19th Century farmhouse now on Historic Register

Chester — The farmhouse at Fury Brook Farm, the site of some of the area's earliest homesteads, was recently accepted into the National Register of Historic Places. The main part of the building, which fronts Kings Highway in Sugar Loaf, was built in 1856. In back of this section is the original house, which dates to 1785. According to the Town of Chester's building inventory, available at the Chester Public Library: "This farm, which once included several nearby farms, is believed to have been part of the pre-Revolutionary holdings of Hugh Dobbins, an early settler. It is believed that the property passed into the hands of another prominent, early settler, Nathaniel Knapp, who in turn sold it to the Rhodes family (various spellings, Rhoads, Roads). James Rhodes is the first known member of the family to occupy the place and it was he who was responsible for the front addition. The Baird family has owned the place for many years and it has become known as ‘Bairdles.'" Owner Bob Fury, obviously proud of the house, recently had it painted cream with red-brown trim, a change from the original color of old-fashioned white. The land surrounding the building include a spring house and former tenant's house for workers dating to the 1700s. The latter was once the residence of a local historian, the late Donald M. Barrell, who wrote Along the Wawayanda Path: Old Greycourt to Chester to Sugar Loaf (1975). Another spring house from the 1900s shows the evolution of the homestead to a dairy farm. Farmers stored milk cans there to keep them cool in the days before refrigeration. Fury has heard many tales about his historic property. In one of the most entertaining, Nathaniel Knapp, a scout for General George Washington (who slept at the Warwick Inn just down the road), killed a bear somewhere on the land. He had such fond memories of the place, he asked to be buried there. Fury pointed to the base of some trees where he thought Knapp might have been interred. Fury Brook was once part of a large tract that includes Cold Spring Farm and the proposed Broad View development, which is now at a crossroads (see story on page 1). According to A History of the Development of the Town of Chester, Nathaniel Roe purchased the 1,000-acre tract from Petrius Rutgers in 1751. Fury and his neighbor, Tom Nepola, the owner of Cold Spring, have promised not to develop their properties and hope Broad View, too, will be spared to preserve the integrity of this historic landscape. His daughter, Tracey Schuh of the Preservation Collective, is an ardent supporter of the ballot proposition that will save it. Fury is originally from the Bronx and runs Fabco Power, an international business that sells generators out of the pastoral Fury Brook Farm. Fabco Power generators have been used on Air Force One and on U.S. military planes during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Fury has traveled extensively, but Fury Brook is his favorite spot on earth. "I just love this place," he said simply.