The History Press brings a new way of thinking to history publishing: seeking out history and heritage titles that are written by excellent historians capable of making their area of expertise understandable to a wide audience. We hope to play a part in the revival of interest in local and regional history and to form an integral part of a healthy history community.
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Catalogue—New Jersey Titles

The History Press publishes high-quality history and heritage titles with a strong regional base. Our books help to revive and preserve the past in various regions throughout the United States, and we strive to make these histories accessible and available to a wide audience.

 

A Bit of Earth in the Somerset Hills: Growing Up in a Small New Jersey Town
Gordon Thomas Ward

 Combining the enchantment of youth with nostalgic memories of the landscape of Somersetin, New Jersey, author Gordon Ward recalls in brilliant detail the Bernardsville neighborhood in which he grew up. A Bit of Earth in the Somerset Hills, is a neighborhood tale that will resonate with all whose growing-up years were filled with a sense of place.

978-1-59629-382-3
160 pp.
$19.99
Over 60 Black and White Photographs

Publication Date:
November 2007
A History of Oakland: The Story of Our Village
Kevin Heffernan

 Tucked away in the northwestern corner of Bergen County, Oakland was for years a peacefully undiscovered outpost. Yet as Kevin Heffernan chronicles in A History of Oakland, the town’s placid, easygoing character belies a fascinating and deeply engrossing history.

978-1-59629-334-2
128 pp.
$21.99
Over 70 Black and White Photographs

Publication Date:
November 2007
Babe & the Kid: The Legendary Story of Babe Ruth and Johnny Sylvester
Charlie Poekel
Foreword by: Julia Ruth Stevens
 On the eve of game four of the 1926 World Series, Ruth heard that a young New Jersey boy, Johnny Sylvester, was laid up with a deadly illness. Ruth autographed a ball for Johnny, inscribing it, “I’ll knock a homer for you in Wednesday’s game–Babe Ruth.” The rest was history. Ruth delivered on his promise, and Johnny made a miraculous recovery.

978-1-59629-267-3
160 pp.
$19.99
Over 65 Black and White Photographs

Publication Date:
November 2007
Bradley Beach Treasures: Reflections of the Jersey Shore
Bette Blum

 In a cycle of life as regular as the tides, generations of families have summered in Bradley Beach. Revel in the joys of the Jersey Shore in this new collection of nostalgic stories. Enlivened with essays, anecdotes and photographs, Bradley Beach Treasures offers a rich glimpse of post–World War II life on the New Jersey coast.

978-1-59629-299-4
160 pp.
$21.99
Over 60 Black and White Photographs

Publication Date:
July 2007
Ghosts of Central Jersey: Historic Haunts of the Somerset Hills
Gordon Thomas Ward

 What ghosts roam within the historic sites and buildings of Central New Jersey? How accurate are the traditional stories? From the shadowed woods of the Somerset Hills to the dappled banks of the Delaware River, Ghosts of Central Jersey delivers a rich mix of factual history and the sound investigation of ghostly phenomena.

978-1-59629-468-4
128 pp.
$17.99
Over 40 Black and White Photographs

Publication Date:
August 2008
Ghosts of Mount Holly: A History of Haunted Happenings
Jan Lynn Bastien

 Bringing a whole new meaning to the term “historical interaction,” Bastien visits firehouses, taverns and cemeteries to exhume those bits of the past whose clammy fingers still cling to the present. The vividness of her spellbinding accounts will have you smelling the sulfur of dead-but-not-departed Hessian mercenaries in less time than it takes to shiver.

978-1-59629-372-4
128 pp.
$19.99
Over 30 Black & White Photographs

Publication Date:
April 2008
Historic Churches of Somerset County, New Jersey
Frank L. Greenagel

 In this profusely illustrated guide to all of the 18th and 19th century churches and meetinghouses in Somerset County, Frank Greenagel delves into the history of Somerset’s religious buildings. This definitive guide will allow readers to “look anew” at the churches Somerset, providing information for curious congregation members and historians alike.

978-1-59629-202-4
192 pp.
$24.99
Over 135 Black and White Photographs

Publication Date:
December 2006
Historic Gardens of Mt. Holly: A Legacy of the Landscape
Alicia McShulkis

 In Historic Gardens, Alicia McShulkis brings the landscape to life as she takes you on a tour of Mount Holly’s historic homes and gardens, many of which have vanished over time. From the neatly sculpted Georgian hedgerows to the curved and meandering lines of Capability Brown, the history of Mount Holly is written in the landscape.

978-1-59629-407-3
128 pp.
$21.99
Over 70 Black & White and Full Color Photographs

Publication Date:
October 2008
Long Branch in the Golden Age: Tales of Fascinating and Famous People
Sharon Hazard

 For elite Americans in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, summers at the shore meant Long Branch, New Jersey. Serving up tales of glamour and the life of leisure, Sharon Hazard’s enjoyable history details the comings and goings of those who visited and lived in Long Branch during its glory days.

978-1-59629-216-1
128 pp.
$19.99
Over 40 Black and White Photographs

Publication Date:
June 2007
Mount Holly, New Jersey: Hometown Reinvented
Dennis C. Rizzo

 On Christmas Eve, 1776, while Colonel von Donop’s troops lingered in nearby Mount Holly, Washington crossed the Delaware. Donop’s fateful delay changed the course of the war, yet there is more to Mount Holly than its Revolutionary pedigree. Author Dennis Rizzo guides readers from the town’s origins to development.

978-1-59629-276-5
160 pp.
$21.99
Over 80 Black and White Photographs

Publication Date:
July 2007
Murder & Mayhem in the Highlands: Historic Crimes on the Jersey Shore
John P. King

 Visitors gazing out over the Highlands of coastal New Jersey might never guess that these rolling hills have been a stage for mankind’s darkest deeds. In his thrilling new book, Murder & Mayhem in the Highlands, John King shines a spotlight on the region’s violent history of kidnapping, murder, smuggling and extortion.

978-1-59629-598-8
128 pp.
$19.99
Over 40 Black & White Photographs

Publication Date:
November 2008
Murders in Monmouth: Capital Crimes from the Jersey Shore’s Past
George Joynson

 In Murders in Monmouth, author George Joynson unflinchingly assembles the who, what, when, where and why surrounding twelve high-profile killings perpetrated by various individuals in early twentieth-century Monmouth County.

978-1-59629-348-9
128 pp.
$19.99
Over 40 Black and White Photographs

Publication Date:
November 2007
Parallel Communities: The Underground Railroad in South Jersey
Dennis Rizzo

 For slaves escaping on the Underground Railroad, names like Springtown and Snow Hill promised sanctuary and salvation. Under the pressures of racial prejudice, free blacks, runaway slaves and even many Native Americans formed island communities on the periphery of South Jersey towns. Dennis Rizzo validates their role in the preservation of tradition, definition of extended family and creation of a social bond between diverse peoples; together they formed parallel communities based on, but independent of, the larger towns and villages familiar to us all.

978-1-59629-542-1
160 pp.
$19.99
Over 40 Black & White Photographs

Publication Date:
November 2008
Remembering Somerville, New Jersey
Jessie Havens
Edited by Linda Barth
 From dogwoods to doughboys, county fairs to the coming of the railroad, this collection of Jessie Havens’s “Hindsight” columns is a patchwork quilt of historical vignettes that provides detailed insight into the local color that gives life to a town.

978-1-59629-547.6
128 pp.
$19.99
Over 20 Black and White Photographs

Publication Date:
August 2008
Rutherford: A Brief History
William Neumann

 It was a homeland for the Leni-Lenape Indians before it was settled by tenacious Dutch immigrants. Two centuries later, in 1881, Rutherford, New Jersey, became an independent borough—the first in Bergen County. Author William Neumann narrates Rutherford’s remarkable transition from a rural retreat popular for its abundant springs to a bustling New York City suburb.

978-1-59629-539-1
160 pp.
$21.99
Over 60 Black & White Photographs

Publication Date:
October 2008
Sea Girt, New Jersey: A Brief History
Joseph G. Bilby

 From the thunder of National Guard rifle practice squads to the applause of FDR’s presidential campaign kickoff, Sea Girt sparkles with a dynamic history that belies its mystique as a quiet seaside resort.

978-1-59629-449-3
128 pp.
$19.99
Over 70 Black and White Photographs

Publication Date:
July 2008
The Revolutionary War in Bergen County: The Times that Tried Men’s Souls
Edited by Carol Karels

 Carol Karels and her team of scholars weave a masterful account of the war in northeastern New Jersey. From Washington’s miraculous November 1776 retreat to the beginning of the Continental army’s epic August 1781 march to destiny at Yorktown, The Revolutionary War in Bergen County examines one of the pivotal fronts of the Revolutionary War.

978-1-59629-358-8
192 pp.
$22.99
Over 60 Black and White Photographs

Publication Date:
October 2007