original art © Joe Kazimierczyk

Locktown

Locktown Baptist Church
Locktown Rd, Locktown, Delaware Township, Hunterdon County, NJ

Excerpt from a plaque by Friends of the Locktown Stone Church:

The congregation was organized in Baptistown in 1742.  Built in 1819 by the Old School Baptist Congregation of Hunterdon County on the site of an older log structure, the Locktown Stone Church is a fine example of Federal vernacular architecture and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The church gave the village its name, after an 1839 dispute in which more conservative members of the congregation attempted to lock reformers out of the church.  The reformers responded by installing their own lock and the town was afterwards dubbed Locktown.  It was used a place of worship until 1962.