Listen on your favorite podcast player:
Bibliography:
Martha G.; Edward W. Roessler & Wallace G. West Hopler (1964). The Mendhams. Publisher: Mendham Township Committee.
Foster, Janet W. (1986). Legacy Through the Lens: A Study of Mendham Architecture. Mendham Free Public Library.
Transcript:
Outside of New York City, New Jersey has some of the oldest restaurants in the U.S. Sitting near the top of that list is an institution that started out as an Inn waaaay back in 1743, but has weathered more than one storm to become an icon of Mendham: The Black Horse.
For those who don’t know, the Black Horse Tavern and Pub is essentially the geographical and cultural center of Mendham Borough. You can’t drive down Main Street without noticing the big white colonial era building at the northwest corner of Mountain Avenue.
I arrived in Mendham in the midst of the pandemic. Restaurants were closing everywhere. Businesses were struggling. But The Black Horse was still open, thriving even. And then I find out that it has been operating since before we even had a constitution. How is this possible???
The answer has to do with consistency.
The story of humanity is the story of consistency. When life changes, consistency sets you at ease. Sad events like funerals, happy ones like marriages - world-changing events like 9/11 or local events like a hurricane - these things all drive a need for consistency.
Nowhere in Mendham is this felt more than at the Black Horse, where this town was essentially founded. Where weary travelers stopped on their journey west. Where a future president (whos name rhymed with Florge Floshington ) maybe stopped to discuss revolutionary matters. Where a modern-day diva came for a night out with her family and enjoyed the bubbly shrimp.
According to menutiger.com1, three out of five restaurants won’t make it past their first year. But somehow, The Black Horse managed to beat the odds again and again, for 275 years., making it the oldest continually operating restaurant in New Jersey. Perhaps the original proprietor, Ebenezer Byram, read this statistic from menutiger.com and thought “Good sir, those facts are preposterous and must be fixed…I’ll mend ‘em!”
(Theme)
Welcome to Hometown History, a series about the iconic places and events that make a town someplace people call home. Stories that people can tell to their friends old and new about the place they live, did live, or will live: In my case, Mendham, New Jersey. And today we talk about the unique recipe that one of Mendham’s iconic institutions - a Tavern, Inn and Pub - used to stay in business for 275 years.
–
It started as a farmhouse.
In 1743, Fifty two year2 old Ebenezer Byram moved his large family - five sons and three daughters - from Bridgewater, Massachusetts to the backwoods of New Jersey. There’s no record of how many times Byram endured the phrase “Are we there yet?” as he underwent this arduous family trip. Undoubtedly the Byrams were relieved to arrive at their new home - a large farmhouse that was situated along an ancient Lenape trade route. Today, we call it Main Street.
In the 1964 book, The Mendhams, the authors note “It seems a mystery as well as legend that a man of considerable means and religious fervor should travel into a far country to set up a tavern in sparsely inhabited hills.”
It does sound strange, but from the little we know about Byram, perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising. Byram was a devoutly religious man, civic minded, with a pioneer’s spirit. He was a risk-taker, and was prescient about the future of his new hometown and the significance of his position within it.
In 1749, just a few years after Byram arrived, Mendham was officially incorporated as a Township in New Jersey.
And this, my dear listeners, is perhaps what you’ve been waiting five episodes to hear about: Where does the name Mendham come from?
Well, there are several different theories. Some have said that it was the anglo saxon term for “my home3”. Another source claimed that the words “I’ll mend ‘em” were spoken by Rev. Eliab Byram in reference to some unruly customers at his father’s tavern. But the most likely origin story is that it was named after Byram’s ancestral home in Mendham, England, or perhaps borrowed from a town close to Bridgewater, Massachusetts named Mendon. But if it were up to me, I’d prefer to believe in option #2.
Byram converted his farmhouse into an Inn, naming it “The Black Horse“ which, metaphorically and literally, put Mendham on the map. The Inn became the township’s center, sitting at the crossroads of two popular trade routes: One from Morristown, New Jersey to Easton, Pennsylvania and another south to what would become Bernards Township.
At the onset of the American Revolution Mendham was a small but thriving little village. As travelers underwent the journey from New York to Pennsylvania by horse and carriage, they would stop at the Black Horse Inn, the political, legal and social center of the community, where one could hear all the local news and gossip.
The Inn was not just a meeting place, but also a place you could enjoy a pint of applejack or glug of whisky if you so wished. As innkeeper Byram quite creatively used a dinner bell to silence unruly drinkers: Quote “A bell to their head was sufficient to quiet the most enthusiastic patrons.” Legend has it that one boisterous fellow he laid out, muttered afterward that he got what was coming to him, but he “sure did hate to be dingle-dongled.”
Inside the Inn, customers sat at large, round wooden tables, good for general conversation and singing. A second room was fitted with gleaming brass spittoons and rocking chairs for the local philosophers.
Legend has it that just after the Revolution, state tax collectors arrived at The Black Horse to harass delinquent taxpayers. As the story goes, instead of turning up with their money, the citizens of Mendham brought clubs to the barroom and threatened to use them, and the tax collectors departed in a hurry.
Throughout the 1700s and 1800s, as more and more travelers and goods passed through Mendham, Ebenezer Byram's Black Horse Inn was transformed to the gambrel-roofed, Federal style structure you see today4.
KATHLEEN: So are you mendamites?...
This spring my producer Katie and I got a chance to go inside the building that was once the Black Horse Inn, now called “the Tavern”. Since 2020, the tavern has been closed to regular customers and is only used for private events.
Katie: Oh, it's actually pretty nice in here.
Kathleen: I don't know where all the lights are. That's the problem. Alright, I guess we’ll just sit over here…
Kathleen Rehm has been a server at The Black Horse for 37 years.
KATHLEEN: We came out from Long island, It was springtime, and all the little cherry blossom, the trees, it was beautiful. And I was like, oh, maybe it won't be so bad to move to Jersey. And then we came out and we drove through Mendham. I said, ‘Oh, my God, I love this town. It's so pretty.’ And I needed to get a job, and everyone said, if you could get in the black horse, that's the top restaurant around here. And I thought, Oh, God, I got to get in there.
Inside the tavern we found the fixtures of many modern restaurants - plush carpet, upholstered chairs. Along the back wall, drinking glasses glitter behind a shiny wooden bar. But the age of the interior is also immediately apparent - the creaks of the floorboards, the unevenness of the stairs leading up to low ceilinged hallways. The doorways on the second floor all lead to office space for the restaurant, but its easy to imagine a time when guests occupied these little rooms.
Kathleen: Yeah this is the real old building.
The Black Horse is actually two distinct structures - there's “The Tavern,” where we’re meeting with Kathleen, and “The Pub”, which is where the restaurant is today - but it used to be a horse stable.
KATHLEEN: Yeah. That's where they kept the horses.
KATHLEEN: // and someone said that they knew somebody that lived a few blocks away, and when the people wanted to leave, they put a light out, and someone would go up the stairs to the top of the house, wait for the light, and then come down and help them with the horses.
Kathleen is full of these little bits of Black Horse trivia - she’s basically a walking encyclopedia of stories about this place.
But to paint a full picture of the history of The Black Horse - requires piecing memories from patrons and staff together with documents we found in the Mendham Borough Library archives. Which wasn’t much: This is a business after all, not a museum.
Ebenezer Byram died in 1753, just ten years after making his mark on Mendham. At one point William Phoenix became a proprietor of the Inn, before opening up The Phoenix House right across the street.
Over the next two centuries the Inn passed through many hands - there was George S. Beavers who held it for 49 years, from 1874-1923. And Roy L. Vilet who owned it from 1923 to 1958 before selling it to Sam Fonaro, of Sammy’s Ye Old’ Cider Mill. In 1964 it was sold again to Elliot Kepler Jr, and then to Anthony Knapp in 1965.
The Knapp family’s tenure as owner of The Black Horse is probably most memorable for long-time Mendham residents. Throughout the 60’s , 70’s and 80’s The Black Horse was the site of some of the most elegant dining you could find in New Jersey.
It’s interior was bathed in Victorian decor. A live pianist entertained customers in the “Red Room”, named for it’s curtains, wallpaper and carpeting. In the “Tiffany Room” diners basked in the subtle glow of Tiffany chandeliers and beaded hangings popular at the turn of the century. The “Dickens Room” was decorated with paintings of characters from the works of Charles Dickens, hung on walls paneled in ancient barn siding.
In 1968 a patron at the Black Horse could enjoy an appetizer of vichyssoise, clams, or shrimp cocktail, followed by an entree of prime sirloin, filet mignon, or veal cutlet parmigiana. The Roast Duckling was a regular menu item, with one reviewer commenting, “not dry, delicious with a stuffing of apples and a Bing cherry sauce”. The sirloin cost $7.20. Clams on the half shell were .95 each.
A house specialty for two called the “Wharf platter” included lobster tails, crab legs, scallops, shrimp, clams, filet of sole, french fries and garden fresh slaw. It took 25 minutes to prepare and cost…wait for it.. $9.95. I love inflation.
The Black Horse Inn, renamed “The Tavern” in later years, provided consistently good food and drinks. Just like a Chilis™. However, unlike Chilis, you had to dress to impress.
KATHLEEN: They used to be a dress code way back. So we'd be sitting like looking out the window,. A car would pull up and people would get out, and the guy would have a jacket on, and the lady would be all dolled up.
So what was it that kept people coming back to The Black Horse, year after year, decade after decade? Was it the air of elegance? The Tiffany chandeliers? The $7.20 steak and clams?
No, it was none of these, Kathleens says.
KATHLEEN: There's something in those four walls. It's not in here. It's next door.
Wait, next door at The Pub?
KATHLEEN: You go into the pub, it's like a hug. It's like a big hug, you know?
(Sounds of Pub interior)
The Black Horse “Pub”, the space that once used to be a stable, was for decades the more family-friendly side of the restaurant, where in the 1960s, you could leave the black tie at home and come get a pint and a 75 cent burger.
KATHEEN: Like, this one couple comes in every Saturday. I always have their drinks ready on the table. When they come in, I see their car pulling. I put the french onion in the oven, you know, right away. Cause they always get a french onion.
Now, the more I thought about Kathleen’s very apt description - this idea that the Pub is a hug - the more I realized there are actually two kinds of hugs. One you want, and one you need. And The Black Horse offers you both.
(Laughs)
It’s great to have a hug when you’ve had a great day - that’s the one you want to have. Birth of a child, high school graduation, its karaoke tuesday.
And The Black Horse had plenty of those, featuring some special guests.
KATHLEEN: Whitney Houston, she wanted to take this place over when she was marrying Bobbi Brown.
You heard that right. Whitney freaking Houston. “The Voice”, herself. Long time Mendham residents won’t be surprised to hear that Ms. Houston and her family were residents of Mendham for a bit - she was THE local celebrity in town (and every hometown needs a local celebrity.)
KATHLEEN: So she offered Mister Knapp, you know, a sum to take over the whole property for her wedding. And he said no. He said no because, well, what would happen to my other customers that came here? And then they'd find out that they couldn't eat here that night. We were all like, what?
Kathleen can tell these stories all day.
(Audio version is best experience for these stories)
Ok just one more.
KATHLEEN: You know, they wanted to be under the radar. So she sat way in the back. And I remember she kind of dressed in like sweatpants, like nothing fancy. And she had a hat pulled down.
That night there happened to be entertainment, a singer who, at THAT moment, was covering one of Houston's hits.
KATHLEEN: So the singer was on stage, and then you hear Whitney go, and the girl that was singing kind of, like, froze. And then after she said to me, kathleen, where is she? And I told her, and she went over and she said, I am so embarrassed to sing your song in your presence. And meanwhile, she was like, no, you did a great job…
When times are good, The Black Horse Pub provides a place where you can celebrate the wins, and cement them in your memory to revisit them later on. Those are the good hugs, the hugs you want.
But the hugs you need may be more important.
Those are the hugs that have deeper meaning. The hugs associated with funerals, or hurricanes, or national tragedies.
KATHLEEN: There's a funeral home over here, Bailey's funeral home. And one time this couple came in on a Saturday, and I was just waiting on them. I didn't even, like, get into a conversation with them or anything. And when they left, the man grabbed me and he goes, ‘Thank you.’ And I said, ‘Oh, for what?’ And he said, ‘Our daughter died. And we just went and picked out a coffin for her. And we said to Tom, that's the funeral director, oh, we haven't eaten, I don't know when. And he said, go to The Pub.’
Another story. 911. Okay, so 911 happens, and I'm supposed to work. It was a Tuesday night. I was supposed to be here, you know, at 4:30. So I said, I don't want to go to work. I don't. And my husband said, you know, Kathleen, I think you should go to work because your customers are going to need you.
I come in and there's nobody in the restaurant, and we have tvs, and all the tvs are on the news. So everyone's just stunned. We're just looking at the tv, and, you know, people start coming in, and just slowly the whole restaurant filled up. It was packed. Nobody was really talking. Everybody was just hugging each other and murmuring whatever little knowledge they had. They said to me, we just had to come to The Pub. We just had to be together. And my husband was right, you know, people need. People needed you.
This culture of service is baked into the institution - its core to how they operate and serve the community. And it goes to the very top.
Kathleen: The present owner, the Scotto family, Anthony Scotto came in with his whole family and sat on the floor in front of the fireplace there. Ben and Anthony are, like the key people, the brothers. They can come in, they know everybody's name. They know things about my family. Like, and they have 450 restaurants, like pizzerias and all kinds of...But they know people.
As of the airing of this episode, The Black Horse, the Tavern AND the Pub, are closed for renovation until the fall.
The Black Horse is not a stranger to having it’s doors temporarily closed - it couldn’t have survived 275 years without regular upgrades and maintenance. And when The Black Horse opens its doors later this fall, there’s no question that Mendham residents will be there to fill it. History shows they’re some of the most loyal customers in New Jersey.
KATHLEEN: Oh the fall’s packed, there's a lot of great farms around here. It's a tradition. We come every year to get our pumpkins. And people will say, we're back again. And they'll have it like twelve people at a table and they'll have a new baby. Oh, this is the new baby we had since last year, you know, and I'll be like, oh, you know, so, yeah, now people make a. This is like a destination.
(Music - interior of pub)
Only a few places operating today can claim (accurately) to be older than the country itself. Getting into the business of restaurants is hard, staying, even harder!
So how did The Black Horse manage it?
Number 1: It offered good food in an enticing atmosphere. Whether it was Vichyssoise by the light of a Tiffany chandelier or a beer at the bar - the Black Horse had what you were looking for.
Number 2: It evolved….but only just enough.
Number 3: Luck. Who can say where The Black Horse would be without the prescience of Ebenezer Byram, the commitment of Anthony Knapp, or the hospitality of someone like Kathleen Rehm.
And finally, number 4: Offering a hug or two doesn’t hurt.
—
Before we share a teaser for next week, we have a request.
This is a 6-episode series, and each episode takes a lot of time to produce. Let us know if you like it - put a comment on the substack page, email us, or comment on our instagram page and let us know if we should keep making these. Most importantly, share it with your friends. The more people we can have listening, the more we know it is entertaining. Should we do other towns? If so, which ones? Let us know in the comments on substack.
Next week, we take another look at the map, and dive into a tale of two towns. Up until 1906, there was one Mendham: Mendham Township. But now, there are two. The Township and the Borough. Tune in next week to understand the schism that resulted a Borough, and the Township that surrounds it.
This episode was written and produced by Ryan Ross and Katie Feather. It was mixed and edited by Katie Feather. Our theme music is La Danse Timide by Howard Harper-Barnes. Special thanks to Kathleen Rehm and Kevin Felice. Additional research help from Ernie Maw and Helen Wall. Additional information provided by the Mendham Borough Library and the Morristown Library History and Genealogy Center. For more information, visit our website, hometownhistorynj.com.
https://cms.menutiger.com/blog/restaurant-industry-statistics/
https://historicmendhamtwp.com/ebenezer-byram/
https://sites.rootsweb.com/~njmorris/munsellhistory/h-chpt28.htm
https://www.livingplaces.com/NJ/Morris_County/Mendham_Borough/Mendham_Historic_District.html#google_vignette
Episode 5: The Black Horse