncle, the General's second son, Theodore Frelinghuysen. He
could have wished for no better mentor as his career closely followed the path of his distinguished
uncle.  "Fred"  as he was known to his friends, entered Rutgers as a sophomore and graduated in 1836
at the age of nineteen. After a further three years of study in his uncle's law office in Newark, he was
admitted to the bar in 1839. 

Well known for his commanding oratory, Frelinghuysen inherited his uncle's law practice and made a
great success representing the New Jersey Central Railroad Company. In 1842, he married Matilda
Griswold, and together they had three daughters and three sons. He was appointed to a six-year term as
New Jersey Attorney General in 1861 and, in 1866, was appointed by Governor Ward to fill the
unexpired term of US Senator William Wright. In 1871, he was elected by the NJ legislature to a full six-
year term as senator. 

Frelinghuysen's time in the Senate was filled with contentious debate over Reconstruction, the
impeachment of President Johnson, and the contested 1876 presidential election results. His strong
patriotism and his enduring Christian faith, along with his skills in rational argument, served him well
during his Senate career.

In 1881, after the assassination of President Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, in one of his first acts as
president, appointed Frelinghuysen as Secretary of State. It was during these years that he hosted the
president on several occasions at his 150-acre Hillsborough Township estate. The property, inherited from the Dumont side of his family, is on the south bank of the Raritan River on River Road and is the
wooded lot now owned by Duke Farms. It was here that President Arthur courted Frelinghuysen's
daughter, Tillie, leading to rumors that marriage was certain. However, it was not to be.
Arthur decided not to run for reelection in 1884, and Frelinghuysen retired to his home in Newark upon
the inauguration of the new administration in March 1885. Almost immediately upon his return, he fell
ill and lapsed into a coma, dying peacefully in his home on May 20, 1885. The city of Newark, in
combination with its leading citizens, commissioned a bronze statue of Frelinghuysen to be placed near
his home in Military Park. Hartford sculptor Karl Gerhardt designed the nine-foot-tall statue, which sits
on a twelve-foot-high granite pedestal. A fitting monument to a great statesman.

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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.