Highfields (Charles Lindbergh Estate)
Lindbergh Road, East Amwell Township, Hunterdon County, NJ
Directions:
US 78 west; get off at Exit 18; drove west on Route 626 (Beaver Avenue); turn left onto Route 633 (Old Allerton Road) heading south; this leads into Route 31 south; drive south on Route 31 to Route 202 south; drive to the equivalent of green mileage marker 6.2 and turn left onto Wertsville Road; drive 4.0 miles and turn right on Lindbergh Road; drive 2.9 miles down Lindbergh Road and turn right just before the historical marker. The house is located about a half mile down the driveway.
History:
1902
Charles Lindbergh born in Detroit, Michigan.
1927
May -- Charles Lindbergh made the first solo non-stop crossing of the Atlantic Ocean
1929
Lindbergh marries Anne Morrow, daughter of an American Ambassador.
1930
June -- son Charles A. Lindbergh born.
1932
January -- Charles Lindbergh moves into his 700 acre, 23 room estate in the Sourlands. He had seen the long wooded ridge from the air and decided to make his home there. Famous visitors included President Calvin Coolidge, aviator Amelia Earhart, and comic Will Rogers.
March 01 -- the baby was put to bed by his mother and nurse, Betty Gow, at 8 p.m. The nurse checked in at 9 p.m. Her last check of the nigh was at 9:50 p.m. and she noticed that the baby was gone. The kidnapping of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, aged twenty months, became a national sensation.
April 02 --Accompanied by Lindbergh, the ransom of $50,000 dollars was delivered to a cemetery in the Bronx by a intermediary John Condon. But the baby was not returned.
May 12 -- A month later a truck driver, stopping to relieve himself, found the body of a child a mile away from the Lindbergh home. The baby was very decomposed and identification was not possible by using the teeth. But the bady was wearing a mended night-shirt that matched the one worn by the Lindbergh baby.
1934
September -- German immigrant carpenter, Richard Bruno Hauptmann, used one of the marked bills from the ransom at a gas station in New York City. The police searched his house and found $15,000 of the ransom money. He was arrested and sent to Trenton.
Hauptman claimed the money belonged to a former business partner and friend, Isidore Fisch, who had gone back to Germany and had asked him to hold the money for him until his return.
1935
January -- the 31-day trial began in the Flemington Courthouse, Flemington, Hunterdon County, New Jersey. It was a carnival of thrill seekers and cameramen.
February 13 -- Hauptmann found guilty and sentenced to death
April 03 -- Hauptmann executed.
Today
The Lindbergh Estate is an adjacent property to the Sourland Mountain Preserve of Hunterdon County. Today, the Lindbergh estate is operated by the State as a home for disadvantaged youth.
Source: http://www.sourland.org/virtual/virtual.html